s.
 
 I/' 
 
 I
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE, 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 C.[AUTON. 
 
 (AUGUSTUS HOPPINJ 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 
 
 NEW YORK: 11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET. 
 
 Hitersfo? press, CambriDge* 
 
 1897
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 BT HODGHTON, MIFFLIN & GO 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., V. S. A. 
 Klectrotyped and Printed by II. O. Uoughton & Company.
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY NEPHEWS 
 FRANK AND JOE. 
 
 2210232
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THESE reminiscences are written to satisfy the Auton who com- 
 posed them, and to amuse the Autons who may read them. Grown- 
 up people never cease to be young. They are only old boys 
 with hats and whiskers, and old girls with frizettes and eye- 
 glasses, that 's all. There are many Auton houses in the land, 
 and lots of Auton children wandering over it, but the original 
 Auton House is gone forever, and we can only catch the echo 
 of its revelry in our ear, and detect a smack of its good cheer 
 lingering on our tongue. 
 
 As an old-fashioned dish, now and then, is not unpalatable, so 
 perhaps a few chapters of reminiscences may be tolerated, pro- 
 vided they do not overtax our patience by their platitudes.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 MM 
 AUTON-BABYHOOD 9 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 AUTON NURSERY. "AUNT MOODY" "DEBORAH" 16 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 AUTON NURSERY THE ARK AND THE JOLLY-BOAT .27 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 MR. AND MRS. JOHN HONZY '.36 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 ROOMS IN AUTON HOUSE 41 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER 48 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
 WORK AND PLAY 60 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
 OUR MOTHER AUTON ...... 66
 
 CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER NINTH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AUTON PECULIARITIES .71 
 
 CHAPTER TENTH. 
 AUTON KITCHEN 7S 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 
 CHRISTMAS AT AUTON HOUSE 86 
 
 CHAPTER TWELFTH. 
 FATHER AUTON . . ... . . - 
 
 POSTSCRIPT . 97
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 AUTON - BABYHOOD. 
 
 Y name is C. Auton, a boy-baby. They 
 blew in my face to keep me alive. My 
 parents had so many children that my 
 advent troubled nobody but my mother 
 and Doctor Posset. 
 
 I struggled with existence in the 
 usual senseless manner. The first liq- 
 uid I ever swallowed was a spoonful of 
 tepid sugar-and- water. 
 I lay on Miss Betsey Arnold's lap for hours, so poor and weak as 
 hardly to be able to keep together. The whole lookout of life was 
 sad and unnatural. I had no idea I should be such a fool, and was 
 ashamed to be unable to hold up my head. I found, also, to my 
 chagrin, that Miss Betsey's supporting hand behind my ears was 
 necessary to keep me from tumbling together into a little heap. 
 My eyes got constantly crossed looking at Miss Betsey's gold spec- 
 tacles, and I was continually trying to see how wide I could stretch 
 my mouth, and what new grimaces I could make at invisible people.
 
 10 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 When I did this in my sleep Miss Betsey said it was the wind in my 
 stomach. My poor little knees were dreadfully red and mottled, 
 and when I lay on my back they came way up over my head. 
 
 I made frequent attempts to stick my finger through that soft 
 spot between the sutures on the top of my cranium. People who 
 saw my little finger-nail pronounced it the smallest on record. 
 When Miss Betsey and I were alone I inspected my digits to dis- 
 cover what there was so " awful cunning" about them. When the 
 parson came to see me nurse asked him if I was not a " beauty." 
 The conscientious man, I am told, got over the difficulty by saying, 
 " Well, he is a baby." When I was sufficiently cohesive to bear pin- 
 ning, I passed my time driveling over Miss Betsey's finger, and 
 repeating the inane expression " a-goo ! " 
 
 Grown folks know little about the real trouble of " being dressed." 
 Prinking for balls and dressing for dinners is nothing to the ma- 
 tutinal lavations of babyhood. It is the bore of infancy. Miss 
 Betsey was a " cleaner " in every sense of the word ; and when 
 she once " put her hand to the plow " she went straight through, 
 regardless of screams, and kicking the air, and loss of breath. 
 
 Almost the first thing Miss Betsey did to me, after supporting 
 my neck in the bath-tub to prevent my head from bobbing under 
 the water, was to let me drip on the blanket. Then she rubbed my 
 back into a bright ruby-color, and " adjusted " the apology for a 
 shirt over that hunchy strip of wrinkled flannel which pinched my 
 sides underneath. This ruffled " apology " was three or four times 
 too wide for its length. Miss Betsey first folded it in a broad 
 plait in front, while I lay on my back; then, after I had been 
 flopped over on my face across her knees, like a batch of dough, she 
 took another broad plait in the rear. To keep this skimpy thing in
 
 A UTON-BABYHOOD. 
 
 11 
 
 place, came the snug-fitting, long-skirted flannel petticoat sewed on 
 to a cotton waist, and pinned pretty tight. Miss Betsey always 
 meant her "things" to stay. After this like an extinguisher 
 over the head came the gossamer linen slip with its frills and its 
 insertions, its armlets and its shield-pins, the three-cornered bib 
 with its shield-pin, the enormous scarf with its shield-pin, and the 
 puff and the powder, and the hair parted at the side with a curl in 
 the shape of a rolling-billow on the top of the head. I was then 
 what was called " dressed." But all these different layers of cloth- 
 ing pinched and squeezed me so that I screamed with discomfort. 
 Miss Betsey said " C. Auton was hungry," so I was instantly laid 
 on my back again and filled up with milk and water. She dexter- 
 ously caught the overflowing streams in the pap-spoon, as they 
 meandered down the corners of iny mouth, and scooped them clev- 
 erly back again into their proper channel, saying all the time, 
 " There ! there ! " Then I was jounced and trotted at a pleasant 
 family gait, until my little crowded, wheezing, and rolling stomach 
 had wrestled with and overcome the lacteal ocean poured into it 
 when Miss Betsey " eased up," and my internal revolutions ceased. 
 
 The deep mahogany cradle in which all 
 the Auton-babies passed their younger 
 days stands out like a telegraph pole 
 along the path of my earliest memory. 
 Oh, that wonderful cradle ! Oh, that deep, 
 respectable cradle ! Oh, that rich, mahog- 
 any cradle ! Its color, acquired by age, 
 and the constant rubbing of little boys' 
 trousers, resembled that of the wonderful 
 gingerbread which " Old Rosannah, the l//
 
 12 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 cook," used to bake for us, and nothing could be richer than that. 
 The hood of that rocking hammock had a graceful slant. The 
 brass handles at either end were bright as bright could be. The 
 roof was fastened with brass-headed nails, and the rockers had just 
 the right bevel to invite slumber. One of the roof -boards was 
 cracked, and the light played through the aperture first dark- 
 ness, then light, then darkness, then light as our baby-heads 
 went wagging to and fro while Miss Betsey did the rocking. 
 
 Talk about the sweet slumber which follows honest toil ! It is 
 nothing to the peaceful naps in that old cradle. I can see it now 
 with its clean draperies wooing us to its soft embrace. 
 
 Before Miss Betsey laid us in it she leaned forward to " make it 
 up," while the baby hung dangling and dozing over her left arm 
 the while. First came the long bolster-pillow in the body of the 
 cradle. Then the shorter one at the top, with a little soft valley in 
 it for the head to lie in. Then came the baby so sleepy ! so 
 limp with nodding ! He was laid gently on his right side, with his 
 thumb in his mouth and a small milk-blister on his upper lip. The 
 left arm that one which had been vaccinated, and which was 
 beginning to " take " softly placed outside the blanket. " Sh ! 
 Sh! Sh! There! there!" The rocking stopped. C. Auton was 
 asleep. 
 
 Miss Betsey Arnold was the queen of nurses. I shall never for- 
 get her kindness during that perilous epoch of evolution. I shall 
 ever thank her for winking at my sucking the wash-rag during my 
 morning bath, and while she was rummaging my basket for the next 
 layer of clothes. It was a sweet privilege now so tardily ac- 
 knowledged. Dear Miss Betsey ! In a better land than this you 
 will reap your own nursing reward. That "innumerable caravan"
 
 A UTON-BABYHOOD. 
 
 13 
 
 which you so gracefully welcomed on this side of life will greet you 
 there on the other with loud acclaim. 
 
 Big and little voices will call you " Auntie." 
 
 My mother had twelve Auton-babies. One failed to attain ma- 
 turity, and that left eleven. They arrived in the following order : 
 
 J. AUTON, 
 
 A. AUTON (girl), 
 T. AUTON, 
 
 S. AUTON (girl), 
 F. AUTON, 
 
 H. AUTON, 
 
 E. AUTON (girl), 
 
 W. AUTON, 
 
 A. AUTON, 
 
 H. AUTON (girl), 
 
 C. AUTON.
 
 14 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 None of these Autons were prodigies, although several of them 
 were " unkimmon clever " and " bright as buttons." 
 
 They were bred in a famous nursery, under the surveillance of 
 several quite remarkable women ; two of whom were named "Aunt 
 Moody " and " Deborah." In this wonderful spot they passed their 
 happy adolescence, until they were ready to cut loose from apron- 
 strings and do battle in the great world themselves. 
 
 For the amusement of other Autons throughout Christendom, I 
 will in the following chapters give a description of these two 
 Auton nurses, and some account of the marvelous transactions 
 which were performed in that celebrated mansion for the space of 
 a generation during which time different sets of Autons were 
 graduating from and entering into this blessed goal of their ten- 
 derer years.
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 " AUNT MOODY " " DEBORAH." 
 
 PRICELESS boon in the nursery next to a 
 good mother is a faithful nurse. I don't mean 
 that modern female nondescript with a Nor- 
 mandy cap and a mouth full of foreign language, 
 but a kind-hearted Puritan, of good judgment 
 and common sense ; one who remembered Gen- 
 eral Washington, and who lived for the children 
 under her care rather than for so much a month. 
 Unhappily this species is nearly extinct buried 
 beneath the new kinks of modern nurseryism. Still, however, a 
 traveler here and there totters across our pathway, reminding us of 
 her long life of self-sacrifice and devotion. 
 
 " Aunt Moody " and " Deborah " were two old-fashioned, long- 
 suffering, sweet-tempered children-lovers. To us they seemed to 
 have been born in that nursery, or, for aught we knew, were coexist- 
 ent with the Flood. Whenever they "went out" it was as much of a 
 circumstance to the whole household as one of Mother Auton's even- 
 ing parties, or a Thanksgiving dinner. Whenever they " dressed 
 up " the children immediately stopped play, gathered about their 
 knees, and plied them with the most impertinent questions handled
 
 16 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 and fingered their old finery with a license which the extraordinary 
 circumstances of the occasion alone warranted. "Aunt Moody" and 
 "Deborah " were as much of an institution in the Auton nursery as 
 the old four-poster bedstead ; or the nursery closet where the medi- 
 cines were kept; or the top cupboard where the "balm" and the 
 " catnip " and the " elder " sent out their perfume ; or the rug by 
 
 the nursery fire where the boys 
 got to sleep on Saturday nights, 
 waiting to be washed ; or the trun- 
 dle-bed under the big bed, where 
 we were all stowed away in peace, 
 or any other of those house- 
 hold penates connected with our 
 earthly paradise. I can only speak 
 of " Aunt Moody " with a meas- 
 ured amount of assurance, as she 
 was associated with that former 
 regime, when the first stratum of 
 Autons held the nursery under 
 their domination. The reign of 
 " Deborah " (which marked the epoch of the incursion of the 
 younger branch into the nursery which took possession, like the 
 ancient Huns, of what, to us, constituted the whole known world) 
 is the occasion affording me opportunity to speak with confidence 
 and certainty. 
 
 "Aunt Moody" was a little, clean, old woman with a very large 
 nose and a ruffled mob-cap not unlike " Old Mother Hubbard's." 
 This cap had no strings, but was kept in place by a wide black rib- 
 bon with an Alsacian bow at the top of it, Originally she had had
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 17 
 
 large quantities of double-chin, but this feature, through lapse of 
 years and cares of the nursery, had dwindled both in comeliness 
 and substance, so that it now served only as the plaything of the 
 younger children, who fondled it with tender emotion. To us 
 youngsters there was something strange and uncanny about Aunt 
 Moody, and we listened with bated breath to her stories of "Sister 
 Carstoff " and " Brother Ben," the sea-captain; 
 and this strangeness was only increased by the 
 funniest-looking thumb which she had, and the 
 queerest sort of a big toe which we used to 
 catch sight of on Saturday nights, two facts 
 which completed the romantic and peculiar 
 impression of this old lady. But for all that 
 she was a dear creature, self-sacrificing and 
 long-suffering, and to her unwearying counsel 
 and unremitting care the older Autons are in- 
 debted for a good deal of their " bringing-up." 
 
 Whenever the children took the census of 
 the family Aunt Moody came next in order to 
 us. She was followed by Rosannah, the black 
 cook, and Freeborn (pronounced Fre'bun), the 
 black waiter, and the old wooden pump in the 
 kitchen, and " Sterling," the yellow-eyed cat, and the oval brick 
 oven, where the Sunday-morning breakfast was baked, and the 
 horseshoes hanging on the old crane, and the bright tin-kitchen be- 
 fore the wood fire, and the Johnny-cake board, and many other 
 objects of affection in Auton House of so much individualism and 
 character as to entitle them to a position as members of the family. 
 
 People said Aunt Moody had been married, and that there was a 
 2
 
 18 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 son or daughter in Swansea, or Rehoboth, or some other (to us) 
 foreign city. But if so " Old Moody " never " turned up " to dis- 
 turb her, and she was left unmolested to complete her blameless, 
 self-sacrificing mission untrammeled by any uxorious responsibil- 
 ities. 
 
 Aunt Moody wore a frizette, and T. Auton on one occasion 
 
 pulled it off, 
 leaving her 
 aged poll de- 
 fenseless and 
 bare, but the 
 dear old body 
 immediately 
 forgave him, 
 and showed 
 this forgive- 
 ness by snatch- 
 ing the same 
 boy off the 
 "forestick" 
 
 where he had 
 
 sat down and caught fire when, throwing him on the rug, she 
 " put him out " with a pitcher of hot water. 
 
 It would be a subject for a clever artist to depict, this faithful 
 creature amidst a bevy of pretty boys and girls, moving hither, 
 and yon, settling disputes, soothing ruffled feelings, chiding the up- 
 roarious, and chasing unruly offenders under the bed. Her surest 
 method of dislodging them from this hiding-place was a coal of fire 
 in the tongs, which she would thrust into their lair, repeating all 
 the while her favorite oath, " Burn yer boots ! burn yer boots ! "
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 19 
 
 When Aunt Moody left Auton House forever, the nursery was 
 hung in sackcloth. Her loss seemed to us irreparable. No more 
 queer-looking big toes Saturday nights ! No more funny-looking 
 thumbs to fondle ! No more double-chins to caress ! Our " dolls 
 were stufied with sawdust." The night of her departure was kept 
 a secret from the younger children. The new nurse who was to 
 fill the gap left by our ancient friend was instructed to comfort 
 
 the disconsolate ones when they woke up by taking their hands, 
 as Aunt Moody used to do; but the ruse proved unavailing, for 
 the moment they missed that friendly but stubbed thumb on the 
 strange hand stretched out to them in the darkness they screamed 
 out, " Aunt Moody 's gone ! " " Aunt Moody 's gone ! " " Who is 
 this old thing in bed with us?" "We won't have you!" "We 
 hate you ! " And away went the blankets and the sheets, and out
 
 20 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 jumped a brood of young Autons, with heads like mops, in night- 
 gowns and night-drawers, howling like a pack of savages. That was 
 a night to be remembered. 
 
 DEBORAH. 
 
 EBORAH, or, as we called her, " Deb- 
 'rah," was a little brunette woman, 
 weighing about one hundred and 
 twelve pounds, but every one of 
 those pounds was a good one. 
 Her whole life was a vicarious 
 one. She no more thought of 
 neglecting her daily duty than 
 she did of omitting to wash our faces; and this was sometimes 
 rather a delicate operation, because our little noses would become 
 chapped and inflamed by the cold, and our grimy hands at night
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 21 
 
 were, what she used to call, " A sight to behold," the grime being 
 lackered on. Deborah's career was one prolonged exhibition of 
 self-sacrifice. See how much she did for us, and how very little for 
 herself ! 
 
 For our sakes she kept in that nursery from morning till night 
 for over a generation. . 
 
 She sat up till midnight ironing our collars and plaiting our ruf- 
 fles, while her parboiled thumbs 
 were bleeding from the cracks which 
 cold and constant washing had pro- 
 duced. She never had a good square 
 night's rest for thirty years. 
 
 For our sakes she had the worst 
 form of dyspepsia eating her meals 
 so irregularly, and at unheard-of 
 hours. If necessary, she swept up 
 after us twenty times a day without 
 a whimper. She slept on the edge 
 of the bed until she became a callous 
 old woman. She warded off many 
 a maternal castigation, and meekly 
 allowed all of us to "pile on" her 
 back, to sop her scanty front hair 
 with water, twist it into curls and frizzles and " comb it to death," 
 while she, poor soul ! was nodding from sheer exhaustion, and en- 
 during these indignities without a murmur. And what did she do 
 for herself ? She may have laid up her wages, but we did n't know 
 anything about that. She was content with one dull-colored gown, 
 and one apron for week days, and a Sunday one for other occasions.
 
 22 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 If she ever had a lover we children must have frightened him 
 away. She had a brother " Ellerey," who was a truckman, and a 
 sister-in-law with one little stiff arm, whom she called " Ruby," and 
 "Anna Maria," her niece, who was pretty, and had weak eyes, and 
 a pair of prunella shoes and that was all. The rest of her life and 
 the rest of her thoughts were devoted to us. And in return for it 
 we provoked her, and plagued her, and combed her hair all out, and 
 almost worried her life out, until she was thin enough to blow away, 
 and weary enough to He down and die. If there is but one saint 
 in heaven Deb'rah is that one. If love, and devotion, and duty 
 ever bring their own reward there is a halo of glory about our 
 Deb'rah's head which can never fade away. She came from Tiv- 
 erton, and her complexion was sallow. 
 
 It is singular how an old nurse like this is indissolubly connected 
 in the memory with every act of one's youthful life. Reminiscences 
 of both joy and sorrow ever bring back with them that faded image. 
 Whenever W. Auton and I had new suits of' clothes come home from 
 "Aunt Nancy Miller's" (the nursery tailoress) smelling of snuff and 
 beeswax, Deb'rah was the girl who first buttoned them up for us. 
 When March, April, and May came round, the season to take the 
 " spring medicine," Deb'rah stood ready with the sulphur and mo- 
 lasses, to deal out to each child in procession that gritty sweetness, a 
 panacea for all ills. When a sudden attack of "stomach out of order" 
 made its hated appearance, and the lukewarm "salts," or the "debil- 
 itating " steeped physic, were set in the washbowl to cool, that same 
 long-suffering creature labored with us to " be good boys and take 
 it," and stood ready with the bit of orange to clap in our mouths the 
 instant the dose was swallowed, and took us to her attenuated bosom 
 to comfort us, until the taste was out of our mouths.
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 23 
 
 Oh ! that dreadful castor oil and ipecacuanha period ! " Shall I 
 ever forget thee ? " She brought forth the lukewarm draught. 
 There it was smoking and cooling in the white washbowl. We 
 stopped our play to sniff its odious contents. We turned up our 
 noses at the bare suggestion. We swore that we would " never, no 
 never, take the darned stuff," but she begged and implored and 
 
 prayed us to "just go and swallow it like little men." But not 
 until we had struck her, and kicked her, and she had finally threat- 
 ened to call in Mother Auton, with that " legendary medicine 
 spoon " which either strangled the boy or lodged the dose safely in 
 his stomach, did we break furiously away from her apron-strings, 
 approach the villainous decoction, and, with faces resembling that 
 of Mephistopheles, drain the vile cup to the " bitter end."
 
 24 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 This subject of medicines naturally leads me into our great nur- 
 sery-closet where all the different medicaments were kept. When 
 I call to mind the contents of the three shelves on the right-hand 
 side as you entered that closet, I wonder that there is a single Au- 
 ton left alive, or, at least, unparalyzed, to tell the tale. The first 
 sight revealed a sugar-bowl with no cover, which contained that 
 " whited sepulchre " epsom salts. The syrup-of -squills bottle, 
 with its sugared nozzle, stood next to it. Then came " Old Re- 
 liable," the castor-oil tank. How hard that dose was to swallow ! 
 almost impossible to get all of it out from the table-spoon, yet 
 every bit had to be scooped into the mouth with our upper lip be- 
 fore the orange came to take the taste out. Here stands the spirits 
 of nitre for fever, and there the essence of peppermint for stomach- 
 ache. Next to this comes the deadly paregoric for crying babies, 
 then a little bottle labeled " Balsam of Life," then a dreadfully 
 bad-tasting compound called " Elixir jSalutis" next to this stands 
 the essence of red lavender jolly on sugar! Then, away back 
 there, in a round glass bottle, stood the " Elixir Pro," we used to 
 call it " Lex'y Pro." This last medicine was " child's play " to 
 that horrid " Picry," ah ! so bitter ! Deb'rah called it " Verm'fug," 
 and it was a good one. And after this what we called " Epekak," 
 and, oh my ! how effective. Then came all sorts and kinds of pill 
 boxes and salves and cough mixtures. One of these compositions 
 in an earthen jar, called "Manton's Compound," was rather pala- 
 table. The licorice part was " So-so " to take, but its other ingre- 
 dients made us sick. Then followed white papers of senna leaves 
 and manna, with here and there a bit of stick-licorice and a small 
 lump of manna. This latter substance we always believed to be the 
 true manna eaten by the Israelites for forty years in their wander-
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 25 
 
 ings. Then came packages of boneset and thoroughwort. Then a 
 bottle of apple-balsam for wounds. Then old pieces of flannel skirts 
 and other things to dip into hot rum when folks were in pain. 
 Then New England rum. Then a broken teacup containing " Bur- 
 gundy pitch " to spread on plasters for the " smalls of backs," and 
 the old case-knife to spread it on with lying beside the cup. Then 
 came lint and bees- 
 wax, and balsam of 
 Tolu, and dry mag- 
 nesia in square bot- 
 tles, for heart-burn, 
 and ever so many 
 more frightful nos- 
 trums. It is a cause 
 for thanksgiving that 
 we survived all these 
 " lions in our path." 
 
 On the left side of 
 this closet lay the 
 sweet herbs brought to us every year by old Miss Burden and 
 Nancy Speywood. There was the aromatic catnip, and the cooling 
 balm, the sweet everlasting, and the bitter chamomile. I shall 
 never forget the refreshment which Deb'rah's cold balm-tea, poured 
 from a broken-nosed teapot, gave to our parched throats, after the 
 Doctor had forbidden us to touch cold water, during fever attacks. 
 
 These fragrant bundles of nature's perfumery were piled, one 
 above another, on the upper shelves of the old closet, in clean, white, 
 cotton bags ; and they served as agreeable foils to counteract the 
 deadly characteristics of the opposite side.
 
 26 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 Among all this scented herbage we passed many a fleeting hour. 
 W. Auton (boy), beautiful as the day, with chestnut curls and rosy, 
 pouting lips, would climb to the top shelf, flageolet in hand, and 
 buried there in this fragrant retreat would discourse long repeti- 
 tions of " Lord dismiss us " and " Auld lang Syne," in order to 
 drown the squeals of the younger children and the fat girls of 
 the family, who, acting out the play of " market," were making 
 believe being butchered for Christmas, and cut up into joints by 
 the older boys.
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 THE ARK AND THE JOLLY-BOAT. 
 
 OAH'S ark and the jolly - boat, by 
 which I mean the big four-poster and 
 the trundle-bed underneath it, have 
 sheltered more square yards of chil- 
 dren within their wide, straddling 
 sides than any other two private beds 
 in New England. 
 
 To enter the ark we needed a chair, 
 to board the jolly-boat we had only 
 to tumble in. The trundle-bed was 
 shoved under the big one during the 
 
 day and drawn out at night. These beds held different sets of chil- 
 dren at different epochs. Once the two afforded nightly domicile 
 for no less than six boy and girl Autons. Besides these, Deb'rah, 
 of course, was curled up somewhere on the edge of the bed, on a 
 space scarcely wide enough to rest a teacup. In the morning the 
 " baby," whoever it might be, was set in the midst of the charmed 
 circle, to which was often added the new kitten, a fresh puppy, 
 or somebody's black boy. Bottled up within this company was a 
 tremendous amount of latent fun and animal spirits, ready at any
 
 28 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 instant to break out and join the " dreadful revelry " about to 
 begin. It is impossible to describe all the wonderful plays and 
 journeys taken, the babels and bedlams let loose the hootings 
 and shoutings and screams which proceeded, on such occasions, 
 from the warm depths of these resting-places of my childhood. I 
 will endeavor, however, to give an idea of several of the more 
 prominent and fascinating fandangoes, as specimens of the rest. 
 
 I must premise this description by making a 
 remark about the nursery night-dress of that 
 period. All the girls wore nightcaps with ruf- 
 fles on the edge. As to that matter Mother 
 Auton and Deb'rah were all in the fashion ; 
 mother's cap was high behind, the ruffles com- 
 ing all over her face and concealing every feat- 
 ure but her nose, while Deb'rah's " was smaller, 
 and used to get askew " in the morning, after 
 the whole family had clambered across her face 
 to see who could be first at the fire to dress. 
 
 All the boy Autons wore night-drawers, tied 
 behind with running strings, once at the neck, 
 and then again at the waist. These garments 
 always " gaped " a little in the back, but this 
 only made it more fun to jump out of them 
 after they had been tied, and then stick our legs quickly back again 
 before Deb'rah saw us. 
 
 Every Auton child said his prayers. 
 
 First came the prayer beginning " Now another day is gone." 
 In this petition there are lines like these : " See how my childhood 
 runs to waste ;" " My sins how great a sum ! "
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 29 
 
 This passage puzzled us much, and we used to inspect each other 
 very closely to see if we were actually " running to waist." We 
 concluded, also, that as the prayer said that our sins were a " greater 
 sum " they probably must be, although we failed to see the force of 
 the expression. One of the children explained it by saying it had 
 " something to do with salvation," and that settled it. After this 
 came the prayer, " Now I lay me," etc. 
 
 To us, this was some sort of an animal, a Llama, which we resem- 
 bled, lying down to sleep. Religion seemed queer to us then, and 
 came hard. After our devotions we prepared ourselves for the night 
 and generally consumed large quantities of cold, shortened, flour 
 Johnny-cake, which made us very thirsty, and got the bed full of 
 dried crumbs. These would roll under us and prick our warm rosy 
 skins, so that Deb'rah had to come and scrape them up in the palm 
 of her hand, while we squatted on the outside of the bed in our 
 night-clothes. These operations, preliminary to sleep, ended by a 
 " drink of water " all round, and Auton Nursery then became act- 
 ually quiet. 
 
 H. Auton was an older boy than some of the others. He slept 
 in the ark, and had his own way on the " back side " of it. He 
 used to tell marvelous stories of what he had never seen. His nar- 
 rations of imaginary puppies which we were to have if we were 
 good boys, and vast quantities of maple sugar which some day or 
 other perhaps would fall to our share, kept us awake for hours. 
 He was a neat and talented fellow, having always an eye to the 
 "main chance." 
 
 Cold shortened Johnny-cake was a compound intimately associ- 
 ated with my nursery life. It was baked on a board, and was made 
 of flour instead of meal, with no leaven. Although slightly dyspep-
 
 30 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 tic in its character, we all rose superior to its attacks. We were al- 
 ways hungry, and partook of it at unearthly hours. We would bite 
 it out into all manner of shapes, such as the heads of animals, birds, 
 
 and men. While we ate, 
 if not in bed, we never 
 kept still, but walked 
 about in procession, hop- 
 ping from one figure on 
 the carpet to another, 
 playing a game called 
 "Poison." This Johnny- 
 cake figured largely in 
 our morning bed-stances. 
 H. Anton rigged a pulley 
 on the top of the south- 
 west post of the big bed, 
 hitching it on the cur- 
 tain-hook and bringing 
 down the cords to be se- 
 cured around the back 
 of the high head-board. 
 To this apparatus was attached a basket, which H. Auton filled 
 with the precious Johnny-cake and hoisted to the mast-head, hold- 
 ing in his own hands, under his pillow, the governing ropes. 
 
 The contents of this mysterious pannier were to be lowered at 
 daylight, and administered to such individuals in the bed as the 
 autocrat should himself determine. 
 
 With the early dawn came a little rustling from all quarters of 
 the big bed and the jolly-boat. A ghostly procession of white forms
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 31 
 
 wended its way from all quarters. The trundle-bed gave up its 
 little citizens. The front side and middle of the ark were all 
 agog, the youthful crew climbing over the jaded anatomy of Deb'rah, 
 and nestling down around the Johnny-cake owner with eager jaws. 
 No sweet-bread or fillet of later years was ever so sweet as that lit- 
 tle bit of cold, indigestible compound doled out to us on those dark 
 and early mornings, as we sat, like savages, in our night-gowns, 
 crouched around our Johnny-cake chief. 
 
 This primitive breakfast fitted us for an arduous journey " over 
 the Andes," which we proceeded to do at once. There was a pict- 
 ure in one of our nursery books representing a long train of mules, 
 laden with merchandise, toiling over the difficult passes of the An- 
 des, and carrying to tide-water the produce of the country. This 
 old wood-cut filled our youthful imaginations with a desire to act it 
 out.
 
 32 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 The girls and boys, with Ben Jackson, the negro, on hands and 
 knees, in night-gowns and night-drawers, the oldest and biggest 
 first, and then the little ones following on, with the black boy fill- 
 ing up the rear, would start from the southwest bed-post of the big 
 bed, commencing at the top of the bolster on our trip over the 
 mountains. Plunging under the bed-clothes we wriggled our way, 
 one after the other, down to the bottom of the bed. Then we 
 pulled away the ends of the blankets and the sheets down there, 
 and wormed ourselves out from under these to the bottom-ends 
 of the bed-clothes of the trundle-bed below. Then we passed up 
 
 through the whole length of 
 these to the trundle-bed bol- 
 ster, where we emerged, one 
 after another, in a very dis- 
 heveled condition. Taking 
 breath at this big pillow, we 
 continued our wearisome 
 march over the outside of the 
 little bed, mounted the foot of 
 the ark, and pushed on to our 
 first starting-point. For merchandise, we carried on our backs all 
 the pillows we could get, the kitten and the puppy slung in hand- 
 kerchiefs across our backs, and we presented quite a distressed and 
 business-like appearance, as the long line of ruddy boys and girls, 
 neighing and braying like horses and mules, would disappear and 
 emerge at regular intervals from the stuffy bed-clothes. 
 
 Suddenly some new idea would strike the procession, when, 
 presto ! away flew puppy and kitten, up went the bed-clothes, out 
 from all parts of the blankets would come white legs and night-
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 33 
 
 gowns (the disjecta membra of Auton nursery), which came to a 
 standstill before the wood fire. 
 
 There is little doubt but these expeditions thoroughly digested 
 all the " shortened Johnny-cake," 
 which we had consumed, and made 
 us ravenous for the hot breakfast 
 which Rosannah had been preparing 
 in the kitchen below. 
 
 In Auton nursery was a famous 
 stand made of oak, with a crack 
 through the middle of its 
 round top. This space 
 was always filled with the 
 remains of the soap and 
 sand left by Deb'rah's 
 scrubbing-brush, and which we used to pick 
 out with pins. Around this modest bit of 
 furniture we took our tea. It was an in- 
 teresting and healthy sight to watch a 
 bevy of girls and boys in high, checked 
 aprons and ruffled collars, with red cheeks and shining curls, crim- 
 
 3
 
 34 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 son, pouting lips and butter- teeth (as we used to call the second 
 set in front), chatting like magpies ; all drinking, eating, and talk- 
 ing at once ; all good-natured, happy, and uproarious. No political 
 questions disturbed our brains, no dictum of society divided our 
 councils. The shadow of the cow's foot in our milk and water was 
 the most serious object which attracted our attention, and a healthy 
 
 rivalry as to who could 
 bite out the greatest 
 number of the little 
 hearts from Mr. Co- 
 rey's cookies in a given 
 number of minutes 
 
 alone created excite- 
 ment. As the south- 
 -!p ill west bed-post was the 
 "~ " famous starting-point 
 for all our imaginary 
 bed expeditions, so the 
 northeast one was the pole around which W. Auton, alias " Ante- 
 lope," and Ben Jackson, the black boy, performed their celebrated 
 flying act. This circus-trick consisted in running from the bolster, 
 in stocking-feet, catching hold of the post with the left hand and 
 swinging completely about in a circle through the air, landing 
 on the bed again. Antelope and Ben were the two athletes of 
 the nursery, and were respected and obeyed accordingly. Against 
 these same bed -posts, also, the children pressed their oranges, after 
 reaming holes in them with their fore-fingers, preparatory to the 
 kneading and sucking process. 
 
 Our favorite nursery disease was sore throat. This malady ena-
 
 AUTON NURSERY. 
 
 35 
 
 bled us to stay away from school and wear flannel about our necks ; 
 yet we were not ill enough to leave off play, nor too ill to forego 
 Malaga grapes and lemonade. It was an ailment possessing suffi- 
 cient advantages to be prayed for, and the boy fortunate enough 
 to have swollen tonsils was an ob- 
 ject of envy. A croupy cough was 
 another coveted disease. So desir- 
 able was this that W. Auton per- 
 suaded his younger sister to open the 
 nursery window on a cold winter's 
 day in order that he might hang his 
 head out and " hoarsen up," as we 
 called it. 
 
 These infantile devices often over- 
 shot the mark, keeping us in bed for 
 weeks. I owe a debt of gratitude, 
 however, to raisins, which no amount 
 of indigestion will ever eradicate. 
 This fruit certainly made our path- 
 way to knowledge an easier one, for those sudden stomach-aches, 
 which were invented to come on about school-time, were imme- 
 diately driven away by a small fat bunch of these grapes, together 
 with a large greening apple stuffed into our pockets to eat at 
 recess.
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. JOHN HONZY. 
 
 N interesting play in Auton nursery was called 
 " Mr. and Mrs. John Honzy." The popular 
 element about it was that it required the 
 " full strength of the company " to bring 
 out its entire capacity for fun. The game 
 consisted in acting a chapter in the life of 
 grown-up people as we imagined it to be. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Honzy were H. Auton and E. 
 Auton (girl). Then came the children : W. 
 Auton, H. Auton (girl), and C. Auton, to- 
 gether with Ben Jackson, the black boy. 
 A. Auton was the family horse, and was 
 kept in the closet, while the kitten had on 
 a night-cap and personated the neighbor's 
 child. We were all put to bed on the nur- 
 sery floor, and covered up with baby-blankets, towels, newspapers, 
 and everything which could serve as bed-clothing. The children 
 were instructed to snore as loudly as possible, and one of them to 
 yell at the top of his lungs in order to wake up the parents, who 
 were curled up on the floor in the corner, over by the bedroom 
 door. Mrs. Honzy, like a good mother, of course, sat up and took 
 her screaming child in her lap. By turning him over in all possible
 
 MR. AND MRS. JOHN HONZY. 
 
 37 
 
 ways she discovered a large, imaginary pin sticking into him. This 
 she extracted, apparently with great difficulty, and then proceeded 
 to warm the baby's drink. Putting a bath-towel about her pet's 
 neck for a bib, she commenced to feed it with pounded cracker and 
 milk. The child was taught to reject this food in regular baby 
 fashion, which immediately provoked Mrs. Honzy to such a frenzy 
 that her darling was thrown on its back, and the 
 cracker stuffed down its throat at the point of the 
 bayonet. The milk escaping from its mouth was 
 caught in the pap-spoon in the most approved 
 " Aunt Betsey " style, some of it turned back 
 again into the mouth, while a greater quantity 
 found its way down the neck and the towel-bib. 
 The babe was then whipped, shaken, and jounced 
 down on to its floor-bed, and went to sleep with 
 its thumb in its mouth after two or three lugu- 
 brious and long-drawn sobs. After a very dis- 
 tressing night all the family woke up and went 
 through the motions of dressing, and washing 
 themselves with invisible water. Every child 
 was then immediately afflicted with sore fingers, 
 lame arms, and rheumatic legs. So Mother Honzy 
 brought out her invaluable salve, made of orange-peel, soap, and 
 saliva. This she proceeded to spread upon bits of linen and bound 
 up the fingers and aching joints of the Honzy tribe. 
 
 Such a regiment of white " cots " and bandaged toes was never 
 seen except after a battle. It was time now to go a " buckle-berry- 
 ing." So the family prepared itself for this important excursion. 
 The girls were dressed up in all the poke bonnets, high-crowned
 
 38 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 " leghorns," green veils, and old calashes that could be gathered 
 from the nursery-closet bandboxes, while wide lace collars and 
 stiff little "jiggers," made to fill out the mutton-legged sleeves of 
 our grandmother's dresses, were freely brought into requisition. 
 Enormous silk bags, and mother's scissors and pincushion, were hung 
 at the side, spectacles were put on nose, and old-fashioned mits 
 adorned the hands. To these were added wide pieces of different- 
 colored morocco, laced up over the wrists. 
 
 " Old Buff," the family horse (A. Auton), was now led out from 
 the nursery-closet stable, where he had been browsing among the 
 medicines and eating his provender of pounded soda-cracker, and 
 sour " sorrel " pulled from the " upper garden." He neighed, and 
 whinnied, and stamped his feet on the children's toes, just like any
 
 MR. AND MRS. JOHN HONZY. 39 
 
 grown-up horse in the city. He kept off imaginary flies with his 
 impromptu tail, made from a bundle of green lily-stalks pulled from 
 the same upper-garden. A pair of bits made of pine wood were 
 put in his mouth, and a string of jingly-jongly bells hung about his 
 neck. A large dinner-bell was now put aboard the chairs which 
 served for a family wagon, and the Honzys were ready to start. 
 Tin kettles, toy pails, and other nursery utensils were freely 
 brought into use to hold the imaginary huckle-berries, and thus 
 equipped the signal was given to commence the journey. The 
 horse began to trot up and down. The sleigh-bells started their 
 jargon. The elder Honzys cried Whoa ! and Get up ! The younger 
 Horizys screamed out that they already saw the fruit growing on 
 every side. Ben Jackson, the black boy, dropped his hat, and had 
 to get off and pick it up, while the neighbor's kitten, in its night- 
 cap, mewed with delight at the expected huckle-berries. The old 
 nursery floor rose and fell with the stamping and galloping. The 
 air resounded with mews and screams. The big bell was contin- 
 ually ringing for people to " clear the track," while poor toothless 
 Deb'rah was vainly beating the air, imploring us to " cease the 
 racket." Such a babel brought its usual quietus in the forms of 
 Mother and Father Auton, who appeared at the nursery door and 
 commanded silence, you might hear "a pin drop " in an instant. 
 
 This interruption was lucky, because the party had just arrived 
 at the " berrying ground," and were already engaged in picking the 
 largest specimens from all sides of the room. The pails were filled 
 in " no time," and the family were at home again in " a twinkling." 
 Somebody squeezed the kitten in the wrong place, which caused 
 the neighbor's child to squall, leap from the flying vehicle, and rush 
 under the trundle-bed with H. Auton's night-cap on, and its long,
 
 40 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 black apron petticoat, half off, dragging behind it. The " cots " 
 and the " bandages " were flung to the four winds. The old toggery 
 was dropped on the floor for Deb'rah to pick up, while Mr. and Mrs. 
 Honzy lost their assumed authority at once, and mixed with demo- 
 cratic familiarity among their Auton brethren.
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 ROOMS IN AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 TRANGE to tell, Auton House had but one 
 bedroom. There were lots of other rooms, 
 such as the " Green-room" and the " Din- 
 ing-room " and the "Back and Front Draw- 
 ing rooms," and the " Library," and the 
 " Middle chamber," and the "White-room," 
 and " Mother's room," and the " Baby- 
 house," and " Rosannah's room," and the 
 " boys' room," and " Fre'bun's room," and 
 the "Glass-house," and the " Nursery," 
 but only one " Bedroom." In this cham- 
 ber all the strange new maids slept and 
 got up early. It was as " cold as a barn," and had a fire-board in 
 front of the fire-place with a painting upon it representing my 
 father and uncle when children, holding a steel-gray squirrel perched 
 on their hands, and attached to a small chain of the same gray color 
 dangling over their fingers. The boys wore large ruffled collars 
 and roundabout jackets buttoned up to the throat, with their hair 
 cut short in front, leaving it long behind. In this room, also, was 
 a tall wicker basket which held soiled linen; W. Auton used to 
 leap from the floor upon the rim of it, where, see-sawing for a mo- 
 ment, he would pitch head-foremost into the depths below. This
 
 42 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 bedroom opened out of the nursery, and was peeped into but 
 shunned by all the " young ones " as a haunted spot. It was so 
 near to our nursery paradise, yet such a poky locality, that these 
 two chambers stood in our vocabulary for the " good " and the 
 
 " wicked place." We peopled 
 this latter neighborhood, with all 
 those dreadful characters which 
 disturbed our infant imaginations, 
 and shuddered lest at that very 
 instant that gloomy abode might 
 conceal a horrid creature, known 
 to all the children by the name of 
 " Bloody-bones," who went about 
 killing babies and hiding their 
 bodies under the sand-hill in the 
 rear of Aunt Malbone's house. 
 There were connected with each 
 of the chambers in Auton House 
 most delightful and pleasing asso- 
 ciations. With the little Green-room in particular these associa- 
 tions were especially charming. In it were concentrated all the 
 wit and frolic of Auton House. On Sunday evenings the pleasant- 
 est set of people gathered there. On either side the broad hearth 
 sat our parents the dearest, the funniest, the most congenial of 
 spirits. My father Auton reclined in the great arm-chair, close by 
 the long window, out of which one of his hot hands was always 
 hung to cool, while he puffed his aromatic cigar, and recounted to 
 us his wonderful story, of being shut up in a tomb when he was a 
 boy, and of his playing a tune upon the great iron doors with the
 
 ROOMS IN AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 43 
 
 thigh-bones which he found scattered about him. As the evening 
 wore on in trooped his favorite nephews, Ned and Ben, William and 
 George, Can and Levi, to smoke the Sunday pipe. To these were 
 added a large detachment of home production, and the " younger 
 fry " from the nursery completed the family 
 party. The air was full of fragrant smoke 
 (which some folks dislike). The sputtering fire 
 sent forth its cheerful blaze. The round con- 
 vex mirror, with its black dragons and gilded 
 sconces, reflected the genial brightness, while 
 the flickering light on the " Bear picture," 
 The Marriage of The Virgin," " The Two 
 Mackerel," and " The Horatii and the Curatii," 
 completed a scene of comfort and good cheer. 
 These evenings began with a bountiful tea. 
 The family was so large, however, that we 
 " kids " were kept in check in the nursery 
 until the older parties had finished. Listening 
 and giggling at the top of the stairs, we awaited 
 the signal to descend. Then, whooping and 
 shouting, sliding on balusters, three steps at a 
 time, while poor Deb'rah was beseeching us to 
 make less noise, the invading host came thun- 
 dering down to tea. Fish-balls, brown-bread toast, hot biscuits, 
 baked beans, Indian pudding, and quince marmalade vanished be- 
 fore these hungry Philistines as quickly as a western wheat field 
 succumbs to the advance of the caterpillar. That it was possible 
 to pack into a child's stomach, holding a pint, more than enough 
 to fill a quart, was beautifully demonstrated whenever an empty
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 Auton boy came within hail of any article in the above category. 
 A " symposium of smoke " was instituted in the little Green-room 
 after tea. The hospitable front door constantly admitted some fresh 
 addition to the genial company either " Tris," who hitched 
 
 " Katie in the chaise " at the tree- 
 box, or kind friends from " over the 
 bridge," increased the number of 
 welcome guests. Auton nursery was 
 now drawn upon to furnish amuse- 
 ment. One boy spoke " On Linden 
 when the sun was low " with so 
 much gesticulation and fervor that 
 it was dangerous to go near him. 
 Another one drew the forms of ani- 
 i- _. mals in the air at lightning speed, 
 and with so many flourishes and cur- 
 licues that the company kept them- 
 selves at a respectful distance from 
 his revolving fist. The youngest 
 of all, with hair sticking up like a 
 feather - duster, whistled cleverly 
 quite difficult airs, keeping time with his fingers on the door-panel, 
 which he used for a drum ; while still another cut with scissors, from 
 black paper, capital likenesses of the company in the shortest possi- 
 ble time. After these harmless performances candles were brought, 
 and we all repaired to the drawing-room to sing psalm tunes, after 
 the ancient New England fashion. The old organ had stood in this 
 room so long that it seemed to be a relation of the family. It had 
 a fluted front of flowered cherry damask, which is as intimately as-
 
 ROOMS IN AUTON HOUSE. 45 
 
 sociated with my boyhood as was Aunt Moody's stubbed thumb, or 
 Deb'rah's scanty front hair which we had combed almost out of her 
 head. The organ had also a crowd of funny ivory stops, labeled 
 " Tutti " and " Haut-boy " and " Reed," which squeaked and talked 
 to us in a most familiar manner, and which we regarded much in 
 the same sort of friendly way as we looked upon the boys in the 
 neighborhood who used to come into our yard to play with us. 
 The Tutti stop in particular always made us laugh, the name was 
 such a queer one. One of the girls " presided " at the instrument, 
 while a little boy " blew." " We don't want any coatee tunes," said 
 Father Auton ; " give us a good long-waister." There is a smack 
 of seriousness suggested by the devotional swing and dignified 
 rhythm of such old-fashioned airs as " Bangor " and " Denmark," 
 which communicated itself to the assembly. " All hail the power 
 of Jesus' name " was always given with effect, the whole strength 
 of the company being expended on the oft-repeated chorus, " And 
 crown him Lord of all." Also the last line in the first verse of " Ye 
 Christian heroes," "And plant the rose of Sharon there." This 
 was never sung without a visible quaver in Father Auton's voice 
 as he sat, with closed eyes, his hands clasped across his ample fig- 
 ure. . . . 
 
 Mother Auton was subject to what we children called " spaz- 
 zums." These were in reality severe attacks of dyspepsia, and 
 would seize her suddenly at the breakfast-table with but little pre- 
 monition. The pain was so intense as to nearly stop her breath, 
 and while it continued she was always in a critical condition. We 
 children could tell when these attacks approached by noticing her 
 nostrils, which were slightly distended when suffering from pain
 
 46 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 she wished to conceal. " There ! " we would say to each other, 
 " mother's going to have a spazzum ; don't you see how her nos- 
 trils stick out ? " 
 
 Once fastened upon her, these spazzums never let go until Dr. 
 Possett had poured down McMunn's Elixir by the table-spoonful. 
 Every stitch of clothing had to be loosened while Deb'rah, and 
 Ros#nnah, and father, and the new girl, and our older sisters rubbed 
 and rubbed the " small of her back " until the skin was almost 
 rubbed away. We children, frightened to death, congregated in 
 the upper entry, and inquired of every passer-by if " mother 
 would n't die ? " Some of us burst into tears, while others said 
 they " felt " as much as we did, but " were n't going to cry about 
 it." The weaker ones used to repair to the lonely, back drawing- 
 room to pray in the dark that the spazzum might pass off. How 
 strange it is, that with this recollection comes another, equally 
 vivid, but just as quaint as the former one was sad. It is the pecul- 
 iar odor of the black hair-cloth seating of the mahogany chair 
 where we knelt to offer our petition. That queer, half-musty, half- 
 hairy, varnishy perfume is as distinct in my recollection as is the 
 melancholy occasion which bowed my head upon it. These sudden 
 attacks terribly afflicted our tender-hearted father. I can see him 
 plainly at this moment flying about with anxious countenance and 
 wild expression, tumbling over chairs and slamming doors as he 
 rushed up and down stairs for alcohol, salt, or hot water. 
 
 On one lugubrious morning when Mother Auton was groaning, 
 and the whole household was rubbing her for " dear life," a favorite 
 spaniel belonging to T. Auton took it into his head to have a fit, and 
 flew around the dining-room at a terrible rate, foaming at the mouth, 
 etc. Just at this juncture Father Auton appeared at the dining-
 
 ROOMS IN AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 47 
 
 room door; and seeing the dog covered with saliva, floundering 
 and kicking under his feet, while all the children were watching 
 him from the tops of tables and chairs ; he became transfixed with 
 emotion. At last he shouted at the top of his voice, " D n it ! 
 was ever a mortal so put upon ? Wife dying up-stairs mad-dog 
 down get out ! " 
 
 Happily neither of these direful calamities happened ; both our 
 mother and the spaniel speedily recovered, but what Father Auton 
 screamed out on this occasion was never forgotten.
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER. 
 
 HE middle chamber possessed the rare dig- 
 nity of being the spot where nearly every 
 Auton first saw the light. There was an 
 odor of new flannel and powder-puff about 
 it which never quite departed, while a de- 
 pressing stillness pervaded the apartment 
 on those periodic occasions when we chil- 
 dren were allowed to view the last " new- 
 comer " from an unknown country. 
 
 The " fresh Anton " was carried, for its 
 primal bath, into a small adjoining room 
 called the " Library." Here Miss Betsey 
 
 Arnold held the struggling stranger gently on her lap while the 
 long file of girls and boys from the nursery marched in to pass 
 judgment upon it. "What a nose!" "He looks like a monkey." 
 "Look what a face it's making." "He's the ugliest baby I ever 
 saw," etc. These ingenuous remarks were the unbiased opinions 
 pronounced upon every new Auton as it appeared. They say that 
 " children and fools speak the truth." The middle chamber was 
 also the room which our big brother occupied when he came home 
 on a ^isit. He always arrived by the boat train which reached 
 the city at four o'clock in the morning. We children, who held 
 him in great veneration, never caught sight of him on such visits
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER, 
 
 49 
 
 until breakfast time, when he sedately descended in his slippers 
 to read the morning paper in quiet reserve. He was his " moth- 
 er's hope," and his " father's joy," and well he might be, for 
 he was held up before us as an example of everything that was 
 noble and worthy of imitation so the chamber had to be well 
 aired before he came. It seems but yesterday that all these prepa- 
 rations were going on. Mother Auton in the cold room clearing 
 out the drawers to make way for J. Auton's underclothes, the com- 
 pany pin-cushion hauled out and put in place under the mirror, 
 the best comb and brush laid in a convenient spot for use, and the 
 blue china pitchers filled with the pump-water. Oftentimes, at early 
 dawn, we could hear the creak of the carriage wheels when the ve- 
 hicle stopped before the house, and the thud of his trunk upon the 
 sidewalk. He frequently roused up Deb'rah by rattling the blinds 
 in the back yard with a clothes- 
 pole to let him in ; but Mother 
 Auton generally anticipated any 
 such manoeuvre, and greeted her 
 son even before the hack-man had 
 gotten upon his box. From our 
 snug quarters in the big bed we 
 could hear the dull boom of the 
 heavy front door as it shut again, 
 then a little desultory under- 
 toned conversation, a pair of boots 
 dropped on the outside of his 
 apartment, and all was quiet. 
 The middle chamber was also the 
 
 spare room," set apart for invited guests at Auton House. 
 
 4 
 
 Here
 
 
 
 50 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. McLacken slept when they paid us a visit from New 
 Haven. Mr. McLacken had a neck so thin and long that it re- 
 quired folds upon folds of cravat to build it up to the standard size 
 of ordinary necks. He was always on a strict diet, and was con- 
 stantly going up-stairs to take his medicine. Here reposed blonde 
 Cousin Fanny, and tired Theodore, who had a very long upper lip 
 and went to sleep in his chair every evening ; and here rested 
 Cousin John, who had a Roman nose and chafed his hands together 
 whenever he met you ; and sprightly Cousin Maria with her beam- 
 ing smile and her flying cap-strings. 
 
 These cousins were all from Boston, where they had the enor- 
 mous frog-pond, and ice-creams so large that no boy could eat any 
 more than from the top of one of " them " as far down as the rim 
 of the glass. They had Boston trunks, owned Boston chaises, ate 
 Boston cream-cakes from Mrs. Meyers', and " took " " Boston Tran- 
 scripts." They drank " cambric tea," and ate stale bread, and when 
 they spoke of what was going on in their city they said " with us," 
 all the time. 
 
 Our big brother remarked that it did n't matter what our cousins 
 ate or drank, or what forms of expression they used, so long as they 
 had " public spirit " which we in our town did n't have "a spec of." 
 We did n't dare ask what " public spirit " meant ; but among our- 
 selves concluded that it had reference to some sort of liquor which 
 the Boston Mayor drank. 
 
 Cousin Fannie wore caps with lots of ribbons, and gave us sugared 
 flag-root which stung our stomachs. 
 
 The middle chamber also enjoyed the privilege of being the 
 apartment where the ladies took off their " things " when we had 
 a party. Its mahogany bed-posts were elaborately ornamented with
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER. 51 
 
 carved pine-apples and their spiked leaves. The red silk curtains 
 about the bed and windows had a deep fringe of tassels and balls, 
 and the pillow-cases and bed-linen were the best that Auton House 
 afforded. But for all that the room smelt strange and had a prim, 
 shut-up, visitor-like air about it. A picture of Ariadne left on the 
 sea-shore and waiting for her clothes hung just over the pier-glass. 
 My grandfather's and grandmother's portraits looked steadily down 
 from the walls, and kept in awe any little boy or girl who dared to 
 talk above a whisper. 
 
 The deep mahogany wardrobe, made by Josey Rawson, and 
 reaching to the ceiling, contained within its ample bosom the party 
 gowns, the old lace, the ancient fur boas, and the high " leghorn 
 hats " of my mother. And here rested the tall Canton jars which 
 came from China in the " Ann and Hope," and which " once upon a 
 time " were filled with Canton rock candy with white strings running 
 through it. When the silver branches shed their mellow radiance 
 around the middle chamber, and the bright firelight danced over 
 the newly-scoured brasses, and the room got thoroughly warmed up, 
 it presented a genial and comfortable appearance, that is, for an 
 apartment set apart as this was from all the rest ; but we children 
 kept clear of it, for it always seemed to be saying to us, " Tread 
 lightly, children, I am the spare-room ! " On state occasions the 
 middle chamber was at " its best." Deb'rah and the maid had 
 hardly finished their folding, and dusting, and putting away, before 
 the door-bell commenced ringing, and word was passed from mouth 
 to mouth in the nursery, "The company's come ! " " The compa- 
 ny 's come ! " 
 
 The emotions which rambled up and down my bosom at such 
 junctures cannot be described. Faint photographs of them, how-
 
 52 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 ever, have visited me, from time to time, since my boyhood, as I 
 have listened to the bright uproar of some " grown-up " ball-room. 
 
 I used to be in such an excited state that Deb'rah would have to 
 dress me up before dark. 
 
 The new suit, just home from Aunt Nancy Miller's, with its brass 
 
 buttons, and broad, 
 ruffled collar, was 
 buttoned up and 
 pinned down before 
 sunset. Hands 
 were washed (a bad 
 job well over), and 
 hair smoothed, if 
 such a thing was 
 possible with a tan- 
 gled mass of yel- 
 low tow full of 
 "widows' peaks " 
 and "cow-licks." 
 As soon as possible 
 I sprang from the 
 nursery, first down 
 to the front door, 
 where black Fre'bun stood in white cotton gloves, and a pointed, 
 woolly tuft like a steeple on the top of his head. Then I sped 
 through the two drawing-rooms which were being lighted, then 
 slyly peeped into the supper-room, only to be driven out by Rosan- 
 nah and Mother Auton, who were surveying the tables for the last 
 time. Then up the front stairs like a shot, through my mother's
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER. 53 
 
 room, where the wood fire had fallen down, then round by the third 
 story stairs, down the upper hall and into the middle chamber. 
 Here I stopped, breathless. The "company" had, indeed, appeared 
 in the shape of two old " goodies " who made it a point to arrive 
 on the notch of time, and had already deposited their " things " on 
 the bed. 
 
 While Deb'rah adjusted their rumpled gowns they surveyed the 
 staring boy before them, and then remarked : " Why, C. Auton, 
 don't you know us ? I 'm Cousin Mary, and I am Cousin Sephronia." 
 Then they turned to each other, and one of them said, " He 's a 
 bright boy, but I can't say he 's handsome." " This is their spare- 
 room, these are Governor and Mrs. Tones's portraits, the carpet is a 
 good deal faded, ain't it ? but the sheets, I see, are all linen. Look 
 at that horrid picture behind the pier-glass ! It is positively indecent. 
 I suppose they put it in here out of the way of the children." " We 
 shall have an elegant supper, because they know all about what 
 good eating is in this house. Mr. Auton is a perfect epicure, you 
 know ! " " They allow the children to eat everything." " Come ! 
 let 's go down." " I 'm ready ! " " Does my petticoat show ? " 
 
 These two old ladies, of course, had no idea that I had understood 
 every bit of their conversation, and had detailed it, word for word, 
 within five minutes afterwards, to the little inquisitive ears in the 
 nursery. Then I commenced my racing again ; first into the third 
 story, where my brothers were dressing, then down again to the 
 drawing-room, sliding on the banisters half the way on my new 
 jacket, and scraping the varnish with my brass buttons the whole 
 length, besides losing one of my " pumps " in the descent. 
 
 I watched my opportunity, and when nobody observed I stole 
 into the darkened supper-room again to sniff the condiments I was
 
 54 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 not allowed to eat. What delicious odors were wafted into my nos- 
 trils as I entered there ! The first sniff revealed a fragrant melange 
 of calf's-foot jelly, and joggly blanc-mange. Then a creamy, winey, 
 fruity fragrance was given off from the tall glass pyramid of whips 
 and soft custards, first a whip, then a custard, then a whip, then a 
 custard, interspersed with Malaga grapes and sparkling jelly. Fat 
 raisins and blanched almonds lay intermingled in delightful abun- 
 dance, while mountains of " hearts and rounds " (each with its slice 
 of citron, and of my mother's own make) were piled on the silver 
 cake-baskets at the corners. The heavy decanters rested in their 
 silver holders. The ponderous cut-glass bowl held aloft its precious 
 burden of salad, while vacant places at either end of the table re- 
 mained for the oysters and terrapin. Wine-glasses were piled to- 
 gether in silver baskets. Forks and spoons lay huddled in delicious 
 profusion on every hand, while antique salvers and quaint little 
 basins held the confectionery we called " sentiments," and the 
 "short" biscuits. 
 
 As I stood there musing, I could but think how few the fleeting 
 moments would be before that mountain of lolly -pops and joy 
 would be gone forever. Those fleecy whips guzzled by strangers, 
 and the " hearts and rounds " (deprived of their citron) all wasted 
 and broken. I stole just one prune, and put the tip of my finger 
 into the " floating island " to see how it tasted, and then hurriedly 
 closing the door commenced again the " grand rounds " of the 
 rooms. 
 
 On such great occasions the children were sent to bed before sup- 
 per was served, with the promise of their plate of " good things " 
 the next morning. 
 
 These were brought to us before we quitted the warm blankets of
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER. 
 
 55 
 
 the ark and the trundle-bed. In the middle of the plate usually 
 stood a tall whip, the bubbles of which, weary of standing up, had 
 quietly collapsed into a dried creamy film. About the whip were 
 grouped a yellow soft custard, a piece of trembling blanc-mange, 
 specked with little particles of almond shells which lay in the im- 
 mediate vicinity, one five-fingered piece of preserved ginger, the 
 syrup of which had run under the bottom of the whip-glass and 
 stuck the same to the plate. 
 A heap of raisins, two figs, 
 one "heart and round," one 
 glass of calf 's-foot jelly, three 
 or four "sentiments," with 
 "tells" rolled up in them, and 
 four prunes. 
 
 The prospect of these "good 
 things" made us hail with de- 
 light every one of Mother 
 Auton's parties. Once, on a 
 cold December night when the 
 thermometer was at zero, and 
 the carriage-wheels creaked on the snow, occurred quite an exciting 
 event. The back drawing-room fire-place was piled up with logs to 
 multiply the heat. There was neither gas nor furnace in those 
 days, and people had to rely upon hickory wood and wax candles 
 for bodily comfort. The great halls of houses were " cold as Green- 
 land." Everybody's back was " goose-flesh," while everybody's face 
 was red-hot. That night in particular the wood was piled up, and 
 its yellow glare shot out into every portion of the drawing-room. 
 I remember among the company a beautiful Southern lady who
 
 56 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 wore a crimson velvet gown trimmed with white lace, and owned 
 lots of darkies. Suddenly there was a cry of " fire ! " The wood- 
 work in the middle chamber, just above us, had ignited from the 
 heat of the chimney below. There was an immediate commotion 
 among the fair dames and lordly cavaliers, who rushed up the front 
 stairway in order to save the ladies' wraps, their green silk calashes, 
 and ungainly " india-rubbers," their long yarn stockings to draw 
 over the silk ones, and their satin- wadded pelisses, which were piled 
 up in elegant confusion on the middle chamber bed. There was 
 
 only a voluntary fire department in 
 those days. Every boy's father was 
 either a " fire-ward " or a captain in 
 the bucket-brigade ; so when the 
 alarm was sounded the old leathern 
 buckets which hung in the " glass- 
 house " were snatched from their 
 fastenings and brought into imme- 
 diate requisition. 
 
 Beautiful women, with jeweled fin- 
 gers and dresses tucked back, stood 
 on the front stairs passing buckets, 
 while a band of " swells " in white 
 kids (white kids were then fashionable) worked the kitchen-pump, 
 and slopped the water over the brussels carpets. It was a pictur- 
 esque and lively scene for some time. 
 
 Happily the conflagration was arrested, and everybody enjoyed 
 the hot supper which followed this excitement all the more. There 
 was no need that year for the services of the little woolly-headed 
 chimney-sweep, who so regularly shinned up the big-throated flues
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER. 
 
 57 
 
 to scrape down their sooty sides, and his melodious carol was piped 
 in the crisp morning air from the topmost stone of our neighbor's 
 smoke-stack. 
 
 T. Auton owned a white 
 " Cade " lamb. This animal 
 wore a red morocco collar, 
 and followed its master about 
 the streets. 
 
 " Everywhere T. Auton went 
 The lamb was sure to go." 
 
 It became, however, a great 
 nuisance. Its nose was every- 
 where but in its proper place, 
 no marble mantel-piece, nor 
 mahogany bedstead, were 
 too high for it to scale ; in- 
 deed, it seemed to choose 
 these delicate pieces of furniture for its especial landing-places. Its 
 idiotic " baa " was heard everywhere, and its hot, woolly presence 
 was quite too much on long summer days. 
 
 Besides the lamb, T. Auton had a poodle. " Carlo " had no tail, 
 but nature made up the deficiency to him by his unusual sagacity, 
 and the pity he excited among men on account of this deprivation. 
 His eyes were red, as if from weeping. He sat down before every 
 new-comer, placed his paw in his lap, and looked up to him with his 
 red eyes, as if to invoke his pity. " Carlo has no tail," he seemed 
 to say, " He can only wriggle the end of his back-bone when he 
 feels happy, only that and nothing more." 
 
 This call for sympathy affected everybody, and all the children
 
 58 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 in particular were his firm friends. So Carlo, or, as Rosannah the 
 cook called him, Carla, and the lamb, and T. Auton, and the rock- 
 ing-horse on the piazza were four inseparables. 
 
 The lamb would " baa," and Carla would bark, and T. Auton would 
 scamper round the yard playing horse, and switching his im- 
 promptu tail (made out of green lily-stalks, or of his own pocket- 
 handkerchief), while the old rocking-horse grinned, and stared at 
 
 his three friends with his 
 glass eye from off the pi- 
 azza. On one of these 
 party occasions above al- 
 luded to, the supper-table 
 was elaborately set. The 
 window - shutters in the 
 banqueting hall were 
 closed. All things were 
 ready for serving the feast. 
 The best china and the cut- 
 glass dishes stood in re- 
 spectable positions amidst 
 the family silver. Rosannah the cook had carefully brought in the 
 joggling jelly and the blubbering " floating island." Our mother
 
 THE MIDDLE CHAMBER. 
 
 59 
 
 had surveyed the scene and pronounced it one of her very best 
 " set tables/' when, Baa ! baa ! and in rushed the lamb, leaped on 
 the table, galloped around among the soft custards, and the pre- 
 served ginger, poked his nose into 
 the jelly, paused to browse on the 
 chicken-salad, and sniffed at the 
 " hearts and rounds." Then he 
 stooped and baa'd again, as if to 
 say : " There is some mistake about 
 this. Evidently this is not the 
 table-land for me to nibble." All 
 this time Mother Auton and black 
 Rosannah stood aghast. The old 
 cook opened her eyes and hardly 
 dared to breathe, while Mother Auton 
 shut hers, and hardly dared to stop 
 breathing ; each expecting to hear the 
 fatal crash, for should that Nankin 
 bowl, brought from China in 1812, be 
 broken, or that great cut-glass dish 
 which Aunt Cutler had given to 
 Grandmother Dunn, be shattered by that "horrid sheep," they 
 never could be replaced. Meanwhile the " precious lamb " picked 
 his way among wine-glasses and English walnuts, and beat a hasty 
 retreat without oversetting a salt-cellar or disturbing a cracker. 
 
 This escapade, however, settled his " hash," for not many days 
 afterwards the red collar was taken off his neck, and his neck was 
 taken off his body, and his body was taken off the premises. So 
 the Cade lamb was no more.
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 LOVE for drawing was a marked charac- 
 teristic among the Auton boys. Deb' rah 
 used to say that we got it from our " fa- 
 ther's side," whatever that expression might 
 mean ; we stimulated it by constant exer- 
 cise, so that it became a source of intense 
 enjoyment. A habit of observation re- 
 sulted in great facility of expression, which 
 converted Auton nursery into an infant 
 drawing-school. The delineation of fig- 
 ures was our especial hobby, so that when- 
 ever a new drawing-book came into our 
 possession we immediately set to work on some favorite beast, gen- 
 erally a horse. We drew his ears first because this gave us time to 
 decide, as we proceeded, whether he should be running away or 
 only in the stable. A favorite way we had was to sit in little chairs, 
 all in a row, with our slates on our knees, and see who could draw 
 the best lion or the fastest trotter. These sketches, when com- 
 pleted, were submitted to our older brothers for judgment. Some- 
 times Father Auton would visit the nursery, and with his great 
 thumb rub out the forelegs of our favorite horse, telling us that 
 we "never saw a leg crooked-up in that way; it was all wrong,
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 61 
 
 and we must try again." So away we 
 
 went to work once more, and with better 
 
 results. 
 
 In these friendly, bouts we discovered 
 
 the secret of making a horse look as if 
 
 he were actually moving along the road. 
 
 We found that motion could not be in- 
 dicated unless all the legs of the animal 
 
 were off the ground at once, and that 
 
 the moment any part of him touched 
 
 the earth this idea of motion ceased. 
 
 We tried in all sorts of ways to prove 
 
 this. We got down upon our hands and 
 
 knees and trotted about the nursery 
 
 floor. We sat at the window listening 
 
 to the sound of a horse trotting on the 
 
 cobble-stones. We watched the animals I 
 
 in every possible position as they sped 
 
 by us, to detect some point of time when all four legs were off the 
 
 ground at once. 
 Af t e r many 
 weary watchings 
 we settled the 
 question in the 
 affirmative, so 
 that Auton nurs- 
 ery became the 
 
 last court of appeal on all trotting questions. 
 
 This practice of observation was valuable to us in a variety of
 
 62 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 ways. For instance, in order to catch the correct movement of a 
 tiger dispatching his victim, Deb'rah would allow us to take our 
 beefsteak and our cutlets out of our plates down on the nursery- 
 floor. Here, crouching over our imaginary hunter or expiring buf- 
 falo between our paws, we tore off great pieces of his flesh from 
 the bone, and, raising aloft our defiant but greasy visages, swal- 
 lowed the morsel without mastication. 
 
 In this way we caught what we called the " feel " of the tiger, 
 and could thus impart to our representation of him a greater 
 amount of snarl and ferocity. Then, again, in the same manner, 
 by constant practice we could imitate the proud walk of a rooster 
 among the hens. We scratched up imaginary Easter-worms, we 
 cocked our heads from side to side, as if our eyes were on our tem- 
 ples. We flapped our arms and crew from the backs of chairs and 
 imaginary hen-coops, and pecked at fancied pullets that presumed 
 to come too near our harem. Thus we imbibed something of that 
 " inner consciousness " of an ordinary red rooster, which enabled
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 63 
 
 us to draw him out on the slate so vividly that one could almost 
 hear him crow. The natural result of this artistic diathesis were 
 moving dioramas, stuffed elephants, living tableaux and private 
 theatricals. On the evenings of such exhibitions, our sisters were 
 stationed at the confectionery table, where diminutive sticks of 
 candy were sold for a cent apiece to our long-suffering audience, 
 who sat for our sakes on the hardest kind of boards in Egyptian 
 darkness for two mortal hours. The fund realized from this source 
 was expended in blue cambric and paste-board for the Diorama. 
 
 F. Auton carved with his jack-knife the little wooden automata 
 which figured in the different scenes. Bill Paine was the magician 
 who appeared in the interludes and swallowed fire, while H. Auton 
 manipulated the strings which set in motion the dioramic world- 
 One of our scenes represented a cobbler's shop. The curtain rose. 
 The shoemaker sat at his bench pegging his shoe. A knock was 
 heard at the door. The old fellow raised his head and asked the 
 stranger to walk in. The door opened, a well-dressed individual 
 entered who asked to have his shoe mended. Up went his leg to 
 exhibit the rent. The cobbler inspected it, and said he would patch 
 it the next day. Down went the leg. Right about went the 
 stranger. The door flew open and he disappeared, whereupon the 
 cobbler dropped his head and commenced pegging away again at 
 his shoe, and the scene ended amid the plaudits of the audience 
 hidden in the Cimmerian darkness above alluded to. Afterwards 
 came a tiger-scene in South Africa, and a blacksmith shop on the 
 road to Pomfret, and a pasteboard naval battle in the War of 1812 ; 
 and enough more wonderful things fully worth the price of admis- 
 sion, which was five cents. We used to print and sell the tickets 
 for these dioramas weeks before we had done the first thing to the
 
 64 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 L 
 
 exhibition itself. The advantage of this arrangement was that quite 
 often the affair never came off, and yet the buyers of our tickets 
 scarcely ever consented to take back their cash. This was a mean 
 trick of ours to make money, but the idea must have been put into 
 our heads by those strange boys who came into our yard and were 
 forever begging to " belong." This word, translated, meant to 
 become one of the proprietors of the company, having a right 
 
 to a full share in the profits without 
 doing any of the work. It was a 
 wonderful sight to creep under the 
 gay drapery which concealed the ma- 
 chinery of our exhibition, and view 
 the spot where H. Auton pulled that 
 wilderness of strings which set in 
 motion the little world above him. 
 One small smoky lamp from the 
 kitchen stood in the corner and shed 
 a flickering light around. A tangled 
 web of threads with labels attached 
 to the ends hung from little holes 
 over his head. One string went to the old cobbler's arm, another 
 lifted the stranger's leg. This one made the Bengal tiger spring 
 at the native, and that pulled down the main-mast of the Guer- 
 riere, shot away by the brave boys in the Constitution ; and so 
 on, through all the scenes. H. Auton sat on a little cricket with 
 his legs crossed and his head bent back, studying the forest of 
 threads above him. Great drops of perspiration stood on his upper 
 lip and dropped off his chin. He breathed an atmosphere which 
 would have suffocated anybody but a boy or an Esquimaux, and
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 65 
 
 he emerged from his lair after each performance parboiled, but 
 happy. Some of these dioramas ended in our foreign proprietors 
 getting suddenly mad and leaving the yard en masse. Once in a 
 while also AT Young and Nic' Peters (those naughty Meeker Street 
 boys !) would blow out the only light at the confectionery table, and 
 decamp with all the candy and the pasteboard money. These little 
 contretemps, however, were neither anticipated nor feared by us 
 younger ones, as we sat, with eyes like saucers, in exquisite expect- 
 ancy, watching for the green curtain to raise its mysterious front. 
 
 5
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
 
 / 
 
 OUR MOTHER AUTON. 
 
 F a boy expects to enter this world at all, he 
 has got to have some kind of a mother, but 
 then there were only seven boys who had 
 my mother for their mother. One of the 
 few things left to me, nowadays, which 
 gives me unalloyed satisfaction, is the fact 
 that I had my mother for a mother. If I 
 had some other boy's mother, knowing the 
 good things that I do about my own mother, 
 I shouldn't have been contented. Some- 
 how she seemed different from Ed Gould's 
 mother, for instance (the boy who bit the 
 caterpillar in two), and yet, I presume, in 
 many respects, she was much the same as 
 the ordinary run of mothers. We boys al- 
 
 ways knew what Mother Auton would do on certain occasions. 
 There was no cheating about her. When she said, "I'll see," we 
 knew just as well that we should have what we were begging her 
 for, as if she had actually said, " Yes, my dear, you may have it." 
 When we had fever turns, the touch of her cool, soft hands on our 
 brows was better than any spirits of nitre that Dr. Possett gave us 
 to bring down the pulse ; and when we snuggled up to her motherly
 
 OUR MOTHER AUTON. 67 
 
 bosom, we slept more sweetly than on any other pillow. In later 
 life, how puzzled grandfather would have been, to span her portly 
 waist with his two hands, as he used to do so easily when she was 
 but eighteen! and to look into her sweet blue eyes no one would 
 detect the hidden " snap " which lay there, and which manifested 
 itself, too, when we tried her patience beyond a certain limit. 
 When she spanked us she lost her breath, the blows were so short 
 and rapid, and, dear soul ! the punishment injured her more than it 
 did us, for we went off to our corners saying, " Did n't hurt us 
 any ! " while she was pale with excitement and exhausted from her 
 encounter. Old-fashioned and dignified, delightful in conversation, 
 and loved by everybody, elegant in her manners and an angel in 
 sickness, my mother Anton was a " jewel and a love." 
 
 Our grandfather was a prominent Federalist in the State, and after 
 the War of 1812 became its Governor, and his daughter was nat- 
 urally an important factor in the gubernatorial mansion. The ha- 
 bitual reception and entertainment of strangers beget a certain ease 
 and self-possession which few other things impart, and I well re- 
 member the grace with which she entered the drawing-room and 
 courtesied to some person who had called upon her. It was that 
 quaint, old-fashioned courtesy, half coy, half formal, which survived 
 the Revolutionary period, and charmed everybody. The children 
 thought her a grand performer on the piano. She was a favorite 
 pupil of old blind Oliver Shaw, the music teacher, and when she sat 
 at the instrument and commenced the " Battle of Prague " for us, 
 we stood about the piano with heads just tall enough to view the 
 key-board, and eyes and ears wide open with delight. As her fin- 
 gers undulated up and down the scales we could see the advance of 
 the troops, and hear the rattling of the musketry, the cries of the
 
 68 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 wounded, and the groans of the dying, almost as distinctly as if the 
 actual battle was before us. When the performance ended it left us 
 in a cold perspiration. 
 
 The "Infant Boys of Switzerland" was another favorite piece, 
 and also, " Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer ! " The 
 cross-hand movement in this last composition we considered the 
 most wonderful of all. That she should never miss striking the 
 correct note with the middle finger of one hand stretched across the 
 other was the marvel of marvels. Whenever afterwards we prac- 
 ticed the piano on the 
 nursery tables and baby- 
 chairs, this cross-hand 
 manoeuvre was the ob- 
 ject we all tried to attain. 
 Mother Auton was a 
 " Lady Bountiful " in the 
 old-fashioned sense. She 
 lived at an epoch when 
 hospitality was a Christian virtue, and a stranger became a member 
 in a man's own household. " Full measure, heaped up and running 
 over," was the invisible legend engraven over her blessed heart, and 
 she turned her face from no poor man at the door. All the col- 
 ored people squatted to her in the street, and " Minty Weeks," Zip 
 
 Brin turn's wife, Vi'lette Jackson and "Aunty ," in mob caps, 
 
 checked aprons, silver-bowed spectacles, and big india-rubber shoes, 
 would wend their noiseless way through the upper entry to her 
 chamber-door, to pour into her patient and sympathetic ear their 
 worn-out tales of " rheumatiz " and " gone feelin's." These groan- 
 ings were sure to be relieved by potions of " spirits," and remnants
 
 OUR MOTHER AUTON. 
 
 69 
 
 of old flannel, dealt out to them from that inexhaustible store, 
 always on hand, somewhere in the " baby-house " closet. 
 
 There were a few occasions when Mother Auton's disapprobation 
 was strangely excited. She called women who 
 were guilty of anything derogatory to their sex 
 " impudent hussies " and " saucy trollops ;" and 
 old men who paraded about the hot streets on 
 Fourth of Julys with masonic aprons, and com- 
 passes on their stomachs, " stupid asses." She 
 considered Dr. McGee and Dr. Eben Cowen the 
 greatest physicians in the world. She hung lit- 
 tle bags of camphor about the children's necks in 
 the time of " the cholera." She " cleaned house " 
 in the first week of May, rain or shine, and took 
 such pride in her " boys " that it would have 
 "fairly killed her" had any one of them gone 
 amiss. Now all these qualities made her an ideal 
 maternal relative. 
 
 Her nose was large, which we did n't object to, and her stature 
 was tall, which just balanced her nose. She wore a cap, the strings 
 of which were tied just between the chin she was born with and 
 the other one she acquired with age. This made it very convenient 
 for the strings, which never budged from their position. We used 
 to like to have her come into the nursery and sing to us her fa- 
 vorite lullaby, 
 
 " Rumpty Toodle he was there ! 
 Tittery, Nan, and Tarey O.," etc. 
 
 And when she reached the last line of the poem 
 
 " Fall down, Daddy O O O O,"
 
 70 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 which was repeated on several soft keys, and in the minuendo scale, 
 
 we all slipped off to the land of dreams with smiles on our lips, 
 
 and faces cuddled up under her dear double chin. 
 
 It was our delight to pick the first raspberries of the season which 
 
 grew in the " upper garden," and bring them to her in little sau- 
 cers. We all gathered about her 
 knee to watch her eat them. She 
 took each one up on the point of a 
 pin in the daintiest manner, dipped 
 it into the sugar we brought her, 
 and dropped it into her mouth like 
 a lady that she was. For our sakes 
 (who had picked them for her) she 
 ate the bad and the good ones, 
 those that tasted of rose-bugs, and 
 those that were covered with white- 
 wash off the trellis. Should a sin- 
 gle berry, however inferior, escape 
 her observation, we stood ready to 
 remind her of it. "There ! mother, 
 you have n't eaten that little green 
 one ! " Sometimes she really could 
 
 not eat such poor-looking specimens, whereupon we (who were 
 
 dying to swallow the whole of them) cleared the little saucers in 
 
 the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 The age of letter-writing is past. The era of Madame de Sevigne 
 and Madame de Stael is buried beneath the rush of modern civ- 
 ilization. But there was a period when it was the fashion to
 
 OUR MOTHER AUTON. 71 
 
 write letters and to express one's self on paper in cultivated diction. 
 This was the age of Chesterfield and of the " Tattler." Men and 
 women cultivated conversation as an art, and struggled for the mas- 
 tery of expression at the pen's point. 
 
 Mother Auton was bred in that spirit, and matured under the 
 influence of that past generation. Her ideas flowed as easily as 
 water, and her nimble pen posted them in black and white with as- 
 tonishing facility, even after eighty winters had passed over her 
 head. 
 
 What a correspondent she was, to be sure ! " Wait for Mother 
 Auton' s letters, if you want to hear the truth about it ! " was the 
 common shibboleth in the family. Her epistles were comforts to 
 the homesick school-boy, the delight of her children in foreign 
 lands, and became valuable transcripts of the current history of 
 the whole Auton tribe. For forty years she wrote a weekly bulle- 
 tin to her absent ones, bringing to their anxious hearts fresh photo- 
 graphs of home. 
 
 Mother Auton never would sit at a desk. Neither " secretary " 
 nor " davenport " suited her purpose. The little gifts presented 
 to her from time to time, and admirably adapted to write at, were 
 always gratefully accepted, but never used. She took her writing 
 materials on her broad, motherly lap, pushed her cap-strings from her 
 face, adjusted her gold spectacles over her ample nose, dipped her 
 pen daintily in the ink (just enough to fill it without blotting), and 
 away it ran so merrily and easily over the paper that she would be 
 on her fourth page before we children, who were seated around her, 
 had half gotten through sucking our oranges. People write letters 
 now, lots of them, heaps of them ; but I very much doubt whether 
 they contain one half the valuable news, the harmless gossip, the 
 genial spirit, which flowed so readily from Mother Auton's pen.
 
 72 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 There she sat in her chair every Sunday morning for over forty 
 years, writing the weekly epistle, with bended head and benign 
 expression, while the wood fire hissed and sputtered, and the old 
 canary sang in the sun-light.
 
 CHAPTER NINTH. 
 
 AUTON PECULIARITIES. 
 
 LL children are queer, and why should n't they 
 be? It is no more than natural that such 
 little pieces of animated putty should exhibit 
 some extraordinary peculiarities before they 
 become acquainted with their new existence. 
 Just peep at a fresh-born baby and notice 
 what disproportion there is between brain 
 and body ! Infants are not much more than 
 tadpoles with possibilities. A soft rounded mass of brain-matter 
 with a disproportionate appendage of soft bones. Sometimes the 
 nutriment given these embryotic people stimulates the brain at the 
 expense of the bones, and sometimes contrariwise. From this in- 
 equality of nutrition spring abnormal results. One small specimen 
 is all head, while another is little else than stomach. And this 
 unequal development often continues with their growth. 
 
 The Auton children were no exceptions to this state of things. 
 We had our peculiarities like other folks, and like all other families 
 we had a " young one " in ours who articulated sentences long 
 before it ought to have done so. It bawled out " That 's my baby 
 give me a cracker ! " at so tender an age that Mother Auton 
 screamed for Dr. Possett at once ; but Father Auton pooh-poohed 
 the idea, saying that " it was all right, it was only a girl."
 
 74 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 Then we always carried our stockings to bed and put them be- 
 hind our pillows, and that was rather an odd habit. Besides that, 
 we used to say our prayers on the front stairs in the middle of the 
 day, so as to save time at night when we were sure to be so sleepy. 
 This was a business-like habit, but a very naughty one. We all 
 had what Dr. Possett called " chronic exaltation of the imagina- 
 tion," and saw dragons' heads and demons' faces in the air after we 
 were abed. We discovered all kinds of animals in the yellow grain 
 of the Egyptian marble mantel-piece in the green room, and in the 
 dying embers of the fire. We lay on the floor pressing in our eye- 
 balls with our fists, in order to enjoy afterwards those gorgeous and 
 changing figures produced on the retina by the pressure. We had 
 also an inconvenient way of suddenly waking from sleep in the 
 greatest trepidation, and screaming for Deb'rah. This succeeded 
 in arousing the house, but to our great cost ; because our exasper- 
 ated parents, seeing that we were screaming for nothing, made us 
 finish our hullaballoo by screaming for something, this Mother 
 Auton administered to us in a very rapid but effective manner. 
 
 When T. Auton was a little boy he was so frightened because 
 Charley Arnold threatened to put him in a pin-hole in the fence 
 that he did n't get over it for years ; and the tradition is that F. 
 Auton was never able to go church because when the minister said 
 " Kingdom come " it made him so terribly ill that he was obliged 
 to leave the pew. This same F. Auton was uncomfortably affected 
 by circuses, for the moment the brass band " struck up " he left 
 the tent, saying that he "felt the bass-drum in his stomach." 
 
 The Auton children were in mortal fear of telling a lie, and in 
 their circumlocution to avoid a falsehood they generally contrived 
 to tell one. They used to say " they did n't know " when they did
 
 AUTON PECULIARITIES. 
 
 75 
 
 know, and " believed " this thing to be so when they knew all about 
 it. The whole of Auton nursery expected inevitably to die before 
 morning unless each night somebody who knew about such things 
 assured it to the contrary. <5ne evening T. Auton sent his younger 
 sister down-stairs to settle this important point for him, while he 
 awaited the verdict in his night-drawers on the top step. The com- 
 pany gathered in the " green- 
 room " were startled by seeing 
 the door open, and a little girl 
 in long white night-gown and 
 ruffled cap enter. She strode 
 solemnly up to Mother Auton 
 and in serious tones said, " T. 
 Auton wants to know if he will 
 live till morning." Everybody 
 was convulsed with laughter, 
 but it was no laughing matter 
 to the lassie who performed 
 her task with imperturbable 
 gravity, and then marched 
 back again to the shivering cul- 
 prit on the front stairs. 
 
 Children often exhibit a brilliancy of conception in the attainment 
 of their ends in view, which would bring no discredit on operations 
 of more importance, and by more experienced brains. The Auton 
 girls were forbidden to play with water because it wetted their 
 aprons and sleeves, and was spilt all over the nursery floor ; and 
 above all it gave them sore throat. This was one of Mother Au- 
 ton's inexorable commands. The question with the girls was how 
 to get round the command without disobeying the law.
 
 76 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 Up in the " baby-house," and among the dolls, " washing-day " 
 came about as regularly as it did down below in the laundry. The 
 girls said the dolls' " duds " needed to go in the tub and be ironed 
 every week, or else " their children "would look like a family of 
 emigrants." 
 
 Now A. Auton was a motherly girl, and " took " naturally to 
 babies and their habits, and knew just the best way of " playing 
 paper-dolls." It seemed to her indispensable that her children's 
 dresses should be washed, yet how could she do it without water ? 
 So the little girl sat down and thought and thought, and after long 
 
 deliberation she 
 concluded that 
 she would 
 " chew-out " the 
 weekly wash, 
 piece by piece. 
 In that way her 
 mother would 
 not be disobeyed, 
 yet her doll-chil- 
 dren would be 
 kept decent. So 
 every Monday 
 morning while 
 Rosannah was 
 
 washing in the laundry she sat up at the baby-house window and 
 chewed and chewed her little dresses until her tiny jaws grew 
 weary, and her salivary glands refused to perform their office. One 
 dotted muslin tried her powers the most. It took more time and
 
 AUTON PECULIARITIES. 77 
 
 more chew to make that gown tidy than all the rest of the wash. 
 I believe if she had swallowed what her little teeth ground out of 
 that dotted muslin it would have killed her, but an open window 
 into the yard provided a means of escape from this danger. Dear 
 little mother !
 
 CHAPTER TENTH. 
 
 AUTON KITCHEN. 
 
 T the risk of making a trite remark I will ob- 
 serve that the advent of spring gives me de- 
 lightful emotions. The swelling buds cause a 
 corresponding expansion of heart. The first 
 sight of a robin tilting his tail and gushing 
 forth his flute note, stirs within me an ecstasy. 
 It is a delicious moment to the school-boy 
 when he can throw off his overcoat and " com- 
 forter," for the days of sore throat, and salt 
 and vinegar gargle, are numbered. Animals 
 feel just like human beings at this vernal pe- 
 riod. The cows chew their cud on the sunny 
 side of the barn with a smile on their faces, 
 and draw in great draughts of the balmy south 
 wind with half -shut eyes. The hens and roosters pick up the Easter- 
 worms and cock their heads about as if they pitied common mortals, 
 who couldn't scratch up the warm, responsive earth. The doves 
 come forth from their round holes and strut about in the sunshine, 
 while the sleek kittens commence to charm the bluebirds, out of 
 pure malice. Every opening year I renew my youth by this deli- 
 cious experience. Men become boys again when they feel thus. 
 The years that have rolled between youth and manhood are anni-
 
 AUTON KITCHEN. 
 
 79 
 
 hilated, and for the nonce we are, as we will be in eternity, with the 
 notion of time entirely discounted and blotted out of our existence. 
 
 By the recurrence of these sensations, so common to every school- 
 boy, I return again to that youthful epoch when Rosannah the 
 cook inhabited Auton kitchen. In bright bandanna and stern ebony 
 countenance she stands before me, as I used to see her, arms akimbo, 
 listening to the orders for the day. 
 
 Rosannah was cook in Auton House for nearly thirty years. She 
 wore one little thin gold ring on the third 
 finger of her well-formed, long, left hand, 
 but we never knew whether she was ever 
 married. I pity the rash youth who linked 
 his fate to hers, because she who thor- 
 oughly believed in the old adage that " too 
 many cooks spoil the broth " could surely 
 dispense with any masculine suggestions in 
 regard to the matrimonial pottage. It is 
 safe to predict that if Rosannah ever was 
 a bride it must have been for a brief and sanguinary period. She 
 was what might be termed a cross cook, but ah ! was n't she a good 
 one though ? To watch her manipulate a Rhode Island turkey 
 " going round doing good " in the bright tin-kitchen, gave one an 
 appetite for dinner. Once on the skewer and before the roaring 
 wood fire, it was a mere question of time that separated you from a 
 dish fit for the gods. With the air of an expert she opened the 
 roaster to inspect the savory process. Her dredger in one hand, and 
 long spoon in the other, she " basted " the blistering bird with the 
 flour, and poured the sputtering gravy over its magnificent breast, 
 with all the dignity of a queen. When the turkey was ready to
 
 80 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 be served a fragrant cloud enveloped it which penetrated to the 
 dining-room. The great mountain of breast was blistered and 
 browned with half an inch of aromatic dressing. No tough, yellow 
 pin-feathered legs stuck up before you, but lovely, bulging drum- 
 sticks, dripping with gravy, and folded together in peaceful satis- 
 faction. Its liver and manly gizzard were huddled together, just 
 under the sides of the home where they had lived, and a suspicion of 
 onion and sweet marjoram permeated the air in the immediate vi- 
 cinity. 
 
 Those ideal roast-turkey days took their flight when the new- 
 fashioned bakers, and ranges, and cooking stoves, stuck their ugly 
 faces into the kitchen. Anthracite coal can never charm forth the 
 subtle qualities and evanescent flavors which lurk within the " sa- 
 cred precincts " of this wonderful bird. It requires the magic heat
 
 AUTON KITCHEN. 81 
 
 of walnut and hickory to achieve this victory. An old-fashioned 
 tin-kitchen, unstinted charcoal, a fresh fore-stick, with Rosannah 
 the cook to superintend the operation, are the conditions which 
 unlock the secret. What modern civilization is to the American 
 Indian, so a new-fangled range was to our old cook. The two could 
 not exist in company, so when the range entered at one door Ro- 
 sannah and the yellow-eyed cat departed by the other. And with 
 her fled the iron crane and the pot-hooks, the sooty horse-shoes and 
 the Rumford's Roaster, the great brick oven and the old tin-kitchen, 
 the biscuit baker and the Johnny-cake board. A new regime had 
 dawned upon us, and baked turkey and tasteless meats usurped the 
 places of juicy birds and " gissam " gravy. 
 
 We children had a great deal to do with Rosannah the cook. 
 Like other children our appetites were perennial, and we flocked to 
 her in troops for provender. She never would tell us what we were 
 to have for dinner. The nearest she ever came to it was, " Lare 
 overs for meddlers." Whether this expression was African for roast 
 turkey or beefsteak we never knew. We stood about her like a 
 swarm of bees, together with all the strange boys of the neighbor- 
 hood who always came into the kitchen when there was anything to 
 eat there. All hungry as bears, all famishing, all with remarkably 
 good digestions. She looked down from her sable height upon the 
 white brood beneath her. The ponderous loaf of brown bread 
 rested in her left hand. With one scoop of the knife in her right 
 she spread the whole surface with the yellow butter, with a single 
 cut the slice was severed from the parent loaf and dealt out to the 
 expectant boy, with another majestic look she repeated the opera- 
 tion until the crowd was filled. 
 
 " Now, g'long!" "Out with ye ! " she cried, "Shut the doo'," and
 
 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 the bread-and-butter brigade vanished from sight. Saturday night 
 was a busy one in Rosannah's kitchen, because the Sunday morn- 
 ing's breakfast was being prepared. This meal, on that day, had 
 been the same in Auton House for sixty years. Whatever may be 
 said concerning the indigestibility of hot Indian pudding and baked 
 beans, fish-balls, and brown bread, it is a fact that the Autons 
 thrived on this diet. 
 
 But in order that these toothsome delicacies should become harm- 
 less, it was quite necessary that they be laid away in the hot brick 
 oven during Saturday night to steam and simmer until the bells for 
 Sunday-school commenced ringing in the morning. 
 
 The crackling flames of a dry wood fire licked and hugged the red 
 sloping sides of the brick oven into a white heat. Rosannah stood 
 ready to remove with tongs and hod the larger embers, and with 
 the old turkey wing to spread an even layer of hot ashes over the 
 brick bottom to prevent the precious viands from burning. 
 
 First, came the Indian pudding. This was set on the broad iron 
 shovel and pushed to its position in the farthest corner of the oven. 
 Then followed the brown bread which took its place on the right 
 of its sweet relative, and last of all the beans. A delicate slice of 
 choice pork just peeked over the rim of the dish as if to say, " Au 
 revoir mes amis," " Au plaisir ! " Rosannah closed the oven with 
 the great iron door. Her part of the work was over. The remain- 
 der of it was to be performed by the mysterious action of those 
 subtle forces within the fiery chamber. 
 
 I must say a word about Rosannah's coffee. I know that the Ger- 
 man beverage is very palatable, unter den linden ; the French va- 
 riety is delicious after dinner at Trois freres ; the Egyptian com- 
 pound requires the aid of narghili and tarbooshe to make it tolerable,
 
 AUTON KITCHEN. 83 
 
 while the English liquid is not to be mentioned. All these are good 
 in their way, but Rosannah's coffee was perfect nectar. She burnt 
 it, and ground it, and boiled it herself, and then she settled it with 
 a fish-skin and egg-shells in the tall tin coffee-pot. 
 
 The fragrance of that " Old Government Java," while it was 
 being parched, came 'way out into the front entry. Rosannah 
 stirred the berries with one particular burnt stick, which gave it a 
 certain mysterious flavor. She always parched the coffee Saturday 
 afternoons, at the gloaming, and before the lamps were lighted. 
 
 Vi'lette Jackson usually sat by the fireside, smoking her short 
 pipe, and watching the operation. Those two weird, ebony women, 
 in bright bandannas and solemn mien, looked like witches as they 
 stirred round the fragrant compound by the flickering fire-light. 
 
 The big coffee-pot was allowed to stand a while on the warm 
 hearth to insure greater purity to its contents, then Rosannah held 
 the bright vessel aloft, one elbow on hip, and poured the dark aro- 
 matic tide by graceful curve into the vasty depths of the family 
 urn. The heater was next plunged into the bubbling caldron, and 
 Jenny carried it to the dining-room. 
 
 Rosannah seldom smiled. 
 
 Rosannah seldom talked. 
 
 Her business was to cook, and she attended to her business. On 
 washing days she had a half tumbler of spirits to keep off " rheum- 
 atiz." She wore a wadded hood and "india-rubbers" when she hung 
 out the clothes on Mondays. She was very superstitious, and be- 
 lieved that the horse-shoes she had hung on the old crane kept off 
 the witches. To see Rosannah out of the kitchen and in her best 
 bonnet, you would never recognize her. On the public streets her 
 countenance wore a sad and depressed expression. She was out of
 
 84 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 her element there ; but once in her kitchen, with a fresh bandanna 
 about her head, and she was " monarch of all she surveyed." 
 
 Father Auton being quite epicurean in his taste, Rosannah the 
 cook and he were naturally en rapport. For she knew just how 
 long to cook his venison, and just the extra pinch of spice to put 
 in his calf's-head soup, and just the amount of brandy for his mince 
 pies. Her roast pig on Fourth of Julys would have delighted 
 Charles Lamb, and her potted-pigeon gravy was the wonder of the 
 neighborhood. When she was complimented on her success she 
 rewarded her friends by the grim apparition of a smile, which soon 
 blended again into her ordinary stoicism. 
 
 It is poor policy to moralize about cooks, but I must indulge in it 
 for a moment now. There would have been no Auton kitchen to 
 speak about if there had been no Rosanuah to go into it, and with- 
 out a kitchen Auton House could not have existed for a day, and 
 had there been no Auton House there would have been no Auton 
 family, so it seems clear that the whole autonomy of the Autons 
 depended upon the life of one good, cross old black woman. 
 
 I pity cooks. Their wages would be cheap, it seems to me, were 
 they five, times what they are. With an old-fashioned cook in a 
 family, the father and mother agree, the children are always healthy
 
 AUTON KITCHEN. 85 
 
 and hungry, and one entertains his friends with no jar or excite- 
 ment. Without such an one everybody is " at sea " at once, and 
 the whole family degenerates into a lot of quarreling tramps. A 
 good cook is a boon in disguise, even a bad one is better than none. 
 
 In those Rosannah days, your cook, your minister, and your home 
 were known quantities ; nowadays they are all just the other way. 
 Then, people were content to remain at home during the hottest 
 weather, behind the closed blinds and in cool retreat, within their 
 comfortable chambers ; now they are frantic to sit on their trunks 
 killing mosquitoes, in a closet at the top of a wooden caravansary, 
 at ten dollars per day, and say they are happy. People used to go 
 to the " Springs," in August, to drink the waters, and lived con- 
 tentedly at home the rest of the year. Nowadays, on the contrary, 
 they do quite the reverse. 
 
 Auton kitchen ran on without stopping for fifty years. Good, 
 faithful Rosannah ! She has cooked her last turkey, she has made 
 her last pie, and the secret of her seasoning departed with her. 
 With slight paraphrase, the dying words attributed to that " tired 
 old woman " would be applicable to her : 
 
 " Her last words on earth were : ' Dear friends, I am going 
 Where washing ain't done, nor starching nor sewing. 
 And everything there will be just to my wishes, 
 For where they don't eat there 's no washing of dishes. 
 I '11 be where loud anthems will always be ringing, 
 But having no voice I '11 get rid of the singing. 
 Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never, 
 For I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever.' "
 
 CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 UEER as it may seem, the Autons never hung 
 up their stockings at Christmas. They put 
 out their shoes instead. Why it was so is a 
 question, but as no Auton ever did it, no Au- 
 ton ever would. We regularly sang, how- 
 ever, Mr. Moore's " Night before Christmas," 
 and thought we had fully complied with the 
 requirements of the lines : 
 
 " The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 
 In the hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there." 
 
 Possibly this departure from the ancient rule arose from our cus- 
 tom of receiving presents after breakfast, and also that our great, 
 great, great grandmother was a French Huguenot, and preferred 
 the sabot. We only troubled Santa Glaus in the early morning for 
 a bundle of candy, and such other knickknacks as he might feel in- 
 clined to bestow. 
 
 Our boots and shoes being the chosen vessels to receive this early 
 freight, they were set on the mahogany table in the upper hall, and 
 were ranged from father's down to the eleventh Auton's in regular 
 gradation.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 87 
 
 Our big brother was expected home by the early boat, so that, 
 together with other anticipations, drove sleep from our pillows. 
 From hour to hour on the night preceding Christmas we raised 
 
 our uneasy, tumbled heads from our couches, hoping it was light 
 enough to scream out, in one word, " wishy'rmerry Christmas," but 
 somehow the sun stuck down and would n't " hurry up." But at 
 the faintest suspicion of dawn we thumped poor Deb'rah with our 
 feet to go for our shoes. Oh ! how dead with sleep that much- 
 abused nurse used to be, curled up on the edge of the bed ! Know- 
 ing that she would be called upon at a moment's notice, this model 
 guardian of babyhood always kept about her a flannel garment, 
 ready to fly at the first thump. I can remember, as if it were yes- 
 terday, just how that flannel petticoat felt to my boyish feet as I 
 pushed and pushed her, little by little, off the edge of the bed to 
 wake her up. 
 
 As the sun mounted the heavens six or eight Autons, with shoes 
 before them, sat bolt upright in bed destroying their appetites. 
 
 By eight o'clock Auton nursery was nauseated, and the bare 
 idea of breakfast was revolting. Our big brother, however, was 
 not at all excited by this exceptional state of things. He drank 
 his coffee, ate his " drop cakes " and conversed with Father Auton
 
 88 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 about the news from the metropolis as if there never was any such 
 thing as Christmas. With one leg crossed contentedly over the 
 other he read, and read, and read the morning paper until we chil- 
 dren were fairly exasperated with him. There could be no fun up- 
 stairs until he came, because Mother Auton would have waited for 
 him a whole day, if necessary, before distributing the presents. 
 
 To our great relief he joined 
 at last the noisy throng as it 
 swept like a breeze up the front 
 stairs into " mother's room." 
 
 Deb'rah's small-armed half- 
 sister " Ruby " used to say, 
 when inquiry was made con- 
 cerning her health, " that she 
 was pretty poorly," and that 
 expresses the state of Mother 
 Auton's feelings a good deal of 
 the time at that epoch. She 
 thought that each Christmas 
 would be the last one she was 
 to be with us, so that in the midst of our hilarity we always had a 
 tear in one eye. If the amount of delight which danced in our 
 expectant hearts on those Christmas mornings could have been 
 fairly put into the scales and held there long enough it would 
 have weighed down a continent. 
 
 Mother Auton went to one particular deep drawer, in one par- 
 ticular bureau, on one particular side of the room, and there, stand- 
 ing before its open mouth, with tears in her dear eyes and a trem- 
 bling in her speech, she placed in our hands the little tokens of her
 
 CHRISTMAS AT AUTON HOUSE. 89 
 
 affection, one after another, from father down to Rosannah the 
 cook, with such little speeches as : 
 
 " Accept this, my dear, as a fond token of affection from your 
 mother," etc. ; and " This silk, dear E., was the nearest I could get 
 like the one you wanted so much," etc.; or "Take this remem- 
 brance, C. Auton, from your loving mother," etc. ; and " This, my 
 darling, is a small affair, but," etc., etc., etc. And so she went down 
 the whole row, keeping us just between smiles and tears all the 
 time, until the festival was closed. Dear, dear Mother Auton ! 
 
 The remembrance of those beatific days, that mystic association 
 which clings to Christmas-tide, and the precious memories which 
 they bring to us of maternal love and noble unselfishness, have im- 
 parted strength to endure that bitter burden of disappointment and 
 death which sooner or later falls to the lot of every human creature.
 
 CHAPTER TWELFTH. 
 
 FATHER AUTON. 
 
 ]HAT boy is fortunate who has reason to be 
 proud of his father. We Anton boys were 
 lucky fellows in this respect. When people 
 told us that they knew we were " Autons " by 
 our resemblance to " our daddy," we were 
 ready to hug them with delight. At school 
 we stood prepared to fight at a moment's no- 
 tice to see whose father was the strongest. We 
 had many youthful arguments to sustain our 
 lofty estimate of his character ; for, said we, 
 " did n't he manage a bank which was broken 
 into ? " and " was n't he in the city govern- 
 ment and a visitor to the insane asylum ? " 
 and " did n't he speak to all the poor people in town, and say ' sar- 
 vant, marm,' to the women, and 'sarvant, sir,' to the men?" and 
 " did n't he carry a gold-headed cane which he thumped along the 
 sidewalks ? " and " did n't the butcher hang up venison all winter 
 for him, and then bring in great long bills in the spring, which he 
 had to turn over and over and over again before he got to the end 
 of them ? " and " did n't he indorse pretty promissory notes for 
 Cousin Ezra, and then pay up all Cousin Ezra's pretty debts for 
 him?" and "did n't he have what Mother Auton called 'a corpo-
 
 FATHER AUTON. 
 
 91 
 
 ration.' Now," reasoned we, " how could he do all these wonderful 
 things and have all these wonderful traits unless he was a wonder- 
 ful man ? " The fact was self-evident. 
 
 I remember so well that delicate suspicion of tobacco which lin- 
 gered about his hands, and which we used to sniff whenever he 
 played with us : " Barber ! barber ! shaved a mason," or boxed our 
 ears in earnest ; on these latter occasions his great hands weighed 
 a ton, and for that reason we begged Mother Auton to do all the 
 family castigation it was so short and soon over. 
 
 In those days Father Auton 
 went to market early every 
 morning with his basket on 
 his arm, often accompanied 
 by some of his " boys." He 
 sauntered about from cart to 
 cart inspecting the fresh and 
 tempting merchandise hi the 
 
 cool morning air. 
 
 It was quite a blow to 
 youthful pride, sometimes, to 
 be sent home from the butch- 
 er's wagon with a big cock- 
 turkey dangling between one's 
 legs, and its gorgeous tail 
 spreading its ample plumage 
 before one like a fan. Father Auton chuckled to himself when he 
 practiced this little joke upon his " rising " sons. It is proper, how- 
 ever, to remark that this duty was never shirked, but with cane and 
 kids in one hand, and cock-turkey in the other, the " rising son,"
 
 92 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 bowing and scraping to the friends who met him, triumphantly car- 
 ried the dangling monster safely through the main streets, and laid 
 his yellow carcase in Auton kitchen. In those days all the black- 
 berries and huckle-berries were peddled from house to house. Fa- 
 ther Auton used to go out to the farmer's wagon without his hat, 
 and inspect the coal-black fruit which lay before him in half-bushel 
 measures instead of scanty quart boxes of the present day. In those 
 
 times it was expected that people would " try " the berries before 
 purchasing them. The way was to scoop up a little heap in the 
 palm of one's hand, and shake them up a bit to get them well to- 
 gether; then pour them down the throat like peas in a hopper. 
 Father Auton generally ended these " trials " by taking five or six 
 quarts.
 
 FATHER AUTON. 
 
 93 
 
 Auton kitchen consumed charcoal by the load. Great deep 
 baskets of it were sold at six and eight cents, and the tally used 
 to be kept on the back of the wood-house door ; one, two, three, four, 
 and then a mark across like this : *, . . L, , , .... 
 
 until the hundred and fifty baskets - -JHL iHL LThL 
 
 were deposited in the bins. Farm- 
 
 I IN 
 
 ers brought in from the country towering loads of walnut and hick- 
 ory, which they pitched over into the cobble-stoned yard of Auton 
 House, while the oxen and the old horse munched corn-stalks and 
 hay in the lane. 
 
 Every family had its own 
 wood-sawyer in those days. 
 We had ours, named " Dad- 
 dy Burns." This individual 
 was as tall as a sycamore, 
 and as red as a peony. He 
 had a bald head, and a red 
 flannel cap, which he put on 
 when he " sawed." He wore 
 a short jacket and a little flat 
 black hat. His enormous 
 trousers had nothing to mark 
 them but patches and ampli- 
 tude, while his thick cow-hide 
 shoes seemed to inclose a 
 pair of " hoofs " instead of feet. He must have been six feet and 
 a half in height. He came swaying into Auton yard like the main- 
 mast of a ship, with his saw in one hand and his horse in the other, 
 looking like a son of Anak. Daddy Burns had a grand old face, a
 
 94 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 mixture of the patriarch and the inebriate. He never laughed, but 
 lived a lonely and dignified existence far above the heads of other 
 men. 
 
 He was seldom in good spirits, but very frequently in bad ones. 
 He really loved rum for rum's sake, and his long throat made him 
 an excellent judge of it. He or some other family wood-sawyer 
 was the one who drank two large bowls of chocolate without stop- 
 ping, and then said he " did n't like choc'late." 
 
 Father Auton used to lay in the potatoes, and the turnips and 
 carrots, by the hundred bushels every winter. I seem to hear now 
 the echo of their tumbling into the big bins down cellar, as basket 
 after basket deposited its rumbling contents. " Nick Peters," "Old 
 Speywood," and " Mr. Atwood " brought to Father Auton his " Car- 
 olina-potatoes," his " soft-soap," and his " freckled pippin-apples." 
 Old Speywood was an Indian, Nick Peters was a " Portugee," and 
 Mr. Atwood was a Yankee, all very unique varieties of men. 
 Peters was short and the color of a cent ; Speywood had straight 
 black hair and high cheek bones, and when he plunged his dipper 
 into the soft-soap barrel he seemed to be on the point of giving his 
 native " war-whoop," and leaping from his wagon to " scalp " some 
 of us ; while Mr. Atwood had a perennial smile on his face not un- 
 like his pippins, and often stopped in his work to give us a golden 
 specimen out of the barrels in his cart. These men were great 
 friends with Father Auton, and well they might be, for they supplied 
 the needs of Auton House for many years at good prices. Our but- 
 ter and milk were kept fresh and cool down the well, in a tidy, un- 
 painted wooden box, which preserved these articles quite as perfectly 
 as the modern refrigerator. 
 
 The style of living in those days was simpler than the present
 
 FATHER AUTON. 95 
 
 regime, and had a corresponding influence upon the habits and 
 customs of society. Men and women lived long and slept better 
 than they do nowadays ; but it must be acknowledged that Father 
 Auton was what " our Deb'rah " called a " snorer." The " long- 
 drawn notes of his bugle," as they rose and fell on the silent sum- 
 mer air, used to startle us from our slumber during those sweltering 
 August nights when all the windows were open. On one occasion, 
 at midnight, a belated pedestrian was heard to exclaim, as he 
 stopped for a moment to listen to the stentorian notes of Father 
 Auton, " Well ! that beats the Dutch." In depth and compass 
 they surpassed the chronic concert of tree-toad and festive bull- 
 frog. 
 
 His youthful feelings, his sympathizing nature, and his love of 
 humor made Father Auton the very best of companions. It was a 
 treat to see him make a quill-pen. After scraping the proper por- 
 tion with the back of his knife-blade, he laid the nib on the nail of 
 his left thumb, and performed the operation with the air of a pro- 
 fessor. Nobody knew better than he did a chicken from a fowl, 
 and he told a story almost as well as " Uncle Josiah." In summer 
 he suffered fearfully from the heat, and used to plunge his whole 
 head in the great brass basin filled with sparkling pump-water, like 
 a Newfoundland dog, and lay his hot hands, as far as the elbows, in 
 the same refreshing element when he returned from the " office." 
 His teeth were like ivory ; and his favorite way of amusing the 
 youngsters of the family was to seize them by wrist and opposite 
 leg, swing them back and forth through the air, and then blow in 
 their faces. 
 
 Father Auton was our first teacher both in drawing and penman- 
 ship. He showed us how to make an eagle by the flourish of a pen. 
 
 I
 
 96 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 He set our first " copy " in the writing book : " Let beauty shine in 
 every line," and puzzled us by saying that p-o-t spelt tea-pot, and 
 1-o-o-t spelt elder-blow tea. 
 
 Unfortunate is the boy who loses his father before he becomes a 
 man. A symmetrical character needs the influence of both the 
 male and female natures during the critical period of youth. Nei- 
 ther the maternal nor the paternal influence alone can form a per- 
 fect character. A boy brought up entirely by the mother becomes 
 a man from a woman's point of view, and is apt to be wanting in 
 those qualities most needed in the battle with the world ; while a 
 youth who attains maturity unaided by the subtle potency of ma- 
 ternal influence is likely to possess a harsh and one-sided disposition, 
 and too often becomes tyrannical and brutal. It requires two sensi- 
 ble persons, a man and a woman, to round out and perfect the 
 manly character. Some wise-acre has remarked that " It is easy 
 enough to get another wife, but where on earth can you get an- 
 other mother ? " This axiom can be matched by what old Aunt 
 Katy (the black ironer of Auton kitchen) said one day, when the 
 conversation turned upon the merits of Father Auton : 
 
 " 'T ain't no use talkin' ; I would n't giv' nuffin' for these 'ere 
 step-faders ! Callin' a man ' fader ' don't make him fader, does n't 
 it ? Brack or white, a chile wid'out a fresh and bloody fader ain't 
 got no show 't all, honey ! "
 
 "A CHILD is father to the man." His character resembles a kernel 
 of corn possessing great possibilities, which depend upon the acci- 
 dents of soil, sunshine, and rain, to develop into a harvest. There 
 is something subtle and intangible in a boy's nature, which makes 
 him walk and talk like his father when he grows up, no matter if 
 he be nurtured on the plains of Arabia, or fed on missionaries in the 
 South Sea islands. We are the same creatures in old age that we 
 are in youth, plus a few cares and anxieties, losses and disappoint- 
 ments which have been put upon us in the journey of life, weighing 
 us down like heavy garments. Although it is true that to eat of 
 the tree of knowledge is to cease being a brute and commence 
 being an angel, still it is the acquirement of that same knowledge 
 which causes our bitterest tears to flow, and furrows up our brows 
 with care. 
 
 A little extra knowledge which we gamed at ten years is what 
 
 7
 
 98 RECOLLECTIONS OF AUTON HOUSE. 
 
 killed " Santa Glaus " forever, and stopped up one avenue of the 
 keenest joy. It is nothing but increased intelligence which prevents 
 us in our manhood from indulging with zest in the sports of our 
 youth. For instance, nowadays, after we have gone through the 
 operation of " winding up " and " pegging down " our top in the 
 ring, say eight times running, our improved minds tell us that we 
 have " extracted all the juice out of that lemon," and there is 
 nothing more to express, thereby spoiling all our fun in that direc- 
 tion forever. How true it is that " where ignorance is bliss 't is folly 
 to be wise." Boyhood is the age of anticipation, which, again, 
 knowledge and experience ruin and dissipate forever. Take, for 
 example, the ecstasy of lying awake on Friday nights " contem- 
 plating the coming " joys of Saturday. There is no pleasure equal 
 to it. The real bliss of our holiday, when it actually arrived, did 
 not compare with the ideal presentment of it; indeed, it was no 
 pleasure at all if it had happened to be a rainy day, and this pleas- 
 ure consisted in our want of knowledge of the true facts of the 
 case. Youthful disappointments, too, are easily " discounted," and 
 in that unsuspecting era, having no knowledge, we recovered from 
 them as easily as we did when we " bark'd our shins." 
 
 There are many occasions in maturity when a man's feelings are 
 identical with those of his boyhood. I remember how I disliked 
 strangers and fled from their society, how I hated to be questioned, 
 and shrank from exerting myself where I was unacquainted, and 
 how unpleasant it used to be when called from the play-ground into 
 the drawing-room of Auton House, to be asked my name, and if I 
 could < k spell cat," etc. I smile to myself nowadays when I think 
 how little I am changed from that early period. For instance, when 
 I enter a modern ball-room and see before me the spacious apart-
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 99 
 
 ments redolent with the fragrance of flowers, the air palpitating 
 with inspiring music, polychrome-women and neatly attired men 
 parading through the lighted vistas, the buzz of conversation filling 
 the ear, and the potent charm which refinement imparts, putting a 
 spell upon me, I don't know whether to go in and sit down, or go 
 out and stand up. I am impatient if I am talking with one person 
 to leave him and go and talk to another. I desire to flee away. I 
 feel a mad impulse to break from my dearest friend and rush up- 
 stairs, down-stairs, anywhere but remain quiet where I am. It is 
 the identical feeling that used to possess me on those nights when 
 Deb'rah dressed me up in my new " Aunt-Nancy-Miller suit," for 
 one of Mother Auton's parties, and with wild eyes (like the " wan- 
 dering Jew " impelled along by the invisible command, " Marchez!" 
 " marchez!") I flew from the top of the house to the kitchen until 
 the party was over, and the smoke from the sputtering candles filled 
 the darkened apartments. Could we only throw off our experiences, 
 one by one, as we do our garments, we should at last become like 
 little children again. The successive layers of care and trouble, 
 which fall to the lot of everybody, obliterate the boyish character 
 and bury the youthful heart beneath their gravity and ugliness. 
 We only realize that, underneath it all, there still exists, 'way down 
 below, a perennial fount of youth, which old age cannot quench, 
 nor disease quite dry up, and which it is possible to hear whenever 
 we pause long enough on the dusty thoroughfare of life to listen to 
 the merry murmur of its waters.