THE >IEW HARRY 
 AND LUCY 
 
 ^ -A STORY OF 
 f THE BOSTON 
 
 OF ODAY
 

 
 THE 
 
 NEW HARRY AND LUCY 
 
 A STORY OF BOSTON IN THE 
 SUMMER OF 1891 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE 
 
 AND 
 
 LUCRETIA P. HALE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 1892
 
 Copyright, 1891, 
 BY COMMONWEALTH PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 'T~~ V HE patent laws of the United States and of 
 -*- most other countries require that a person 
 who offers an invention as new to the examiners 
 in the Patent Office shall state first what he does 
 not claim and then what he does claim. That is, 
 the inventor is made to say : " I do not claim the 
 invention of carrying passengers by steam ; that 
 invention has been made already. I do claim that 
 I have made such or such a change in the applica 
 tion of steam-power." 
 
 As we submit this book for the approval of the 
 examining committee of that body of a million 
 persons, more or less, who read books in America, 
 it is our duty to make a similar announcement. 
 It is perhaps called a caveat. First, then, as to 
 what we do not claim. We do not claim that the 
 title "Harry and Lucy" is new. Although most 
 of the present generation have forgotten the fact, 
 nevertheless it is true, as the bewildered parson 
 said, that Miss Edge worth used the name " Harry
 
 j v PREFACE. 
 
 and Lucy " as the title of one of her more success 
 ful books for children. This book began " Harry 
 was brother to Lucy, and Lucy was sister to 
 Harry;" and it described their training, apart 
 and together, until, at the end of it, they were 
 both well up in the methods then employed in 
 the steam-engine. Neither do we claim as our 
 own the union of two persons named " Sandford " 
 and "Merton" in the same book. That device 
 had already been attempted by an author named 
 Thomas Day, a friend, if anybody cares, of this 
 same Miss Edgeworth. Her father had undoubt 
 edly conferred with Thomas Day on the subject 
 of " Sandford and Merton," and certain quotations 
 from the original " Sandford and Merton " will 
 be found in the original " Harry and Lucy." 
 From the ideas of Miss Edgeworth and Thomas 
 Day the authors of this book have profited, but 
 they disclaim any wish to include them under 
 the copyright of this volume, or to assume credit 
 for them in any other form. What we 
 
 Claim 
 
 is that, with the facility of a promptly printed 
 weekly newspaper, we have been able, in this story, 
 to relate the experiences of the hero and the heroine, 
 as those experiences passed. We have had the 
 advantage, which most novelists do not have, of 
 letting the plan of the book, so far as there is any,
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 develop itself from week to week, almost from 
 hour to hour. The novelist is generally embar 
 rassed because he knows at the beginning of his 
 story how it is going to turn out. We did not 
 suffer under such embarrassment, because when we 
 began this story we did not know but that Boston 
 might be burned up, and every Harry and Lucy in 
 it, before the summer was over. Our hero and 
 heroine, therefore, go on their way unconsciously 
 from week to week. They record their own ex 
 periences, and the reader is therefore as much at a 
 loss as they are themselves, as to the goal to which 
 those experiences shall lead them. 
 
 We venture the farther remark, and we hope it 
 does not savor of vanity, that whatever the recep 
 tion which the critics of to-day may give to this 
 book, it is a book of that class which, as Abraham 
 Lincoln once said, " people who like that sort of 
 book will read with satisfaction " two hundred years 
 hence, if by good fortune a copy be preserved in 
 the public library. The critical student of Anne 
 Hutchinson or Thomas Dudley or John Winthrop 
 to-day would be delighted if some boy or girl of 
 1635, 1636, and 1637 had condescended to leave 
 for us any such statement of the methods of daily 
 life in the peninsular then known as " Lost Town." 
 To the young, it may be said that this is the Boston 
 of to-day.
 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 To the dull reader, supposing that there were 
 such who bought books with the imprint of our 
 publishers, it may be added that the several chap 
 ters of this book appeared in successive numbers of 
 the BOSTON COMMONWEALTH, within a few days of 
 the dates which appear in the several chapters. The 
 book, therefore, is really a contemporaneous picture 
 of the life of Boston in the summer and autumn 
 of 1891. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
 LUCRETIA P. HALE. 
 ROIBURT, MASS. 
 
 Feb. 13, 1892.
 
 THE 
 
 NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTEE FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 HAKRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, June 2, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, When I wrote you my hasty 
 cards last Sunday and the week before, I told you 
 that there was no moment for writing. The fat was 
 in the fire indeed ; and I assure you that I have had 
 to hop about, or to fly around, as you never saw a 
 sausage in your frying-pan. 
 
 The first intimation of a change at Leeds canie to 
 us on Saturday morning, a week ago. Our Mr. Cod- 
 dington came back from New York, where there had 
 been a great meeting of the corporation. I do not 
 think he had been snubbed, and yet I do not think 
 he had had exactly his own way ; but it was none 
 of my business to ask. He sent for us at once, me 
 and Mr. Clarke, and said that, though he did not 
 know anything about it and must not tell any secrets, 
 it was quite possible that the whole of the treasurer's 
 office might be moved from Leeds to Boston. You 
 see it is quite possible that Mr. Coddington himself 
 will be chosen vice-president of the company, instead
 
 2 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 of being treasurer. In that case, there is a Boston 
 man whose name I must not mention to you, who 
 will be chosen treasurer, and he will want to have the 
 office in Boston, instead of having it at Leeds. This 
 means that the whole kit of us chief clerks, sec 
 ond clerks, little clerks, cashiers, typewriters, and 
 stenographers, down to Mike who blacks the stove 
 will all have to move to Boston. And we shall have 
 to move in pretty short metre too ; for all this is to 
 be determined at the great stockholders' meeting, 
 which will take place sometime as the summer goes 
 by, I do not know just when. 
 
 Of course at the last moment they may tip out our 
 whole crowd with proxies ; but I do not think they 
 will. I have heard that proxy talk for a good many 
 years, and have come to be confident. 
 
 So what this means to you and me is that I have 
 been sent down here to see at what place the new 
 man, whom I must not name, would like to have the 
 office ; and to inquire, for the benefit of the others, about 
 hiring rooms and houses, and how we are all to live. 
 You will not be surprised to know that, on the whole, 
 all the men like to go to Boston. We do not know 
 anything about Boston in the office ; but we all pre 
 tend to, and there is hardly one of us who has not 
 an old friend or a cousin here. I cannot help think 
 ing myself that it will make my letters to you more 
 interesting. You ought by this time to know every 
 caterpillar on the sidewalk at Leeds, for I am sure 
 I have written them all up for your benefit. 
 
 But this is simply to tell you that I am here. I 
 do not call it a letter. I will try to write you a letter, 
 however, before I go away.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 II. 
 
 HIS MOTHEE TO HARKY. 
 
 ATHERTON, June 4. 
 
 MY DEAR BOY, It is wonderful that you should 
 be in Boston. Do not forget your father's cousin, old 
 Miss Tryphena Dexter. I have no idea where she 
 lives ; but she goes to Dr. Gordon's church, or did go 
 there. It will please her more than I can tell for you 
 to go and see her. 
 
 Thank you for writing never so little. 
 
 Your poor old MOTHER. 
 
 III. 
 
 ' HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, June 10, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I wrote you with a beastly 
 pen, and ink that I had made myself by pouring 
 water into an inkstand, a short letter, which I am 
 afraid you could not read. Since I wrote that, I have 
 seen some very good-natured people who print a news 
 paper here. They have agreed, for a consideration, 
 to put all my letters to you in this nice type in which 
 you will read this, so that I shall not have to give 
 you the new spectacles which I promised you. You 
 must not be troubled about the letters being in print. 
 I never tell you any lies, and nobody will know who 
 it is. I do not see why anybody else should take the 
 trouble to read the letters ; but if they do they may, 
 as far as I am concerned, and I do not think it will 
 hurt them. 
 
 If the newspaper people are satisfied, that is all 
 you and I need care for. 
 
 Dear mother, you know how I hate to write, and
 
 4 ' THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 by doing this I get the great advantage that I need 
 write only to you, and do not have to get up a lot 
 of scrub side-letters to send to my other correspond 
 ents. Tor all I have to do is to fold up one of these 
 newspapers, and send it to Jerry, or to Mr. Wilder, 
 or to Kansas City, and the thing is done. I am sure 
 I would rather pay rive cents for a good printed copy 
 of my letter and a cent for postage than write another 
 letter any day. This will show you that I feel pros 
 perous, and that I am happy. 
 
 Now, as I said, I have a chance to tell you some 
 thing about Boston. Who was it you used to read 
 me the verses that said, when he went to Rome, 
 he thought Home was going to be the same place as 
 his own village made bigger? I believe it was 
 thought best to laugh at this old sachem, whoever 
 he was ; but I am rather in the mood to think that 
 Boston is only Leeds under a magnifying-glass. Any 
 way, I could have sworn that the piece of steak they 
 put on my plate this morning was the same piece I 
 ate at Mrs. Williams's the morning I came away, if 
 only I had not inwardly digested that beforehand. 
 I wish I knew whether these funny oval bits of steak 
 which they give you at such places were made of 
 horse or ox ; but I don't know. 
 
 I have been inquiring a good deal about boarding- 
 places ; but I will not bother you with all that. First 
 of all, I desire to tell you about my visit to your old 
 friend ; only it turned out that she had hardly seen 
 you, and was not your old friend at all. I went to 
 Dr. Gordon the evening that I got your note. He 
 was very civil and nice, but knew nothing about it. 
 He looked on his indexes and in his visiting-list, and 
 it was clear that he had never heard of this Tryphena 
 Dexter. Indeed, as he said, Tryphena was not a 
 name to forget. But then he said there was another
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 5 
 
 Dr. Gordon, and I went to him, a nice, cheerful man, 
 whom I know I shall like ; and I am rather glad that 
 you gave me the introduction to both of them, for 
 they were very cordial, and I felt as if I had made 
 two friends in Boston. The new Dr. Gordon knew 
 all about Tryphena Dexter, although she does not go 
 to his church, and has not been there for twenty 
 years. But she has near friends in a church which 
 took off some members of their church when it was 
 founded. So he sent me to one of their deacons, and 
 he gave me Tryphena Dexter's address ; and the next 
 afternoon I went there. 
 
 I do not know how you thought she was living, or 
 how anybody in Atherton thinks she is living, or 
 whether anybody in Atherton cares anything about 
 her. And I do not mean to say that the old lady is 
 not very comfortable where she is ; but I confess, as 
 I went up three flights of stairs to find her, I hoped 
 that her knees and legs were better than mine. How 
 ever, when I came there, she was, as you say, im 
 mensely pleased to see me, and I now feel as if I had 
 six friends in Boston. First, our treasurer, who is to 
 be here; second, Mr. Henry Waldron Curtis, whose 
 rooms we are or are not to occupy ; third, Mr. Good 
 rich, the editor of " The Commonwealth ; " fourth, 
 Dr. Gordon No. 1 ; fifth, Dr. Gordon No. 2 ; and this 
 makes six for Miss Tryphena Dexter. She is wise 
 beyond account, she is very sententious, and I am 
 quite clear that an occasional visit to her will give 
 me a new view of life. 
 
 To tell you the truth, when you gave me her name, 
 I supposed I was going to see one of the A 1 Boston 
 ladies, who do not know of the existence of anything 
 five miles out of this town ; and the reason I followed 
 her up so closely was that I thought she could tell 
 me of some quiet place where they would like to have
 
 6 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 me come and board. But it is quite a different affair. 
 I found a nice old lady, for lady she is, who is 
 living along, I fancy, on some very small quarterly 
 dividends of some stocks which have not panned out 
 as well as could be wished, who is on the books of 
 some needlewomen's society or other, and still has 
 eyesight enough to do firstrate needle-work, and earns 
 a few dollars a week by doing so. She is what you 
 and I would call very poor ; but she does not think 
 she is. Her position is so entirely better than that 
 of the people around her that she considers herself to 
 be quite a Lady Bountiful to them. 
 
 Fortunately for me, she was not at all deaf. You 
 know I hate deaf people. I always think that they 
 hear when they want to, and don't hear when they don't 
 want to, and I am by no means sure that I am not 
 right. But fortunately she was not deaf at all. It 
 took me a good while to explain who I was and why 
 I was here. But then she knew all about father and 
 you, though she did not seem to have a very distinct 
 personal recollection of you, and I rather think her 
 last memory of you was when you were held in your 
 father's arms the day you were christened. All the 
 same, she told me more genealogy than I have heard 
 since I was born, and begged me to come again. 
 
 Of all this I must wait to tell you till I come home 
 only that she is funny beyond words. Her pride 
 about Boston is such as I had not dreamed of. I 
 should have thought she was a Champernoon and an 
 Otis and a Winthrop all rolled into one. I do not 
 know whether she thought it would wound me or not, 
 but, with the greatest asperity, she said once or twice, 
 " Country folks is fools." I hope that I rated as one 
 born in cities from having lived in Leeds for the last 
 two years. Certainly she had not any condescension 
 toward me. On the other hand I thought she was
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 7 
 
 rather flattered to have a fine young gentleman " wait 
 ing on her," as she said. 
 
 She is a sort of magistrate, I should think, of the 
 whole court, which is a little narrow crack, of houses 
 five stories high, where the sun never comes in. I 
 could tell you the gossip of fifty or sixty families 
 there, who, according to her, come up to be shrived 
 and brought out of their scrapes. So you need not be 
 afraid, my dear mother, that if I should be picked up 
 by the police in the night, drunk in the gutter, or if 
 should be suspected of stealing a pocket handkerchief 
 at Hovey's, I should be found friendless in this great 
 city. For my dear Miss Tryphena will appear, either 
 at the police station or at the municipal court, and will 
 pull me through. She was eager that I should under 
 stand how experienced she was in all city ways. The 
 only mistake she confessed to was going up to the 
 sixth story at Jordan and Marsh's in the "refrigera 
 tor," when she should have known that the stockings 
 she wanted to buy were at the first story or the second. 
 She was a little anxious to know what church I should 
 attend, and offered me a seat with her. And when I 
 told her that William was going to take me round to 
 hear Mr. Haynes on Sunday morning, she expressed 
 herself grimly as if only partly satisfied. 
 
 Mr. Haynes, you see, was in Tremont Temple, which 
 is, I believe, the largest congregation in Boston, and 
 he is now in the People's Church, which is only not so 
 large, so that the fame of both these branches of the 
 vine had come to Miss Tryphena's ears. 
 
 Briefly, my dear mother, I love her and she loves 
 me, and I am very much obliged to you for making 
 me go there. 
 
 Now let me tell you something that is even more 
 interesting. It was clear enough yesterday that I was 
 of no use to the firm, and I had the afternoon for my-
 
 8 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 self. The day was as beautiful as a June day can be, 
 and, at William's suggestion, I took it for a country 
 spree. As far as I can see, Boston people have really 
 a better command of country life, I will not say than 
 you have in Atherton, but certainly than we had in 
 Leeds. The country around Leeds is just as beautiful 
 as the country around here, but at Leeds we do not 
 have a train going somewhere every five minutes, or 
 if there is no train, a steamboat. Anyway, I was told 
 to go to Columbus Avenue, and take my ticket to 
 Wellesley, and then to follow my hand, or, as it says 
 in Eollo, do as the rest do. I hunted up George Car- 
 ruthers, and made him go with me, but he did not 
 know any more about the place than I did. Wellesley 
 is, I should think, fifteen miles from Boston. When 
 we left the cars, there was a bevy of girls, twenty or 
 thirty I should think, who were on their way to 
 Wellesley College; but with that, of course, we had 
 nothing to do. I could not have got in if I had been 
 a girl, because I could not pass the examinations ; and 
 I was not a girl. But the barge which carries girls to 
 the college goes on, for any loafers like us, who want 
 to see the Hunnewell grounds. 
 
 Now please to understand what the Hunnewell 
 grounds are. This Mr. Hunnewell seems to be a 
 friendly gentleman who wants to be of use to all the 
 world. Anyway, he has laid out the most magnificent 
 place I ever heard of or dreamed of, so far as I can 
 see for the benefit of all mankind. There was a pretty 
 porter's lodge at the entrance, but I saw no porter nor 
 anybody else to hinder admission. I was told by a 
 friendly man whom I met that anybody might go in 
 and walk about and enjoy everything here, but that 
 people might not carry in lunch baskets. I suppose 
 Mr. Hunnewell has the same horror of orange peel 
 and papers in his woods that I have of seeing the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND UCY. 9 
 
 same things anywhere when I am out in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 First of all, we came to the azalea tent. I never 
 dreamed of such beauty' of color, and was all the time 
 wishing that you were there, you know so much more 
 about these things than I do, and you would have 
 known how to dilate with the right emotion. There 
 were seats in the tent for anybody to sit in, and there 
 were all sorts and conditions of men, nice little chil 
 dren, and one old fellow in a white necktie, who was, 
 I thought, a doctor of divinity. Outside the tent were 
 great tufts of native azaleas or rather, azaleas which 
 will grow in the open air. George said some of them 
 were from the Himalayas, and I dare say they were. 
 It occurs to me now that you may have seen a part of 
 this collection when you went on to Philadelphia, for 
 this very gentleman was at the pains to establish an 
 azalea and rhododendron exhibition at the time of 
 the Centennial. 
 
 Outside the tent we walked and walked. We 
 came to an Italian garden, where they have those 
 queer trimmed trees that you see pictures of in the 
 books and that you read about in the old English 
 novels. Below this is a great pond, which I believe is 
 dignified by the name of Waban Lake, and on the 
 other side we could see the girls' college, with their 
 boats. In another place there is a rhododendron 
 house, with as large variety of color and blossom as 
 there is among the azaleas. And I am not sure but I 
 was most pleased of all with the wealth of native 
 wild flowers, such things as I have read about in 
 Gray and as I have heard you talk about, but as I 
 never saw before. Don't you remember how you tried to 
 make me find the elegant lady's slipper, the white and 
 pink one, up in Vermont, and that I could not find it ? 
 Here they were growing just as if they were at home.
 
 10 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 In short, dear mother, it is a place that would drive 
 you nearly crazy, so perhaps it is as well that you did 
 not go. But I could not help thinking what a good 
 fad it is for a man to have ! One man has boats, one 
 man has horses, and here is somebody who is willing 
 to lay out two or three hundred acres I do not know 
 how many in the most beautiful fashion, and just 
 throw them open for the world to enjoy, so long as the 
 world will enjoy them without doing them any harm. 
 That is what your parson would call the twentieth 
 century, I am sure. 
 
 As we came back another thing turned up which 
 makes me more sure that Boston must be a comfort 
 able place to live in than anything I had seen. The 
 train stopped at a place called Riverside and took on 
 a car that was waiting there. We had not good seats, 
 so we went back. There were sixty or eighty people, 
 some with great bunches of wild flowers, and all with 
 some token that they had been in the country. George 
 fell into talk with a. lady whom he knew, and it 
 turned up that they had all been up to Riverside, 
 where I had noticed great fleets of boats on both 
 sides of the bridge, and these boats are for anybody 
 who chooses to use them " to the extent of sixpence." 
 
 So, if you can get an afternoon off, you can ride up 
 to Riverside in twenty minutes, hire a canoe or a boat 
 or anything else you want, and go paddling or rowing 
 up or down this pretty river. Judging from what we 
 saw, plenty of people have found this out and availed 
 themselves of it. One of the ladies said that the 
 Waltham people do the same thing. That is the place 
 where they make the watches. There are boat-houses 
 there, and they come up the river, as people from 
 Riverside go down. 
 
 Now all this is different, of course, from harnessing 
 up the horse and riding over to Cat Head or to Purga-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 11 
 
 tory, as we do at home. But it has its advantages, as 
 you see. You make as big a party as you want, or as 
 small. You go off at a minute's notice, and these 
 people have to keep the boats waiting for you all the 
 time. You do not find that the last rain has filled them 
 full of water, you do not have to sponge them, and 
 you do not have to go up to Mrs. Edwards' s for the 
 oars. 
 
 I must leave till my next letter the account of my 
 boarding-place, which is on the whole so comfortable 
 that I think I shall tell Mrs. Metcalf that I will en 
 gage rooms for the winter if we come. She is glad to 
 know what the chances are, for at this season all her 
 boarders go off into the country, and she, poor soul, is 
 left lamenting ; and even a half chance at a " regular " 
 in the autumn is better than nothing. I have hardly 
 made any acquaintance with the people who are there. 
 Now I will only say that it seems to be a decent 
 place, and that, if I have tolerable luck, I shall not 
 be uncomfortable. You know perfectly well that I 
 shall never be as comfortable anywhere as I am at 
 home. 
 
 What will interest you more is to know about my ex 
 perience at the People's Church. I had seen it as I 
 passed by, but I need not say I was an entire stranger 
 there. It stands just in the middle of Boston, though 
 the Boston people do not know this ; they think it 
 is a good deal out of the way. But it is really on the 
 corner of two of the principal streets, by which I 
 mean the streets that most people pass through. It 
 was built a few years ago by a sort of general contri 
 bution among the Methodists, that they might have a 
 church for everybody to go to, such people as me, 
 for instance, and it seems to me that I shall rather 
 like it. This corner that I tell you of, of the two 
 great streets, is interesting in a way. On one corner
 
 12 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 is a Presbyterian church. They told me it was Dr. 
 Dunn's, he is the famous Committee of One Hun 
 dred man, but there is another name on the sign ; 
 for we have signs on the churches here, so that people 
 need not hear a Baptist minister by mistake when 
 they think they are hearing a Universalist. On an 
 other corner is our People's Church. On another is a 
 great building going up for the Youth's Companion ; 
 so you can tell Tom that I can get him his numbers 
 very early as I come out of church. It seems to me 
 there ought to be a public building on the other corner, 
 but if there is I have forgotten it. When you get into 
 the church, it does not look like any church that I was 
 ever in before ; the seats are in semicircles, and rise 
 exactly as they do at the theatre, and there is one 
 great gallery. The windows are of stained glass, but 
 the place is not inconveniently dark. There is a great 
 large platform so that the speaker could walk about 
 as much as he wanted to. But Mr. Haynes is not 
 much that kind, and did not do a great deal in that 
 way. I took some notes of the sermon, which perhaps 
 I will write out for you some day, but just now I will 
 only say that the whole thing was cheerful, everybody 
 was cordial, and I was very glad I was there. 
 
 In the afternoon Carruthers had had enough church- 
 going. But I went to hear the new Bishop. You 
 know you always said we should not go to church to 
 hear preaching, but to worship God. I was not pun 
 ished, however. Mr. Brooks did not preach, but a 
 nice, manly fellow named Eoberts did. I should be 
 glad to see and hear more of him. The church is all 
 you said. 
 
 On the whole, dear mother, I am quite clear that I 
 shall not find the time hang heavy in Boston. I do 
 not want you to feel that I am in the midst of lions 
 and tigers, or serpents and scorpions. The people are
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 13 
 
 very much, like the people that you and I are used to. 
 They do put their heads forward in the streets a little 
 more than I think is good for them. They are all in 
 a terrible hurry for fear they should miss their trains. 
 There is a slight expression of anxiety on their faces 
 when you stop them to ask the way, as if they were 
 afraid they might lose some important appointment. 
 But these are mere tricks of manner, and I shall soon 
 get used to them. On the other hand, they are per 
 fectly cordial to strangers, they are entirely satisfied 
 with the place they live in, and if they resent a little 
 the intimation that there is any other place in the 
 world, that is much the same as you find anywhere. 
 I know a man in Leeds who is sure that Leeds is the 
 hub of the universe, and I think you may recollect 
 one or two of our neighbors who think the same thing 
 of Atherton.
 
 14 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 IV. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, June 20, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I do not see how you could 
 have expected any letter from me before now, as you 
 sent me no mention of your whereabouts, and you 
 gave me no address ; you only told me you were not 
 going to stay at Denver. However, I will confess 
 that I have not had a minute's time to write. How 
 could I find it, in my first week in Boston ? So I 
 contented myself with sending you that message by 
 Caroline, trusting that she will have told you how we 
 all met at the Graduating Exercises, and how she car 
 ried me all over the Technology Building. But that 
 was on Tuesday, and, my dear, on Thursday I was 
 to present myself for " registration " and the entrance 
 examinations for the University! So you can ima 
 gine that I did not really have my senses, that day, 
 nor the next, nor all that week, indeed. 
 
 And perhaps Carrie told you how I was staying at 
 Aunt Martha's, and how kind they all are to me. 
 You know she is not really my aunt, but an old friend 
 of my mother's ; and they are so hospitable, and 
 would like to have me stay on with them next winter 
 and all through my University work, so they say. 
 But my family don't like the idea, and I don't, of my 
 being dependent upon them. Besides, they always 
 have their house full anyhow, and perhaps Jane 
 comes on from the West next winter, with all her
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 15 
 
 children ; but they all say they would find room for me. 
 There is so much going on in the house, however, 
 that it is quite bewildering, everybody says this is 
 the Boston way, and I am afraid I should not easily 
 find time for study, so I resist all entreaties to stay. 
 But it has been very good here for these few weeks ; 
 only I am sure it is not a picture of my Boston as 
 it is to be. 
 
 I hope it is not ! It is all quite too confusing. Yes, 
 Graduating Exercises at the Technology Tuesday af 
 ternoon, and Boston University Graduating Exercises 
 Wednesday afternoon, my examinations Thursday. 
 
 I ought to go back and talk more about Tuesday. 
 I got in late, but succeeded in joining Carrie and the 
 others; and how we talked over last summer, and 
 of how little we expected then all to meet here in 
 Boston! But I determined to write you about a 
 lovely dress a girl had on, who sat near me, because 
 she reminded me of you ; and it was so sweet, the 
 dress, a lilac, soft material, that would be so becom 
 ing to you, some kind of woollen ; I wished I could 
 ask her for a pattern ! Plaited ruffles up from the 
 waist, and round the neck ; and such a pretty hat ! 
 and fan with lilac flowers on it; gray gloves fitting 
 perfect ! Can't you see her ? 
 
 Aunt Martha wanted me to go that afternoon to 
 the Tremont Temple to see the exhibition of the 
 Blind Institution. It was so touching and lovely 
 as she told about it, and the chance to see Helen 
 Keller ! Just think of her describing scenes in 
 geography, and of her wondering "what Romulus 
 would say if he came back to Rome to-day ! " Well, 
 one can't do all things ; and this would always be the 
 way if I stayed on in this house, I should have so 
 many things distracting me I should be in a flutter 
 of excitement as to which I ought to do. You see
 
 16 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 I can't help going over the pros and cons with you; 
 for, besides my examinations, what I came up to Bos 
 ton for was to plan out my next winter's life, a 
 very sober one, as I laid it out on a very economical 
 plan ; but I won't discuss it now. 
 
 Wednesday afternoon, the Graduating Exercises of 
 "my" Boston University; and what do you think, 
 that evening Cousin Rupert insisted upon my going 
 with him to the theatre ! In the midst of it all, with 
 my examinations hanging over me for the next day ! 
 
 I had planned doing a little studying that evening 
 in a little room that opens out of the library here, so 
 quiet, and where Aunt Martha said I might have my 
 books all to myself. 
 
 Of course, it was foolish to think I could do any 
 thing more with my preparation for the next day's 
 work ; but I did want to look at my Algebra, and I 
 thought it would calm me to read a little Cicero ! 
 
 But Aunt Martha and all of them insisted I had 
 better join the theatre party ; and oh, it was lovely, 
 Shakspeare, my dear ! " Love's Labor Lost ; " 
 and Cousin Rupert had so much to tell about its be 
 ing one of Shakspeare's earliest plays, and how you 
 could trace the characters that appear afterward in 
 later plays, more complete ; and it all seemed very 
 instructive, and Miss Rehan was lovely, and Rosaline ! 
 Somehow, they did take me out of my day's expe 
 riences, and of my to-morrow's fears ! 
 
 You see it had been rather a day ! I started o t 
 by myself at noon, and among other things meaii 
 to go into Houghton & Mifflin's, on Park Street, for a 
 book. But the family here have so laughed at my 
 mistake, for the street-car took me on, a street too 
 far, and I got out at Houghton & Button's, where 
 they do sell books, but everything else too ! I saw 
 I had made some kind of mistake, and I was bewil-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 17 
 
 dered by all the elevators, and the shop in itself as 
 large as a city ! So I tried to compose myself by 
 getting a lunch in the upper story, coming down to 
 buy some ruching and note-paper, and to find that 
 they had not my book, and that I had only just time 
 to get over to the Tremont Temple and the Gradua 
 tion Exercises. 
 
 I must confess here that I am often terribly giddy 
 at the crowds at the street crossings, and there is a 
 fearful place at this corner of School Street. Happily, 
 here is a policeman, to whom I now venture to trust 
 myself, and who helps one across in safety. They do 
 say that sometimes you do not see him, and that he 
 has probably been killed in a collision the day be 
 fore ; but this may be an exaggeration, and I don't 
 quite believe it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Wednesday afternoon, mamma ap 
 peared. She came down to the meeting of her be 
 loved Society for Encouraging Studies at Home, to 
 which I owe so much, for she learned there how 
 important all such education is for women. So while 
 I was struggling with my examinations, she was try 
 ing to calm her mind by listening to the interesting 
 papers that were read there ; and I do think that she 
 was much encouraged in letting me go on and take an 
 university course, by what Mrs. Richards said so for 
 cibly as to the importance of a thorough education 
 for a woman, and how much she could learn away 
 from home that she could carry back to help in ele 
 vating her home. 
 
 I have mailed to you the pamphlet, " Ad Sollemnia 
 Academica," to show you how interesting the exer 
 cises were of the graduates of the Boston University, 
 and have marked for you what seemed to me most 
 interesting. " Solemn," indeed, they all seemed to 
 me, when I felt that this was indeed the " commence-
 
 18 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 ment " of my university work, and all through my 
 racketty gay life since, some of the solemn words I 
 heard then hang over me, and seem to consecrate my 
 next year's life. 
 
 For a " racketty " life you will think I have had this 
 week, ending off in yesterday's Class Day at Cam 
 bridge ; and beginning with " Float Day" at Wellesley ! 
 You can imagine how the time is tilled up, and how 
 my head is turned, I, who never was out of Vermont 
 before, and had never been nearer a theatre than 
 Barnum's circus, on occasional hot days in summer, 
 imagine me, going to see "Niobe " one night, "Monte 
 Cristo " with Salvini another, and evening concerts 
 at the Music Hall ! Cousin Eupert insisted upon my 
 doing all these things, as the family here are all going 
 away next week, and he declares that I shall be left to 
 absolute solitude. He insists that there will not be 
 another human being remaining in Boston ; you will 
 have opportunity to see if this is true, from my let 
 ters! Besides these evening excitements, the days 
 have been filled in. 
 
 Yes, my dear, I have been to the Cat show, mainly 
 on your account. Of course you would go if you were 
 here, and you remember that I admire cats seen in 
 the distance, though I do not love them crawling all 
 over me as you do ! Now there was no danger of their 
 coming out of their cages, and 1 could venture. The 
 weather has been very trying for these poor beasts, 
 as well as for the humans ; so, as I went in the middle 
 of a warm day, I found them very torpid. The 
 " Wideawakest " of all usually, as 1 was told (pro 
 nounced to me as if Italian, " Veedavarkest ") was the 
 " longest cat ; " but even he was fast asleep, with his 
 head bent under his front paws. Still, the show is in 
 teresting, with two handsome, tawny-yellow cats, a 
 splendid Angora, and other choice specimens. I fell in
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY, 19 
 
 love with a fluffy, brown-feathered owl, whose e'xpres- 
 sion was so wise that I don't wonder that Minerva 
 should choose him for a constant companion ; this owl 
 is one of a " happy family," living with an excellent 
 cat and other choice companions. The little monkey 
 is ever interesting. 
 
 I wanted to give a seriousness to the week by going 
 to the oration in honor of June 17, and I felt that I 
 ought to go out to Bunker Hill that day of all days. 
 But the family here insisted there would be too much 
 of a crowd, and we must all go down the harbor in 
 their yacht. 
 
 And such lovely drives have been interspersed. The 
 surroundings of Boston are so much a part of Boston 
 that I do think I am fortunate in seeing it all for the 
 first time in June, as you see I do now. Just the 
 drive to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir is perfect, and 
 Saturday morning we had the beautiful view from the 
 " Arboretum " when we slowly went up through the 
 trees to a point where we could look off and see the 
 water. 
 
 I am always complaining here, that we can't see 
 more of the sea or even the harbor. You would never 
 imagine that Boston is a sea-port, and I am disap 
 pointed that there is no place where I can go to see 
 the great ships going out and coming in ! The family 
 all laugh at me for this desire of mine, and they are 
 very good in taking me on drives to places where we 
 can see the rare and distant view of the harbor. 
 
 As we drive luxuriously, T am constantly fancying 
 how I shall, through the summer, go off by myself in 
 a more simple manner, in open street cars, to all the 
 lovely parks that are open to everybody. But Aunt 
 Martha is very much afraid I shall come to grief by 
 myself, and is giving me all kinds of warnings. The 
 street cars are indeed very bewildering, and I must
 
 20 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 acknowledge that I have a facility for making mis 
 takes. 
 
 I must tell the history of one of my last week's 
 muddles, though it is a terrible confession. We were 
 to go to lunch at Chestnut Hill, with a friend of Aunt 
 Martha's, my cousin Maria and I. She wanted to go 
 down town first, and so would take the steam train at 
 the station on Albany Street, and I was to meet her at 
 the Columbus Avenue station farther up town. Cousin 
 Eupert went with me to this station, and explained 
 just what train I must take, telling me that I must be 
 all ready for it on the platform as I should have to 
 hurry into it, and he had to leave me. 
 
 He got the ticket-man to tell me just which train it 
 would be, and he left me. The trains came whizzing 
 along in either direction, stopping and going on, and I 
 suppose I got bewildered, though I am very sure I 
 took the "second" train as I was told. But I soon 
 found out, after hurrying into the car and the train 
 getting off, that the next stopping place was Newton, 
 and that I was on the wrong track, as Chestnut Hill 
 is off on a branch ! 
 
 I asked all sorts of questions, and everybody got 
 interested in me, and they all say now I kept my 
 head pretty well; for when I found I really had 
 missed the lunch at Chestnut Hill, with no hope of 
 reaching it in time, I inquired about Auburndale, and 
 found I could go on and be left there. 
 
 It did not happen to be their Commencement Day 
 at Lasell, which came off a week ago, but there was 
 Annie Davis on the platform, and she took me down 
 to the Riverside, where was a canoe, and a friend of 
 hers who took us out on the river, and then we had 
 lunch, and then, only think of it ! they drove me over 
 to Chestnut Hill, where I had to apologize for my stu 
 pidity a lovely place and I am afraid they will
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 21 
 
 never invite me again ; how should they, when I had 
 seemed so rude and impolite ? 
 
 But this letter must go, though I have not yet said 
 a word to you about my future plans. I can only say, 
 as if I were writing a serial novel : To be continued. 
 From yours, 
 
 LUCY.
 
 22 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTEE THIED. 
 
 V. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, June 21, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, It was very shabby in me 
 to send you nothing but a postal-card last Sunday, 
 after all my grand talk about long letters. But I am 
 sorry to say these " Commonwealth " people have 
 found up another person whose letters they are going 
 to print, and they think they can only have mine 
 once a fortnight ; so that on the week between you 
 will have to be satisfied with letters of the old sort. 
 Naturally I shall write more now, and it may be that 
 you will get all you can read. Who this other per 
 son is I do not know ; but I see by the paper that she 
 is a woman. It is cheaper for me to send you all the 
 papers as I do, clubbing them with your beloved 
 " Harper," than it would be for me to mail my sepa 
 rate copies ; so you will have to read the woman's 
 letters as well as mine. If you do not want to read 
 them, you can use them to clean the flat-irons, or in 
 winter to kindle the stove fire, or for both. I have 
 already found it an immense convenience to be able 
 to send my letters to the boys without writing them 
 again. This is all by way of apology. 
 
 I am surprised that the Company keeps me here so 
 long. It shows we are prosperous, does it not, that 
 my salary should go on all the same as if I were 
 sweating myself to death, with the thermometer at 
 150, in that old office at Leeds ? If they don't care,
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 23 
 
 I don't care ; and I hope I may be of some use to 
 somebody, as you will see. 
 
 Of course I understand Boston better than the 
 people do who have lived here fifty years. I am very 
 much pleased to see that one of my remarks has been 
 copied in the " Transcript," which is the paper that 
 everybody reads and swears by. If you understood 
 Boston as well as I do, you would know that the 
 greatest occasion of the year is Class Day. The bat 
 tle of Bunker Hill is a very great day. If you care 
 anything about it, it is St. Botolph's Day, the 
 saint's-day of the man who gave the English Boston 
 his name ; but I believe nobody in the world knows 
 this excepting me and the man who told me. I ob 
 served that there were no special ceremonies in the 
 Catholic churches, and they will not know it them 
 selves till they read this letter in "The Common 
 wealth." All the same, the forefathers, without 
 knowing it, fought their battle on St. Botolph's Day, 
 and so all parties in Boston had a holiday. For my 
 part, I went fishing, and do not know what happened 
 in town ; but over in Charlestown they have a very 
 funny celebration, which is a sort of carnival. 
 
 But I spoke of that merely by accident, because, 
 though in the newspapers they pretend it is a great 
 day, they do not really care anything about it at all. 
 AVhat they do care about is Class Day, which comes 
 somewhere in the middle of June ; and to that all the 
 young people go who can go. Now that there are 
 two or three thousand students at Cambridge, it is 
 pretty clear that, by hook or by crook, you can get 
 tickets to something ; and if you have not any tickets, 
 you can "run your face," which is very much what 
 I did, quite sure that something would happen to me 
 before the day was done. Observe that Class Day 
 this year came day before yesterday. There is some
 
 24 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 order of the planets, I do not know what, which 
 settles it, and I think it always comes on Friday. 
 
 I suppose grand people go in carriages, but for my 
 part the electric cars are generally good enough for me, 
 and I have now learned how to take them. The rule 
 they give to all strangers in Boston, who wish to learn 
 their way, is to find out in what direction the place is, 
 and then to take a street-car which goes the other way. 
 This works generally very well, particularly because 
 nobody knows how much he has gone astray, or if he 
 does know, takes care not to tell. But since I have 
 been here I have been in good hands, so that I believe 
 I have made no mistake. George went with me, as 
 I like to have him, and he made it, or they made 
 it, some sort of a holiday at the bank, so that he 
 might go. 
 
 Cambridge is a pretty place, all overgrown with elm. 
 trees, and on Class Day it had the advantage of being 
 more than reasonably cool. When I was there before 
 it was so hot that the shoes were almost burnt off my 
 feet, and the fellows say it can be awfully dusty. 
 Carruthers says that the joke used to be that the 
 people started a college there because nobody had 
 taken up the land for farming, it being too sandy to 
 grow even trees. Somehow or other, they have got 
 some trees growing since, and the college grounds 
 are very pretty. But Class Day involves a great 
 deal more than the college grounds, for you might 
 say that almost every large house which has a large 
 garden around it had been retained by some of the 
 fellows for the purposes of a spread. This year 
 there are so many spreads that they began the night 
 before, but that, I think, is an innovation. 
 
 We meant to do the thing brown, and we went 
 bravely to the morning exercises. I say this, because 
 the young people, in their dancing shoes and gay
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 25 
 
 dresses, are a little apt to reserve themselves for 
 the dancing of the afternoon, and not to come to 
 hear orations and poems. But in truth the whole 
 thing began with an oration and a poem, from which, 
 by a gradual evolution, has come the dancing, which 
 is now considered by some people the more important 
 of the two. Carruthers was as good as gold, as he 
 always is. We had no tickets to Sanders, as the 
 place is called, but we waited on the outside for the 
 procession. The procession means the whole senior 
 class, in this case more than three hundred, all in 
 swallow-tailed coats and new silk hats which looked 
 as if they had never been worn before. There was a 
 band, and they marched round the college yard and so 
 went into Memorial Hall, we tagging after them as 
 little boys do after a company of soldiers. 
 
 However, when we arrived at Memorial Hall, the 
 moment they had got in the door was shut in our 
 faces. We laughed, as did a company of other people 
 who were shut out in the same fashion. It was ex 
 plained, however, that the door would be opened as 
 soon as the prayer was done. This was edifying to 
 me, because it showed how sacred and secret they 
 were, that we were not good enough to pray with the 
 others or for them. However, this all proved to be a 
 mistake ; for when we came in the theatre, after all, 
 the prayer had not begun, and we prayed as well as 
 the rest. 
 
 You go in first to what is, I suppose, the proper 
 Memorial Hall. I did not stop to look at it then, be 
 cause we were rushing to get the best seats. But in 
 fact there are tablets all around it, which tell the 
 names of the boys who died in the War. You know I 
 always say I am one of the children of the public, and 
 the powers which take care of them took care of me. 
 For somebody or other had a headache at the last
 
 26 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 moment, and did not use her tickets, just in front of 
 the speakers. As we hustled in, Carruthers spoke to 
 one of the professors, who seemed to be in much the 
 same fix as we were, and he very kindly led us right 
 round to the place as if he knew all about it, so that 
 we were as well off as if we were the king and queen. 
 I observed that the real king and queen, President 
 Eliot and his wife, sat exactly in the middle, in front 
 of the speakers. 
 
 As I say, after we were well in, one of the profes 
 sors came forward and offered prayer, and there was 
 music by a band who were in a gallery high up over 
 the platform, and then the speaking began. I thought 
 it more than fairly good. There was a great deal of 
 fun, which of course the class understood more than 
 anybody else did. The poem was in a good helter- 
 skelter, go-as-you-please sort of metre. The ivy ora 
 tion was capitally well delivered, with hits right and 
 left, some at the government, some at the class, some 
 at the other classes, and most of all at Yale, which were 
 taken goodnaturedly, and by a good, quick audience. 
 It is always funny to see how the elect applaud first, 
 and then a second set of people, who have to think out 
 what the humor means, applaud afterwards. This was 
 so with this audience, just as much as with any other. 
 
 When I came out Carruthers introduced me to one 
 of his friends who is of this very graduating class, and 
 he took us around to his room, and here there was a 
 sandwich and a cup of coffee, and it made, I may as 
 well say once for all, a convenient resting-place in the 
 business of the day. This was not what is called a 
 spread precisely, but was a comfortable little lunch 
 for anybody who comes or goes, and such little lunches 
 materially facilitate, as you can understand, the busi 
 ness of j what is, on the whole, an open-air party. 
 
 After we had thus got a little ready for possible
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 27 
 
 fatigue, we three went round to the gymnasium. This 
 is a handsome building, which one of the young men 
 built, a few years ago, just after he graduated, and 
 gave to the college. 
 
 When we came there the band was playing and 
 people were already waltzing. But seated all around 
 Were nice-looking people, old and young, eating ice 
 creams and salads and other such things. And this, 
 by the way, was going on at sixty or eighty places in 
 different parts of Cambridge through the day, only 
 you will understand that this meeting at the gymna 
 sium was one of the largest of these. 
 
 Of course, if anybody felt an entire stranger on go 
 ing, I did. But it is a free-and-easy place. I should 
 think all the Cambridge ladies felt themselves rather 
 bound to be hostesses there ; indeed I do not know 
 but what some of them were asked to be so by the 
 gentlemen who gave out the invitations. Anyway, 
 Carruthers and his friend introduced me to one or two 
 nice girls. Carruthers's sister was one, a Miss Osborne 
 was one, and a Miss Sanborn or Sanford was one ; and 
 I waltzed, I dare not say as well as the best of them, 
 but still I hope I did not disgrace Miss Lightfoot's 
 teaching. I recollected the old rule that, whatever 
 else was certain, it was absolutely certain that nobody 
 was looking at me, and so I did not find myself fright 
 ened even in the midst of the grandees of the land. 
 Carruthers pointed out some people whom I was glad 
 to see. Howells was there, and his daughter was 
 there, who wrote that nice little story in the Bazar 
 that I sent you. A good many of the college profes 
 sors were there. I saw Mr. McKenzie, whose son, by 
 the way, was the chorister of the day. In short, it 
 was really a very prett} r party. 
 
 But it will never do for me to undertake to tell you 
 of all the pretty girls I saw, nor how their hats were
 
 28 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 trimmed. You must look in the Bazar or in Madame 
 Demorest, and guess it out as well as you can. Their 
 descriptions in general will be much better than mine 
 in particular. I went back from here for a little rest 
 and to one or two smaller spreads, which Carruthers 
 or his friend, or some of his friends invited me to. 
 And at half -past four, by great good luck, I found my 
 self the possessor of a ticket to see the dancing around 
 the tree. This is what you and I have heard of, and 
 it is a very amusing business. It used to be a simple 
 frolic of a lot of seniors, holding hand in hand and 
 dancing around what was called Liberty Tree, I think. 
 But year by year it has grown more and more of a 
 ceremony, so that now a great theatre, you might call 
 it, is built up around the tree, as if it were a circus, 
 and all this is fenced in and kept by policemen that 
 nobody may get in who has no right there ; and as I 
 say, tickets are given for the seats, so that you know 
 in advance about where you will sit, and are sure of a 
 place. 
 
 Please observe that all day it had been cloudy, and 
 everybody had said, " What a pity ! " and there was 
 great terror lest it should rain in the afternoon, be 
 cause the newspapers had said " Showers." In point 
 of fact, it did not rain, but a stiff, sharp east fog came 
 in, with threat of rain all the time". In view of this, 
 awnings had been stretched above the seats, and nobody 
 would have got wet if it had rained. 
 
 The senior class, meanwhile, have retired to places 
 known to them, have taken off their dress-coats and 
 hats of which I told you, and have come in in the 
 most absurd costumes you can conceive. They are 
 dressed ostentatiously for frolic, some in real athletic 
 dresses, some in absurd dresses, the great object, as 
 you will see, being to be ready to climb the tree-trunk 
 for the flowers which are nailed, oh, ever so high.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 29 
 
 They marched round and sat down, and the other 
 classes stood around them in a fixed order. They sang 
 and they cheered the different officers of the college 
 whom they like. They cheer the different classes, and 
 so on, till, at a given signal, there is a regular dance 
 in circles around the tree, and then a rush made at the 
 tree, to secure as trophies the bunches of flowers which 
 have been put in a ring high up, as I say, above the 
 heads of everybody. 
 
 Now this Liberty Tree, if that is its name, is a large 
 elm, more than a hundred years old ; and you know- 
 one does not climb a tree like that by putting his arms 
 around it, and " shinning " up, as we used to say. The 
 only ladders, however, are ladders of living men ; so 
 that you see a group of fellows advance, close-shoul 
 dered, to the tree ; you see two other fellows, lighter 
 than they, run up on them and stand on their shoul 
 ders, and a third, the lightest of all, run up on them 
 just as you have seen clowns do at a circus, and if he 
 gets up he is able to handle the flowers. But mean 
 while another group is hauling away upon the six 
 lower fellows in this pyramid, and trying to pull 
 them from their station, so that the climber shall be 
 disconcerted as he gets up; and you can imagine 
 what fun takes place. It is for this contest that 
 they are dressed as they are. In some cases it did 
 not make much difference how they were dressed, 
 for they came out as naked above the waist as the 
 day they were born. But in our recent enthusiasm 
 for athletics we do not care a ' great deal about that. 
 And the people who could see a boat's crew strip 
 to the waist when the seniors row against the jun 
 iors need not be distressed if they happen to see a 
 man's shirt ripped open so that the color of his 
 skin is visible. Of course there was great cheering, 
 laughing, waving of handkerchiefs, and the rest ; and
 
 30 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 after all this, the last flower is pulled down. Every- 
 body has some of the flowers; everybody presents 
 them to the particular lady who has witnessed hit 
 struggles with most interest from the tournament 
 seats, and they give something to talk about in the 
 evening's dancing. 
 
 I have written all this at length, because I told 
 the girls that they should hear all about Class Day 
 from me and should know what to wear [if they come 
 down next year. It is a first-rate frolic, and I know 
 they will like to come. 
 
 But now I must tell you about to-day. You must 
 not think Sundays are dissipated, but I will own they 
 are very different from any Sundays I have known 
 about before. Our minister, Mr. Haynes, preached 
 about tenement-houses, and I wish you could have 
 heard the sermon. I have not seen much of them 
 here, but I can understand what I read in your " Lend 
 a Hand " last summer, that there is no solution of the 
 tenement-house problem ; that the only solution is to 
 be done with them and not to have any more of them. 
 I thought so all the more after I had heard Mr. Haynes. 
 I really want you to spend Sunday with me some time, 
 after we get established, Mrs. Metcalf wUl have a 
 room for you any day. I want you to come, if it is 
 only to hear him, and the first-rate singing that we 
 have at our church. But I will tell you more about 
 that another time. 
 
 In the afternoon I went down with Carruthers to 
 see and hear the Salvation Army. Ever since we 
 read Booth's book, it has seemed to me absurd to 
 have such people right under our lee, as the sailors 
 say, and to know nothing about them. I knew there 
 were " posts," as they say, here. You see the signs 
 and flags on different buildings, and last Sunday I 
 fell afoul of one of their speakers on the Common.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 31 
 
 Carruthers said we should have to pay to go in, and 
 I had my ten cents ready ; but it was no such thing, 
 though he says he has paid before. It was at the top 
 of a big building in Washington Street, over a mar 
 ket ; I saw the sign Friday, and I made Carruthers 
 go there to-day. 
 
 He had made fun about paying to go in ; but I told 
 him I liked that way, to pay as you go. Anyway, 
 I know that these people are poor people, and that 
 there would be no thousand-dollar boxes or pews. 
 Do you not remember what that New York man told 
 us, that his box at church cost him more 'than his 
 pew at the opera ? but here there was neither pew 
 nor contribution. 
 
 It was a great square hall, not high, but high 
 enough, with windows on two sides. The front was 
 partitioned off, and it turned out afterward that the 
 officers and their wives and children lived there. I 
 liked that ; it seemed business-like, and as if they were 
 not ashamed of their business. Across the hall were 
 lines of wooden chairs, and the whole front was taken 
 up by a long platform, as if there was to be an exhi 
 bition at an academy. This was divided like any 
 other stage from our part. There were two or three 
 flags, long pennons of red, white, and blue, and blue 
 and white stars, and an archway with the motto, 
 " Holiness to the Lord." On this platform were the 
 officers and people with horns and other military 
 instruments. They were in some sort of simple uni 
 form, that is, the men were ; the women, I think, 
 had only flat poke bonnets on. On one side there 
 was a man with a big drum. 
 
 Now I have told you all the things that made it 
 different from any common conference meeting, un 
 less perhaps it was the looks of the people. The hall 
 was one-third full, perhaps. There were a few chil-
 
 32 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 dren, and they seemed to be amused and interested 
 as they would not be at a common meeting. They 
 talked a little, not much, and nobody minded. 
 People came in, just as we did, and went out, just as 
 they chose, without inquiring about times and sea 
 sons. The speaking and singing went on all the time, 
 quiet and loud, good and bad, much as it is in all 
 meetings. The captain's wife read from one of the 
 epistles, and started two or three hymns, which all 
 the people joined in singing. Think of the simplicity 
 of a service where some one says, " Here are a few 
 more copies of 'The War-Cry.' Does no one want 
 them?" Then a "lady-captain" takes them down, 
 and sells them at five cents each, and then all sing 
 the hymn which is in the paper, say on page four. 
 
 Dear mother, you would not have been shocked in 
 the least by the ways of these nice people. I think 
 you would have liked it, as I certainly did. As for 
 drums and cornets, I do not know why they are not 
 as much like harps and psalteries as are the trumpet- 
 stops of organs. I believe the bit of ritual I liked 
 best was a hole in the elbow of the shirt-sleeve of one 
 of the [speakers. People will not think a church too 
 toney where the robes of ceremony have holes in the 
 elbows. 
 
 Carruthers went off when we came out, and I went 
 up on the Common alone. It is an old story to him, 
 but it never tires me ; and in a fortnight that I have 
 been here, I have not yet seen a Boston man who had 
 seen it. I mean the crowd for the music, Sunday 
 afternoon. The sky was overcast, so there was no 
 hot sun. The trees are just perfect, and the grass. 
 And here were well forty thousand people is a 
 small guess walking about, lying on the grass, or 
 standing tight crowded near the music-stand. On 
 the stand a band, and a good band, playing, and play-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 33 
 
 ing well. That is another good piece of " Twentieth 
 Century," is n't it ? 
 
 One of the first things I noticed was a little shaver 
 with a board on a stick as high as he was. He had 
 pulled it out of the ground, and was trying to set 
 it up again in another place. I looked on the side 
 of it to see what he had got, and read " Keep off the 
 grass." He had taken the policing of the grass 
 wholly into his own hands. 
 
 In fact, this " Keep off the grass " is only for week 
 days. Sundays we do as we choose. It is just as 
 you and the boys might go down in the afternoon and 
 sit or lie under the maples in the cow pasture. And 
 so, as I say, some people were lying, some walking, 
 some playing, and some standing still. The music 
 was the central attraction ; but there were lots of 
 people who had no care for that, and were only mak 
 ing the best of the open air. 
 
 It is very queer to find yourself among so many 
 people, and not to see one you ever saw before. I 
 was really glad to meet the man who runs the ele 
 vator at our new office. He remembered me, as his 
 business required ; for elevator men are like kings 
 and hotel-keepers in that business. Like them, too, 
 I believe they often remember wrong. And you can 
 understand that I was really glad as I walked by 
 the Frog Pond, throwing bits of bark and chips 
 to a dog who was swimming, to find our dear old 
 Miss Tryphena Dexter sitting 011 one of the benches. 
 I asked if I might sit by her a little, and she readily 
 assented, drawing up the folds of her nice Sunday 
 black silk, that I might have my fair share of the 
 seat. 
 
 No, she said, she was not listening to the music. 
 That was for them Germans and other foreigners, and 
 was a part of their method of taking away our free-
 
 34 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 dom and overthrowing our institutions. And why 
 people permitted it, and why they did not send them 
 all back to England where they came from, she did 
 not know. There was a time once, she said, when 
 King George's men were sent back faster than they 
 came; and here she nodded with approval at the 
 column on the hill which celebrates the heroes of 
 the Civil War. 
 
 But I found afterward that this was no blunder 
 of hers. To her the hill still represents the English 
 fort which was there in her girlhood. In fact, she 
 told me that she had danced round the Wishing 
 Stone backward in earlier times, and that "they" 
 had afterward blasted it to make the stone curb 
 around the pond. 
 
 " They " is a sort of evil spirit who represents all 
 the powers of darkness, and is therefore spoken of in 
 the plural number by Miss Tryphena. " They " have 
 changed the line of the horse-cars, or " They " sung 
 the hymn to the wrong tune, or " They " brought 
 milk that was sour. I could see that she disapproved 
 of my throwing chips to the little dog ; so I desisted. 
 But she was, on the other hand, pleased when I gave 
 him a cracker. " I tell them," she said, " that we 
 don't know what we should do if we had four legs. 
 Mebbe we might bark and bite too. There 's no say 
 ing what nature will do when we are not converted." 
 And she explained to me that we might feed the most 
 benighted on the Sabbath, even though they had 
 many legs. But chips, which tempted them to do 
 their labor and work on the Sabbath, seemed to her 
 doubtful. " Anyway, my child," she said, " it is well 
 to shun the very appearance of evil." 
 
 She had made it her habit to sit half an hour on 
 the Common, by the Frog Pond or not, as the seats 
 might offer, ever since there were seats. A cele-
 
 NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 35 
 
 brated English preacher, quite the Parker or Farrar 
 of his day, had preached for Dr. Sharp, on the text, 
 " Consider the lilies." And Miss Tryphena had been 
 struck to the heart, she said, that she did not consider 
 them enough. So. as she walked home that after 
 noon, this was all centuries "ago, she had sat 
 down to consider them. " My dear, there was n't any 
 lilies. There never was a lily on the Common, unless 
 one of them lazy messenger boys dropped one when 
 he was carrying of it to some wedding, and he was 
 sitting and reading a novel, and some of them Hun 
 garian, children ketched his blue box and run. But 
 the Scripture is not to be literally read. Dr. Sharp 
 taught me that, long before this Dr. Primrose 
 preached about them. And so I sat and considered 
 the dandelions and the buttercups and the red and 
 white clover. There was always plenty of them be 
 fore they got the mowers going, what you call 
 lawn-cutters. Now these children don't consider 
 either of them, because they don't know 'em ; and 
 they would not consider them either, if they did. 
 
 " But I got in the way of it then, and I never shall 
 give it up when it 's as pleasant as to-day, not if 
 twenty million of them Bohemians and Moabites, as 
 I call 'em, invaded the Common with their trumpets 
 and their shawms. Only if there was any such thing 
 as law, as there was when we had Governor Lincoln 
 and his body-guard, they would all go back where 
 they came from in double-quick time." 
 
 I tried to get her on some personal reminiscences of 
 Governor Lincoln and his body-guard. But they were 
 vague, and consisted mostly of accounts of different 
 "elections" when she had bought candy here, and 
 looked in at a sort of camera obscura in the shape of 
 a temple of a certain nereid in which she pointed a 
 quill pen at Lafayette. She had seen some Indians
 
 36 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 dance here or said she had. I thought her mind 
 was wandering. But no. They were Western Indians 
 one was named Black-Hawk who were brought 
 here after some triumph of our gallant army. Then 
 she told of the first rush of water up the fountain, 
 the day when the water was introduced into Boston. 
 She was fairly poetical as she described the rush of 
 the great column. 
 
 " Oh, then they let it play," she said, " high, high, 
 high, high above the trees. And it can play so. And 
 it will when them foreigners has gone back to their 
 temples and cathedrals and mud cabins and pigs 
 again. But, my dear, it is time for me to get supper. 
 I only give one hour for consideration." 
 
 But I would not let her bid me good-bye. I gave 
 her my arm, and by such routes as she approved, 
 I led her down the hill. On the way, we passed a 
 group who were listening to somebody expounding 
 the Bible. Here she stopped for a moment, enough 
 to satisfy herself that the doctrine was correct. 
 
 "I was afraid," she said, "that some of them 
 Sabellians or Sub-Lapsarians has got in here. But 
 this man is all right. I have heard him before. You 
 know how they tried to take from us the sacred 
 privilege of hearing the Word on the Common. 
 Why, even Mr. Whitfield could preach on the Com 
 mon, when he coiild not preach in the churches. 
 But their triumph was not long. Our dear Mr. 
 Davis, he was haled before magistrates and kings, 
 and he was true to the last. He went to prison, and 
 he sung hymns there, and the prisoners heard him, 
 and since then the word has been proclaimed here 
 and with power." 
 
 We saw another group to which she led. But I 
 knew that the speaker was laying down some rather 
 advanced doctrines on the circulating medium, the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 37 
 
 silver and paper question, and I advised her to keep 
 on the long path. We came out safely to the street, 
 and fortunately the " spinner," or electric car, she 
 needed, appeared. It was badly crowded ; but I saw 
 one seat for her, and she mounted. For myself I ran 
 forward to stand on the platform. The man started, 
 I believe, at the same moment. Anyway, something 
 seemed to wrench my arm and something must have 
 hit my head. I fell on the ground. I recollect think 
 ing that the wheel would pass over me. And then I 
 remember nothing more. 
 
 [NOTE BY THE EDITORS OF THE Coir MONWEALTH. This young 
 man does not seem to understand the demands made on a weekly 
 journal which is the organ of 116 literary and scientific Societies. 
 He has been tempted to exceed the limit of space which we allow 
 him. For our part, we protect our readers by making him stop 
 where he should have stopped.]
 
 38 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 VI. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, June 26, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I am. still having such hurried 
 days in this busy Boston that I hardly know how I 
 can ever finish a letter to you ; but as I have a few 
 quiet moments, I will begin a letter "between the 
 drops," as it were, although I have not yet heard 
 of your receiving my last letter. I had supposed 
 that this was to be a quiet week, for " my family," 
 as I call them, went away Tuesday, and I supposed I 
 should enter upon that "solitude," that Cousin Rupert 
 has promised me in my summer in Boston. 
 
 For a summer in Boston it is to be. Everybody 
 has consented, and I am quite happy. My own plans 
 are not exactly to be carried out, it is true, for I have 
 ventured to have plans of my own for the first time 
 in my life, and some of them are to be allowed. For 
 instance, I am going to begin on some " work," actu 
 ally, such as we used to talk about that last summer, 
 in our dreams of idleness on the " mountain side " in 
 dear Vermont. I am afraid you will think it sounds 
 like an idle kind of work, from its name, for I am 
 really going to "try "and teach in one of the Vaca 
 tion Schools for the Boston children. I want to 
 begin on something, and I do want to earn a little 
 bit of money. And Anna Davis has told me about 
 these schools, how they have been going on for 
 some years.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 39 
 
 She says she was here one of the very first sum 
 mers, when the whole thing was to be tried for an 
 experiment, and they did not know how many tables 
 would be needed, or how many rooms, for nobody 
 knew how many scholars there would be. Of course, 
 there were a great many sceptical people who laughed 
 at the idea of any children coming to school volun- 
 tarity. "Of course, they would stay away, if they 
 were not obliged to go to school, and in summer too, 
 when they might be playing out of doors and having 
 a good time." These wise people did not realize how 
 many children there are in Boston who have only the 
 street sidewalks for " out-of-doors " to play in, and oh, 
 such narrow streets, if you could but see them. So 
 Anna tells me that the very first summer that the 
 Vacation Schools were opened at the South End, she 
 went to the school building granted for their use for 
 the summer months, and she had many misgivings, 
 expecting to find only a group of teachers and com 
 mittees on the school-steps ; but as she approached, 
 she found a crowd before the doors, and there were 
 three hundred children waiting admittance. Well, you 
 have heard how successful they have been since, and 
 how many interesting things are taught there, all 
 kinds of occupations, and children are very ready to 
 learn that " to do something " is as good fun as any 
 kind of play. 
 
 Anna Davis came in to interrupt my letter ; but we 
 went on in our talk with a little of the same subject. 
 She was amused at seeing on my table an old copy of 
 " Harry and Lucy " that I found in the library here. 
 I always have suspected that my mother named me 
 after this celebrated old-fashioned " Lucy " of Miss 
 Edgeworth. So I have been again looking up her 
 history, and have been wondering if my character 
 had been formed on the " Harry and Lucy " plan,
 
 40 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 and spite of much that Anna and I find to laugh 
 at in this very instructive work, that the children of 
 the present day would turn up their noses at in 
 spite of this our mothers and fathers dfd well to 
 teach us to love to be occupied with " something." 
 
 Listen to this description of the father and mother : 
 they " took care that Harry and Lucy should neither 
 be made to dislike knowledge by having tiresome, long 
 talks, nor rendered idle and unable to command their 
 attention, by having too much amusement. Spoiled 
 children are never happy. Between breakfast and din 
 ner they ask a hundred times, l What o'clock is it ? ' 
 Or they must have somebody to amuse them, or some 
 new toys," etc. Harry and Lucy were not like these. 
 t( They loved reading, found continually a number of 
 employments and of objects which entertained and 
 interested them. ... If any extraordinary amusement 
 was given to them, such, for instance, as their seeing 
 an elephant, they enjoyed it as much as possible ; but 
 in general Harry and Lucy felt that they wanted noth 
 ing beyond their common, everyday occupations. Be 
 sides these, there was always something going on in 
 the house," etc. 
 
 This is so much a picture of the way in which I was 
 brought up that I do hope you will forgive my send 
 ing it to you ; but you don't know how much I have 
 spared you and left out. And if my letter takes an 
 instructive strain, you must remember I am in Bos 
 ton, and it is Commencement week. When you hear 
 the list of all the places I have been to, you will only 
 wonder that I have not put more orations and disqui 
 sitions into my letter. Twice to Cambridge since 
 Class Day ! Yes, indeed ; for Aunt Martha took me 
 Monday afternoon to the lovely Harvard Annex Day. 
 So tempting and lovely the beautiful house stands, 
 like a real family home, only so largely hospitable to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 41 
 
 so many " daughters." As I sat in my little corner, 
 with my ice cream and cake, near the end of it all, I 
 could look out on such famous people. Maria could 
 tell me all their names, and I can now put their 
 faces along with their names, in my memory and my 
 gratitude. 
 
 But I must not stop over this, for we hurried away, 
 and I came into town to go with Anna Davis to the 
 banquet at the New England Conservatory of Music. 
 Don't you think I am fortunate ? for she seems to 
 know everybody that Aunt Martha and " the family " 
 here do not know. And I met at this " reunion " so 
 many unexpected friends, and have made so many 
 plans for the next few weeks. 
 
 But to go on with my journal. Tuesday was terribly 
 crowded, " the family " going off in the morning, and 
 perhaps I may as well tell you now what is going to 
 happen to me. It is the result of a deep-laid plot of 
 Aunt Martha's. She has insisted upon my staying on, 
 in this large deserted house, which they leave this 
 week for a summer at Bar Harbor. The house is not 
 utterly deserted, for a delightful old housekeeper 
 stays all summer, with her son, whose principal busi 
 ness will be to keep off the burglars. She will give 
 me my breakfast and late dinner, and I may get 
 my luncheon elsewhere, or at home if I prefer. It all 
 seems quite too magnificent an arrangement for me, 
 but Aunt Martha says that " Hetty " (her real name is 
 Mehitable) will anyhow provide for herself and her 
 family, she is to have a dressmaker daughter stay 
 with her, and she may as well provide for me too. 
 So I am to keep the dear little bedroom I have been 
 occupying here, while much of the rest of the house is 
 to be shut up. Only, for my very, very own, I am to 
 have the little room off the library, where I can study 
 and scribble as much as I please, as I am doing now,
 
 42 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 and which makes it so tempting to linger along over 
 these letters to you. And I can go into the library as 
 much as I please. My hours at the Vacation School 
 will be in the morning, so imagine my afternoons here. 
 Only I do not yet begin on those' quiet afternoons. 
 Cousin Eupert and his father stayed on for Commence 
 ment, so that is how I happened to go to Cambridge 
 that day only there is more to tell first. 
 
 I do not get a letter from you, and I am very sure 
 that your first letter in answer to mine will be full of 
 questions and wo^ideriiigs about " Cousin " Rupert, 
 and with justice, since he is not really my cousin. So 
 let me calm your anticipated fears. I think I can 
 venture to tell you something since you are so far 
 away, and it will not be likely to get into the news 
 papers, which, by the way, I never find time to read 
 here something I will confide to you, though it is a 
 profound secret. It was quite early in the business, 
 I think the very night I arrived, that " Cousin " Ru 
 pert told me that he is engaged to a young lady " out 
 West," but that it was all kept secret for the present 
 (I believe his mother knows about it) ; and I did n't 
 quite understand the reason for its being secret, but I 
 think the young lady wishes it ; so if you meet her 
 anywhere " out West " don't you mention it to her ! I 
 only speak of it to you, lest you should think " Cousin " 
 Rupert too devoted to me. But in all these expeditions, 
 the family have gone round with me, only he has been 
 the one to explain things. 
 
 It was his father, however, who took me about Com 
 mencement Day, and I really saw Cambridge for the 
 first time, because it was such a brilliant, glorious day, 
 and Class Day there was such a deplorable ram in the 
 evening. If you could have seen my white muslin 
 skirt after it was all through through Avith that, I 
 fear. But mine was no worse than anybody's else ; and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 43 
 
 during the dancing time our dresses were really very 
 respectable. I have cut you off short in my descrip 
 tion of that wonderful Monday, but I shall return to 
 it when those leisure days come in which I am to have 
 plenty of time to write. 
 
 This goes in " scrabbles " between many goings and 
 comings ; but I must tell you how it was not Cousin 
 Rupert, but his father, who went with me into some 
 of the college buildings, and he showed me the room 
 where my father lived most of his college days, and 
 we met many of his old friends, and the whole place 
 is so charming, with the old buildings and new ones, 
 and the college green. It does look fascinating, and I 
 should think they would all wish it was really the 
 "Commencement" the graduating class, I mean. 
 
 But I must tell you about the day before. Aunt 
 Martha, and Maria, and the rest, all off at an early 
 hour. It was a dreadful piece of business for them, 
 as they usually breakfast so late, and Maria did not 
 look half awake as I bade her good-by. Meanwhile, 
 I had written a letter home, and after they left I set 
 off by myself, and it did seem pleasant to be doing 
 what I liked all by myself, which was to go to see the 
 Normal Art School exhibition, not far from us here, 
 in a hall in one of the school buildings. And here I 
 met Anna Davis, and she introduced to me some of her 
 teacher friends, and we went all round the building to 
 see the different rooms, besides the exhibition itself, 
 which was very interesting. It made me a little envi 
 ous of other girls' advantages, as I wished I might 
 have had just such a training. Then with one or two 
 friends we went down town to lunch, interspersing 
 first a visit to the Flower and Fruit Show at Horticul 
 tural Hall. Oh, the exquisite roses ! I never saw any 
 thing like them before, great, full-blown white and 
 red roses, so gorgeous ! We had to run away from the
 
 44 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 strawberries ; they were too tempting, and reminded us 
 of luncheon. I sat thinking of all those glorious 
 flowers, and then of our beautiful mountain laurel all 
 in blossom at home, and then of the children here in 
 town, not seeing any of it, and going to school because 
 the school-rooms were the airiest places they could go 
 to ; and I could not help speaking about it, when one 
 of Anna's friends exclaimed : " But, oh, you must go 
 down with us, this very afternoon to the Flower Mis 
 sion at the North End, and you will see that the 
 children in Boston not only see, but give away 
 flowers." 
 
 So then she went on to tell us how there was to be 
 a meeting of this mission at one of the school build 
 ings that afternoon, and we all went to it, and heard 
 the report of all their work. They call it the Chil 
 dren's Flower Work Mission, for it is the children 
 who carry it on. There are fifty girls from the North 
 End schools who distribute the flowers in bands of 
 ten; these they call "the Advance Guard." Then 
 there are fifty friends in the towns along the Boston 
 and Lowell railroad, who are called " the Relief 
 Guard." I wish you could have heard the account of 
 all the work they have done. They carry bunches of 
 flowers to old people and sick people, and to the public 
 institutions and the Copp's Hill burial-ground, and 
 6,052 bunches of flowers were distributed last year. 
 Now, please multiply the pleasure that these six thou 
 sand gave to those who received them in their stifling 
 rooms, by the pleasure of the six thousand girls who 
 carried them about, and it will give you some idea of 
 what these missions are doing. I am promised some 
 flowers to take myself some day and here, let me 
 tell you of a little adventure! 
 
 Later. I left off at an adventure, but you may not 
 think it so very exciting, and I shall have to begin by
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 45 
 
 a long story. My mother left as a parting injunction, 
 that I should hunt up an old " retainer of the family " 
 as I call her, whom nobody has seen or heard from 
 these years and years. But we have only known that 
 she lived somewhere at the North End, a very worthy 
 person, named Miss Dexter, with a very odd first name. 
 I happened to think about her as we came away from 
 the Flower Mission the other day, for we passed the 
 street where she is supposed to live. So a day or two 
 ago I made Anna go down in that region again with 
 me, and we found the narrow street and passed into a 
 little court, such as they have in Boston, with crowds 
 of children on the door-steps, though it was not one 
 of the hottest days ; but you did not wonder that they 
 wanted to be out of their houses. 
 
 Well, they all of them seemed to know where Miss 
 Dexter lived, and a little girl went along with us to 
 show us the house and upstairs. For, my dear, we 
 had to mount three flights of stairs, that seemed to 
 grow narrower and narrower the higher we went, or, 
 perhaps, it was because I grew more and more fright 
 ened. At last we reached the door, but we found it 
 locked. The little girl supposed " she " must be out, 
 and as we pounded with the ends of our parasols and 
 could not make anybody answer, we came to the same 
 conclusion. The little girl said Miss Dexter was apt 
 to go out in the afternoon, if it did not rain and if she 
 had not been out in the morning, and she declared she 
 was not deaf. I was a little afraid she might be in 
 a fit, and that one ought to get in somehow to see to 
 her, but the little girl declared she was not likely to 
 lock the door in the daytime, if she were in ; so we 
 reluctantly turned away ; for I am sure I do not know 
 when I can ever find my way there again. But Anna 
 Davis says she is willing to go again with me. So I 
 stuck a great bunch of laurel into the door-handle and
 
 46 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 left. I did not have any card or pencil with me to 
 write anything, and I don't suppose she would have 
 understood who it was, if I had left a card. So we 
 came down the dark stairs and into the court again. 
 
 But here was the adventure. On the very lower 
 stairs, which happened to be particularly dark, we 
 passed a young man hurrying by us. As he made 
 room for us to pass, a door opened at the foot of the 
 stairs, and flung a little light into the darkness. For 
 some reason I turned back, and for some reason he 
 turned back to look, and I am almost sure, that he 
 was one of my partners Class Day, at Cambridge. 
 I could not tell very well, for his face was bandaged 
 up, and he really did look different ; only I felt sure 
 he was the same. One of Cousin Rupert's friends 
 introduced him to me, my Class Day partner, I 
 mean ; but I did not understand his name, and Cousin 
 Rupert declared afterward that he didn't know him, 
 and never saw him nor heard of him, and that Dick 
 ought to have asked his permission before introducing 
 a strange fellow to his cousin. But I found the 
 " strange fellow " very agreeable in the little time 
 I saw him and talked with him. We discovered that 
 he was as much of a stranger in Boston as I am ; but 
 I got the idea he was going off again, so I can't really 
 quite believe that it was he. For I felt so confused 
 after turning round to stare at him that I hurried 
 Anna away as fast as we could go down, through the 
 court into the street ; and happily we could find the 
 street-car very soon. 
 
 Anna declares that my partner looked very 
 " rowdy " with his bandage on ; and she declares he 
 cannot be any of Cousin Rupert's friends' friends, as 
 doubtless he had just come from a street fight. But 
 anyhow, he looked like a gentleman, even with his 
 bandage on ; and I am pretty sure she really thinks
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 47 
 
 so too, only she wants to bother me ; and I have felt 
 some compunctions, and as if I ought to have stopped 
 and asked what had happened to him ; because if he 
 is a stranger in town, we might have given him some 
 help. 
 
 But what was he doing in that out-of-the-way court 
 and that tenement house ? Anna has quite upset me 
 by suggesting that he, too, may be asking what I was 
 doing there. She also is very sure that she saw 
 him looking after us, as we got into the West End 
 car. 
 
 Your letter has come at last, but you have not yet 
 received my first one to you ; but Cousin Rupert took 
 care of that, and said he would see that it reached 
 you ; and he has arranged for some one to call every 
 day for my letters to you and to everybody, some 
 body who will see they are mailed properly. You 
 hope, in your letter, that I will write you some de 
 scription of Boston, and the streets and the Common, 
 etc., and I have not sent you a word of description. 
 
 I am still much bewildered at the crowds in the 
 streets, and wonder if the time is really going to 
 come when " everybody " is out of town. One place 
 is particularly dreaded by me, and that is the crossing 
 over Park Square. There seems to be no reason for 
 calling it a square ; for four or five streets all come in 
 at angles, the Common and Public Garden form an 
 angle on one side, and electric cars and horse-cars 
 of every description and color come crossing each 
 other on all these streets. They do say that as many 
 as two women a week are knocked down here by carts 
 or cars and carried to the hospital, and many of them 
 die. This may be an exaggeration. I am most 
 afraid of the wild horses careering about here as I 
 struggle to cross to a middle point where there is an 
 electric lamp and a place of refuge, not such wild
 
 48 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 horses and mustangs as you are seeing in your West 
 ern wanderings, only extra car-horses that stand about 
 at this corner, to drag any horse-cars that come along 
 up a slope that there is supposed to be here. I have 
 failed to see that there is any ascent, having been 
 brought up on the side of Astney Mountain in Ver 
 mont. But I am always glad to see an extra horse 
 come to help pull on the crowded cars any time ; only 
 I am very much afraid of them, and fear that one day 
 I may be one of the women carried to the hospital. 
 
 A delightful plan of Aunt Martha's has just been 
 carried into effect. She was a little worried that I 
 should be in the house alone, as she calls it, even 
 with the staid housekeeper. " Suppose anybody 
 wants to come and see you," she said before she left. 
 " I do .not think it would be quite proper to receive 
 company alone." I insisted I should have no "com 
 pany " and no time to receive ; but she has been 
 writing notes, and arranging that Anna Davis shall 
 come and stay here with me. Anna is many years 
 older than I, with experience in Boston; and Aunt 
 Martha evidently thinks she will tame my wild aspi 
 rations with her sober wisdom. So she has just come, 
 and is established in Maria's pretty room, and we are 
 very happy. She is a very busy person, so we may 
 not be together so very much ; but we shall have our 
 evenings together, and can make such pleasant plans 
 for excursions about town. Anna points out that 
 if my friend of Class Day should turn up to call some 
 day with his bandaged head, she can receive him with 
 all propriety; but I tell her, as I have told Aunt 
 Martha, that I shall not "receive." 
 
 We went Saturday last to the school festival at the 
 Mechanics Building, where over three thousand grad 
 uates from the Boston public schools assembled for a 
 reception. It was a beautiful occasion. I was so
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 49 
 
 glad to see this famous large building, of which I 
 have heard so much, and all crowded, my dear, 
 and bands of music, with processions of the children ; 
 and each one of them, as all passed over the platform, 
 received a beautiful bunch of flowers. Every girl in 
 Boston must have been in that crowded hall. The 
 Mayor spoke to the children, and after the giving 
 of the flowers, every child had a mug of ice-cream 
 and a box of cake ; and after that came dancing in the 
 large hall ; and it was all such a pretty, merry sight ! 
 It was a lovely occasion, and we were very fortunate 
 to have tickets. 
 
 I have not told how I have enjoyed the Sunday here. 
 Anna and I went first to the Arlington Street Church, 
 but it was closed ; so we went to the Second Church, 
 where we came in upon an exquisite choral service, 
 and heard a beautiful and most helpful sermon from 
 Mr. Horton. I can't venture to tell you how full 
 of poetry and strength the sermon was, about the 
 " lions " in one's path, " social lions," even " religious 
 lions." 
 
 Some of the churches will close for the summer ; 
 but we are promised good preaching in many that 
 will be open. We had a lovely walk through the 
 Garden, as we left the church, along the gay flower- 
 borders, and sitting a while 0*1 the inviting seats. 
 This letter will have to hurry away without my tell 
 ing you of the delights of the Common and Garden.
 
 50 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 VII. 
 
 HAKEY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 NORTH NESS, R. I., July 5, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, You will wonder to know 
 why I am here; but I will tell you before I have 
 done, if these newspaper men do not cut off the end, 
 as they did the last time. Indeed, I was so sorry, not 
 to say angry. I sent you the card as soon as I knew ; 
 but I did not get their old paper for a day or two. 
 Our newsman is a fool, and he did not have enough ; 
 and it was not till I met Carruthers in the street, and 
 he said he thought I was dead, that I was alarmed 
 about you. 
 
 Eeally, if it had been at all bad, they would have 
 telegraphed you from the hospital, or they say they 
 would. But as they did not know who I was, how 
 they would know where to telegraph I do not know. 
 You see, the first thing I knew was Monday morning 
 when the man next me I was in 27 and he was in 
 28 had his breakfast. He had only one arm, and 
 was awkward with the other, and knocked down his 
 coffee-cup. That made a smash, and they came in 
 between his bed and mine, and that made a row. 
 They pushed my bed one side, and so I woke up. 
 Then I made a row, and asked where I was. And 
 they said I was all right, but I must not talk till the 
 doctor came. I said who was the doctor; and then 
 I found out that I was in the hospital. I was for 
 getting up ; but I could not see my clothes, and the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 51 
 
 " sense of the meeting " was that I should stay in 
 bed. If I had got up, I should have had to go about 
 town in the nightgown they had put on me. That 
 would have excited surprise, and I might have been 
 put in the newspapers. So I compromised ; I said 
 if they would let me wash myself, and bring me some 
 breakfast, I would not spill it, and I would wait till 
 the doctor came. I said they might bring beefsteak 
 and omelette. They laughed and went off, and true 
 enough the beefsteak and omelette came. 
 
 Then they brought me the "News," a jolly little 
 paper we have which only costs one cent, and I read 
 that through. Then a fellow lent me a novel, all 
 blood and thunder, and I got tired to death of the 
 bed and the nightgown and the novel ; and then the 
 doctor came. He took off a bandage they had put 
 round my head, and he looked at my tongue, felt 
 of my pulse, and asked a,- lot of questions. And then 
 he said there was nothing the matter, but that it was 
 very remarkable. 
 
 I told him that was just what I had told the nurse. 
 Then the nurse asked what she should do. By this 
 time I think the doctor was tired of us both, and he 
 laughed and told her to bring me my clothes. And 
 she did. There was a screen up so I could dress my 
 self with decorum ; and I bade them all good-by, and 
 said I was much obliged to them, which, in a way, 
 was true. I got the doctor to tell me what had 
 happened. 
 
 You see, a great thundering wire had come slam 
 ming down, and hit me on the head, or hat. They 
 say if it were a horse, it would have killed him, be 
 cause he has no hat. It is not really a thundering 
 wire, but a lightning wire, because it is as full of 
 electricity as they can make it. Well, this one broke 
 or something, and came slamming down. "Fortu-
 
 52 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 nately," the doctor said, "it did not strike the 
 horses." By which he meant, I suppose, that it 
 did strike me. All the good fortune that I see in 
 that is, that Mrs. Metcalf was in for my breakfast ; 
 for nobody offered me any bill at the hospital, and 
 I offered nobody any money. 
 
 They did say I had better have a bandage on my 
 forehead; for there was a visible cut there, and I 
 believe some blood had flowed from it. So an attend 
 ant, a sort of Bob Sawyer, put on this bandage in an 
 ante-room there was, and I went into the office of the 
 whole, and bade the regular " Top-Sawyer " good-by. 
 They made me count my money, which had all been 
 saved for me ; and I gave them a regular receipt for 
 that and the office keys and my knife and all my 
 things. 
 
 I tell you I made tracks for the office. But when 
 I came there, nobody seemed to have missed me. 
 There were a lot of paper-hangers and grainers and 
 whitewashmen, making things generally uncomfort 
 able. I rather think everybody had been late after 
 Sunday, and that they all thought I had been early 
 and stepped out. I did take care to go round before 
 night to Miss Tryphena's to tell her that I was all 
 right. But I did not find her at home. Then I wrote 
 all this at length to you. And those COMMONWEALTH 
 people just cut off all the end of it, so I was awfully 
 frightened when I came to read their old paper ; for 
 I knew how it would startle you. And when I went 
 to blow them up, they took the other tack and blew 
 me up for being too long. And when I asked for the 
 end of my letter, they said they supposed it was in 
 the waste basket; perhaps the boy had kindled the 
 engine fire with it. Anyway, I had to come home 
 and to send you the postal, which I hope you received. 
 
 I told you I would write a journal. But it is as old
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 53 
 
 John Adams says, when you are doing anything worth 
 doing you have no time to write your journal, and 
 when you write a journal, therefore, it is clear that 
 there is nothing worth putting down. I remember that 
 Robinson Crusoe said that when he wrote his diary 
 he found he put into it many things which he thought 
 important at the time, which afterward did not seem 
 necessary. You know he was short of ink, and could 
 find no nut-galls on his island, nothing but water 
 melons and turtles. Anyway, I will not try to dis 
 tinguish Tuesday from Wednesday now, nor tell what 
 my new chief did and did not determine about the 
 color of the office walls and the gas-burners. I shall 
 skip to the great event of Friday. 
 
 Only think of it! I came within one of coming up 
 to see you at Atherton. But even if I had been 
 willing to spend the money as indeed I was, dear 
 Mother I should have had to turn right round to 
 come back again, as soon as old Segar could water his 
 horses so as to go back by the night train. You see 
 the whitewashers got in with their scaffolds at last 
 into the new offices, and even the new treasurer could 
 not pretend that there was anything for us to do. 
 His name is still a secret, and I am afraid that if I 
 told you, some of the wrong people might get THE 
 COMMONWEALTH. This gave me Friday for a clear 
 day out, for we were told that we need none of us 
 come till Saturday. I hardly knew what I should do 
 in that desert ; but as dear Aunt Joey says, " it was 
 well ordered," as we shall see. I went round with 
 George Thursday night to the " Pop." This is short 
 for the Popular Concerts in the Music Hall. No, it is 
 not one of the organ concerts you used to go to when 
 you were here. They took down that organ, because 
 it was the largest in America, I believe, and packed
 
 54 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 it up in a burying-ground. This gave them more 
 room, so they now till that great hall with nice little 
 tables, with chairs round them ; and you go in and 
 sit at a table, and may drink anything you choose 
 from water as far as lager, but no farther. You 
 need n't drink anything ; but you can eat ice-cream 
 or whatever you want to eat, if they have it. I 
 should not ask for buffalo hump. I enclose the little 
 programme, and you will see that the music is really 
 very good. It is a nice place to spend an evening. 
 What you mean by "popular" is that the music is 
 not Bach or Beethoven, or even Wagner; but some 
 thing more light and jolly. The orchestra is made 
 up of some of the best musicians in town. 
 
 Well, here it was that George's friend, who was so 
 good to us at Class Day, proposed that we should go 
 to New London the next day and see Harvard beat 
 Yale. I did not think Harvard would beat Yale ; but 
 all the same I said I would go gladly. And we went. 
 
 We came down on a special train from Boston. We 
 had to start at 7.30 in the morning and were to come 
 back in the afternoon. As we came over the new 
 bridge at New London, we could see a swarm of tugs 
 and small boats hovering around to watch the race. 
 It was a perfectly lovely day. We had deliberated 
 a good deal as to the best way of seeing everything, 
 whether to follow the boats on a tug or to take the 
 observation train which goes on the railroad line 
 parallel to the course. But it happened by good, luck 
 that as we came into the station a friend of Carruthers 
 gave him two tickets for a good car on the train. You 
 see the train runs along the shore, so you keep nearly 
 even with the boats. We got on board and found our 
 selves with a lot of Harvard fellows. Two of them 
 had made up a lot of awfully funny songs, and sang 
 them at intervals, some of them with "gags " selected
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 55 
 
 for the occasion. The observation train, as they call 
 it, is a lot of common freight cars with board seats 
 put on, rising above each other, so that you sit just 
 as you might at the circus and ride sideways. They 
 are covered with bunting and make quite a fine show. 
 There were fellows from both colleges on board ; but 
 we were in car 22 with a great lot of Harvard men. 
 
 Generally, the race begins way up the river, and 
 the boats come down with the stream. But this time 
 it began at Winthrop Point, where is usually the 
 finish. The start is just above the new bridge, if 
 you recollect when we crossed it last year. They 
 were very punctual, starting at three minutes after 
 eleven. The man says, " Are you ready, gentlemen ? " 
 waits a minute, and then says, " Go !" and they start ; 
 but of course we could not hear this. From the very 
 first, Harvard went right to the front. We could tell 
 which was which by the blades of the oars, Harvard's 
 being red, and Yale's blue. The men are stripped to 
 the skin, so you cannot tell them by the university 
 colors -; but I suppose the time will come when they 
 will go into such contests like the old Picts, in two 
 colors. If you care to know, the Harvard boat was 
 cedar, and the Yale boat was paper. Harvard gained 
 from the very beginning. Still, I think it was sup 
 posed at first that this was by a special spurt, and that 
 Yale would overtake her ; but she never did. In two 
 miles Harvard was seven lengths ahead, and, prac 
 tically, as great an advantage as this at that point 
 means that a boat is going to win. Harvard had the 
 east track, which is called the eel-grass track, but that 
 did not seem to make any difference. 
 
 Now, in the observation car, you keep abreast of 
 them all the time. But you can see how exciting 
 it is when you pass into a cut on the road, where you 
 cannot see the boats, so there is great yelling when
 
 56 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 you come out of the cut into the open air again. At 
 the finish Harvard was thirteen lengths ahead. This 
 was just opposite the Harvard quarters where the 
 men had stayed while they practised. The Harvard 
 boat-house was below, the Yale and Columbia farther 
 up the river. You can guess if there was not terrific 
 cheering on our car when the victory came. And 
 when there was a chance for singing, our poets had 
 some fit lines for the triumph. 
 
 The crew went at once to their quarters, so that we 
 saw no more of them then. We went back to town 
 on the observation train. But in the afternoon we 
 saw all the crew at the Pequot House. Here was a 
 procession and great congratulations. But we could 
 not stay for the evening jollification, and came home 
 on the eight o'clock train. I asked everybody why 
 one of the two colleges did not row against Cornell, 
 seeing that boat seems to make better time than any 
 body. But the question was not popular, and I did 
 not push it too far. Certainly, I got no answer. 
 
 Here I was interrupted, and I finish this letter at 
 the office. The whitewash men have gone. And 
 now I have so much to tell that I shall tell nothing. 
 Certainly, as that Frenchman said, Boston is the most 
 entertaining place in summer. In winter, I am 
 afraid, it is more stupid. You know they say that 
 there is not one of the real Bostonese who knows there 
 is anything beyond Watertown. That is the town 
 next Cambridge. They built a road there in the first 
 years of the colony, and the builders reported that 
 there would never be any need of its going any 
 further. 
 
 The Frenchman reminds me of my Russian, whose 
 name is Gabriel Vostikoff. He seems to think that 
 I shall know that this is a very great name. Perhaps
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 57 
 
 you and father do. But really I never heard of it 
 before. Anyway, here he is, and I met him in a 
 street car, which is a sort of a club-house. I bowed 
 to him, because he moved into the middle of the seat 
 and let me sit down. This showed he was a gentle 
 man. A blackguard keeps the end of the seat and 
 makes you crowd by him. I am sorry to say that 
 most women do the same thing. I bowed to him and 
 thanked him. He then took out a writing tablet, and 
 in an exquisite hand wrote, " Canst thou inform me 
 which road I shall go to find the Bureau of the Post ? " 
 So I told him. But he shook his head, and gave me 
 the tablet and pencil for me to write my answer. Of 
 course, I supposed that " he was deaf and was dumb," 
 as our old story used to say. But no such thing. We 
 are great friends now. I had him up at the office to 
 direct some circulars, and everybody likes him and 
 his good-natured ways, and his exquisite handwriting. 
 What a passport into civilized life that is, to be 
 sure. 
 
 It seems that he was a student somewhere in 
 Russia, and he fell in with an old French review, 
 where there was a very rosy account of Cornell Uni 
 versity. It told how it was a school for all, if only 
 they wanted to learn, and especially how you got 
 through for nothing by dint of working with your 
 hands half the day, so that you could work with your 
 head the other half. So the good fellow started, and 
 got some money together to come to Cornell. Little 
 enough it was, too. He got to Hamburg, and then 
 had the wit to earn his passage on a tramp steamer 
 somehow, so that he landed here with a lot of German 
 coin, which may be worth six dollars. 
 
 Then comes the droll thing which made me think 
 he was deaf and dumb. He had learned English so 
 that he might be ready to come. You know how
 
 58 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 good they are at languages. But he had learned by 
 some double-refined improved patent system, so that 
 when he spoke it nobody understood him, and when 
 they spoke to him he did not understand them. I 
 wish I could write down for you how queer it is, and 
 how senseless when he speaks. But he had his gram 
 mar and his spelling and his handwriting quite right. 
 So that, by taking a deaf and dumb man's methods 
 he comes out first rate. And he is so jolly and good- 
 natured that everybody likes him. He and I are 
 going at this moment down to " The White Squadron." 
 That is the United States fleet which is now in the 
 harbor. Our company has a contract for supplying 
 Jack with all his clothes-pins, and I am to see one of 
 the officers about it, if I can find him. 
 
 P. S. As you see, this letter is a thing of shreds 
 and patches. I had hardly written the within, when 
 my Russian bear, as we call him, came in, and I took 
 him off to lunch. We do this when we can, for we are 
 afraid he will starve before our eyes, so eager is he to 
 save up the money for his journey to Cornell. What 
 a shame it is that so many fellows, who have all the 
 chances to go to college, do nothing when they are 
 there, while so fine a fellow as he is, finds his wheels 
 blocked all the time when he wants really to go to 
 work. 
 
 Well ! little, enough I thought when I was writing 
 before what would happen before I was done. I. took 
 him to a little place I have found, where the coffee is 
 good and the bread good enough, (though not like 
 yours, dear mother), and where on clam-chowder days 
 they know how to make that. And I gave him his 
 lessons in pronunciation, that he must not say 
 "co-ug," but "koff," when he was talking about a 
 sudden ejaculation of breath from the lungs, and so
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 59 
 
 on. I took care that he should have enough nitrogen 
 and phosphorus and carbon tucked into him to keep 
 the furnace a-going, and then I brought him back to 
 the office. 
 
 We understood well enough that it was half a show 
 day and half a day of instruction. Still if I could get 
 a chance for business, I was to try to see somebody 
 who had some authority and who knew something at 
 the same time. You see our contract provides that 
 their clothes-pins are to be made of cherry wood. A 
 wise Providence only knows why. Anybody who 
 knows anything about clothes-pins knows that when 
 they are made of walnut they are just as good as the 
 cherry ones. Why the contract says cherry, nobody 
 can guess. 
 
 I did not really suppose that Admiral Walker knew 
 or cared. But it was supposed that if I kept my eyes 
 open and used my advantages, I might have a chance 
 to find out, and that, in an informal and unofficial 
 conversation, I might do what we had not been able 
 to do in correspondence with the Department. They 
 only respectfully refer our letters from one bureau to 
 another and we never get any answer. For this enter 
 prise the new treasurer gave me a general letter of 
 introduction to Admiral Walker or any officer on the 
 squadron. It was written in our handsomest style 
 and put up in the Company's envelope. I asked if I 
 might take the Bear with me, and they said certainly, 
 and we started. 
 
 We went to Long Wharf, the historical Long 
 Wharf. It is very different now from what it was when 
 it was so very Long, for the land has encroached on 
 it so that half of it is not a wharf at all. I was 
 tempted by Satan to take the Bear and show him T 
 wharf, and I explained to him, what he did not in 
 the least understand, that it is named T from its
 
 60 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 shape. [Memorandum: the Governor's aids took a 
 distinguished historian down there a few years ago, 
 and told him it was named T because the tea was 
 thrown over there. Keally that was at a wholly dif 
 ferent place.] Then we crossed over and I tell you 
 all the boatmen went for us. 
 
 After a minute I took a sailboat which I liked and 
 I let two other fellows go with us. Of course they 
 were to pay their half. But thence came all our woe. 
 Just as the man was ready and we were going down 
 the steps, a larger party came along, and their boat, a 
 private boat, ran up, with two or three gentlemanly 
 looking oarsmen. I told my boatman to wait, and we 
 stood back to let their people pass. Of course I 
 supposed they were all strangers. But at once I recog 
 nized that pretty girl I told you I danced with at 
 Memorial Hall. 
 
 We had a sail, as I said, and they rowed. But they 
 rowed well, used to it, as half those Harvard men 
 are, so that they got to the Newark just as soon as 
 we did. Once more I told my boatman to wait for 
 them, and he did so. This time my pretty partner 
 recognized me, and she bowed to me very nicely as 
 she went up the great high ladder which takes you 
 up the ship's side. At the top and at the bottom there 
 are fine looking sailors to make it as easy as they can. 
 I was well pleased to think that I had so good an 
 opportunity to speak with her again as this would 
 give me. But I must tell all this story as shortly as 
 I can, or they will cut off the end of it and that is 
 the only part which is essential. For there is many a 
 slip between cup and lip. Two ladies went up after 
 her, and as the last one came near the top, she started 
 about something and dropped one of her wraps, which 
 came floating down above us. One of these other men, 
 a clumsy fellow, tried to catch it. I believe he did
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 61 
 
 catch it, but he caught his foot in a thwart and went 
 over heavily himself. He grabbed as he went at our 
 boatman who was taking in his mast, I do not know 
 why, and was using both his hands. Both of them 
 fell together, the boat was already a little keeled over, 
 and in a minute she took in a great wave of water, 
 and all of us were ducked into
 
 62 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, July 17, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I suppose you will hardly be 
 lieve that my life is still of the " rackety " sort, and 
 if it is going to be more so next winter, I do not quite 
 see how my poor little head will stand it. I have not 
 yet had a chance to begin on " regular hours of study," 
 which I had planned out, at least for the summer 
 days. I do have now my work in the morning, for 
 " work " it is, as I shall show ; and I will begin with 
 it the first thing, lest it should be crowded out by the 
 history of afternoon experiences. 
 
 I wish I could give you a picture of that first day 
 at the Vacation School, and the crowds of children 
 who " come to school because, they want to." There 
 were between two and three hundred, of various ages 
 and sizes, boys and girls. I quite wished I could have 
 the little things who crowded into the Kindergarten, 
 but I do not know that they were more interesting 
 than the rough boys over twelve years of age, because 
 you wondered at seeing them there, and these were to 
 fall to my share. The Kindergarten teacher, with 
 fifty children to attend to, must have something of an 
 experience with them ; but not greater than mine, 
 you can believe, to find myself standing up opposite 
 twenty or thirty boys, great fellows at least twelve or 
 thirteen years old, evidently coming for fun rather 
 than for " instruction." A terror came over me at the 
 remembrance of some of the experiences in these
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 63 
 
 schools in earlier years that I had been told of, when 
 it was necessary to have policemen in the building 
 to keep down these struggling spirits. But this year 
 they were going to do without a policeman. What a 
 dreadful thing it would be if they should get the better 
 of me, and a policeman should have to be called in ! 
 
 But I looked round on the bright, jolly faces, and 
 the very terror of the policeman gave me courage. 
 What a pity, I seemed to say to myself, that these 
 gay boys should grow up with the idea that only the 
 policeman's club could keep them right. They are not 
 criminals or convicts ; they are boys that like to have 
 a good time. So I found myself telling them how I 
 had come to Boston for the first time, and how I had 
 not yet seen all the wonderful public buildings, and 
 how they would have to teach me where to go and 
 what to see. And I went on by telling them how, a 
 day or two before, I had walked out through the park 
 that lies beyond Commonwealth Avenue, and I had 
 to stop and tell them who Lief Ericson was and how 
 his statue looks up through the park, and how I 
 wonder if he does not want sometimes to turn the 
 other way and look down the avenue of beautiful 
 houses on either side, because they had all grown 
 up since his time, with its brick sidewalks and easy 
 driveway ; while, as he looks out now he sees the 
 trees and flowers, sweet as perhaps he saw when he 
 fhst landed here. At least there might then have 
 been the wild roses in bloom, such as I have seen 
 there that is, if it were in the season, and I said 
 we would try and find out if it were. And I asked 
 them if they knew what flowers there were in that 
 park, and most of them had never been there and did 
 not know there was such a statue as Lief Ericson's, 
 nor had heard his name, though they had seen George 
 Washington in the Public Garden.
 
 64 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 I may as well go on and tell you how I told them 
 about my walking further some days before, through 
 the park to the new bridge to Cambridge, such a 
 lovely walk as it is, perhaps the most beautiful one 
 can take here, and how I had also seen a map of 
 old Boston. It was one that Dr. F. showed to me 
 which gave a picture of how Boston looked on the 
 day of the battle of Lexington ; no bridges but one 
 across the Charles River (and I set them to counting 
 how many there are now), and this one bridge very 
 much in the place of the new Harvard Bridge one 
 walks across to Cambridge. It was to this bridge 
 that "our" men went on that day of the battle of 
 Lexington, and they took away the boards from off 
 the bridge, so that the British need not follow them 
 out of Boston. But they left the boards in a pile so 
 near the bridge that the British could put them back 
 again, which they did, and marched over on their way 
 to Lexington. I don't believe I told it as connectedly 
 as this even, for I let them ask questions and stop me 
 to give their views, and they were very sure they 
 should not have been so stupid as to leave the boards. 
 But I do not have to draw upon my own resources 
 in this way all the time, for there are so many de 
 lightful occupations, and teachers arranged for the 
 different hours, that we can fill up the time with 
 great variety. 
 
 The boys enjoy the drawing and clay-modelling and 
 whittling and cane-seating, and I can't yet tell you all 
 of the varieties of work. You see it is, as I wrote you, 
 all on the " Harry and Lucy " principle. The scholars 
 are not kept studying all the time, but they are led to 
 be interested in things, and to do something them 
 selves with their hands with things. Harry and 
 Lucy in the old book were taken by their parents to 
 see a brick kiln, and Harry immediately wanted to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 65 
 
 make bricks himself, and his father let him try. So 
 here, the boys can carry out the Yankee love of whit 
 tling, or cultivate it if they are not real Yankees 
 themselves, and they are encouraged to make some 
 thing. Harry did not succeed very well with his 
 bricks, but just his failures taught him something. 
 One of " my " boys has got hold of some of " Hetty's " 
 favorite old-fashioned chairs that I sent from the 
 house here, and he is very proud of putting in new 
 seats. 
 
 At Denison's, a store on Franklin Street where 
 I have been, they have most bewitching things 
 made of tissue and crepe paper, of every possible 
 shade and color. There are baskets crocheted of tis 
 sue paper and twisted like ropes, lamp-shades orna 
 mented in all sorts of ways, and paper-dolls' dresses 
 that are perfectly fascinating. They have kindly 
 asked some of the teachers to come and examine all 
 these things, that they may teach the children. I 
 think of sending some of the things home, the work 
 is so inviting, and they would like it, I know, at the 
 Sewing Circle, when they are making up things for a 
 sale in the autumn. Just think, they had even a 
 trimmed hat all made of tissue paper, very ingenious 
 and pretty, but I fear not very useful in a shower ; 
 perhaps, however, it will do for a fair. I should like 
 indeed to tell the children at hoine about the numer 
 ous things they might learn here ; there are countless 
 things to be done in the way of paper-folding, boats 
 and boxes to be made, and very good work is done by 
 the girls in sewing. 
 
 But I must tell you how fast my afternoons fill in. 
 Last week I tried to devote them to excursions that 
 might rest me from my morning's work, and you can't 
 think what entertaining things turned up. I must re 
 serve for the very last the most exciting of all, and
 
 66 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 our visit last week to the White Squadron. I want 
 to tell all the other things first, lest they should be 
 forgotten ; and there hangs a tale to it, that I must 
 leave for the end of my letter. It was not my first 
 glimpse of the White Squadron, because the day 
 before Anna and I made such a lovely excursion to 
 Revere Beach. 
 
 I have written you how I pine always to see the 
 harbor and the beach and the great sea, and how dis- 
 ippointed I was in the beginning that I could not sit 
 on a bench on the Common and see the great sea come 
 in from there. So Anna agreed to go over with me 
 to Revere Beach, where she had never been, and 
 where she was very sure we could see the real tide 
 coming in. We looked up the advertisements in the 
 papers, and found a new way of going through East 
 Boston to Winthrop Junction in the regular horse- 
 cars five-cent fare and from Winthrop Junction 
 to Revere Beach on the electric cars, a new line, for 
 five cents more, advertised as the cheapest and pleas- 
 antest way to Revere. 
 
 We took an East Boston car at the corner of Ches 
 ter Park and Tremont Street and went down through 
 Hanover Street to the East Boston ferry, which means 
 going straight through Boston from the South End to 
 the very end of the North End. Crowds are still in 
 che streets, but even I could believe that they were not 
 the real Boston. Anna said they all looked as if they 
 came from " Way Back " somewhere. All the shop 
 ping streets, Temple Place and Winter Street, were 
 by no means deserted, but were full of people. Then 
 down at the end of Hanover Street, they all looked so 
 foreign, Italians and Jews, women bare-headed with 
 large ear-rings, and oh, such care-worn faces. They 
 all seemed full of business, the women looking at the 
 gay bedquilts and calicoes hanging from the shop-win-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 67 
 
 dows, and the men busy too, the corners of the streets 
 crowded with stands for bananas and neck-ties. We 
 saw a party of immigrants just landed, who looked 
 bewildered enough. 
 
 Then, as we crossed the ferry, we had an admira 
 ble view of the White Squadron. We passed down 
 beside the " Yorktown " and could really see the officers 
 and sailors walking and lounging about. I must say 
 they looked bored to death. Tugs were taking visit 
 ors over to the different vessels. I supposed then 
 that this would be my only view of the whole fleet. 
 I little knew how I was to be taken out myself on 
 just such a little boat as we saw but I will not an 
 ticipate, as Harriet Byron says. 
 
 At East Boston we changed to a Winthrop Junc 
 tion car, passing through deserted streets, and at 
 last we came in sight of the sea, and a real view of 
 the harbor. At the Junction we found the electric 
 cars, and then such an enchanting ride across the 
 salt marshes, with the sea on either side, whizzing 
 across a narrow bridge, then down a steep hill ; and 
 I really trembled with terror, it all looked so dan 
 gerous, and it seemed as if we were skimming through 
 the air. And then we were on the beach, and far 
 away the tide was coming up, on the long stretch 
 of gray sand that invited us, and we came down to 
 meet the water and scamper away from it as the chil 
 dren did. If we had been earlier we should have 
 stood there in silent wonder, or have thought of our 
 Tennyson and all the wonderful descriptions of tide 
 and sand. But the beach was crowded. Women had 
 brought out their children to breathe the salt air, and 
 the children were digging in the sand, or perhaps they 
 were begging their mothers to buy them pop-corn, 
 and there was the tin-type man and the goat-cart 
 filled with children, and everybody enjoying every-
 
 68 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 thing. How Anna and I wished we might make a 
 picture of some of the lovely groups. 
 
 We stayed longer than we meant, for some of the 
 children told us we ought to wait for the "gospel 
 carriage." Pretty soon it came along, with " Gospel 
 Carriage " written on it. It was occupied by half a 
 dozen men and women, with a small organ used also 
 as a pulpit. A hymn was sung which attracted a 
 crowd, and then a short discourse was given. I can 
 tell you there was something quite exciting about it, 
 with the background of the tide coming up the long 
 beach, and the crowds of children looking up with won 
 der from their different amusements. The wagon is 
 hired by the city missionaries and goes wherever they 
 think a little good can be done. In the evening they 
 go to the Common or the North End or West End. 
 
 We came home the same way, having had a delight 
 ful afternoon, returning into the golden glow of a 
 sunset that lighted up the ships in the harbor, as we 
 crossed again in the ferry-boat. 
 
 I thought of these children in the sand the other 
 day, when I went to a lovely place that has been 
 fitted up for a girls' gymnasium. It is also a play 
 ground for girls, and one of the most enticing places 
 you can imagine. It is a little park on the Charles 
 River Embankment. And sometime or other, this 
 embankment is to be carried all along the shore of 
 Charles River, on Charles Street and Beacon Street. 
 Nowadays, as you come into Boston from Cambridge 
 over the bridge, you see on the curving shore of the 
 river the stately row of houses on Beacon Street. 
 But I must say the view is not impressive, for you 
 see only the back doors of these houses ; and I ven 
 tured once to suggest to Aunt Martha that I thought 
 it would be an improvement to turn all the Beacon 
 Street houses round, so that they could face on the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AXD LUCY. 69 
 
 river. She was very much shocked at the idea of 
 back doors on Beacon Street ; but I think they will 
 have to ornament the backs of these houses, whenever 
 this embankment is finished ; for it will make a 
 charming riverside to look out upon. Meanwhile, en 
 terprising Boston is taking advantage of an open place 
 on Charles Street for this gymnasium for the girls. 
 
 We went into the enclosure under a projecting roof, 
 and such a happy party we found within. Here were 
 some beds of sand, in which a crowd of little children 
 were allowed to play and make whatever they chose, 
 sand-pies or lofty towers, for one girl had formed 
 what looked like towers of Babel, a row of them, each 
 one just like its next neighbor, and all sorts of 
 fanciful things. They were having such good fun 
 with their pails and spades, like the children on the 
 beach, and they delighted in talking to us, and telling 
 us about their mud-pies. It was really hard to leave 
 them, and go on to see the gymnasium, but we found 
 this equally charming. 
 
 Here were tilting-bridges and balance-swings, in 
 clined parallels, climbing-ropes, and ladders. Let me 
 tell you about these " inclined parallels ; " they are 
 like two bannister-rails a foot or so apart. A girl 
 goes up the ladder, or climbs up one of the ropes, and 
 then slides down the parallels. Just think of the 
 fun ! I used to think it was the greatest bliss in life 
 to get a chance to imitate my older brothers, and 
 slide down the bannisters of our staircase when I 
 was a child. But it was a forbidden joy, because it 
 was so dangerous, and because I was a girl. Was it 
 a part of its charms that it was forbidden ? You see 
 the advantages of being born into the present genera 
 tion. Here the girls are not only permitted but in 
 vited to slide down the staircase, only under the name 
 of "inclined parallels," and the children are encour-
 
 70 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 aged to make sand-pies ! We went up to the room 
 for the Kindergarten, which looks out on one side 
 upon the river, and the other way you can look down 
 upon the playgrounds and see the mothers looking 
 on, in the grassy enclosure. 
 
 In the Kindergarten were occupations for the chil 
 dren, stringing beads, weaving papers, picture-books, 
 etc. And down in the enclosure with its pretty 
 hedges of shrubs and roses, the children were busy 
 with pretty Kindergarten work, with card-board de 
 signs, that they mark out with colored worsteds, all 
 under kindly direction. They have had lovely dona 
 tions of roses, so that there is everything to make 
 them enjoy the idea of a real summer, such as you 
 would not imagine in a city's crowded streets. 
 
 The working-girls are to come later in the after 
 noon, and it must be as much of a delight for them 
 as for the children. The gymnasium is admirably 
 fitted up, the apparatus suggested by Dr. Sargent of 
 Harvard. I could n't help trying myself the " Giant 
 Step " that we used to have in our gymnasium at 
 Astney, when four ropes are attached to a pole with 
 rings at the ends, the rings a little higher than the 
 girls' heads. Four girls reach up to the rings, and 
 holding on to them they run about the pole. When 
 they lift their feet from the ground they are carried 
 along by the momentum, round and round with a de 
 lightful motion, which must be helped from time to 
 time by a little touch of the ground with one foot, 
 and again on they go. The motion seems so like 
 flying and is so charming that if Professor Langley 
 can invent a method of flying for the human race 
 that is equal to it, I hope he will succeed. 
 
 The tilting-bridges are much like foot-bridges over 
 small streams. They have close fences on either 
 side, and are suspended in the middle. A party of
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 71 
 
 girls get on the bridge and stamp up and down, the 
 girls on one side stamping more than the others. Up 
 and down they go, or, like an old-fashioned tilt, they 
 see-saw up and down, with a friend at each end to 
 start them. I hope to have the privilege of going 
 in for fun and exercise after I am really at work, so 
 that I can feel that I deserve it. 
 
 But I am writing too much without leaving space 
 to tell you of my excitement of last week in really 
 going out to see the White Squadron. Anna Davis 
 with some friends had an invitation to go out to one 
 of the vessels to see the shooting in the harbor the 
 other afternoon, and they were kind enough to ask 
 me to go too. I had to hurry off after my morning's 
 class, and met them at the Parker House. Here 
 were some young men who were going to row us out 
 from one of the wharves, among them Mr. Brand and 
 Mr. Jones, Harvard men, who were my partners on 
 Class Day. I have happened to meet Mr. Brand 
 since, and we all seemed to know each other after 
 lunching together, and went down through the be 
 wildering streets to a real wharf, and looked out 
 upon the exciting, mixed-up scene. I was frightened 
 to death at being got down into the boat, but I suc 
 ceeded in not disgracing myself by tumbling in be 
 tween the wharf and the boat. But just as we were 
 getting off, I looked back at a sailboat that seemed in 
 our way, waiting for a party just coming down the 
 steps to go on board, and among them was my un 
 known friend of Class Day. 
 
 He seemed to have the direction of the party, for 
 he motioned to the boatmen to keep out of our way, 
 and we passed on ; but his sailboat was near us all the 
 way out to our ship. There was plenty to attract my 
 attention. all those little boats bobbing about, the 
 row of great ships beyond, and every kind of steam tug
 
 72 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 and excursion steamer, whistling and puffing about 
 us ; but the sailboat kept along near us, and we saw 
 it must be aiming for the same ship to which we were 
 bound. For it appeared that Mr. Brand had met this 
 same young man at Cambridge, Class Day, and he re 
 gretted much that he had not "caught his name" 
 there, as he had been wanting to hunt him up since ; 
 for he understood then that he was a stranger in 
 Boston, and that he had come to join some large firm 
 just established in Boston ; and he would like to do 
 something for him if he could. So we bobbed in and 
 out among the boats, but we kept well ahead with our 
 oarsmen, for their sails did not seem to help them 
 much ; and I had no chance to bow to him till I hap 
 pened to turn round on the very steps of the high 
 ladder going up the ship's side. I looked off over 
 the side of the ship the minute I reached the landing- 
 place, the sailors making it all very easy, and then I 
 saw such a confusing scene. 
 
 One of the ladies of our party I am happy to say 
 I did n't know anything about her let her shawl 
 fall into the water. It was very clumsy of her, be 
 cause we had so much help from the sailors going 
 up. One of the men in the sailboat reached out for 
 the shawl and got it, but somehow caught his foot 
 in something and went over the side of the boat. 
 I believe they were taking in the mast, and the 
 boatman, as he went down, seized hold of one of 
 the other men ; they both fell together, and then 
 the boat turned over. I hardly dared to look to see 
 what happened next, but the ship's sailors somehow 
 went to the rescue, and Mr. Brand tried to help, 
 and everybody said everything was all right, and 
 more boats were coming up, and more people mount 
 ing the ladder, and we were hurried away, and I 
 waited full of anxiety till Mr. Brand appeared, but
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 73 
 
 without our Class Day friend. He did. not have 
 much to tell except that he saw that the boat got 
 righted, and that our friend was on board the boat 
 all right; but he believed they were going back, or 
 somewhere else. He had to hurry up the ladder 
 himself or he should lose his own chance. 
 
 I felt dreadfully about it, and I made Mr. Brand 
 go back with me to look off in that direction; but 
 somehow we had swerved round, or I had lost my 
 bearings, for I could see nothing of the sailboat. 
 Mr. Brand tried to quiet me, and declared they were 
 all out of danger. But I silently agreed with him 
 when he declared that he was disappointed that he 
 had lost the chance of talking with him all the 
 afternoon and evening and making his acquaintance. 
 I did have time to see that he no longer wore any 
 bandage, and he looked very handsome and manly 
 as he stood giving his directions to the men. I 
 feel so provoked that it was one of our party who 
 dropped the shawl. You can 't think (can you ?) 
 that he imagines that it was my shawl, and that I 
 was so foolish as to drop it, when I never take a 
 shawl with me ? I am leaving no space to tell you 
 of the grand show of the afternoon, which indeed 
 was fine. Such a contrast, all this warlike, magnifi 
 cent show, to the promise of peace we had pictured to 
 us at the grand Fourth of July oration. For I have 
 not told you how Anna Davis and I did succeed in 
 going to the Boston Theatre to hear Mr. Quincy, and 
 his oration was splendid. And when I saw all this 
 brilliant show on the water that afternoon, I thought 
 to myself, perhaps that is the way it is to be ; we 
 shall have all this firing of guns, and smoke of cannon 
 and great war-ships just for the show, and we shall 
 go out to see it peacefully, because there is " war no 
 more."
 
 74 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTEE SEVENTH. 
 
 IX. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 NORTH NESS, R. I., July 20, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I write this in the old Nar- 
 ragansett country, within a mile of the old Indian fort 
 where your grandmother's grandfather was killed in 
 the attack, as it says on the old matchlock over the 
 dining-room door. You might mention it at the 
 next meeting of the Indian Association of Windham 
 County ; and you might add that there are not so 
 many people in the ISTarragansett country proper as 
 there were then. I mean that east and west of here 
 is a strip of woods and ponds which is only fit for little 
 farms, and from which the people have moved to 
 factories and to the West. 
 
 I felt badly when I got THE COMMONWEALTH, be 
 cause I was afraid again that you might be anxious. 
 They cut off the letter in that short metre way, just as 
 I was swimming in the bay by the side of one of the 
 white ships. But I said to myself : " Surely mother 
 is not a fool and she will know that if I was 
 drowned I could not have written that letter." If I 
 had seen it sooner I would have written at once. As 
 it was, the firm sent me up into New Brunswick, to 
 inquire about our contract for wild cherry, and I never 
 saw the letter till Saturday night. I got into town 
 Saturday morning, and the newsman tried to sell me 
 THE COMMO> T WEALTH with the woman's letter. But
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 75 
 
 I will not read her letters. I should only be out five 
 cents if I bought it and I had rather save that for 
 Christinas presents. 
 
 So I begin by saying that I was not drowned, but 
 was badly wet. So was the polar bear, and so, I am 
 glad to say, was the stupid land-lubber whose clumsi 
 ness caused the accident. We all scrambled iip from 
 the bottom as quick as we could, and there were only 
 too many to help. But I was at the stern of our boat 
 and I got in first. She never really capsized, though 
 she took in a hogshead of water. I pulled myself in, 
 and had nobody to thank, but I was thankful for the 
 memories of old days when we used to go swimming 
 in Gogmagog, and the first fellow got into the boat 
 that way and wiped himself on the shirts of the 
 others. Then I hauled the others in, with, I say, 
 profuse offers of help all round. The officer in com 
 mand up above us sent down a young fellow, who was 
 perhaps a midshipr/uYe, to ask us to come on board, 
 and to offer the hospitalities of the engine-room to 
 dry ourselves. But I was not going to show myself 
 in that ducked-dog condition to all those ladies. So I 
 thanked the little man, and told our boatman, who 
 had kept tolerably good-natured in all this nonsense, 
 to get away from the ladder as quick as he could, and 
 we began to bail out ; fortunately he had a couple of 
 pails. Then in our ducked-dog condition we went 
 back to the wharf in Boston, not in such good spirits 
 as we started in, I can assure you. To you I will say 
 privately that I looked over my shoulder to see my 
 little parcel of clothes-pins floating off on top of a wave. 
 I was not going to claim any connection with them, 
 and I suppose they are in Palos or the island of 
 Hawaii before now. 
 
 Dear mother, do not mind where these people stop 
 the letters. Eecollect that if I am dead or unconscious,
 
 76 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 I will certainly telegraph you, and you must not give 
 yourself any anxiety because the letter does not hap 
 pen to be signed by my name. 
 
 You will not understand why I should be in the 
 Narragansett country. All Carruthers's people come 
 down here in summer. They have a nice place, in full 
 sight of the sea, though it is a couple of miles off. 
 And " sea " here means the Atlantic Ocean ; for there 
 is a little stretch, as you have perhaps never observed, 
 between the eastern end of Long Island and Narragan- 
 sett Bay, where nothing but Block Island breaks the 
 sight and force of the Atlantic Ocean. So Carruthers 
 made me come down here on the one o'clock train 
 Saturday, and I have been spending Sunday here. I 
 shall have a great deal to tell you about the place, for 
 Mrs. Carruthers, who is very nice, has made me prom 
 ise to come down again. But now I have only spent 
 Sunday here, and I foresee that this letter will be so 
 long that I had better not go into accounts of the 
 Narragansett country, or of my sea-bathing, or of the 
 people who come down to the beach, or of our ex 
 periences with ray's eggs, or of the museum that I 
 have made of sea-urchins and other wonders for 
 Florence. I have been writing this with a pencil, 
 while we were waiting for the train to come. It is 
 announced that it is now in sight, which means four 
 miles off, and I will finish .this letter at the office. 
 
 If the engine had not come, I should have told you 
 that this is the way that most of the Boston people 
 live whom I see the most. It is all nonsense to say 
 that Boston is all out of town, for, as I told you, on 
 Sundays the Common is as full as any beehive is, and 
 I should think, from what I see in the streets, that 
 there are just as many people in Boston in the day 
 time as there ever were. But the railroad people
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 77 
 
 would tell you that a great many more people go out 
 of town in the last hours of the day than come in, and 
 on the other hand you have only to come in on a 
 morning train to see that a great many more people 
 come in than go out. This means that Boston is a 
 day-time city in summer ; and that accounts for a 
 great many queer things. The Boston men say, for 
 instance, that they do not recognize nearly as many 
 people in the streets as they do in winter. And even 
 supposing that you live, as I and all our clerks here 
 live through the week, the chances are that you go 
 out of town on Saturday, spend your Sunday, and come 
 in, perhaps a little late, on Monday morning. They 
 made no fuss at the office about my being late, and, as 
 I said once before, I believe everybody was so late 
 himself that he supposed that I had been very early 
 and had gone out upon some errand. I did not give 
 myself away. 
 
 You must not feel sad about it, but I am getting in 
 love with the freedom of this sort of life, and I shall 
 be as bad a cockney as any of them are before long. 
 Perhaps I shall be rather more so. I heard old Mr. 
 Champernoon say the other day he is one of our 
 directors, a man who likes to draw his money from 
 our investment, and takes the privilege of coming 
 around and talking for an hour in the office every 
 morning, while he does not understand so much of 
 the business as any fly that crawls on the window 
 I say I heard old Mr. Champernoon say that you 
 could distinguish between the two lines of rich men 
 in Boston, those who were brought up in the coun 
 try and those who were not. He said the country 
 boys never went into ornamental farming ; that they 
 had had enough of " laying stone Avail" to serve them 
 for their life. He said it was only the Boston boy, 
 who had grown up without knowing the difference
 
 78 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 between a cow and a sheep, who took, in later life, to 
 the elegancies of agriculture. I do not know whether 
 this is true. But I do know that already, after being 
 here a month. I have got into the stream so far that I 
 like to feel at the beginning of the week, on the one 
 hand, that before the week is over I shall have been 
 in Maine or Rhode Island or the Berkshire moun 
 tains, and, on the other hand, that I am ignorant to 
 which of these I shall go. You see I do not feel as 
 if I lived in Boston ; I feel as if I lived in a circle of 
 two or three hundred miles radius, of which Boston is 
 the centre. 
 
 And I wholly understand, though I have been here 
 so short a time, the feeling that the whole belongs to 
 me, or, if you please, that I belong to it. I see en 
 tirely why cockneys are cockneys, and I can see why 
 men of letters and poets come to get the sort of en 
 thusiasm about streets and buildings that you and I 
 have for ponds and woods and hills. Miss Carruthers, 
 where I was staying yesterday, she is a very nice 
 girl, showed me half a dozen pretty poems of this 
 Miss Levy, the Jewish girl who died of a broken 
 heart, about this very thing. 
 
 " The human tale of love and hate, 
 The city pageant, early and late, 
 Unfolds itself, rolls by, to be 
 A pleasure deep and delicate. 
 An omnibus suffices me." 
 
 When you come down to make me your winter visit I 
 shall make you understand this. 
 
 For the present, however, you see I am writing 
 this at the office on Wednesday, I am no longer a 
 cockney. How long my change of life will last I do 
 not know, but when I came home on Monday, poor 
 Mrs. Metcalf came to me in a good deal of trouble ; I 
 think she had been crying. It proved that all her
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 79 
 
 boarders had deserted her, excepting me. Some had 
 acted in good faith and some in bad faith, but there 
 she was, with that big house and I do not know how 
 many servants, and I was the only person to whom 
 she was bound and bound she was to keep me in 
 fishballs and pork and coffee and bread and butter and 
 whatever I might choose to have at night. She 
 wanted to know if I could, without inconvenience, 
 make some other arrangement for the next six weeks, 
 and at the same time if she might rely on me in. 
 September. You know I have come to like her, 
 whether you know it or not, I have come to like her, 
 this hard-fortuned woman, very much ; and although 
 it was rather a nuisance to be told that my permanent 
 arrangement, of which I believe I bragged to you, had 
 broken down in a month, I of course said I would do 
 what she wanted me to. 
 
 "Too convincing, dangerously dear, 
 In woman's eye the inexorable tear," 
 
 whether it be the tear of a pretty girl of nineteen, or 
 of the keeper of a boarding-house who has passed her 
 forty-fifth year. What I did will amuse you. I had 
 an errand to Cambridge, about an order they have or 
 have not given us there, and I went out there. As I 
 went out, there were some people in the street-car 
 who were evidently going to the Summer School. The 
 Summer School is something I had heard of before, 
 but I did not know what it was. It seems that they 
 have run the long vacation business to death at Har 
 vard. It seems that some of the professors and 
 teachers, at least, want to do something in their four 
 empty months, and they have fallen back to the law 
 of the instrument and opened what they call a Sum 
 mer School. You can go there and study with all the 
 college advantages and all the other things, and
 
 80 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 though I believe they do not give yon a degree of 
 Doctor of Laws at the end of the summer, you have a 
 sort of feeling that you have studied with the best 
 men there are, and with a good many of the Cam 
 bridge advantages. Now I do not think I shall study 
 much this summer, though I might, for all the busi 
 ness our " shebang " is doing or is likely to do. But, 
 anyway, the thought struck me that, as I was to be 
 turned loose, I might as well enter as a student in the 
 Summer School for something. At any rate I should 
 find boarding-house keepers in Cambridge who did not 
 shut up at forty-eight hours' warning, while I should 
 be quite as near my business as I was at Mrs. Met- 
 calf's. So I have taken a room, exactly as if I were a 
 sophomore or a junior, at Mrs. Gorham's house, and 
 now you will please to regard me as a member of the 
 University. You had better regard me so, for nobody 
 else will. I am not a member of the University any 
 more than you are. My name will appear upon none 
 of its catalogues, for they are quite too grand for that. 
 But all the same I can say, when I am ninety years 
 old, "When I was a student at Cambridge," and 
 people will think that I am a Doctor of Laws. 
 
 After I had got through with the man, who, as it 
 proved, had not given us any order at all (but may, 
 perhaps), I went down to the office of the secretary, 
 or whatever he is called, to see on what terms I could 
 enter the Summer School. It is a free-and-easy, go-as- 
 you-please sort of institution ; in fact, it is not an in 
 stitution in any proper sense of the word. But I 
 found out that, within hours that were convenient to 
 me, I could fall in with a French class, which will 
 anyway improve my conversation from the Stratford- 
 atte-Bowe idiom in which I have talked till now ; and 
 possibly I may enter also for botany, or for something 
 lse of which I know nothing, and should like to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 81 
 
 know something. Of this I will tell you in another 
 letter. 
 
 I came in on the electric car. The electric system 
 runs perhaps more smoothly at Cambridge than any 
 where else, principally for the reason that on the long 
 bridge no one stops the car, unless indeed it overtakes 
 him. They get one good run at their full speed. I 
 got off as we came into town, because I wanted to see 
 the open-air gymnasiu^n, which I had never seen. It is 
 really first-rate, and I shall take a great deal of satis 
 faction in it ; for I can leave the office early and take 
 as much exercise there as I want on my way out. Of 
 course, some of these melting days a person does not 
 want to use the machinery of a gymnasium. But, 
 generally speaking, we get an east wind in the after 
 noon, and between five and seven o'clock it is not 
 melting weather. Anyway, here is a charming place 
 to sit and see the water and the ships and the fellows 
 exercising. There is a gymnasium for girls under 
 cover. That is not so big as the gymnasium for men, 
 I believe. There is somebody who directs you if you 
 want ; but I never wanted to be directed in a gymna 
 sium. I always take up the plan of going as you 
 please. 
 
 Dear mother, I knew it would please you, and it 
 brought back the memory of old Wednesday evenings 
 at Atherton, if I would go to the weekly prayer-meeting. 
 I happened to see a sign, as I passed a church vestry, 
 that this was the evening of the meeting, and I went 
 in. But I cannot give you a very encouraging ac 
 count of what happened. I was there, and, as our old 
 story used to say, "a little girl was there." Then 
 a young man and his sweetheart or sister came in, and 
 we were all. I said to him, "It is a hot day." He 
 said, " Yes, it is a hot day." Then the girl who was 
 with him asked him if he worked there. He said he
 
 82 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 did not work there regularly, but sometimes when 
 they wanted somebody to do something he came 
 round and lent a hand. Then the little girl went to 
 the door and went out. Then the other two went to 
 the door and went out. Then I went out. But I will 
 hope, dear mother, that we were all better for having 
 rested ourselves for fifteen minutes in a place where, 
 at least, we might have had some serious associations. 
 For me, after this failure, I walked on, and hav 
 ing picked up my supper at the Providence Station 
 eating-room, where I am rather fond of going, I spent 
 my evening in the Public Library reading-room. Now 
 you may say what you choose, this is a luxury of city 
 life. I could not have had it unless I were in a place 
 where there were hundreds of thousands of people to 
 gether. Those people, or the leaders of those people, 
 have provided for me a resource which no gentleman 
 in this country, I do not care what his income is, has 
 at his command. I can go in there, and I can call for 
 and can read any one of two or three hundred of the 
 best periodicals in the world. Or I have, waiting for 
 me, the book which I have said in the course of the 
 day I should want to read in the evening. Just at 
 this moment, something that Carruthers had said 
 about a yacht voyage in the Mediterranean had made 
 me stop in the afternoon and order that Freeman's 
 " Sicily " should be reserved for me. I found that, 
 therefore, lying on the attendant's desk, and I spent 
 the evening in turning it over. Sometime I will tell 
 you some of the things I found in it. I also looked 
 at Life, and Punch, and the London Spectator, and 
 the French Revue des Deux Mondes. It never seems 
 to me to be hot in the Public Library ; at least, I have 
 never found it so ; and there I sat, with say a hun 
 dred other young fellows, Avho had heads on their 
 shoulders and wanted to use this opportunity. There
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 83 
 
 were half as many women, perhaps, in the smaller 
 room on the other side of the hall. They are at work 
 now on a new building, and before the century is over 
 I suppose they will move in there ; but this is good 
 enough for me. 
 
 I ought to tell you about the fortunes of my Rus 
 sian friend. The night before I met him he had 
 spent at the Hawkins Street Lodge for Wayfarers. 
 This is the place where, if you recollect, Howells's boy 
 went, and sawed wood for an hour to pay for his 
 supper and lodging and breakfast. I fancy the Rus 
 sian Bear had often enough at home done three times 
 as much work as that for half as much pay. Anyway, 
 he did not grumble either about the breakfast or the 
 supper or the lodging. But they won't let a fellow do 
 that every night. If they did I am disposed to think 
 they would be overrun. You must be palpably thrown 
 out of a home, and must not be sponging on the ad 
 ministration. Still they say that thing earned money 
 for the city, and that the city treasurer fainted away 
 when somebody brought him in some money which he 
 did not expect, and said "it was earned in Hawkins 
 Street, and was the surplus of what they had sold 
 their wood for after it was sawed, over what it cost 
 them to buy it. I did not want to have the Bear go 
 back to Hawkins Street after I had made his acquain 
 tance, and Carruthers and I, and one or two of the 
 other young fellows, interested ourselves in seeing 
 that he should get something to do somewhere. Now 
 do you know it proves, though he does say "Bridget" 
 where he should say "bright," so that he, is not in 
 the least understood when he speaks to anybody, 
 that he writes the best hand, literally, that you ever 
 saw in the world. You see this is because he learned 
 to write Russian and then had to write English as a 
 separate accomplishment. He therefore excels in this
 
 84 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 thing, as we very often excel in our accomplishments, 
 while we let our every-day duties run in an every-day 
 sort of a way. With the Bear, writing is an elegant 
 accomplishment, and when he makes a letter A he 
 thinks of the letter A, and does it with all his heart 
 and soul and mind and strength. Now I had my eyes 
 open and it proved that, after a few days, it was neces 
 sary for us to send off to the stockholders, and indeed 
 to a lot of other people, some thousands of circulars. 
 We have not yet got all the clerical force moved here 
 from .Leeds. I am sure I did not want to direct those 
 circulars, and I explained to the chief here that we 
 had not force enough for it, and got him to say that I 
 might employ anybody I chose. So I put the Bear on 
 the circulars ; and now people all over the country are 
 receiving these marvellous specimens of handwriting ; 
 and, what is more to the point, the Bear is receiving 
 five dollars a week for directing them, and Hawkins 
 Street has one person less. Whether I shall ever 
 teach him to say " thought " and not to say " tho-ugt," 
 or to say " where " and not to say " whee-ree," I do 
 not know. Thus far he uses the little tablet, and 
 writes his very funny English upon it in his very per 
 fect hand, and we write our answers. I believe, after 
 all, we shall send him up to New Padua, or some of 
 the normal schools, where I dare say they will find 
 something for him to do. 
 
 Now I will go back to my outing in the Narragan- 
 sett country, and then tell of last night's dissipation, 
 if these parsimonious people will give me what they 
 call lines enough. Saturday afternoon, we had a 
 splendid sea-bath at North Ness just before we dined, 
 having dinner put late on purpose. I had been in the 
 sea before, for I can go out for five cents to South 
 Boston and swim in the sea at a public bathing-house ; 
 and when the tide is right I do this three or four
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 85 
 
 times a week. But that is nothing to the joy of swim 
 ming through these ocean breakers and lying on what 
 I am tempted to call the fresh salt water. The feeling 
 that there is nothing between you and the West Indies 
 has perhaps something to do with it ; the infinite power 
 and kindness of nature has a great deal more to do 
 with it. Carruthers had to warn me that I was stay 
 ing in the water too long. Then the exhilaration and 
 joy of life, after it is over, is something which does 
 not come too often to a man. The only thing to com 
 pare to it is the joy in riding on a fine horse, when you 
 love him and he loves you. Then Sunday we had a 
 pleasant, homelike service, where three or four of the 
 neighbors' families came in. Mr. Carruthers himself 
 led the prayers, we read the Psalms alternately with 
 him, he read the Scripture, and then read something 
 which served for a sermon, which he had found in 
 Littell's Living Age, a very nice, homelike service it 
 was. And in the afternoon we all went, dear mother, 
 you would have said it was to Central America, into 
 a great grove of rhododendrons. I did not know that, 
 there was any thing so tropical in New England. No, 
 you must not tell me about laurel ; I know all about 
 laurel. Here you go into great covered ways of this 
 magnificent tropical plant. Don't you know, I tried 
 to describe to you Mr. Hunnewell's, out at his place. 
 But here is a grove of rhododendrons as big as his whole 
 place is altogether. The trees of it, for they are trees, 
 grow twenty and thirty feet high, and for what I know, 
 more. This has been a particularly favorable winter 
 for it, so that you see the great burning bushes of it, 
 crowded with clumps of blossoms ; and when you think 
 you have seen the very best you stumble on another 
 opening where they are in other tints and even more 
 luxuriant. At first I had a feeling that I was walking 
 through avenues of it, as if it only grew by the side
 
 86 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 of the wood-paths. But soon enough I found that 
 here is one great tangle of hundreds of acres of it, 
 only it is impervious in most places, and we can only 
 go where the foot of man and the hand of man have 
 gone before. Some of us had gone in boats, some had 
 gone in wagons ; it was a sort of ceremony to visit the 
 rhododendron grove with the nicest people who could 
 be brought together, and this was the great pageant of 
 the year. I put up three or four heads in a box and 
 sent them to you by Uncle Sam's kindness. You 
 knew they came from me, but you wondered if such 
 things grew on Boston Common. 
 
 Now for my dissipation. I am not so much of a 
 cockney yet but that I could see the humor of it. 
 Understand, then, that this dear, nice gentleman, of 
 whom I spoke as being the director who likes to look 
 in at the office, is, for his sins, spending the summer 
 in Boston. He says forty years ago everybody in his 
 social condition did so, or almost everybody. But now 
 you may go through Marlboro Street or Beacon 
 Street, and three houses out of four are actually 
 boarded up, so that burglars may not be tempted to go 
 in ; and if a policeman meets a man at three o'clock 
 in the morning, with a carpet-bag in his hand, he ar 
 rests him because he knows he is a burglar. But my 
 Mr. Champernoon is waiting for the arrival of some 
 members of his family from England, so his house is 
 open still. He talks about it a great deal, as you or I 
 might talk of having a floating-house in the middle of 
 the Atlantic Ocean, as if it were an entire surprise to 
 him to find that Boston is habitable in July. What 
 really has an element of humor in it is that last night 
 Mr. and Mrs. Champernoon had to give a party. I 
 believe they really approached the occasion wondering 
 whether the roof would not fall in upon their heads, 
 so utterly impossible did it seem to carry it through.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 87 
 
 But there had arrived from the South some very 
 grand people who were classmates of his in college, 
 and who, with that droll Southern ignorance of the 
 North, coining on to see their old friends, had come of 
 course to Boston, supposing that they should find their 
 old friends there. Mr. Rutledge had called on Mr. 
 Champernoon. Mr. Champernoon could not say that 
 he was at the Adirondacks or at ISTahant or at Bar 
 Harbor, because he was not. And Mrs. Champernoon 
 had been over to the Brunswick to see Mrs. Rutledge 
 and the young ladies and nieces and all the rest. And 
 then, sweet dear soul, she thought she must give an 
 evening party for them, though, as I say, the thing 
 seemed as impossible as for her to make the State 
 House waltz Avith Faneuil Hall. To this evening party 
 I was bidden, a little on the principle of the parable. 
 That is to say, Mr. and Mrs. Champernoon had sent 
 personal notes to all their friends who lived within ten 
 miles of Boston, entreating them to come in. And 
 why indeed should they not come in, as easily as Bos 
 ton people go out in the winter to Arlington, to Water- 
 town, to Brookline, or to Milton, when there are 
 parties there ? 
 
 But I think Mr. Champernoon was enough a man of 
 the world to know that the Rutledges would never 
 know whom they met, if his rooms were only filled 
 with somebody. He certainly judged rightly when he 
 thought I should not be disinclined to see a handsome 
 Boston house lighted up for an evening party, to hear 
 good music between whiles, and would even conde 
 scend to eat a nice piece of salmon, though oysters 
 were not in season. He knows Carruthers well, and 
 of course he had seen me in the office. So he came 
 up to me and asked me if I would not come, in a 
 perfectly informal w r ay, to his house, to meet some 
 gentlemen and ladies from the South; and I gladly
 
 88 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 accepted. I went with Carruthers, and Carruthers ex 
 plained to me that we Avent a good deal earlier than 
 we should have gone if it were winter. When I en 
 tered the room, it seemed to me probable that Carruth 
 ers would be the only person in it whom I had ever 
 seen before, excepting my host. I certainly did not 
 suppose that Mr. Champernoon meant to let me with 
 draw into a private room and discuss with him the 
 materials for clothes-pins, or the possibilities of mak 
 ing a market for them in the Antarctic Ocean. How 
 ever, I went in for luck, as I always do, and my luck 
 in no sort failed me. Who should be the very first 
 person I saw, but the Miss Osborne with whom I 
 danced at Class Day, and her brother. Of course they 
 knew I was a stranger, and the brother, in particular, 
 took care that I should not feel alone. 
 
 As for Mrs. Champernoon, she is a trump. The mo 
 ment she heard my name she insisted upon it that she 
 must have known my grandfather or his grand-nephew 
 or somebody, and I really expected to hear her say 
 that she went to Miss Beecher's school with you 
 at Hartford. For, to tell you the truth, dear Mother, 
 I have heard that said so often in the last year that I 
 begin to think the school must have numbered five 
 thousand- people. As to the Southern ladies, I was 
 presented to one or two of the younger of them, and 
 found them very good fun. They were bright and 
 wide-awake, and just as much amused and surprised at 
 things which they had seen between Washington and 
 Boston as I should be if I were in a rice plantation or 
 saw a cotton-gin running. We kept well clear of poli 
 tics, and I believe they thought I should vote for Jeff 
 Davis and Grover Cleveland, if they were put up on 
 the same ticket at the next election. There was a 
 well-nigh perfect band of half a dozen instruments, in 
 a balcony at the head of the finest staircase that you
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 89 
 
 ever saw. There were fifty pictures in the house 
 which would have made the fortune of any exhibition 
 of pictures in any city. There were so few people 
 that the rooms were not crowded, and there was no 
 reason why I and Miss Osborne, or I and Miss Rutledge, 
 should not walk around and look at pictures as much 
 as we wanted to. For one, I was not ashamed to be 
 seen studying Corot or Meissonier with somebody who 
 knew a great deal more about them than I did, as Miss 
 Osborne did. I rather think she paints a little herself. 
 From the way in which little knots of people were 
 glued to each other, I could guess that most of the 
 people in that house were quite as much strangers as 
 I was. But I could also see that dear Mrs. Champer- 
 noon's spirits rose as the evening ground itself along 
 from nine to ten o'clock. As I was passing her with 
 Miss Osborne, Mrs. Champernoon beckoned her, and 
 asked if she did not think it would do to have some 
 dancing. She said she had not really thought of it, 
 there would be so few people ; but there was the 
 music and there was the floor. Of course, we young 
 people did not object to that, and very soon the band 
 was playing some lively music, and half a dozen 
 couples of us were waltzing. Miss Osborne dances 
 very well, and after a minute she told me to leave her 
 and ask Miss Sarah Rutledge to take a turn, which I 
 did. So that really the Champernoon party turned 
 out a great deal better than they or anybody else ex 
 pected. The thing to say was how interesting it was 
 to have a dance in the middle of July ; how beautiful 
 the house was, which was easy enough to say ; and 
 how fortunate it was that one found one's self in Bos 
 ton on the twenty-first of July, as if the only probable 
 place to be were the middle of Greenland or a punt 
 in the harbor of Sitka. By and by, " the eatables and 
 drinkables " were on the table, and we were all as bold
 
 90 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 as Diggory. For my part, I have not been displeased 
 with my initiation into high fashionable society in 
 Boston. 
 
 Now, my dear mother, I have made this letter short 
 enough to please the printers, and so I have not told 
 you half I have to say. What you will care for most 
 is that I am very well and am not yet tired of Boston. 
 I really hope that in my next letter I may have some 
 thing to say. Give my love to the children and to 
 Florence. I was sorry she was not there last night ; 
 we might have waltzed together all the evening, and 
 nobody would have known it was a brother and 
 sister dancing together. 
 
 P. S. Did you see that they put in some pictures, 
 which they called illustrations of my letters ? You 
 never can tell who is snapping a camera on you now, 
 wherever you go. There would have been a picture 
 of me at the prayer-meeting, and another picture of 
 me at the party waltzing with Miss Eutledge, if those 
 fellows had yet learned how to take photographs by 
 such light as we had at the chapel or in Mrs. Cham- 
 pernoon's house. I beg to say to you that I am not 
 responsible for these pictures, and I made such a row 
 when the fellows laughed about my being bald in the 
 back of my head, because they said I was che person 
 represented in the picture, that this time there will 
 not be any picture. At least, so they promised me in 
 the newspaper office. How soon they will change 
 their minds they know themselves ; but I am sure I 
 do not know. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 HARRY.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 91 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
 
 X. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, July 28, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, Such a really " country " morn 
 ing as I have been having ! You would imagine I 
 was actually in Astney and that I had wandered off 
 away into the fields. Only I was, indeed, more alone 
 by myself than I am apt to be at home in the summer. 
 The park into which Commonwealth Avenue passes, 
 the green fields over which Leif Ericson looks, is 
 not far away from the house here. 
 
 It was a holiday morning and I actually took a book 
 out with me; for I have had this plan ever since I 
 have been here, only the days have hurried by in so 
 busy a way that I have had no chance. Only think of 
 it ! Those hours of study that I planned in the sum 
 mer months of " solitude " in Boston ! I have not 
 found them yet. I have not even found time to look 
 up the books for them, nor time to " establish " myself 
 at the Public Library, nor to arrange having a card of 
 permission for taking out books there. 
 
 So it was not a book of study that I took with me. 
 It was to be a time of real rest ; for I was having a 
 Saturday. I was enchanted with the place I found ; 
 such lovely walks in the midst of all sorts of wild 
 flowers that I wanted to botanize directly. There was 
 that Astragalus, don't you remember, that you and I 
 " did " last year in Vermont with our Gray's Botany ? 
 Then besides such lovely wild roses, some daisies still
 
 92 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 lingering, and wild morning-glories. Besides them, 
 delightful, old-fashioned garden flowers, tiger lilies, 
 magnificent groups of them that you would like to 
 paint, shepherd's purse, gay marigplds, all hidden in 
 masses of wild-looking shrubs, and not laid out with a 
 tiresome regularity, but in the greatest luxuriance and 
 confusion. Then there were such delightful seats, that 
 looked so inviting and comfortable, not like the stiff 
 iron seats usually in public places, as if they were 
 meant for an unruly multitude, but as if for you and 
 me or just one or two of us. I did sit there all the 
 morning and listened to the birds singing all round 
 me, and part of the time watching the ducks swim 
 ming about in a little lake close by. And, yes, I 
 did read a little ; and something that I read, set me 
 thinking. 
 
 Laurence Oliphant says that the best part of every 
 thing' is the anticipation. He went into a life of ad 
 venture, rushing from one exciting thing to another, 
 so that you would think he would never have found 
 time for anticipation, especially as with him the 
 event always came so suddenly. It must have been 
 always, indeed, a part of the anticipation, it came so 
 quickly. I think, perhaps, that he is partly right. 
 If what happens comes out to "meet our anticipa 
 tions," as we say, it just doubles all we had fancied, 
 and we enjoy it all over twice. We go back to our 
 happy anticipation and have the two-fold pleasure, 
 thinking : " Ah, it is just all I fancied it would be." 
 Now this life here is quite different from what 1 
 fancied it. Still it has some of that very charm that 
 made me long for it, and so I really am having a 
 double enjoyment in the anticipation and its follow 
 ing, like the image and the reflection in the water, 
 only the reflection has come first.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 93 
 
 I began a week ago, and many things have happened 
 since, of my kind of happenings, such as I think you 
 will be interested in, especially as you want to know 
 more about my mysterious Class Day acquaintance, 
 who, you write, " seems to be always tumbling into 
 adventures." He still remains in the rank of ac 
 quaintances, though I have seen him since and have 
 learned his name, which belongs to another chapter 
 of my history. Only don't expect too much ; for I 
 have not yet spoken to him. I think he is to remain 
 ever an inaccessible myth, for I seem to see him only 
 in the distance, as if on the stage, and I in one of the 
 boxes. 
 
 To begin, I must tell you about our Boston even 
 ings. Anna and I have taken up a delightful fashion 
 of sitting on the door-steps here, just as if we were at 
 home at Astney, only instead of neighbors dropping 
 in to talk to us, as they always did there, we look out 
 upon the silent street, with its electric lights, and an 
 occasional policeman turning up round the corner. 
 Anna's brother and his wife are here from the West, 
 and are at the Vendome, and they come a\most every 
 evening. Sometimes we all go off somewhere, one 
 evening to the "Last Days of Pompeii''! Yes, we really 
 all went in a gay party. Then one evening we took 
 a West End car and went all round the town and its 
 lighted streets, a trip that took us about one hour 
 and a half, and for five cents apiece, on the same 
 car all the time. It was a splendid lesson in geo 
 graphy for me. 
 
 We took the car away up on Washington Street, 
 went on through Temple Place, where we saw no 
 " temple," into Tremont Street to Scollay Square, 
 where I have been before, to see the statue of John 
 Winthrop that stands in the middle of a cobweb of 
 streets, out of which we threaded our way into
 
 94 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 streets still narrower, to another of these " squares," 
 where stands the Eevere House. Then on, turning 
 right angles, almost jostling other lines of horse-cars, 
 into Charles Street, that interests me, as there is the 
 gymnasium I wrote you of, and I may decide to live 
 there next winter. Then unexpectedly we turned up 
 between the Common and the lovely Public Garden, 
 shooting away from, the latter into unknown regions 
 again, when I found myself at the very place where 
 we had taken'the car. It was a most interesting tour 
 all round the town, in the open car where I could see 
 everything. Such crowds of people as we went 
 through, getting some slight idea of the shape of the 
 town ; and I have repeated it since by daylight in the 
 afternoon, all by myself. 
 
 But we do enjoy our door-step evenings, taking our 
 cushions to sit upon and wraps, for some of the even 
 ings have been cool, and such delightful chats as we 
 have there ! And we have not lacked visitors ; for 
 sundry friends know where to find us, and we have 
 some charming door-step parties. And one evening 
 Mr. Brand brought his sister Rosamond. They live 
 at Arlington, but there was a late train out they could 
 take, so they planned this evening call. They have 
 been very kind to me and have invited me to spend 
 an . afternoon and night there. We had told Mr. 
 Brand about our quiet evenings and solitary street, so 
 we were all very much surprised when, as the even 
 ing passed on, we could see a house below us on the 
 opposite side lighted up, and an awning in front of the 
 door. Then carriages appeared, one after another, 
 full of guests who were ushered in, and there was a 
 band of music and every sign of a gay party. 
 
 Mr. Brand and his sister laughed at our idea of 
 solitude which we had promised them, and we went 
 down to enjoy the music. As we walked up and down
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 95 
 
 on the walk in the middle of the street, we could look 
 into the brilliantly lighted rooms, and were much 
 amused at watching the figures moving about, and 
 listening to the Babel of voices and the strains of 
 music that overpowered all. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Brand exclaimed, " There is our mys 
 terious friend whom we did not see drown the other 
 day." And at the same moment the very person, my 
 Class Day partner, appeared talking to a young lady, 
 whom Mr. Brand knew, a Miss Osborne, very pretty, 
 with a lovely white gauze dress and a bunch of wild 
 roses in front. Of course I hurried Mr. Brand away ; 
 for I thought it would seem so horrid if we were seen 
 spying into our neighbors' houses in that way. But 
 Mr. Brand said if he had only known the name of the 
 mysterious stranger, he would have gone across and 
 spoken to him and Miss Osborne. I am thankful he 
 did not, but I was really quite relieved to see that 
 our unknown was indeed alive ; for I have been very 
 anxious about him. 
 
 All this took place some days before my discovering 
 his name, which came as the result of a visit I have 
 been wanting to make upon Miss Dexter, whom, you. 
 may remember, I tried to find some time ago. But I 
 have been too busy to take an afternoon for it. My 
 mornings do tire me ; I have to give so much attention 
 to my class of boys, and they require so much watch 
 fulness. They are just as full of mischief as they can 
 be ; they want to be " carrying on " all the time ; and 
 I like to have them lively, as I hate the idea of 
 oppressing them and keeping them under, in their 
 summer days. 
 
 I must tell you one of their jokes that I did not get 
 at for a long time. I noticed that when one of the 
 boys had been speaking to me by name, one of the 
 others would shout out, "Jamaica Plain to the Depots,"
 
 96 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 or something about the Jamaica Plain cars. I could 
 not make out what they meant by it, and supposed 
 they thought I lived at Jamaica Plain. But one day, 
 when a very small boy had been calling out, in a very 
 squeaky but stentorian voice, my name, " Miss Sand- 
 ford," in a way that might be heard through the 
 whole building, half a dozen boys began, " Best puri 
 fied Jamaica Ginger ! " " Good for families ! " " Sold 
 in bottles by the dozen ! " " No family should be with 
 out it ! " " Sandford's Jamaica Ginger ! " shouted an 
 other, and then it all came over me that it was my 
 name they were joking about, and I could not help 
 joining in the laugh. Did you ever know anything 
 so absurd ? 
 
 After the racket had died off a little, I stood up in 
 front of the platform and said, " Now, boys, you seem 
 to think that it is a very good joke ; so we will have 
 it every day, regularly at one o'clock, after the arith 
 metic lesson. I am a little tired of hearing it quite 
 as often as we have been having it, and I think once a 
 morning will do. But any boy that wants it oftener 
 can hold up his hand." Each boy grinned upon his 
 neighbor to see who was holding up his hand, but not 
 a hand was raised. The next day after the arithmetic 
 lesson which I have not yet described to you I 
 said, "Now we will have the Sandford joke, if there 's 
 anybody here who is not tired of it." But they looked 
 a little ashamed, and I have heard no more of it since. 
 
 In general, I get on very well ; but it does tax all 
 my strength, and makes me inclined to be lazy in the 
 afternoon, especially if we have a hot, muggy day, as 
 frequently happens. But one afternoon this week, 
 when there was an east wind, I walked all the way 
 down to the home of Miss Dexter. The Flower Mis 
 sion had made its visit at school that morning, and 
 this always rejoices the children. Two young ladies
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 97 
 
 came to the school with large baskets of flowers. It 
 happened that they came late, and many of the chil 
 dren were in the yard and crowded round pulling each 
 other away in their eagerness. Even niy older boys 
 were glad of their share, and wanted me to put a pink 
 or else a yellow daisy in their button-holes in the 
 proper style. I took away a little bunch for my 
 friend at the North End ; but I found she did not care 
 much for flowers, and said she would take them down 
 to a sick woman beJow. She said she had not any 
 thing suitable to put them in, and she never wanted to 
 keep anything for them, it was such a trouble to wash 
 up anything extra. She did take a marigold and stick 
 it in her looking-glass ; it seemed to touch a chord 
 somewhere. 
 
 For I found Miss Dexter at home and managed at 
 last to make her understand who I was. She did not 
 remember much about my mother, for which I was 
 very sorry, as I wanted to hear about her youthful 
 days. But she had many stories to tell of my aunt 
 who was many years older. It was she who told me 
 about Mr. Merton, who had been to see her, though 
 she was forgetful of names, she said, and " mebbe 
 she had n't it right." But she looked up a note he 
 had brought from his mother, and there the name was 
 fairly written out, for fortunately she had sent a 
 number of notes to Miss Dexter, and the name is 
 Merton. " I knew it began with an ' M, ' " said Miss 
 Dexter, " but it might have been Milton or Morton, I am 
 so forgetful of names." It was lucky I went early ; for 
 I stayed a long time talking. I asked her if she did 
 not want to get out of town in the summer, vaguely 
 thinking I might find some kindly home for her in a 
 farmhouse in the country for a few weeks she 
 seemed so shut in, in the midst of the brick walls. 
 " Where it would be more quiet and cool," I suggested. 
 
 7
 
 98 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 But she broke out in great indignation. Evidently 
 she felt that I did not appreciate the advantages of 
 Boston. She declared it to be the coolest place that 
 could be found. All the Southerners, she said, came 
 up to Boston to get cool ; and when she was young 
 nobody thought of leaving Boston, unless they had 
 houses in the neighborhood where they could come in 
 often. And as for the quiet of the country, it made 
 her feel lonesome. And, besides, the cocks and the 
 hens made such a crowing and a cackling that it woke 
 her up early in the morning, and she could n't get to 
 sleep again. She liked the winter better anyhow, be 
 cause the days were shorter, and she could go out to the 
 lectures in the evening. There were the Lowell lec 
 tures, to which she goes, I found, because she does 
 not have to pay. 
 
 My interest woke up in these, and I asked about 
 the subjects last winter, and wondered which she was 
 most interested in, and supposed they would be those 
 with the stereopticon. But no, that tired her eyes, 
 she said, and she had to shut them while the pictures 
 were going on ; but, she said, it was a warm place to 
 go to, and it was economical, as she could let her stove 
 go out and could save in lamp oil, because she does 
 not use the gas ! Still she seems to be something of a 
 reader, and had some well-worn books about and a 
 pile of Christian Kegisters. Yet she said she had 
 never taken a card at the Public Library. She sup 
 posed it would be a great deal of trouble to get one, 
 and quite likely the books she wanted would be out. 
 
 Indeed, she seemed to me a sort of fossil specimen 
 of a former date 'that does not care to attach itself to 
 our present mode of life, and will not accept even its 
 advantages and progress. It was delightful to hear 
 her talk of the older time, of Brattle Street Church 
 where she used to go, and of the steps that still lead to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 99 
 
 the place where it stood. I believe she thinks there 
 is no other preaching equal to what she heard there 
 and which she can hear no longer, now that the 
 church is moved so far away and is not what it used 
 to be, when the cannon-ball was still in its walls 
 which Putnam's men fired there. I could not persuade 
 her to say she would go to see the hollyhocks exhib 
 ited free last Saturday at Horticultural Hall. She 
 told me much about Harry Merton and his family. 
 His mother must be a lovely woman from her notes ; 
 for Miss Dexter would read them all to me, though I 
 felt she ought not. 
 
 I must hurry on in this long letter to tell you of 
 another expedition to see the sea that Anna and I 
 accomplished. We went on a voyage of discovery to 
 City Point, taking a car at Park Square and going 
 through some miserable parts of the town on Albany 
 Street and Harrison Avenue, perhaps more squalid 
 even than the narrow streets of the North End. 
 Anna and I are always struck by the contrasts of 
 things, in leaving the large airy houses on Common 
 wealth Avenue and Beacon Street, all deserted now 
 and boarded up for fear some stray intruder should 
 venture in, and then finding, at the other end of the 
 town, the close tenement houses swarming with men, 
 women, and children, with scarcely even air to 
 breathe. It seems as if it were all very unequal in 
 an American country, and as if they ought to be al 
 lowed to go and breathe for a while in the large, unoc 
 cupied palaces at the other end of the town. 
 
 And then I remember the wide, unoccupied land 
 around our little town of Astney at home and 
 the deserted farmhouses ; and I can't but think 
 that it is partly these people's fault that they are 
 living here in these " stived " up places, and that they 
 might go out into the country many of them if
 
 100 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 they chose, and that if they went into the palaces for 
 a while, they would leave them perhaps as squalid as 
 their tenements are. And as our open horse-car bore 
 us along, away from the close streets into the wide 
 thoroughfares, we praised the owners of the up-town 
 palaces, who are doing so much to purify these close 
 streets and give to their crowded inhabitants a chance 
 at fresh air. 
 
 Soon we began to have pretty views of the ocean, 
 as we turned corners here and there ; and the car was 
 filled with women who were taking their children for 
 a breath of the sea. When the conductor at last said, 
 "City Point," we alighted and followed the crowd 
 that went towards the Pier. This extends far out 
 into the deep sea. I heard a man say it was 3,580 
 feet long ; it is wide enough for a dozen people to walk 
 abreast. Hundreds of men, women, and children were 
 walking up and down, such a blessing as the place 
 must be to them ! Several mothers had brought their 
 sewing along, and did their mending while they held 
 the ever-present baby in their laps and the children 
 ran up and down. There are benches all along on 
 either side, and the Pier is partly covered, which 
 must be very nice when it rains. Then there are 
 hundreds of electric lights and lamps, and it must be 
 lovely to walk there in the evening. Here and there 
 girls were sitting reading, or with their embroidery. 
 
 And then the view was lovely. All around were 
 hundreds of little yachts, and it was very entertaining 
 to watch their changing motions. Just opposite the 
 Pier is Fort Independence on one side and on the 
 other Thompson's Island. I believe there is an 
 Orphan Boys' Home there. In the distance we could 
 see Deer Island, the terror of the boys, and its build 
 ings look quite like some feudal castle. I am sorry 
 to say that some of my boys, young as they are, are
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY, 101 
 
 acquainted with it, having had an occasional sentence 
 of " ten days at the Island." Far away was a glimpse 
 of the dark sea line, and altogether it was a lovely 
 sight, as we left it with the sunset lights streaming 
 over from the west. 
 
 We went back in a Cambridge car that took us to 
 Park Square, and it was crowded with children who 
 had come early in the afternoon all the way from 
 Cambridge. They told us that they came free ; that 
 is, any children who went to the City Hall in Cam 
 bridge and asked for car-tickets were given them to 
 go all the distance from Cambridge, over the pretty 
 bridge, then through Park Square to South Boston 
 and to the Pier, where these children had passed the 
 afternoon. They had had a jolly time and would get 
 home a little after sunset. 
 
 We often walk up to the edge of the park here, at 
 sunset, to get the beautiful changes of life, the park 
 that I began my letter with; and I did not finish 
 then about the book I was reading, so intensely ex 
 citing, the life of Laurence Oliphant. I do hope you 
 have got hold of it and are reading it. It is interest 
 ing as a history of our last half-century ; for Laurence 
 Oliphant was " in " the very height of all its motion. 
 There was not a war nor a revolution nor an insur 
 rection but what he sniffed it afar, or else he was in 
 the midst of it, before it began, as you might say, 
 in the Crimea before that war, in Japan among the 
 first, in the Polish insurrection. How many wars, 
 indeed, our half-century has seen, and this man was 
 in the midst of them all. Then his own private life 
 and thoughts were so intensely interesting. I do 
 hope you will read it, only my telling you to is like 
 the English woman, who told an American friend she 
 met at a pension that she hoped that her husband, 
 who was on his way to Koine, would go and see
 
 102 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 St. Peter's. " He would find it quite worth his 
 while ! " For " everybody " is reading and talking 
 about the life of Laurence Oliphant, and doubtless 
 you are, among the rest. And I, who do so little 
 reading, who am I, to advise you ? You ought to tell 
 me not to write so much to you. 
 
 And I have not written you about my going to the 
 celebration of Jennie Collins's birthday. She it was, 
 you know, who founded " Boffin's Bower " and gave 
 dinners to the working-girls. One of the rooms at 
 the " Helping-Hand Home " of which you shall 
 hear more is named for her, and her picture hangs 
 upon the wall. It is the sitting-room, and there, too, 
 are some of her favorite articles of furniture. Before 
 she died she asked " that her memory should be kept 
 green," and so her birthday was celebrated in this 
 room. The room was fragrant with flowers and there 
 was lovely music, and reminiscences of all she had 
 done were related. It was all intensely interesting. 
 " More in our next."
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 103 
 
 CHAPTER NINTH. 
 
 XL 
 
 HARKY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON (at the office), July 24, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, We are in for it this time, I 
 can tell you. And if this letter stops in the next 
 line, and these old newspaper people have to fill up 
 with the third book of Chronicles indeed I do not 
 know. But it is all now settled that the concern 
 will move here. Our temporary engagements are 
 extended. We take five-years' leases of the sheds 
 and houses and of our nice office here. And notices 
 were given Monday for the whole staff to report at 
 this office next Monday morning. 
 
 Of course they have all known, more or less, that 
 something was in the wind. But nobody could know 
 certainly, because the chief and the directors did not 
 know themselves. But now they have had the great 
 meeting in New York. The " proxies " were all as 
 they should be, and there was no turn-out of our old 
 board ; only Mr. Gunn became vice-president, and 
 then, as you know of course, the treasurer's office 
 almost had to be here, and everything else had to 
 follow. 
 
 You can see what a break-up this makes at Leeds. 
 All told, the pay roll is for forty-eight men, and I 
 suppose thirty-five of them are married. Leeds will 
 be in tears for the loss of so many of its people. I 
 am afraid Boston will not know that they arrive.
 
 104 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 But I know ; for I have a sheaf of letters under my 
 hand here from the different fellows, who want me to 
 hunt up rooms or tenements or houses for them, so 
 that they can send their furniture right on and find 
 it here when they arrive with their families. I am 
 slamming round in a cab, every minute the chief will 
 give me, looking at houses and deciding the fates 
 of these poor women who have to be dumped into the 
 rooms I choose for them, without the luxury of house 
 hunting for themselves. As for the men. they only 
 sleep at Koine, and they bring their old bedsteads with 
 them. 
 
 I tell you one thing, dear Mother. I do not put 
 any of them into tenement houses. I hate that whole 
 business. I write and advise, and advise and write, 
 that everybody must have his own house. Or perhaps 
 I do give one house to two families, and make one set 
 go up one flight. But beyond one flight, none of my 
 clients go. This means that I take most of them five 
 or ten miles out of what Mr. Champernoon calls the 
 "city proper," into some Boylston or Brighton or 
 Allston or Roslindale. I am becoming very learned 
 in suburban time-tables. I have placed two or three 
 families on the high lands in South Boston. And 
 this will make you understand what our Kapid Tran 
 sit problems are, which I dare say you have skipped 
 when you read your Journal. The company allows 
 two days for moving. That is, the office at Leeds 
 closes Thursday night and all these gentlemen report 
 to us Monday morning. The mail begins to come to 
 us Friday. What we are to do with them, the chief 
 and I and the Russian Bear and two or three tempo 
 rary copying-clerks, on Friday and Saturday, remains 
 to be seen. 
 
 Is not this emigration of a whole community queer ? 
 I suppose such things happen all the time. If the
 
 THEf NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 105 
 
 emigration was from Boston to Leeds, the Leeds 
 newspaper would have told of it, and the Boston 
 papers would have copied the paragraph, and as much 
 fuss would have been made about us all as if we were 
 Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers which we are not. 
 As it is, nobody in Boston except me knows they are 
 coming. 
 
 Do you not remember that picture at the Hartford 
 Athenaeum of the procession of the first settlers from 
 Cambridge to Hartford, when it took them seventeen 
 days to go ? I remember there is a white horse in it, 
 which used to seem to me to be our old Sally. I could 
 not help thinking of that, as I made these arrange 
 ments for twice that number of people twice the 
 number of the Pilgrims indeed when we gave them 
 a week's warning for their change of home and gave 
 them two days to make it in. But I think I am wiser 
 than the Pilgrims. I have not put all my people to 
 gether. They had better not talk "shop" all the 
 time ; so I have put two or three families at South 
 Boston, some at Roxbury, two at Dorchester, three at 
 Boylston, two at Jamaica Plain, two at Roslindale, 
 and one at Central, four at Allston, two at Melrose, 
 and three in Cambridgeport. I always let everybody 
 have an old neighbor from Leeds. But for more than 
 that, they must make new friends. It does not make 
 much difference what I do for them ; for at the end 
 of six months they will all move. 
 
 I had to decide about their houses in very quick 
 metre sometimes. There was one nice house I went 
 to twice, and I was more pleased the second time than 
 the first. But just as I came downstairs, I saw a 
 large girl I supposed a servant girl thrashing a 
 poor little boy awfully in the front garden. I in 
 terfered, which was dangerous. To which she said, 
 "Mind your own business, and I will mind mine. I
 
 106 THR NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 am his mother. And if I cannot slap him who can ? " 
 I fled confounded. But I told the agent that I did not 
 want the half-house where she ruled supreme in the 
 other half. 
 
 How they will all like their new homes I cannot 
 pretend to say. But they will all arrive, bag and bag 
 gage, Friday night or Saturday morning. I have been 
 coaching the Russian Bear and the office errand boy, 
 as well as I can, about the difference between Melrose 
 and Roslindale, and I hope that I shall not get many 
 bad mixtures. If we can keep the right babies with 
 the right mothers we shall do well. And as for 
 trunks and carpet-bags, they must take their chances. 
 Keally, I feel quite proud of myself as an organizer of 
 emigration. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, July 30. 
 
 You must thank Nahum for his nice letter. Tell 
 him I wish I could write him a separate letter now. 
 But as soon as the moving is all over, I will write him 
 a letter all for himself. I understand very well what 
 the children say about my letters being grown-up 
 letters and not funny letters. This shows. you, dear 
 Mother, how the cares of life are gathering on my 
 head. But Nahum and Florence will both like to 
 hear about the Fall of Pompeii. I so wished they had 
 been with me when I went around there. 
 
 When we came into the grounds we found them ar 
 ranged as follows. The grounds were oval. In the 
 middle was an oval artificial pond, one hundred yards 
 long and fifty yards wide. Around this pond was a 
 race track like that at the circus. Along one .of the 
 long stretches of the track were the seats, not stretch 
 ing around the track as they do at a circus, but ex 
 tending in a straight line with many tiers, so that
 
 777.fi: NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 107 
 
 they might accommodate perhaps ten thousand per 
 sons. The lowest seats were about fifteen yards from 
 the track. 
 
 On the other side of the pond, across the farther 
 part of the track, stretched the buildings of Pompeii 
 in a line. The scene represented, I suppose, a street 
 running alongside the water. There were a number 
 of temples, but nothing that looked much like a 
 dwelling-house. Between the track and the buildings 
 the street was some thirty yards wide, giving room 
 for processions and athletic feats. Directly to the 
 right of the extreme right-hand building was a gigan 
 tic sign painted white on a black fence, "Read the 
 Daily Traveller." One of the young men suggested 
 that it ought to say, " Lege Viatorem Cotidianum." 
 Perhaps Nahum's Latin is up to that. If not, he 
 must ask Mr. Walsingham to explain it to him. 
 
 The first part of the show began at about eight o'clock. 
 It was a procession of the citizens of Pompeii. 
 Usually there are programmes to tell what is going 
 on ; but on this night the programmes did not come. 
 The citizens of Pompeii consisted largely of dancing 
 girls with very short skirts. The very first one who 
 appeared danced very well ; then they gradually de 
 teriorated till the last girls, who were frequently out 
 of time and not at all graceful. Before and after the 
 dancing there was a little pantomime acting. It was 
 supposed to represent some well-known scene in Bul- 
 wer's "Last Days of Pompeii." But no one paid 
 much attention to this part of the performance ; for 
 one could not make out much of what was happening, 
 even if one wished to know. 
 
 Two gymnasts now appeared with a clown. They 
 came running round the track till they were directly 
 between the spectators and the water. In the space 
 between us and the track were three horiaoutal bars,
 
 108 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 \ 
 
 parallel, on the same level, about eight feet apart from 
 each other and about twenty feet from the ground, with 
 their ends toward us. The athletes were very agile 
 and really did their part well ; and the clown was ex 
 tremely laughable. There was a net stretched under 
 neath the bars, so that there was no danger. This is 
 really necessary ; for the other day a man broke his 
 leg there. The two gymnasts ended up by getting 
 hold of the same bar and doing the " giant's swing " 
 at the same time, going round and round, with great 
 clouds coming from red fire behind them. It was 
 very effective. Tell Nahum to ask Will Babcock to 
 try this with him. 
 
 Then there was a galloping race between horses, a 
 race between a man and a horse, and a two-horse and 
 a four-horse chariot race, all just like the races at 
 a circus. Then there was a bicycle performance, the 
 interesting thing about which was a little bit of a girl 
 who was the chief performer. She seemed about six 
 years old, with a short white frock and long slender 
 black legs. The bicycling was on the other side of 
 the lake and race course, just in front of the buildings. 
 The citizens of Pompeii were standing about to watch 
 it, with no apparent surprise at the sight of an inven 
 tion two thousand years after their day. Two men 
 rode round on a bicycle ; then another mounted to 
 their shoulders ; then the little girl climbed up till 
 she sat on his shoulders. Then she gave an exhibi 
 tion ride alone. She did a number of pretty tricks, 
 sat side-saddle running the machine with one leg, 
 jumped off and on again while the bicycle was run 
 ning at full speed, and finally rode up to a man who 
 lifted her, machine and all, up into the air. where she 
 still continued to ply her little pedals vigorously, 
 much to the amusement of the spectators. 
 
 Soon after this it was half -past nine, and observant
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 109 
 
 spectators noticed a flame coming out of Vesuvius, 
 which was well represented (in pasteboard, I suppose) 
 directly behind the ill-fated city. A moment later 
 lloman candles began to shoot out of the crater, and 
 at the same time the buildings of Pompeii began to 
 burn and fall to the ground. The inhabitants, who 
 were, as I understand, about to make a human sacrifice 
 of some Christians, were much dismayed and rushed 
 away. But we paid them no attention ; for we were 
 looking at the fireworks, all of which were startling 
 and some beautiful. The prettiest were the rockets 
 which exploded and gave out splendid showers of 
 colored stars. Then there were pin-wheels which 
 shot to and fro above the surface of the pond, and 
 some strange things were thrown into the water that 
 kept spitting out fire. A great elephant was exhib 
 ited, made in outline with fireworks, and moved by 
 some arrangement so that he seemed to walk along 
 the side of the track as far as the turn, where he 
 slowly burnt out. 
 
 The night happened to be "Newspaper Night," so 
 that there were two ridiculous " set " pieces in honor 
 of the newspapers, one representing a prominent 
 editor. After this a few more rockets, and then the 
 great crowd filed out. I have since noticed in the 
 newspapers that almost every night seems to be 
 somebody's night, either " Newspaper," " Cadet/' or 
 something of that kind. I cannot but hope they will 
 have a night for our company and send us all " dead 
 head " tickets. Ask Nahum if he knows what a 
 " dead head " is. I am afraid it will not do for him 
 to read this on the conversation day at the High 
 School, for they will think his brother is engaged in 
 very frivolous amusements. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, 11.30 P.M. 
 
 I still live, and that is a wonder. We have had a 
 field-day of it indeed. At one time I thought it
 
 110 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 would have been better had I taken the whole party 
 of my emigrants and encamped on Boston Common, 
 with them. Then the Boston people would have 
 found out that they had the arrival of a new colony 
 here. But at this moment all my people are in bed 
 somewhere, though I will not swear that Mrs. Smith 
 has not Mrs. Brown's baby without knowing it, and 
 Mrs. Brown Mrs. Smith's. It has been the hardest 
 work I ever did ; but, at the same time, it has been 
 the funniest day. If I ever write a farce, it shall 
 turn on the adventures of such a transmigration. 
 The incidents shall be the loss and recoveries of 
 babies and baggage by the emigrants. 
 
 And the difficulty mostly came from a piece of 
 over-caution, as, I believe, usually happens. Of 
 course the Company wanted to do everything to make 
 it easy, and as here were more than two hundred 
 people to move, more than half of them children, 
 it occurred to the president, but only at the last 
 moment, to ask to have a special train made up at 
 Leeds. Of course this was easily done, and in the 
 separate train they came. But the railroad people 
 rated it only as a separate block of what they call 
 the " Thunder Express." Nobody told us at the new 
 office that there was any separate block or special 
 express. Only we were told to be ready at the sta 
 tion at 11.30 prompt to meet the whole party and to 
 tell them, men, women, and children, where they were 
 to go. So we were. The regular train came and 
 not one of our people ! 
 
 Nobody at the station seemed to know or care 
 where our people were. I supposed they had had a 
 change of heart of some sort, and so, leaving the rest 
 with my lists at the station, I slammed back in a cab 
 to the office to telephone on our own wire to Leeds. 
 They said at once that the people had all started. I
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. Ill 
 
 slammed back to the station, and sure enough, there 
 they all were, dividing themselves as they could to 
 their different homes. John was standing on a trunk 
 with my list. We had engaged thirty-five cabs and 
 hacks, and the cabmen were waiting to be told where 
 to drive. Sometimes it was to other stations, and 
 sometimes it was direct to the houses which had been 
 hired. It would have been a deal easier had our 
 company built thirty-five houses for them and been 
 done with it. But you know they would not like 
 that near so well. 
 
 Here it was that the change of babies undoubtedly 
 took place. The novels of twenty years hence will 
 turn on these changes. You see we had thirty-five 
 mothers, thirty-five fathers, and more than a hundred 
 children. Now it is impossible, you know, that those 
 mothers could have known all their babies, they 
 looked so exactly alike. Anyway, the great row of 
 the day, which has taken more telephoning and cab- 
 hire and scolding, not to say swearing, and in the end 
 rejoicing, belonged to this baby business. I was 
 mystified for a few hours, but now I understand it all. 
 And I will relieve you at once by telling you that Mrs. 
 Outlake is all right, and, I suppose, has her baby in 
 her arms. It would have been better had he been in 
 her arms at noon to-day. But he was not. He was 
 in the arms of a certain Bridget, a nice, plump young 
 Irishwoman, just over. My Russian Bear met them 
 as they got out of the car. He was most anxious to 
 be of use. " Name ! " says he to her. " Vot ish your 
 name ? " " Bridget," said the girl, courtesying. Then 
 he thought aloud, in Russian, I suppose, for he always 
 does. He looked on the printed alphabetical list 
 which the cabman had. He spelled B-r-i-g satisfied 
 himself that that this spelt "Bridge " h-t, said that 
 this would do for " et," and took her in triumph at
 
 112 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 once, before anybody saw him, to the cab such fun 
 of our Mr. Bright, the first cashier, who had out of 
 grandeur and courtesy and pure kindness come down 
 to see the thing. He had gone up into the superin 
 tendent's office, and had handed the Bear two or three 
 of his cards, if he wanted to send any one to inquire 
 for him. 
 
 My dear Mother, I cannot make you see the fun of 
 this ! This Mr. Bright is the one swell man in our 
 office. He is very much of a bachelor. He has the 
 most elegant rooms in the Romeo, which is the most 
 swell bachelors' hotel in Boston. With his card, my 
 friend the Bear and Bridget go out to the street, and 
 Bear shows the card to the policeman who directed 
 our thirty-five carriages. He calls Mr. Bright's cab, 
 which was not one of them. The cabman takes the 
 card, takes Bridget, takes the baby, and carries them 
 to the Romeo. 
 
 I meanwhile return to the station, as I tell you. 
 As it happens, I send the Bear to South Boston 
 Heights at once with a party. Soon I hear that Mrs. 
 Outlake's baby is lost, and Bridget is lost. Soon all 
 the women think all their babies are lost or will be. 
 The excitement spreads. The emigrants are greatly 
 discouraged, Mrs. Outlake with reason. Mr. Bright 
 comes downstairs, finds his cab has gone, and goes 
 back to the office. Rumors of the row at the station 
 do not ascend into the sacred private room of our 
 chief cashier. It is not till six in the evening, when 
 he returns to the quiet of the Romeo to dress for an. 
 evening party, that the poor man finds to his dismay 
 Bridget and her baby sitting in his finest easy chair, 
 looking out on the baby -wagons in Arbella Square ! 
 
 Imagine his dismay. Imagine my relief when I 
 get a telephone from the office, at the Providence 
 Railroad station, where I am taking a hasty plate of
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 113 
 
 soup and wondering where in thunder that Outlake 
 baby can be. Imagine the relief of the station 
 masters of the different police stations, and the satis 
 faction of our thirty-five hack-drivers and cabmen, 
 each one of whom had been charged with eating the 
 baby. You see it all came from Mr. Bright 's being 
 so grand as to hire a cab to go down there. If he 
 had gone, as I did, on a street car there would have 
 been no baby lost and none found. 
 
 Saturday Afternoon. 
 
 IsTow that the babies are most of them in their 
 right homes, I can go on with what I was saying to 
 Nahum. If he wants to read this at the High School, 
 so that they shall think that I am gaining the advan 
 tages of a great city, I should like to tell about the 
 afternoon I spent at the Xatural History Booms. 
 There was really nothing at the office ; it was a sultry 
 afternoon, and out of pure pity the chief sent us 
 youngsters off at three o'clock. He said that he had 
 a long letter to write, and it was nonsense for us to 
 sit kicking our heels there. Walter seized his tennis 
 racket at once and went out to Longwood, to take his 
 chances as a substitute in a match there, where he knew 
 some of the fellows. But I had no chances in any 
 match, and indeed my racket was at Cambridge. So 
 I tried the fortunes of a " child of the public," which 
 is what I call myself, and went up to the Natural 
 History Museum. 
 
 It is just beyond the Public Garden, which I know 
 you remember, where I am going to make you come 
 down some day and see what they call the floral 
 effects with me. It seemed funny enough to be going 
 to such a place merely to kill time, and I could not 
 but wish that some of the children had been with me.
 
 114 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 You always see a good many nice children there. 
 And in winter they have a guide there, a gentlemanly 
 looking fellow, who has a badge on to show that he is 
 a public guide, and it is his business to take you about, 
 particularly if you are a woman or a child, and to 
 tell what he thinks you had better know about the 
 collection. He does not take you if you do not want 
 to have him, but after you have seen what a nice 
 fellow he is, you do want him. I always find I drift 
 into the bird room. I am wretched about natural 
 history, as you know ; but I can tell the difference 
 between blue and black, and the humming-birds and 
 the other bright-colored birds please me, if merely 
 as so many bits of color. I wish I could make all 
 womankind understand that the birds are a great deal 
 prettier here than they are when they have them on 
 their bonnets. But I am afraid that the wave of public 
 opinion is going a little backward in that business. 
 
 Nahum would delight in the mammoth, and I am 
 not sure that I could not get him a special permit to 
 ride on the mammoth's back. In each of the large 
 rooms there are one or more of these gigantic skeletons, 
 I do not mean of mammoths, for sometimes they 
 are of other creatures, but they are the solid centres 
 of the concern. I met Mr. Woodford, a gentleman 
 whom we sometimes see at the office, who is half a 
 man of science and half a man of business and half a 
 man of leisure, like a good many of these Boston men, 
 and he told me what is a pet idea of his for the Frog 
 Pond. I cannot help hoping that they may carry it 
 out. He wants to have, not a bronze statue of a frog 
 in the middle of the Frog Pond, but a real cast from 
 one of the antediluvian monsters, one of those nice old 
 creatures, half snake, half alligator, and half griffin, of 
 which you see dreadful pictures in the natural history 
 books. You know you could have him right in the

 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 115 
 
 middle of the Frog Pond, with, his horrid old neck 
 towering up seventy or eighty feet into the air and 
 bending over there, as if he were going to catch any 
 naughty boy or girl whom he saw disporting in an 
 irregular manner upon the bank. I suppose that will 
 be the way in which the twentieth century will teach 
 natural history to children. 
 
 When you go in at the door of the Natural History 
 Museum, if somebody has told you where to look, you 
 turn to the right and walk across the room, and there 
 you see a gilt orange, or something about the size of 
 a gilt orange. This represents the sun. Then you 
 walk back to the extreme left of the great hall, and 
 there is a little bit of a speck which represents the 
 earth. And these two are to give you a sort of 
 measure-staff, as the Germans say, by which you can 
 know how big is the solar system and how big the 
 earth on which you live. You see it is for fear you 
 should be too grand. This little speck holds the same 
 proportion to the orange that the earth does to the 
 sun, and the long walk from the right to the left of 
 the hall represents the ninety-two millions of miles, 
 more or less, between us and the sun. After you have 
 gained this measuring-staff, by which you are to com 
 pare humming-birds and mammoths, you go in. This 
 is one of those places, I should like to say also, where 
 you can sit down and rest yourself, if you are tired. 
 Nobody molests you nor makes you afraid, and if you 
 have seen all the beasts and birds and fishes and 
 insects and snakes and polyps and mollusks that you 
 want to, you sit down in a comfortable chair, and I 
 will not say that I have not seen people go to sleep 
 there. 
 
 Just as I came out, while I was hesitating whether 
 to go to Cambridge or to the Public Library, my Miss 
 Sandford passed by. I thought she was coming in j
 
 116 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 but she turned, and, as if she were afraid of rain, 
 went off again ; and I was a little too shy to join her 
 and walk home with her. If I had done so, I should 
 have known where she lives. I meet her in such odd 
 places and always just without speaking to her that I 
 really should like to have an opportunity to call in 
 form and leave a card. But nothing happened that 
 day. 
 
 WINDSOR HOTEL, WINDSOR, N. B. Aug. 4, '91. 
 
 What happened the next day was very curious. 
 For the next morning all this is last week I had 
 in the afternoon to go up to the State House to see 
 about the certificate of our corporation. No matter 
 what it was, but it was supposed that they had made 
 some mistake about our taxable property. I went in, 
 and with a nice lady I found there, overhauled the 
 whole concern and was coming out with my docu 
 ments, when I met a wild little boy, who might have 
 been a hoodlum, but who seemed to be in great dis 
 tress. He rushed right up to me and said, " Mister, 
 do you belong here ? " I said no, I did n't belong 
 here ; but what was the matter ? " Why," said he, 
 " they 've locked her up ! " " Whom have they locked 
 up ? " " The teacher ! She 's locked upstairs and I 
 can't get the key." " Who 's the teacher ? " said I. 
 "The teacher?" said he, "she's Jamaica Ginger 
 no, she is n't Jamaica Ginger, she 's Miss Sandford." 
 This name startled me, because, as I said, I met my 
 Miss Sandford the day before and had been wondering 
 where she lived, and I did not suppose she lived at 
 the State House. It seemed to me so queer that this 
 boy should have another Miss Sandford, and that he 
 should be at a loss to get her out from the place she 
 was in. However, I soothed him down and made him
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 117 
 
 tell me about it. It seemed that he had been up in 
 the top of the State House with his teacher, and by 
 some accident she was locked in, in the cupola, he 
 said, and I supposed it was so. 
 
 I went and found the sergeant-at-arms, and he sent 
 me, with the proper janitor, to see what was the 
 matter. The boy explained again that they had been 
 up to the cupola to see the view ; he had come run 
 ning down first and had missed his teacher. When 
 he went back the door was locked. He could hear his 
 teacher on the other side of the door, and she had 
 told him to go and find some one to unlock the door. 
 But when he came down, he had lost his way among 
 the staircases and so ran against me first of all. As 
 we were on our way up to relieve her, I wondered 
 very much whether she would prove to be my Miss 
 Sandford. The janitor went up, not overwillingly, to 
 tell you the truth, and went to the door and opened 
 it, and there was no one there, not even a cat or a rat. 
 The boy was very anxious to go on up into the cupola, 
 but that seemed to be nonsense. His teacher would 
 never have retired there. The janitor gave him an 
 awful blowing-up for taking us up all those stairs for 
 nothing, and that was the end of it. I inquired of 
 the boy where his teacher lived, and he did not know. 
 He only knew that she was a teacher in one of the 
 vacation schools, of which you have heard in the 
 newspapers. I was very curious, of course, to know 
 whether she had flown out of the window as she 
 would have done in a fairy story, or indeed whether 
 she were not dying or faint in that great dome, which 
 is all empty so much lost space. If there had been 
 a bell in the State House she could have rung it, as 
 Goody Two Shoes did ; but there is no bell. 
 
 I made the boy tell me where the school is and was 
 going there the next morning. But the next morning
 
 118 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 they sent me down here to New Brunswick again on 
 that business about the cherry wood, and I am writing 
 this letter now in the Windsor Hotel, as you see. So 
 I do not know what has become of the girl. She may 
 be dead and she may be alive. And I do not know at 
 all whether she is my Miss Sandford.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 119 
 
 CHAPTER TEXTH. 
 
 XII. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, August 10, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I believe I have a little ad 
 venture to tell you; at least it seemed like one 
 while it was going on, though you may say it did not 
 amount to anything. But for a few minutes I did 
 have a little fright, with a touch of that fear of hav 
 ing been left all alone in the world that, I suppose, 
 makes up a great part of the terrors of children. 
 This was how it came about. Anna and I had been 
 planning to go to the cupola of the State House some 
 afternoon, to see the view from the very top of the 
 building, and I decided to ask one of the boys in my 
 class to go with us. I happened one day to have 
 quite a talk about it with a harum-scarum little youth 
 of course named Mike and he declared he knew 
 all about it and would show us the way, and that he 
 had been up and down two or three times in one after 
 noon. So we met him by agreement on the steps of 
 the State House one day, not much expecting to find 
 him there at the appointed time. But there he was, 
 and he really knew the names of the statues that 
 stand in front of the building. We did not need his 
 introduction much after we were inside, for we were 
 shown about with great distinction, actually seeing 
 the celebrated codfish in the House of Representa 
 tives, and being shown the outside of the Governor's
 
 120 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 room and the other offices, besides being taken up and 
 down in elevators. 
 
 Finally we mounted the stairs into the " gilded 
 dome," and were truly repaid for the climb by the 
 glorious view. I ought to stop and tell you all about 
 it ; and I will say that it satisfied my heart's desires 
 in its pictures of the harbor and the gay scene of 
 ships and boats and of the Charles River and the 
 numerous bridges that seem to make " mainland " of 
 a greater part of it, with Bunker Hill not far away, 
 that we must climb sometime. Well, we suddenly 
 found that the time was slipping away, and Anna 
 wanted to go somewhere for an errand on Winter 
 Street and left first, I agreeing to meet her on the 
 Common at an appointed place. What would she 
 have done if I had not met her ! 
 
 For I lingered after she left ; and even after Mike 
 and I had decided to go down, I stopped to see if it 
 were possible that there was an ocean steamer visible 
 far away in the offing. Mike went scampering down 
 in front of me, half a dozen steps at a time, and I, at 
 last, followed him, hearing his footsteps echoing far 
 below. 
 
 What was my horror, when I reached the foot of 
 the cupola stairway, to find a door shut across at the 
 bottom, and when I tried to open it, I found it was 
 locked ! Still I was not much frightened at first, as 
 I supposed Mike would come back for me, and I 
 waited a few minutes, shaking the door, however, and 
 trying to open it. Presently I thought that I heard 
 steps outside, so then I pounded on the door with my 
 parasol, and shook the handle again with success ; 
 for some one put a key in the door outside and 
 opened it. There was a pleasant-looking gentleman 
 who, it seemed, had been coming out of one of the 
 offices below and had heard my knocking, and happily
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 121 
 
 he had a key to the door. He might have been one 
 of the clerks or the governor of Massachusetts, for his 
 politeness ; for he showed me downstairs, after inquir 
 ing if any one else was left in the cupola, before he 
 locked the door again. I think he took me down 
 some short way, and I lingered awhile in the entrance 
 hall below, looking for Mike, but could see nothing of 
 him. Nor did he appear as I wandered slowly down 
 the steps. I was just turning away to cross the 
 Common, when I looked back once more, to see a 
 figure of a small boy flying to meet me and waving 
 his arms in the air. It was my Mike, who came up 
 to me breathless, not at all sure that it was I, but 
 stammering out a succession of questions, and won 
 dering how I came down from the cupola. And had 
 I seen " the gentleman," and should he go back and 
 tell him? 
 
 It was sometime before I could find out that " the 
 gentleman " was somebody he had fallen upon when 
 he discovered I was probably locked in the cupola. 
 As I supposed, he had run down, quick as a shot, from 
 the cupola to the lower front hall of the building, 
 where he waited for me when he found I had not 
 followed him. He flew back to find that the door 
 was locked, and then hurried away to look for me 
 below, meeting a gentleman whom he interested in 
 his search for the janitor, whom they found at last 
 and when they had mounted the stairs and opener 
 the door, of course I was gone, and the janitor very 
 mad apparently. Then Mike went on to tell how 
 " the gentleman " said he knew Miss Sandford, and 
 how his name was Merton, because he heard another 
 "gent" call him so, and how Mr. Merton said he 
 should call the next day at the school to find out if 
 Miss Sandford had flown out of the window ; for Mike 
 had told him Miss Sandford was the teacher. So I
 
 122 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 was in a flutter the next morning at the school, but 
 no Mr. Merton appeared, and I can't find out how 
 much of Mike's story is correct, and it all seems 
 odd. 
 
 This incident made me a little provoked at my 
 stupidity the day before it happened. I was passing 
 by the Natural History Museum and had determined 
 to look in for a few moments, but was hesitating 
 whether I would go then or wait for Anna some day, 
 when I saw this very Mr. Merton standing on the 
 upper step. I had a sudden foolish feeling of not 
 wishing to seem to go and meet him, and I turned 
 away, much disgusted with myself afterwards, when I 
 began to think about it ; for I should like to have 
 asked him many questions, how he recovered himself 
 that afternoon when his boat upset in the harbor, and 
 about the white bandage on his head ; and it was so 
 stupid of me to have avoided him in this way. 
 
 For meanwhile I have learned something about 
 him. Don't you remember a Harry Merton that came 
 over to the base-ball match at Astney last summer? 
 I was to have gone, but it turned up we had a house 
 full of friends, and I sent off the Whitney girls in our 
 wagon instead of going myself. And Jack and the 
 other boys went, and I stayed at home lamenting. 
 When they came back Caroline had a great deal to 
 say about this Harry Merton for I am very sure it 
 was he and my mother knew all about his family, 
 and we had a great talk about him ; and there was a 
 plan of having him over to visit us. It seems to have 
 been the beginning of the series of adventures that 
 prevents us from meeting. I am most provoked with 
 myself. 
 
 All of which reminds me of last summer, and I will 
 answer some of your questions about the dear old 
 home at Astney. Yes, it is let for the summer, and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 123 
 
 my father and mother have moved away. It makes 
 me melancholy to think of it, so I have managed to 
 avoid the subject. But this spring, in the family 
 councils, it was decided we must economize and earn 
 money as well as save it. Why not let the house ? 
 everybody asked. It was soon found that we could 
 let it to some New York artists and very favorably, 
 and that my mother and father could go to my grand 
 mother's down in the village. Uncle Enos and his 
 wife are there, to be sure, but they have no children, 
 and there is a large house, much unoccupied, and I 
 might have gone there too. But I had planned, you 
 know, coming to Boston for university education ; and 
 I decided I might as well start a little earlier, if I 
 could do it economically ; and Aunt Martha's kindness 
 in inviting me here has helped me in this. 
 
 It is hardest for my mother ; for Uncle Enos and 
 his wife are regular workers and they leave her noth 
 ing to do, and she has always been used to being at 
 the head of things, with a house and a large farm to 
 oversee ; and I am very sure it is hard for her to have 
 anybody else in our dear old house on the slope of the 
 hills. I wish that Uncle Silas, who has managed to 
 lose all my father's little property in his speculations 
 I wish that he could have had half the head for 
 economizing that Uncle Enos has. They write me 
 that the New York artists admire the dear old house, 
 and that maybe they will want to buy it. But I have 
 wild ideas of earning a great deal of money, with the 
 help of my brother Jack and the younger boys ; for I 
 can't bear to think of its passing out of the family. 
 
 Yet, I can't say that I am low-spirited on the sub 
 ject. I think the change of coming here has been 
 good for me. I am gaining some idea of how different 
 people live, the rich people away from their large 
 deserted houses, enjoying themselves in the deserted
 
 124 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 farmhouses on the hillsides, while down in the narrow 
 streets are crowded, alas ! men, women, and children. 
 But there are compensations for all of it ; so I try to 
 console myself, and I am learning what a great city 
 can do in the way of teaching and education, as well 
 as in its care for the sick and poor. 
 
 I have really begun on my French lessons, and 
 every afternoon with few exceptions I go with 
 Anna to the Berlitz School on Tremont Street, in 
 some large, airy rooms near the top of the building. 
 We begin by talking French directly, if you can be 
 lieve this of your friend. But there are great advan 
 tages in this summer school ; for, as the class is not 
 large, we have the more benefit of the professor's in 
 structions. He is very painstaking, and he will not 
 let a single error pass in pronunciation or grammati 
 cal construction ; and he takes a personal interest in 
 each of us. The method is very systematic and prac 
 tical and not a word of English is spoken in the class. 
 We are taught from little text-books, where the exer 
 cises are very bright and really interesting. The pro 
 fessor brings pictures or objects to represent the 
 things spoken of in the lesson, and he talked with us 
 about them in the very first lesson, avoiding the diffi 
 cult things, so that at the very beginning we were 
 quite surprised how many every-day sentences we 
 could make. The teacher leads us, indeed, into a 
 variety of conversation which is really agreeable. We 
 propose keeping this up through the winter, and we 
 find it now a delightful occupation for an afternoon. 
 
 We have found a rival to our delight in these les 
 sons, and that is in the Old South Lectures. They 
 are given Wednesday afternoons at the Old South 
 Meeting-House, so that I have enjoyed the pleasure of 
 seeing a "truly" old meeting-house. I found Miss 
 Dexter was feeling rather envious of its distinction,
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 125 
 
 which she would like to have claimed for her beloved 
 Brattle Street Church. Anna and I went early one 
 afternoon, thinking we could go about the church and 
 see some of the " antiquities " that are exhibited there. 
 But we found already a crowd gathering for the seats. 
 The subject, you will see, takes up just the period of 
 history that you know I am most interested in. It 
 was the beloved Dr. Hedge who gave the suggestion to 
 me, a year or two ago, when I was planning a study 
 of history, that I should begin at the time of the Cru 
 sades, as being the " New Birth of the World," when 
 the great nations of Europe were just dividing into 
 separate existence. So imagine my pleasure to find 
 that this was to be the subject of the Old South course 
 of lectures. A friend has given us some tickets, and 
 the first lecture we heard was exceedingly interesting, 
 given by Professor Marshall S. Snow of St. Louis, on 
 " The Builders of the Cathedrals." The lecturer was 
 very brilliant and the story admirably told, beginning 
 with a picturesque description of the great towers of 
 the Cologne Cathedral. It was exactly what we 
 wanted to hear and know, and the whole lecture gave 
 a splendid picture of the time ; and you somehow felt 
 as if you were starting at the beginning of all modern 
 history and could already begin to understand what 
 came afterwards. Why, Anna and I were so inspired 
 by it that we went directly to the Public Library, iny 
 first visit. 
 
 I remember that summer in Astney, when we were 
 talking over a winter of study, Caroline and the other 
 girls all said that it was not so easy to find time in 
 Boston for all the study I was planning, and they 
 quite envied me my long, uninterrupted winter even 
 ings at home. I tried to explain that we were not so 
 terribly uninterrupted at home, and that we do have 
 our evening entertainments, our teas out, occasional
 
 126 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 dances at the hall, and famous lecturers from Boston 
 and elsewhere, and music now and then. Still, I had 
 to confess that we also have quiet hours for study and 
 reading, only we do not, alas ! have the books to read ; 
 and what sort of use to us is all this time, if we can't 
 find our books and have no libraries even, to suggest 
 to us what to read. 
 
 But now I have been in Boston all this time, and I 
 am ashamed to say that I had not even been into the 
 Public Library. I have seen the outside of the beau 
 tiful new library building, that is to be finished some 
 time or other, and I have seen the outside of the 
 Boston Athenaeum ; but I have not done one thing yet 
 about " visiting the public institutions," and I there 
 fore learned only the other day what a delight it is 
 to be able to go up to the quiet rooms of the Public 
 Library, with the consciousness that you can ask for 
 any book you please and your wants will be gratified. 
 Anna, with the advantages of an old inhabitant, knew 
 how to take me into one of the retired rooms at the 
 back of the building. She showed me the reading- 
 rooms below, and she took me through the library up 
 stairs, without waiting to explain to me the methods 
 of getting a card for taking out books, and then seated 
 me at a large table. Here, after some inquiries, large 
 volumes of prints and engravings were brought, and 
 we could look up exactly the things we wanted and 
 study up the difference in the architectural styles that 
 Professor Snow had been explaining to us, all while it 
 was fresh in our minds. It seemed really as if we 
 were sitting in some friend's library ; only here the 
 shelves of books were inexhaustible, and we had such 
 kindly help and suggestions of new volumes that we 
 had known nothing of, that the afternoon was quite 
 too short, and, indeed, I wished now I could bring the 
 leisure of our quiet country days to fill in with the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 127 
 
 treasures of all these books. So you can imagine us 
 crowding in these delightful literary afternoons, with 
 our French lessons and so many other things. 
 
 We have had some delightful outings. I have grat 
 ified a longing of mine to visit an island in the harbor 
 actually. But that needs quite a preface, and I 
 must go back to my visit to Miss Dexter, when I went 
 down to carry some flowers to the poor woman who 
 lives in the rooms below. I did find such a sad, sick- 
 looking woman, who was indeed delighted with my 
 flowers, especially for the sake of the sick little girl 
 she held in her arms ; for the sick little thing did look 
 up and smile at a gay red nasturtium. The picture of 
 her qiiite haunted me, so I went down to see her again, 
 and found, this time, that the poor little girl was 
 struggling with a severe illness. I directly thought 
 of the good place I had been told of, where sick chil 
 dren could be carried, on an island in the harbor of 
 this hospitable Boston. I did not venture to speak of 
 it to the mother till I had inquired more about the 
 matter ; but I hurried directly to the West End Nur 
 sery in Blossom Street, where I met such a pleasant 
 friend, Miss A., whom I had learned to know at the 
 Flower Mission. 
 
 She was directly and most kindly interested and 
 told me of the " Children's Island." Does it not sound 
 something like a fairy tale ? And it is what I used 
 to dream about, an island where children could go and 
 do just what they please and break their toys if they 
 wanted to ; only I don't remember ever really want 
 ing to break my toys. I was very sorry when my 
 doll broke her arm, but I loved her just as much 
 after her arm was broken, especially as she did not 
 seem to mind it and got on very well with the one 
 arm. 
 
 But this " Children's Island " is devoted to the in-
 
 128 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 valid children, from the close, warm streets of Boston, 
 who often need only the fresh invigorating air of the 
 sea to restore them. Is it not a most kindly charity ? 
 My friend was quickly interested and went with me to 
 see the sick child and her mother, and made arrange 
 ments to take them both down to the island directly. 
 They are very glad at the island to have visitors, so Anna 
 and I decided to go down and spend the day. We were 
 all to meet at the Eastern station to go on together to 
 Marblehead. Anna and I found we were making an 
 early start, so we went round by Faneuil Hall Market, 
 which I had never before visited, and so tempting 
 and picturesque with the fruit stalls outside. 
 
 As Anna was wandering on in front of me, I 
 could not help stopping at one, most especially pic 
 turesque. Here was a great basket of melons outside, 
 and peaches and plums, every fruit you could think 
 of, most artistically arranged, so that I stopped to ex 
 claim at them. The man who was selling them 
 looked as picturesque as the rest. Somehow I fancied 
 he must be a Greek from the " beautiful isles," and, 
 almost involuntarily, I ventured an effort upon a sort 
 of greeting in Greek. " KaV hemera," I said, for a 
 good-morning. Whereupon my Greek friend started 
 from his languid position and, beaming with smiles, 
 he poured forth a flow of unknown language, out of 
 which I could pick out a word or two. " How could 
 he serve me ? " " Did I understand Greek ? " I 
 hardly know what. But I had to buy a few peaches, 
 and he insisted upon thrusting a bunch of grapes and 
 some flowers into my brown-paper bag, the finest speci 
 mens before him. And I had to hurry away from 
 his ardent expressions of delight at hearing his native 
 tongue. Anna was coming back to see what had hap 
 pened to me. 
 
 At the station we found the poor mother, holding
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 129 
 
 her little girl in her arms, both so wan and sick that 
 it seemed almost hopeless to take them further. But 
 it was wonderful how the fresh air revived them, as 
 we went on in the train, catching the sea breezes as it 
 passed along the shore. So by the time we reached 
 Marblehead, we could pass through its quaint old 
 streets without trouble, reaching the wharf, where a 
 real sailboat was to take us over to the island. This 
 used to be called Lowell Island, as there was a large 
 hotel there to which the Lowell people loved to come 
 for the summer. But of late years the island has 
 been taken for a hospital for sick children, Mr. Fred 
 erick H. Kindge having bought the whole place, with 
 its hotel, for a summer home for such invalids, with 
 the sole condition that no question of race, creed, or 
 color shall ever be raised in admission to its privi 
 leges. The sisters of Saint Margaret take charge of 
 the institution, which can accommodate fifty children. 
 A change is made every week, when twenty-five chil 
 dren are sent back to their homes or institutions and 
 twenty-five more children are received. 
 
 Two other children were being taken over in the 
 boat with us, and, with our little girl, they began to 
 look better in the fresh breeze of our little voyage 
 across to the island. One of the older girls had never 
 seen a boat or the sea before, and, as we landed, she 
 flew out and up the rocks with the delight of a bird 
 let loose from a cage, or of a horse turned out into the 
 fields. 
 
 Indeed it did not look anywhere like a hospital. 
 There are one hundred and seventy-five rooms in the 
 large house, which stands on the edge of the sea, so 
 that from the back you look directly down upon the 
 rocks and the waves dashing below. On the lower 
 floor are parlors and a large dining-room and play- 
 
 9
 
 130 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 rooms for the children ; and above are the sleeping- 
 rooms, and on this floor a toy-room, where every va 
 riety of plaything can be found. Besides the sick 
 children, some boarders are allowed on the island, 
 girls and women who cannot afford to pay the high 
 board of a seaside watering-place, and who are accom 
 modated here at three dollars a week. 
 
 We wandered over the island, which is a lovely 
 place, with charming views in every direction. Far 
 away is the lighthouse at Gloucester with which 
 Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps has made us acquainted. 
 Then they pointed out to us the Baker's Island light 
 house, Nursery and Gooseberry islands, etc. Anna 
 and I thought we could pass the summer there with 
 pleasure. And we were invited to come again to see our 
 little invalid and her mother, and both of them seemed 
 already improving before we left. Is it not a valuable 
 institution ? And anybody visiting it would be glad 
 to contribute liberally towards keeping it. The win 
 ter storms have injured the old house, and much could 
 be done to improve it. Just a sight of the poor sick 
 children, cared for in the airy rooms, makes one feel 
 happy that such a place can be found for them ; and 
 then one passes to the cheering sight of the children 
 who are getting better and need not be kept in their 
 beds, but who are having a delightful time plashing 
 in the pools among the rocks, fishing and bathing, 
 throwing pebbles into the sea, or wading about on the 
 beach. As we sat upon the rocks talking with the 
 sisters, Anna and I talked over the numerous friends 
 we knew who would surely like to contribute some 
 thing to that delightful work of making all these chil 
 dren well and so happy. Much is needed in repairing 
 the old house and all the daily necessities of the 
 home are dependent upon public charity.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 131 
 
 I have not time to tell you more of the lovely 
 trip back to Marblehead in the sailboat, and of the 
 few moments we had to walk about the picturesque 
 streets of Marblehead, before taking the train to 
 return. Anna and I are planning more excursions 
 in the harbor. 

 
 132 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 XITI. 
 
 HARRY MERTON TO NAHUM MERTON. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, August 16, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR NAHUM, You must let mother read 
 this letter. But it is your letter, all the same, and it 
 is in answer to your nice letter to me about the 
 huckleberry party. You managed famously when the 
 boat was upset, and I am glad you all came out safe. 
 The way you dried your clothes was very clever. 
 Now I will tell you how we take our boating parties 
 here, when we do not go out in the harbor. For I 
 went yesterday afternoon. 
 
 There are three sets of street cars, not to say four, 
 by which you can go out of town toward the south, 
 and one of them, which goes among houses rather 
 more than shops after you leave the Common, 
 which is the middle of the town, just as the Common 
 is at Atherton, is called the Columbus Avenue line. 
 I think they will put a statue of Sir William Pep- 
 perell there some day ; for I notice that they have a 
 statue of Columbus in Louisburg Square to celebrate 
 Pepperell's great victory. So it would be only fair to 
 give Pepperell a statue here. Well, one great merit 
 of the Columbus Avenue cars is that they go to the 
 Providence station and the Albany station both. And 
 so when we want to go to Riverside to row or to sail 
 on the Charles River, you go to the Columbus Avenue 
 station of the Albany train. And among other trains 
 there, they have one which keeps going round in what
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 133 
 
 they call a " circle." What they call a " square " here 
 has three corners or seven or five, and what they call 
 a " circle " is not round. But it is called a " circle " 
 for short, because it goes no farther than Riverside, 
 and then, while it keeps on, it comes back to Boston. 
 This is what delights the real " Bostoneer," because 
 he can start on his journey and be sure that he will 
 not be carried too far from his dear home. 
 
 Xow, really, it is first-rate fun going to Riverside 
 and getting a boat there. It takes us maybe fifteen 
 minutes from the office, and then it is, perhaps, 
 twenty minutes more to Riverside. It is a pretty 
 ride, through nice towns where people live who come 
 in to Boston to do their work every day. And the 
 railroad people have so much more money than the 
 stockholders can have, or than the people of the State 
 want, that they plant pretty rose-gardens up and down 
 the tracks, each way from the stations. You have 
 everything to make you comfortable except hornets' 
 nests, as it says in the story. When you come to 
 Riverside, if it is Saturday afternoon, fifty or a hun 
 dred people get out and tramp right down to the 
 water to choose their boats. Other days there are not 
 so many, but Saturday is a sort of holiday. There are 
 so many of us in our building who like to be sure of a 
 boat that we give a standing order that the " Rose Stan- 
 dish " shall be kept for us at Partelow's Saturdays. 
 Then in the morning, if it proves that more fellows want 
 to go than will use the " Rose," why, Mr. Stroak tele 
 phones up to Riverside. Yesterday we were two parties 
 my party and another and both boats were ready. 
 
 Do you not remember a little red book, " Red and 
 Wliite," which I had at Christmas in the T. T. T. 
 Club ? And it tells about some Indians on the 
 Charles River ? Well, this is that same river at 
 that same place, and I believe that the man that
 
 134 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 wrote the story comes to Partelow's to row. I keep 
 saying Partelow, because he is the man I know. 
 There is another man who lets boats, and they look 
 like good boats. But Partelow's are as good as they 
 can be, and the best is good enough for me. 
 
 You can go up the river or down the river. You 
 may say this is always true, but it is not. For in 
 stance, if you launch your canoe at the foot of Niagara 
 Palls, you would find it rather hard to paddle up, 
 even if you were a salmon with a very stiff tail. 
 Here, there is a little fall, four or five miles below 
 Partelow's, at Waltham, and there are other falls 
 above, which are called Newton Lower Falls and 
 Newton Upper Falls. Between these falls I do not 
 know how many miles, but I should think seven or 
 eight is the long, winding stretch of Charles River, 
 which is the pleasure ground of sensible Boston dur 
 ing the days from April, till it is frozen up in winter. 
 And it is here that the Indians, as I have said just 
 now, came down in the expedition which is described 
 in " Red and White." Sometimes we go up and 
 sometimes we go down. I will tell you another time 
 about our going up to hear the great echo where the 
 aqueduct crosses the river, but not now. 
 
 Our party was myself and James and Mr. Stroak. 
 I let them row the first half of the time, while I had 
 the helm. Both sides of the river are well wooded. 
 I believe there are gentlemen's places behind, the 
 woods of which run down to the river. But it all 
 seems as wild as if nobody had been there since it 
 was made, excepting that, every now and then, there 
 is a nice little boathouse running out. But the birds 
 seem to feel at home, the wild flowers are abundant, 
 and you do not have a feeling that you are within ten 
 miles of a great city. 
 
 James had never seen the monument to the North-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 135 
 
 men, so we went there first. That is just where the 
 river makes a sharp corner, which is on the edge, I 
 believe, of the town of Waltham ; and here a Cam 
 bridge gentleman found some entrenchments, some 
 years ago, which he thinks are the walls and fortifi 
 cations of the city of Norumbega. So he has put up 
 a great tower, fifty or sixty feet high, where you can 
 climb up and see all the kingdoms of the world. 
 And there is a great granite tablet, as big as the 
 front door of our house, with a great deal of history 
 carved upon it, which will remain there .for some 
 hundred years to tell the world what he thought 
 about this first discovery. We went into a little 
 creek, which is so narrow we had to ship our oars to 
 get in, and this, I believe, is the harbor where the 
 Northmen's ships are supposed to have entered and 
 traded with the Indians. Exactly how they got up 
 above the waterfalls at Watertown and Waltham, I 
 do not know, but all the same the tower is there, and 
 it gives you a splendid view of the country, and one 
 learns a great deal more about the geography of Bos 
 ton than he can from any other convenient place that 
 I know. Stroak said he was there last spring when 
 the apple-trees were in blossom all through this 
 valley, and it was one of the most beautiful gardens 
 you can see in the world. I can well believe it. 
 
 We did not want to waste our afternoon studying 
 geography at the tops of towers ; so, as soon as 
 James had seen what there was to see, so that he 
 could come again alone, we pulled down towards 
 Waltham. One of the nice features about the expedi 
 tion, which I had taken before, is that while at one min 
 ute you are all alone and imagine yourself in a lake 
 at the head waters of the Mississippi, the next mo 
 ment you meet a party of people whom, perhaps, you 
 have been talking with half the morning. Just as
 
 136 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 we came out into the river and went down towards 
 Waltham, we fell in with what Stroak said were two 
 Waltham boats, and in these were half a dozen people 
 whom I knew quite well. Mother will remember my 
 writing about going to Class Day, and the pretty Miss 
 Sandford that I danced with there, and some of the 
 Cambridge fellows who were having their " spreads " 
 as they left college. There were three or four of 
 these in this boat, and Miss Sandford, who is the same 
 I last heard of shut up in the cupola of the State 
 House, was one of the party. So I know that she is 
 not a prisoner there still. 
 
 It is queer enough ; it is nearly two months since 
 I saw all these people first. I am all the time run 
 ning against one or another of them, but with hardly 
 any chance to talk to them, though one night I did 
 meet Miss Osborne and her brother at a party. But 
 this time I was glad to see that Miss Sandford, who 
 seems to be a very nice girl, had got out of her im 
 prisonment. For I have found out certainly that 
 Mike Flanigan's " Jamaica Ginger " is the same as 
 my Miss Sandford of Class Day. I believe the last 
 time she saw me was when I came out of the water, 
 like a drowned rat, at the side of the " Newark." She 
 did not know, when I made my elegant bow to her, 
 that I had called at her schoolhouse in the morning 
 and found it shut up. 
 
 This is the way you go and come on the river. We 
 went down till we lost ourselves in a tangle of islands, 
 and none of us had any map to show how to get back 
 again. But the tangle was not such that we spent 
 thirty years of our life there, as Eobinson Crusoe did, 
 and by some pretty stiff rowing we got back in time. 
 Not in time for our train ; you never get your own 
 train. But there is always another train going in 
 about twenty minutes, when you are late for your
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 137 
 
 own. You can see what a nice way this is to spend 
 Saturday afternoon. 
 
 Now, dear Nahum, I have written you what grand 
 mamma calls " a nice, long letter." Take care that 
 you write as long a one to me. Tell me about all the 
 fellows and how the club gets on, and particularly if 
 you get overboard again in " Bombazine." 
 
 Always your affectionate brother, 
 
 HARRY MERTON.
 
 138 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 Sunday evening. 
 
 Mr DEAR MOTHER, I have been writing a separate 
 letter to ISTahum, and you must take that as a part of 
 ray letter to you. I like to keep up the dear boy's 
 interest in correspondence, and I think he writes a 
 capital letter. All the same, I am glad you do not 
 ask him to show them to you. It is the freshness of 
 the thing which gives it half its charm. One of these 
 days he will be coming here himself, and I think he 
 will enjoy Boston all the more because he has an 
 older brother here to show him its ways. 
 
 You need not be anxious about my eating and 
 drinking. By virtue of being in the Summer School 
 I have a card at the Foxcroft Club, and that is rather 
 a pleasant thing, because it brings me in with nice 
 fellows whom I am glad to know. " Foxcroft Club " 
 means this : The college Memorial Hall is crowded 
 and overcrowded all through term time. They can't 
 receive half the fellows who want to take their meals 
 there. They are trying to mend this now by throw 
 ing open half the tables as they would be at a hotel, 
 so that a man can go just as he chooses and when he 
 chooses, and they hope thus to accommodate at those 
 tables twice as many as they had before. How that 
 will work we cannot tell now, but it is the best they 
 can do. 
 
 But somebody I believe Professor Shaler ob 
 served that this made the other boarding-houses 
 costly, and that there was quite room for some other
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 139 
 
 arrangement for students who did not want to eat ice 
 cream and plum-cake all the time. And he or some 
 body else organized this Foxcroft Club. It means 
 that you have a sufficiently good breakfast, dinner, or 
 supper, and do not have to pay for it any more than 
 it costs. I believe there was an old minister named 
 Foxcroft for whom it was named. And, by the way, 
 somebody told me he was a sort of relation of Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson. And, do you know, they say that 
 Emerson, theorist and idealist as people think him, 
 was one of the most practical men about these affairs 
 of the direction of every-day life whom you could 
 stumble on. I wonder if it is not that which gives a 
 certain Yankee raciness to everything which he 
 wrote. You used to be surprised that I swore by 
 Emerson so entirely ; but I tell you all the young men 
 I know, who are worth knowing, are quoting Emerson 
 all the time, and, as like as not, have some little 
 Emerson handbook in their pockets. And in all my 
 Sunday adventures, I am bound to hear something 
 of Emerson's pushed into every sermon, no matter 
 whether I am in a Baptist church, or in a high Epis 
 copal church, or at some place which your friend the 
 deacon would think awfully heretical. 
 
 I am glad I came out to Cambridge. There are 
 excellent loafing-places here. The Botanical Garden 
 seems to be open to anybody. I have asked no ques 
 tions there and nobody has hindered me, but I can go 
 about and read the names on the little tags and im 
 prove my botany after my own fashion. This is a 
 thing you cannot do in the new park in Boston. 
 Whether they know the names of their plants or not, 
 I do not know. They have a lot of loafing policemen 
 there, whose business, somebody told me, was to 
 insult the people who come there, under pretence of 
 seeing that they do not pick the flowers. But none
 
 140 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 of them know what any of the plants are, so there is 
 no good asking them. And there are no notices of 
 any sort. When you walk on the Common, you have 
 a notice to tell you that the elm-tree is an Ulmus 
 Americana; but not in the new park. However, I 
 suppose they will come in time. Perhaps the things 
 will develop, if they water the flowers long enough. 
 But at the Botanic Garden there is no difficulty. You 
 can really pick up a good deal there, as the season 
 goes by. You have a chance of seeing what are the 
 steps in what Mr. Higginson called " the Procession 
 of the Flowers," all over New England ; for they 
 have almost everything here. Somebody told me 
 they got a pink pond-lily from Cape Cod, though I 
 have not seen it. 
 
 I went down on an errand last week to Kingston, 
 Rhode Island, where the agricultural experiment sta 
 tion of the State is, and I wished ever so much you 
 had been with me there. They have a man named 
 Cushman there, who is very learned about bees and 
 honey. He was very good to me and showed me the 
 whole process of honey-making and wax-making, and, 
 I have a right to say, of bee-making. I was wishing 
 all the time that you were there. You remember the 
 old story in Hood about the boy who told the other 
 boy that, if he would come to see him, he had got a 
 hornets' nest ready for him and everything else to 
 make him comfortable. I was quoting that to Nahum 
 just now. Well, Mr. Cushman had five-and-twenty 
 swarms of bees ready for me, and made me perfectly 
 comfortable at the same time. He put on me a sort 
 of helmet of gauze, which screened my face, and took 
 in his own hands a " smoker," which seems to be a 
 sort of pocket pistol which you have ready to suggest 
 to any bee that he must not sting you, and we went 
 around. I saw the operations of the little fellows
 
 THE NEW HARRY AA?D LUCY. 141 
 
 face to face, not to say hand to hand. The whole 
 science of honey-making has changed in the last 
 fifteen or twenty years, and the product, for all prac 
 tical purposes, is very much more plentiful, and the 
 process, so to speak, is very much improved. It 
 seems queer to say that the bee can improve his pro 
 cess ; but every bee makes now about five times as 
 much honey as any bee did thirty years ago. Mr. 
 Cushman asked me if I preferred the flavor of clover 
 honey, or of buckwheat honey^ or of aster honey. 
 He had, I do not know how many flavors of honey 
 boxed up there, according as it was made in one 
 season or another. All of which you would have 
 understood a great deal better than I. The whole 
 place is a capital place for a boy to get enthusiastic 
 about gardening and farming, and I shall want to 
 talk to father and you about sending Nahum down 
 there for a winter. 
 
 You said you were surprised that I had taken no 
 chance to hear our new Bishop, Phillips Brooks. You 
 have brought me up so well that I do not care much 
 to tramp round in search of my religious instructions. 
 And, as I told you, the People's Church and Dr. 
 Haynes are good enough for me. What am I but a 
 child of the public ? and I believe the name interested 
 me. And another thing, which I suppose Dr. Haynes 
 knows nothing about, and which I believe I never told 
 to you. Years and years ago, that time when I made 
 my famous visit here on Aunt Jane, one Sunday when 
 I was at the Sunday School, the children had a chance 
 given them to give one brick each for the building of 
 that church. Lulu and I agreed to unite. I believe I 
 gave nine cents and she gave eleven. Any way, we 
 were told we had contributed a brick between us, and, 
 from the moment I came to Boston, I felt the gran 
 deur of a proprietor, and I have been very glad I did.
 
 142 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 But yesterday I wanted to obey your orders and 
 show the town to our neighbor, Miss Clara Fenton, 
 and, like all other strangers, she wanted to hear 
 Phillips Brooks. We knew he was at Mr. Lowell's 
 funeral Friday, and we thought he might be at Trin 
 ity. He was not, but we were well repaid for going. 
 The whole service was interesting, the sermon was 
 admirable, and she thanked me heartily for showing 
 her the way. 
 
 I did not know who the preacher was. But as soon 
 as he gave out the text, we knew that he was going to 
 speak of Mr. Lowell. And, all the time, dear mother, 
 I was thinking of you and the time when you first 
 read " Sir Launfal " to me. This gentleman almost 
 took it for granted that " Sir Launfal " was Lowell's 
 greatest and most remarkable poem. He read from it 
 some of the lines you know by heart and are so fond 
 of. And what it was very good to hear, and what, in 
 that place, seemed to me very brave, he said squarely 
 that the divinity of humanity is the special religious 
 lesson of this time. He said Lowell showed himself a 
 poet of his time by teaching that " he who does it 
 unto one of the least of these my brethren, does it 
 unto me." He said this was the special lesson, or the 
 enforcement of it the special business of the " men of 
 this neighborhood, the men of Boston and Concord 
 and Cambridge ; " and that he would ask nothing 
 more of them than to own that their ancestors were 
 moved and quickened by the death of Christ as they 
 are moved and quickened by his life. The life of 
 Christ and the divine life in each of God's children 
 these made the sermon ; and this is your doctrine so 
 perfectly that I wished you had been there to hear. 
 
 There is talk of making this Trinity Church into a 
 cathedral. That is, they propose to throw it open 
 to anybody who will come in well, much as the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY, 143 
 
 People's Church is thrown open. If it is a cathedral, 
 it will be Phillips Brooks's cathedral, and he will 
 preach here when he can. Naturally, of course, the 
 people would like to hear him when they can. I 
 could not help thinking to-day that the attendance 
 justified this idea. 
 
 For this is what the Transcript, last night, called 
 "the dead day of the year" in Boston. That means that 
 everybody is away that can be away. And, indeed, in 
 that neighborhood we could see that three houses out 
 of four were shut up, and you might say sealed up, 
 for the summer. Still, here was a large congregation, 
 clearly of strangers like ourselves. You cannot say 
 that they came to hear a preacher who had been 
 announced beforehand. There had been no announce 
 ment ; the chances were five out of six against Dr. 
 Brooks, for instance, being there, or any other partic 
 ular person whom these people wanted. They came, 
 certain that there would be a good service, well 
 rendered. And they were rewarded by having more 
 than they came for. You see everybody took any seat 
 he could find. There was no need of ushers, because 
 the whole body of the church is thrown open in July 
 and August. 
 
 The church is as beautiful as you described it. 
 There is nothing gaudy about the colored glass. I am 
 sorry to say there is at our church and in most of 
 the churches where I see it. But here the man has 
 controlled himself or the men. I believe it is the 
 New York glass you were telling me about. Good 
 night, dear Mother. Thank you always for your nice 
 letters. 
 
 Monday evening. 
 
 If they will let me have a few lines more, I will tell 
 you about our drive this afternoon. I had succeeded
 
 144 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 so well with Miss Fenton that we made a little party 
 this afternoon and I took her to drive. After my suc 
 cess this time in showing the lions, you must not be 
 afraid to send me any one else. Keally, I think she 
 regards me as quite fine, and I cannot have betrayed 
 myself as a Vermont boy, only two months from 
 Leeds, more than a hundred and fifty times. At all 
 events, she has been profuse in her thanks for my 
 little attentions, and I can see that for a perfect 
 stranger in Boston it must be convenient to have a 
 man about, even if he is a little green. 
 
 I forget what day I got your letter asking me to 
 look her up. But Saturday I found where she was, 
 and Saturday evening I called. It was a pretty for 
 lorn, deserted, great boarding-house, stuffy and empty 
 as Mrs. Metcalfs was, before she and I marched out 
 of it with the honors of war. And when Miss Fen- 
 ton appeared and found out who I was, she certainly 
 was not at all ungracious, as you were afraid she 
 would be. She said she was glad to see me, any way, 
 and I guess she was. She had been " all sole alone " 
 all day and had found every living being away whom 
 she had called to see. She had even been disap 
 pointed in her shopping in the afternoon, for half the 
 shops are shut up on Saturdays. That is what people 
 mean when they call the fifteenth of August the dead 
 day and say the town is empty. I can see it myself. 
 
 I told her how I had spent my afternoon on the 
 river, and she was not so " poky " but that her mouth 
 really seemed to water for such an expedition. If I 
 had known in time, I could have got Mrs. Outlake or 
 some of our Leeds ladies for a chaperon, and, indeed, 
 I would have taken her, she seemed so forlorn. As it 
 was, the minute she spoke of Trinity and Phillips 
 Brooks, I said I would gladly go there with her, and 
 that was how I came to be there.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 145 
 
 As we came home from church, she told a pretty 
 story, which she never would have told me but for the 
 sermon. She was almost betrayed into it. It seems 
 that they were belated as they came into town and 
 that she was alone after dark at the station. How 
 ever, as she said laughing, " I am no chicken and can 
 manage my own canoe," and I do not think she was 
 at all frightened at being alone. She simply took the 
 first hackman, gave him her checks, and sat in the 
 carriage waiting for him and the trunks. As she sat, 
 a poor girl came along sobbing, with an enormous 
 bundle in checked cloth. Miss Fenton had seen her 
 in the car and had speculated about her. When she 
 saw the girl sobbing, she spoke to her and asked what 
 was the matter. The girl was frightened and still 
 sobbed, but I assure you Miss Fenton can be kind, if 
 she is stiff and " poky." And, in a minute, it ap 
 peared that the poor girl had come from Fredricton or 
 Annapolis or heaven knows where among the Blue- 
 noses, and was to meet her sister at the station. ISTo 
 sister ! I suppose she had managed to come to the 
 Boston and Maine instead of the Eastern. You see 
 there are four Northern Stations, as we call them, 
 where there should be but one. 
 
 Miss Fenton said to me that she would willingly 
 enough have taken the girl with her, bag, baggage, and 
 bundles. But she did not know these "swell" peo 
 ple where she was going, and they did not know her, 
 and she did not know what they would say. The Blue- 
 nose girl had, of course, lost her sister's " direction 
 card," as she called it, or thought she had lost it 
 which was just the same thing. Just at this junc 
 ture came the hackman with the trunk. Instantly he 
 took in the case. " They always lose their tickets," 
 he said. But he meant, of course, that when they 
 lost them he heard of it, and that he never heard of 
 
 10
 
 146 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 the successful ones, what you may call the upper-class 
 adventurers, who do not lose them. Then he looked 
 around wildly. "Where is Miss Blodgett?" he 
 asked ; " she was here just now." And he rushed off 
 into parts unknown. 
 
 In a little, he appeared without Miss Blodgett. He 
 said she had been and gone with some other women. 
 And it appeared that Miss Blodgett is the wonderful 
 woman who makes it her business to attend these 
 eastern boats and trains to see to just such lost 
 women. Is not that the twenty-fifth chapter of 
 Matthew ? " But there ! " said he, " it don't make any 
 difference, mum ; if you don't mind going round by 
 Warrenton Street, mum, we shall get there before she 
 will." And it appeared that at Warrenton Street is 
 the Young Women's Christian Association, where are 
 Miss Blodgett's headquarters. So Miss Fentoii said it 
 was all right ; the Bluenose woman was bundled into 
 the carriage ; her checked bale was put on the seat ; 
 and this good fellow went off with her check for her 
 trunk. He made no row, though Miss Fenton said it 
 was awfully large. They got it on the back of the 
 carriage among them, with the other trunks, and all 
 jumbled off to Warrenton Street, a strong mile out of 
 their way. 
 
 And all was as this stout fairy with a whip had 
 said. As they drove up to the door, Miss Blodgett 
 appeared with three other women. She heard the 
 story and was delighted. " It was as if Jenny Lind 
 or Florence Nightingale had happened along," Miss 
 Fenton said. And the trunk and the bale were left, 
 and Miss Blodgett said she would find the place, and 
 Saturday night Miss Fenton had a card to say they 
 did so. 
 
 Now hear the end of the story. When Miss Fenton 
 paid for her hack, she expected to pay an extra fare of
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 147 
 
 course, but the man would not take it. " No, mum," 
 he said resolutely, "we don't take pay for such as 
 them." Now you may jeer as much as you choose 
 about cabmen who read Browning. I think they have 
 read " Sir Launfal " to some purpose, when you can 
 tell such stories as that of them. 
 
 All this story Miss Fenton told me as we walked 
 home from church. In the evening I made our nice 
 Mrs. Seabright call on her with me, at her forlorn old 
 boarding-house. Mrs. Seabright very pleasantly asked 
 her to go to ride this afternoon, and then sent a note 
 down to the office to beg me from Mr. Bright, so that 
 I might go. There is not, alas ! a stroke of work in 
 the office, and he was glad to be gracious. He sent me 
 to the Seabrights', where I lunched, and then I drove 
 this afternoon. The two ladies and I were all the 
 party. 
 
 You know the joke on Boston people is that when 
 they want to entertain their friends they take them 
 out of town. Well they may, for the drives are 
 beautiful. We drove through a part of Franklin Park 
 and admired the view of the Blue Hills, seen through 
 that vista which makes you feel as if you were in a 
 wild forest country, and not in the suburbs at all. It 
 is really wonderful to see how they have made the 
 most of their space there. Not many people were there 
 to enjoy it that day. There was a little "carriage 
 company " besides ourselves, and I saw some children 
 and numbers of bicyclists, men and girls both. But 
 there was nobody on horseback and few walkers, and 
 I wondered why there were not more. Sunday is the 
 great day here, of course, when lots of people come 
 who can't at any other time. But I can't help think 
 ing that if the more leisurely people .were to take 
 the horse-car ride out here oi'tener than they do, they 
 would find it paid.
 
 148 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 I was glad that Miss Fenton enjoyed it as much 
 as she did. As she was just from the country, she 
 enjoyed it more even than the Arnold Arboretum, 
 which is not very far away, where we drove next. 
 You will wonder why her being just from the country 
 should have taken off the edge of her pleasure at the 
 Arboretum. But, you see, it could not give her the 
 intense pleasure it gave me, who am now something 
 of a " town mouse," to see great banks planted thick 
 with sumac and golden-rod and bayberry and no end 
 of other wild things, looking as if nobody but the 
 birds and the winds and all the rest of Nature's 
 workmen had ever planted them at all. There were 
 fine trees, too, of course, and I know I should have 
 enjoyed wandering about and seeing what they had. 
 But we stuck to the carriage road, and that took us 
 through these wild hillsides I have been speaking of, 
 up to a high, fine view at the top of all, though it was 
 too hazy to quite make out the sea. 
 
 But as for views, the finest we had that day was in 
 a place we went to afterward over in Brookline ; for 
 Mrs. Seabright had a call to pay over there, and while 
 she was with her friends we drove up on what they 
 call Aspinwall Hill. I believe it was all a fine old 
 estate once, with a fine old house on it, which I 
 did n't make out. I think it was on the other side 
 of the hill from that we drove up. The hill has now 
 been covered with nice new houses, some of them very 
 pretty indeed in their yards and gardens ; and in one 
 place there are what they call terraces, in the English 
 fashion, not what you and I would call terraces, but 
 a number of very attractive houses built together in 
 blocks ; not, however, like city blocks, but with a very 
 pleasant air of their own. Well, you pass all these 
 nice houses I wish I had placed some of my people 
 here and you drive higher and higher up, and after
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 149 
 
 a while there is a sign saying, " Dangerous Passing." 
 But you go straight on and don't find it dangerous at 
 all. There are scattered apple-trees there and golden- 
 rod, planted by those workmen of Nature I was speak 
 ing of, and away up on top of the hill you look off, 
 and there is a view that is a view ! I'm not much, 
 you know, at description ; and you probably won't 
 care to hear how we saw Bunker Hill Monument and 
 the State House and the Back Bay buildings and the 
 rest of it all ; but the stableman, after we got home, 
 said it was the best view near Boston, and I don't 
 think he was far out. I don't think people go up 
 there much. 
 
 I like Brookline, everything looks so finished and 
 so complete, and as if people had their own way there. 
 You know it 's a town and takes care of itself, and 
 won't join this great city of ours. 
 
 As we drove out of the Arboretum, turning a sharp 
 corner, we met a fine carriage ; and as we passed, I 
 noticed that one of the ladies bowed to me. I had 
 my whip in one hand and my reins in the other, but I 
 was just able to "bob" in reply. I write this only 
 to amuse you. For it was Miss Sandford, I think, the 
 " Jamaica Ginger " of the cupola, whom I meet so 
 mysteriously. 
 
 Always yours, 
 
 HARRY.
 
 150 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER TWELFTH. 
 
 XV. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, August 25, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I ought to be able to send you a 
 more satisfactory letter than I have yet written you ; 
 for the Vacation School is over and our vacation has 
 begun. But I foresee that I am not likely yet to 
 reach that "summer leisure," of which I have 
 dreamed, even though my daily occupation is over. 
 
 Our school closed last week and is considered a 
 great success. It was, indeed, a delight to see the 
 interest that all the children took in it day after day. 
 I am very much surprised myself to see how much 
 they have learned in so many different ways, and yet 
 without "book lessons." I can believe that the in 
 fluence of the kindergartens is already showing how 
 much more children can be taught by " observation," 
 by looking at things and seeing how they are made, 
 than by cramming and being forced to study and com 
 mit to memory things that they cannot understand. 
 
 I have an idea that this might be carried too far, 
 and I think it would be a pity not to cultivate the 
 memory of children, while it is easy for them to learn 
 things " by heart," as we say. Perhaps, after all, that 
 is the true phrase, and what they truly learn "by 
 heart " may always stay by them, while what they 
 really learn " by rote " is only a stumbling-block to 
 them. I arn sure I am grateful for having been taught 
 many things " by heart " that continue to stay by me
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 151 
 
 and help me, and that I learned, I can't remember how 
 and when, a list of dates, for instance, on which I 
 find myself hanging a great many valuable things. 
 
 Many valuable things these children had to carry 
 home with them from their summer schooling, and 
 though they did little with books, I can see that they 
 saw that in this study of many things they were dis 
 covering the real use of books, and learning why they 
 were made to study them, and what a pleasure they 
 might find in reading them. I know many of the boys 
 in my class are planning to go to the Public Library 
 in the days of the vacation remaining to them before 
 school, and I gave many of them lists of books that 
 they are to find there, on subjects that I have talked 
 about to them. 
 
 Among other things, I have told them of the 
 World's Fair and the great Centennial, and they are 
 going to read all about Columbus. Of course I told 
 them of the new life of Columbus, published by J. 
 Stillman Smith and Company. Then, I am going with 
 a party to visit Bunker Hill, and they have promised 
 to read an account of the battle of Bunker Hill before 
 we go. 
 
 I wish you could see some of the things these schol 
 ars have made. Hetty, the old housekeeper here, is 
 much delighted because I succeeded in getting t\vo 
 favorite old chairs reseated for her by some of "the 
 class " who were putting fresh straw seats into old 
 chairs. She is quite proud of them because they used 
 to be in Aunt Martha's grandmother's parlor, and she 
 has held on to them as relics of great elegance ; but 
 the seats were all worn out. 
 
 I went with Mike to his own home, and he was 
 equally pleased at showing me his grandmother, 
 sitting in an old " cane-bottom " chair that he had 
 reseated ; and she beamed over with pleasure as she
 
 152 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 rose to show me how fine it looked. " And we were 
 just going to cut it [up for firewood," she exclaimed, 
 "when Mike took it off and brought it back as good 
 as new. And it kept him out of mischief at the 
 same time, too," she added. I can't help feeling that 
 these Vacation Schools are among the best things that 
 Boston provides for her children. 
 
 We had a delightful " doorstep " talk on this subject 
 the other day. , I went out to Arlington to spend a 
 day and night after the close of my school, and it was 
 on the pleasant doorsteps at the Brands', looking out 
 from their porch into the moonlight on the lawn, that 
 we sat talking till a late hour. We fell to telling, 
 each of us, what we could remember best, the Latin 
 verbs, the French verbs, the lists of the Latin preposi 
 tions ; and we presently found there was one thing we 
 could all of us remember, and it was that delightful 
 string of nonsense that we all of us had learned from 
 Miss Edgeworth : " So she went into the garden to cut 
 a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie of, when a great 
 she-bear popped his head into the shop. 'What! 
 no soap ? ' So he died ! And she very imprudently 
 married the barber, and there were present at the 
 wedding, the Joblilies, and the Garyulies and the Pic- 
 caninies, and the grand Panjandrum himself with the 
 little round button on top. And they all fell to play 
 ing catch-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at 
 the heels- of their boots." 
 
 I write it all out for you; for I am really afraid 
 your education was neglected at this point and that 
 you never heard it. But I shall have to add that we 
 decided that it might be considered a mark of our 
 high education that we were all able to repeat it, 
 some of us a little mixed on the subject of the Garyu 
 lies and the Piccaninies, but well up on the rest. For 
 its history I must refer you to the second part of Miss
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 153 
 
 Edgeworth's " Harry and Lucy," for I have too much 
 else to write about. 
 
 Among other things, I ventured to speak of some 
 thing that has been on my mind since I have been 
 teaching these boys. I notice that they all read much 
 easier from their primers than from any other books. 
 Now it is true that in some of these primers can be 
 found very interesting stories, and I know very well 
 that children like to read over and over the same 
 stories that they are familiar with ; but I know 
 that they do like to read something new, and I 
 have formed the idea that they find the large print 
 of the primers easier. Now, why need the primers, 
 even for the youngest child, be put in such large print ? 
 Their eyes are as fresh as ours, and what use is there 
 in enlarging the letters for them ? It might be a 
 good plan to put books into large print for elderly 
 people, but a child ought not to read a large letter 
 more easily than a small one, if it is sufficiently plain. 
 As it is, the children all have to learn over again how 
 to read in common type, having been taught to read 
 in large letters. 
 
 Some of the others exclaimed against this, and Mr. 
 Jones said that the reason the children liked large 
 type was because it made less to read, and they could 
 get through quicker. I did not agree with him, and 
 said that children certainly liked long stories, and 
 always wanted "more," if a story stopped off soon. 
 Godfrey Brand agreed with me in this, and said he 
 remembered how he hated the first Latin book he 
 learned to translate, his Liber Primus, because the 
 sentences were so short ; and there were little, short 
 fables and anecdotes that were very tiresome, and 
 he only got on when he had something long, to 
 read. His father gave him, for instance, " Eobinson 
 Crusoe " in Latin, and he learned a quantity of new
 
 154 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 words and more of the language than in months' 
 study of the primers. 
 
 They were all of them joking me about our last 
 meeting with our friend, Harry Merton my "dis 
 tant" friend, as they call him. But I am going to 
 write about more serious things first, lest I should be 
 interrupted and they should be left out ; and I long to 
 tell you of last week's lecture at the Old South. Be 
 fore we went to it, Anna and I had found a chance to 
 go to the old meeting-house to study the numerous 
 articles on exhibition there at our leisure. Here are 
 many most interesting things. There is so much to 
 throw a light on the old colonial history, old his 
 toric implements of the Stone Age, with tomahawks, 
 arrows, and spears, and many things that told of the 
 terrible Indian warfare, which I described to one of 
 my Vacation School boys whom I had invited to go 
 with us. We looked at Eliot's Indian Bible, and I 
 asked my boy how he would like to have such words 
 in his spelling-book. For there was a placard giving 
 the longest word, " Wutappesittukgussunnookwehtunk- 
 quoh." Sammy was much staggered by it. It means 
 " Kneeling down to him." Our language surely looks 
 a little simpler. 
 
 Here was a skillet made from the bell of the Old 
 South, an older Old South than this. It was taken 
 down in 1729 to give place to the present building. 
 The skillet was presented by Mrs. Hannah Dilla- 
 way, of Somerville, the granddaughter of the original 
 owner. We saw an autograph letter of General Wash 
 ington, written in December, 1798, and a remnant of 
 the flag that hung from the Liberty Tree on Washing 
 ton Street in 1775. Here was a silver thimble marked 
 T. H. How little did the Thankful Holden who 
 owned it in 1765 imagine that it would be so pre 
 served ! I must tell you of another thing that amused
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 155 
 
 us very much. This was a printed notice of an enter 
 tainment or "sociable " that took place here in Eevo- 
 lutionary times. At the end this information was 
 given: "Nabor Zodiga Turner will be there to see 
 that nobodye yields to levitye more than is becominge 
 and to see that nobodye takes more Baked Beans than 
 is consistent withe these fashionable times." Is not 
 this delightful ? I think I shall have this printed for 
 use in our Sewing Circle. The truth is that we are 
 apt to be too solemn on such occasions at home, and 
 Caroline and I have to turn ourselves into a sort of 
 minstrel show to keep up the spirits of our Sewing 
 Circle old ladies, who sit doggedly sewing their seams, 
 as if there was nothing amusing in life. But perhaps 
 the notice itself may excite a little " levitye," not 
 more " than is becominge." Our old housekeeper, 
 Hetty, furnishes us Sunday mornings with " truly" 
 Boston baked beans and brown bread. We propose 
 now not to take more " than is consistent withe these 
 fashionable times." 
 
 Besides all these and many other older relics, we 
 saw a cup made from wood from the log cabin of 
 President Lincoln. The first afternoon that we went 
 we had read the inscription on the pulpit window : 
 " Through this window Warren entered to deliver his 
 famous oration on the Boston Massacre." The old 
 pulpit is no longer there. There is a platform below 
 and a reading-desk for the speakers, and the window 
 with its inscription is far above. Over a door oppo 
 site, which was probably the principal entrance, is 
 another inscription : " Here Washington entered after 
 the evacuation of Boston. Looking down upon the 
 havoc caused by the British riding-school, he said 
 reverently that he should have thought that the Eng 
 lish, who had so much respect for their own churches, 
 would have respected those of others." Above a large
 
 156 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 gallery there is another, still higher, which we were 
 told was intended for the colored people. And I re 
 membered that Miss Dexter, in describing the inside 
 of the old Brattle Street Church, told me that there 
 was such a gallery, placed high up over the organ, for 
 the colored people there. 
 
 But after this description, I must tell you of the 
 lecture here, a week ago last Wednesday. It was an 
 intensely hot day, yet Anna and I persevered in our 
 plan of going to the lecture, taking a car to the head 
 of School Street. Hardly any one was in the car ; but 
 as we walked down the street we passed through a 
 little crowd gathered around the Parker House door. 
 We looked at each other with sad questioning whether 
 we could believe the sorrowful news we heard spoken 
 of, that the poet Lowell was dead. This was our 
 first intelligence of it, and we walked on silently into 
 the old church. We were scarcely there and had 
 found some seats in the large, quiet assembly, when 
 a sudden thunder storm came up and the whole place 
 was darkened. It seemed as if it were the beginning 
 of a grand, solemn service in memory of the dead, in 
 this old building that might, in a certain way, serve 
 for a Westminster Abbey of our later time. And 
 Mr. Mead, who was to introduce the lecturer, passed 
 on to announce the death of Lowell and to speak of 
 his character and his writings. There could not have 
 been a more magnificent service in such a place. 
 Professor Hart was to lecture on " The Eevival of 
 Learning," and he began with a quotation from Dante 
 and paid a tribute to the poet who had been such a 
 student of Dante. All of his lecture seemed, some 
 how, appropriate to this subject ; for he gave a history 
 of the universities established about the year 1200, 
 and he told how the students flocked to these univer 
 sities, some of them having as many as fifteen thou-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 157 
 
 sand students. Was not this interesting ? You cannot 
 think what a consecration came to the service from 
 the magnificent peals of thunder above us. 
 
 The sun had come out as we went home. We 
 passed up through Winter Street and around the 
 Common, and, sitting down on a deserted bench in a 
 quiet place, we recalled our favorite passages from 
 Lowell. I repeated to Anna the poem I like best of 
 all, " The Beggar : " 
 
 " A beggar through the world am I, 
 From place to place I wander by, 
 Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, 
 For Christ's sweet sake and charity ! 
 
 " A little of thy steadfastness, 
 Rounded with leafy gracefulness, 
 Old oak, give me, 
 
 That the world's blasts may round me blow, 
 And I yield gently to and fro, 
 While my stout-hearted trunk below 
 And firm-set roots unshaken be. 
 
 " Some of thy stern, unyielding might, 
 Enduring still through day and night 
 Rude tempest-shock and withering blight, 
 That I may keep at bay 
 The changeful April sky of chance 
 And the strong tide of circumstance, 
 Give me, old granite gray. 
 
 " Some of thy pensiveness serene, 
 Some of thy never-dying green, 
 Put in this scrip of mine, 
 That griefs may fall like snow-flakes light, 
 And deck me in a robe of white, 
 Ready to be an angel bright, 
 O sweetly mournful pine. 
 
 " A little of thy merriment, 
 Of thy sparkling, light content,
 
 158 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Give me, my cheerful brook, 
 That I may still be full of glee 
 And gladsomeness, where'er I be, 
 Though fickle fate hath prisoned me 
 In some neglected nook. 
 
 " Ye have been very kind and good 
 To me, since I 've been in the wood, 
 Ye have gone ni^h to fill my heart ; 
 But, good-by, kind friends, every oiie 
 I 've far to go ere set of sun ; 
 Of all good things I would have part. 
 The day was high ere I could start 
 And so my journey 's scarce begun. 
 
 " Heaven help me ! how could I forget 
 To beg of thee, dear violet ? 
 Some of thy modesty, 
 That blossoms here as well, unseen, 
 As if before the world thou 'dst been, 
 O, give, to strengthen me." 
 
 The next lecture was also very interesting, on " The 
 Changes which Gunpowder Made." It was given by 
 Mr. Frank A. Hill, Principal of the Cambridge High 
 School. About two thirds of the audience were chil 
 dren, apparently from the High Schools, and they lis 
 tened most attentively ; for they were much interested 
 in his description of the suits of armor. He described 
 the baron of that day and showed how all the pieces 
 of armor were made and fitted, explaining the reason 
 for each piece and telling the children how they could 
 see specimens of the complete armor at the Art Mu 
 seum. He showed us, too, how helpless the people 
 were, who could get their rights only by conquering 
 these iron men, so that we really felt glad to hear of 
 the discovery of gunpowder, and that in consequence, 
 because cannon were invented and later the musket, 
 the common people were free. He quoted Carlyle as 
 saying that gunpowder makes all men alike tall, or
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 159 
 
 something to that effect. It was a new thing to me to 
 look upon cannon and muskets as civilizers. We had 
 a beautiful, bright afternoon, and the children were 
 out in great numbers. The girls looked very bright 
 and fresh in their summer gowns and hats. 
 
 And this reminds me of the " sand gardens " again, 
 where I saw the younger children made so happy. I 
 believe they are closed now with the Vacation Schools, 
 but they have been going on every afternoon in seven 
 teen places and perhaps more this year. The " gar 
 dens " are like three immense cigar-boxes, twenty feet 
 by twenty, and half full of sand. Each child has a 
 trowel furnished to dig with, and such fun as they do 
 have. Children of all ages, from babies who can 
 hardly sit up to girls of twelve or thirteen, are there, 
 having a most happy and quiet time, filling boxes, 
 kettles, little wheelbarrows, wooden tubs and divers 
 other things with the sand, and then emptying it out 
 in little heaps. It is too funny to see the serious way 
 in which they roll round their little wheelbarrows 
 and tip out the sand, as though they were doing some 
 great work. Some of them build houses or roads, but 
 the greater part just fill and empty their barrows in a 
 most business-like way. There are a great many of 
 the mothers with them, who seem to take solid enjoy 
 ment in just looking on. I have wished, whenever I 
 have seen them, that I had time and a trowel, as I 
 would like to have joined the party. 
 
 I have been again to the Charlesbank Park, of 
 which I wrote, where I first saw some of the " sand 
 gardens." There were probably fifty children in the 
 three sand beds and many others standing outside, fill 
 ing their pails from the beds and making most deli 
 cious pies on the benches. These little cooks, I 
 noticed, dug the sand rather deep ; for, as one little 
 girl told me, "When it was wet, it baked better."
 
 160 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 The children were all coming and going at their own 
 free will ; as soon as they got tired of the sand, they 
 quietly left and went to the gymnasium or to the 
 other yard to enjoy the delightful swings. The 
 teacher of the gymnasium was walking about, helping 
 and directing the children. When some of the chil 
 dren were tired of exercising they came again to the 
 fascinating "sand gardens," before taking off their 
 gymnasium suits. Afterwards I saw the same girls, 
 who had put their suits in the lockers, reading " Our Lit 
 tle Ones," " Babyland " and other magazines for chil 
 dren, which the " locker lady " handed to them. There 
 was a most delightful breeze, and everything looked so 
 bright and pleasant that I could not help thinking 
 what a blessing this park is to these children. For, 
 from their faces and dress and general appearance, I 
 should say they were from the very poorest families. 
 The reports of the " sand gardens " of last year show 
 how perfectly successful they have been. Not only are 
 children amused all summer, but they are kept out of 
 dark and dirty tenement houses ; many of them are 
 taken from brutal parents ; and they are taught, be 
 sides, habits of cleanliness and how to obey, and 
 even in play -time how to consider each other. 
 Quiet and orderly games take the place of a mere 
 noisy good time, and the children are pleased, when 
 visitors come in, to exhibit the new songs and marches 
 they have learned. 
 
 I have not told you of a lovely visit to Cambridge 
 that I made with the Brands, when I was staying 
 with them. We went, one afternoon, to see some 
 friends of the Brands who took us to the Agassiz 
 Museum ; and I was perfectly delighted at the lovely 
 botanical collection of flowers, that is, my dear, it is 
 a collection made for botanical purposes, where you 
 can study carefully all the parts of the flower. For,
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 161 
 
 instead of having to work with the fading stamens or 
 seed-vessels, you have them all perfect, because they 
 are made of glass. I think one shudders at the 1 idea 
 of glass flowers, as being something artificial and con 
 ventional ; but just one glance at these beautiful 
 specimens made me perfectly in love with them. 
 They are surely the most wonderful and beautiful 
 things I ever saw, and I found it hard to take their 
 word for it when Rosamond and the others told me 
 they were really made of glass. No one would ever 
 guess it. You seem to see the branches of the real 
 plants placed in the glass cases, the flower and stalk 
 and leaves ; then all the parts of the flowers, with here 
 and there a magnified section of some one part of the 
 flower. This exquisite work was done, I believe, in 
 Switzerland, by some descendants of the famous Ve 
 netian workers in glass, a father and son, who seem 
 to have a peculiar artistic power in creating these ex 
 quisite specimens. I think the family name of the 
 artists for surely they ought to be so called is 
 Blaschka. The flowers are not yet arranged. The 
 coloring and texture is wonderful. I cannot describe 
 them or give you any idea of them. They were pre 
 sented to the museum by Mrs. E. C. Ware and Miss 
 Mary L. Ware in memory of Dr. C. E. Ware. These 
 ladies found them in Switzerland. 
 
 I had another delightful excursion with the Brands. 
 We drove over to Waltham and to the Charles Eiver, 
 where we took a boat to row up the river. It was a 
 peaceful, lovely afternoon, and we had quite a gay 
 party together, three or four of us. And then came 
 our little adventure. We turned a corner suddenly 
 and met a boat going down the river, far away on the 
 other side. It gave us a little start, for Godfrey 
 Brand was pointing out something to us on the shore 
 on our side, I turned suddenly, to find a young gen-
 
 162 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 tleman bowing to me, just as lie was passing beyond 
 us. It was Harry Merton, my "distant" friend, or 
 the " mute, yet glorious " Merton, as Mr. Jones insists 
 upon calling him though I declare that he can talk 
 very well if he ever has a chance. For I remember 
 how agreeable he was on that famous Class Day. It 
 was he who told me about the crowds in the streets in 
 Boston, and how two or three women a week are 
 killed by being run over at Park Square, and how the 
 policemen have to be constantly renewed at the corner 
 of School Street, as so many are killed there. And 
 they all laughed much at his way of putting it. 
 
 But the thing grows more and more amusing. For 
 the afternoon we were at Cambridge, a friend of the 
 Brands went about with us, and he said he had just 
 been showing the flowers to Mr. Merton, "whom I 
 think you know," he went on to say, " as I remember 
 seeing him with you Class Day. I wonder you did 
 not meet him as you came in; but perhaps he took 
 the short cut across the grass." We all looked at each 
 other and laughed. We had seen a youth striding off 
 in the other direction. Then, another day we went 
 again to the Arnold Arboretum. In turning a corner 
 near the entrance we came suddenly upon an open 
 carriage, a gentleman on the front seat driving two 
 ladies. He turned his head suddenly and in time for 
 me to bow to him. Again, it was Mr. Harry Merton !
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 163 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, August 31, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, Just think that summer ends 
 this rainy day ! 
 
 In a little note which Fanfan sends with the parcel 
 of stockings, she begs me to send her a little line all 
 to herself. She says she hates to read a letter which 
 she shares with all the other people in the world. I 
 believe the COMMONWEALTH people would be well 
 pleased if she did. You know the Ten Times One 
 Club thinks there are more than a thousand million 
 people in the world. If there were ten in a family 
 and there are not this would make at least a 
 hundred million families, and that would require a 
 hundred million COMMONWEALTHS every week. I can 
 see how that would be fine ; for all the people would 
 be so intelligent then, and sensible and manly and 
 agreeable, that there would be no Balmacedas and no 
 rebellions ; no houses would crash down without 
 cause ; no sailboats would be overloaded. There would 
 be no lies in newspapers, no drought on prairies. Let 
 us indeed hope that this will happen. 
 
 When I got this letter of Fanfan's it set me think 
 ing. So when I took my last round to the office I 
 asked them how many they did print. They said the 
 number varied less or more, according as they had 
 one of my letters in or did not ; and they said so little 
 that I could not find out, without asking directly,
 
 164 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 which was less and which was more. They are print 
 ing the woman's letters on the "off" weeks, but I 
 never see them. They did say, however, that they 
 were glad when they printed three hundred thousand 
 copies a week. Well, I asked a pressman, a good 
 fellow whom I meet at Thompson's Spa, how many 
 they could run off in one hour. He said he did not 
 know what presses they use, but that four or five 
 thousand an hour was enough, if they had handsome 
 cuts. And I said they had. So you see, at eight 
 hours a day and Fanfan does not want any one to 
 work more, I am sure the letters would have to be 
 electrotyped twenty-five hundred times, and twenty- 
 five hundred pressmen kept at work with twenty-five 
 hundred presses, so that the shepherd boy in Arabia 
 Felix and the seal hunters on Oonalaska might have 
 their COMMONWEALTHS. 
 
 What an interesting community this would make, 
 would it not ? These twenty-five hundred pressmen 
 and their wives and children would make one ward in 
 Boston. They would have the proud consciousness 
 of supplying a world with its better reading ! That 
 would be a little paradise in the tenderness of its 
 affections and the sweetness and light of its surround 
 ings. But I forbear, dear Mother ! These are only 
 a few of the reflections which Fanfan's letter has 
 opened before me. But I ought not to inflict them 
 on you. 
 
 I will say, however, that I believe I know, what 
 Fanfan means. For I know how much more I was 
 pleased by her dear little note than I should have 
 been by all the narrative she could have sent of the 
 ups and downs of Atherton, how Mrs. Knox's coach 
 man had sprained his ankle, or what had become of 
 Ceylon Ross. In an old magazine article I was reading 
 yesterday, it said that facts are not the material of
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 165 
 
 conversation any more than an earthen plate is the 
 material from which one makes a pie. And I suppose 
 that the same is true of letter-writing. So I beg you 
 to thank Fanfan for her nice note, and say that I 
 believe what this unknown writer says of conversation 
 is true also of the " eloquence of letters." 
 
 All the same, I suppose you, dear mother, do want 
 to know of a few such vulgar facts as (1) whether I 
 am alive or dead ; (2) whether I have enough to eat, 
 and of what quality ; (3) whether I spend my time in 
 those haunts of revelry and debauchery against which 
 dear Dr. Primrose warned me, or in . those higher 
 regions of elevated culture and of the true humanities 
 to which he bade me mount. So I must mention some 
 facts, while I know dear Fanfan is dying to have me 
 
 I do not say tell some lies, but embroider on the 
 canvas of these facts, or, as the unknown writer says, 
 make a pie, which he would have gladly spelled 
 " pye," in the shaping of these plates. 
 
 Firstly, then, as dear Dr. Primrose would have said, 
 and as I see the very best of them still say sometimes, 
 
 firstly, there is not business enough done in the 
 office to occupy four flies. I suppose that is the reason 
 why we were moved here in summer. I do not see 
 that the chief worries. In fact he is not here much to 
 worry. He has a lovely place at Manchester, which is 
 fifteen or twenty miles northeast of us, a place where 
 your south wind is off the water, which, they say, hap 
 pens in the kingdom of heaven. Any way, it happens 
 so in the Narragansett country, in Beverly, and in Man 
 chester. The way I know it is a lovely place is that 
 George, who is the chief's special clerk, has to go down 
 there with parcels, and sometimes to write the chief's 
 shorthand for him, and he says it is just perfect. As 
 for the chief himself, he only shows up on Monday 
 morning and perhaps Thursday. George and Mr. Out-
 
 166 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 lake open the letters, and the rest of us " fool " round. 
 We file old letters, alter the boxes of 1879, 1883, 1885, 
 and so on, and pretend we are of use. The cashier is 
 as clever as he can be, so if there is any decent excuse, 
 and if you have not asked for leave the very day be 
 fore, you can get off to go anywhere. Indeed, we close 
 the office now at three-thirty, except that we take turns 
 to see who shall stay after that. 
 
 For all this we shall have to pay when the busy sea 
 son comes round. I am not afraid that the market for 
 clothes-pins has become glutted, as the books say. Do 
 you know what that chair-maker up in Worcester 
 county said to our Mrs. Outlake ? She had been all 
 through his factory and was having some lemonade and 
 a biscuit in one of the great store-rooms, when she 
 said civilly, " I do not see where all these chairs go 
 to." 
 
 "Well!" said the manufacturer, well pleased, "I 
 guess settin'-down ain't gone out of fashion yet." I 
 have like views as to our clothes-pins. 
 , So you see I have more time for loafing than I shall 
 have by and by. Only it was desperately hot last week. 
 The summer climate of Boston involves three days out 
 of five when you breathe a sort of thin paste, which is 
 called air, made up of a good deal of nitrogen, a great 
 deal of hot water, more or less carbonic acid, some 
 thing sticky, I do not know what, no ozone, and 
 just enough oxygen to keep you alive. Ask Fanfan to 
 look in her book and find how much that is. 
 
 The thermometer has not much to do with it. I 
 mean it is not much worse at 93 than it is at 82. 
 It is this pasty, sticky sort of feeling which makes 
 you uncomfortable. You do not want to eat much. 
 You do not want to do much. If you have just a little 
 to do, say a good book to read, or, best of all, if 
 you are on the extension of South Boston, sitting with
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 167 
 
 two or three thousand other people on the benches 
 there, with a book in your hand or the last COMMON 
 WEALTH, so that you could read if you wanted, why, it 
 all goes well enough. Nobody does anything of any 
 account in any other office more than we do in ours. 
 And the nights, out at our place any way, are suffi 
 ciently comfortable. The best time of the day is from 
 five to nine in the morning. But it is not one person 
 in fifty who knows that it is light after half-past four. 
 The milkmen do, and the icemen. 
 
 You ask about my lunch. Sometimes I take some 
 thing in from Cambridge to the office and eat it there 
 with a cup of coffee. We are high there and overlook 
 all the bay and have a good breeze if there is one any 
 where ; so that of a deadly hot day you are as well off 
 there as anywhere. We have facilities for a cup of 
 hot tea or coffee, have a few table things, and the 
 young ladies attend to such things so well that you 
 must not think I am starving because I do not go to a 
 restaurant. We are not far, you know, from Parker's 
 and Young's, and there are clubs, like the Press Club 
 and other clubs of gentlemen, where, as like as not, 
 somebody asks you to go in. As yet we have not 
 formed any club of clothes-pin makers. Really the 
 place which would interest you most is this Thomp 
 son's Spa T spoke of. I believe there is really no 
 Thompson now, and a gentleman named Eaton carries 
 it on. It is as often called "The Temperance Bar" as 
 anything else, and I heard somebody say, the other 
 day, that it was the most attractive, and, he said, the 
 most hospitable liquor saloon in Boston. But it is 
 a liquor saloon where all the drinks are " temperance " 
 drinks. Somebody told me that they had more than 
 fifty drinks on their bill of fare. 
 
 When your Miss Clara Fenton asked me what was 
 "the most curious thing in the social institutions of
 
 168 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Boston," and she did put it in that high and mighty 
 way, I told her not to fail of an answer that " The 
 Temperance Bar " was. She asked if she could see it. 
 I said yes, if she would go at the right time ; but that 
 in the middle of the day it was so crowded that no 
 body could get in without waiting, and then you could 
 hardly pass through. So I took her one day last week 
 in the quiet time in the afternoon. 
 
 It is what you would call a little store, even in Ather- 
 ton. Good Miss Percy's candy shop is bigger. But 
 this is elegance itself from one end to the other. I saw 
 opposite me a handsome, well-dressed, fine-looking 
 young fellow escorting a dried-up, prim, and rather 
 over-dressed lady, and I was just going to say to Miss 
 Fenton, "See, there is another lady, just as I told 
 you," when I saw that the two were reflections of me 
 and of her in an immense mirror. Then I saw a third 
 couple, who were also ourselves, on another side. Here 
 are high counters and, I believe, one or two tables, and 
 behind, almost as many clerks, men or women, as can 
 stand there, ready to give you what you want, from 
 coffee round to egg phosphate, which, I believe, you 
 have seen at Atherton. 
 
 Mr. Outlake says that the orders are that no one is 
 to leave the place dissatisfied, and I should think so. 
 The young men are nice-looking fellows, very neatly 
 dressed in white coats, always with a boutonniere of 
 flowers ; and whatever they have is of superexcellent 
 niceness. This is the reason why we all like to go 
 there, if we only have a minute, and if, as I say, it is 
 not in their crowded time. In the middle of the day 
 you can hardly wait to have your turn. 
 
 You will be amazed to hear that I still speak of 
 Miss Clara Fenton ; for I know you did not mean that 
 I should attach myself to her for life. But you must 
 understand at once that she is no longer " your " Miss
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 169 
 
 Clara Fenton. So to speak, she belongs to our firm, or 
 company. For it seems that her brother-in-law took 
 some of our stock for her when our stock was at sev 
 enty-five, and now that nobody thinks of selling our 
 stock nor dreams of calling it less than 450, of course 
 she holds it still. What is more is this, that she holds 
 so much of it that Mr. Outlake, not to say all of them, 
 desires to be awfully civil to her, as who would not ? 
 She always sends her " proxies " virtuously to Mr. Out- 
 lake, and of course, she would continue to. 
 
 But poor Mr. Outlake said to me frankly that he 
 thought he should die before his last interview with 
 her was over. He says she talked to him about Wag 
 ner and Paracelsus and the unearned increment and 
 Mahatmas and Cheelas if that is the right way to 
 spell them. I believe all this is an exaggeration. 
 Poor man ! He says : " Merton, I want to keep well 
 with the rich stockholders, but I had rather make a 
 million pins than talk high art or philosophy for one 
 hour." All this is his nonsense, of course. But he 
 was very much pleased when he heard that I had 
 taken her to Trinity, and he tells me to render her any 
 service the office can render, so long as we do not have 
 to go to a Buddhist conference. So when she sent me 
 a note asking me to lunch with Colonel Higginson and 
 Mr. Howells and Dr. Holmes and Whittier at the 
 Thorndike, and afterward to drive again if the day 
 was pleasant, I showed it to him, and he gladly gave 
 me leave for the afternoon. 
 
 Well, when I came there it proved that Dr. Holmes 
 was not there, because it was his birthday ; Whittier 
 declines all invitations ; Mr. Howells was in the coun 
 try ; and Colonel Higginson could not come ; so I had 
 to share the elegant lunch with Miss Clara and a Mr. 
 Whortleclaff, who was greatly interested in Michael 
 Kelly's change of base, and a Miss Welsh who had
 
 170 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 been at Wellesley with Miss Clara. So far as I could 
 find, there had never been the least reason for think 
 ing that any of these lights of letters would come, ex 
 cepting that Miss Clara, who did not know one of them, 
 had written to invite them. 
 
 Well, we had a first-rate lunch, as you would take 
 for granted if you knew about the Thorndike. Miss 
 Welsh turned up her nose very much at Mr. Whortle- 
 claff, is it not a funny name ? and a little at me. 
 You have no idea how the regular old-time Boston 
 woman can turn up her nose when she tries. But 
 they are very easily frightened, and it is not hard 
 to take them down. I gave her as good as she sent, 
 any way. After the coffee she went off to a meeting 
 of " The Society for the Improvement of the Upper 
 Classes," or something of that sort. The base-ball 
 man went to see the match between Boston and Mil 
 waukee, and Miss Clara Fenton and I were left to see 
 how we would pass the afternoon. Was not that 
 great ? Well, I told her it would be a good time to 
 see Thompson's Spa, and that that was an institution 
 really, though there was no board of managers and no 
 anniversary and no charter. And then dear Mother, 
 you will think I was crazy then I said : " Would 
 you not like to take a Charlestown car and see Bunker 
 Hill Monument ? " You see she is " immense " on 
 history, and had wept over the loss of the Paddock 
 elms, and asked a policeman on the Common where 
 were the traces of Percy's encampment, and what 
 were the lines of the redoubt on Fox Hill ! The man 
 thought she was crazy ; and I do not wonder. 
 
 Well, this is a very long story. But the excellent 
 Miss Clara said she would. You see she had, to my 
 wonder, excused herself from Miss Welsh's meeting 
 on the ground that she had made an appointment 
 with me. Heaven forgive her ! So it was that we
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 171 
 
 went to Thompson's Spa, and I initiated her into the 
 mysteries of egg phosphate. Then she really wanted 
 to take an open carriage that we might drive out to 
 Charlestown. But I said no, that we were children of 
 the public, and it was a great deal better to take a 
 public carriage. So we went to Charlestown in a car. 
 
 Our dear old Mr. Cradock says that the upper part 
 of Charlestown looks just as Boston did sixty years 
 ago, when your mother lived here ; so I told the 
 excellent Miss Clara that, and she made a note of it 
 in her little note book. I tell you we got on grandly, 
 and she thinks I am fine. 
 
 My first blunder was about the elevator. There 
 used to be an elevator there, and a steam engine to 
 pump you up. Mr. Outlake told me there was, and I 
 told Miss Clara so. But when we came to the monu 
 ment, there was no elevator at all and no steam 
 engine. I believe they thought it was infra dig.; any 
 way, it is all gone. But Miss Clara did not flinch. 
 To tell the truth, she took it very bravely. I found 
 out that there are two hundred and ninety-five steps 
 and I told her so. " Oh ! nothing to Milan ! " she 
 said. "One gets used to such things in Europe." 
 Who was I to shirk when she led the way ? There 
 was an excellent fellow-citizen from Pittsburgh, who, 
 when he heard of the two hundred and ninety-five 
 steps, turned aside like a Leave-ite. What he expected 
 of a monument two hundred and twenty feet high I 
 do not know, unless the steps in Pittsburgh are two 
 feet high. Who knows ? 
 
 There is a statue of Warren in the entrance room, 
 and on the outside one of Prescott in the linen frock, 
 only it is in bronze, which he fought in. Do you not 
 remember ? 
 
 Well, I told Miss Fenton " to rest on her feet," as 
 the White Mountain guides say, and up we went.
 
 172 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 You walk round and round a circular shaft which 
 makes the middle of the monument. Miss Fenton 
 had with her quite a large rolled-up map, which they 
 had lent her at the hotel. "Hales's Map," it said, 
 " of Boston and Vicinity." Of course I carried it and 
 I knew what it was for. To tell you the truth, we did 
 not have a very grand view after all cur climbing. 
 But I do not think Miss Fenton cared for that. I 
 think she wanted to say in her journal that she had 
 been there, or in her book, when she writes it. 
 
 The chestnut is that when an Englishman was told 
 that Warren fell there, he said with horror : " What ? 
 fell ? Did it not kill him ? " As in fact it did. But 
 the embrasures of the windows in the top room are so 
 deep that you are not tempted to climb out, and, in 
 fact, they cut off the view a little. Still, I think 
 the loss of the distant prospect helped us a little in 
 making out the neighborhood. You see perfectly, for 
 instance, the shape of the peninsula of Boston, the 
 great Ames Building, as high as the monument prac 
 tically, and the State House so strangely near. You 
 see at once how impossible it was for the English to 
 keep their ships there, if we had a fort on the hill. 
 
 All this Miss Fenton made out on her old map 
 with interest, and I helped her as well as I could 
 with my two months' knowledge of Boston. The only 
 other people there were two wide-awake Irish boys, 
 determined to see everything there was to be seen, 
 and a young lady who seemed to have brought them. 
 We were at one window when they were at another, 
 and, of course, I only saw her back. But as we 
 changed places, who should it prove to be but my 
 mysterious dancing partner of Class Day, the lady of 
 the White Fleet and the cupola of the State House, 
 Miss Sandford, better known to her many charges as 
 " Jamaica Ginger."
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 173 
 
 Really, my dear Mother, we had just seen each 
 other so often, and I had been so mystified by her 
 disappearance that I fairly laughed. I should have 
 been mortified by this but that she laughed too. Miss 
 Clara, I think, was both mortified and surprised at 
 such bearing, but I could not help that. I touched 
 my hat and said : " I am glad to see you, Miss Sand- 
 ford, when I am not nine-tenths under water." She 
 said, " If we are locked up this time, we are both on 
 the same side of the door." Then we laughed again. 
 I asked Miss Clara if I might present my friend. 
 She bowed a little more stiffly than was worth while, 
 and then we all three fell to talking, while the two 
 little " Micks " ran round and looked out at the 
 windows. 
 
 I had to tell Miss Fenton the story of my sudden 
 ducking. Miss Sandford helped occasionally with a 
 detail, and between us we quite warmed Miss Clara 
 up to take some interest. Then Miss Sandford said : 
 " But I heard of you, Mr. Merton, and indeed I saw 
 you, after you had broken your head." So I had to 
 tell Miss Clara that story too. But I added : " I am 
 not the only unfortunate person in the world. Miss 
 Sandford herself is a sort of Goody Two-Shoes. So I 
 told my half of the State House story. "How she 
 got out," I said, " I did not know, and I do not know 
 now." 
 
 She did not take this up, however, as gayly as she 
 had taken up the other story. And then I saw that 
 she looked pale. She only said that a gentleman 
 who heard her let her out, and she stopped rather 
 suddenly. She did ask Miss Fenton if she did not 
 find the walk up very tiresome. Now Miss Fenton is 
 as strong as a horse, and nothing so delights her as to 
 have to show that she is prepared for what they call 
 " emergencies." So she opened a great chatelaine bag
 
 174 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 she had been lugging round, which I had thought held 
 twenty sawhorses of gold, and she produced three 
 different smelling bottles, for three sorts of " emer 
 gencies." I was terribly afraid that one of them 
 would be Jamaica Ginger. But fortunately it was 
 not. To give the bottles their due, I think one of 
 them, at least, did some good. 
 
 September 2. 
 
 I was writing this at the office, and though, as I say, 
 there is nothing doing there, I was interrupted. So I 
 will finish my long story to-night here at Cambridge. 
 All the same you may not see it, for those COMMON 
 WEALTH people may cut me off again in short metre. 
 
 For me, my chief service was sending one of the 
 boys downstairs to bring up a mug or glass of water, 
 with charges that he should not hurry so as to spill it. 
 In a moment Miss Sandford rallied and said she 
 should feel better as soon as she had rested. She 
 should have sat down as soon as she had finished 
 the stair work, and I think she had not acted on the 
 guide's rule, " Rest upon your feet." In an incredibly 
 short time the little hoodlum who was not a hood 
 lum at all returned with a mug really half full of 
 water. Miss Fenton dipped her handkerchief in first, 
 as one who was used to " emergencies," and " bathed 
 her brow," as they do in books. Quite as much to the 
 purpose was the drinking of what there was left, I 
 believe. Any way, Miss Sandford fairly laughed, said 
 she had made fuss enough, and would go downstairs. 
 I could not offer my arm, for the passage is not wide 
 enough. But I went a step in advance, and begged 
 her to balance herself on my shoulder. This, however, 
 she hardly did. Going down was a great deal easier 
 than going up, and she had a good flush on her face 
 and seemed all right when we came to the bottom.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 175 
 
 Then Miss Clara, who really carne up to the mark 
 like a " trump," made her sit down again in the arm 
 chair. Miss Clara fussed round a great deal more 
 than I thought worth while, buying guides and photo 
 graphs and other memorials. But again it proved I 
 was too hasty in my judgment. The good soul had 
 sent off the other boy, and had made him bring a 
 carriage to the gate where you go in to what is left of 
 the battle-ground. In five minutes, which she had 
 filled up with her " pottering," the carriage came. As 
 soon as she saw it she closed her bargaining and 
 insisted that Miss Sandford should get in. 
 
 So she did, after protesting that she could go home 
 as she came. I took the third seat, as Miss Sandford, 
 from the carriage, was giving her two attendants 
 money for their car fare. But then Miss Clara, who 
 is a "trump" after all, said they had better come 
 with us. She bade the bigger boy ride with the driver, 
 and he did, nothing loath as you may imagine, and 
 the little one, Terry, as it proved his name was, sat 
 by me on the front seat. Miss Fenton asked Miss 
 Sandford where she should go, and to my surprise, 
 she named a number, not very high, on Common 
 wealth Avenue. I say to my surprise, because, as I 
 have told you, three houses out of five on Common 
 wealth Avenue are closed, and I do not suppose that 
 the Commonwealth Avenue people generally spend 
 the summer in keeping schools. Since this I have 
 heard of another who does. 
 
 She did not seem at all out of order as we rode 
 home, and she and Miss Clara talked very pleasantly 
 and sometimes merrily. She is quite a stranger in 
 Boston, as we two were, and one reason why I have 
 met her at these different show places, I suppose, is 
 that we have both been doing the lions, as strangers 
 do. But Miss Fentou said at once that she knew
 
 176 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 nothing of the sights as Miss Sandford did ; and with 
 out any of her "poky," high-cultured air, said she 
 hoped she would feel well enough to be her guide on 
 some other expeditions, " which do not involve such 
 high climbing." I said that at the Ames Building 
 they have an elevator, and told Miss Sandford how I 
 had deceived Miss Fenton by promising her an eleva 
 tor at Bunker Hill. 
 
 We rode by the old West Church, I remember, 
 through Lynde Street. Miss Sandford said that if 
 we would promise not to lie awake nights, she would 
 tell us what an old lady told her. Then she said to 
 me that this old lady was our friend, Miss Tryphena 
 Dexter. Miss Tryphena Dexter told her that her 
 mother saw the carts come through Lynde Street 
 after the battle of Bunker Hill, with the wounded 
 soldiers, and that you could see great drops of blood 
 fall from the wagon from freshly opening wounds ! 
 Is not that ghastly ? And was it not a story to end a 
 visit to the battle-field with ? 
 
 Well, nothing much happened as we rode home. 
 We drove up to the right door on Commonwealth 
 Avenue ; the door was open, and a nice, pleasing 
 young lady was sitting there, in the hall, beside her 
 easel, at work on a water-color drawing. She came 
 running down when she saw it was Miss Sandford, 
 and took in enough of the situation to ask us all to 
 come in. I do not believe Terry was ever asked in 
 from a barouche to a Commonwealth Avenue palace 
 before. We declined, but I took care to say I would 
 call to inquire after Miss Sandford. Miss Fenton 
 said the same thing, and we went off to her hotel 
 rejoicing. We sent off the boys triumphant, and I 
 went up to her parlor. 
 
 Then, I can tell you, I had to go through a course of 
 inquiries as to my acquaintance with the lady, and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 177 
 
 who she was, and who her father was, and all the rest. 
 As to which I knew very little. She said it must be of 
 the firm of Merton and Sandford, but I said I had 
 never heard of any such firm. All I knew was that 
 she danced well and talked well and had been the 
 keeper of a Vacation School. And she said : " There 
 are Vermont Sandfords at Astney." So there are. Do 
 you not remember Dr. Sandford ? 
 
 I know, dear mother, what a broken letter this is. 
 But is not life all made up of breaks and new begin 
 nings ? All that I am afraid of is that when the clothes- 
 piji season begins, there will be no time for writing. 
 For there is a season for clothes-pins as there is for 
 peaches and oysters and marbles and operas and sym 
 phonies. Does it not say something to that effect in 
 the Bible ? And where have I heard that there is 
 a season even for letter-writing ? 
 Truly yours, 
 
 HARRY.
 
 178 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, September 8, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I cannot help writing to you 
 directly about something that has just happened, 
 though it is hard to say whether I am most pleased or 
 provoked with myself, I mean. I am, indeed, so 
 amused and entertained by the adventure that I am 
 not sure but that the whole thing is very delightful, 
 and I do not know that I would have it otherwise. 
 All this must confuse you. And does it not sound 
 very mysterious ? I have half a mind to leave it all 
 to your imagination and content myself with an every 
 day account. 
 
 Are you prepared for a guide-book description of 
 Bunker Hill Monument ? because that is what this 
 letter was planned for yesterday. I had agreed to go 
 to Charlestown some day with two of "my boys," 
 when one of them appeared unexpectedly here, asking 
 if I could not go that very day. I will not stop to 
 describe how we went, and the intricacies of finding 
 the right cars, and the absurdities of my boys. I do 
 believe they inspired me to great activity in going up 
 all the steps of the monument, when we finally reached 
 it ; for, though I began by taking the two hundred 
 and fifty steps leisurely, they were running far ahead 
 of me, and I went on and on, without stopping to take 
 breath. I did sit a moment on the upper step, but I 
 saw my boys leaning out of the window, now and then
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 179 
 
 looking back to ask me a question ; so I had to lift 
 myself up and went to the window to look out with 
 them. I have never had before that dizzy feeling that 
 people tell of experiencing at such a height, but sud 
 denly I found my head whirling round, and in the 
 midst of it came a voice that I half recognized, for 
 it was that of Harry Merton ! 
 
 I fancied I was in a dream, but I do believe I re 
 covered myself enough to answer intelligently and to 
 question him in my turn. Yet I fancy we had the 
 wildest kind of a talk imaginable ; for I saw suddenly 
 a lady standing behind Mr. Merton, who was glaring 
 on us as if aghast. She wore spectacles that somehow 
 made her eyes seem wider and larger, as if she were 
 trying to open them to take in something remarkable. 
 This started me off in one of my laughing fits, that, 
 you know, I can't easily control, which seemed to 
 wake Mr. Merton to the remembrance of his compan 
 ion, whom he introduced to me as a Miss Fenton. I 
 began to grow sober, but much terrified at my impolite 
 fit of laughter, when I grew more and more dizzy, and 
 I am sure I do not know what would have become of 
 me if it had not been for Miss Teuton's kindness and 
 for a large bag she had, which contained things I had 
 never heard of before. And I believe it was smelling 
 in one of her bottles that restored my consciousness ; 
 for I did lose it a minute and did not know what was 
 happening to me, except that somehow or other we 
 were getting downstairs and presently into a carriage, 
 with my two boys going along with us. 
 
 I have been wondering ever since what would have 
 become of me, if Mr. Merton and his friend had not 
 been there ; for I do not know how I could ever have 
 found my way down the stairs even, with only the 
 help of my harum-scarum boys, and I know we should 
 have been lost among the horse-cars. For it was a
 
 180 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 regular attack of faintness that came over me for in 
 sanely running up all those steps ; so do not pretend 
 to think that it was caused by excitement at meeting 
 my " distant " friend, Harry Merton. 
 
 I can't help thinking that drive home one of the 
 pleasantest experiences I ever had. I began to gather 
 my courage as soon as we were in the fresh air again, 
 and Miss Fenton was so cordially kind that I felt as if 
 I were with old friends whom I had always known, 
 and I was almost sorry when the carriage stopped at 
 the door. Anna happened to be in the hall, with the 
 door wide open, and came down to greet us, full 
 of wonder at seeing me thus escorted by strangers; 
 and Miss Fenton insisted upon coming up the steps 
 with me and has promised to call again. So has Mr. 
 Merton. 
 
 I do wish I could give you some idea of the talk in 
 the carriage ; for Miss Fenton seemed entirely differ 
 ent from anybody I ever met before, and fell to talking 
 about most recondite subjects ; and when she perceived 
 that I had, apparently, never heard of them before, 
 she would look at Harry Merton with an anxious, in 
 quiring question. I think I caught her touching her 
 head in a significant way, as if she thought I were 
 still a little out of my mind, because I could not 
 converse upon the high topics she brought up. This 
 seemed to amuse Mr. Merton exceedingly, which is 
 why I called him "Harry" Merton just now; for we 
 seemed to become very intimate at once, as he per 
 ceived 1 was not out of my mind, but frightened by 
 his remarkable friend. 
 
 All this I wrote the other day, and that very even 
 ing Mr. Merton appeared, with Godfrey and Rosamond 
 Brand, and joined our party on the doorsteps. Anna's 
 brother, Mr. Davis, and his wife were there, as they 
 come every evening, either to go somewhere with us or
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY 181 
 
 to sit with us ; and you can't think with what com 
 placency I look at Mrs. Davis sitting on the upper 
 step matronizing us ; for I think even Aunt Martha 
 and Maria would be perfectly satisfied with the dig 
 nity and refinement of our chaperone. Mrs. Davis is 
 very bright and amusing too, and enters into the fun 
 of our talk with the rest of us. Mr. Davis is here on 
 some business matters, so they are staying on at the 
 Vendome. Harry Merton told us more about Miss 
 Fenton and how he came to know her, all very in 
 teresting. Then it turned out that Mrs. Davis knew 
 about her, and she decided that she ought to call 
 upon her with Mr. Davis. I believe she is now at 
 the Thorndike, not far away. She is to come and see 
 me, and, as Mr. Merton declares, she was very much 
 pleased with me. 
 
 A great many excursions were planned and talked 
 of. We are all going to Nahant together, to Mount 
 Auburn I can't tell where and there was great 
 joking about my having lost the grandeur of the view 
 from Bunker Hill Monument ; and Mr. Brand insisted 
 that we all ought to go and see the view from the top 
 of the new Ames Building, because they have an ele 
 vator there, and there will be no danger of my disgrac 
 ing myself again by fainting. Mr. Merton did say 
 that we must surely ask Miss Fenton to go with us, 
 and he should insist upon her carrying her huge hand 
 bag with its different kinds of smelling-bottles, which, 
 indeed, she always has for " emergencies." 
 
 He declares that I did really bear myself very well 
 in the carriage on my way home, only he could not 
 help being amused at my bewildered look when Miss 
 Fenton began to talk about "Mahatmas." It seems 
 she is a great enthusiast about Buddhism and also 
 about Browning; so I am looking forward to much 
 pleasant sympathy on that subject from her.
 
 182 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 As we were planning our expeditions, Harry Merton 
 said that there was one trouble, that Miss Fenton 
 always insisted upon taking a carriage. He went on 
 to say that he preferred considering himself one of the 
 "children of the public," as he called them, and he 
 liked to use the advantages provided for the public, 
 and preferred street cars to carriages. Whereat we all 
 exclaimed, for that has always been our method this 
 summer ; and when we went on to tell about our South 
 Boston and other expeditions, which we had been able 
 to take at small expense, it appeared that he had been 
 doing the same things, and it was only a wonder that 
 we had not met more often. I agreed to bring Miss 
 Fenton round to our opinion, and I even promised that 
 it should not be long before I should take her about in 
 my favorite excursion in the West End car, going all 
 round and through Boston and coming back to the 
 starting-point, all for five cents ! In the midst of our 
 talk I never discovered who Miss Fenton is or where 
 she comes from. 
 
 You must not imagine that this intercourse has filled 
 up all our time. As I take up my letter again, I 
 can see I am not doing my duty as to my daily history. 
 You must picture to yoxirself that Anna and I still 
 cling to our afternoon French lessons, that we still 
 spend our hours in our beautiful park, not far away. 
 I must not forget to tell you that we had a very amus 
 ing talk with Harry Merton about the party that I 
 wrote you of, when Godfrey Brand and I saw him 
 through the window as we went down Commonwealth 
 Avenue one evening. Even that house is now shut up. 
 It seems it was only opened for that especial occasion, 
 and Mr. Merton declares if he had only seen us he 
 would have come down to invite me in for a dance ; 
 for there were not many young ladies, and he is
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 183 
 
 sure that his hostess would have been delighted to 
 see me. 
 
 I must not forget the lovely exhibition of plants 
 last week by the Horticultural Society. I did wish 
 my uncle could have come all the way from Vermont 
 to see the ornamental-leaved plants and palms. It all 
 looked very tropical. Besides, there were some ex 
 quisite white water-lilies in tanks, and lotus-plants, 
 and two beautiful Victoria Regia, which I have never 
 seen before, the blossom a foot in diameter, the leaf 
 nearly six feet. Think how it has saved us a voyage 
 to the Amazon ; we only needed to walk to it one 
 afternoon, after our French lesson, to see this wonder 
 of the world. 
 
 I am glad that I have left a space to tell you of our 
 expedition to Nahant, which has just come off. A 
 perfect day it turned out to be, after some days of rain. 
 We planned a large party, Mr. and Mrs. Davis and 
 Anna, the Brands, and some friends of theirs. Miss 
 Fenton decided not to go. We think she was a little 
 afraid of being sea-sick ; and perhaps it was as well 
 that we were all a young party, as we did a good deal 
 of walking and climbing. 
 
 The Davises and I were on board the ISTahant boat 
 in great season, at Battery Wharf, reaching it by the 
 East Boston cars. W T e found none of our friends 
 there, and began to fear they were not coming, as 
 it grew later and later. Harry Merton was to come 
 with the Brands and some other friends of theirs. We 
 stood near the plank, watching the various passengers 
 as they came, and had half a mind to try to exchange 
 our tickets for another day, when at the last moment 
 they appeared and hurried on board, breathless. They 
 had been detained by a stoppage or a break-down of 
 the street car and came near missing the boat. 
 
 Then such a lovely voyage ! The sun was veiled by
 
 184 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 clouds, but there were exquisite colors on sea and 
 shore. We sat all together at first, watching the mo 
 tions of the boat in leaving the pier. Then all the 
 interesting places were pointed out to us ; we saw old 
 Fort Winthrop, Fort Independence, Thompson's Is 
 land, and Deer Island. I could see everything more 
 distinctly than on our shorter "White Squadron" 
 voyage; and as we passed on we saw all the settle 
 ments along the shore, Kevere Beach in the distance, 
 till almost too soon we reached the outer point of the 
 peninsula of Nahant, where we landed. Then came 
 up the question whether we would take one of the 
 "barges," which would take us round Nahant. But 
 we all preferred to walk, and it proved that Godfrey 
 Brand was familiar with the whole place. 
 
 So. at the very beginning he took us down to the 
 edge of the water to see a picturesque "Swallows' 
 Cave." We had 'great fun in scrambling over the 
 rocks, and I was sorry enough to leave the beautiful 
 place. We kept along a little on the shore, then 
 mounted to the path along the cliffs, and what a per 
 fect view there was before us ! All the wide ocean 
 seemed spread far away in the wide horizon. We had 
 to stop often and admire, finding comfortable nooks in 
 the rocks for talks with one and another. And when 
 the time came Mr. Davis and Mr. Brand opened some 
 mysterious baskets they had brought along, and in a 
 rocky nook shaded from the sun we had a most re 
 freshing luncheon ; and here we rested a long time, 
 chatting on every subject under the sun and laughing 
 at everything, till somebody looked at somebody's 
 watch and declared that if we wanted to see Nahant it 
 was time for our walk round the peninsula. 
 
 We were enchanted with everything. I never saw 
 such luxurious ivies, covering the picturesque houses, 
 that looked as comfortable as they did artistic, and
 
 w
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 185 
 
 brilliant geraniums all in blossom, and such inviting- 
 looking porches. There is a picturesque old billiard- 
 room on a cliff, and Godfrey Brand had much to tell 
 me about the delightful people who for many years 
 have come to Nahant for the summer. The cliff walk 
 is just perfect, and as the afternoon went on the sun 
 came out, and we came home in a glorious sunset. 
 
 On the trip home the party separated ; Anna walked 
 about with Godfrey Brand, Rosamond was with some 
 friends, and I had a talk with Harry Merton. I was 
 going to say a "long" talk, but it seemed all too 
 short as we neared the shore. We seemed to talk 
 about everything under the sun, very serious things, 
 I should be inclined to say, except that you cannot 
 always tell with Harry Merton ; you think he has 
 said something just to make you laugh, and it turns 
 out that he has led you into really a serious strain. 
 
 On the rocks we had quite a discussion about the 
 life of Laurence Oliphant, and it proved everybody 
 had read it. I could not quite tell if Mr. Merton had 
 read it or only the notices of it. Everybody had 
 something different to say about it. Anna Davis said 
 that she could understand the temptation that Alice 
 Oliphant felt to join such a community, that she had 
 often herself been made very gloomy to think how 
 hard so many people were working only in daily 
 drudgery, and that it seemed as if we ought to do our 
 share. Kosamond Brand agreed to this and said she 
 did not wonder that Alice Oliphant felt that her 
 merely gay and social life at home was useless and 
 without object ; and then perhaps, after all, she was 
 happier teaching the miners' children in California 
 than spending tiresome evenings with the rest of the 
 aristocracy and nobility of England. I could not help 
 saying that might be, but that by coming in this way 
 to America, she only added one more to the " drudges "
 
 186 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 we had here, and if all the ladies of the aristocracy 
 and nobility followed her example, we should only 
 have so many more immigrants to take care of. Mr. 
 Davis considered this a very practical view of the 
 subject, and they all laughed. But we all agreed that 
 the Oliphants must have had a happy ending of their 
 life at the colony of Haifa, where they did not have to 
 forsake each other. 
 
 In our afternoon talk we went back a little to this 
 subject, and I could not help saying that perhaps one 
 reason that the idea of a " small-community " life did 
 not attract me was because I lived in a small place at 
 home, and that I had been much wearied with the 
 little things that people talked about, and had longed 
 to get out into a larger space, where you could seem 
 to be doing something with a great many people and 
 sharing in the larger life of a city. This set Harry 
 Merton to asking a little about my life and to telling 
 me about his present life and plans, and I found that 
 his home was also in Vermont and not far away from 
 Astney, and we knew many of the same people ; and 
 the steamer reached the pier long before we had 
 come near finishing our conversation.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 187 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 8, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I have Fan's nice little note, 
 and yours. I attended to your commission at once, as 
 I hope I know. 
 
 Really, I think dear Dr. Primrose would be satisfied 
 better than he is if he saw what Sunday is here, and 
 what church attendance is. I cut out of the newspaper 
 and sent to him a scrap which the Congregationalist 
 people got up about the attendance in church in 
 Boston on that sixteenth of August, of which I re 
 member writing to you that it was called the most 
 dead, or perhaps the deadest day in the year. If he 
 showed it to you you will see that a very large 
 proportion of the people between ten years of age and 
 sixty must have gone to church that morning, if you 
 allow for the very large number who are certainly out 
 of town. I think I spoke of that in that letter. 
 
 Well now, last Sunday night, one would have said, 
 was almost as dead a night. It was a rainy night, 
 there had been no particular effort made to secure a 
 congregation, Dr. Haynes was going to preach in the 
 regular order at our church, and yet there was 
 certainly a respectable, I should say a good, congre- 
 gration. I could not help wishing all the time that 
 you had been with me. Do you remember giving me 
 Hughes's little book on " The Manliness of Christ," 
 when I was quite a boy ? I have never forgotten the
 
 188 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 book, and it lies on my table now. That was really 
 what Dr. Haynes preached about. The text was ; 
 " Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for 
 doctrines the commandments of men." And he illus 
 trated the Saviour's real manliness by the heroic in 
 dignation with which he spoke to the hypocrites who 
 say, " If a man say to his father or mother, It is Corban 
 by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he 
 shall be free." 
 
 I a,m always wishing, when I hear Dr. Haynes, that 
 I could write shorthand. I did take out the envelope 
 of your letter, and wrote down two or three scraps. 
 " No churches, no hospitals, no foreign missions, no 
 this that and the other, until that mother is cared for 
 on the Vermont hills ! " I could not help thinking of 
 you when he spoke of Vermont hills. " That is what 
 Christ says. Not the heretic Professor Briggs, not 
 Tom Paine, not this, that, and another, not one of 
 them is so much a heretic as are the two church-member 
 brothers who go to law over a lot of pots and kettles, 
 . . . who scowl at each other at the funeral, and only 
 come together when the will is read." 
 
 " Two men are going \ip to the judgment gate. The 
 first, a poor, bent philosopher, had spent his life in 
 studying the doctrine; the second, a poor workman, 
 only knew how to follow Christ. The philosopher 
 questioned the workman, 'Do you understand this 
 matter, that matter, and so on ? ' ' No,' the workman 
 answered ; ' no, I only know how to do as Jesus did. 
 I don't know how I '11 get in. That 's all I know.' The 
 gate opened for the old workman as soon as for the 
 philosopher." 
 
 I was glad I was there, and glad I made George go 
 round with me. I am quite satisfied that I made no 
 mistake in choosing my Sunday, home.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 189 
 
 September 15. 
 
 We are still having some warm days, but one can no 
 longer complain of the languor and disinclination to 
 go about which I have growled about so often as the 
 summer went by. And we begin to find some business 
 in the office. The orders come in from all parts of 
 the country, and we are satisfied that hanging out 
 clothes is not going out of fashion, as my Worcester 
 County man said about the chairs. The order of 
 business, you know, is this in the summer : The 
 Western men let their wives and children take them 
 to the seashore. This is what fills up our seashore. 
 This is what fills up our Rye Beach, our Hampton, our 
 Narragansett, and all other seashore places. But the 
 first week in September comes a northeast storm, and 
 they find the seashore hotels are very uncomfortable. 
 What is much more to the purpose is that " the crop 
 begins to move," and the Western men, who have had 
 money enough to spend, must go home to move it. So 
 all the railways running westward are piled up with 
 baggage, all the seashore hotels are emptied, and the 
 very pleasantest month for the seashore indeed for 
 the open air anywhere is lost by that sort of 
 pleasure-hunters. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the people who have their 
 own houses in the country, who have gone from 
 Boston for instance, stay in those houses till the first 
 of October. Mr. Outlake told me that the private 
 schools generally do not open till the first of October, 
 and there is a proposal made every year to set the 
 opening of the public schools later and later. I met a 
 friend of mine who is a teacher in the Girls' High 
 School, and she told me they had three hundred and 
 twenty-four new girls present on their first day, and 
 that they should not see the whole of their new class 
 until the beginning of next month. That seems to
 
 190 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 show that fitting girls to be teachers is not going out 
 of fashion yet, any more than the making of chairs or 
 clothes-pins is. 
 
 I told Brand that I was going to call on Miss Sand- 
 ford to make my proper inquiries, and he said he 
 would go with me. When I went round for him just 
 before it was quite dark, his sister was easily enough 
 persuaded to join us, and we had a very jolly call. It 
 was one of those warm evenings when for a little we sat 
 on the top of the broad steps and watched the fading 
 out of the sunlight and the coming in of the stars. 
 There seemed quite a party on the ground, but the 
 only two I talked with were Miss Sandford her 
 self and her friend Miss Davis, a nice bright girl. 
 They are holding the fort, that is to say, living 
 in the house while the regular people are away 
 somewhere ; I was told where, I believe, but I have 
 forgotten. 
 
 They told about listening to the music and even 
 watching the dancing through the windows, when 
 poor Mr. Champernooii gave his summer party which 
 frightened him so terribly. I told her how short we 
 were of partners there, and that if we had known 
 they were so near as the other side of the street we 
 should have gone over, like the people in the twenti 
 eth century, and compelled them to come in. 
 
 We could not sit on the steps after it grew cold, and 
 we went in. It is a beautiful house, with some fine 
 pictures which I hope I may see again. We had some 
 music. Miss Davis plays Rosamond Brand proved 
 to play wonderfully well and Brand sang some col 
 lege songs. So it was a very pleasant evening. 
 
 Out of all this, and from dear Miss Fenton's deter 
 mination to see all that could be seen, there grew up 
 a party to Nahant. You see, since it has proved that 
 she is our Miss Fenton, who holds so much of our
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 191 
 
 stock, I may be off duty any day to attend to her. So 
 I was in for a trip to Nahant, and Brand and his 
 sister were to show us the way and the Sandford- 
 Davis duo were two more. (Did it ever occur to you 
 that duo and two are the same word ?) 
 
 After all, poor Miss Fenton had a sick headache, 
 and we almost lost the boat waiting for her to make 
 up her mind to stay at home. But I did not have 
 Quixotism enough, or virtue enough, to go back to 
 the office ; and I went all the same as if she had been 
 with us. For which may I be forgiven ! When I 
 went before I went to Lynn by rail, and so over 
 Nahant Beach in a bus. But it is much nicer to 
 go by the boat. 
 
 You may have seen all this. But I know the 
 children have not. First of all, there is the "em 
 barkation," which is always somewhat exciting. 
 There stands at the gangway a policeman, to make 
 sure that the boat does not receive more than its 
 proper number of passengers. This number is de 
 termined by its size, and there is always a notice 
 on any of these boats which shows how many they 
 may take. Such things make me creep a little, as 
 do the sight of the life-preservers and the instruc 
 tions how you are to put them on. It seems a little 
 like the old Egyptian feasts, but I suppose that the 
 gentlefolk who go up and down every day take them 
 all as a matter of course, as you might pass by a 
 cemetery. 
 
 We were there almost at the last minute, for, as I 
 say, we had to go for Miss Fenton, and she had to 
 make up her mind whether she could go or not. 
 Now, making up her mind takes a great deal of 
 time. But when we came there we found our other 
 young ladies waiting for us, and off we went. 
 
 The view of the city, as you recede from it, is very
 
 192 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 fine. It is the imagined view of Boston rising from 
 the sea, with the State House ruling the whole of it. 
 Then you go by East Boston, which you remember as 
 Noddle's Island ; I have heard you tell about picnics 
 there in the old days. There is a little island which 
 they call Apple Island, that I think I should like to 
 live on, though I do not know how I should get there. 
 And then you come to what is known as Shirley Gut. 
 Point Shirley is named for the famous war-governor 
 of a hundred odd years ago, and this gut or channel 
 is a channel between it and Deer Island, where the 
 city has the poor-houses and other such establish 
 ments. There is a story always told, and I hope it 
 is true, that the Constitution once ran through the 
 Gut when she was pursued, and that the English 
 vessels did not dare to follow. I say I hope it is 
 true; I do not believe it is, and I rather think the 
 story, properly told, would go back to Manly's days, 
 when he was picking off English cruisers in Wash 
 ington's time. 
 
 After you pass the Gut you have a run of two or 
 three miles in the open sea, and it is here that very 
 delicate people are a little seasick. I was glad, on 
 the whole, that Miss Clara did not come. Nahant 
 rises higher and higher as you advance, and as you 
 come up to the wharf you see what a mass of rocks 
 it is. 
 
 Our Mr. Outlake showed me some old sketches of 
 Nat P. Willis, whom he seemed to think everybody 
 would know, but whom I had never heard of before, 
 in which he makes much of the Nahant of his day. 
 He says it is as if the devil had been knocked down 
 and was nearly covered with water, but his arm and 
 hand were stretched out, so that Nahant Beach is his 
 arm and Nahant itself is his hand. I do not know 
 that you know how the devil's hand and arm would
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 193 
 
 look if he had been upset by Michael, so that simile 
 may not help you. More simply, here are say four 
 hundred acres of rocks, piled in together ; and what 
 the joke calls "cold roast Boston" has gone down and 
 taken possession. There are I do not know how many 
 beautiful houses, built wherever there is a chance to 
 get in a house. There are the most elaborate asphalt 
 roads and sidewalks laid from one to another, and the 
 wind north, south, east, and west is off the sea. 
 It cannot be hot there, you might say; certainly it 
 was not, the day we were there. 
 
 It was a good deal nicer going with the Brands, who 
 had friends there, so that we could cross their grounds 
 without trespassing, and they knew just where you 
 had and where you had not rights. But everybody 
 has rights on the sea-beach ; that is one of the inalien 
 able privileges of a citizen of Massachusetts ; so that 
 you can walk all around Nahant without trespassing. 
 The most extraordinary thing we did was to go through 
 Swallows' Cave. This has no bottom and has no top, 
 you might say, though they have made a sort of path 
 where you can walk through. The tide fills it at high 
 tide, so it is always wet and always covered with sea 
 weed. In old times I believe there used to be swal 
 lows there, but we saw no swallows. Of course it was 
 rather an adventure, carrying the ladies through. I 
 should think it was seventy feet long. The entrance 
 is so low that you have to stoop, but after you are 
 once in the cave is fairly twenty feet high. 
 
 You know everybody jokes about the sea serpent at 
 Nahant. But I found, in the face of the joking about 
 it, that the sea serpent, by a regular old Boston man, 
 is regarded as being a real creature, quite as much as a 
 sperm whale is. It is more than sixty years ago that 
 the original appearance of the sea serpent off Nahant 
 was made. Then he was seen by some of these grand
 
 194 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 people who lived there, and they were old ship-masters 
 who had made their fortunes in the Northwest Coast, 
 and never permitted anybody to laugh at their story. 
 And Mr. Outlake says that when Mr. Wood, who was 
 no fool of a naturalist, was here, he was willing to ac 
 cept the scientific basis of the story. Indeed, I think 
 Agassiz himself gave way. He lived at Nahant a 
 good deal, and saw all the people who held the old 
 traditions. 
 
 So much for the outside facts of Nahant, as Fanfan 
 would say. Now, as to our particular expedition. It 
 was really a party of pleasure from the beginning to 
 the end ; and do you know, dear Mother, my experi 
 ence of parties of pleasure is that they generally turn 
 out to be parties of pleasure, notwithstanding the 
 warning which the Sunday-school books all give, that 
 they will certainly turn out parties of pain. For my 
 own part, I had a right good time, going down and 
 coming back again. Among other things, I had two 
 nice, steady talks with the mysterious Miss Sandford, 
 who on this occasion materialized, and was not behind 
 an oak door, and was not faint, and was just like any 
 other sensible Vermont girl. For it proves that she 
 is a Vermont girl ; she is one of those Astney Sand- 
 fords, whom you must remember. She is a cousin of 
 that tearing beauty, Ethel Sandford, who bewitched 
 the professor, and whom he carried off to his shingle- 
 college at the West. I think you must remember the 
 story. Don't you remember Mrs. Brown told you they 
 didn't know at Longfield whether he was going to 
 honor with his preference Miss Ethel Sandford, or 
 that nice Carrie Swift, who was at the Christmas 
 party, until the engagement was actually announced ? 
 My Miss Sandford Miss Lucy Sandford, it seems, 
 her name is did not seem to know much about her 
 handsome cousin, but she did know that she was now
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY, 195 
 
 Mrs. Bainbridge. She knew Carrie, and spoke of her 
 in the very pleasantest terms. 
 
 We talked about all sorts of things. Of course, 
 there was a great deal of fun about her disappearance 
 from time to time. But after the joking about that 
 had been pretty much exhausted, I made her tell 
 about her summer experience, and compared it with 
 mine. For we came here within a fortnight of each 
 other, and have been knocking around the town, each 
 of us as a stranger, in a good deal the same way. She 
 was a good deal interested in Miss Tryphena Dexter, 
 whom she had really seen to more purpose than 1 had, 
 and she told me a good many funny stories about the 
 old lady. Miss Dexter is a regular cockney, as I have 
 found out before, and Miss Sandford says she knows 
 a great many of the old Boston stories. She had ob 
 served, as I had, the droll habit she has in the street 
 of turning round at the end of every four steps to see 
 who is behind her. She noticed the supreme contempt 
 with which Miss Dexter speaks of every person of 
 foreign lineage ; and it is wonderful that we two, 
 who came from Vermont, are not classed with " them 
 Irish" or "them Eyetalians" or "them Canajyans." I 
 told her of my effort to make Miss Dexter go into the 
 country and spend a fortnight at Atherton. She 
 laughed very heartily at this, and said she had tried 
 the same experiment, but that she never would be 
 happy under any trees but her dear trees on the 
 Common. She and Miss Tryphena had been on 
 the Common one Sunday afternoon, somewhat after 
 the fashion of which I wrote you when I was first 
 here. 
 
 Then we drifted into talk about books. She was 
 reading this funny "Tourmalin," just as I am. But 
 she was very enthusiastic about Laurence Oliphant, 
 and I think you must try to get that book for the
 
 196 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 club. I hope I did not disgrace myself. For I did 
 know who Laurence Oliphant was, I had read THE 
 COMMONWEALTH'S notice of him, on the back of 
 one of my letters to you. But she went a good deal 
 into detail about it, about the community life that 
 they all had together, and so on; and it was this 
 that led up to all the talk that we had about Vermont 
 and Ethel Sandford and Carrie Swift. 
 
 All of us walked home together, and this gave a 
 chance for us to show the ladies some of the queer 
 places down near the wharves, where they are not in 
 the habit of going. There is one eating house that I 
 am very fond of, which is up high enough for you to 
 sit at an open window looking all over the bay, while 
 eating your clam chowder or oysters, for oysters 
 have come again. 
 
 Nahum would have liked all of these lion-hunting 
 expeditions, because he would have seen medals and 
 pictures and old swords and pitchers to his heart's 
 content. He would have seen the famous Ben Frank 
 lin suit, of which the story is told. It came about by 
 Mr. Outlake's thinking he must do something himself 
 for " poor dear Miss Fenton." He got himself up one 
 evening, and made Mrs. Outlake go to the Thorndike 
 and call. She was very funny about it when I saw 
 her the next day. There is this standing joke about 
 "Mahatmas" and "chottas" or "chattas," and they 
 pretended great fear that Miss Clara would put them 
 through their Buddhist catechism. But she was very 
 merciful, and only talked about the Concord School, 
 and Sir Launfal, and Mr. Smith's sermon, and the 
 mystical articles in THE COMMONWEALTH. Mrs. Out- 
 lake asked her to dinner, and so on ; and Mr. Out- 
 lake, in a fit of enthusiasm, asked Miss Fenton if she 
 had seen the Historical Library, and she said "Xo," 
 to his great delight. For it is one of his fads, and is
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 197 
 
 really, in the line of shows, about the nicest thing 
 in Boston. 
 
 You see, to belong to the Historical Society is about 
 the only order of nobility there is left here. I mean 
 it is the only thing left where a good many people 
 wish they were in who are not in. You have to be 
 a hundred and fifty years old to belong, in the first 
 place ; and you have to know everything, in the 
 second place. And, granting that, there can only be, 
 say, a hundred and twenty. So it is quite a " select 
 thing," as an old lady said to me of a parish sociable. 
 They are good as gold about letting people in to see 
 the library and collection, and really anybody may go. 
 But practically you feel easier, when a top-sawyer, 
 who came over with Endicott and whose grandfather 
 was a founder of the society, asks you. 
 
 Well, I think Mr. Outlake wanted to reward me for 
 my attentions to Miss Fenton, so he asked me to join 
 the party with my friends, and I took Miss Sandford 
 and Miss Davis. We all met at Parker's and lunched 
 in one of the private parlors. Then it is only a short 
 walk to the Society's Library. First you have to climb 
 three flights of stairs. So Dr. Holmes called it the 
 "High-Story-Call Society," the day after they moved 
 into these new rooms. Was not that just like him ? 
 The rooms are not many and not very large, but there 
 is everything curious in them. 
 
 Between the proper work-room of the Library and 
 the elegant Dowse collection, on the door, is the frame 
 work with two swords, of which Dr. Primrose told us. 
 One is the sword of Prescott who built the redoubt on 
 Bunker Hill, and the other is that of Linzee, the Eng 
 lish Commander who fired the first shot at the redoubt 
 in the gray of the morning. Prescott's grandson mar 
 ried Linzee's grand-daughter ; so their children united 
 both lines. The grandson was the historian. He used
 
 198 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 to have the swords crossed in his library, and when he 
 died he gave them to these people. 
 
 The Dowse Library seemed to me the most attrac 
 tive room I ever saw; lined with books, on three 
 sides, and those books selected for something, in 
 every case, not bought by a drag net, I mean, by 
 a man who was thoroughly interested in English 
 literature and meant to get the best. He had money 
 and good taste and information, and he had the best 
 editions of all English standards, not to say of English 
 historians, and he had them bound in the most 
 elegant manner. Mrs. Outlake told us his history. 
 She remembered seeing him when he was an old man. 
 He was the typical apprentice in Boston. He had 
 been born in Charlestown, and could just recollect 
 the burning of his father's home the day of the battle. 
 He tried one and another thing, but finally became a 
 leather dresser, making the more elegant kinds, such 
 as book-binders use. Something started him on 
 collecting books, and when he died he had this 
 collection, by far the most valuable collection of 
 English books in New England at that time. 
 
 It would be such fun to nestle down here to read ; 
 and, so far as I saw, any decent loafer in Boston 
 might do so. There is an awful warning story which 
 Mr. Outlake told us. When he was fifty years old 
 his English agent sent him an advertisement that an 
 English collection of pictures would be sold by raffle. 
 He persuaded a neighbor to join him in buying three 
 tickets, and he won two of the three best prizes. The 
 neighbor had backed out, so he had all the tickets. 
 Part of the prize was a collection made, most of them, 
 in the old fashioned English water-colors. I have 
 seen it at the Art Museum, where it is now. They 
 seemed to think that this fixed his taste ; and till he 
 died, he was perfecting this library.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 199 
 
 But is it not interesting ? For now I suppose lie 
 and the other man who bought the ticket could be 
 sent to jail for corresponding with a lottery agent! 
 
 The story is that it was proposed that Harvard 
 College should give him some honorary degree, as 
 heaven knows they have given them to many men 
 who had much less hold on literature or science. Then 
 some joker said it should be LL. D., Learned Leather 
 Dresser. And it is said that this joke made him 
 angry so that he left his library to the Historical and 
 not the College. I do not know if this is true. I 
 shoiild say it was quite as useful here as there. 
 Perhaps " Mr. Ward knew his own business." 
 
 You have no idea of the variety of commissions 
 which come to us in the office. It seems the bankers 
 have the same experience. If the president of a bank 
 in Cranberry Centre has a good strong account here, he 
 will think he may trouble them to match a ribbon for 
 his wife, or to send an autograph of Phillips Brooks 
 for his daughter. So our correspondents, and that not 
 our largest correspondents, will put in a postscript 
 into an order for clothes-pins, asking us to attend to 
 this or that errand for them. And this time a man 
 we have at Roaring River, who sends us cedar, wanted 
 to know if we could not make special rates for 
 Baker's chocolate for him. He had a fad, that it 
 would be better for the men in camp than the strong 
 coffee they drink. And he stuck to the national 
 motto, as Mr. Outlake calls it, and was bound to "get 
 the best." 
 
 So the chief gave me the letters, and told me to " go 
 out and see the people at Baker's. There are no 
 Bakers now ; I believe they are Pierces now ; but the 
 reputation is so great that it must not be lost. I 
 crammed up first, in a cyclopaedia, that I need not
 
 200 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 be quite a fool. Do you know that while now 
 " chocolate " and " cocoa " have meanings wholly 
 different in the trade, this is merely arbitrary ? It 
 seems the latl was the Mexican word for water, so 
 that choco-latl only means cocoa, or choco, and water. 
 But now cocoa and chocolate are quite different. 
 
 Well, there is a street railway out to Milton Falls 
 where the mills are, and this afternoon I have been 
 out there. I gave my letters to the people, who are 
 very civil, and they gave me their bottom prices for 
 our Aroostook County man. But I thought I would 
 follow my hand ; and I asked them, a little bashfully, 
 if I could not see the work of the mills. 
 
 With perfect courtesy the gentleman I dealt with 
 called a clerk and told him to take me over the 
 factory. He had a great book, which he put down on 
 the table and asked me to register ; and so I did. He 
 showed me first several glass jars in the office. One 
 large jar contained in alcohol one of the large brown 
 pods which hold the cocoa beans. The pod is about 
 the size of a moderately large musk-melon. It looks 
 much like the outside leathery substance around a 
 butternut. Then we began in the basement. There 
 he showed me the large engine, three hundred horse 
 power. We got on a freight elevator and went up to 
 the fifth story, which is the top story. Here was the 
 storeroom where the bags of cocoa beans are received. 
 The beans look much like good-sized brown kidney 
 beans. These beans are put in large perforated 
 cylinders. As they whirl around in these cylinders, 
 dirt, small pieces of refuse, and small stones drop out 
 through the holes. After that the beans are picked 
 over by men. They were picking them over just as I 
 remember, when six or seven years old, picking over 
 beans for Sunday breakfast baked beans. A good many 
 beans stick together in pairs. These have to be
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 201 
 
 separated. After this the beans go into what we 
 should call large " bakers." Each of these roasters 
 holds a long ton, 2,240 Ibs. The roasters look like 
 large tin portable ovens. The next process is the 
 mixing, and cracking off the shell, and winnowing. 
 Winnowing I call the process which blows off the 
 lighter shell from the nut and leaves them separate. 
 This, before this machine was used, had to be done 
 three times in order to do it well. This new machine 
 does it better, and the beans only need to go through 
 once. 
 
 After this cracking and fanning, the beans go 
 pretty directly down into the great grinder, made of 
 steel rollers, which does the work that used to 
 require fifteen ordinary machines. There are only 
 three of these large " grinders " in use in the world. 
 The rollers are warm and the chocolate pours out like 
 paste and rolls down into pans. 
 
 The next room is very noisy. You can't hear a 
 man's voice. Here is what I call the kicking process. 
 The chocolate is put into the little tin moulds in 
 which it is sold. About a hundred of these moulds 
 are put on an iron about three by four feet. From 
 below a machine keeps bouncing the iron plate up and 
 down. As the chocolate is ladled out into these 
 moulds, the jouncing makes it fit down beautifully 
 smoothly. It is the kicking process that makes the 
 great noise. Then these little tin moulds of chocolate 
 are taken into the cold room in the basement. Here 
 it gets solid and hard, and is then shipped. This 
 cold room is very cold, although to-day is one of the 
 hottest days of September. The cellar is kept cold 
 by brine running through pipes around the cellar, just 
 as rooms are made warm by steam going through 
 pipes around them. 
 
 The man who showed me about said he was sorry
 
 202 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 he couldn't show me the factory when they were 
 running in full. During this next month and half of 
 the next they make repairs. This is the annual 
 vacation during which they do little. 
 
 P. S. You will be as glad as we all are that Dr. 
 Haynes is not going to Chicago. 
 Always yours, 
 
 H.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 203 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. 
 
 XIX. 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, September 24, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I have never told you about the 
 expedition that Anna and I made to Mount Auburn 
 a week or two ago. We went as "children of the 
 public," starting first from Park Square. We had 
 to wait about half an hour for the electric car that 
 was to take us to Cambridge, but it was not one of 
 the hottest days we have had lately, so we did not 
 mind. And we were fully rewarded for our delay by 
 the beautiful ride in the open car over the lovely 
 Charles River, which seemed most enchanting that 
 afternoon, with the blue sky and the bluer water, 
 and the red brick houses of Beacon Street across the 
 water. I imparted to Anna my plan of turning these 
 houses round, so that they, might face the lovely sun 
 set view and that they might add to the picturesque- 
 ness of this excursion over the bridge. She was rather 
 uncertain whether the owners of the houses would 
 sympathize with my aesthetic ideas of improving the 
 view from the bridge, but we formed our plans all the 
 same, and decided that when we owned a house on 
 the " waterside " of Beacon Street we would build it 
 to face towards the sunset, with a picturesque boat- 
 house, and a lovely row-boat, in which we should 
 row ourselves when we went to make calls. Or 
 if we drove out of town we would look back over
 
 204 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 our bridge, to the picturesque part of our house 
 which should be a joy to all beholders. 
 
 We were so occupied with our plans and imaginings 
 that we were quite surprised when the conductor 
 shouted out, " Change cars for Mount Auburn." We 
 had to stop in a little hot station which seemed filled 
 with flies and pickled limes and crying babies. After 
 a painful waiting of ten minutes our car came along, 
 and the delightful ride that followed was a balm to 
 our souls. We went on throiigh the loveliest part of 
 Cambridge, by the beautiful college grounds with its 
 fine buildings, and reached the magnificent Washing 
 ton elm, and could see Elmwood, where Lowell lived 
 and died, and passed Longfellow's beautiful house, 
 and came at last to Mount Auburn. 
 
 Happily we had a long afternoon before us, for in 
 deed as it was we could not do all we wanted to in 
 wandering over the beautiful grounds. We did visit 
 the burial-places of Longfellow, of Agassiz, and could 
 see many of the famous monuments of which we had 
 read ; but we had to hurry away to an electric car, at 
 sunset, to make our way home, declaring, however, 
 that we would come again as soon as we could have 
 a whole day for exploring the beautiful grounds. 
 , That was many weeks ago, and we have never been 
 since till last week, when I had an invitation from 
 Miss Fenton to drive there with her one morning. It 
 was one of the lovely September days we have been 
 having that she called for me in a most inviting look 
 ing victoria. Anna and I have been much amused at 
 the contrast of the two expeditions. No waiting at 
 Park Square, no struggle with flies at the little sta 
 tion! Anna could not go, and Miss Fenton and I 
 leaned back upon the luxurious seats, going whither 
 we would, without delays, or noise of crowds. 
 
 I suggested our going across the new Harvard
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 205 
 
 Bridge, as we drove out through the Commonwealth 
 Avenue park, " my " park, as I am inclined to call 
 it, and Miss Fenton was willing to admire all its 
 rural charms, the picturesqueness of its arched bridge, 
 and the figures of gay autumn flowers along its roads. 
 Then we crossed the bridge and admired the views up 
 and down the river. I did not venture to impart to 
 Miss Fenton my plans for the Beacon Street houses, 
 for I found her very enthusiastic about Boston just 
 as it is. Indeed, I think she admired the institutions 
 and public buildings more than the rural charms of 
 its public parks, as I displayed them to her. And is 
 it not remarkable ? I find that she, too, comes from 
 Vermont, and she knew all about Astney and my 
 father and mother, though she has not seen them or 
 Astney for years. I think one reason she did not 
 admire more enthusiastically the "Joe Pye" weed 
 and golden-rod along the drives in the park was be 
 cause "she had always seen them in Vermont," and 
 there was " nothing so very new about them." 
 
 So we saw lovely Mount Auburn again, and I could 
 take her to some of the famous places, and we went 
 to the burial-place of Charlotte Cushman. Did you 
 know that she loved Boston so much that she selected 
 this spot in Mount Auburn that could overlook the 
 town where she was born ? For she was born in a 
 narrow street of the "North End" and the "Cushman 
 School " stands in memory of her in that very street ; 
 for she left to the city a bequest for the use of the 
 school children. 
 
 Miss Fenton was much interested in all this, for she 
 had seen Miss Cushman on the stage, and gave really 
 a brilliant account of her appearance as she saw her in 
 the part of " Lady Macbeth ; " and she knew friends 
 of Charlotte Cushman, when she lived in Home, and 
 had much that was interesting to tell.
 
 206 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 I was not sure but I enjoyed Miss Fenton more in 
 such reminiscences than when she began to talk about 
 books, for then I cannot quite keep along with her; 
 and as we came home I was really sorry to lose some 
 of the beautiful sunset views, in trying to understand 
 all she was telling of one of her late readings. 
 
 But this is not telling you what a delightful time 
 Anna and I had at the Art Museum last Saturday. 
 For the Museum is open to the public Saturdays and 
 Sundays, and we went as " children of the public," as 
 Harry Merton would say. Anna is to enter one of the 
 classes this autumn, and she is very familiar with all 
 the delights of the whole building. She wanted to 
 see some especial pictures that are exhibited here just 
 for this summer, so we were merely to make a tour 
 through the different rooms to give me an idea of their 
 geography, passing only through those on our way to 
 the picture galleries. So she ruthlessly bore ine on 
 through the different apartments. 
 
 We turned to the right on entering, passed along 
 the lower floor, then turned a corner, going on to the 
 back of the building, where we went up some stairs. 
 I did insist upon stopping a moment to exclaim and 
 admire here arid there, in the Parthenon Room, for 
 instance, where I plan to go for a long study some 
 day, and then in the corridor I had to make her stop 
 for me to delight in the Japanese pottery and screens, 
 and I did go back to look into the Japanese room and 
 I could not bear to leave it ; but she absolutely tore 
 me away and bore me off with her to the entrance 
 of the fifth picture gallery at the other end of the 
 corridor. 
 
 She condescended to let me put my head into the 
 water-color gallery, that I might know where to find 
 it another time ; but she would not let me look at a 
 single picture, and she herself would not stop at a sin-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 207 
 
 gle thing till we were fairly planted in front of some 
 of the pictures she had been longing to see. First, she 
 wished to see the Corots, and I was delighted to find 
 that I could thoroughly delight in them. I am always 
 afraid, after I have heard so much of a great painter 
 like Corot, that I shall find I do not know enough to 
 enjoy his pictures. But, oh, I was so glad to find that 
 I need not " know ; " for they are so lovely, so exqui 
 site. to have in one's own room of a winter day, 
 for instance, like a window let out upon a sum 
 mer scene. I envied much the happy owners and 
 was glad indeed that Anna had hurried me about, 
 so that we could have leisure for all the treasures 
 in this room. 
 
 The name of Daubigny was another that I was 
 rejoiced to grow familiar with; such a beautiful pic 
 ture by Jacques of sheep resting under a tree. And 
 then how we were arrested when we came in front of 
 the splendid picture of the horses of Achilles by Henri 
 Regnault. That was the way with us ; we had to stop 
 suddenly ; for the whole group is so spirited and won 
 derful, with Autornedon standing between the heads of 
 the horses, all so full of life and animation. You feel 
 as if he were holding back the horses away from you. 
 As we admired the energy of the figure of Automedon, 
 Anna told me of a story of the picture that she had 
 read; how Regnault had been honored with an appoint 
 ment to the " Prix de Rome," which made him a stu 
 dent there for many years. And in return he was 
 bound to send at a certain time (or times) the painting 
 of a nude figure, and he sent this " Automedon." Thus 
 it was not a mere figure in pose for an artist, but one 
 part of a significant group that perhaps struck me 
 more than anything else in the room. Of course, when 
 we went home, we hunted up our Homer, and decided 
 that Regnault had really carried us to the plains of
 
 208 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Troy ; and we questioned if he had not seen the won 
 derful horses of Achilles in just such a vision. 
 
 I am sure that one ought to see no more than one 
 picture at a time to enjoy it thoroughly, but thanks to 
 Anna's persistency in dragging me to this room, in 
 spite of other enchantments we did have time to ad 
 mire many others. Such a lovely mother and child by 
 John S. Sargent ! I was delighted to have a chance to 
 see this picture, giving such a charming idea of the 
 work of a favorite artist, and an American too. Then 
 there are some lovely Millets, whom we all know by 
 the " Angelus " and these have the same charms, espe 
 cially " La Bergere Assise " so full of expression too ; 
 and here were many of William Hunt's pictures, some 
 of which I had never seen, though I am familiar with 
 so many. Of course I could feel a fresh pride that he 
 was born in my native state of Vermont. Then there 
 was a lovely picture by Lerolle in the southern corri 
 dor, a real out-door picture, and so breezy, some women 
 walking by a river. Then, in another room were Ved- 
 der's pictures, the wonderful one of the Arab listen 
 ing at the mouth of the Sphinx. And here was a very 
 striking and beautiful picture by Sprague Pearce, " The 
 Widow," her cloak covering her head and falling 
 over the child who rests in her arms. I was charmed 
 by a beautiful snow storm by Claude Monet, and a 
 lovely "Shore and Sea" with graceful ships on the 
 water. And here was Millet's "Trumpeter," the 
 American Millet's. The picture represents an old- 
 fashioned Dutch scene, the interior view of a house 
 where two men and five women are seated. The Trum 
 peter is surrounded by the women, while the other 
 men smoke in the fireplace ; the light from the fire, 
 reflected on his face, is wonderfully done. It is a 
 fine picture. 
 
 I was interested in two of Dennis Bunker's pic-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 209 
 
 tures, the artist who has lately died so young in the 
 beginning of his career ; and I liked a spirited picture 
 by Gaugengigl, of Mr. Outram Bangs as a matador, 
 also a delightful picture by Abbott Thayer. And we 
 did have a little time for the Dutch room and some 
 real Van Dycks ; one of them, " The Senator," a very 
 self-composed senator, I admired for his dignity. I 
 must not stop now to tell you more of them, for I 
 shall go again soon. Only I must speak of a lovely 
 pastel Anna and I saw one day on exhibition at 
 Williams and Everett's. It is a pastel some holly 
 hocks against a stone wall, and in front a little 
 colored girl carrying a black kitten. It has such a 
 sunny, bright look that it charmed me, especially, 
 perhaps, because its hollyhocks reminded me of those 
 against the stone wall at home. It is by Miss Ellen 
 D. Hale. 
 
 I inspired Miss Eenton with a desire to visit the 
 Art Museum, and we are to go there together soon. 
 I told her how Anna and I looked up the story of 
 Automedon. You may like to find it yourself in 
 Bryant's translation of the Iliad, the 17th Book. 
 She was much amused when she found that we had 
 also studied it up in the Greek, as much surprised, 
 perhaps, as I am at her Buddhist talk and account 
 of Madame Blavatsky ! 
 
 I had another excursion with Miss Fenton, when I 
 persuaded her to go with me to Franklin Park by 
 way of the street cars. We took a Grove Hall 
 electric, which frightened Miss Fenton a good deal, 
 and she amused me by planting her boot-heel on the 
 floor of the car, thinking she should thus escape an 
 overflow of electricity ! But she forgot her terror as 
 we went on. We reached the Park, and Miss Fenton 
 was pleased to find that there were " barges " run 
 ning, which we could take, and could be conveniently 
 
 14
 
 210 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 carried about the Park for the small sum of twenty- 
 five cents ! So we had a delightful tour and were 
 shown all the principal points of interest, passing on 
 through lovely avenues of trees, and returning to our 
 car in time to be home before sunset. 
 
 I have not had much else to do with Miss Fenton, 
 for in this lovely September weather I went to make 
 a visit to the Brands, and I was with them some days. 
 They are close upon some lovely woods, where we 
 could walk every day ; and then they took me some 
 charming drives, and I could learn all about the 
 beautiful environs of Boston, without the long drive 
 from its centre through close streets lined with 
 brick houses. We saw a wonderful illumination at 
 Waltham, over the river, one evening. 
 
 Anna and I wasted time one day in a feeble effort 
 to secure some seats for the afternoon rehearsals of 
 the Symphony Orchestra. I call it " feeble " because 
 we could have found out by inquiry that there was no 
 use in trying for them ; but when we saw $7.50 seats 
 advertised for the winter course of rehearsals, we 
 formed the brilliant plan of buying a ticket, and 
 securing one seat, and taking turns in making use of 
 it to hear the music, thus sharing the expense. But 
 anybody might have told us that we could not prac 
 tise economy this way, and that even the afternoon 
 rehearsals are an aristocratic treat and that one has 
 to pay high for the privilege of buying them. How 
 ever, we followed a little crowd Tuesday morning 
 into the Music Hall, and found our way to some 
 front seats. It was not for some time that we dis 
 covered what was really going on, and I came near 
 making a bid for a ticket that seemed to come within 
 our means, but Anna pulled my arm and pointed out 
 the placard announcing that the bids were for the 
 " premium " of each seat, to be added to its price of
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 211 
 
 $7.50. And we soon found that there was nothing 
 likely to come within our reach that day nor the 
 next, and we left, feeling, however, that we had been 
 in distinguished company. 
 
 We do not lose hope of hearing the rehearsals, 
 however, for the upper balcony will be reserved for 
 twenty-five cent tickets, and if we can only go early 
 enough we shall stand as good a chance as some 
 thousand or two others for a seat in the upper bal 
 cony, or a favorable "stand" somewhere. But we 
 had hoped to own a seat between us, which we could 
 share each afternoon, taking turns in sitting. 
 
 One afternoon lately we went to the " matinee " at 
 the Boston Theatre to see the play of "The Old 
 Homestead," and really it was great fun. The 
 Brands told me I ought to see it as presenting a true 
 picture of Vermont life, and we did enjoy it im 
 mensely. I laughed and I cried, for the scenery and 
 effect of it all is indeed charming. 
 
 There is a scene representing the old house, and a 
 well, with the well-sweep and old oaken bucket, 
 even a log lying partly chopped with a pile of chips, 
 and a churn, with pails and bee-hives ; perhaps 
 one would not see them really all together in this 
 way, but surely it is a homely scene. And would you 
 believe it ? in comes a yoke of oxen, drawing a reg 
 ular load of hay ! this did upset me, and I fell to 
 laughing and crying, I believe. I can't tell you 
 whether the New York drawing-room is as true to 
 life. It was all so very well acted, too. I do not 
 know that I shall find myself dropping in often to 
 renew my remembrances of my country home, but 
 this surely was a delightful afternoon's entertain 
 ment, and it is a pleasure to see how those quiet 
 things of home out-door life can be shown in so pic 
 turesque and dramatic a way.
 
 212 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 We hare had our visit to the Ames Building that 
 we have been planning lately. Godfrey Brand suc 
 ceeded in getting us a " permit " to go ; for it seems 
 there was such an unruly crowd pressing in to go up 
 to the top of the building that "they" have had to 
 limit the number of visitors. 
 
 Perhaps you have heard about this building, which 
 rises up, fourteen stories high, at the corner of Court 
 and Washington streets ! Happily a great many 
 elevators make it possible to reach all the different 
 numerous apartments of this building, and there is 
 besides an express elevator, that takes one straight 
 up to the top, without stopping at any offices, or 
 "stations," below. We did not have Miss Fenton 
 with us, and her smelling-bottles, but I almost felt as 
 if I needed one of them as we flew up to the top 
 with bewildering quickness. Yet I did not disgrace 
 myself by another fainting fit, for the air was very 
 refreshing as we got out upon the roof. 
 
 Here, indeed, was the whole broad roof of the 
 building for us to walk out upon, and such a magnifi 
 cent view on every side ! It was one of these beauti 
 ful September days we have had, with an east wind 
 bringing in just a delicate mist of a fog to give a soft 
 light to everything ; and the practical part of my 
 mind was much delighted by having all the numerous 
 points of view explained to me. My old friends, 
 Bunker Hill Monument and the cupola of the State 
 House, were easily seen, and the islands in the har 
 bor came most picturesquely into the view. It was, 
 indeed, all a charming sight. If I am. ever a lawyer, 
 I shall surely have an office in the top of this build 
 ing, and then if I have no clients I can solace myself 
 with this view. 
 
 Do not be afraid, my dear Kate ! I am not turning 
 my mind to any of the learned professions. Indeed,
 
 THE NEW f TARRY AND LUCY. 213 
 
 you will think I have forgotten about my University 
 plans. No, they are still seething, but I have not yet 
 decided about the courses I am to pursue. I have not 
 yet decided, either, about my boarding place for the 
 winter. I would like much to be able to go to the 
 pleasant home of the " Helping Hand " Society on 
 Charles Street, and I have been allowed to see one of 
 its comfortable rooms overlooking the Charles River, 
 and the sunset view beyond the bridge ; but if I find 
 I can afford to pay more than the low price needed 
 for board and lodging there, I feel that I ought to 
 leave the space for some one else. There are many 
 comfortable houses open to such students as myself, 
 who come to Boston for their education. I went to 
 see one of these boarding-houses the other day on 
 Berkeley Street, where perhaps I may decide to go. 
 
 I wish much, however, that I could join some such 
 arrangement as is offered by the University Settle 
 ment in New York. You know that is placed in one 
 of the poorest and most hopeless districts in New 
 York, and the workers there make of their own home 
 a central place to bring in the children, the women 
 and the families of the poorest class about them, not 
 only for entertainment, but for improvement in 
 health and cleanliness. 
 
 I would like very much, in my winter life here, to 
 be able to do something for somebody besides myself, 
 and if I had a home among a poorer class of people in 
 this way, where I could visit and help sometimes, I 
 should be consoled in thinking I was spending my 
 winter not merely in improving myself, but in being 
 of use to other people. I have come out from my 
 own home life, and have not any of its duties to 
 occupy my time, and surely I ought to be able to find 
 some leisure time to give to others. I have felt it the 
 last week or two, when I have been going round
 
 214 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 vaguely amusing myself, and to one entertainment 
 after another. To be sure, we have been having a 
 back-ground of study, with our French lessons and 
 with my University preparation. But I am quite 
 longing for my course of study to begin, when I shall 
 have my regular hours for going to recitations and 
 lectures, leaving me certain allotted hours for other 
 interests. 
 
 If I cannot find any boarding place on the Univer 
 sity Settlement plan, I think to ask permission to 
 give my services to the Associated Charities institu 
 tion. These charities are carried on on so liberal a 
 principle that I am sure I shall be glad to work with 
 them. The different visitors take charge of certain 
 families, for whom they become responsible. They 
 are not to provide for their needs, but they are to 
 find out when they need sympathy and are ready 
 with advice. They help the heads of the families to 
 put aside their money in savings, and I do not see 
 why they cannot work to encourage the Neighborhood 
 Guilds, of which I am reading and which I am much 
 interested in. These are intended to keep up the 
 home and social life of a neighborhood ; clubs can be 
 formed of members of a family, of young women, or 
 young men ; but, besides, social meetings are pro 
 posed, so that a small community can feel that it is 
 working together, and that its members are not mere 
 beneficiaries helped by other people and mere objects 
 of charity, but as if they contributed to the life of all. 
 
 I have had a chance to talk with many of the de 
 voted workers for the "Associated Charities." One 
 advantage of this work is that it is " associated." 
 They know of all other work going on in the same 
 direction. They keep record of all applications made 
 to other societies, so that they become acquainted with 
 the regular " mendicants " that go from one benevo-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 215 
 
 lent society to another for mere temporary relief. 
 When I talk with one of the workers in this society, 
 I wish I were five or six young women, instead of 
 being only one, that I might offer a dozen more hands 
 and half a dozen more heads instead of my little one 
 for their service. 
 
 I have been reading an interesting article by Miss 
 Octavia Hill in the " Nineteenth Century." on " Deal 
 ing with the Poor," where she speaks earnestly of the 
 advantage of co-operation in all the numerous schemes 
 for improving the condition of the poor. In the 
 same magazine we found the account given by 
 Francis Galton of " Identification by Finger-tips." 
 You have probably read the notices of his statements 
 of this "visible token of identity " which he describes, 
 finding it in the marks on the tips of the fingers, and 
 as persisting throughout the whole of a man's life. 
 
 We were much amused at his suggestions of its 
 utility ; but how convenient it will be, if they can 
 only carry out the discoveries a little further ! Gal- 
 ton gives a description of a convenient apparatus to 
 use in recording the impressions taken from the 
 finger-tips, in what he calls "finger-printing." But 
 will they not in time invent some kind of sealing-wax 
 that can be used without burning the fingers ? And 
 then we can make our own impressions from our 
 fingers in sealing our letters ! Think of the value of 
 such an impression ! It will be truly a signet, not of 
 any fanciful family coat-of-arms, but our own per 
 sonal signet, an impression of my own fingers, that 
 cannot be forged or mistaken ! You must imagine 
 such a signature to this letter !
 
 216 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 XX. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, Sept. 27, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, We have had a lovely day, 
 and I know how you have enjoyed it at home. I wish 
 I could see your maples and chestnuts as they begin 
 to take on their fiery colors. You see I am back 
 in good Mrs. Metcalf s. I broke camp at Cambridge 
 on Wednesday for two excellent reasons. 
 
 First, the college term begins next Thursday, so that 
 they wanted my room there, unless I wanted to enter 
 as a special student in making clothes-pins or some 
 other art or science. Second, that I had told Mrs. 
 Metcalf that when the " family " came back from 
 Swampscott with her, I would come too. We thought 
 then that this would be cool weather. In truth, it is 
 as hot as blazes. The " family " would be happier at 
 Swampscott, and I at Cambridge. But we cannot all 
 have what we want to have. So here I am, mos 
 quitoes, thermometer at ninety, and everything else 
 to make one comfortable. 
 
 The weather is still so like summer that we keep 
 up our out-of-town excursions. Saturday afternoon, 
 you know, we have free ; and I had ventured to ask 
 Miss Brand and Miss Sandford if they would not like 
 to go and see the Middlesex Fells. The Middlesex 
 Fells are, or is, a bit of forest, rock and wilderness, 
 which has not been broken into in two hundred and 
 fifty years, since old Governor Winthrop ate some
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 217 
 
 bread and cheese there. A gentleman named Wright 
 made a vigorous effort to have it retained as a sort of 
 State park. He is dead, and I believe nobody cares 
 anything about it now. But all the same, it has not 
 yet been cut into building lots. 
 
 Saturday was a charming day. It was very hot in 
 the morning, but in the afternoon we got an east 
 wind, or what the newspapers call an " anti-cyclonic 
 reaction from the Atlantic Ocean." As a matter of 
 practice, I am rather glad I do not have to say this 
 every time I want to say " east wind." 
 
 We met by agreement opposite Winthrop's statue in 
 Scollay Square and took one of the street cars. There 
 was a Maiden car just ahead of us, and our first 
 adventure was in Charlestown, when one of the 
 horses on that car fell down, almost dead. I suppose 
 that is what happens on these hot days, with these 
 relentless loads ; but that poor dying horse, which, in 
 a way, had died that people like us might have a 
 pleasant afternoon, was a sad sight as we passed by. 
 It made me long for the time when cars worked by 
 steam power, cable cars, or electric cars, might take 
 the place of these horse cars. Our car was terribly 
 overloaded ; we stopped on Winter Hill, which I 
 remember reading about in the Revolutionary books, 
 and when the horses started again it was really 
 terrible to see their struggles before the thing would 
 
 go. 
 
 You pass near enough to the Tufts College build 
 ings to see what a nice establishment that is. I 
 hardly knew the name of the place before. There is 
 a beautiful chapel, which perhaps is the finest build 
 ing of them all. One of the antiquities of Medford is 
 the old Cradock house, but that we did not see. We 
 did pass the old Eoyall house, which has nothing to 
 do with royalty, but with a certain Colonel Eoyall.
 
 218 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 He built the house, copying the house of a nobleman 
 pf Antigua, but he was so far true to his name that he 
 went off to Halifax at the beginning of the Revolution 
 and afterwards sailed to England. Tory or not, he 
 said in a letter which we found in the history of 
 Medford, " I shall leave North America with great 
 reluctance, but my health and business require it, and 
 I hope, through the goodness of God, if my life is 
 spared, to be able to return soon." All the same, the 
 State confiscated his property as the property of a 
 Tory, and he never did return. But when he died he 
 left twenty thousand acres of land to Harvard College 
 for a professorship of law, and out of this the 
 Harvard Law School was born. 
 
 At Medford Square we left the car, as I had been 
 instructed by Mr. Outlake, and walked right over to 
 the Fells. It is not a long walk, and both my young 
 ladies were country-bred, so that they were not afraid 
 of it. For the first time this year I was tempted by hard 
 apples lying along in the lane. You know they say 
 that evolutionists call the longing for green apples 
 atavism, or a retrogression to the appetite of our 
 ancestors, when they all ate vegetables. 
 
 When we got fairly into the wild region, first of all 
 we climbed a little hill, which had a fine view south 
 and east. The " gilded dome " shone out bright and 
 clear. Then we had a regular ramble through the 
 woods, and I might have fancied myself in Atherton. 
 Miss Sandford said it was " Astney again." It 
 seemed so like home to be walking over the light soil 
 of pine needles and leaves. There is nothing in the 
 Fells which compares with one of our mountain 
 climbs, but still the whole region is rocky and 
 picturesque. A part of it has been taken for some 
 sort of water-works, so that you stumble on a gate 
 house when you suppose you are in the midst of a
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 219 
 
 swamp. But they have not spoiled it, and it would be 
 pretty hard for them to spoil it. Spot Pond, which is 
 almost wholly surrounded by the woody region that 
 we call Middlesex Fells, is one of the really beautiful 
 ponds. I believe it comes in, somehow or other, into 
 the system of the water-works, and Mr. Outlake told 
 me that it was regarded, at the time when the water 
 works were built as having the very purest water of 
 any pond in eastern Massachusetts. It has proved 
 since, he says, that this purity or non-purity of the 
 water depends on certain general laws ; and that, 
 as you approach the sea, it is more and more af 
 fected, no one knows exactly why ; so that a pond 
 on the top of your hills at Atherton is necessarily 
 purer than a pond here. But the great point is to keep 
 them free from surface drainage, and one of the 
 great advantages of making a State park of Middle 
 sex Fells would be that the water in Spot Pond 
 would be preserved uncontaminated. 
 
 But I need not say to you that Miss Brand and Miss 
 Sandford and I did not discuss questions of hygiene 
 nor the chemical composition of water. We had a 
 regular old-fashioned Vermont time. We made Miss 
 Brand confess that the way to spend every day of 
 September and October was to spend it in the open 
 air. I told them that Boston was as good a place for 
 country life as Astney was, if you would only think 
 so. They were ready enough to assent to this some 
 what bold proposal ; but I should think that, like all 
 other Boston girls, they were laying out for them 
 selves this winter enough work for fourteen strong 
 women to carry through. At any rate, there was 
 great talk about Associated Charities and University 
 Settlements and other things which made me hold my 
 breath. I understood some of them and did not under 
 stand some of them ; I only saw that they were quite
 
 220 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 eager to put the whole world in apple-pie order. Do 
 you remember your old story of the lady who looked 
 so unhappy because she could not make everybody 
 happy ? I should say that her sin was rather the sin 
 of the general run of the conscientious women who 
 make up the feminine life of Boston, so far as it shows 
 itself to an outsider. 
 
 I note what my dear Nahum says about leaving 
 school. When I was at his age I told our dear father 
 the same thing ; and he said to me that I must stay 
 at the High School two years. I was wild to go off, 
 as Nahum is, and try my fortune at Burlington or at 
 St. John. Father said to me, in substance, that there 
 are two sorts of men in the world, those who tell 
 other people what to do, and those who do what they 
 are told to do. He told me that I was to stay at the 
 High School, because he did not want me to belong 
 through my life to class number two. He did not 
 so much as ask me whether I wished to stay or not ; 
 but I stayed. 
 
 That is the reason why Nahum must stay. And I 
 tell him to stay the more readily because of a talk I 
 had in the street car, the other day, with one of our 
 directors who has been kind to me, and, I think, likes 
 me. He asked how the office liked being moved from 
 Leeds to Boston, and then told how he came himself. 
 He said : " I am the regular mill-boy of the story 
 books, only I never was in a mill. I am the boy who 
 walks to Boston with a quarter in his pocket when 
 he comes in." 
 
 Here I pricked up my ears, for I was thinking of 
 Nahum. Mr. Welsh went on with his story and said 
 that his mother wanted him to stay at school, but he 
 thought he knew better. So he started to find his 
 fortunes. Well, he found they were very small 
 fortunes. Glad to get three dollars a week and to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 221 
 
 spend it all for his board, he was. The truth was 
 there was nothing he could do that other people could 
 not do better. He was, however,* too proud to go 
 home. And the upshot of it was that he had to put 
 himself night after night at evening schools here, so 
 that he could make any show at all. " Four winters, 
 Mr. Merton," he said, "I slaved at the evening 
 schools, three hours a night, counting my study at 
 home. I could not go to the theatre or to a concert. 
 I made all my visits Saturday and Sunday evenings, 
 so that I might make up what my mother had wanted 
 me to do at home." And he said he was much obliged 
 for the evening-school system ; but if he had not been 
 a fool of the first order, he should not have needed 'to 
 resort to it. And I should think that after a boy had 
 done what he had to do all day, handling casks and 
 barrels and boxes with his own hands, running freight 
 elevators, standing over stevedores with the ther 
 mometer at fifteen below zero, he would not have had 
 much heart for his algebra or his French. 
 
 I found Mr. Welsh was curious about Mr. Price 
 Hughes, the English preacher. So I asked him to 
 come to church with me to-day, and he did. The 
 church was crowded. People said it began to look 
 like regular work again. I was glad to help the 
 ushers, who were hard-worked, and so I got Mr. Welsh 
 a good seat. As for me, I was glad to stand. 
 
 Mr. Hughes does not look as I supposed he was 
 going to. He is a very efficient working minister in 
 London, but he looks more like a college man, a sort 
 of scholarly look, wears his beard, with a small 
 moustache, and spectacles. But you very soon forget 
 how he looks. He is very wide-awake and strong. 
 His sermon was " Thy will be done ; as in heaven, so 
 on earth." And it was just the sort of sermon that 
 you would like.
 
 222 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 " We are not under any obligation to wear sandals 
 because Jesus Christ wore them." There was that 
 sort of " horse sense " in the whole thing, enough to 
 show that he was used to dealing with men and women 
 right in the midst of life, and was not satisfied with 
 any studies of the Dark Ages or any other ages. I 
 was particularly taken by the point that God's will 
 must be done among men on earth, and not in any 
 cloister or hermit's cell, as we think Catholics believe, 
 and for that matter not to be done in Paradise, as, 
 perhaps, Protestants believe. It has got to be done 
 here I suppose in the making of clothes-pins or the 
 washing of clothes precisely as it is done in heaven. 
 
 It was very clear that he interested the people, and 
 Mr. Welsh was very glad he went. I shall try to go 
 Tuesday night to hear him again. I was glad to see 
 so many sensible people there, who, I think, will give 
 him a good welcome here. 
 
 I wrote all this before going to church in the even 
 ing. I have been round again, and our own Dr. Haynes 
 preached. As the Western man said, for a steady 
 drink he is good enough for tne; and I should not 
 have minded even if we had not had the evangelist in 
 the morning. But I suppose I am old-fashioned and 
 do not care for variations on Sunday. He talked 
 about publicans and sinners. I suppose the sermon 
 was not meant for me, because he said directly that he 
 was not talking to boys or girls or to women, but to 
 hard-headed men, men of middle age. He had plenty 
 of them there to hear him. Indeed, I was rather sur 
 prised when an English gentleman, who came into the 
 office the other day and was talking with Mr. Welsh, 
 said that a great many more men came to church in 
 America, he thought, than were in the habit of coming 
 in England. He said also, what I should not have be-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 223 
 
 lieved from hearing Mr. Hughes, that the English 
 preacher condescends in speaking to his audience. He 
 laughed and said that in a high-and-dry church you 
 would hear a man in a very white surplice say in a 
 patronizing way to the congregation : " You may not 
 be aware, my dear friends, that many centuries ago 
 the wickedness of the world was such that the great 
 God was obliged to wash it out by a universal deluge. 
 It will be of interest to you to know that He preserved 
 one chosen family of those who had not bowed the 
 knee to false idols, and who were to be the seed of His 
 true church, by the remarkable expedient of placing 
 them in an ark, together with all the animals the lives 
 of which he wished to preserve. The history of the 
 ark is very curious and interesting," and so on and 
 so on. 
 
 Certainly that is not the way that Dr. Haynes talks 
 to us, nor was it the way that Mr. Hughes talked, 
 and I do not hear much preaching in that line. Dr. 
 Haynes described Jesus' supping with the publicans 
 and talking with Matthew. " If Jesus should come 
 to-day, he would surely be found down in the Stock 
 Exchange and in State Street." "The Whitechapel 
 of society in America is not at the lower end ; it is at 
 the upper end." "Men like to see how a theory 
 works. If you object to creeds, come to the example of 
 how the creeds work ; come to the life of Jesus itself." 
 
 But I am afraid you have found out before this, 
 dear Mother, that I am sleepy ; and I shall follow 
 your great gospel of going to bed when I am sleepy, 
 and preach my own sermon from the text, " If he 
 sleep he shall do well." 
 
 Tuesday morning. 
 
 I meant to have written you, dear Mother, last 
 night ; but I was " dead beat," and following up the
 
 224 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 gospel with which. I closed Sunday night, I went to 
 bed as soon as Mrs. Metcalf would let me ; and I am 
 much more fit to write to you now, before breakfast, 
 than I should have been if I had tried before. 
 
 You see we had or we thought we had on the 
 Pavonia, which came in yesterday, some friends of the 
 Outlakes, a Mr. and Mrs. Fordyce whom they met in 
 Switzerland. Mr. Outlake, by way of hospitality, 
 wanted to have some one meet them, and I was sent 
 over, which was good luck for me ; for it was a good 
 place to spend some hours of a deadly hot day. I do 
 not dare tell you how hot it was on the sunny side of 
 our office. 
 
 It is a very curious business, and, as dear Dr. Prim 
 rose would say, " very instructive." You see she had 
 the Pavonia, I mean nearly a thousand passen 
 gers. It was a town afloat, and a bigger town than 
 Atherton at that. More than half of these people 
 were steerage passengers, which means people from 
 every country in the world, who have come over to 
 become Americans. Of course, I knew the Fordyces 
 were not there. Between first and second-class cabin 
 passengers I did not pretend to discriminate. 
 
 But there is a handy printed list of first-class pas 
 sengers ; and it was easy enough to find that among 
 the F's there were no Fordyces. I found the purser, 
 and he said that at the last moment, almost, they 
 changed their tickets. So I had nothing to do but to 
 watch the others. And just as I was crowding around 
 some people who spoke a language I could not speak 
 nor understand, and which no one else could speak or 
 understand, who should I run against but my nice, 
 pretty Miss Lucy Sandford, who had come across a 
 Swedish woman who wanted to meet her brother and 
 her sister. We found them easily enough, and a very 
 pretty scene it was, the hugging and kissing and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 225 
 
 general joy as they met, after I do not know how 
 long. While they were occupied in their caresses, 
 and while we were waiting for the Custom House 
 people to be sure whether they had or had not brought 
 any brandy or diamonds, or tin plate, I suppose, 
 Miss Sandford and I had a chance to study other 
 romances of which there were a plenty. 
 
 For, really, a great many of these people land as if 
 they were in a wilderness. I saw a man w^th a gun 
 and a shot-belt, who really thought, I believe, that he 
 was going to kill his own rabbits and partridges as he 
 walked up to the State House. Poor fellow ! I am 
 afraid he saw nothing but sparrows, and the policemen 
 would not let him shoot them. 
 
 The whole scene is chaotic enough. But there 
 were over nine hundred and fifty intelligent people 
 or people of more or less intelligence who were try 
 ing to bring out order enough for their own purposes. 
 There were fifty or sixty officers and as many team 
 sters and as many hack-drivers who are glorified 
 teamsters trying to do the same thing, and among 
 us all we succeeded after a fashion. The Swedish 
 friends bade us good-by with many broad grins and 
 expressions of gratitude, and Miss Sanford and I 
 were left to find our way over to the city together. 
 
 You see all this happened at East Boston, which 
 is your old Noddle's Island, where you went on the 
 lobster picnic of your famous stay. 
 
 I finish this broken letter after coming home from 
 Worcester. Perhaps you saw that the Democratic 
 convention met there. Do not think I went. No 
 constituency is, as yet, so far advanced as to invite 
 me to go. And though I had so manly a look, which 
 generally savored of good-will to man, that the ticket- 
 man offered me a cheap return ticket, I was obliged
 
 226 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 to confess that no such honor belonged to me. By 
 the way, is it not a little curious that, seeing there is 
 such a row about free passes when they are given to 
 men in the legislature, every convention of every party 
 should insist on having what is virtually a free pass 
 that is to say, half rates when people meet annually 
 for partisan purposes. The legislator is sworn to be 
 impartial. These delegates are not sworn. In fact, 
 they go bgcause they are not impartial, because they 
 are partisans. But they must have free tickets all 
 round, while the poor senator or representative must 
 not touch one with one of his fingers. 
 
 But I do not often write politics to you. No, I did 
 not go near the convention, having more attractive 
 temptations. I knew that Miss Sandford and her 
 friend, Miss Brand, were going to Worcester, if it 
 were pleasant, to the Commencement of the new 
 college, Clark University. And when I found in 
 the morning that there was really nothing to do on 
 our side of the office, I asked for an afternoon off, 
 thinking I would go to the Commencement too. It 
 is the college where William Stevens thought he 
 might get the professorship of English Literature. 
 Perhaps he would; but they have not yet appointed 
 any such professor. Well, Mr. Outlake said "of 
 course," and I slipped off. I had just time to slam 
 over to Kneeland Street in a herdic, and took the 
 train just as it started. I found my ladies, without 
 Godfrey as it happened, so that I had the pleasure 
 of being of some use as escort. The day was splen 
 did, though hot like all the week so far. It is an in 
 teresting 'ride and the outlook is pretty. I tried to 
 show them my pet lions. The soldier was not visible, 
 however. About six miles out from Boston, you see 
 the only soldier the United States maintains on the 
 mainland of Massachusetts if you look sharp enough.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 227 
 
 He is the sentinel at the Watertown Arsenal. And 
 every day he has to put on his white cotton gloves 
 and take his empty musket and walk up and down 
 outside the gate there because in the days of chiv 
 alry it was necessary to keep a lookout at Tamworth 
 Castle ! At least, I do not know any other reason. 
 Sometimes he is tired of walking and stands still. 
 Then I call him our standing army. Tuesday we 
 did not see him at all. Perhaps in the freedom of 
 opinion, he asked for a day off, as I did, and went to 
 the Democratic convention. 
 
 The Clark University is an enormous building, with 
 lecture rooms, laboratory, and all that, I should think 
 a mile south of Worcester Common. I got the ladies 
 out from the crush of people who surrounded a very 
 gorgeous brass bantl, with blue and white uniforms 
 and a magnificent drum major; and we worked our 
 way without difficulty to the right place. But it 
 proved we were two hours too early for the ceremony, 
 so we had a chance to see the Worcester lions, and 
 Miss Brand led the way at once quite to the other end 
 of the town, to Antiquarian Hall. 
 
 You never know where to find things ; but Mr. 
 Outlake had told me, if I went to Worcester, to see 
 Michael Angelo's Moses and his Jesus Christ. He 
 said the only copies in America were here ; and these 
 not at any art museum or church, but at Antiquarian 
 Hall. I thought that would please Dr. Primrose, and, 
 indeed, anybody who thought seriously. It seems to 
 say in such a straightforward way that American his 
 tory is born from the laws of Moses and the life of 
 Christ. But they have a thousand other things to 
 interest you at "The Antiquarian" and are awfully 
 good to visitors. They have the largest collection of 
 newspaper volumes in America, and some of the very 
 earliest. They have wonderful illustrations of Cen-
 
 228 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 tral America, and are, indeed, the people who carry on 
 explorations there. We were sorry we had taken so 
 much time for our lunch and that we could not stay 
 there longer. 
 
 But at three we had to be at the other end of the 
 town, at Clark University. There is an electric car, 
 "the spinner," all along the street from one end to 
 the other. Here we climbed to the top of another 
 high-story-call building and found four or five hun 
 dred people assembled for the Commencement. It is 
 the only college I know of where the Commencement 
 is at the beginning of the term and not at the end. 
 Dr. Hall, the president, is the " Education " man, 
 Dr. Stanley Hall. Don't you remember his lovely 
 articles in Scribner's about the sand town with wooden 
 inhabitants that those boys established civil govern 
 ment in? 
 
 Well, the Commencement also differed from other 
 Commencements in other respects. Instead of having 
 a lot of boys tell you, in periods of eleven minutes, 
 seven minutes, or thirteen, according to their rank, a 
 lot of things about which they knew nothing, you had 
 here a lot of men to tell you what they did know. 
 First and chiefly, their wide-awake president. He 
 startled everybody, I think, by saying and showing 
 that this is the most remarkable year ever known in 
 the history of organized education. " Ever known ! " 
 Think of that ! He proved it too. 
 
 After him Colonel Hopkins spoke on Governor 
 Davis, and after him our Boston man, Doctor Hale, 
 on Doctor Sargent. Those are two of the trustees 
 who have died. Then Doctor Carter, president of 
 Williams College, made a very interesting address. 
 What pleased me was that one of the Catholic priests 
 offered the opening prayer, and the whole congrega 
 tion joined him in the Lord's Prayer. That did seem
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 229 
 
 catholic. I had never heard a Catholic priest offer 
 prayer in our language before. 
 
 Well, you see it was a very good time. The young 
 ladies met their friend at the college ; they showed us 
 round a little ; and at half-past eight I was at home, 
 and now am going to bed. 
 
 Dear Mother, I am always yours, 
 
 HAKKY.
 
 230 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTEE EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, Oct. 7, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I have been so occupied in 
 these beautiful September days that I hardly find 
 time to write you my history ; yet I feel that I must 
 send it to you, even if for nothing more than to see 
 how much I can remember of the impressions I have 
 taken as the days go by, and because I have promised 
 to write you of what I am seeing in Boston. I almost 
 feel as if I might persuade even you that this is the 
 place for you to come and live in. 
 
 We had a most enjoyable time the other day at the 
 Old State House, built, as you remember, in 1748, on 
 the spot where the first Town House stood. Every 
 Bostonian ought to go there ; for here are collected 
 many valuable relics of the olden time, hundreds of 
 things of interest that we stopped to look at and talk 
 about. We saw some very interesting portraits; in 
 particular one of stern old Cotton Mather, and we 
 were surprised to see what a genial man he seemed. 
 We thought him almost worldly looking, with a fine, 
 curly wig, and a generally stylish look. We wondered 
 if some of these imposing-looking worthies would not, 
 indeed, be disappointed if they had to come back to 
 the present day and show themselves to their friends 
 without their majestic wigs. It is no wonder, per 
 haps, that the youthful generation no longer look up 
 to their elders with the same awe that the young peo-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 231 
 
 pie must have felt in the older days, when they had to 
 come into the presence of these dignified beings. 
 
 There was also a picture of Edward Bromfield, who 
 was born and died in the first house built on Beacon 
 Street. Could he have been aware of what a distinc 
 tion it was to give him ? glory enough for one man. 
 There is also a portrait of a most " fetching " girl, if 
 you can imagine such a thing in these olden days. 
 Only she did not belong quite as far back as the days 
 of Cotton Mather, or she might have been counted 
 among the "witches." But she is dressed very styl 
 ishly, and looks as if she were used to being admired. 
 We were not surprised to read under it this title : " A 
 noted Boston Beauty, Anne Black, who married a 
 Blake in 1800." She has a most coquettish, yet rather 
 winsome face. There is a handsome painting of 
 Josiah Quincy by Gilbert Stuart, a refined, delicate 
 face, and a striking picture of Edward Everett. 
 
 In the large front room is a full-length portrait, 
 also of later days, of that most magnificent lady, Mrs. 
 Harrison Gray Otis, by Healy. A stranger can see 
 that she was a woman of a very strong personality, 
 and one does not wonder that she presided over a 
 salon and held position in society, where she was fond 
 of displaying a wide hospitality. And she showed 
 her influence not merely in society ; for in the days of 
 the Civil War she was active in helping to promote 
 the gatherings of women assembled to work for the 
 soldiers. She is represented with one shapely hand 
 resting on a book and the other hanging gracefully. 
 Her dress is very elegant, with lace stripes. If I had 
 been told this was the picture of an imperial or royal 
 lady, I should not have been surprised. 
 
 Then there were many older things of interest ; a 
 fac-simile of an invitation to attend the funeral of 
 Sir William Phipps, a most gruesome affair, sur-
 
 232 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 rounded by death's heads and solemn mottoes, one of 
 which was, " Kemember to Die." Here was the Liberty 
 Tree lantern, used at the repeal of the Stamp Act, and a 
 fine old eight-day clock that belonged to Matthew Byles, 
 of whom my father used to tell entertaining stories. 
 This bore the date of 1750. There was also a heavy old 
 chair that looks as if it would never wear out, made of 
 wood from the ship " Resolute." Another old chair be 
 longed to Elbridge Gerry. There is, too, a very old 
 picture of the battle of Bunker Hill. One reads, 
 printed under the picture, the words, "The late bat 
 tle : 700 Provincials against 11 regular regiments." 
 Besides all these, there was a queer old cannon, that 
 we were told was fired by Lafayette, when he visited 
 Boston in 1824. 
 
 Then it was exciting to see a fan belonging to 
 Agnes Surriage, and to have the feeling suddenly that 
 she is a real person and did not live merely in the 
 book where we read about her. It was just a simple- 
 looking, little paper fan, such as we might buy for a 
 small sum at Houghton and Button's ; but how valu 
 able it seemed to our eyes, because it had been carried 
 by a regular heroine of romance ! 
 
 There were many pictures of old buildings in Bos 
 ton that are now destroyed. We saw some beautiful 
 tiles taken from the John Hancock house. I have 
 been told much of the regret that this house no longer 
 exists. It was very picturesque, and a most interest 
 ing memento of the olden times. It stood on Beacon 
 Street, a little below the State House, standing back 
 from the street, and you went up to it from a series of 
 green terraces. It was of gray stone with white fac 
 ings, and it would have been indeed an ornament in 
 these present days, in place of the modern row of 
 brick houses that takes its place. 
 
 The room called Curtis Hall contained many inter-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 233 
 
 esting engravings. One colored print was very strik 
 ing, representing Washington in Trenton after the 
 Revolution. Washington was riding down the street 
 on a white horse, and hundreds of people, blacks, 
 whites and Indians, were evidently hurrying along, 
 with crowds of ladies throwing flowers in front of 
 him. This picture was greatly admired by some 
 schoolboys who gazed at it for a long time ; and I felt 
 as if I ought to look up some of my Vacation School 
 boys to interest them in these bits of history and give 
 them some idea of the lives of these heroes. 
 
 In the same hall was Benjamin Franklin's printing- 
 press, a queer old affair, now brown with age, 
 with fac-similes of the papers he printed. And here, 
 as a bit of later history, was a fine print showing the 
 opening of the Cochituate water-works, and I remem 
 bered how my father has told me that he was present 
 at this great celebration, for such indeed it was, 
 when an immense crowd collected, filling the Common, 
 to see the white column of water rise slowly up, 
 higher and higher, from the Frog Pond below, in the 
 midst of the shouts and admiration and wonder of the 
 people below, who could now really believe that Lake 
 Cochituate had come to Boston. 
 
 There were a number of people in the rooms, men, 
 women and children, all going about and deeply inter 
 ested. I have only picked out a few of the hundred 
 things to tell you about. The building itself has been 
 restored to as near its original condition as it was possi 
 ble to make it. Even the carved figures of the lion and 
 unicorn that originally decorated it have been replaced 
 there. The Boston Massacre occurred in front of its 
 doors. In it Samuel Adams said Independence was 
 born. In October, 1789, Washington received the 
 greetings of the people from a balcony at the west 
 end. In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was
 
 234 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 read from its balcony. I think it ought to be repeated 
 from that place every Fourth of July nowadays. 
 
 I have given you all this account because looking 
 into the past is so much in contrast with the other 
 life that I am having here, in the world outside of 
 Boston and in its present history. We have still con 
 tinued to take delightful excursions into the beautiful 
 suburbs ; and if I could tell you all that we have done 
 in these wanderings you would not believe that I 
 have really begun my university life and rank myself 
 again a schoolgirl. 
 
 Admitted ? Yes ; but I feel that I must do a deal 
 of studying to keep myself along in the ranks. My 
 hours are not yet absolutely arranged, so I am taking 
 advantage still of these wonderful summer-autumn 
 days to continue our outings. But I cannot take time 
 to tell of our delightful day at Middlesex Fells, north 
 of Boston, where we could really believe we were 
 miles away from a city and from universities and from 
 old histories of the past. I do not know but Mr. Mer- 
 ton and I tired out our companion, Rosamond Brand, 
 in talking about Vermont and its woods and hills, and 
 in comparing our life here with the home life there. 
 I really think the excursion was a very great help to 
 me, as I was worrying a little about my university 
 work, and it was delightful to fling all my thoughts 
 and doubts to the winds and have a day out of town. 
 This I owe to Mr. Merton ; for he insisted upon it 
 that we ought to take this day for an excursion, and 
 he quite jeered at us for plodding on at work. 
 
 And I don't know but he likes to jeer at me for my 
 desire to mingle all kinds of life with my student life 
 in Boston. He says we are all trying to do too much 
 here. I have ventured to speak but little to him of 
 my plans for doing something to help the many, who 
 are struggling here to live, just to live a little more
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 235 
 
 happily, by working with the Associated Charities. 
 As soon as I begin to talk about it I feel as if it were 
 very conceited of me to think that I can accomplish 
 anything. Still, I cannot content myself with the 
 idea of giving myself up merely to a student's life, and 
 of shutting myself up with books for my own personal 
 education. 
 
 Even with all this explanation I am afraid you will 
 think my life just now is, in truth, a "gadding" one; 
 but we do find so much to think about in our visits to 
 the interesting places here that I must write you 
 about them. For example, we had a delightful day in 
 the Egyptian Room at the beautiful Art Museum. I 
 told you that I had inspired Miss Fenton with a de 
 sire to go there with me some day ; and I find that 
 she is deeply interested in Egyptian things. She 
 heard all of Miss Edwards's lectures about Egypt, and 
 reads everything she can get hold of on the subject of 
 its antiquities. This is all delightful to me, although 
 I am very much behind her in knowledge of Egypt. 
 We had such a delightful morning together that she is 
 very excited about it all and is really beginning to 
 plan for a winter, when she " will take me up the 
 Nile with her!" Do not be frightened; for I am 
 sure I am not yet done with Boston and its present 
 and its past. 
 
 I took to Miss Fenton the catalogue of the Museum 
 of Fine Arts, and after looking at it, she immediately 
 decided what she wanted to do. It is really a bit of 
 education to be with her in this way. For she not 
 only knew, but she could explain to me what we had 
 better do and why it was a good thing to do it. She 
 pointed out to me that we should get a real bit of his 
 tory if we went directly to the Egyptian Room, con 
 taining the Egyptian casts. This would give us the 
 connected history of Egyptian portraiture. The cata-
 
 236 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 logue shows admirably how thoroughly Egyptian this 
 study of portraiture is, and how important it is to un 
 derstand it. The Egyptian was not satisfied with 
 embalming his body, which might be easily destroyed ; 
 he had buried with him a statue of wood or stone, 
 evidently a portrait of himself. In this way are pre 
 served these lifelike representations. 
 
 Just think of going into this room to find arranged 
 in order a series of casts of their statues and portraits, 
 with photographs of those that could not be repro 
 duced ! Here was the statue of King Chephren, who 
 lived about 3660 B. c. ; and yet, only the other day, I 
 was filled with wonder at the portraits of men of 
 scarcely two hundred years ago. Here he stands in 
 full vigor, with head erect, and by his side another 
 king, Hosi. The face in all these portraits is given in 
 profile, the eye in full front ; the chest and shoulders 
 are in front view, while the legs and feet are in 
 profile ; for this is the Egyptian fashion. Hosi, too, 
 lived between 4000 and 3500 B. c. And then come 
 reliefs from the tomb of Ti. He was an Egyptian 
 gentleman. I remember the interesting account that 
 Miss Edwards gives of him in her book of Nile 
 travels. Here are pictures of farm life, even of 
 milking the cows, with the calves tied to tufts of 
 grass, all reminding me of the homely scenes I wrote 
 you of, that we saw at the theatre, on the stage, in 
 the representation of " The Old Homestead." Old 
 and new scenes, so far apart in time, yet so alike ! 
 Here is the driving home of the cattle, with the ante 
 lopes, asses, storks, and geese drawn like life, the 
 herdsman bearing the calf on his shoulders. I think 
 I must send you the catalogue itself ; for it gives such 
 an interesting description and explanation of it all. 
 
 And you will see how this valuable record is kept 
 up chronologically; for next we came farther down
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 237 
 
 to 2430 B. c. to a funeral stele, representing a long 
 funeral procession. It records the name of the de 
 ceased, with a prayer to some god that he would 
 supply provisions and all things necessary for the 
 support of the Ka, or soul, of the dead, his spirit, for 
 which he is so anxious always to provide. But I 
 cannot give you a list of the busts and statues. Miss 
 Fenton is intensely interested in all that explains the 
 religion of the Egyptians, and she likes to study up 
 everything that tells of this wonderful care that 
 every Egyptian showed in providing for the suste 
 nance of this Ka, or spirit. 
 
 But I must speak of a row of queens who are 
 shown by their busts ; among them the queen Taia, 
 wife of Amenophis III., who was a Syrian princess, 
 and was painted with light hair and blue eyes. If I 
 was thrilled, as I told you, by seeing actually the 
 picture of Anne Black, who lived as lately as the 
 beginning of this century, you can imagine how I 
 felt in looking at the portrait of a queen who lived 
 over three thousand years ago ! She was one of the 
 most brilliant monarchs who sat upon the Egyptian 
 throne. Women had great power in Egypt ; and 
 Miss Fenton told me how, in one of her lectures, 
 Miss Edwards read some documents to show that, at 
 one period in the earliest times, when a woman was 
 married the property was settled upon her, and out of 
 it she fixed a pension to be granted to her husband 
 during his life. This shows that a woman's house 
 keeping talent was recognized then in its widest 
 sense. 
 
 We stopped a long time to study the long relief 
 that shows the wars of King Seti, about 1350 B. c. 
 These are found on the walls of Karnak. The figure 
 of the king is distinguished by his great size, far 
 above the other men or his enemies ; the artist has
 
 238 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 also elongated the bodies and legs of the horses as well 
 as of the human figures. After this comes the bust of 
 the great King Barneses, the famous conqueror, whose 
 portraits appear on monuments in every part of 
 Egypt ; and he is the hero of the great figure, I re 
 member, of which Miss Edwards gives such an inter 
 esting account in her book of Nile travels. Then we 
 passed on to later dates, 666 or 358 B. c., that seem 
 quite modern in comparison with those older ones till 
 we remember the Old State House and our respect for 
 these younger dates of Boston ; and then one begins 
 to touch Greek art and "Roman emperors, and there 
 is a whole history between. The way is to read Miss 
 Edwards's Nile travels before going to this room, and 
 then to take it up afterwards and to study the cata 
 logue carefully while examining the portraits, not 
 overlooking the photographs, which give copies of the 
 very earliest figures. And after all this study we can 
 comprehend a little the list of the kings that Miss 
 Edwards gives at the end of her book ; so that, with 
 just this study of these portraits, one can begin to 
 understand something of Egyptian history. For this 
 is just the beginning, Miss Fenton and I have agreed. 
 She has more leisure to give to this work than Anna 
 has, so I am charmed at the idea of having her as a 
 companion some day again. 
 
 To all of which I must add an interesting episode. 
 Our old housekeeper here has lately been training a 
 Swedish girl as chambermaid, and I have been inter 
 ested in talking with Lina, who understands English 
 enough to tell me more or less of her history. But 
 one day Hetty came into my room much disturbed. 
 She said that Lina insisted upon it she must go over 
 to East Boston to meet her brother and sister, who 
 were to arrive in the English steamer. Hetty was 
 sure that Lina could never find her way there and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 239 
 
 back, and she was sure Rebecca, her daughter, could 
 not give the time to go over with her, because her 
 dressmaking work was just coming in. She wished I 
 would speak to Lina and tell her it would be just as 
 well to wait till they landed, and that it was their 
 business to hunt up Lina, and not Lina's business to 
 be losing herself in the Boston streets. So what I 
 did, when Lina came to me, was to tell her I would 
 go over to East Boston with her and take her to the 
 " Pavonia ; " for that was the name of the steamer. 
 Hetty was doubtful about the whole matter, and 
 evidently thought I was as likely to lose my way as 
 Lina, but she agreed that I had a tongue in my head 
 which might be more easily understood than Lina's. 
 So we started off. 
 
 It was one of the fine days we have been having, 
 and I took Lina across in an East Boston car, and we 
 had a pleasant excursion. I am always delighted at 
 an excuse to cross in one of the ferry-boats ; and the 
 tongue in my head helped me to find my way and to 
 take the right direction to get to our steamer. It was 
 amusing, however, that it was one of Lina's Swedish 
 friends who helped us at the last, by showing us 
 where to go, so that we should not hunt up oxir 
 steerage friends among the first-class passengers. 
 Then I had a surprise in suddenly meeting in the 
 crowd our friend, Harry Merton. His friends were 
 among the first-class passengers ; but there was a 
 great crowd, nearly a thousand passengers, and he 
 was looking everywhere for his friends, while I was 
 trying to induce my happy Lina to bring along her 
 brother and sister and come away from the pier. 
 They were so happy at meeting that I do believe they 
 would have stayed there all day. Lina, however, has 
 a clear head, and she had made her plans as to where 
 they were to go to meet other friends. So after Mr.
 
 240 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Merton learned that his people had not arrived after 
 all, we made our way together, reaching the ferry 
 boat, where the Swedish party huddled together jab 
 bering in their delight, and Mr. Merton escorted me 
 home. 
 
 I have written home the account of our day in 
 Worcester. Anna was invited to the Commencement 
 at Clark University there, and I went with her. 
 Much to our surprise, just as we were leaving the 
 station, Mr. Merton appeared, also bound for Worces 
 ter and the University; for I had told him of our 
 plan of going. But I can't repeat the whole story. 
 You must only imagine it to have been a delightful 
 day. 
 
 It was on the beautiful October Saturday of last 
 week that we went to Milton, Miss Fenton and I 
 taking the cars there and afterwards a carriage -to 
 the Blue Hills, through lovely lanes still luxuriant 
 and green. Then up and up, till we finally climbed to 
 the top of the Blue Hills, where there is an observa 
 tory, and where the view is really like a mountain 
 view. v Here again was the glorious harbor spread 
 before us, and Boston and its suburbs below, far 
 away. But I was much surprised at the country 
 view on the other side, and to see how much is left of 
 really forest land and uninhabited region, great 
 cultivated fields and wide spaces still not yet settled 
 upon. It was as wonderful and exciting as is the 
 view of the great city, and it gives one a certain re 
 pose to think that beyond all the seething turmoil of 
 those narrow streets there is still this wide extent of 
 field and country so near and not yet crowded. I am 
 told that these Blue Hills were called by the Indians 
 " Massachusetts," meaning The Great Mountains, and 
 that this was the origin of the name of the State. 
 
 This week we are busy visiting, when we find time,
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 241 
 
 the "Health Food Show" at Mechanics Hall, the 
 large building devoted to such exhibitions. I am 
 again reminded of my country home, for here can be 
 seen a herd of cattle. They are Holstein-Frisian 
 cattle. Then you must not be surprised if you hear 
 that Anna and I introduce Mr. Edward Atkinson's 
 "Aladdin's oven" into our household plans; and we 
 are getting many ideas about scientific cooking. But 
 I have no doubt that you are deciding with Harry 
 Merton that we are doing too many things. I have 
 not told you, either, how I am going to hear Mr. 
 Herford preach every Sunday ; for, alas ! Arlington 
 Street Church is to lose him very soon, and he will be 
 sorely missed. 
 
 From yours, 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 16
 
 242 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETEENTH. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 HAKRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, Oct. 9, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I am well aware that Nahum 
 regards our life here as very dull, and that when he 
 runs away from home, with a bundle on a stick over 
 his shoulder, we must look for him at Burlington or 
 St. John, and not in the effete civilization of this pro 
 vincial village. Now, as one of my special desires is 
 that he shall come down to the office into a capital 
 place, which I will have ready for him when he can 
 write a decent French letter to our correspondents in 
 the island of Madagascar, I do want to present Boston 
 in its most attractive lights. So I hope you will not 
 consider this letter too frivolous. 
 
 We have a great many correspondents among the 
 retail grocers. If you will think of it, although clothes 
 pins do not come under the ordinary definition which 
 you or I would apply to the word " groceries," they 
 are sold by the gross, or by the " groce," as Dr. John 
 son would have spelled it. And, not to be too learned, 
 if you sent Nahum down to the village, before break 
 fast Monday morning, for a couple of dozen new 
 clothes-pins, he would go to old Mr. Pepper's store. 
 So it is that the exhibition of food products here, 
 which has been set on foot by the grocers of Boston, 
 brings lots and lots of our customers down to town 
 from all New England. I have very little to do with 
 the buying and selling, you know. But I can see that 
 the chief and Mr. Outlake and all the other gentlemen
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 243 
 
 are pleased, and that the orders every day are very, 
 very large. 
 
 Yesterday a nice old gentleman from Aroostook 
 County came in and had a long talk with Mr. Outlake 
 about " Jim " Elaine and " Tom " Reed and I do not 
 know what else. When he went away he said he was 
 going to the Food Exhibition, which we, of course, 
 knew perfectly well before. But he had not told us 
 that his wife was with him and waiting for him at the 
 American House. It was clear he could never find her 
 and then find the exhibition without help. So I was 
 detailed to escort them, and to inquire at the same 
 time if it was too late for us to make an exhibit of 
 clothes-pins. We have two very handsome cases in 
 which the clothes-pins are arranged in imitation of 
 plate armor, and I believe most of the boys in the 
 office think that Ivanhoe and Richard were really 
 dressed in clothes-pins when they went to tournaments. 
 These cases are on purpose for exhibitions, and it is 
 with them that we get our gold medals and crosses of 
 different legions. But our Mr. Snale, who has charge 
 of them, is an Englishman and rather slow. He did 
 not " catch on " in time to the idea that clothes-pins, 
 because they are groceries, belong in a food exhibition ; 
 so our knights in armor are still at the County Show 
 in Knox County, where they do not do us as much 
 good as they would here. 
 
 Well, we found up the excellent Mrs. Fosdick, who 
 is perfectly lovely. She is a sort of cross between 
 Miss Tryphena Dexter and our dear grandmother, and 
 looks like your picture of Miss Hannah More. I 
 got them both safely to the exhibition, bought their 
 tickets, and got them by the turnstile. Then, I am 
 ashamed to say, I waited for Miss Brand and some 
 other ladies to pass, then went in myself, and, dear 
 Mother, you will laugh at me, I had lost Mr. and Mrs.
 
 244 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Fosdick! And I have never seen hide nor hair of 
 them from that moment to this. Now I was to take 
 care of them in the intervals of arranging for our ex 
 hibit; so this is an awful disgrace to me, and you must 
 never mention it. 
 
 Well, while I was looking for them, naturally I saw 
 a good deal of the show. And I ran against twenty of 
 our customers and placed I do not know how many 
 hundred " groce " of pins ; so that I guess there was 
 no harm that the Fosdicks saw the show for them 
 selves. They and I were such early birds that most 
 of the things were not ready when we arrived. 
 
 On this account I went downstairs first to look at 
 the Holstein cattle. The first thing I came across 
 down there was a great English shire horse, with a 
 neck about twice as big as he needed. As Aunt 
 Agatha used to say about me, he must have an 
 enormous " swaller." The cattle did not look very 
 remarkable ; but they were, all the same. The boy who 
 kept them said that one of his cows, like those here, 
 had given fifty-six to fifty-eight quarts of milk a day, 
 which seems enough to feed a small army. When I 
 asked about the quality of the milk, he said that this 
 same cow had made thirty-nine pounds of butter in 
 a week. To say that the cow " made " the butter 
 seemed to me somewhat exaggerated. 
 
 When I got back in the hall things were well 
 started. What first attracted my attention was a 
 Smith Premier Typewriter. I do not know whether 
 this comes in under the " Food " or the " Health " 
 part of the exhibition. I told the man who had 
 charge of it that I was interested in typewriting, and 
 he explained the whole thing. The one he showed 
 me had a key-board like the Eemington ; but they 
 make them with key-boards like the caligraph. The 
 work it did and the action of the machine seemed to 
 me excellent.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 245 
 
 Cobb, Bates, and Yerxa had the whole end of one of 
 the large halls filled with their groceries. There was 
 some Pettijohn's Breakfast Food there, with a 
 courteous young lady to serve it to all comers. It was 
 very nice, and I thanked her for helping me so 
 generously. She said something about being able to 
 distinguish possible purchasers and dealing gener 
 ously by them. I did n't buy any, although it was 
 only six cents a pound. She said that it would make 
 thin people " fleshy " in a short time ; whereupon I 
 asked its effect on " fleshy " people, and she said that 
 it strengthened the muscular tissues. 
 
 There was a man who had a self- calculating set of 
 scales on exhibition. I asked him to show it to me ; 
 but he .answered by asking me if I had any interest in 
 the grocery business. I told him that I had not just 
 at present ; but that I might at some future period. 
 He said that he supposed that, at any rate, I wanted 
 to see everything new, and then he showed me the 
 scales, which so far as I could see, was, as he said, 
 really a machine with brains. 
 
 I made a rule of eating and drinking everything that 
 was free, and thus managed to take in a good deal of 
 varied nutriment. I tried Huyler's cocoa, which, I 
 was informed, came straight from the cocoa bean. 
 There were some cocoa beans there, but no way of 
 telling whether the prepared cocoa came right from 
 them or not. On the whole, the effect of the gen 
 erosity of the people who gave away their food was 
 that you regarded exhibitors as stingy who did not 
 give anything away. S. S. Pierce, for example, had a 
 nice-looking department ; but as he had no gifts to 
 offer, I did not dally long about his stand. On every 
 hand there were buckwheat cakes being made and 
 distributed to any one that wanted them. They were 
 all good, so that I do not wish to discriminate as to
 
 246 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 which were the best. They were served with syrup at 
 the Fleischmann's Yeast counter. There was a man 
 there cooking some peculiar style of bread. I asked 
 him what it was, and he replied that it was something 
 to eat. 
 
 Upstairs in the Art Gallery was Mr. Atkinson's 
 Aladdin Cooker on exhibition. I was able to state to 
 those who were looking at the cooker that things 
 cooked in it tasted very well ; for I have had several 
 opportunities of trying them. There was a large 
 department, near the cooker, reserved for Van 
 Houten's cocoa. A polite young woman invited me 
 to partake, but I was obliged to pass on, because 
 I thought my stomach could not stand too great a 
 variety. 
 
 Downstairs they had some " health " coffee on trial. 
 This makes a fairly good drink, but it seems to me 
 that it rather fails of its purpose. For if people are in 
 the habit of drinking too much real coffee, they 
 probably are very fond of its flavor and would not be 
 satisfied with something that tastes entirely different. 
 Thus the only ones who could be brought to drink 
 " health " coffee would be those who never cared 
 especially for Mocha and Java. 
 
 Among the favorite things to exhibit were flavoring 
 extracts. These I did not sample. A number of other 
 exhibits seemed to be far removed from " Food and 
 Health." Thus the Kroeger piano could hardly be 
 eaten or contribute to a man's physical welfare. 
 Carriages could, I suppose, carry a patient to the 
 White Mountains for his health, while market wagons 
 could bring him food. 
 
 Bovinine was advertised as having been General 
 Grant's food for three months. They might have 
 added, " at the end of which time he died." From 
 the top of one of the great halls was suspended a trade
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 247 
 
 mark of Welcome Soap, one of those pictures of a pair 
 of hands clasping each other, you know. Every one 
 who desired was given a guess as to how far apart 
 were two red crosses, one on each of the two coat 
 sleeves. The distance was obviously somewhere 
 between five and ten feet. I judged a good deal from 
 the windows behind the picture, and guessed seven 
 feet, three and three-eighths inches. The polite man 
 who received the guesses then gave me another try, 
 and I said seven feet, ten inches. The smallest 
 estimate made was by a lady, who modestly pro 
 nounced the crosses eleven inches apart. The prize 
 for the best guess is a silver tea-service. I also have 
 a confused remembrance of a gold watch and some 
 other things, second prizes, I suppose. I expect to 
 get something splendid. I hope you don't look on it 
 as gambling. 
 
 There was a man selling microscopes, who let 
 people look at a drop of water and other small things. 
 It was very unpleasant to see the water, for there 
 were a number of disagreeable-looking snakes disport 
 ing in it. To afford me a pleasant change, he gave me 
 an opportunity to see the dust from a cheese. This 
 was an awful sight. The dust was filled with 
 creatures abounding in legs, who wandered about in an 
 aimless way and filled me with horror. If we have 
 got to eat animals involuntarily, I do wish we could 
 have more prepossessing ones. 
 
 The two great halls are filled with exhibits, and even 
 the upstairs part is put in requisition. When you go 
 out you are so confused that you can scarcely re 
 member a thing that you have seen ; but afterwards 
 things keep occurring to you. I wound up by going to 
 the restaurant, which was fairly good. Old Miss 
 .Tryphena, whom I met prowling round, complained 
 that it was too expensive, and that as to the things
 
 248 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 that were given away, there was too much to drink 
 and too little to eat, the only thing that she had had 
 to eat being "malted" milk, and I don't exactly 
 see how she managed to eat that. At the restaurant 
 I had some sausages and mashed potatoes, both of 
 which proved excellent. 
 
 On the way home I had a chance to see some paving 
 being done on West Newton Street with this kind of 
 artificial stone which they use nowadays. It is fine to 
 see how they level off the earth before they begin to 
 pave. They have two wooden frames running across 
 the street; and they take a long sort of board and 
 draw it over these frames, which are about ten feet 
 apart, .thus making the earth between them beautifully 
 rounded, like the frames themselves. It seems to me 
 as if they ought to have some of the stone made just 
 half the common size at the quarries. As it is, when 
 they want half-pieces, as they frequently do, they 
 have to cut a big one in two, which is no end of 
 bother. 
 
 October 12. 
 
 You may skip all this. It is specially for Nahum's 
 eye, because he is so curious about all quarry work. 
 If he had been here last Wednesday night I should 
 have taken him with me to see " The County Fair." 
 I wonder if the fame of Mr. Neil Burgess and " The 
 County Fair" has gone as far as Atherton. I observe 
 the " swell " gentlemen in the counting-room here 
 turn up their noses at it and then go, on the sly, to 
 see it, just as they go to the circus because the 
 children want to go. I went last Wednesday night 
 although it rained guns ; indeed, I thought I should 
 have a better show on a rainy evening, for, of course, 
 I went on a " statidee." The play is going to run for 
 a whole year ; just think how tiresome that must
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 make it for the actors. Other people certainly 
 have n't got tired of it yet, for in spite of the weather, 
 every available seat was taken, and I had to stand up 
 all through the evening. 
 
 I reached the theatre at just about the right time, 
 so that I could stand up behind the central back seats 
 and lean on the kind of elbow-rest that seems made 
 for the purpose. I suppose I looked like one of 
 Raphael's cherubs. Lots of people were coming in, 
 and, among others, a man at my right pointed out 
 Police Commissioner Osborne. I looked as quickly as 
 I could, but could only see the back of a respectable- 
 looking gentleman in a silk hat. I stared at every 
 one in the boxes, and tried to recognize the bonnets 
 of the ladies who sat in front of me, but bonnets and 
 hair are not very characteristic. I did not see a 
 single person in the audience that I knew. I have 
 heard that most of those who come to this play are 
 country people, like myself. Strangely enough we 
 seem to like to see our own life represented on 
 the stage. After the band had given us a variegated 
 edition of " The Star Spangled Banner," the curtain 
 went up. 
 
 The principal character in the play is a New Eng 
 land spinster, called Miss Abby, whose home is at 
 Rock Bottom Farm. Mr. Neil Burgess acts this part, 
 and he is very funny, although the other actors 
 are nothing remarkable. What brings down the 
 house in the first act is where every one has gone 
 to bed except Miss Abby, and just before she retires 
 she goes to the door at the back of the stage, with a 
 candle, opens it and calls out, " Kitty, kitty, kitty." 
 Every one laxighs, because, I suppose, every one has 
 seen some old lady do the same thing. Certainly you 
 and I have. 
 
 Miss Abbij, though no longer young, has two wooers,
 
 250 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 one nice and one horrid, as the children say. The nice 
 one has been " courtin' " her for fourteen years, but 
 has never screwed up his courage to the point of ask 
 ing her to be his, though she is always ready to say 
 yes, when he does. As for the villain, when he finds 
 he has no chance, he warns her that he is going to 
 foreclose a mortgage of $1,600 on her farm. The 
 mortgage comes due on the day of the County Fair, 
 with ten more days of grace. Now Miss Abby has 
 taken in a homeless young fellow called Tim, who 
 can't do much but ride on horseback. He makes up 
 his mind that her horse, Cold Molasses, is the fast 
 est in the country round, and finding out that the run 
 ning race at the County Fair is for a prize of $2,000, 
 he forms his own schemes for paying off the mort 
 gage. He manages to practise up the horse on the 
 sly ; for Miss Abby has no idea of what is going on. 
 
 At the end of the third act Miss Abby is in the barn, 
 very disconsolate. She feels that every one has gone 
 back on her, even Otis Tucker, the man who has been 
 " courtin' " her for fourteen years. She sits down in 
 her rocking-chair, close to where the horse's head is 
 sticking out of the stall. "No one cares for me at 
 all," says Miss Abby, " not one." And then the horse 
 puts out his great head and licks her face, while the 
 curtain goes down. It is ludicrous and pathetic at the 
 same time. 
 
 The last act represents the Fair. It begins with 
 one of those shallow scenes which they have when 
 something interesting is going on behind. Miss Abby 
 appears and is astonished to see Tim in his jockey 
 clothes, leading Cold Molasses. Tim is dressed up 
 grandly in a green shirt and white trousers, with top 
 boots. But even now Miss Abby does n't know what 
 is going to happen. Lots of people are going to and 
 fro, when suddenly there is a shout and a scurry, and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 251 
 
 every one runs off the stage. Then the back scene 
 rolls away, and through a kind of veil you can see five 
 horses with jockeys on them, apparently galloping at 
 full speed. Behind them is one of those fences that 
 they have around race courses, and that is made to 
 move like lightning the other way from the way the 
 horses are going. The illusion is complete ; but oh, 
 horrors ! Tim is behind them all. Two horses are 
 bunched for first place ; two more behind ; and Tim 
 and Cold Molasses in the rear. But in a moment you 
 can see Cold Molasses begin to crawl up. Nearer and 
 nearer he comes and finally passes the two horses next 
 him. Every one was shouting like mad, with that long 
 " Hey-ey-ey ! " that you always hear at a race. I was 
 screaming " Cold Molasses ! " at the top of my lungs. 
 Tim began to beat his horse with a vengeance, and the 
 noble animal responded, so that he came slowly, slowly, 
 up with the leaders ; got even with them ; his head 
 came out beyond them; and then all was dark. The 
 yelling and excitement of the audience beggars descrip 
 tion. I never heard such a noise at a play. 
 
 Then we saw the County Fair scene again. When 
 it was told Miss Abby that her horse and Tim had won 
 her $2,000 you can imagine how delighted she was. 
 She and Otis decided to get married immediately; but 
 when he brought the marriage certificate, she tore it 
 up, thinking it was one of the programmes of the fair. 
 Poor Otis ran to get another ; but this time, as he was 
 coming back, holding it in his outstretched hand, Cold 
 Molasses, who had come in with Tim on his back, 
 seized it and ate it up ; at least I think he was meant 
 to, but that night he dropped it after he had chewed 
 it for a while. Then the curtain went down and every 
 one went away. 
 
 Coming home, the electrics were crowded, and I was 
 almost pushed backwards over the edge of the plat-
 
 252 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 form. Every one was good-natured, except a very fat 
 man, who exclaimed that he had a right to get on and 
 off as much as he wanted to, because the rest of us 
 expressed bur agony while he pressed by us. We all 
 uttered ribald shouts at him, which attained their pur 
 pose in enraging him ; but which, I fear, could not be 
 ranked as the most refined style of wit. And so, with 
 a good deal of rain and some swearing and a great deal 
 of good temper, we all got home at last. But I tell 
 you that race was perfectly fine. 
 
 If I had not spent so much time upon Nahum's 
 amusement I should have been able to tell you about 
 my pleasant visit to Peacedale last week. There was 
 a great festival there in honor of the dedication of a 
 memorial hall to the memory of Mr. Hazard, who died 
 a few years ago, a very old man. He was connected 
 with the creation of the woollen manufacture in this 
 country, and the works at Peacedale are very remark 
 able. The Hazard family has always lived there, in 
 the midst of their work people, as somebody said, so 
 that the whirr of the machinery could be heard from 
 the parlor windows. And the whole place shows the 
 charm of the common interest of the work people, 
 from the top to the bottom of the establishment. The 
 present Mr. Hazards have now built, in memory of 
 their father, a beautiful hall, which is everything that 
 you would like to have in Atherton, for the central 
 comfort and convenience of the village. There is a 
 great hall for audiences, a capital public-library room, 
 and, what is more, they have got a good library to 
 put in it, and rooms for the meetings of the King's 
 Daughters and other societies of the place. 
 
 They have a Choral Association, too, and I wish you 
 might have one in Atherton. It is made up actually 
 of five or six hundred of the young people of the town.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 253 
 
 The singing is really magnificent. We do not get any 
 thing better here, as far as I hear it, and I found that 
 the connoisseurs were disposed to say the same thing. 
 If you ever thought of it, music is the active agency 
 which brings together a lot of people who succeed in 
 quarrelling about everything else. For instance, in 
 this Choral Association, all the young people of the 
 town can meet together, no matter what they believe 
 in, no matter what country they come from, no matter 
 whether they went to a high school or to an academy 
 or to a Friends' school. I should think that was a 
 good deal the character of Rhode Island, where, on 
 account of their extreme independency in old times, 
 one man is as good as another, and people seem to 
 meet with great friendliness. Any way, I was very 
 glad that it came to be my business to go down to 
 Peacedale. I went there, not to "tout" for custom, 
 which is what I generally have to do when I go away 
 from Boston, but because Mr. Outlake had not been 
 well, and Mrs. Outlake was afraid to have him go alone. 
 He made a great deal of fun of this, and, in point of 
 fact, he no more needed to have somebody to take care 
 of him than I did. But I suppose, if he had had a 
 fit in the cars or had broken his neck in getting off the 
 train, I should have had to telegraph home to his wife 
 to say so. Any way, I got out of the thing a charm 
 ing expedition and was out of the office for a day. I 
 believe you think the principal business of the office 
 is that I may go " a-gadding " and have good times. 
 And I am sure that anybody who reads these letters 
 would suppose it was for that end that the Boston 
 establishment had been created. 
 
 Tuesday, Oct. 13. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. You will be amazed when I tell you 
 that this is written in Philadelphia. You are not 
 more amazed than I am. It happens thus :
 
 254 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Our nice Mr. Outlake, who is always so good to me, 
 is very much interested in the plans for the congress 
 of nations, or at least of republics, which is to be held 
 next year or the next. He is, like a good many of the 
 old Abolitionists, a man much respected in the com 
 mittee ; and he determined, rather suddenly, to go on 
 to a preliminary meeting which is in progress here to 
 day. Now, he has been troubled for some time past 
 with sudden attacks of vertigo, and Mrs. Outlake 
 the same who took Miss Fenton to the high-story-call 
 lions would gladly have come with him. But some 
 thing at home prevented this. So she surreptitiously 
 asked our chief if I might not be spared, to be in Phil 
 adelphia at the same time with Mr. Outlake, all " un 
 beknownst " to him, and so to speak, to keep an eye on 
 him. Of course, I was only too glad to come, and 
 here I am. He was much surprised when he saw me 
 at the Broad Street station, eating my oysters by his 
 side. He little supposed that I had come three hun 
 dred and more miles that I might have that pleasure. 
 
 I told him, what was the truth, that I had a message 
 to our agents, Line and Eeel. He said he should not 
 be able to see them, and told me that if I could get an 
 hour, I had better come round to the Academy of 
 Music and hear some of the papers. As this was ex 
 actly what I had been sent to do, I consented, of 
 course; and so I have been behind the scenes of a 
 theatre for the first time in my life. Do you not re 
 member, in " Joe " Jefferson's life, how good a time 
 those children had in playing in the daytime behind 
 the scenes ? 
 
 The meeting, you see, of all sorts of governors and 
 secretaries and presidents and things was in the large 
 green-room. Is it not exciting to be in a green-room, 
 and have hundreds of portraits of actors and actresses, 
 some horribly faded and some preternaturally bright,
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 255 
 
 smiling or frowning down upon the governors and 
 secretaries, from Charlotte Cushman round to Ole 
 Bull and Minnie Hauek ? The dons, like Mr. Outlake 
 and the committees, sat round the tables and in the 
 seats provided. But the attendant loafers, like me, 
 crowded together on the dark stage, which, in this 
 theatre at least, is directly accessible from the green 
 room. We could see and hear there. Nahum will be 
 glad to know the walls of a green-room are really 
 green. 
 
 Mr. Outlake did not speak himself, but a great 
 many interesting people did. Judge Arnoux interested 
 me ; he is a New York lawyer. There was a very in 
 telligent governor there from Wyoming, Governor 
 Hoyt, and a doctor of philosophy, who spoke English 
 with as little accent as I, but who is a native China 
 man. A black man offered prayer, and a Chippewa 
 Indian spoke, so we had four races represented. In 
 fact, I should think it was all a good deal like one of 
 the best of the old Anti-slavery meetings you like to 
 tell us of. Nobody was afraid to say anything, and 
 everybody had some special fad which he was very 
 much in earnest about. 
 
 As for Mr. Outlake, it was all nonsense my taking 
 care of him. There was much more likelihood of his 
 taking care of me. I say nothing about the wonders 
 of the city itself, because I remember how well you 
 know it. Love to all, from your son 
 
 HARRY.
 
 256 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTEE TWENTIETH. 
 XXIII. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, Oct. 21, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I have been making such inti 
 mate acquaintance with the street cars lately that I 
 feel as if I ought to turn into a walking guide-book 
 and make my information useful to the world. It may 
 not be of advantage to you in Colorado, but it will 
 show you how I pass some of my time. 
 
 I have described to you the Miss Dexter whom I 
 have visited several times, and who used to be a 
 dependent in my mother's mother's family long ago. 
 She is a thrifty little body, who has carefully laid by 
 some savings, and has been living years and years in 
 the same place. She tells me that, when she first 
 went into this room the windows looked out upon a 
 little yard with a pear-tree in it, and she has told me 
 how Boston used to be famous for the pears it raised. 
 Now it is all built in, and a tenement house has its 
 dark windows overlooking her room at scarcely ten 
 feet distance. Apparently, the character of her neigh 
 bors has changed greatly too. 
 
 " I used to know everybody in the house," she said 
 one day, " but now the tenants of the rooms above and 
 below me change so fast that I can't keep the run of 
 them." She has always had some kindly people about 
 her, however, who have taken a care and oversight of 
 her, and she seems such a conservative old body that I 
 never should have ventured to propose to her to move
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 257 
 
 away from such surroundings. But my mother has 
 been turning over some plans for getting her away 
 from this crowded part of the town, and she remem 
 bered a Mrs. Travers, who knew about Miss Dexter 
 and all the old traditions of my mother's family. She 
 had a letter from Mrs. Travers, telling how she had 
 taken a house lately in Roxbury, and that she would 
 be glad to let one or more of the rooms to some quiet 
 body. So I had a letter from my mother, asking me 
 if I could not persuade Miss Dexter to make the 
 change into a pleasanter neighborhood, the more 
 easily as Miss Dexter knew Mrs. Travers and might 
 feel as if she were living among old friends. 
 
 As I have said, I should as soon have thought of 
 proposing to Bunker Hill Monument to move. So I 
 was much relieved to have Mr. Merton, the other day, 
 say that he would suggest it to her. You may remem 
 ber that I found to my surprise that he, too, knew 
 Miss Dexter. He talked it over the day we were at 
 the Middlesex Fells ; and since then the whole thing 
 has been managed in the most diplomatic manner, 
 with a series of visits and consultations that I won't 
 bother you with. Finally, we gained her consent to 
 moving. I don't believe we should have succeeded if 
 there had not been a threat that a street was to be 
 cut through the little court she lived in, and that the 
 inhabitants were likely to be turned out any day. So 
 at last Miss Dexter said with a sigh : " Well, Brattle 
 Street church was moved, so I suppose I can goJ " 
 
 I made a succession of visits upon Mrs. Travers in 
 Roxbury, looked at her rooms and measured them for 
 carpets and furniture, previously studying up all the 
 varieties of street cars that might connect with the 
 place, and then reported them to Miss Dexter. Mr. 
 Merton has been splendid about the whole affair and 
 iias really done all the difficult work. We were sur- 
 
 17
 
 258 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 prised to find, when we came to the point, that after 
 Miss Dexter knew that she must move, she was really 
 very amenable to the plan of going so far. It proved, 
 indeed, that she was highly satisfied with the idea of 
 living in Roxbury, if she coiild not live in Boston 
 proper. It was not one of the new-fashioned suburbs 
 that have grown up in a day, and Mrs. Travers's house 
 is in a respectable old quarter of the town. Miss 
 Dexter remembered going out in an omnibus, that used 
 in old times to go over the " Neck," as the upper part 
 of Washington Street was called. 
 
 She says that a great-great-grandfather of mine, or 
 some such aged ancestor, used to live at the North 
 End ; and she remembers hearing how, when they had 
 occasion to visit some of their cousins at the South 
 End, who lived as far away as Essex Street, they 
 used to have an early dinner so that they might have 
 plenty of time to drive there with their horse and 
 chaise, very different from nowadays, when to the 
 true "South Ender" Essex Street seems very far 
 down town. 
 
 Miss Dexter only stipulated that we should not 
 expect her to go out in one of the electric cars. She 
 declared she was not afraid of them. " It was quite 
 likely they wouldn't take fire while she was in 
 them, she went so seldom." But the step was very 
 high, and she did not think an old lady ought to try 
 to get in. Happily, we found that the Norfolk House 
 car, which passes near her old residence, would take 
 her not far from the house of Mrs. Travers. 
 
 But I had previously made this close acquaintance 
 with the various street-car lines that I have explained 
 to you. I had a most wearisome adventure the first 
 afternoon that I visited Mrs. Travers. She wrote to 
 me to come and see her at the end of the day, as she 
 was to be busy all day long, and she invited me to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY, 259 
 
 dine with her at six o'clock, promising that some one 
 should escort me home. This suited me very well, 
 as it was one of my busy days too. Among other 
 things, I went for a short visit upon Miss Fenton at 
 the Thorndike, whom I had quite neglected the last 
 ten days. Now, a short call is very impossible upon 
 Miss Fenton, as she always involves me in some long 
 and really interesting discussion. Then, too, I had 
 been delayed before going to her by my efforts in 
 hunting up some one else on Boylston Street, not far 
 from her ; but whether above or below the Thorndike, 
 it took me a long time to discover ; and I had to go 
 up and down the street in a muddle whether it was 
 my head that was idiotic or whether the numbers 
 were. 
 
 I was relieved when I discovered that I was not 
 so much of an idiot as I feared. It seems that each 
 house represents four numbers, between Tremont 
 Street and Arlington Street, and you have to calcu 
 late accordingly. I could not understand the reason 
 for this Boston peculiarity, but Mr. Merton has ex 
 plained to me that it is a new arrangement of num 
 bers. For these houses were originally stately 
 dwelling-houses, most of them with broad fronts on 
 the street. Now they have been seized upon for 
 business purposes, offices or shops. Each house, 
 therefore, requires a number for its shop and another 
 for the entrance to its stairway and rooms above. 
 This accounts- for two numbers on each house. Then, 
 in Boston, the numbers are carried from one side of 
 the street to the other, the odd numbers on one side, 
 the even numbers opposite. But between Tremont 
 Street and Arlington Street there are no opposite 
 houses ; the space is occupied by the Common as far 
 as Charles Street, and by the Public Garden farther 
 on to Arlington Street.
 
 260 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Now, according to law, not only are there no houses 
 but there never can be any, in these spaces ; so the 
 innocent observer in counting up the houses, as he 
 passes up Boylston Street, finds it difficult to allow 
 for an odd number in the opposite row of houses, 
 where there is none and never ought to be. You 
 may think it stupid of the innocent observer not to 
 notice each number, as he or she passes along, in 
 stead of going through the difficult sum of adding up 
 four for each house. But some of the numbers have 
 been changed and some have not ; and some houses have 
 both the old and the new numbers. Some are so 
 conservative as to cling to the old numbers by which 
 their friends have always known them, who are both 
 ered to find that the house that was numbered a little 
 over one hundred has now jumped to three hundred 
 and something. I don't mean that you find four num 
 bers on each house ; for most of the houses have 
 already their shops and entrance doors plainly 
 marked; but those that have not these modern im 
 provements have to be so numbered, because they 
 may have them sometime. So you are bewildered by 
 finding yourself, as it were, four doors higher up the 
 street, when you have passed only one house. The 
 house in which Williams and Everett's store is placed 
 is numbered 190, and the one before it 186, which 
 looks puzzling ! 
 
 Forgive this long story; but I wanted to explain 
 how I reached the corner of Boylston and Berkeley 
 streets, to find that already it was a quarter past five. 
 These short autumn days shut down on one fast 
 enough any way, and by five o'clock the sun is dis 
 appearing behind the houses, and darkness and electric 
 lights begin. And alas ! as I reached the corner, it 
 began to rain and the wind to blow. Happily, I had 
 my umbrella, which I had not been needing all these
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 261 
 
 pleasant days ; for I had to wait twenty minutes, 
 tossed by the wind and wet by the rain, before the 
 West End car appeared. This was to take me to the 
 Northampton Street corner, where I was to find a 
 Norfolk House car. But here I had another period of 
 waiting. Every other kind of car came along but the 
 one I wanted. I dashed out into the middle of the street 
 in all the wind to each one, to see if it were for the 
 Norfolk House. I grew so tired of the Bartlett Street 
 cars, there were so many of them. Anna and I have 
 thought previously it might be well to move to Bart 
 lett Street, as it seemed to be easier to get there than 
 anywhere else. But we concluded it must be too 
 populous for us, if it requires so many cars. Some 
 body calls them " Bartlett Pears," because two are ap 
 to appear together. 
 
 I thought of my great-great-grandfather, and envied 
 him his quiet, early dinner and peaceful horse-and- 
 chaise journey to tea with his friends in Essex Street. 
 But I, his great-great-granddaughter, had fallen into 
 the hurried tide of the times ; I had been filling up 
 my day with a succession of occupations that would 
 have made his hair stand on end, if he had not worn 
 a wig, and now I was finishing the day by reaching 
 Mrs. Travers's late to dinner and in a drenched state. 
 All things come to an end, however, and so came the 
 Norfolk House car ; and at its end, much to my sur 
 prise, I found Mr. Merton. 
 
 In this affair I have taken the responsibility of 
 arranging with Mrs. Travers in Roxbury, while Mr. 
 Merton has been struggling with Miss Dexter ; so I 
 was much astonished to find him awaiting me at the 
 door of the car at the Norfolk House. It appeared 
 that Mrs. Travers had invited him also to dinner, as 
 matters might thus be more easily arranged, and he 
 had arrived in good season. Both were much dis-
 
 262 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 turbed when the heavy rain came on and I did not 
 appear; so Mr. Merton kindly set out to meet me at 
 the Norfolk House. He declared he was really very 
 anxious, and, indeed, I was thankful to see him ; for 
 by this time it was half-past six and " pitch dark." He 
 insisted on carrying my umbrella, and I don't know 
 how I should have found my way to the house with 
 out him. I was quite ashamed to arrive so late and in 
 such a condition ; but they were all so kind that we 
 were soon laughing over the whole affair, though they 
 were full of pity for all my sufferings. 
 
 I saw the rooms then for the first time, and they are 
 charming. I have been there since on a bright, sunny 
 day, and I was pleased to find that the windows look 
 out upon a little garden and a pear-tree, so that Miss 
 Dexter can seem to be renewing her old life. 
 
 Mrs. Travers had many old stories to tell that 
 evening,* of former days in Boston and Roxbury ; and 
 Mr. Merton was " the escort " into town whom she had 
 promised me. We had again another delay on our re 
 turn ; for there had been a blockade far down by the 
 Tremont House. As the rain had stopped, Mr. Mer 
 ton proposed our walking down to the Jamaica Plain 
 " electric," as it would take us in quicker. But every 
 thing was delayed forty minutes, so it was late when 
 I reached home. Yet we had a most amusing time, 
 and we agreed that, though the ancestral days of 
 horse and chaise might have had their charms, yet we 
 were glad to live in these later times, when one could 
 growl at the street cars, if they did not take us in five 
 minutes from one end of the town to the other, and 
 when our lives were certainly more varied than if we 
 had lived then. 
 
 The final excursion, when we really bore Miss Try- 
 phena Dexter away from her old home to her new 
 abode, was a most entertaining one. I went down in
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 263 
 
 the morning to find her. Mr. Merton was already in 
 her room ; the expressman had been to carry off some 
 of her effects ; and everything else was packed and in 
 good order to follow her. Mr. Merton seems to have 
 an especial managing talent for conducting such things. 
 I have not needed to do a single thing about the boxes 
 and furniture, and evidently it has all been made very 
 easy for Miss Dexter. 
 
 She seemed a little dazed as she followed us down 
 stairs through the court, on our way to the Norfolk 
 House car, which we were to await on the corner of 
 the street. She came behind us, for she walked so 
 slowly, and begged us not to wait for her. She had 
 a singular whim of turning all the way round now and 
 then to look behind her, stopping in the middle of 
 the sidewalk. I told Mr. Merton that I thought she 
 was sorrowfully looking back upon her past and re 
 gretting to leave it. But he said he had heard that 
 she had always had this peculiarity of locomotion 
 even in her earlier days, if locomotion it could be 
 called to stop deliberately now and then to look 
 backwards. I suppose in her younger days the side 
 walks were not so crowded, and it could be more easily 
 performed ; and perhaps nowadays it may be some 
 advantage for an old person to look round frequently 
 to see if there is an electric car coming up behind or 
 a herdic in sight. Mr. Merton had insisted on taking 
 all her bags except one small and precious one that I 
 conveyed. She herself carried two shawls and a large 
 green umbrella that had lost the ring that once held it 
 together. In this comical manner we reached the cor 
 ner of the street, where we awaited the horse car, 
 Miss Dexter bringing up just in time. 
 
 Happily, there was plenty of room at this early 
 stage of the journey, though the car filled up as we 
 went on. I was fain to give up my seat ; but Mr.
 
 264 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Merton would not allow me, though I am always will 
 ing to stand, and do not object at all to being asked to 
 " move forward," as I can then rest myself against the 
 front door of the car. Miss Dexter recovered her tone 
 as we went on, so that, as we passed along the length 
 of Washington Street, she could give me a history of 
 its numerous changes, how a part of it was called at 
 one time Marlborough Street, and another part New- 
 bury Street, and so on. A little beyond Dover Street, 
 she said, were some buildings called " The Green 
 Stores," I believe they are still standing, and it 
 seems this was considered a distant limit of Boston 
 proper. To walk to " The Green Stores " was consid 
 ered a good stretch for a constitutional walk for one 
 day, and some young ladies managed to take it before 
 breakfast every day. But Miss Dexter was inclined 
 to think this was not healthful. Mrs. Travers assisted 
 in testifying to some of these facts, after we reached 
 her house, which we did at last. There was the same 
 comical method of walking performed by Miss Dexter, 
 as we went up the street leading to Mrs. Travers's 
 house. For we insisted upon her going in front of us 
 this time, as I was afraid she might really be lost or 
 drop out into some of the streets that we passed. 
 
 I think she was truly pleased with her room when 
 she came to see it. Mr. Merton had managed to have 
 some of her furniture there before we arrived ; and 
 she looked with evident pleasure upon her old ward 
 robe and tables and her old bedstead in a recess ; and 
 she was really touched when she looked out of the 
 window and saw the pear-tree below, now laden with 
 pears. So we left her for the day, and we hear she is 
 very comfortable and likely to take up her life in her 
 new home with, perhaps, a little more cheerfulness 
 than in her old one. 
 
 It is astonishing how much Mr. Merton accom-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 265 
 
 plished in all this affair ; for he is very busy in other 
 ways. He has been away from town once or twice in 
 these last weeks, and he went to Philadelphia for a 
 meeting of the committee on the Congress of Nations, 
 that must have been immensely interesting. So I 
 think it was amazingly kind of him to give so much 
 time to making this old friend of his mother comfort 
 able, and to do everything in so thoughtful a way. 
 
 Meanwhile people are returning to Boston. We 
 see the children playing again upon the sidewalks 
 along our street, and the youngest members of society 
 are being dragged about in their wicker wagons by the 
 nursemaids. The shops are filling up with visitors, 
 and the street corners are more than ever crowded. I 
 have done a little shopping myself. I am discour 
 aged to see that the fashion of birds' wings and 
 feathers for hats and bonnets is filling the shop win 
 dows with all kinds of gay plumage, that gives me a 
 sigh. I tried to get some flowers the other day, ar 
 tificial ones, and I had to go from shop to shop. 
 Mrs. Davis, Anna's sister, groans about this. She has 
 just come from Paris and she wishes she could have 
 brought more of the exquisite roses and every variety 
 of flowers that make the Paris shops so charming. 
 
 The making of flowers is a fine art there, and no 
 body can resist trimming their hats and bonnets with 
 them, whatever the fashion may be. But she declares 
 that Boston has a craze, now and then, for feathers 
 and such trimming, and that the shops are not willing 
 that one should wear anything else. It amuses me, 
 since I have come from the country and am fancying 
 Boston to be a large city, to hear her call it very pro 
 vincial in this respect, in that it does not allow more 
 variety in such matters of taste. She declares the 
 shop windows are all alike, and that there is the
 
 266 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 same thing in all. I have to agree with her with 
 regard to this feather business. But I must say that 
 I enjoy going through the large shops with my un 
 sophisticated eyes, which find much to admire and 
 much to suggest. 
 
 My people have not got back yet to Boston. Aunt 
 Martha is still at Bar Harbor, and Maria has gone 
 with some friends to the White Mountains to find 
 the bright leaves if there are any. Cousin Eupert 
 has gone off, nobody knows where. Meantime, Aunt 
 Martha is anxious to have me stay here till her return, 
 and I am very glad not to be hunting up my boarding- 
 place in these busy days. 
 
 Anna and I have had some delightful " rehearsal " 
 afternoons. It is lucky that we have strength and 
 spirits to go through it all. The concerts do not be 
 gin till half-past two in the afternoon, but we present 
 ourselves at Music Hall long before the doors are open, 
 to stand our chance of getting in for a seat. Before 
 the winter is over we may learn how those " some 
 bodies " manage who do get a front seat in the upper 
 balcony. We are always among the first at the doors, 
 and we have some speed of motion ; but one afternoon 
 we had to content ourselves with seats on the steps of 
 the stage, which we considered a great success, and 
 the other afternoon, we took turns for a seat in one 
 of the side rows of the upper balcony. But for all our 
 struggles and standing and waiting we are fully repaid, 
 and we enjoy more and more the delights of the music. 
 I consider it a liberal education to hear it, and it makes 
 one only long for more. 
 
 Anna and I have amused ourselves by getting out 
 an old book from the library here, " Sandford and 
 Merton." I don't believe even you have been suffi 
 ciently educated to be familiar with it. But it was a 
 famous book for children in its day. My father and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 267 
 
 mother used to think a great deal of it and tried to 
 make me read it; but I remember I did not get on 
 with it very well. But we are quite entertained by it 
 now and we wonder that the youthful generation are 
 not made acquainted with it. To be sure, there is ever 
 so much of it, and the volume we have is in very fine 
 print, and it looks as if it would take forever to read 
 the whole. One opens upon such passages as this : 
 Harry says to Mr. Barlow : " Pray, dear sir, read to 
 Master Tommy the story of Leonidas, which gave me 
 so much pleasure. I am sure he will like to hear it." 
 Mr. Barlow, accordingly, reads the history of Leonidas, 
 king of Sparta, in very large letters, and the story 
 follows, making four pages of close print. After it 
 comes an admirable lesson in astronomy, and all is 
 very instructive, you perceive. But this age of ours 
 is instructive ; and why not bring back " Sandford and 
 Merton " ? 
 
 The two names entertain Anna and me very much, 
 and there is a Harry Sandford who is one of the heroes 
 of the book. All of which reminds me that there 
 used to be a tradition in our family that " Harry and 
 Lucy," the brother and sister of Miss Edgeworth's 
 story, were real characters ; that Harry's family was 
 named Merton, so he was a Harry Merton, and that 
 his sister, Lucy, married a Sandford, from whom we are 
 descended. It would be interesting to prove that our 
 new friend Harry Merton is descended from this 
 original Harry. But all this is nonsense ; yet it 
 seems to amuse us when we find time. 
 
 I have just heard of a course of ten lectures to be 
 given during this autumn and winter by General 
 Francis A. Walker, the president of the Institute of 
 Technology, beginning November 9, and continuing 
 on Mondays at 11 A. M., on political economy. I am 
 fondly hoping that I can go, and I feel it would be a
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 sufficient reason for spending the winter in Boston, to 
 hear these lectures. 
 
 I have been much surprised and interested, since I 
 have been here, in learning how much has been done 
 by liberal women in Boston, in individual ways, to 
 assist the city in enlarging education in the public 
 schools. The liberality of Mrs. Quincy Shaw has 
 made the public kindergarten one of the possibilities 
 in these schools. And earlier, Mrs. Mary Hemenway, 
 beginning with liberal experiments of her own, suc 
 ceeded in introducing into the public schools the teach 
 ing of sewing, and afterward, of cooking. Lately, in 
 the same way, she has called attention to the Swedish 
 system of educational gymnastics, which is now intro 
 duced in the schools. Through her munificence, the 
 Swedish system, under the instruction of Baron Posse, 
 was a little while ago offered to a class consisting of 
 public school teachers, who were also given a course 
 in anatomy by Dr. Emma Call. 
 
 Mrs. Hemenway has now inaugurated a Normal 
 School of Gymnastics, to instruct teachers in the 
 Swedish or "Ling" system. This is established at 
 the Paine Memorial Hall, Appleton Street, under the 
 charge of Claes J. Enebuske, the Swedish teacher and 
 lecturer. I have been reading with interest his ad 
 dress given to the masters of the public schools. He 
 shows how important such physical training is for the 
 pupils of our schools, who spend so much time in a 
 cramped, sitting position, and he carefully explains 
 the advantages of the Swedish exercises and gymnas 
 tic games. 
 
 I am much interested in the account he gives of the 
 Swedish love of such games and gymnastic dances. 
 He says : " It may give you an idea of some of these 
 dances, when I tell you that it is but about twenty- 
 five years since, in certain provinces of Sweden, a girl
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 269 
 
 looked upon that man as inferior who could not kick 
 twice his own height, and in the dance lift her over his 
 head while, on his toes, he moved his feet in time with 
 the quick rhythm of the music." 
 
 I can't help thinking what an admirable bit of edu 
 cation it would be, if it were possible that, along with 
 the solid instruction we are requiring nowadays, we 
 might also bring in a love and pleasure in such a 
 healthy use of the muscles of the body. How I 
 should like to stir up some of our good neighbors 
 at home with a Swedish dance, which need not be 
 quite so muscular as the one described by the Swedish 
 teacher, but which they could not object to, as they 
 would have been taught it as a school exercise among 
 the other courses of instruction !
 
 270 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIKST. 
 XXIV. 
 
 HAREY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, Oct. 27, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, This time, at least, Nahum 
 shall not say that my letter is uneventful. Was it he 
 or one of the others who said I might as well be at 
 Astney ? Faithless Nahum ! who shall say what may 
 yet come out of Astney ? Indeed, dear Mother, you 
 may receive this by parts ; for the writing is hurried, 
 and I know it will take more than one stamp. But if 
 I see any notice with names in the newspapers, I shall 
 mail it to you; for I know you will be frightened 
 then, and I shall want you to know at once that all 's 
 well that ends well. 
 
 It all happened just before dark last night. There 
 had been some trouble about the delivery of some of 
 our boxes. And on inquiry it proved that the par 
 ticular man who drove the particular express wagon 
 which the shipping-clerk thought or guessed took 
 them lived at South Boston. So I was told to clear 
 up my work early at the desk and go over to South 
 Boston, see this driver, and get out of him, if I could, 
 what he did with the boxes and what . he did not do. 
 This was how I came to be in Gold Street at all. For 
 I had never heard of Gold Street myself any more than 
 you have. And how should you ever have heard of it, 
 seeing it was all under water when you lived here. 
 
 Well, I was poking along through Something-else 
 Street and had not turned into Gold Street, when I saw
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 271 
 
 that half a dozen or more little " muckers " in front 
 of me ran hastily forward with yells and disappeared. 
 The thing is so common that I never should have 
 thought of it again but for what followed. If I thought 
 of it at all then, I supposed that there was a grinding 
 organ or a monkey or a cart of apples. But when I 
 came into Gold Street I saw as large a crowd as if 
 "The Cornet Man" were there. Yet there was no 
 sound of a cornet, but rather the real presence of 
 battle. 
 
 I am so tall that I saw at once what the matter was. 
 Three Salvation Army girls, in their uniform, had un 
 dertaken some errand down there. I know enough of 
 these people now to know that it was some errand of 
 mercy. But nobody in their dress was to pass these 
 hoodlums. Observe, they had no band of music, nor 
 were they singing or shouting, not even speaking, ex 
 cept to each other. But so soon as these little black 
 guards saw them, they began crying out with impudent 
 cries, and then closed up round them so as to frighten 
 the girls. Then somebody flung a cabbage stalk, heavy 
 with its root and the dirt on it, at one, and it struck 
 her full in the face. 
 
 The poor child screamed out with the sudden pain. 
 This was, so 'far as I could learn, the first cry or 
 spoken word that Any one of them had uttered, ex 
 cept to each other. But it was enough and more than 
 enough to precipitate what became the battle I speak 
 of. Instantly boys and girls began to pelt them with 
 such missiles as they could most easily pick up. A 
 lady who came into the street at the moment rushed 
 up to protect them. More sticks and stones on all 
 four. The scream was what had called the party I 
 saw. 
 
 I myself had not noticed it. The crowd constantly 
 increased. Oh! there must have been more than a
 
 272 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 hundred of these little wretches round those four poor 
 ladies when I turned into Gold Street. By this time 
 they were pulling at their clothes and hats, while the 
 four were huddled together in a group, trying to crowd 
 against the wall, so as to have their enemies only on 
 one side. They were on the sidewalk and on the steps 
 of a door, which lifted them rather above most of the 
 mob, for mob it was, but made them a better mark for 
 the missiles. 
 
 Of course, the minute I saw this, for it was quite 
 light enough to see, though the sun must have gone 
 down, I rushed across to the rescue. Boys and girls 
 gave way to the right and left, and until I came there 
 I did not use nor wish to use my stick. I remember 
 thinking I was sorry it was not heavier. It was the 
 stick JSTahuin cut on Ascutney and trimmed for me so 
 nicely. But it proved better as it was. 
 
 I stumbled on the edge of the sidewalk as I rushed 
 on. I should have fallen flat, but there were quite too 
 many of these hoodlums, male and female. I only 
 fell, so to speak, on them. I had the stick by the 
 middle now and I did not distress myself by any ques 
 tions as to where it struck. I had no time to read any 
 Biot Act. I was not dissatisfied when I heard a good, 
 loud yell of pain, which did not come from one of the 
 beleaguered ladies. 
 
 But at the same moment I was conscious of a stout 
 pull at my left arm, which I could not at the instant 
 throw off. I recovered my footing securely, however, 
 and brought up my stick so people could see it and 
 know at once that we were all free men here. I felt a 
 smart tug at my coat behind. But I closed against the 
 wall so suddenly that that little pirate found his head 
 was softer than the bricks. I heard his mumbling 
 threats as he retired. I watched another boy and 
 brought down the stick just heavily enough not to
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 273 
 
 break on his head. But by this time there was no 
 pressure on us. They were scattering like pigeons, 
 right and left, scattering faster than I could think even 
 my prowess deserved. I dared turn my head to look, 
 and three good fellows, who proved to be policemen in 
 citizen's dress, were coming up on the other side. The 
 battle was over, and nothing was left but to rescue the 
 women and get them out from further danger. 
 
 Actually, my dear Mother, each one of those three 
 girls was bleeding from the blows of the sticks or 
 stones. I did not understand that any of the cowards 
 had struck? them, but they had thrown these things 
 from a distance. Their hats were crushed ; their 
 clothes were torn ; and the dirt and blood on their 
 faces were fearful to see. Poor things ! they had 
 been crying, as well they might, and now they hardly 
 knew what they said. I gave one my arm, and each 
 of the policemen took one of the others and the fourth 
 woman, who had come down from the house. We 
 walked along to Dorchester Street or Dorchester 
 Avenue, whichever it is, as quick as we could without 
 appearing to be in flight. I was trying to encourage 
 my companion and get the story of the affray from 
 her. And it is from her and what I saw and what 
 Lucy told me afterward that I have made the account 
 I have given you. 
 
 For, dear Mother, strange to say, when we came to 
 Dorchester Avenue it proved that the fourth lady in 
 the party was Lucy Sandford. She had been on one of 
 her charity visits, and came down, as I said, just before 
 I saw the affair. When I came up, the poor child was 
 actually bending down to protect one of the " Salvation " 
 girls, who was fairly sitting on the steps. So I did 
 not then see her, nor she me. When the policemen 
 appeared she turned to speak to them, and I was 
 talking and threatening and shaking my stick at the 
 
 18
 
 274 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 last of the fugitives. And it was not till we began 
 our rapid retreat, for retreat it was, that she knew who 
 was in front of her. For me, I did not know at all 
 who was behind me until we came to Dorchester 
 Avenue, where, of course, we had to wait before any 
 car came. If I had known, you may guess whether I 
 would not have asked the policeman who had given 
 her his arm to exchange with me. 
 
 I cannot, dear Mother, send the rest of this letter in 
 print. It is really only for your eyes. I sent them 
 yesterday the beginning of this story. But only you 
 must have the end. 
 
 [NOTE BY THE EDITORS. We find this remark made by Mr. 
 Merton at the beginning of page nine of his MS. It places us in 
 rather an embarrassing position. All we can say is that the office 
 boy of the C. D. I. D. C. P. Co. brought round the envelope con 
 taining the following sheets, as he always does. The compositors 
 are waiting for two columns and a half of copy, the space reserved 
 for Mr. Merton. We shall therefore put this in type. If he 
 countermands it, why, he can. If not, we must suppose he has 
 changed his mind.] 
 
 I told the policemen I would see the young people 
 home, and at last the Dorchester Avenue car came the 
 right way. There had been a plenty going the other 
 way, as I need not say. I am afraid I must confess 
 that I let the " Salvation Lasses " comfort each other, 
 while I asked Miss Sandford a hundred questions as to 
 the fate which brought her into Gold Street and her 
 share in the battle royal. 
 
 It was all, I believe, as I have said. She had some 
 poor person whom she had gone to see, or to try to 
 see ; for she had the wrong number, or the poor person 
 was a fraud. After inquiring from room to room in 
 vain, she had come downstairs disappointed, when, 
 stepping out on the stoop, she found herself in the 
 midst almost of the fray. " Of course, I could not
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 275 
 
 think of going back then," she said, "though for a 
 minute I did ask myself whether I could not get the 
 poor girls into the house. But, to tell you the 
 truth," she continued, " I was not much more sure of 
 the house than I was of the street. Perhaps, you 
 know, the fathers and mothers might have taken part 
 with the children." 
 
 Then I tried to make her say that she would not go 
 to such places alone again. I did not think it was 
 any fit venture for her. I said I would go with her, if 
 she were willing to go after five in the afternoon. 
 But of course, she parried this. She said she thought 
 she had better go by daylight than in the dark, and, of 
 course she was right there. She said it was nowhere 
 written that such enterprises should be agreeable. 
 Indeed, she dropped her voice a little and said that 
 she had never been taught to shun any duty, because 
 it was disagreeable. She said she had never had so 
 much respect for these young women with us as she 
 had to-day. They had not spoken an unkind word in 
 the midst of it all. They had undertaken to do this 
 thing, wisely or not, and, because they thought it 
 was their duty, they were going to carry it through. 
 
 Thus we had a very interesting talk all the way. 
 We " transferred " to a Broadway car into town, and 
 this brings you close to the " Salvation " headquarters. 
 There we got out with the poor martyrs, as I shall 
 always call them, and Lucy went upstairs with them, 
 I following. You see all the officers of this division, 
 or company, live in part of the building, close by the 
 hall ; or at least, if they do not live there, they have 
 to report there. So the young ladies, for ladies they 
 are, thanked us very prettily, and I explained to 
 the officer I found our share in the business, and then 
 leaving the " Salvationers," we two went our way. 
 
 I wanted to find a cab to take Miss Saiidford home ;
 
 276 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 but this she would not hear of. It was quite dark by 
 this time ; but when she found I meant to go home 
 with her she said that she would walk. I made her 
 take my arm, and we went through Pleasant Street 
 and crossed through the Providence station to Boyl- 
 ston Street, and so to her f home. 
 
 I knew, of course, dear Mother, that I had no right, 
 then or yet, to take the tone of a protector or of an 
 adviser. But I did feel that somebody ought to, and 
 that so sweet a girl, or if it is better to say so, so 
 noble a woman, ought not to put herself in the way of 
 a stray " brickbat " from any hoodlum boys who might 
 have been drinking more beer than was good for 
 them. This time I said that, rather more cau 
 tiously than I had said it in the horse-car. I knew I 
 must not go too far, you see, or she would cut me off 
 very short. I had tried that once before. 
 
 But I did say that, granting all she had said, that 
 we must bear each other's burdens, and that no one 
 had ever promised that the burdens should be light, 
 still there is method in everything, I said, and there 
 is a right way and wrong way. And that such work 
 as this seemed to me to be fairly the work of men, 
 and that this afternoon had proved it so. I said that 
 the whole presumption of the Associated Charities 
 people, to whom she had joined herself, is that they 
 are going to make " friendly^' visits in Gold Street 
 and the other places. " Not alms, but a friend," is 
 their motto. 
 
 Now, I said, it was almost absurd to pretend that 
 she was making a " friendly " visit, when she did not 
 even know where her " friends " lived and when she 
 was not sure their " friends " would not throw a 
 rotten egg at her. But she would not laugh. She 
 only said that, if society were divided in such fashion 
 that she could not have friends in Gold Street, so
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 277 
 
 much the worse for society ; that, for her part, she 
 would have nothing to do with it, except to put it on 
 a higher and better plane. And this she said, not 
 in any heroic vein, but as a woman of sense, who had 
 thought the thing out, and was not talking at 
 random. 
 
 I need not say that I wished the walk was half an 
 hour longer. Only then it would have been, not a 
 walk, but a jumbling ride in a cab, and would have 
 been over in half the time. But we were both of us 
 very serious. I was not thinking of myself, whether 
 I should please her ; I was only thinking of her, and 
 how to save her from real danger. Only too soon we 
 came out at the steps of the house in the avenue. I 
 rang the bell and said good -by. 
 
 Then the dear girl said no, that we must not part 
 so ; that I must come in and have my dinner Avith 
 them. " And then," she said, " I will repeat to them 
 what you say, and they shall decide whether I shall 
 go to Gold Street itself or to any other Gold Street 
 again. I have no wish to be heroic," she went on, 
 "but I do want to be of use. I am not satisfied 
 with finding out how other people live." This is a 
 favorite phrase of mine, which she had heard me use. 
 " I want, if I can, to live with all sorts and conditions 
 of men and women and children, and to be of use to 
 them if I can. I have had experience enough 
 already to know that they will be of use to me." 
 
 Dear Mother, I wish you could have seen her sweet, 
 sad smile as she said this. "We were in the house now 
 and were just turning into that elegant drawing-room, 
 with its flowers and books and pictures. As for her, 
 she looked like an angel, as the light from the 
 chandelier fell upon her face. As I say, there was just 
 a smile, but a sad smile. For I think we both felt 
 the contrast between the elegance of these surround-
 
 278 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 ings and the plain board partitions of the Salvation 
 Army quarters which we had just left, yes, and the 
 squalor and grime and dirt and blood of the flight of 
 steps in Gold Street. 
 
 Without saying a word, I had accepted her invita 
 tion. Indeed, it seemed a matter of course now. I 
 felt I must stay as near her as I could, even if the 
 next hour I was told that I should never see her again. 
 But at the moment I had no chance to answer. Miss 
 Davis came in with a cousin who was visiting them, 
 and very naturally they were excited and nervous ; 
 for Lucy was a great deal later than usual. They 
 knew she had been going over to South Boston 
 and they were almost as anxious as I should have 
 been. As luck would have it, Lucy had laid her 
 handkerchief on the table, and it was all red with 
 blood that she had wiped from the face of one of 
 those poor girls. 
 
 " Where have you been ? What has happened ? " 
 cried Miss Davis. And do you know, I found out 
 afterward that there was a great yellow smooch from 
 an egg on my shirt front, and that my face was well 
 blackened by a lump of mud which had hit me in the 
 fight. Of course, between us, we made such explana 
 tions as in a few words we could. Lucy explained 
 that I was to stay to dinner, and then I was hurried 
 to a dressing-room to make myself comfortable, as 
 Miss Davis said. She was too civil to say to make 
 myself look decently. Really, till I looked in the 
 glass I had no idea how battle-stained I was. I made 
 myself as decent as I could, and joined the party at 
 dinner. r 
 
 I need not say every one was excited. We fought 
 our little battle over and over again ; Lucy from the 
 point of view of a person assailed, and I from the 
 point of view of a spectator. Both of us did full
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 279 
 
 justice to the policemen, who were excellent fellows, 
 and without whom I am sure I do not know where I 
 should be now. Lucy would not let me be too modest, 
 and acknowledged that her first sense of relief was 
 when she heard my first battle-cry, though she did not 
 know who I was ; and she confessed to a certain satis 
 faction when my stick descended on the hard hat of 
 the boy whom I hit hardest. The ladies cannot be 
 said to have listened a great deal. I observe that no 
 body ever listens a great deal to anything. They were 
 full of ejaculations and suggestions of what they had 
 thought and said, and what they had heard other peo 
 ple think and say, and protests about how badly the 
 city was governed, and so on. I do not myself think 
 that we had much to say about that, because the police 
 men were the people who rescued us. If anybody 
 wants to talk about how badly the children in the 
 streets are educated, and what is the condition of 
 things in which there can be such a troop of banditti 
 ready to fall on three unoffending young women, I 
 shall be glad to discuss that matter with him. But 
 of this nothing now, dear Mother. 
 
 I was not even hungry, and I know it bored me to 
 have that well-trained servant bring round the things 
 that I was expected to eat and to attend to. I sup 
 pose it was a very good dinner, but for my part I 
 wished it was over. I did not know why I wished it 
 was over ; only I knew it was all very irrational and 
 unnatural for us to be discussing the government of 
 Boston and political economy and the social condition 
 of the world in general, when I wanted to be alone 
 with Lucy Sandford. I did not catch her eye once 
 through the dinner, although I sat; on the opposite 
 side of the table from her. I need not say that they 
 all made her talk, but, as I said, I think I was the 
 only person who really listened.
 
 280 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 [At this point Mr. Merton's letter really stops, and the editors 
 are compelled to believe that the pages which have been published 
 since the editorial note above were sent by mistake to this office, 
 instead of being put into the cover which probably inclosed the 
 remainder of his narrative. But it seemed so evident to us that 
 our readers were entitled to the rest of this incident that we have 
 availed ourselves of the general resources of a newspaper, and of 
 that omniscience which is fortunately one of the attributes of our 
 profession, to complete the narrative which Mr. Merton has left 
 broken. EDS. COMMONWEALTH.] 
 
 Of course, Harry Merton could have bowed himself 
 out of the house as soon as coffee had been served in 
 the drawing-room. But it must be hoped that we have 
 some readers, courageous enough and determined to 
 see this exciting enterprise to its real end, who will 
 say that of course he did not bow himself out. Those 
 readers are quite right. He did not. He waited 
 bravely to see if there might not be one chance more 
 to speak with Lucy Sandford alone. If he were taught 
 in no other way that he must speak to her alone, the 
 mere choking in his throat, when he made absolute 
 efforts to swallow a piece of potato or of cauliflower, 
 would have told him that he could never pass that 
 night, without solving that question of infinite impor 
 tance which their walk had not been long enough to 
 solve. 
 
 "You will hardly feel like going to the Dorcas, 
 Lucy ? " This was Miss Davis's inquiry as the last 
 coffee-cup was carried away. No, Lucy did not think 
 she would go out again, though she again asseverated 
 that she was not tired ; only she thought she had 
 better not take the chances of being wet. With great 
 resolution she did say, and that in an unconcerned 
 voice, as unaffected as her voice always is, that 
 she hoped her absence would not keep them at home. 
 She knew Anna had to report for her committee and 
 that she would be missed. Indeed, she said firmly
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 281 
 
 that if Anna would not go without her, she should 
 put on her hat and coat and overshoes again and 
 go with them. Miss Davis made no motion to stay. 
 She said that Lucy had better go to bed early, and 
 she and Miss Wentworth excused themselves to her 
 and to Mr. Merton, while they made themselves ready. 
 A carriage was called by telephone, and Harry and 
 Lucy found themselves again alone. 
 
 But Harry did not yet seize his opportunity. He 
 was not yet wholly sure that it was an opportunity. 
 He did not mean to be interrupted by the ladies as 
 they came in hatted and shod, not to say booted and 
 spurred, for the Circle. He did, however, lead back 
 directly to the conversation in their walk. " Miss 
 Davis," he began, " takes my side, you see, in our dis 
 cussion." " Did she ? Does she ? " said Lucy, less 
 at ease now than she had been at any moment. " Do 
 you know, I hardly knew what she said or did not say. 
 Not that I am faint again, I am not so foolish ; but 
 perhaps I was thinking of myself more highly or more 
 carefully than I ought to think." 
 
 Harry almost bit his tongue out. He would have 
 been so glad to say that nobody could think highly 
 enough of her, or to take that chance to say that he 
 thought of no one else. But still the terror of the 
 reappearance of Miss Davis and her friend subdued 
 him. He even affected not to hear what Lucy Sand- 
 ford said, and asked, as if he cared, how often the 
 Circle met, and if Miss Davis's friend was a member. 
 To which questions Lucy replied, accurately or inaccu 
 rately. And then he asked what the Circle was for. 
 And as Lucy was replying, the servant announced the 
 carriage, and Anna Davis and the friend appeared. 
 "You must excuse our running away, Mr. Merton; 
 but, in truth, we shall be late as it is, and Emily has 
 a paper to read."
 
 282 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Harry did or did not say that the sooner they were 
 gone the better. He tried to be civil, and probably 
 was. If Lucy had any hope, thought, or fear that he 
 would take the occasion to bid her good-evening, she 
 was disappointed. He came back into the parlor and 
 fairly took her hand and led her to the sofa. 
 
 " My dear Miss Lucy, I am so glad they are gone. 
 I have waited bravely, because, before I sleep this 
 night, I must know whether I am a fool or not. Or 
 let me put it better, my dear Miss Lucy. I spoke as 
 we came home as if I had a right to advise you, to 
 warn you, to beg you not to risk your life. I know 
 and knew that you must think I have no such right. 
 But if I say that no minute of my life passes in which 
 I do not think of you and pray for you ; if I say I was 
 overjoyed to see you to-day, even though such a risk 
 had brought us together; then I shall earn my right, 
 or shall make my excuse for putting myself into your 
 concerns. I cannot help it. That is, all my life will 
 not be worth living, if you say I must not say such 
 things." 
 
 There had been just so much eagerness in his tone 
 before they had reached the house that Miss Sandford 
 was not wholly unprepared for this sudden declara 
 tion. But she was not prepared with a word of an 
 swer. Harry had had the long-drawn hour of dinner 
 to know that he would speak, and to ask himself what 
 he would say. The man had his rights, however. He 
 had respected hers, and she would not fail in respect 
 ing his. So she tried to speak. 
 
 She looked up at him, sadly was it, or eagerly ? 
 The boy did not know. She tried to speak. "I 
 You It is " She bit her lip and grew pale. "I 
 do not think I did not think " and then her 
 head fell for a minute. Then she looked him full in 
 the face. "Really, Mr. Merton " And she put both
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 283 
 
 her hands in his, and smiled with a face alive with 
 sympathy and glad with joy. 
 
 He did not trouble himself for any more reply to 
 what she had said. He flung his arms around her 
 and kissed her again and again.
 
 284 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. 
 XXV. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, Nov. 2, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I have to write you about some 
 very mixed-up days, because, as the season changes, I 
 find I must arrange my winter plans, and so many 
 different views come up before me and so many things 
 have to be considered that I grow quite bewildered. 
 I feel more and more thankful to Aunt Martha that 
 she arranged this pleasant home for me here, which 
 gives me time and opportunity to study this great city 
 and to try to decide what I want to do. You know 
 my mother has always said that her principal advice 
 to her children has been, " Find out what you want to 
 do, and then do that." We have always declared that, 
 indeed, this first decision of " what we want to do " is 
 the most difficult. Yet I do have a firm conviction of 
 what I want to do, but I am moving hither and thither 
 to find out how I had better do it. 
 
 I have told you how interested I am in the Swedish 
 system of gymnastics, and I had an opportunity to go 
 one afternoon to one of the classes at the Posse Gym 
 nasium. This is in the Harcourt Building in Irving- 
 ton Street, where many prominent artists have their 
 studios. I did not find Miss Knowlton at home, so I 
 have not yet seen her summer work, which is always 
 interesting. In the hall of the gymnasium rooms I 
 found a large class of children from the Boston public 
 schools, who receive free instruction at the gymnasium.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 285 
 
 This is especially a normal school of gymnastics, in the 
 truest sense of this term, and the teachers who are 
 gaining their education at this school are assistants in 
 conducting this class, which meets twice a week. Here 
 were two hundred and fifty children, filling the hall 
 with life and animation; but when the signal was 
 given they fell into line, ready for the exercises. 
 The hall is large, well-lighted and ventilated, and 
 fitted up with all the Swedish apparatus, and also 
 with chest weights, dumb bells, Indian clubs and the 
 like. 
 
 It was most interesting to see the method of the 
 general exercises, marching and military drill forming 
 a part, besides the especial Swedish exercises for every 
 part of the body, all carried out under the direction of 
 Baron Posse himself. The student-teachers, mean 
 while, were taking charge of the several squads of 
 children that formed the whole band, the children 
 , being grouped according to physical proficiency, and 
 each squad having two or more normal pupils as lead 
 ers. This gives these students admirable practical ex 
 perience as teachers, and they are, besides, called upon 
 from time to time to take charge of the normal class. 
 They have also the advantage of a special course of 
 lectures by prominent lecturers, in which the various 
 gymnastic systems are discussed, examinations are 
 held, and lectures and recitations are given by Baron 
 Posse, introducing the study of medical gymnastics, 
 all making a complete -education for a teacher, and 
 especially needed in the public schools, where the sys 
 tem is widely introduced. I heard that some of the 
 teachers take their pupils into the school yard at the 
 time of such exercises, when the weather permits. It 
 was cheerful to see the bright and happy faces of the 
 children as they went through it all, and as they rushed 
 from the general exercises to the special exercises in
 
 286 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 the spacious hall, where each little squad could be 
 watched over by its teacher in trying the different ap 
 paratus so temptingly placed. 
 
 In a great city one sees so many different kinds of 
 life. Only the other day I had a kind invitation from 
 a friend to go to see one of the peculiar Jewish cere 
 monies. It was a most interesting occasion, and I was 
 very grateful for the opportunity. We went to the 
 private house of one of the well-known and esteemed 
 Jewish families of Boston for the celebration of the 
 Feast of the Tabernacles, which takes place in Octo 
 ber and continues for eight days. We received a most 
 kindly and hospitable invitation to go to see how the 
 occasion was celebrated. It is the harvest festival, 
 not unlike what we might meet with at one of our 
 Thanksgivings in the country. We were ushered in 
 through the magnificently furnished house to the open 
 garden beyond, which had been shut in as a tabernacle 
 with boughs of trees for a roof. These were all hung . 
 with fruits of every description, making a gorgeous 
 display. Here was every variety of fruit and vegeta 
 bles imaginable, apples, pears, oranges, bananas, glow 
 ing squashes and pumpkins, ears of corn, masses of 
 grapes drooping everywhere in the midst of the green, 
 and great sheaves of palms shutting all in, and every 
 thing gay with color, making the whole place brilliant, 
 and pictures here and there in the midst of all the 
 glow. 
 
 And crowds of friends were thronging in and out; 
 for the family had sent invitations to everybody, rich 
 and poor. And these last came with petitions for help 
 to the liberal host, who was willing to stop and listen 
 to their petitions and complaints in the midst of all 
 the coming and going. Everybody, indeed, was re 
 ceived with a cordial hospitality ; the delicious fruit 
 was served in exquisite china to every comer; and
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 287 
 
 we were asked to go over the house and admire the 
 choice pictures and the beautiful adornments. It was 
 an occasion, surely, to be remembered and to be grate 
 ful for. 
 
 I could not but contrast it with our occupation the 
 next evening, when, by invitation of Miss Fenton, I 
 went with her and Mr. Merton to a lecture before the 
 Theosophic Society on the " Astral Body." It seemed 
 as if I were suddenly called upon to consider the two 
 oldest religions in the world in two days, one after the 
 other, as I went into this hall and saw a Hindu image 
 placed before me. But I cannot stop to tell you of 
 this, for other things come up. 
 
 You will have read the peaceful part of the begin 
 ning of this letter, wondering, I imagine, that I could 
 begin so calmly without entering upon more exciting 
 events. But perhaps it is as well that the journal of 
 those days was written earlier ; for I am sure it would 
 be hard to remember what happened a week before, 
 when so many eventful things have since been go 
 ing on. 
 
 In the first place, I will and must speak of the 
 wonderful news that Cousin Eupert brought to me of 
 your engagement. It was the very evening before my 
 South Boston expedition, of which you will have 
 learned, because it has become now so great a part 
 of my history. Cousin Rupert declares that it is in 
 the newspapers, but I cannot believe him. Indeed, I 
 could hardly believe him when he told me, the day 
 before that expedition, that he was going to marry 
 you! and that you are the "friend in the West" to 
 whom he was engaged ! I confess to some indigna 
 tion at first that you should both have kept all this 
 in secrecy from me so long ; but I can understand 
 that, if you were afraid to tell your mother of the
 
 288 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 matter in her illness, you could easily be unwilling 
 to write of it even to me. 
 
 Now I am glad that all is going to be so happy with 
 you, your mother better, and you, indeed, to come to 
 Boston. Kupert has been talking with me about all 
 your plans, and I am astonished at them all. It seems 
 he is not going to content himself with apartments in 
 the house here with his mother ; but he has absolutely 
 persuaded you to consent to a house on the water side 
 of Beacon Street, one of the beautiful row of houses I 
 have often looked at with admiration as I walked over 
 Cambridge Bridge and back. I approve of the plan 
 very much, my dear, and I am quite sure that you 
 and Eupert will make a happy home there, and that 
 it will be just the place for the true hospitality and 
 the liberal kind of home life that I am sure Bostonians 
 love. 
 
 I believe I am amusing myself with writing upon 
 your affairs because I am not used to talking of my 
 own, and I scarcely know how to write of them. I do 
 not wonder now that you found it hard to write to me 
 of your engagement, since I find it so difficult to speak 
 of my own or even to think of it; and, indeed, I hardly 
 know whether to believe it myself. Eupert will have 
 written to you and will talk to you about it, as he goes 
 to you this week, and I have promised to send by him 
 a special note to tell you more than my giddy head can 
 say now. 
 
 And it was Harry that wrote the whole thing first 
 to my mother ; for I could not quite understand it my 
 self or make out what it all was. In fact, it seems 
 long ages ago since that evening when Eupert confided 
 to me all your interests and plans, and his, too; for 
 that was the very evening before my eventful day. 
 
 Since then Cousin Eupert and Harry have learned 
 to know each other and to like and respect each other
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 289 
 
 much. With both of them I have already had much 
 to say about that fateful visit to South Boston. We 
 have talked over and over the events of that expedi 
 tion, and we have wondered how it would have been 
 if it had been different, and how it would have been 
 the same if it had been different, and how we had 
 rather have it the same, but perhaps it had better 
 have been different ! Did you ever know anything so 
 incoherent ? 
 
 But, you see, I did go over to South Boston all alone, 
 and to a rough part of the town, and it was in connec 
 tion with my Associated Charities duties ; only that 
 is not my district, South Boston, I mean, but I had 
 promised somebody I would look up a case there. One 
 reason I wanted to go is, that Anna and I have not, or 
 had not, quite given up the idea of creating, as it were, 
 a " University Settlement " of ourselves. For we have 
 talked of establishing ourselves somewhere in one of 
 these destitute parts of the town, where we might 
 make a happy and a useful home centre for our neigh 
 bors about us. So I thought I would combine this 
 " Charities " expedition with one of inquiry into that 
 neighborhood. And, finally, Anna could not go with 
 me that afternoon, so I set forth alone. 
 
 Cousin Rupert declares that I must have been satis 
 fied that the neighborhood was destitute and forlorn 
 enough to lead me to desire to plant myself directly 
 in the middle of its delightful inhabitants. And why 
 not ? I answer. Surely it is time to teach these little 
 hoodlums for so he called them better manners. 
 And for my part, I am thankful I was there to help 
 those three Salvation Army girls in any way I could. 
 Of course, my little help might have availed nothing 
 if Harry Merton had not appeared, and if he had not 
 been there, strong, brave man that he is. 
 
 But I can't help saying that if it had not been 
 19
 
 290 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 Harry Merton it would have been some one, some 
 one to help us. For there were those brave policemen ; 
 and one who took charge of me. But that strong cry of 
 Harry's it was that gave me a sense of relief, though 
 I did not then know who it was. I am not sure but 
 what I felt less brave myself when I found that he 
 was there to protect me. Before then I held my 
 courage up and thought with pity of those poor boys 
 who knew no better than to attack us. They some 
 how reminded me of my Vacation School boys. 
 
 I really did not mean to go over the whole story 
 with you, since Cousin Rupert will tell you all ; only 
 you will want to know my view. You will have heard, 
 too, how Harry came home with me, and how Anna 
 had her friend Emily Wentworth staying with us; 
 for there was to be a meeting of a society they are 
 interested in, and I was to have gone to hear Emily 
 read a paper. But they insisted I had better not go 
 out again, and so they went off together. I was glad 
 Anna was there, for she is more at home than Emily, 
 who was frightened out of her wits. And I was 
 almost sorry I had not followed them, when they 
 went away and I found Mr. Merton was to stay. 
 
 But I must tell you another story, that Anna is to 
 marry Godfrey Brand. She had been off to spend the 
 evening and night before with Mr. and Mrs. Davis, for 
 they were to take her to the theatre to see Modjeska, 
 and Mr. Brand joined them there. I believe their mat 
 ters were not settled till the next day ; but one cannot 
 tell about these things. You can imagine, however, 
 how much Cousin Rupert has to ask about what has be 
 come of Anna's and my plans for establishing a " set 
 tlement;" and he wants to know if Godfrey Brand 
 and Harry Merton belong to the poorer classes, and 
 if we are proposing to elevate them and give them 
 high-toned amusements.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 291 
 
 But I -will leave you to his railleries, and I will 
 reserve many other things for that private note I 
 have promised Cousin Rupert he shall carry to you ; 
 for he says that my letters are public property, that 
 you read them to your mother, and that everybody 
 knows about them. 
 
 Aunt Martha is very kind to me. She is to arrive 
 in a day or two, and meanwhile she has written 
 me most cordial messages. I believe that Harry in 
 his letters to her and to my mother won their good 
 graces directly. Before this, in her letter telling of 
 Rupert's engagement, she explained how the rooms 
 intended for Rupert and "his bride" would now be 
 vacant, and she should insist upon my staying with 
 her for the winter. How it will be, I cannot yet tell. 
 My mother is to come for a visit after Aunt Martha's 
 return and then ? 
 
 Meanwhile everybody is very kind. Miss Fenton, 
 who is deeply interested in this matter, came one day, 
 when she knew Harry was away, to take me to drive, 
 actually bringing me an " engagement " present of a 
 cup and saucer. It was one of those lovely after 
 noons we have been having lately, and we had an 
 exquisite drive. Miss Fenton, though a great talker, 
 knows, as the morning birds do in spring, how to 
 manage her silences. We went out through my park, at 
 the end of Commonwealth Avenue, and then to Chest 
 nut Hill and took the drive round the Reservoir. 
 
 The next day, when Harry came, looking all worn 
 out, I think they do work him too hard at his office, 
 for he seems to have to do some of everybody's work, 
 I inspired him so with the account of our drive 
 that I made him start with me in the electric car, 
 which took us to Chestnut Hill. Here Harry was 
 seized with a fit of elegance and insisted upon taking 
 a carriage to drive round the Reservoir and how
 
 292 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 we talked and admired the gorgeous colors of the 
 leaves ! 
 
 I am going to send to you by Eupert the book 
 called "Cecilia de Noel" that has excited us all so 
 much. I do not know that he will let you have any 
 time for reading it, but you will like to read it to your 
 mother. I wish you could put it all through at one 
 sitting ; for it is the final chapter that gives the key 
 note to the whole. Yet all the way through, it is 
 most wonderfully and wittily written, and the gospel 
 of the closing chapter is most inspiring and elevating. 
 I believe it is the only thing I could have read just at 
 this time, when the whole purpose of my life seems 
 suddenly to be changing, only not really changing, 
 because I can see that every aim is still to be the 
 same. Only, instead of my aim, it is to be our aim. 
 
 It seems indeed strange to have somebody else 
 taking up my work with me so intimately. And yet 
 I did not know of that somebody's existence a few 
 months ago. I had been thinking I was quite an in 
 dependent sort of person, and I flattered myself that 
 I could take care of myself, and I was looking forward 
 to a winter when, for the first time in my life, I 
 should have to attend to my own concerns and make 
 my own decisions. 
 
 But only the other day I had a letter from home, 
 telling how John Jones, a nice young fellow there, 
 was planning to go to San Francisco. He had decided 
 to go, but he felt rather homesick about it, as he does 
 not know a single person in California. I was talk 
 ing to Harry about it, and I said I thought it would 
 be as hard for a young man who had never been away 
 from his country home as it was for a young woman, 
 to find himself among strangers. 
 
 Harry immediately said, " Let me go to the ' Lend-a- 
 Hand ' office and see if they can't send word for some-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 293 
 
 body to meet Mm when he arrives." But I did n't 
 want Harry to do my work, and then I remembered 
 that John used to be connected with the " Look -up 
 Legion," which did good temperance work among the 
 children in our town, and I asked why I should not 
 go too. 
 
 Harry was surprised to find I had never been to the 
 " Lend-a-Hand " office here, and declared he must take 
 me there directly. So the other morning we went 
 together, and were so fortunate as to find both the 
 president and the secretary there. Of course, the 
 moment I told the story they knew exactly what club 
 to write to, and were much interested in John Jones ; 
 and, in fact, the secretary wrote a letter at once. 
 And now, when he arrives in San Francisco he will 
 find some one waiting at the dock to meet him, and, 
 in an hour's time, I venture to say, he will be quite 
 reconciled to having to go so far away from his home. 
 I speak confidently, for if you could see the enthu 
 siasm of that office, you would feel as we did when 
 we came away, that the world is very small, and 
 that all its inhabitants are brothers and sisters. 
 
 We went to the " Lend-a-Hand " office about half- 
 past eleven. The president said, " At noon we have 
 our monthly business meeting, and if you would like 
 to know something of our work you had better stay." 
 Of course, we felt at first as if we might be in the 
 way, but the delightful informality and hospitality of 
 that office overcame all scruples, and I stayed while 
 Harry went to speak to one of the gentlemen in the 
 outer office. 
 
 About fifteen ladies were present. Some were 
 strangers to the others, but interest in the same sort 
 of work made them friends from the start. There 
 was evidently no time to lose, and it was amusing to 
 see the earnestness with which each one would make
 
 294 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 an inquiry with regard to some work of charity, reform, 
 or education in which she was especially interested. 
 " What is the news from the infirmary in Alabama ? " 
 "Has money enough come in to supply a trained 
 nurse ? " " Have you read what the Ogontz Club is 
 doing in Chicago ?" "Have the rooms been secured 
 for the ' Noon Rest ' in Boston ? " " There is an 
 other letter from Kansas asking for relief." "Has 
 any letter come from Florida offering a home to the 
 invalid ? " And here was I with my axe out in 
 California. You won't wonder that I was a little 
 dazed for a moment ; but all these people seemed so 
 accustomed to jumping from one of these places to 
 another that I soon began to see that the distances 
 were not so great. 
 
 After transacting a little necessary business these 
 clubs have the least machinery of any clubs I ever 
 knew a young lady came in from Montgomery, 
 Alabama. It seems she and a friend opened an in 
 dustrial school for colored women and children there 
 a few years ago. When the pupils can afford to pay 
 they do so; but many of them cannot, and some of 
 these clubs have taken scholarships in the school. 
 The price of the scholarships is but eight dollars per 
 year, a small sum for the amount of good accom 
 plished. The club which takes the scholarship is put 
 in communication with the pupil for whom it pays, 
 and some of the letters received from the little 
 colored girls were exceedingly interesting. 
 
 Miss Beard told all about the school and the work 
 that it is doing. Last year there were one hundred 
 and ten pupils, from seven to fifty years of age, and 
 among them were five married women. After Miss 
 Beard had finished her talk about the industrial 
 school, the secretary asked the ladies if they knew of 
 positions for a stenographer, a kindergartner, a jour-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 295 
 
 nalist, a German teacher, an industrial teacher at the 
 South, and others which I have forgotten. Dr. Hale, 
 the president of the " Lend-a-Hand " Clubs, said 
 laughingly, " Because this is the ' Lend-a-Hand ' 
 office, people think we know everything ; " and he told 
 some funny stories which I will not repeat here. But 
 this thing is true, that the " Lend-a-Hand " Clubs, 
 established some twenty-one years ago, do a great 
 deal of work. I wonder that I had never been to these 
 rooms before, and that I had not appreciated the work 
 ings of these clubs. They seem to be an organization 
 that minds its own business and seeks little publicity. 
 These rooms are at 3 Hamilton Place, far up in one 
 of the higher stories. We looked out from the win 
 dows, down over the trees of the Common, into the 
 busy street filled with street cars and throngs of 
 people, and down even upon the telegraph and tele 
 phone wires that are uniting all the great cities of the 
 world, and we could feel how the whole world may be 
 united as one.
 
 296 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD. 
 XXVI. 
 
 HARRY TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 BOSTON, Nov. 10, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, The long letter I wrote you 
 last week, with dear Lucy's in the same cover, has 
 told you so much that I need go back upon the history 
 of those happy days only to say that every day is 
 happier and happier, as we see life open before us 
 and know for the first time how much better a cart 
 goes on two wheels than it does on one. She, dear 
 child, is constantly saying that it is a comfort and 
 pleasure to her to have some one to rest upon ; and for 
 my part, it seems as if I had not known how to think, 
 when I had no one to whom I could tell my thoughts 
 as they arose. But if I begin in this strain I shall 
 never be done, and you and the children will want to 
 know something of my journal. 
 
 Only let me say that I do not believe in long en 
 gagements. I do not think you do. I frighten Lucy 
 when I tell her how little I believe in them. And 
 for one, I am already looking I do not say for a 
 flat ; for I hate flats. I call them all tenement houses, 
 though they be Charlesgate or the Hotel Agassiz. I 
 am looking for a little five-room house, like those they 
 have in Chicago, where Lucy and I may grind one 
 axe, cook one slice of liver, and, as Chancellor Kent 
 said, have two cups, two saucers, and one teaspoon. 
 You must not be surprised if I tell you, or if you 
 hear, that I have one.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 297 
 
 I thought I was seeing something of the social life 
 of Boston, or what I believe the newspapers call its 
 organized life, before. But these girls know every 
 thing of which we men know nothing. Lucy has 
 been living in a sort of university life. She talks to 
 me about education in athletics and aesthetics and 
 ethics and philology and geology and biology, about 
 concerts and recitals and rehearsals, while poor I had 
 been satisfying the cravings of an undisciplined mind 
 by going to see Neil Burgess and his horses. I won 
 der if you have read Anstey's last novel, "Tourma 
 lin's Time Cheques." The hero marries a girl who 
 puts him through his paces, I tell you. She makes 
 him read Buckle, even to the third volume, if there 
 is any. I tell Lucy that she is improving my mind 
 in the same way. But somehow she does it so agree 
 ably that I am quite willing to be improved. Any 
 way, there is a great deal of satisfaction in going to 
 one of these places and coming back with her, instead 
 of sitting in the gallery and looking over the house to 
 see if possibly she is present. I really think that I 
 shall get a great deal more good out of this winter 
 than I possibly could have got without a guide so 
 sympathetic; and, indeed, what she does not know, 
 dear Mother, is not worth knowing. 
 
 And now I do not have to ask any Miss Fenton or 
 Miss Brand or Miss Davis or Miss Brown or Miss 
 Jones or Miss Smith to go with us. We are our own 
 chaperons, and I do not think anybody looks at us in 
 the street, or that anybody knows we are engaged. 
 
 You are so enthusiastic about "The Light of Asia" 
 and "The Light of the World" that you will want 
 to know, and the girls will want to know, about Sir 
 Edwin Arnold's readings. That was really the first 
 time that Lucy and I went together anywhere in 
 form. For she had been very much occupied with
 
 298 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 different friends who, before the engagement was 
 even announced to the public, came round with their 
 congratulations. And, indeed, she and I were too 
 much occupied in sitting and talking together in the 
 dark parlor to want much to go to public occasions. 
 But she roused up last Friday and said it would be a 
 shame, as Sir Edwin Arnold was to be here for two 
 days only, for us not to hear him, and she was not 
 willing to be responsible to you if I missed him. So 
 I got tickets and we went. I forget whether I have 
 told you about the Music Hall. The reading was 
 there. I suppose they knew the audience would be 
 large, and so they had nearly the largest hall in 
 Boston. I think it was too large. I should think Sir 
 Edwin would a great deal rather read twice in a 
 smaller room than once in such a great cavern as that 
 is. However, his voice is strong and I had no diffi 
 culty in hearing. Some people who sat farther back 
 complained that they lost some of the low tones. 
 This would be a pity; for with a great deal of 
 action and energy, he still kept a good deal of the 
 conversational tone which gives all the value to 
 narrative. 
 
 His pictures do not by any means do him justice. 
 They give you an idea more than his face does, I 
 think, of an old soldier, or, perhaps, a hard-worn 
 statesman; but the impression of his face is very 
 pleasing. Still, it is all marked with care. I wonder 
 whether that has anything to do with his having 
 lived in a tropical country, and, I suppose, having had 
 very critical work thrown on him in young life. Be 
 cause, you know, he was in the English East India 
 service, and that is the way that he knows all these 
 awful languages and about all these different religions. 
 He is a man who did not have to study them, out of 
 books merely, but learned them from the people he
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY, 299 
 
 was with ; and to him a Sudra or a pariah is just as 
 much a matter of course as old Aunt Dinah is to you, 
 or any tramp who comes along and asks for break 
 fast. There was something about the naturalness 
 with which he spoke in his little explanations of East 
 Indian things that made us feel as if we were almost 
 " Easterners " ourselves. 
 
 Somebody told me that he had Italian blood. I 
 think if I had not been told so I should have guessed 
 it from the vividness and energy of his gesture, and 
 indeed of all his " delivery." Don't you remember 
 what Mrs. Butler was telling us about the Italian 
 improvisatory how they made the story real by their 
 action even if you did not understand a word of the 
 language ? It is by just such action, which is intense 
 in its quickness and vivacity all the way through, that 
 Sir Edwin Arnold makes the ballads or narratives so 
 entertaining. The first thing he read was the address 
 of Buddha at the end of " The Light of Asia." I don't 
 think I should have chosen it for a beginning ; but 
 I can see that it is immensely valuable as a key to 
 the whole system. But Lucy and I liked more the 
 ballads and narrative pieces, which are wonderfully 
 bright and strong. 
 
 Then Saturday afternoon is always a half-holiday 
 with us, the people at the office are very good about 
 that, and we took a train out of town to see some 
 cousins or something of Lucy to whom she wanted to 
 announce our great news in person. They are two 
 sick ladies, who never go out and to whom for some 
 reason or other she thought it was not best to write. 
 So we had that lovely day I wonder if it were as 
 lovely with you in the country, and as there was 
 no cab at the station we had a long walk together. 
 I am glad she is as good a walker as she is. When 
 we came back we got out at the Huntington Avenue
 
 300 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 station, as, by the way, almost all the passengers do 
 now, they will have to make their great station 
 there, just as the sun was going down. I am be 
 ginning to imderstand now why the real old Boston 
 man insists that there are no sunsets like those over 
 his beloved Back Bay. There is no longer any bay, 
 but the sunsets still linger. 
 
 Each of us gave up our own church on Sunday to 
 go to hear Father Hall speak. I had met Father 
 Hall more than once. He was at the office once 
 about some clothes-pins he wanted for some of his 
 charities, and I was detailed to talk with him. He 
 always wears what you or I would call a nightgown, 
 though it is not a nightgown, I mean a long, black, 
 clerical robe, and I think this prejudices you against 
 him at first. But he is that straightforward sort of 
 person that calls a spade a spade, and does not think 
 of himself more highly than he ought to think, and 
 thus attracts you at once. What he does not know 
 about poverty in Boston is not worth knowing, and 
 his relationship with all sorts of people, rich and 
 poor, is frank and unaffected and interesting. The 
 sermon was after your own heart. There was no 
 nonsense about an authoritative church or form or 
 formula about it ; it was simply a sermon about our 
 being sons of God. I have noticed that some ritual 
 ists are a little shy about using that particular phrase, 
 but Father Hall was not. And another thing I liked 
 was that he said nothing about the circumstances 
 under which he is called away from Boston. It 
 seemed as if he wanted to have his last words words 
 which should always be remembered, and I am sure 
 they always will be. 
 
 In the afternoon we were at quite another place. 
 It was an audience of what you would have called 
 "Jerusalem wild-cats," I think; and Mr. Champer-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 301 
 
 noon, who was there, said it was quite like one of the 
 old-fashioned antislavery audiences of fifty years ago. 
 It seems, for I am telling you all 'this at second hand 
 from Lucy's information, that they have organized 
 what they call a social institute or some such thing 
 for the systematic study of such social problems as 
 Mr. Bellamy and Henry George and the people who 
 have abolished the poll tax and, indeed, all the more 
 serious politicians are discussing. I never should have 
 heard of this in the world if it had not been for Lucy. 
 But she was quite indignant that I should live in 
 a city like this and be satisfied to eat its bread and 
 butter, as she said, without knowing what its word for 
 the present or the future is. I do not mean to say 
 that she used any such grand phrase as this, but after 
 hearing these people talk I feel as if I ought to get 
 into the swing of the dialect. It did not seem to me 
 that it promised very well for the new civilization that 
 we waited fifteen minutes before anything began. But 
 it seems that half the speakers who were announced 
 had either forgotten it or had not put in an appear 
 ance at all, and they asked plaintively from the plat 
 form from time to time if Miss Conway had come 
 in. Who Miss Conway is, I am sure I do not know ; 
 only that she was not at the place where she was 
 announced. 
 
 However, I did not care what happened so long as 
 I was sitting with Lucy with a good chance to talk to 
 her; and, as Miss Tryphena Dexter said of the lecture 
 on the Correlation of Forces, it was warm there and 
 the seats were comfortable, and she would as lief be in 
 one place as another, she said, and particularly liked 
 a place where she did not have to pay for her fuel 
 and her light. Lucy and I had not come to this pass 
 in our housekeeping, but we sat out at the end of 
 a settee, where we could talk to each other without
 
 302 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 being heard, and by and by the officers and speakers 
 came upon the platform. Your old hero, Colonel Hig- 
 ginson, spoke first, and he speaks wonderfully well. 
 In the first place, he is a gentleman through and 
 through ; you can see that. In the second place, he 
 knows what he is going to say. And in the third 
 place, he says it. I should say that the people who 
 go to such places merely to see high and lofty tumbling 
 would be at the beginning displeased by the quietness 
 of his manner ; but even those people must be inter 
 ested in the simplicity and frankness of the man's 
 talk. They had given out as a subject " Literature and 
 Reform." I rather think that was because they wanted 
 three or four people connected with literature to speak, 
 and they thought this would be, as we say at the 
 office, a good enough peg to string the line from. But 
 Colonel Higginson took it in a very unaffected way as 
 an opportunity to speak of the relations between the 
 literature of the United States and reform, particu 
 larly in connection with antislavery matters. 
 
 He said something about Theodore Parker which will 
 interest you. He said that if there had been no anti- 
 slavery or any great cause for him to take up, he 
 would have been a most extraordinary literary man. 
 He said his memory was so absolutely accurate that 
 he would take-down a book that he had not seen for 
 twenty years and turn directly to the page on which 
 there was a particular passage which he wanted to 
 show you; that he had that gift of reading books 
 rapidly and possessing himself of their contents and 
 remembering just what the contents were to a degree 
 which startled everybody who talked with him, and 
 which made him a living authority on subjects of the 
 first interest. I had myself once or twice taken out 
 from the Public Library a book which belonged to the 
 Parker collection there, and I had noticed how you oc-
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 303 
 
 casionally met a word in his own handwriting, which 
 showed the thoroughness of his reading. It was very 
 interesting to hear Colonel Higginson's account of the 
 method in which he worked. 
 
 Colonel Higginson's speech closed with a sort of 
 parallel or, if you please, contrast of Henry George 
 and Bellamy. I never could read Henry George my 
 self, and I have tried it a good many times; but 
 Colonel Higginson says that his style is perfect, and 
 that no one can escape the clearness of his logic. It 
 seems that his views and Bellamy's are not the same ; 
 and Colonel Higginson was very funny as he spoke of 
 his own difficulty in reconciling the opinions of two 
 writers for both of whom he had so much esteem. 
 Every way the speech was an interesting, and, as dear 
 old Dr. Primrose would have said, a valuable one, and 
 I was glad that Lucy had taken me there. 
 
 Then Dr. Hale spoke. You know how much I have 
 had to do with him, and how much I like him. It was 
 clear he was interested in what he was saying, too, but 
 his prophecy was not at all about this country, but 
 about the general position of reformers in their con 
 nection with literature. That is to say, he began by 
 stating that the people who were connected with or 
 ganized institutions and wanted to have the carriage 
 still run in the old ruts were not apt to be the people 
 who made the proclamations of improvement. As he 
 put it, the priests were a little apt to crucify the 
 prophets when they got hold of them. 
 
 Beginning in this strain, he spoke, well, I should 
 think twenty minutes, perhaps more, in illustration of 
 it in various lines. You would have been delighted 
 to hear the eulogy which he pronounced on Howells 
 at the end. He said that Howells had it perfectly in 
 his power to keep on all his life making accurate and 
 exquisite pictures of the things he saw, just as a school-
 
 304 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 girl who is pleased with the bright colors of a tulip 
 gets a paint-box and puts those bright colors on paper 
 and calls that a picture. But, he said, Howells had 
 not been satisfied in the least with this mere presenta 
 tion or re-presentation of the objects before him, and 
 that now he never wrote a page which did not have a 
 valuable lesson for the people who wanted to uplift 
 humanity or, as Dr. Hale himself says so often, bring 
 in the kingdom of God. He said that Howells did not 
 seem to him to care whether people liked to read what 
 he wrote or not, so he could bring in, by whatever 
 means, something which would make the world a better 
 world and a happier world. You know how much I 
 like Howells ; so I was very glad that Dr. Hale and I 
 are at one in that, as, to tell the truth, we have been 
 in a good many other things. 
 
 That evening, in the wildness of what you used to 
 call "Sunday dissipation," we went to the Second 
 Church to their vesper service. We had to go early, 
 because there is a crowd and you do not get a seat un 
 less you go early, and I did not want to make Lucy 
 stand. It is a devout, sympathetic service, and in this 
 instance Dr. De ISTormandie, who is one of the newer 
 men here, but a man whom everybody likes, conducted 
 it, and conducted it with great sincerity. It is this 
 sort of thing, dear Mother, which I think you and the 
 children lose, and which makes me wish you would 
 come down and spend the winter here another year. 
 
 Monday night we went to the Lowell Institute. I 
 told Lucy it must be very different from what it was 
 in your time. The hall is the large hall of the Insti 
 tute of Technology. It is called Huntington Hall, from 
 a rich broker who gave them a lot of money. Lucy 
 had got two tickets by sending some of her admirers 
 to stand for her. She says that I shall have to do 
 this for her in the future. If you are real " children
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 305 
 
 of the public " and have no tickets, you go and wait 
 outside, as if you were Peris at the gate of Paradise. 
 Then, two minutes before the lecture begins, the men 
 who take the tickets retire and you rush in without 
 any. At the same time those ticket people who had 
 seats rush for the empty seats which are better than 
 theirs, so that it is a sort of game of Puss-in-the- 
 Corner. 
 
 You know well enough that I should never have 
 gone had not Lucy been going. But all the same, I 
 was interested and glad I went. The lecture was 
 about meteorites ; that is, on the substances they are 
 made of, largely iron by the way, and on the internal 
 structure of the mass, which is very curious. The last 
 fifteen minutes were given to stereopticon pictures, 
 which gave several curious points of structure better, 
 I think, than if you had had the meteorites in your 
 hand. Lucy had been to all the other lectures, so she 
 was able to " coach " me. I need n't say it was a very 
 pleasant evening. 
 
 But, really, my dear Mother, I will not try to go on 
 in this talk about outside things for which you and I 
 just now care so little. Really, I am living in a new 
 life all the time. I see out of different eyes, and what 
 ever I hear has a different sound. I do not want to 
 write about lectures and concerts, and I do not believe 
 that you want to have me ; and I do not want to write 
 about Lucy either. I want to talk about her, or to talk 
 with her. or, better than either, to have you see her 
 and know her and love her, as I am sure you will. 
 Did she not write you a pretty letter ? And she was 
 so pleased, dear Mother, with the nice answer you 
 wrote to her. 
 
 Now do you not see that the best way of all will be 
 for you to come down here now ? I am sure that the 
 girls and Nahum can run the machine, and I am sure
 
 306 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 that they will urge you to come. You were coming 
 any way as soon as the first of March came in, and it 
 will be a great deal better for you to come now. Lucy 
 thinks so as well as I. She does, seriously. There 
 are ever so many things that she wants to consult you 
 about in her plans for the winter, or our plans for the 
 winter, and really, she will not be half satisfied unless 
 she has you at hand. Then you can tell her lots of 
 things that she ought to know, and can keep an eye on 
 her, so that she shall not work too hard at her old 
 schools, and so that her feet and all shall be right in 
 wet weather, and lots of other things that nobody else 
 will understand half as well as you will. 
 
 Mrs. Metcalf has a large room with an alcove, the 
 same that Mrs. Ireson had and that was left suddenly 
 unoccupied when Mrs. Ireson went to Sitka. It has a 
 south sun, looks out on a little court that was made 
 when people played croquet, and, for a Boston room, is 
 very cheerful. You can bring down as many of your 
 own things as you like. Then every evening I will 
 take you round with Lucy to any of the shows or sights 
 or improving assemblies where you would like to go. 
 And daytimes I know Lucy will come in and spend 
 half her time with you, while I am selling clothes-pins 
 for the common cause. 
 
 There ! I have not told you how good they have 
 been to me at the office since they heard of the en 
 gagement. Every one of the gentlemen has spoken to 
 me, even the president, and I am to have a rise at 
 New Year. By way of special courtesy, I have been 
 told that I need not carry any letters to the post-office, 
 and a special boy is detailed to do my typewriting for 
 me. I do not get quite used to having a "slavey," but 
 I dare say I shall. Any way, if you will only come 
 down, dear old Mother, you will see that we have 
 plenty of time to put you through and to show you
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 307 
 
 everything. As for Lucy, she is going all through 
 the Temperance Convention, and I tell her she will 
 get so intimate with marchionesses and duchesses that 
 she will have nothing to say to me. But really, the 
 only duchess is Lady Henry Somerset. Lucy will tell 
 vou all about her in her letter. 
 Dear Mother, I am 
 
 Always yours, 
 
 HABRY.
 
 308 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 CHAPTEE TWENTY-EOUETH. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 LUCY TO KATE. 
 
 BOSTON, Nov. 12, 1891. 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I find it difficult to write you 
 any kind of a letter, for I have so many different 
 things to tell you of that I hardly know how to choose 
 among them, and I cannot yet write you of my own 
 affairs because they are still so unsettled. But you 
 tell me that my letters are of great interest to your 
 mother who, being an old Bostonian, likes to hear of 
 Boston things even from so new a Bostonian as I am. 
 I feel as if just now there was a little pause in affairs 
 before my mother comes for a promised visit to Aunt 
 Martha. And Mrs. Merton is also coining to Boston, 
 and after that every moment will be filled in. I 
 shrink from seeing Mrs. Merton, though, indeed, I 
 ought not to, for she has written me such kindly 
 letters, and I know I shall feel happier after I have 
 seen her. 
 
 Meanwhile the time is very busily filled in. We 
 go to everything together, Harry and I, but of course 
 we cannot really go to " everything " that is going on 
 in Boston ; yet it does make a chance for being with 
 each other in the midst of all we see, and we look 
 upon everything in a new light together. I wish I 
 could have written you a journal of all we have done, 
 as you would be astonished to learn how much there 
 is to do.
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 309 
 
 We went again, the other day, to see Miss Tryphena 
 Dexter. She amuses us very much with her remarks 
 about the newspapers. She says that after reading 
 the deaths and marriages in each day's paper, she 
 looks at the accidents. " I am almost sure," she says, 
 " that I shall find my name some day, as an old lady 
 knocked down by a herdic at the corner of Park 
 Square." And she also reads the Court Calendar 
 carefully to see what damages the old people get that 
 are knocked down. She wonders very much at seeing 
 so often a statement of "jury out," because she 
 thinks they ought to be attending to their business 
 more steadily and that after they are sworn in, they 
 ought not to be allowed to go out. 
 
 Aunt Martha, meanwhile, is at home, and Cousin 
 Maria, and both of them most kind and cordial in 
 their care and interest for me. Cousin Maria says 
 she never knew so much about Boston as I have man 
 aged to find out ; but then it is the " summer " Boston 
 and not the " winter " one, which has hardly begun 
 yet. But they are very busy already with wedding 
 receptions, marriage occasions at church, etc. 
 
 Some muddy days came just before this lovely 
 weather, and I avoided the street cars. In walking, 
 I can manage to pick my way on the sidewalks 
 and crossings so that I can reach a friend's house 
 with even my boots clean and my skirts quite free 
 from mud. But it is hopeless to be free from mud, if 
 I trust to the tender mercies of the street car, that 
 is, of its driver. I think he has some impulse to im 
 prove upon the Aldermen's rule, printed in street 
 cars, " to stop at the further crossing ; " for he always 
 goes "further" and regularly leaves one in a mud- 
 puddle. I have heard that the Philadelphia street-car 
 drivers are very careful to stop just on the crossing. 
 I wish the drivers here could go to Philadelphia for
 
 310 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 their education, and learn how to " bring up " at least 
 within Iqaping distance of the crossing. I counted up 
 the other day, when I took the street cars frequently 
 in my hurry, that out of six times descending from 
 the cars, I was left five times in a mud-puddle and 
 only once within stepping distance of the crossing- 
 stones. These crossings, indeed, are perilous places, 
 with an electric car, perhaps, approaching in either 
 direction. I usually select passing between two horse 
 cars, trusting to the supposed humanity of a horse, 
 which prefers not to step on a human being, and 
 might spare one from being crushed. 
 
 Perhaps you may detect from the handwriting that 
 I did not write the paragraph above enclosed. Cousin 
 Maria came in to summon me away " Mr. Merton 
 below" and when she saw my paper on my desk 
 she perfidiously added the above, declaring she had 
 heard me say just such things. 
 
 I was not, however, summoned to Mr. Merton, but 
 to two small boys who proved to be Vacation School 
 boys that happened to have a half-holiday out, from a 
 broken furnace in their school or something of the 
 sort. Aunt Martha kindly suggested I should take 
 them to the Art Museum to see the pictures by Wal 
 ter Crane exhibited there, and furnished me with 
 tickets for them and for myself. So I deserted my 
 letter, and a long time has elapsed before I could 
 return to it. The exhibition of the Walter Crane 
 pictures is delightful for the children as well as for 
 everybody. At first I was afraid it might be above 
 the heads of my small boys, but I was pleased to 
 find how many of the old stories that are illustrated 
 by the pictures they knew about. I went round 
 with them, making them read the whole of the story 
 where Ve could, and they were delighted. I was 
 enchanted myself to see the original drawings of the
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 311 
 
 beloved "Toy Book," on which I was brought up, 
 with its Cinderella and Forty Thieves and the Noah's 
 Ark, A, B, C, etc. Here were the original sketches 
 of My Mother " and of Blue Beard," too ; and I 
 was delighted with some drawings for a new book 
 that has just appeared, " Queen Summer," with such 
 exquisite figures of all the different flowers personified. 
 My boys, of course, were delighted with Ali Baba and 
 the Forty Thieves, though they had not been before 
 acquainted with Puss in Boots. So I went through it 
 all with them, and the story of the Marquis of Carabas 
 delighted them ; and after they had begun to find out 
 how they could trace along the different stories, they 
 rushed from one to the other case with delight, and 
 at the same time behaved themselves very nicely and 
 quietly. 
 
 Before we left, Harry himself appeared. He had 
 been to the house for me, and Aunt Martha informed 
 him where he would find me. So he could help me 
 with the boys, and in getting them away, which we 
 found a difficult task ; for, of course, they wanted to 
 go wandering all over the Art Museum. I could only 
 get them off by promising that I would come with 
 them some Saturday and take them all over the 
 Museum. But Harry added a crowning touch to their 
 pleasure, after we came out, by taking us all to see 
 the finished part of the new Public Library building. 
 There has been an exhibition there, which I did not 
 get a chance to go to, so I was very glad when Harry 
 found some one to let us in and I could see the inside 
 of this beautiful building. We went up into the mag 
 nificent hall that looks out from the front of the 
 building, and we quite longed to have it all finished 
 and occupied. It will be a bit of education almost, 
 without its books. 
 
 We looked out from its front windows into the
 
 312 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 handsome square below, and decided that this Copley 
 Square is perhaps now the most beautiful part of 
 Boston. There is, indeed, the magnificent view from 
 below the State House at the head of Park Street and 
 Beacon Street, where one can look down the Beacon 
 Street Mall under its splendid arch of elms. We 
 have always admired our wide street of elms at 
 Astney, but it cannot quite compare with this beau 
 tiful row of trees that forms a leafy arch down 
 Beacon Street to Charles Street. And yet this won 
 derful archway of trees is threatened by "Rapid 
 Transit " and plans for a Beacon Street railway ! 
 One cannot at Copley Square look down upon so 
 beautiful a view as the Beacon Street houses com 
 mand ; still we admired it all over again as we came 
 down from the Public Library out upon its front 
 steps. We dismissed our boys, who hurried home, 
 after thanking us for their afternoon's enjoyment, and 
 we remained a while to look at the buildings about 
 us, which represent fairly so many of the wonderful 
 advantages that Boston possesses. You remember 
 that the library stands on the upper side of a triangle, 
 and that Huntington Avenue and Boylston Street 
 shut in this triangle on the right and left, meeting in 
 a point below to continue as Boylston Street. On 
 our right was the beautiful building of the Museum 
 of Fine Arts, rich in coloring and filling in the space 
 till you come to the picturesque Trinity Church, which 
 faced us. Then, at our left, was the ivy-covered 
 front of the Second Church, where we have been on 
 Sunday evenings to hear the vespers, and where I 
 went often for the Sunday services in summer. 
 Higher up, just at our left, is the New Old South, with 
 its picturesque tower, at the corner of Dartmouth 
 Street. 
 
 A little farther away, on Exeter Street, is the South
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 313 
 
 Congregational Church, with its Sunday services, and 
 in its week days, too, doing much Sunday work with 
 its " South Friendly Society " and numerous helping 
 clubs that meet in its vestry rooms. Behind this 
 church, on Newbury Street, is the new school for the 
 deaf and dumb, the Horace Mann School, due of the 
 public schools where the dumb are taught to talk 
 though they have no voices, and to hear with closed 
 ears. Opposite is the Prince School, and the Normal 
 Art School is there also. Just below Copley Square 
 stands the Institute of Technology building and that 
 of the Natural History Society. This very afternoon 
 there was a .meeting of the Associated Charities going 
 on in the Technology building that we had meant to 
 go to if Harry could have come for me earlier. We 
 heard afterwards that Kobert Treat Paine addressed 
 the meeting, and that Eev. Brooke Herford also spoke. 
 And I learned, too, that the Young Travellers' Aid 
 Society was holding its meeting that very afternoon at 
 Trinity Chapel just opposite us. We met one of its 
 members coming away, who told us of its interesting 
 work and how one of its matrons had reported that in 
 the past year she had directed over eleven hundred 
 young women to suitable homes who had arrived at 
 the railway stations without any idea of where they 
 were going, and some of them with hopelessly little 
 knowledge of the place they had come to, or of their 
 own object in coming. 
 
 But as we stood there, looking down upon all the 
 possibilities that Boston offers in this Copley Square, 
 we decided it would be a beautiful place to live in. 
 So we imagined ourselves taking an apartment in its 
 neighborhood, perhaps where we could look out upon 
 one of its picturesque buildings, and we imagined the 
 happy life we would lead there. We could go to every 
 one of the courses at the Lowell Institute ; we could
 
 314 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 follow up our study of the languages at some of the 
 Technology classes ; we could have our days for tak 
 ing some of the boys to the rooms of the Public Li 
 brary to help them about taking out books and to 
 show them the treasures of the library ; and besides 
 making ourselves acquainted, too, with the treasures 
 of the Art Museum, we could help others to know 
 them ; and on Sundays we should be in reach of the 
 sound of the chimes on the Arlington Street Church, 
 although we could not for long hear the voice of its 
 pastor, Kev. Brooke Herford. As we walked away 
 the setting sun streamed down Boylston Street and 
 lighted up the beautiful tower of the New Old South, 
 and the sky was clear with promise and beauty. 
 
 November 18. 
 
 Since writing the above I have had the meeting, 
 which I did a little dread, with Harry's mother. I 
 went to arrange the rooms that she occupies at Harry's 
 present home at Mrs. Metcalfs. The rooms are very 
 pleasant, and I took some chrysanthemums and bright 
 flowers to make it all look gay, and I was there when 
 she arrived, and received from her a most hearty greet 
 ing. And this was the day before my own mother 
 arrived ; so we have since had very exciting and con 
 fused times, which came in all this busy week in Boston. 
 Harry and I found it hard to hold on to our Lowell 
 Institute evenings and to our regular occupations ; but 
 Mrs. Merton and my mother were equally interested 
 in the temperance meetings and in the receptions to 
 Lady Henry Somerset and the foreign delegations. 
 
 Everybody, indeed, is enchanted with the courteous 
 grace of Lady Henry Somerset, and I wondered if we 
 Americans are behind in " courtesy " because we have 
 no " court " to study it in ; and then I remembered that 
 on this point I was once reminded that we Americans
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 315 
 
 consider that every woman is a princess in her own 
 right, and therefore every woman ought to know 
 what courtesy is, and show it always in every place she 
 is in, which, indeed, she can make her own " court." 
 
 Mrs. Merton and my mother have been very much 
 interested in the meetings, and they think the day at 
 Faneuil Hall was indeed something to have come to 
 Boston for. The meetings are so crowded that it is 
 difficult to make any personal acquaintance with the 
 speakers, but it is a pleasure to see how great their 
 influence is. I was very glad to have a chance to see 
 Miss Frances Willard preside, and to admire her readi 
 ness and the quickness with which she grasps an oc 
 casion. And then I have had one or two chances to 
 hear Lady Henry Somerset speak, and to feel the grace 
 ful charm in all she says. 
 
 Think of it ! We were present when Frances Wil 
 lard made her splendid speech welcoming Lady Henry 
 and the English delegates, at the end of which she 
 bent down so prettily and kissed Lady Henry's hand. 
 Everybody in the house was waving handkerchiefs, 
 and for me I was crying my eyes out. Lady Henry 
 made a beautiful speech, and, indeed, she is a charm 
 ing person in every way. 
 
 By great luck, just at the last moment Harry got 
 some tickets for the balcony, and we went to the ban 
 quet. The banquet, you must know, was in the Music 
 Hall, and I do not know how many people were there. 
 It was great fun looking down from the balconies and 
 seeing the marchionesses and duchesses, as Harry calls 
 them, from our superior position. Lady Henry spoke 
 again charmingly ; Miss Willard made a very good 
 speech ; Governor Long made a funny speech; and all 
 in all it was a very nice occasion. 
 
 But here, indeed, I have some news to tell you so
 
 316 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 wonderful and important that I do not know how I am 
 going to write it; I will only try to explain to you 
 how it has all come about. For this is, indeed, my 
 last letter to you, and so it must tell you everything. 
 
 All matters are now arranged, my matters, I mean. 
 We are to be married, Harry and I, in Christmas week ! 
 You will have the cards. So, you see, it will be just 
 two weeks after your marriage ; and perhaps you and 
 Rupert will shorten your wedding journey so that you 
 can be present at my occasion. If you feel in as much 
 of a flurry as I do now, you will hardly find the time 
 to read this letter or to understand it if you do. But, 
 indeed, I am not all the time in a flurry ; I find my 
 self in a state of great composure most of the time, for 
 it all seems right, and everything only too happily ar 
 ranged. It is only when I stop to think of .what you 
 will say, and my other dear friends who are not pre 
 pared for such changes, that I put myself in a flurry. 
 I will, however, try to send you a coherent account. 
 
 One day, in the midst of all the going and coming 
 of which I have been writing to you, Cousin Maria 
 and I were sitting in a pretty upstairs room, where 
 she has her embroidery work and where we come for 
 all our morning confabulations and plans, and I was 
 planning to go out to lunch with Mrs. Merton, when 
 we were interrupted by a summons from Aunt Martha 
 to go downstairs for some visitors. Something in the 
 glance of the eye of our little Swedish maid made me 
 suddenly suspect that Harry was one of the visitors, 
 and, indeed, she said it was Mr. Merton, but he had 
 not inquired for me. Cousin Maria began to laugh at 
 me for my apparent anxiety, and we were presently 
 both of us summoned down. 
 
 There, in the large front drawing-room, I found as 
 sembled quite a party; Mrs. Merton was there, and 
 Aunt Martha, and my own mother, and, besides, some
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 317 
 
 gentlemen I had never seen. Suddenly it seemed as if 
 I were on the stage, and as if there were an important 
 scene going on in front of the footlights, and as if I 
 were one of the principal characters. Only I did not 
 feel so frightened as I ought to ; for there was Harry, 
 restraining himself from coming to meet me, because 
 " his vice-president " came forward directly to shake 
 hands with me. I had seen Mr. Outlake before, so he 
 introduced me to Mr. Champernoon, one of the direc 
 tors of Harry's concern, and both of them rather stiffly 
 asked me how I was. 
 
 But then Mr. Outlake hurried 011 to what he wanted 
 to say, and I believe he began at the wrong end and 
 said first what he had meant to say last. He ex 
 plained that he and the directors were planning to 
 establish soon a branch of their concern, which they 
 wanted to place in South Boston ; and they especially 
 wished to put Mr. Harry Merton at the head of it as 
 overseer. They wanted somebody who would not 
 only direct the business there, but who would also 
 really oversee the men and their families and live in 
 South Boston, where he could watch over them in 
 their homes. It was quite important, he said, that 
 all this matter should be arranged this winter, so that 
 they could begin work by the first of next year. 
 Then he looked at me and then he looked at Harry, 
 and finally blundered on to say that he had himself 
 suggested that it would be a good plan if I would con 
 sent to Mr. Merton's making his home in South Bos 
 ton. Besides this, he hurried on, it was very impor 
 tant to send Mr. Harry Merton to Washington in the 
 latter part of December to arrange about some patent 
 business before he should establish himself and the 
 concern in South Boston. 
 
 Now Harry and I have discovered that we have a 
 terrible way, in the midst of most serious matters, of
 
 318 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 seeing the comic side of them; and during all this 
 statement, which indeed was stammered out so as to 
 seem very long, I looked round under my eyes to see 
 the faces of all my friends looking so sober that it 
 seemed as if the last end of all were approaching. 
 Then I looked up at Harry opposite me, and there he 
 was almost laughing as he came towards me, and yet 
 very serious, too, as he said, " The thing is, Lucy, will 
 you marry me Christmas week ? " 
 
 I don't know how it was that I could answer so 
 quickly, but it all seemed like a play and as if it were 
 my part to give him my hand and to say that if he 
 wanted it I woiild. And Harry has since declared 
 that he had to come forward then ; for he was very 
 much afraid that the vice-president was going to make 
 his offer of marriage for him ! 
 
 So we all stood up in a row, and everybody shook 
 hands, and it might have been the marriage itself, it 
 was all so solemn. While Mr. Outlake was talking 
 about South Boston I stole a glance at Aunt Martha, 
 and she looked very grim ; for she was disgusted at 
 the idea of our living there. But when the question 
 of a marriage in Christmas week came up, her face 
 changed entirely ; for the idea of a wedding delights 
 her heart. She has all along been disappointed that 
 your wedding and Rupert's is not to take place here 
 in Boston, and she insists, therefore, that we shall be 
 married here at her house, though I confess I should 
 like to go back to our dear Astney. And so this 
 wondrous scene closed ; the gentlemen would not stay 
 to lunch, but everybody else did. 
 
 Harry has since taken occasion to insist that I shall 
 not decide to live in South Boston unless I really 
 want to and my friends are willing. He is sure that 
 he can arrange to be there when he is needed, wher 
 ever we may decide to live. So he has been taking
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 319 
 
 me to look at apartments in the neighborhood of 
 Copley Square, because that was our vision of happi 
 ness that afternoon of which I have written you. 
 And we have had most amusing times answering 
 advertisements and looking up houses and trying to 
 determine the delicate line that divides the apartment 
 from the tenement, as we scorn the word " flat," that 
 combines the two. 
 
 We have seen all sorts of funny things. One man 
 told us, when we looked at his house, that we should 
 not need any fires, as the sun shone there all day, and 
 none of his people ever complained of the cold. And 
 Harry and his mother have been exploring also in 
 South Boston, and they, too, bring amusing accounts 
 of their adventures. Finally, we decided that we had 
 better find our house and get it in order, so that we 
 can occupy it as soon as we return from Washington. 
 
 This visit to Washington and the plan of the wed 
 ding seem to reconcile Aunt Martha to the whole 
 affair. She has already written a pile of letters of 
 introduction for us to influential friends of hers in 
 Washington, and I think she has written a number to 
 precede us. And she plans with my mother to put the 
 finishing touches to our house while we are gone. 
 She even consented to go with Harry and me to 
 South Boston, and the other day along we went with 
 my mother, to see the results of his investigations. 
 
 We drove there in Aunt Martha's carriage, and in 
 deed it was as good as a play to see how her nose 
 went up as w T e passed through the close streets of the 
 South Cove and all in among the railroad tracks be 
 yond. ( Even my mother's face wore a somewhat 
 anxious expression. But presently, when we came 
 out into wider streets between rows of handsome, new 
 brick houses, Aunt Martha began to look much sur 
 prised. "I had no idea there was anything of this 
 sort here," she exclaimed.
 
 320 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 
 
 So we went on and stopped before a house, wheva 
 an elevator carried us to the upper story, and the 
 doors opened for us upon a suite of large, airy, sunny 
 rooms. Harry and I have had a discussion over 
 small and large rooms. I have been fascinated with 
 an apartment with tiny little rooms, all most com 
 fortably arranged with every convenience, but which 
 might have been all put into one of the large rooms 
 we were now looking at. But Harry has always ob 
 jected to the little rooms : they might look cosey, he 
 agreed, and one could fit them up charmingly ; but he 
 has always represented the large size of certain family 
 bookcases he depends upon bringing into his own 
 apartments. " And then," he would say, " what will 
 you do with your parties of Vacation School pupils 
 that you propose to have, and how are you going to 
 accommodate all the men and their families who are 
 to come and see us from the factory ? " 
 
 So I saw directly that these large rooms were after 
 Harry's own heart. And, indeed, I saw at the same 
 time that they must needs be after my own heart. 
 For opposite me were some broad windows, and when 
 Harry took me up to them we looked out upon a 
 glorious view, the ideal view that, you know, I had 
 always supposed we should see from every house in 
 Boston ! Here we could see spread before us the 
 beautiful harbor, all dotted with islands, and between 
 them, far beyond, the horizon of the sea. 
 
 You know how I have longed for this, and how I 
 growled a little when T first came, and complained 
 that I supposed that Boston was a seaport, but that I 
 could see this water view only when I drove with 
 Aunt Martha far away to the lovely hill at the Arnold 
 Arboretum. And Harry declares that I was hunting 
 for this from the cupola of the State House and from 
 the top of Bunker Hill Monument and from the Ames
 
 THE NEW HARRY AND LUCY. 321 
 
 Building elevator, etc. And here I was to have it 
 in our own home; for so I directly determined it 
 must be. 
 
 I turned back to look into the room to see Aunt 
 Martha and mamma pacing it to calculate about the 
 carpets. I fancied Harry's bookcases there, filled 
 with the companions of our future evenings. Here 
 we shall find Harry's ancestral edition of " Sandford 
 and Merton " and mine of Miss Edgeworth's " Harry 
 and Lucy." And both of us fell to imagining how we 
 would invite the boys and girls and the men and 
 women in our neighborhood to help us enjoy our 
 happy evenings there ; and how first we would begin 
 by making it a happy home, a home of our own 
 enjoyment in its highest sense, in the full life of 
 which we could have the best, and then begin to im 
 part it to others. 
 
 I took Aunt Martha to the windows, and she ex 
 claimed, " Lucy, your view is really superior to what 
 Kate's will be ! " Harry and I looked at each other 
 smiling ; even Aunt Martha was forced to acknowl 
 edge that our view was equal to that from the " water 
 side " of Beacon Street ! 
 
 We lingered before the windows with more serious 
 thoughts. Whatever might be our life within those 
 rooms, here we could find inspiration always in look 
 ing out upon that horizon line. And yet, wherever 
 we were, we said, and however full our life might be 
 with its little crowding duties, we could always keep 
 before us the idea of a horizon line, of something 
 beyond. 
 
 From the Boston Daily Argus. 
 
 MARRIED at Astney, Vermont, by Rev. Dr. Primrose, of 
 Atherton, Mr. HARRY MERTON, of Boston, and Miss LUCY 
 SANDFORD, of Astney.
 
 EDWARD E. HALE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, and othef 
 
 Tales. i6mo. $1.25. 
 
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 HARRY WADSWORTH'S MOTTO. 
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 "The four rules are over my writing-desk and in my heart. Everj 
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 Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of prke, by the 
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 title, and it is related in a dignified manner, showing peculiar genius and 
 humorous talent. The contents are, ' His Level Best,' 'The Brick 
 Moon,' ' Water Talk,' ' Mouse and Lion,' ' The Modern Sinbad,' 
 * A Tale of a Salamander.' " Philadelphia. Exchange. 
 
 GONE TO TEXAS; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a 
 Pullman. i6mo. $1.00. 
 
 " There are few books of travel which combine in a romance of true love 
 so many touches of the real life of many people, in glimpses of happy 
 homes, in pictures of scenery and sunset, as the beautiful panorama un 
 rolled before us from the windows of this Pullman car. The book is 
 crisp and bright, and has a pleasant flavor ; and whatever is lovely in the 
 pirit of its author, or of good report in his name, one may look here and 
 find promise of both fulfilled." Exchange. 
 
 WHAT CAREER? or, The Choice of a Vocation and the 
 Use of Time. i6mo. $1.25. 
 
 "' What Career? ' is a book which will do anybody good to read ; es 
 pecially is it a profitable book for young men to ' read, mark, and in 
 wardly digest." Mr Hale seems to know what young men need, and 
 here he gives them the result of his large experience and careful obser 
 vation. A list of the subjects treated in this little volume will sufficiently 
 indicate its scope: (i) The Leaders Lead ; (2) The Specialties; (3) No 
 blesse Oblige ; (4) The Mind's Maximum ; (5) A Theological Seminary ; 
 (6) Character; (7) Responsibilities of Young Men; (8) Study Outside 
 School; (9) The Training of Men ; (10) Exercise." Watchman. 
 
 UPS AND DOWNS. An Every-Day Novel. i6mo. 
 91.50. 
 
 "This book is certainly very enjoyable. It delineates American life so 
 iX /aphically that we feel as if Mr. Hale must have seen every rood of 
 ground he describes, and must have known personally every charactei 
 he so cleverly depicts. In his hearty fellowship with young people lies 
 his great power. The story is permeated with a spirit of glad-heartedness 
 and elasticity which in this hurried, anxious, money-making age it is most 
 refreshing to meet with in any one out of his teens ; and the author's sym 
 pathy with, and respect for, the little romances of his young friends is 
 most fraternal." New Church Magazine. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the 
 Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 EDWARD E. MALE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 THE GOOD TIME COMING; or, Our New Crusade. 
 
 Square iSmo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, gi.oo. 
 " It has all the characteristics of its brilliant author, unflagging en 
 tertainment, helpfulness, suggestive, practical hints, and a contagious 
 vitality that sets one's blood tingling. Whoever has read ' Ten Times 
 One is Ten' will know just what we mean. We predict that the new 
 volume, as being a more charming story, will have quite as great a parish 
 of readers. The gist of the book is to show how possible it is for the 
 best spirits of a community, through wise organization, to form them 
 selves into a lever by means of which the whole tone of the social status 
 may be elevated, and the good and highest happiness of the helpless 
 many be attained through the self-denying exertions of the powerful 
 few." Soutliern Churchman. 
 
 THE INGHAM PAPERS. i6mo. 1.25. 
 
 " But it is not alone for their wit and ingenuity we prize Mr. Hale" 
 Tories, but for the serious thought, the moral, or practical suggestion 
 underlying all of them. They are not written simply to amuse, but have 
 a graver purpose. Of the stories in the present volume, the best to out 
 thinking is ' The Rag Man and Rag Woman.' " Boston Transcript. 
 
 HOW TO DO IT. i6mo. gi.oo. 
 
 " Good sense, very practical suggestions, telling illustrations (in words), 
 lively fancy, and delightful humor combine to make Mr. Male's hints 
 exceedingly taking and stimulating, and we do not see how either sex 
 can fail, after reading his pages, to know How to Talk, How to Write, 
 How to Read, How to go into Society, and How to Travel. These, with 
 Life at School, Life in Vacation, Life Alone, Habits in Church, Life 
 with Children, Life with your Elders, Habits of Reading, and Getting 
 Ready, are the several topics of the more than as many chapters, and 
 make the volume one which should find its way to the hands of every 
 boy and girl. To this end we would like to see it in every Sabbath-school 
 library in the land." Congregationalist. 
 
 CRUSOE IN NEW YORK, and other Stories. i6mo. 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 " If one desires something unique, full of wit, a veiled sarcasm that 
 is rich in the extreme, it will all be found in this charming little book. 
 The air of perfect sincerity with which they are told, the diction, re- 
 
 Sold everywhere Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by ill 
 PuHishtn, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON
 
 EDWARD E. MALE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 SEVEN SPANISH CITIES, and the Way to Them, 
 lomo. $1.25. 
 
 "The Rev. E. E. Hale's 'Spanish Cities' is in the author's most 
 lively style, full of fun, with touches of romance, glimpses of history, allu 
 sions to Oriental literature, earnest talk about religion, consideration of 
 Spanish politics, and a rapid, running description of everything that 
 observant eyes could possibly see. Mr. Hale makes Spain more attrac 
 tive and more amusing than any othir traveller has done, and he lavishes 
 upon her pigram and wit." Boston Advertiser. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 Ten Stories. i6mo. $1.25. 
 
 " Many an eye has moistened, and many a heart grown kindlier with 
 Christmas thoughts over 'Daily Bread,' and some of the lesser stars 
 which now shine in the same galaxy ; and the volume which contains 
 them will carry on their humane ministry to many a future Christmas 
 time." Christian Register. 
 
 IN HIS NAME. A Story of the Waldenses, Seven Hun 
 dred Years ago. Square 1 8mo. Paper, 25 cents ; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 in the days when Richard Cceur de Lion and his splendid following 
 wended their way to the Crusades, and when the name of Christ in- 
 
 iieans 01 suuu as inese, <t(iu 11 is 10 nmsiraie me power 01 tnis almost 
 magical phrase that the story is written. That it is charmingly written, 
 follows from its authorship. There is in fact no little book that we have 
 seen of late that offers so much of so pleasant reading in such little space, 
 and conveys so apt and pertinent a lesson of pure religion." W. Y. 
 Commercial A dvertiser. 
 
 " The very loveliest Christmas story ever written. It has the ring of an 
 old Troubadour in it." 
 
 A SUMMER VACATION. i6mo. 50 cents. 
 
 " After Mr. Hale's return from Europe he preached to his people four 
 sermons concerning his European experience. At the request of ' some 
 who heard them,' Mr. Hale has allowed these sermons to be published 
 with this title. They are full of vigorous thought, wide philanthropy, 
 and practical suggestions, and will be read with interest by all classes." 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the 
 Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 TEN TIMES ONE SERIES. 
 
 FOUR AND FIVE. 
 
 A STORY OF A LEND-A-HAND CLUB. 
 BY EDWARD E. HALE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," " IN HIS NAME," " MRS. MERRIAM's 
 SCHOLARS," "HOW TO DO IT," ETC. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 
 
 Dr. Hale's style is so well-known that it seems unnecessary to say more of 
 one of his books than to announce its issue. The friends of the "Ten Times 
 One is Ten " series will find this latest volume equally delightful with the others. 
 Four boys of the " Lend-a-Hand" club camp one summer in the Kaatskills, 
 and, in addition to trout-fishing and hunting, find time to practically illustrate 
 their club name in various neighborly acts of kindness for the mountaineers. 
 The first summer one new member is added, and each one enrolls a new member 
 for the following summer. Thus doubling its membership, the work of the club 
 in camp reunion each summer, and in various schools and towns in winter, is 
 traced for four years, making a very bright and interesting story. Public 
 Opinion. 
 
 Stories about woodland camps are always of interest to boys, and Dr. Edward 
 Everett Hale knows how to write and touch the innermost chord of sympathy in 
 young hearts. The Wadsworth mottoes and their work form the theme of Dr. 
 Hale's latest story, " Four and Five." The delightful camp, the ice-boat race, 
 the stories of the incidents in various parts of the world, the formation of the 
 club all go to make up a very readable story. Every boy will be benefited by it. 
 Boston Times. 
 
 A new volume has been published in Edward Everett Hale's popular "Ten 
 Times One " series which is entitled " Four and Five. A story of a Lend-a-Hand 
 Club." The story is imbued with all that strong, fresh, original, and helpful style 
 for which the distinguished author is so famous, and which has made him so 
 immense a favorite with young people, as well as with all older readers. Several 
 interesting incidents occur during their camping times in which they splendidly 
 carry out their lend-a-hand principle, and carry substantial aid and joy to the 
 unfortunate. The story throughout is instinct with the brightest spirit, while the 
 mottoes of the club are illustrated in a way to make it eminently helpful to 
 every boy and girl in the land. Boston Home Journal. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 MR, MALE'S BOY BOOKS. 
 
 STORIES OF WAR, 
 
 Told by Soldiers* 
 
 STORIES OF THE SEA, 
 
 Told by Sailors. 
 
 STORIES OF ADVENTURE, 
 
 Told by Adventurers. 
 
 STORIES OF DISCOVERY, 
 
 Told by Discoverers. 
 
 STORIES OF INVENTION, 
 
 Told by Inventors. 
 
 Collected and edited by EDWARD E. HALE. i6mo, 
 cloth, black and gold. Price, $1.00 per volume. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on 
 receipt of price by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 MAR 
 
 Date Due 
 
 1:4,1984 
 
 -WAR- 
 
 f"?%rv 
 
 IfiS 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. CAT. NO. 24 161
 
 31970 ' 00543 4052