^L. 
 
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 
 
 IF, YES, AND PERHAPS 
 
 FOUR POSSIBILITIES AND SIX EXAGGERATIONS, 
 WITH SOME BITS OF FACT. 
 
 BY EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
 i vol. i6mo. $ 1.50. 
 
 , OSGrOOD, <fe CO., Publishers. 
 
THE 
 
 INGHAM PAPERS: 
 
 SOME MEMORIALS OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 CAPT. FREDERIC INGHAM, U.S.N., 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIRST SANDEMANIAN CHURCH IN NAGUADAVICK, 
 
 AND MAJOR-GENERAL BY BREVET IN THE 
 
 PATRIOT SERVICE IN ITALY. 
 
 BY EDWARD E. HALE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "IF, VES, AND PERHAPS." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 i860. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS : WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM . . . . vii 
 
 THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM 1 
 
 PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL 20 
 
 ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK 51 
 
 FRIENDS MEETING 
 
 DlD HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RlDE ? 104 
 
 How MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT . . . 135 
 
 THE BAG-MAN AND THE RAG- WOMAN 172 
 
 DINNER SPEAKING 211 
 
 GOOD SOCIETY 223 
 
 DAILY BREAD 234 
 
 416694 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. 
 
 IT is always difficult to write the biography of the 
 living. It is more difficult to write the biography of a 
 friend. In attempting to put on paper a few memo 
 randa of Captain Frederic Ingham s life, I am hampered 
 by both difficulties. We have lived on the most inti 
 mate terms. I have shared his thoughts, his purse, 
 his confidence. I have slept under the same blanket 
 with him ; have bivouacked on the same mountain-top 
 with him ; have shared in the same adventure. Yet 
 he never told me in set form the order of his life ; 
 nor do I know, from any memoranda of his, what he 
 would wish me to put down, and what he would wish 
 to have omitted. 
 
 He is now absent in Siberia, in connection with 
 the telegraph enterprise, which is alluded to in this 
 volume. His wife is visiting in Bohemia, on some 
 estates of a friend of theirs. I am sometimes led to 
 think that there is Bohemian blood in both of them. 
 Meanwhile, I am left with a general direction to pre- 
 
Vlll MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FEEDEEIC INGHAM. 
 
 pare these papers for the press, and a general permis 
 sion to state what is necessary in the way of biogra 
 phy, with a hint that Colonel Ingham has himself on 
 the stocks an " autobiography," which, if it is ever 
 finished, and the public ever want it, the public will 
 probably have. 
 
 The intimate relations of Mr. and Mrs. Ingham 
 
 t5 
 
 with Mr. George Hackmatack and Mrs. Julia Hack 
 matack, with Mr. George Haliburton and Mrs. Anna 
 Haliburton, with Mr. Felix Carter and Mrs. Fausta 
 Carter, relations which are alluded to in all parts of 
 his papers, have not so often relieved the difficulties 
 of his biographer as might have been hoped. It is 
 true that, when in Boston, these amiable persons spend 
 much time together. It is also true that most of the 
 gentlemen are great talkers, fond of recalling the inci 
 dents of their lives, which they narrate at very consid 
 erable length, not careful whether the listeners have 
 or have not heard them mentioned before. It is also 
 true that the ladies are quite good listeners, and but 
 seldom cut short their historical or biographical narra 
 tions. But, almost always, when I recur to the gen 
 tlemen of this little coterie for detail as to Ing-ham s 
 
 o 
 
 life, I find they have paid but little attention to his 
 narratives, except as they opened the way to their 
 own ; and the ladies, if I recur to them, show an in 
 difference to dates, to synchronisms, and to succession 
 of event, which, to the historian, is appalling. They 
 have a habit, when they commit to writing any of 
 
MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. IX 
 
 these memoirs, of using Towndrow s first system of 
 shorthand, a stenography easily written and read. 
 But, unfortunately, they all learned it of each other in 
 their boyhood ; so that, of a given memoir of any past 
 time, it is impossible to tell from the handwriting 
 which of the four jotted it down, and even the facts 
 stated in the first person cannot be verified without 
 repeated reference to personal authorities. 
 
 Yet another source of confusion arises from the 
 fact that there are two Frederic Inghams, so closely 
 connected with each other at one time, and indeed so 
 strongly resembling each other personally, that they 
 are often mistaken for each other, even by intimate 
 friends. An inadvertence on the part of one of these 
 gentlemen, at a public meeting in Naguadavick, threw 
 the other, the Rev. Mr. Ingham (whom I have al 
 ready spoken of as the Captain and the Colonel) out 
 of the station which he then filled in the ministry in 
 that town. You are never certain, therefore, whether 
 a given narration of Mr. Frederic Ingham s goings 
 and comings belongs to the clergyman, or to the fel 
 low-citizen who acted as his double, unless you can get 
 the testimony of one of them or the other. 
 
 Subject to the drawbacks at which I have thus 
 hinted, the following sketch of Mr. Ingham s life is 
 offered, as a skeleton, on which may be hung the dis 
 joined members found in these pages, and in a similar 
 volume published last year by Messrs. Fields, Osgood, 
 and Company, under the title " If, Yes, and Perhaps." 
 
X MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. 
 
 FREDERIC INGHAM, first spoken of above, from 
 whose voluminous papers the sketches in this volume 
 are taken, is the oldest son of Benoni and Blanche 
 Ingham, of South Warwick, Connecticut, being born, 
 if I understand rightly, in the district known as the 
 " New Society " in that town. He descended on the 
 father s side, as he himself at one period supposed, 
 from Samuel Ingham, of Saybrook, probably the son 
 of John or Joseph Ingham of the same town, who was 
 admitted freeman, or who was free, in 1669. But, 
 among the Ingham papers which I have not published, 
 I find a careful genealogical tree in Colonel Ingham s 
 own handwriting, in which his descent or ascent is car 
 ried out, apparently with some questioning, to Thomas 
 Ingham, born in Scituate, Mass., in 1654. It is clear 
 that, although every man has four great-grandfathers, 
 both these theories cannot be true, and I am not able 
 to decide between them. I leave them to the study 
 of the curious, in particular to those who share the 
 curiosity of the late Dr. Moses Harris, on transmitted 
 qualities. For, if our Colonel, as I may call him, be 
 descended from the Inghams of Scituate, he is de 
 scended from the only woman who was ever tried as a 
 witch in the colony of Plymouth. The trial is inter 
 esting, because her husband was suspected of being a 
 witch or wizard also. But, happily for posterity, they 
 were both acquitted. The Inghams of Scituate, as I 
 learn from Mr. Savage, came perhaps from Norfolk, 
 in England, where Thomas Ingham the younger was 
 
MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. xi 
 
 buried, in the church of St. Somebody, in the year 
 1451, as was Sir Oliver Ingham, in 1292, which was 
 in the reign of Edward the First. If, on the other 
 hand, the Rev. Mr. Ingham were descended from 
 
 O 
 
 Samuel of Saybrook, who was probably the son of 
 John or Joseph, of the same town, it is to be observed 
 that, in the earlier generations, the name was spelt 
 beginning with the letter H. This fact indicates a 
 geographical proximity to the Scituate family. I 
 ought to mention, in this connection, that Ingham, in 
 England, is a parish on the east coast of Norfolk, in 
 the hundred of Happing. 
 
 Colonel Ingham s mother was the daughter of Capt. 
 Heddardand Octavia Goad, of the " Farms," in Pater- 
 son, Connecticut. She was a reticent person, seldom 
 speaking unless she was spoken to ; and I have ascribed 
 to her influence, or to the inherited graces derived 
 from her, the taciturnity so apparent in the memoirs 
 and in the personal demeanor of our friend. 
 
 He was himself the seventh of fourteen children, 
 all, but the youngest, boys. They grew up together 
 on a large grazing farm, with the admirable opportuni 
 ties for the best self-culture which such an institution 
 gives, themselves, indeed, turned out to grass. And 
 a certain indifference which Colonel Ingham shows 
 from day to day, as to the particular duty to which 
 he shall put his hand, is perhaps the result of the some 
 what miscellaneous or jack-at-all-trades life, which a 
 boy on a large farm like that almost of necessity pur- 
 
xii MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. 
 
 sues. He was fond of books, and had the oppor 
 tunity in boyhood to improve his mind by the careful 
 study of Mackenzie s Receipts, of Marshall s Life of 
 Washington, of the Virginia Housewife, and of the 
 few volumes then published of the reprint of Rees s 
 Cyclopaedia. He is used to say that he is much better 
 able to sustain conversation on such subjects as the 
 Amazon, on Botany, or on Cryptography, than he is 
 on the Zendavesta, on Yucatan, or on Xerxes ; his 
 early winter studies having given him a proficiency 
 and accuracy regarding the beginning of the alphabet, 
 which no subsequent opportunities have made good as 
 to the end. 
 
 I see, however, that I am somewhat in advance of 
 my subject. Captain Ingham, as his friends, perhaps, 
 prefer to call him, was born on the 1st of April, a 
 day which has been marked quite curiously in the 
 course of his after life, in the year 1812. He spent 
 the first eleven years of his life in the miscellaneous 
 training which I have described, which to this hour he 
 regards as the best foundation for any man s educa 
 tion ; an opinion in which I have been led to agree, 
 so far as I have been taught by my own observation. 
 This boy, at all events, developed a physical constitu 
 tion wellnigh perfect, very quick habits of obser 
 vation and memory, very simple personal tastes, and 
 the capacity of enjoyment of simple pleasures, together 
 with the warmest affections, which have bound him in 
 the closest ties to his brothers and his sister, and given 
 
MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. Xlll 
 
 him liis life-Ions: attachment to his home. Thirteen 
 
 o 
 
 weeks schooling in winter and eight in summer, with 
 the miscellaneous reading which I have described, 
 seem to have advanced the boy in the first eleven 
 years of his life, as far as I now observe those model 
 pupils of his age have come, who have attended the 
 model grammar schools, and whose faces are pic 
 tured and whose biographies are related in the picto 
 rial journals of the day. It was at the age of eleven 
 or twelve that he was sent to the family school kept 
 by the Rev. Mr. Whipple, whom he affectionately 
 calls Parson Whipple in the first of the papers pub 
 lished in this volume. He remained at this school, 
 with the intention of entering Yale College, for three 
 or four years, when his plans in life were wholly 
 changed by his unexpectedly receiving, one morning, 
 from his mother s uncle, the honorable Eli Goad, 
 who then represented the Eleventh Congressional Dis 
 trict of Connecticut in Congress, an appointment as 
 midshipman in the service of the United States. It 
 subsequently proved that the friends of Mr. Goad had 
 been making such interest as they could, with the 
 administration, to secure that gentleman s appoint 
 ment to the bench of the Supreme Court. These 
 overtures were not successful, but they were courte 
 ously notified that the government, though not able 
 to confer this honor upon him, would gladly name any 
 person as midshipman whom he would recommend. 
 Mr. Goad accordingly named young Ingham, and to his 
 
XIV MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. 
 
 surprise, therefore, lie was informed that he was ap 
 pointed midshipman, and that he was to report imme 
 diately on board the Razee President, then fitting out 
 in New York for the Mediterranean station. As I 
 have already intimated, it is a peculiarity, perhaps a 
 weakness, of Mr. Ingham s character that he had as 
 lief do one thing as another, if each require positive 
 effort and a good hardy bending of every faculty to 
 the result to be obtained. I have heard him say that 
 he was never more staggered than he was by Mr. 
 Emerson s direction that men should buy books in 
 the line of their genius. Poor Ingham was painfully 
 conscious that he had no peculiar genius for one 
 duty rather than another. If it were his duty to 
 write verses, he wrote verses ; to lay telegraph, he 
 laid telegraph ; to fight slavers, he fought slavers ; to 
 preach sermons, he preached sermons. And he did 
 one of these things with just as much alacrity as the 
 other ; the moral purpose entirely controlling such 
 mental aptness or physical habits as he could bring to 
 bear. This catholicity of disposition took him into 
 the navy at a day s warning. His maternal grand 
 father had served in the navy of England. 
 
 His naval experiences, both as a midshipman and 
 afterwards as a lieutenant acting as captain, are con 
 stantly alluded to in the sketches which have passed 
 under the eye of the public. But after several years 
 of varied service, when he was, at last, a past midship 
 man waiting promotion, he was satisfied that advance 
 
MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. XV 
 
 was so slow in the navy, in those days of peace, that 
 he resigned his commission and resumed his plan of 
 entering college. 
 
 I do not think Colonel Ingham ever regretted this 
 determination. It was, however, made in face of 
 the general opinion of practical men, and has resulted 
 in a certain duality of his life, which sometimes makes 
 him seem like a man riding two horses. I have found 
 that readers of his papers are sometimes confused by 
 finding the clergyman, who is addressing a congre 
 gation, illustrating his sermon from experiences he has 
 gained in laying telegraph wire in Nebraska, or in 
 cruising to and fro in the South Atlantic. For my 
 own part, I think the sermons are better for such illus 
 trations. I know, however, that the mere difference 
 of age made Ingham s school and college life very 
 different from that of the boys who were around him. 
 According to his dates, he must have been in the Bos 
 ton Latin School and in Harvard College at the same 
 time that I was. I find it difficult, however, to recall 
 his personal appearance then. I remember very well 
 several of the big boys, as we called them, or the 
 really manly men who attacked study in a way quite 
 different from ours ; but at that time I had not any 
 acquaintance with him, and I do not associate any of 
 them with his name. He says he was chosen into the 
 Phi Beta Kappa in 1837, but I do not find his name 
 on the catalogue of that society. He never took his 
 Bachelor s degree, and he is not, therefore, entered on 
 the Triennial Catalogue of the college. 
 
XVI MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. 
 
 I think that he was induced by pecuniary considera 
 tion to re-enter the navy, but I do not know ; and I 
 am sure he has never told me by what means his second 
 commission was given him. The Exploring Expedi 
 tion was fitted out about that time, but I never heard 
 that he ever accepted a place in it. Nor do I know 
 whether he intended at this time to make the navy 
 his career, or whether the predilections which after 
 wards drew him into the Sandemanian ministry were 
 not already substantially formed. 
 
 Many allusions will be found in his papers to his 
 second career in the navy. All the officers whom I 
 have ever known, who were acquainted with him, 
 speak of him affectionately, and agree in testifying to 
 his willingness to carry out any duty that was assigned 
 to him, to a certain warm-heartedness which made him 
 a general favorite among them, and to the curious in 
 difference, to which I have already alluded, as to the 
 nature or field of the particular duty to which he was 
 assigned. But, after several years spent in such ser 
 vice, he satisfied himself that the Christian ministry 
 opened to him a wider field for energy and activity, 
 and he again withdrew from active service in the 
 navy, that he might enter the ministry of the Sande 
 manian Church. 
 
 I have been somewhat surprised, and indeed an 
 noyed to find how many intelligent persons, who, 
 probably, share themselves in the principles of Robert 
 Sandeman, are, nevertheless, ignorant of the very exist- 
 
MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. XVll 
 
 ence of the Sandemanian communion. This is no 
 place for the discussion of those principles. It is 
 enough to say here that John Glass, the founder of 
 this body, was expelled from the Established Church 
 of Scotland " for maintaining that the kingdom of 
 Christ was net of this world," a declaration for which 
 he certainly had the highest authority. His followers, 
 the Glassites, were subsequently called Sandemanians, 
 from Robert Sandeman, his son-in-law. In the last 
 century, this distinguished preacher was charged with 
 giving intellect too high a place in the operations of 
 faith, a charge which, to the present generation, 
 does not seem as heinous as it seemed then. 
 
 Mr. Ingham was soon settled in the ministry, having 
 received a unanimous call from one of the Sandema 
 nian churches in Naguadavick. His ministry was one 
 of great usefulness in this flourishing town. By a 
 misunderstanding, one evening, which has been already 
 alluded to, of the relations between him and his name 
 sake, Mr. Frederic Ingham, who at that time hewed 
 his wood and pumped his water, our friend was com 
 pelled to shake the dust from his feet the next morn 
 ing, and took the parsonage lot of No. 9, in the 3d range, 
 with his wife and his daughter Paulina. He occupied 
 himself there in literary pursuits. He also eventually 
 succeeded in developing the immense water-power of 
 that region for the trial of the great experiment of the 
 Brick Moon, and, long after his permanent residence 
 there was broken up, he used to return there for the 
 
XVlll MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FKEDEKIC INGHAM. 
 
 purpose of watching the great enterprise thus under 
 taken. While this was the residence of his family, he 
 made many excursions westward in the employment 
 of government or of the different telegraph compa 
 nies, as he had indeed done previously, in different in 
 tervals of his naval and his ministerial experience. 
 
 It was in one of his absences from Maine that he 
 took the temporary charge of a chapel in this city. 
 He subsequently removed his family hither. He 
 volunteered into Garibaldi s service in the course of a 
 short vacation in Europe. He has himself explained 
 the circumstances of his curious cruise in the Florida. 
 His interest in the development of the telegraphic 
 system led to his various employments in Siberia, on 
 one of which he is now absent. It is this absence 
 which compels me to substitute this inadequate, and, 
 I fear, incorrect memoir, for the careful autobiography 
 which he would himself have furnished so gladly for 
 this volume. I had intended to add to it some study 
 of his character; but if, as I have said, it be difficult 
 to write the biography of a friend, how much more 
 difficult is it to present to him your view of his faults 
 and virtues in print, without giving him an opportu 
 nity to correct the proof-sheets. 
 
 In the hope of obtaining some illustrative detail on 
 the subject, I addressed a line to the other Mr. Ing- 
 ham, who once lived in Rev. F. Ingham s family at 
 Naguadavick. He is now in Boston, fitting himself, 
 under the auspices of the Provident Association, to 
 
MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FREDERIC INGHAM. XIX 
 
 compete for the office of talesman, by a course of 
 instruction conducted at the theatre meetings, the free 
 concerts, and the Lowell Institute. 
 I received the following reply : 
 
 BOSTON, Friday evening, 1869. 
 
 DEAR SIR : 
 
 I was born, myself, in Kilbarron, near Ballyshan- 
 non, County Donegal, at Easter, now fifty-five or sixty 
 years gone by, I am not certain which ; and I think 
 his reverence, who never told me, was born about the 
 same time, though not the same place. We crossed 
 to this country, I do not mean his reverence, but 
 myself and family, when I was nine years old, in the 
 good ship Harkaway, from Liverpool for New York ; 
 you understand I was not then married, nor had I 
 yet met his reverence, who had never visited Ireland, 
 then nor since. Nor do I know where he was at that 
 time. My father was not living, and I went to work 
 myself on my own account, though not of age. My 
 wife, whom I afterwards married, had no voice and 
 did not hear well, indeed she did not hear at all, 
 but she was a silent partner. We got a position in 
 the government institution at Monson ; and I re 
 sided there till I entered his reverence s service at 
 Naguadavick, having first changed my name, which 
 was before that time, as I see I have not said, Dennis 
 Shea. I was myself chosen to the legislature, and 
 was at one time a director of the Enlightenment 
 
XX MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN FEEDEEIC INGHAM. 
 
 Society. His reverence, I think, was still about my 
 age, which must then have been between thirty and 
 
 forty. 
 
 You have known him better since he went into the 
 woods than I ; so no more at present, from 
 Yours to command, 
 
 F. INGHAM. 
 
 There is an account of life at Naguadavick, and 
 another of the city of Sybaris, by Mr. Ingham, which 
 will be published with some other studies of city life 
 
 bv him, in another volume. 
 
 E. E. H. 
 
 BOSTON, March 27, 1869. 
 
THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. 
 
 [THE oldest memorials of Mr. Ingham s life, which I have found, 
 are his copy-books, and the " compositions," which he wrote at 
 Rev. Mr. Whipple s " Family Boarding School." " On the Fear 
 of appearing Singular," On the Passion of Emulation," On 
 the Bridge described by Caesar," such are the subjects of 
 three of these papers. I find also a poetical translation of 
 Ovid s Palace of the Gods, and another of Deucalion s Flood, for 
 which Master Frederic received premiums. I do not print any 
 of these, for fear of too much enlarging the volume. The copy 
 books, indeed, are somewhat monotonous. In the following nar 
 rative some little account is given of the manner of life at the 
 school, about the year 1826, if I calculate rightly.] 
 
 AN old clock which stood in the corner of Parson 
 Whipple s school-room suddenly began to tick twice 
 as fast as usual. It did so for two or four hours, 
 according as you counted time by its beat or by an 
 hour-glass. Then it ticked for the remainder of its 
 life at apparently the same rate as usual. /TEiT was 
 never a discontented pendulum ; and on that day, 
 Singleton and I, who were the only boys in its coun 
 sels, thought it was very good-natured. 
 
2 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 But 1 do not pretend it was right. Have I said it 
 was right for the pendulum to tick so ? I have not said 
 it. I have only said that it was good-natured in the 
 pendulum to tick twice as fast as usual, when it simply 
 knew that I wished it to do so. I am not holding up 
 the pendulum as an example for other pendulums, or for 
 readers of the Atlantic. I wish people would not be 
 so eager in their lookout for morals. I have not even 
 said that the pendulum is the hero of this story. I 
 have only said that it was good-natured, and that, as 
 before, it ticked as I then said. Having simply said 
 that, and hardly said even that, I am attacked with 
 this question, whether my story is moral or not, wheth 
 er the pendulum did right or not ; and you tell me 
 coolly that you do not know whether you will take 
 the magazine another year, if the conduct of such 
 pendulums is approved in it. Once and again, then, 
 alflibugh I was then responsible for what the pen 
 dulum did, I assert that I am not now responsible 
 for it. I was then fourteen, and am now hard on 
 fifty-six, so I must have changed atomically six 
 times since then. I reject responsibility for all my 
 acts at Parson Whipple s. I do not justify the pen 
 dulum, I do not justify myself, far less do I justify 
 Singleton. I only say it was a good-natured pen 
 dulum. 
 - ft happened thus : 
 
 We were all to go after chestnuts, and we had made 
 immense preparation, the old dominie not unwilling. 
 
 T. 
 
THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. 3 
 
 We had sewed up into many bags some old bed-tick 
 dear, kind Miss Tryphosa had given us ; we had coaxed 
 Clapp s cousin Perkins, son of Matthew Perkins 
 third, of the old black Perkins blood, we had 
 coaxed him into getting the black rnare for us from his 
 father. Clapp was to harness her, and we were to 
 have the school wagon to bring our spoils home. We 
 had laid in with the Varnum boys to meet us at the 
 cross-roads in the Hollow ; and, in short, we were to 
 give the trees such a belaboring as chestnut-trees had 
 not known in many years. For all this we had the 
 grant of a half-holiday ; we had by great luck a 
 capital sharp frost on Tuesday, we had everything 
 but time. 
 
 Red Jacket would have told us we had all the time 
 there was, and, if Mr. Emerson had come along, he 
 might have enforced the lesson. But he was else- 
 
 O 
 
 where just then, and the trouble with us was, that, 
 having all the time there was, we wanted more. And 
 no hard bestead conductor on a single-track road, eager 
 to " make the time," which he must have to reach the 
 predestined switch in season, ever questioned and en 
 treated his engineer more volubly than we assailed 
 each other as to how we could make the short after 
 noon answer for the gigantic purposes of this expedi 
 tion. You see there is a compensation in all things. 
 If you have ever gone after chestnuts, you have found 
 out that the sun sets mighty near five o clock when 
 you come to the 20th of October ; and if you don t 
 
4 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 get through school till one, and then must all have din 
 ner, I tell you it is very hard to start fourteen boys after 
 dinner, and drive the wagon, and walk the boys down 
 to the Hollow, and then meet the Varnums and drive 
 up that rough road to Clapp s grandmother s, and then 
 take down the bars and lead the horse in through the 
 pasture to where we meant to tie him in the edge of 
 the hemlock second-growth, and then to carry the 
 bags across the stream, and so work up on the hill 
 where the best trees are ; I say it is very hard to 
 do all that and come out on the road again and on the 
 way home before dark. And if you think it is easy 
 to do it in three hours and a half, I wish you would 
 try. All is, I will not give sixteen cents for all the 
 chestnuts you get in that way. 
 
 So, as I said, we wanted to make the time. Well, 
 dear Miss Tryphosa said that she would put dinner at 
 twelve, if we liked, and if we could coax the dominie 
 to let us out of school then. So we asked Hackma 
 tack to ask him, and Hackmatack did not dare to, but 
 he coaxed Sarah Clavers to ask him. The old man 
 loved Sarah Clavers, as everybody did. She was a 
 sweet little thing, and she did her best ! Old man, I 
 call him ! That was the way we talked. Let me 
 see, he graduated in 1811, I guess he was in Ever 
 ett s class and Frothingham s. The " old man," as 
 we called him, must have been thirty-seven years old 
 then, nineteen years younger than I am to-day. 
 Old man indeed ! 
 
THE GOOD-NATUKED PENDULUM. 5 
 
 Well, little Sarah did her prettiest. But the old 
 man there it is again kissed her and stroked her 
 face, and said he had given the school a half-holiday, 
 and he thought his duties to the parents forbade his 
 giving any more. And when little Sarah tried again, 
 all he would say was, that, if we would get up early 
 and be dressed when the first bell rang, we might 
 " go in " to school at eight instead of nine. Then 
 school could be done at twelve, Miss Tryphosa 
 might do as she chose about dinner, but, if she chose, 
 we might be off before one. This was something, 
 and we made the most of it. 
 
 Still we wished we could make a little more time. 
 And as it was ordered, wisely, I have no doubt, 
 though, as I said, I do not pretend to justify the use 
 we made of the order, as it was ordered, that 
 very Tuesday afternoon, when we were all at work in 
 the school-room, Brereton that Southern boy, you 
 know was reciting in u Scientific Dialogues " to the 
 Parson. I think it must have been " Scientific Dia 
 logues," but I am not sure. Queer, I was going to 
 say it was Pynchon, who has distinguished himself so 
 about all those things since. But that is a trick mem- 
 
 O 
 
 ory plays you. Pynchon must be ten years younger 
 than Brereton ; I dare say he never saw him. It was 
 Brereton Bill Brereton was reciting, and he was 
 reciting about the pendulum. The old man told him 
 about Galileo s chandelier, I remember. 
 
 Well, then and there I saw the whole thing in my 
 
6 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 mind as I see it now. Singleton saw it too. He was 
 hearing some little boys in Liber Primus, but he 
 turned round gravely, and looked me full in the face. 
 I looked at him and nodded. Nor from that day to 
 this have I ever had to discuss the details of the mat 
 ter with him. Only he and I did three things in con 
 sequence of that stare and that nod, he did two 
 and I did one. 
 
 What he did was to go into the dominie s bedroom, 
 when he went up stairs after tea, take his watch-key 
 from the pin it hung on, and put it into his second 
 bureau drawer under his woollen socks. Then he 
 went across into Miss Tryphosa s room, and hung her 
 watch-key on a tack behind her looking-glass. He 
 thought she would not look there, and, as it happened, 
 she never did. Those were in the early days. School 
 boys had no watches then. I do not think they even 
 wrote home for them. If they did the watches did 
 not come. 
 
 I do not recollect that George then told me he did 
 this ; but I knew he did, because I knew he could. 
 I had no fear whatever, when I went to bed that 
 night, that the doctor would wind up his watch, or 
 Miss Tryphosa hers. As it happened neither of them 
 did. Each asked the other for a key, the master 
 tried the old gold key which hung at his fob, which 
 had been worn out by his grandfather when he was 
 before Quebec with Amherst. Both of them said it 
 was very careless in Chloe, and both of them went to 
 bed. 
 
THE GOOD-NATUKED PENDULUM. 1 
 
 We all got up early the next day, as we had prom 
 ised. But before breakfast I did not go near ^IQ 
 clock, you need not charge that on me. I hurrie<T ^ 
 the others, got them to breakfast, and ate my 
 own speedily. Then I did go into the school-room 
 ten minutes before the crowd. I locked both doors 
 and drew down the paper-hanging curtain. I took a 
 brad-awl out of my pocket, and unscrewed the pen 
 dulum from the bottom of the rod. I left it in the 
 bottom of the box. I took a horseshoe from my pocket 
 and lashed it tight with packthread about a quarter 
 way down the rod, perhaps two inches above the 
 quarter. I put in a nail after it was tied, twisted the 
 string round it twice, and rammed the point into 
 the knot. Then I started the pendulum again, 
 found to my delight that it was very good-natured, 
 and ticked twice as fast as I ever heard it, I shut 
 and locked the clock door, rolled up the paper-hanging 
 curtain, and unlocked the school doors. If you choose 
 to say I went to the clock after breakfast, before school, 
 that is true, I do not deny it. If you say I went 
 before breakfast, I do deny it, that is not true. If 
 you ask if it was right for me to do so, as you im 
 plied you were going to do, I do not claim that it 
 was. I have not said it was right. All I have said 
 yet is that the pendulum was good-natured. And I 
 will always protest as I have often done before 
 against these interruptions. 
 
 I suppose I was engaged three minutes in these 
 
8 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 affairs. I cannot tell, because the clock had stopped, 
 and, when we are pleasantly employed, time flies. I 
 was not interrupted. Nobody came into that school 
 room before it was time. In the Boston schools now 
 "tKeyTiire the scholars to be unpunctual, giving them 
 extra credits if they arrive five minutes too early. If 
 they knew, as well as I do, what nuisances people are 
 who come before the time fixed for their arrival, they 
 would not bribe the children in that direction. Cer 
 tainly dear old Parson Whipple did not. We went 
 in when the clock struck, and we went out when it 
 struck. He had no idea of improving on what was 
 exactly right. If he had read Voltaire, he would 
 have said, " Le mieux est Pennemi du bon." 
 
 So when the clock struck eight we rushed in. Rev 
 erent silence at prayers. I suppose my conscience 
 pricked me ; I have very little doubt it did, but I 
 don t remember it at all. Little boys called up in 
 Latin grammar. Luckily they were all well up, and 
 gabbled off their lesson in fine style : 
 
 " Amussis, a mason s rule. 
 
 " Buris, the beam of a plough," &c., &c. 
 
 The lessons went down one exception to each boy 
 without one halt ; the master nodded with pleasure, 
 and passed up to the first boy again ; down it went 
 again, and down again. These \?tre bright little fel 
 lows ; not one mistake, perfect credits all. 
 
 " It is a very good lesson," said the dear old soul. 
 " It s a pleasure to hear boys when they recite so 
 
THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. 9 
 
 well. This will give us a little time for me to show 
 you " 
 
 What he was going to show them I do not know. 
 He turned round as he said " time," and saw to his 
 amazement that the clock pointed to 8.30. He put 
 his hand to his watch unconsciously, and half smiled 
 when he saw it had run down. 
 
 " No matter," said he, u we are later than I thought. 
 Seats, algebra boys." 
 
 So we took our places, and very much the same 
 thing followed. Singleton and I were sent to the 
 blackboards, for the dear old man was in advance of 
 the age in those matters, and we did our very quick 
 est. But Hackmatack had not our motive, and per 
 haps did not understand the algebra so well, so that 
 he stumbled and made a long business of it, and so 
 did the boy who was next to him. That boy was still 
 on the rack, too much puzzled to see what Singleton 
 meant by holding up three fingers of one hand and 
 one of the other, when the Parson said, " I cannot 
 spend all the morning upon you ; sit down, sir," sent 
 another boy to the board^o explain my work, looked 
 at the clock, and was this time fairly surprised to see 
 that it was already half past nine. He seized the 
 opportunity for a Parthian lesson to Brereton and 
 Hackmatack. " Half an hour each on one of the sim 
 plest problems in the book. And I must put off the 
 other boys till to-morrow." The other boys were a 
 little amazed at their respite, but took the goods the 
 l * 
 
10 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 gods provided without comment. We went to our 
 seats, and in a very few minutes it was quarter of 
 ten, and we were sent out to recess. Recess, you 
 know, was quarter of an hour ; it generally began at 
 quarter of eleven, but to-day we had it at quarter of 
 ten, because school was an hour earlier. I say quarter 
 of ten because the clock said so. The sun was over 
 cast with a heavy Indian-summer mist, so we could 
 not compare the clock with the sun-dial. 
 
 The little boys carried out their lunch as usual, going 
 through the store-closet on the way. But there was 
 not much enthusiasm on the subject of lunch, and a 
 good deal of generosity was observed in the offer from 
 one to another of apples and doughnuts, which, 
 however, were not often accepted. I soon stopped 
 this by saying that nobody wanted lunch because we 
 were to dine so early, and proposing that we should 
 all save our provisions for the afternoon picnic. Mean 
 while, I conferred with Clapp about the black mare. 
 He said she was in the upper pasture, which was the 
 next field to our sugar-lot ; and he thought he would 
 run across now and drive her down into the lower 
 pasture, in which case she would be standing by the 
 bars as soon as school was over, and he could take her 
 at once, and give her some grain while we were eating 
 our dinner. Clapp, you see, was a day scholar. I 
 asked him if he should have time, and he said of course 
 he should. But, in fact, he was not out of sight of 
 the house before the master rang the bell out of the 
 
THE GOOD-NATUEED PENDULUM. 11 
 
 window, and recess was over. Even the little boys 
 said it was the shortest recess they had ever known. 
 
 So far as I felt any anxiety that day, it was in the 
 next exercise. This was the regular writing of copies 
 by the whole school. Now the writing of copies is a 
 pretty mechanical business, and the master was a 
 pretty methodical man, and when he assigned to us 
 ten lines of the copy-book to be written in twenty-five 
 minutes, giving him five for " inspection," he meant 
 very nearly what he said, as he generally did. I ven 
 tured to say to Hackmatack and Clapp, as we sat 
 down at our form, " Let s all write like hokey." But 
 I did not dare explain to them, and far less to the 
 others, why the writing should be rapid. Earlier than 
 that, my uncle had taught me one of the great lessons 
 of life, " If you want your secret kept, keep it." 
 
 So we all fell to, on 
 
 Time trips for triflers, but flies for the faithful, 
 
 which was the copy for the big boys for the day. The 
 little boys were still mum-mum-mumming in very 
 large letters. Singleton and I put in our fastest, - 
 and Clapp and Hackmatack caught the contagion. 
 The master sat correcting Latin exercises, and the 
 school was very still, as always when we were writ 
 ing. How lucky that you never could hear the old 
 clock tick when the case was shut and fastened I I 
 should not be much worried now by the stint we had 
 then, but in those days these fingers were more fit for 
 
12 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 bats and balls than for pens, and the up-strokes had to 
 be very fine and the down-strokes very heavy. Still, 
 we had always thought it a bore to be kept twenty- 
 five minutes on those ten lines, and so we had some 
 margin to draw upon. And as that rapid, good-na 
 tured minute-hand neared the V on the clock I fin 
 ished the u in the last u faithful," having unfortu 
 nately no room left on the line for the I. Hackma 
 tack was but a word behind me, and Clapp and Sin 
 gleton had but a few " faithfuls " to finish. Why do 
 boys think it easier to write their words in columns 
 than in lines ? Is it simply because this is the wrong 
 way, O shade of Calvin ! or that the primeval 
 civilization still lingers in their blood, and the Fathers 
 wrote so, O Burlingame and shade of Confucius ? 
 
 We sat up straight, and held our long quill pens 
 erect, as was our duty when we had finished. The 
 little boys from their side of the room looked up sur 
 prised ; and redoubled the vicious speed by which 
 already their mums had been debasing themselves into 
 uiuiui with the dots in the i s omitted. Faithful 
 Brereton and Harris and Wells I can see them 
 now plodded on unconscious ; I could see that none 
 of them had advanced more than a quarter down his 
 
 For a few minutes the dominie did not observe our 
 erected pen-feathers, so engaged was he in altering a 
 " sense line " of Singleton s or somebody s. The 
 " sense " of this line was, that " the virtuous father 
 
THE GOOD-NATUKED PENDULUM. 13 
 
 of Minerva always rewarded green conquerors," such 
 epithets and expletives having suggested themselves 
 from Browne s Viridarium. But the last syllable of 
 " Palladis " had got snagged behind a consonant, and 
 the amiable dominie was relieving it from the over 
 pressure. So we sat like Roman senators, with our 
 quill sceptres poised, not coughing nor moving, nor 
 in any way calling his attention, that the others might 
 have the more time. And the little boys fairly gal 
 loped with their mums. But our sedate fellows on the 
 other form plodded painfully on, and had only fin 
 ished seven lines when Mr. Whipple looked up, saw 
 the senators and the sceptres, and said, reproachfully : 
 " You cannot all have hurried through that copy ! 
 the chestnuts turn your heads." With the moment 
 he turned his, to see that the minute-hand had passed 
 a full half-circle. "Is it half past?" he said inno 
 cently. " I beg your pardon ; but among the Muses, 
 you know, we are unconscious of time. Well, well, 
 let us see. Rather shabby, George, rather shabby ; 
 not near so good as yesterday ; 
 
 4 Some strains are short and some are shorter / 
 
 and you too, Singleton. I do not know when you 
 have been so careless, you both of you are in such 
 haste. See, Wells and Harris have not yet finished 
 their lines. 
 
 Wells and Harris I think were as much astonished 
 in their way ; for it was not their wont to come in 
 
14 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 sixth and seventh fairly distanced, indeed on, 
 
 any such race-course. But there was little time for 
 criticism. That good-natured pendulum was rushing 
 on. The little boys escaped without comment on 
 those vicious m s, and, if there were anything in the 
 system, each one of them ought to write " common 
 wealth " now, so that it should pass the proof-reader 
 as " counting-house." But there is not much in the 
 system, and I dare say they are all bank presidents, 
 editors, professors of penmanship, or other men of 
 letters. 
 
 The clock actually pointed at quarter of eleven ! 
 Now at 10.30 we should have been out at recitation, 
 translating Camilla well over the plain. * We had 
 thrown her across the river on a lance the day before. 
 We shuffled out, and I, still in a hurry, had to be cor 
 rected for speed by the master. I then assumed a 
 more decorous tone, his grated nerves were soothed 
 as he heard the smooth cadences of the Latin, and 
 then, of course, just the same thing happened as be 
 fore. The lesson was ninety lines, but we had not 
 read half of them when Miss Tryphosa put in her 
 head to look at the clock. 
 
 " Beg pardon, brother, my watch has run down. 
 Bless me, it is half past eleven ! " And she receded 
 as suddenly as she came. As she went she was heard 
 asking, " Where can the morning have gone ? " and 
 observing to vacant space in the hall, that " the potatoes 
 were not yet on the fire." As for the dominie, he 
 
THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. 15 
 
 ascribed all this to our beginning the Yirgil too late ; 
 said we might stay on the benches and finish it now, 
 and gave the little boys another " take " in their 
 arithmetics, while we stayed till the welcome clock 
 struck twelve. 
 
 " Certainly a short morning, boys. So much for 
 being quiet and good. Good day, now, and a pleasant 
 afternoon to you." It is at this point, so far as I 
 know, that my conscience, for the first time, tingled a 
 little. 
 
 A little, but, alas, not long ! We rushed in for 
 dinner. Poor Miss Tryphosa had to apologize for the 
 first and last time in her life ! Somehow we had 
 caught her, she said. She was sure she had no idea 
 how, but the morning had seemed very short to 
 her, and so our potatoes were not done. But they 
 would be done before long, and of course we had 
 not expected much from a picked-up dinner, an hour 
 early. We all thanked and praised. I cut the cold 
 corned beef, and we fell to, our appetites, unlunched, 
 beginning to come into condition. My only trouble 
 was to keep the rest back till Miss Tryphosa s pota 
 toes the largest a little hard at heart appeared. 
 
 For, in truth, the boys were all wild to be away. 
 And as soon as the potatoes were w r ell freed from their 
 own jackets and imprisoned under ours, I cut the final 
 slices of the beef. Hackmatack cut the corresponding 
 bread ; the little boys took galore of apples and of 
 doughnuts ; we packed all in the lunch-baskets, took 
 
16 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 the hard eggs beside, and the salt, and were away. 
 As the boys went down the hill, I stopped in the school 
 room, locked the doors, drew the curtain, opened the 
 clock, cut the packthread, pocketed the horseshoe, 
 screwed on the bob, and started the pendulum a^ain. 
 A very good-natured pendulum indeed ! It had done 
 the work of four hours in two. How much better 
 that than sulking, discontented, for a whole hour, in 
 the corner of a farmer s kitchen ! y 
 I Miss Tryphosa and riir UrbHterhad the feeling, I 
 suppose, which sensible people have about half the 
 days of their lives, " that it is extraordinary the time 
 should go so fast ! " So much for being infinite be- 
 ]ngs7"clad for only a few hours in time and clay, nor 
 i wholly at home in those surroundings. 
 
 Did I say I would write the history of that chest- 
 nutting? I did not say so. I did not entitle this 
 story " The Good Chestnuts," but " The Good-na 
 tured Pendulum." I will only say to the little girls 
 that all went well. We waited at the foot of the hill 
 for a few minutes till Clapp and Perkins came up with 
 the mare and wagon. They said it was hardly half 
 an hour since school, but even the little boys knew 
 better, because the clock had struck one as we left 
 the school-house. It was a little odd, however, that, 
 as the boys said this, the doctor passed in his gig, and 
 when Clapp asked him what time it was he looked at 
 his watch, and said, " Half past ten." 
 But the doctor always was so queer ! 
 
THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. 17 
 
 WELL, we had a capital time ; just that pleasant 
 ([haze hung over the whole-J Into the pasture, by the 
 second-growth, over the stream, into the trees, 
 and under them, fingers well pricked, bags all the 
 time growing fuller and fuller. Then the afternoon 
 lunch, which well compensated for the abstemiousness 
 of the morning s, then a sharp game at ball with the 
 chestnut burrs, and even the smallest boys were 
 made to catch them bravely, and, as the spines ran 
 into their little plump hands, to cry, " Pain is no evil ! " 
 A first-rate frolic, every minute a success. The 
 sun would steal down, but for once, though we had 
 not too much time, we seemed to have enough to get 
 through without a hurry. We big boys were respon 
 sible for the youngsters, and we had them safely up 
 on the Holderness road, by Clapp s grandmother s, 
 Tom Lynch driving and the little ones piled in Sa 
 rah Clavers in front with the chestnut-bags, when 
 the sun went down. 
 
 By the time it was pitch dark we were at home, 
 and were warmly welcomed by the master and Miss 
 Tryphosa. Good soul, she even made dip-toast for 
 our suppers, and had hot apples waiting for us between 
 the andirons. The boys rushed in shouting, scattered 
 to wash their hands, and to get her to pick out the 
 thorns, and some of our fellows put on some of the 
 chestnuts to boil. For me, I stepped into the school 
 room, and, in the dark, moved the hour-hand of the 
 clock back two hours. Before long we all gathered at 
 
18 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 tea, the master with us, as was his custom in the 
 evening. 
 
 After we had told our times, as we big boys sat 
 picking over chestnuts, after the little ones had been 
 excused, Miss Tryphosa said, " Well, boys, I am sure 
 I am much indebted to you for one nice long after 
 noon." My cheeks tingled a little, and when the 
 master said, " Yes, the afternoon fairly made up the 
 shortcomings of the morning," I did not dare to look 
 him in the face .^Singleton slipped off from table, and 
 I think he then went and replaced the watch-keys. 
 
 The next day, as we sat in algebra, the clock struck 
 twelve instead of ten. The master went and stopped 
 the striking part. Did he look at me when he did 
 so ? He is now Bishop of New Archangel. Will he 
 perhaps write me a line to tell me ? And that after 
 noon, when Brereton was on his " Scientific Dia 
 logues," actually the master said to him, " I will go 
 back to the last lesson, Brereton. What is the length 
 of a second s pendulum ? " And Brereton told him. 
 " What should you think the beat of our pendulum 
 here ? " said the doctor, opening the case. Brereton 
 could not tell ; and the master explained ; that this 
 pendulum was five feet long. That the time of the 
 oscillations of two pendulums was as the square root 
 of the lengths, Brereton had already said ; so he was 
 set to calculate on the board the square root of sixty 
 inches, and the square root of the second s pendulum, 
 39.139. I have remembered that to this day. So he 
 found out the beat of our pendulum, and then we 
 
THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. 19 
 
 verified it by the master s watch, which was going that 
 afternoon. Then with perfect cold blood the master 
 said, " And if you wanted to make the pendulum go 
 twice as fast, Brereton, what would you do ? " And 
 Brereton, innocent as Psyche, but eager as Pallas 
 Athene, said, of course, that he would take the square 
 root of five, divide it by two, and square the quotient. 
 " The square is 1.225," said he, rapidly. " I would 
 cut the rod at one foot two and a quarter inches from 
 the pivot, and hang on the bob there." 
 
 " Very good," said the master; " or, more simply, 
 you move the bob up three quarters of the way." So 
 saying he gave us the next lesson. Did he know, or 
 did he not know ? Singleton and I looked calmly on, 
 but showed neither guilt nor curiosity. * 
 
 Dear master, if there is ink and paper in New V 
 Archangel, write me, and say, did you know, or did 
 you not know ? Accept this as my confession, and 
 grant absolution to me, being penitent. ^ 
 
 Dear master and dear reader, I am not so penitent 
 but I will own, that, in a thousand public meetings 
 since, I have wished some spirited boy had privately run 
 the pendulum-bob up to the very pivot of the rod. Yes, 
 and there have been a thousand nice afternoons at 
 home, or at George s, -o~wttli Haliburton, or with 
 Liston, or with you, when I have wished I could 
 stretch the rod the rest of you unconscious till 
 it was ten times as long. 
 
 Dear master, I am your affectionate 
 
 FRED. INGHAM. 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUYAL. 
 
 [MR. THACKERAY seemed to lose no opportunity to show his 
 interest in American history, after his first visit here. His 
 admirable novel, " The Virginians," has never been appreciated 
 in America as it deserves. I believe this is because we are not 
 yet prepared for a careful or a conscientious study of our own 
 Revolution, and the events which led to it. In my own estimate 
 of Mr. Thackeray, his power as a philosophical historian was no 
 less distinguished than his power as a novelist. I do not think 
 it would be difficult to show that the imagination which enables 
 a writer to create a series of characters, and move them to and 
 fro over the checker-board of a romance, is the same power by 
 which a true historian makes the dead bones of annals live, 
 and move about as men and women again on the field of their 
 old career. When Mr. Macaulay died, I could not but hope 
 that Mr. Thackeray would undertake the continuation of the 
 unfinished history of England. He would have carried out this 
 work with more success than, in another generation, Smollett 
 attained in his continuation of Hume. 
 
 True to his interest in American subjects, Mr. Thackeray 
 brought his last hero, Denis Duval, to the edge of service against 
 Paul Jones. I do not suppose Mr. Thackeray knew probably 
 he did not care how indifferent America is to Paul Jones, 
 his victory or his reputation. If he had written one more chap 
 ter of " Denis Duval," it would have been to describe the battle 
 between the " Bon Homme Richard " and the Serapis." To 
 do this he had brought Duval on board the " Serapis," just be- 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 21 
 
 fore that battle took place. In the article which follows I have 
 quoted the last words he wrote in that novel. 
 
 Supposing that some new interest had been attracted to Paul 
 Jones by Mr. Thackeray s plan, and by the action between 
 the Alabama and the Kearsarge, which had just taken place 
 when this sketch was written, I attempted to write for lands 
 men, as a landsman might, an account of the action as it would 
 have appeared to one viewing it from the English side. Of 
 course I was not rash enough to take Denis Duval s pen. But I 
 introduced him among the lay-figures, as I did Mr. Merry, the 
 midshipman with whom Mr. Cooper makes us acquainted, as 
 one of Paul Jones s companions. With the exception of Mr. 
 Heddart, Mr. Merry, and Denis Duval s presence on the scene, 
 the narration is purely historical, as far as I knew how to make 
 it so, on a study of all the known authorities, which are strangely 
 few. 
 
 The article was first printed in the Atlantic Monthly for 
 October, 1864.] 
 
 INGHAM and his wife have a habit of coming in to 
 spend the evening with us, unless we go there, or 
 unless we both go to Haliburton s, or unless there is 
 something better to do elsewhere. 
 
 We talk, or we play besique, or Mrs. Haliburton 
 sings, or we sit on the stoup and hear the crickets 
 sing ; but when there is a new Trollope or Thackeray, 
 alas, there will never be another new Thackeray ! 
 all else has always been set aside till we have read that 
 al oud. 
 
 When I began the last sentence of the last Thack- 
 
22 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 eray that ever was written, Ingham jumped out of his 
 seat, and cried, 
 
 " There ! I said I remembered this Duval, and you 
 made fun of me. Go on, and I will tell you all 
 about him, when you have done." 
 So I read on to the sudden end. 
 " We had been sent for in order to protect a fleet 
 of merchantmen that were bound to the Baltic, and 
 were to sail under the convoy of our ship and the 
 Countess of Scarborough, commanded by Captain 
 Piercy. And thus it came about, that, after being 
 twenty-five days in his Majesty s service, I had the 
 fortune to be present at one of the most severe and 
 desperate combats that have been fought in our or in 
 any time. 
 
 " I shall not attempt to tell that story of the battle 
 of the 23d of September, which ended in our glorious 
 captain striking his own colors to our superior and irre 
 sistible enemy." (This enemy, as Mr. Thackeray has 
 just said, is Monsieur John Paul Jones, afterwards 
 Knight of His Most Christian Majesty s Order of 
 Merit.") u Sir Richard [Pearson of the English 
 frigate Serapis] has told the story of the disaster in 
 words nobler than any I could supply, who, though in 
 deed engaged in that fatal action, in which our flag went 
 down before a renegade Briton and his motley crew, 
 saw but a very small portion of the battle which ended 
 so fatally for us. It did not commence till nightfall. 
 How well I remember the sound of the enemy s gun, 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 23 
 
 of which the shot crashed into our side in reply to the 
 challenge of our captain who hailed her ! Then came 
 a broadside from us, the first I had ever heard in 
 battle." * 
 
 Ingham did not speak for a little while. None of 
 us did. And when we did, it was not to speak of 
 Denis Duval, so much as of the friend we lost, when 
 we lost the monthly letter, or at least, Roundabout 
 Paper from Mr. Thackeray. How much we had 
 prized him, how strange it was that there was ever 
 a day when we did not know about him, how strange 
 it was that anybody should call him cynical, or think 
 men must apologize for him : of such things and of 
 a thousand more we spoke, before we came back to 
 Denis Duval. 
 
 But at last Fausta said, " What do you mean, 
 Fred, by saying you remember Denis Duval ? " 
 
 And I, " Did you meet him at the Battle of Pa- 
 via, or in Valerius Flaccus s Games in Numidia?" 
 For we have a habit of -calling Ingham u The Wan 
 dering Jew." 
 
 O 
 
 But he would not be jeered at ; he only called us to 
 witness, that, from the first chapter of Denis Duval, 
 he had said the name was familiar, even to the point 
 of looking it out in the Biographical Dictionary ; and 
 now that it appeared Duval fought on board the Sera- 
 pis, he said it all came back to him. His grandfather, 
 his mother s father, was a " volunteer "-boy, preparing 
 
 * Cornhill Magazine, June, 1864, Vol. IX. p. 654. 
 
24 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 to be midshipman, on the Serapis, and he knew he 
 had heard him speak of Duval ! 
 
 O, how we all screamed ! It was so like Ingham I 
 Haliburton asked him if his grandfather was not best- 
 man when Denis married Agnes. Fausta asked him 
 if he would not continue the novel in the " Cornhill." 
 I said it was well known that the old gentleman ad 
 vised Montcalm to surrender Quebec, interpreted 
 between Cook and the first Kamehameha, piloted La 
 Perouse between the Centurion and the Graves in Bos 
 ton Harbor, and called him up with a toast at a school- 
 dinner ; that I did not doubt, therefore, that it was 
 all right, and that he and Duval had sworn eternal 
 friendship in their boyhood, and now formed one con 
 stellation in the southern hemisphere. But after we 
 had all done, Ingham offered to bet Newport for the 
 Six that he would substantiate what he said. This is 
 by far the most tremendous wager in our little com 
 pany ; it is never offered, unless there be certainty to 
 back it; it is, therefore, never accepted; and the 
 nearest approach we have ever made to Newport, as a 
 company, was one afternoon when we went to South- 
 Boston Point in the horse-car, and found the tide 
 down. Silence reigned, therefore, and the subject 
 changed. 
 
 The next night we were at Ingham s. He unlocked 
 a ravishing old black mahogany secretary he has, and 
 produced a pile of parchment-covered books of differ 
 ent sizes, which were diaries of old Captain Heddart s. 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 25 
 
 They were often called log-books, but, though in 
 later years kept on paper ruled for log-books, and 
 often following to a certain extent the indications of 
 the columns, they were almost wholly personal, and 
 sometimes ran a hundred pages without alluding at all 
 to the ship on which he wrote. Well ! the earliest of 
 these was by far the most elegant in appearance. My 
 eyes watered a little, as Ingham showed me on the 
 first page, in the stiff Italian hand which our grand 
 mothers wrote in, when they aspired to elegance, the 
 dedication, 
 
 "To MY DEAR FRANCIS, 
 
 who will write something here every day because he 
 loves his MOTHER." 
 
 The old English gentleman, whom I just remember, 
 fvhen Ingham first went to sea, as the model of mild, 
 rind old men, at Ingham s mother s house, then he 
 vent to sea once himself for the first time, and he 
 iad a mother himself, and as he went off, she gave 
 lim the best album-book that Thetford Regis could 
 nake, and wrote this inscription in ink that was not 
 usty then I 
 
 Well, again ! in this book, Ingham, who had been 
 eading it all day, had put five or six newspaper- 
 i arks. 
 
 The first was at this entry : 
 
 " A new boy came into the mess. They said he 
 
26 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 was a French boy, but the first luff says he is the 
 Captain s own neffew." 
 
 Two pages on : 
 
 "The French boy fought Wimple and beat him. 
 They fought seeventeen rounds. * 
 
 Farther yet : 
 
 " Toney is offe on leave. So the French boy was in 
 oure watch. He is not a French boy. His name is 
 Doovarl." 
 
 In the midst of a great deal about the mess, and 
 the fellows, and the boys, and the others, and an inex 
 plicable fuss there is about a speculation the mess 
 entered into with some illicit dealer for an additional 
 supply, not of liquor, but of sugar, which I believe 
 was detected, and which covers pages of badly written 
 and worse spelled manuscript, not another distinct 
 allusion to the French boy, not near so much as to 
 Toney or Wimple or Scroop, or big Wallis or little 
 Wallis. Ingham had painfully toiled through it all, 
 and I did after him. But in another volume, written 
 years after, at a time when the young officer wrote 
 a much more rapid, though scarcely more legible 
 hand, he found a long account of an examination ap 
 pointed to pass midshipmen, and, to our great delight, 
 as it began, this exclamation : 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 27 
 
 " When the Amphion s boat came up, who should 
 step up but old Den, whom I had not seen since wo 
 were in the Rainbow. We were together all day, 
 and it was very good to see him." 
 
 And afterwards, in the detail of the examination, 
 he is spoken of as " Duval." The passage is a little 
 significant. 
 
 Young Heddart details all the questions put to him, 
 as thus : 
 
 u Old Saumarez asked me which was the narrow 
 est part of the Channel, and I told him. Then he 
 asked how Silly [sic] bore, if I had 75 fathom, red 
 sand and gravel. I said, About N. W., and the old 
 man said, Well, yes, rather West of N. W., is 
 not it so, Sir Richard ? And Sir Richard did not 
 know what they were talking about, and they pulled 
 out Mackenzie s Survey," etc., etc., etc., more than 
 any man would delve through at this day, unless he 
 were searching for Paul Jones or Denis Duval, or 
 some other hero. " What is the mark for going into 
 Spithead?" "What is the mark for clearing Royal 
 Sovereign Shoals ? " let us hope they were all well 
 answered. Evidently, in Mr. Heddart s mind, they 
 were more important than any other detail of that 
 day, but fortunately for posterity then comes this pas- 
 
 " After me they called up Brooke, and Calthorp, 
 and Clements, and then old Wingate, Tom Win- 
 gate s father, who had examined them, seemed to get 
 
28 THE JNGHAM PAPEES. 
 
 tired, and turned to Pierson, and said, Sir Richard, 
 you ought to take your turn. And so Sir Richard 
 began, and, as if by accident, called up Den. 
 
 " 4 Mr. Duval, said he, how do you find the vari 
 ation of the compass by the amplitudes or azimuths ? 
 
 " Of course any fool knew that. And of course he 
 could not ask all such questions. So, when he came 
 on practice, he said, 
 
 " 4 Mr. Duval, what is the mark for Stephenson s 
 Shoal ? 
 
 " O dear ! what fun it was to hear Den answer, 
 Lyd Church and the ruins of Lynn Monastery must 
 come in one. The Shoal was about three miles from 
 Dungeness, and bore S. W. or somewhere from it. 
 The Soundings were red sand or white sand or 
 something, very glib. Then 
 
 u How would you anchor under Dungeness, Mr. 
 Duval? 
 
 " And Duval was not too glib, but very certain. 
 He would bring it to bear S. W. by W., or, perhaps, 
 W. S. W. ; he would keep the Hope open of Dover, 
 and he w r ould try to have twelve fathoms water. 
 
 " 4 Well, Mr. Duval, how does Dungeness bear 
 from Beachy Head ? and so on, and so on. 
 
 " And Den was very good and modest, but quite 
 correct all the same, and as true to the point as Cocker 
 and Gunter together. O dear ! I hope the post- 
 captains did not know that Sir Richard was Den s 
 uncle, and that Den had sailed in and out of Win- 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 29 
 
 chelsea Harbor, in sight of Beachy Head and Dunge- 
 
 ness, ever since the day after he was born ! 
 
 " But he made no secret of it when we passed-mids 
 
 dined at the Anchor. 
 
 " A jolly time we had ! I slept there." 
 
 With these words, Denis Duval vanishes from the 
 
 Diary. 
 
 Of course, as soon as we had begged Ingham s par 
 don, we turned back to find the battle with the Bon 
 Homme Richard. Little enough was there. The 
 entry reads thus, this time rather more in log-book 
 shape. 
 
 On the left-hand page, in columns elaborately 
 ruled : 
 
 Week-days. 
 
 Sept. 
 1779. 
 
 Wind. 
 
 Courses. 
 
 Dist. 
 
 Lat. 
 
 Long. 
 
 Bearings. 
 
 Wednesday, ) 
 Thursday. ) 
 
 22.23 
 
 S.E. 
 
 Waiting 
 for convoy 
 till 1 1 of 
 Thursday. 
 
 None. 
 
 549 
 
 05 E. 
 
 Flam- 
 boro H. 
 N. by W. 
 
 The rest of that page is blank. The right page 
 headed, " Remarks, c., on board H. M. S. Serapis," 
 in the boy s best copy-hand, goes on with longer en 
 tries than any before. 
 
 " 42 vessels reported for the convoy. Mr. Mycock 
 says we shall not wait for the rest." 
 
 " 10 o clock, A. M. Thursday. Two men came on 
 board with news of the pirate Jones. Signal for a 
 
30 
 
 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 coast-pilot, weighed and sailed as soon as he came. 
 As we passed Flamboro Head two sails in sight S. S. 
 W., which the men say are he and his consort." 
 Then, for the next twenty-four hours : 
 
 Week-days. 
 
 Sept. 
 1779. 
 
 Wind. 
 
 Courses. 
 
 Dist. 
 
 Lat. 
 
 Long. 
 
 Bearings. 
 
 Thursday, ) 
 Friday. ) 
 
 23.24 
 
 S.S.W. 
 
 E.S.E. 
 W.S.W. 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 54.13. 
 
 0.11. E. 
 
 Flam. H. 
 W.aftern. 
 W.byN. 
 
 " Foggy at first, clear afterwards. 
 
 "At 1 P. M. beat to quarters. All my men at 
 quarters but West, who was on shore when we sailed, 
 the men say on leave, and Collins in the sick bay. 
 (MEM. shirked.) The others in good spirits. Mr. 
 Wallis made us a speech, and the men cheered well. 
 Engaged the enemy at about 7.20 P. M. Mr. Wallis 
 had bade me open my larboard ports, and I did so ; 
 but I did not loosen the stern-guns, which are fought 
 by my crew, when necessary. The captain hailed the 
 stranger twice, and then the order came to fire. Our 
 gun No. 2 (after-gun but one) was my first piece. 
 No. 1 flashed, and the gunner had to put on new 
 priming. Fired twice with those guns, but before we 
 had loaded the second time, for the third fire, the 
 enemy ran into us. One of my men (Craik) was 
 badly jammed in the shock, squeezed between the 
 gun and the deck. But he did not leave the gun. 
 Tried to fire into the enemy, but just as we got the 
 gun to bear, and got a new light, he fell off. It was 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 31 
 
 very bad working in the dark. The lanthorns are as 
 bad as they can be. Loaded both guns, got new port 
 fires, and we ran into the enemy. We were wearing, 
 and I believe our jib-boom got into his mizzen rigging. 
 The ships were made fast by the men on the upper 
 deck. At first I could not bring a gun to bear, the 
 enemy was so far ahead of me. But as soon as we 
 anchored, our ship forged ahead a little, and by 
 bringing the hind axle-trucks well aft, I made both 
 
 O O 
 
 niy starboard guns bear on his bows. Fired right 
 into his forward ports. I do not think there was a 
 man or a gun there. In the second battery, forward 
 of me, they had to blow our own ports open, because 
 the enemy lay so close. Stopped firing three times 
 for my guns to cool. No. 2 cools quicker than No. 1, 
 or I think so. Forward we could hear musket-shot, 
 and grenadoes, but none of these things fell where 
 we were at work. A man came into port No. 5, 
 where little Wallis was, and said that the enemy was 
 sinking, and had released him and the other prisoners. 
 But we had no orders to stop firing. Afterwards there 
 was a great explosion. It began at the main hatch, 
 but came back to me and scalded some of my No. 2 
 men horribly. Afterwards Mr. Wallis came and took 
 some of No. 2 s men to board. I tried to bring both 
 guns to bear with No. 1 s crew. No. 2 s crew did 
 not come back. At half past ten all firing stopped on 
 the upper deck. Mr. Wallis went up to see if the 
 enemy had struck. He did not come down, but 
 
32 
 
 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 the master came down and said we had struck, and 
 the orders were to cease firing. 
 
 " We had struck to the Richard, 44, Commodore 
 Jones, and the Alliance, 40, which was the vessel they 
 saw from the quarter-deck. Our consort, the Coun 
 tess Scarborough, had struck to the enemy s ship Pal 
 las. The officers and crew of the Richard are on 
 board our ship. The mids talk English well, and are 
 good fellows. They are very sorry for Mr. May rant, 
 who was stabbed with a pike in boarding us, and Mr. 
 Potter, another midshipman, who was hurt. 
 
 Week-days. 
 
 Sept. 
 1779. 
 
 Wind. 
 
 Courses. 
 
 Dist. 
 
 Lat. 
 
 Long. 
 
 Bearings. 
 
 Friday, ) 
 Saturday. ) 
 
 24th, 
 25th. 
 
 S.S.W. 
 
 
 None. 
 
 As 
 above. 
 
 As 
 above. 
 
 As 
 above. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 v " The enemy s sick and wounded and prisoners 
 were brought on board. At ten on the 25th, his ship, 
 the Richard, sank. Played chess with Mr. Merry, 
 one of the enemy s midshipmen. Beat him twice out 
 of three. 
 
 " There is a little French fellow named Travaillier 
 among their volunteers. When I first saw him he 
 was naked to his waist. He had used his coat for a 
 wad, and his shirt wet to put out fire. Plenty of our 
 men had their coats burnt off, but they did not live to 
 tell it." 
 
 Then the diary relapses into the dreariness of most 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 88 
 
 ship-diaries, till they come into the Texel, when it is 
 to a certain extent relieved by discussions about ex 
 changes. 
 
 Such a peep at the most remarkable frigate-action 
 in history, as that action was seen by a boy in the 
 dark, through such key-hole as the after-ports of one 
 of the vessels would give him, stimulated us all to 
 " ask for more," and then to abuse Master Robert 
 Heddart, "volunteer," a little, that he had not gone 
 into more detail. Ingham defended his grandfather 
 by saying that it was the way diaries always served 
 you, which is true enough, and that the boy had lit 
 erally told what he saw, which was also true enough, 
 only he seemed to have seen " mighty little," which I 
 suppose should be spelled " mity little." When we 
 said this, Ingham said it was all in the dark, and Hali- 
 burton added, that " the battle lanterns were as bad as 
 they could be." Ingham said, however, that he thought 
 there was more somewhere, he had often heard the 
 old gentleman tell the story in vastly more detail. 
 
 Accordingly, a few days after, he sent me a yellow 
 old letter on long foolscap sheets, in which the old 
 gentleman had written out his recollections for Ing- 
 ham s own benefit after some talk of old times on 
 Thanksgiving evening. It is all he has ever found 
 about the battle in his grandfather s rather tedious 
 papers, and one passing allusion in it drops the curtain 
 on Denis Duval. 
 
 2* n 
 
34 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Here it is : 
 
 "JAMAICA PLAIN, Nov. 29, 1824. 
 
 "My DEAR BOY: I am very glad to comply with 
 your request about an account of the great battle 
 between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard 
 and her consort. I had rather you should write out 
 what I told you all on Thanksgiving evening at your 
 mother s, for you hold a better pen than I do. But 
 I know my memory of the event is strong, for it was 
 the first fight I ever saw ; and although it does not 
 compare with Rodney s great fight with De Grasse, 
 which I saw also, yet there are circumstances con 
 nected with it which will always make it a remarkable 
 fight in history. 
 
 " You said, at your mother s, that you had never un 
 derstood why the men on each side kept inquiring if 
 the others had struck. The truth is, we had it all our 
 own way below. And, as it proved, when our cap 
 tain, Pearson, struck, most of his men were below. 
 I know, that, in all the confusion and darkness and 
 noise, I had no idea, aft on the main deck, that we 
 were like to come off second best. On the other 
 hand, at that time, the Richard probably had not a 
 man left between-decks, unless some whom they were 
 trying to keep at her pumps. But on her upper 
 deck and quarter-deck and in her tops she had it all 
 her own way. Jones himself was there ; by that 
 time Dale was there ; and they had wholly cleared 
 our upper deck, as we had cleared their main deck 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 35 
 
 and gun-room. This was the strangeness of that bat 
 tle. We were pounding through and through her, 
 while she did not fight a gun of her main battery. 
 But Jones was working his quarter-deck guns so as 
 almost to rake our deck from stem to stern. You 
 know, the ships were foul and lashed together. Jones 
 says in his own account he aimed at our main-mast 
 and kept firing at it. You can see that no crew could 
 have lived under such a fire as that. There you have 
 the last two hours of the battle ; Jones s men all 
 abovas our men all below ; we pounding at his main 
 deck, he pelting at our upper deck. If there had not 
 been some such division, of course the thing could not 
 have lasted so long, even with the horrid havoc there 
 was. I never saw anything like it, and I hope, dear 
 boy, you may never have to." 
 
 [ Mem. by Ingham. I had just made my first cruise 
 as a midshipman in the U. S. navy on board the In 
 trepid, when the old gentleman wrote this to me. He 
 made his first cruise in the British navy in the Serapis. 
 After he was exchanged, he remained in that service 
 till 1789, when he married in Canso, N. S., resigned 
 his commission, and settled there.] 
 
 The letter continues : 
 
 u I have been looking back on my own boyish 
 journal of that time. My mother made me keep a 
 log, as I hope yours does. But it is strange to see 
 how little of the action it tells. The truth is, I was 
 nothing but a butterfly of a youngster. To save my 
 
36 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 conceit, the first lieutenant, Wallis, told me I was 
 assigned to keep an eye on the after-battery, where 
 were two fine old fellows as ever took the King s pay 
 really commanding the crews and managing the guns. 
 Much did I know about sighting or firing them ! 
 However, I knew enough to keep my place. I re 
 member tying up a man s arm with my own shirt 
 sleeves, by way of showing I was not frightened, as 
 in truth I was. And I remember going down to the 
 cockpit with a poor wretch who was awfully burned 
 with powder, and the sight there was so*- much 
 worse than it was at my gun that I was glad to get 
 back again. Well, you may judge, that, from two 
 after-portholes below, first larboard, then starboard, I 
 saiv little enough of the battle. But I have talked 
 about it since, with Dale, who was Jones s first lieu 
 tenant, and whom I met at Charlestown when he com 
 manded the yard there. I have talked of it with 
 Wallis many times. I talked of it with Sir Richard 
 Pearson, who was afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Greenwich, and whom I saw there. Paul Jones I 
 have touched my hat to, but never spoke to, except 
 when we all took wine with him one day at dinner. 
 But I have met his niece, Miss Janet Taylor, who 
 lives in London now, and calculates nautical tables. 
 I hope you will see her some day. Then there is a 
 gentleman named Napier in Edinburgh, who has the 
 Richard s log-book. Go and see it, if you are ever 
 there, Mr. George Napier. And I have read every 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 37 
 
 word I could find about the battle. It was a remark 
 able fight indeed. All of which I was, though so 
 little I saw. " 
 
 [Mem. by F. C. And dear Ingham s nice old grand 
 father is a little slow in getting into action, me judice. 
 It was a way they had in the navy before steam.] 
 
 The letter continues : 
 
 " I do not know that Captain Pearson was a remark 
 able man ; but I do know he was a brave man. He 
 was made Sir Richard Pearson by the King for his 
 bravery in this fight. When Paul Jones heard of 
 that, he said Pearson deserved the knighthood, and 
 that he would make him an earl the next time he met 
 him. Of course, I only knew the captain as a mid 
 shipman (we were volunteers then) knows a post- 
 captain, and that for a few months only. We joined 
 in summer (the Serapis was just commissioned for the 
 first time). We were taken prisoners in September, 
 but it was mid-winter before we were exchanged. He 
 was very cross all the time we were in Holland. I 
 do not suppose he wrote as good a letter as Jones did. 
 I have heard that he could not spell well. But what 
 I know is that he was a brave man. 
 
 " Paul Jones is one of the curiosities of history. 
 He certainly was of immense value to your struggling 
 cause. He kept England in terror; he showed the 
 first qualities as a naval commander ; he achieved 
 great successes with very little force. Yet he has a 
 damaged reputation. I do not think he deserves this 
 
38 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 reputation ; but I know he has it. Now I can see 
 but one difference between him and any of your land- 
 heroes or your water-heroes whom all the world re 
 spects. This is, that he was born on our side, and 
 they were born on the American side. This ought 
 not to make any difference. But in actual fact I think 
 it did. Jones was born in the British Islands. The 
 popular feeling of England made a distinction between 
 the allegiance which he owed to King George and 
 that of born Americans. It ought not to have done 
 so, because he had in good faith emigrated to Amer 
 ica before the Rebellion, and took part in it with just 
 the same motives which led any other American 
 officer.* 
 
 u He had a fondness for books and for society, and 
 thought himself gifted in writing. I should think he 
 wrote too much. I have seen verses of his which were 
 very poor." 
 
 [Mem. by F. C. I should think Ingham s grand 
 father wrote too much. I have seen letters of his 
 which were very long, before they came to their sub 
 ject.] 
 
 The letter continues : 
 
 " To return. The Serapis, as I have said, was but 
 
 * Gates was an Englishman, and has a damaged reputation. Lee 
 was another, who has no reputation at all. Conway was an Irishman, 
 and the same is true of him. But these men all did something to 
 forfeit esteem. Jones never did. Montgomery died in the full flush 
 of his deserved honors. He was Irish by birth. 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 39 
 
 just built. She had been launched that spring. She 
 was one of the first 44-gun frigates that were ever 
 built in the world. We (the English) were the first 
 naval power to build frigates, as now understood, at 
 all. I believe the name is Italian, but in the Med 
 iterranean it means a very different thing. We had 
 little ships-of-the-line, which were called fourth-rates, 
 and which fought sixty, and even as low as fifty guns ; 
 they had two decks, and a quarter-deck above. But 
 just as I came into the service, the old Phoenix and 
 Rainbow and Roebuck were the only 44s we had : they 
 were successful ships, and they set the Admiralty on 
 building 44-gun frigates, which, even when they car 
 ried 50 guns, as we did, were quite different from the 
 old fourth-rates. Very useful vessels they proved. I 
 remember the Romulus, the Ulysses, the Actason, and 
 the Endymion : the Endymion fought the President 
 forty years after. As I say, the Serapis was one of 
 a batch of these vessels launched in the spring of 1779. 
 " We had been up the Cattegat that summer, wait 
 ing for what was known as the Baltic fleet.* If there 
 
 * Not bound to the Baltic, as Mr. Thackeray supposes. Cf. Beat- 
 son s Naval Memoirs, Vol. IV. pp. 550-553, where the language is, 
 " He fell in with a British convoy from the Baltic." Jones s own 
 despatch possibly misled Mr. Thackeray, for he says, on the 21st of 
 September, he tried to get at two ships which were waiting " to take 
 under convoy a number of merchant ships bound to the northward " ; 
 but those ships put back to the Humber, and it was not till the 23d 
 that he fell in. with the Serapis and her convoy. 
 
 A London newspaper, of the 28th of September, says : " Captain 
 
40 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 were room and time, I could tell you good stories of 
 the fun we had at Copenhagen. At last we got the 
 convoy together, and got to sea, no little job in that 
 land-locked sailing. We got well across the North 
 Sea, and, for some reason, made Sunderland first, and 
 afterwards Scarborough. 
 
 o 
 
 " We were lying close in with Scarborough, when 
 news came off that Paul Jones, with a fleet, was on 
 the coast. Captain Pearson at once tried to signal 
 the convoy back, for they were working down the 
 coast towards the Humber, but the signals did no 
 good till they saw the enemy themselves, and then 
 they scud fast enough, passing us, and running into 
 
 Pearson, who commands the Serapis, was coming from off his station 
 in the North Sea, to go on board of the Endymion." 
 
 October 28th of the same year, " the Court of Directors of the Eoyal 
 Exchange Insurance Company have generously voted a piece of 
 plate, value one hundred guineas, to be presented to Captain Pearson 
 of the Serapis, as a testimony of their approbation of his bearing and 
 conduct in protecting the valuable fleet from the Baltic under his care." 
 
 Allen s History of York, at the year 1779, in the description of the 
 battle, says : " A valuable fleet of merchantmen from the Baltic, under 
 the convoy of the Serapis, Captain Pearson, hove in sight." My 
 friend, Mr. J. C. Brevoort, has shown to me, among other very curi 
 ous memorials of Jones, a handsome print, engraved by Peltro, from 
 a painting by Robert Dodd, which is a representation of the action, 
 dated London, December 1, 1781. The inscription on this print states 
 that the fleet was from the Baltic. 
 
 These are wholly independent authorities, and leave no doubt as to 
 the fact of which the only importance now is, that Mr. Thackeray 
 should have shipped Denis Duval aboard his frigate a few months 
 earlier than he did, and taken him into the Baltic before bringing him 
 into action against Paul Jones. 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 41 
 
 Scarborough Harbor. We had not a great deal of 
 wind, and the other armed vessel we had, the Count 
 ess of Scarborough, was slow, so that I remenber we 
 lay to for her. Jones was as anxious as we were to 
 fight. We neared each other steadily till seven in 
 the evening or later. The sun was down, but it was 
 full moon, and as we came near enough to speak, 
 we could see everything on his ship. At that time 
 the Poor Richard was the only ship we had to do 
 with. His other ships were after our consort. The 
 Richard was a queer old French Indiaman, you know. 
 She was the first French ship-of-war I had ever seen. 
 She had six guns on her lower deck, and six ports on 
 each side there, meaning to fight all these guns 
 on the same side. On her proper gun-deck, above 
 these, she had fourteen guns on each side, twelves 
 and nines. Then she had a high quarter and a high 
 forecastle, with eight more guns on these, having, 
 you know, one of those queer old poops you see in old 
 pictures. She was, therefore, a good deal* higher than 
 we ; for our quarter-deck had followed the fashion and 
 come down. We fought twenty guns on our lower 
 deck, twenty on our upper deck, and on the forecastle 
 and quarter-deck we had ten little things, fifty 
 guns, not unusual, you know, in a vessel rated as a 
 forty-four. We had twenty-two in broadside. I 
 remember I supposed for some time that all French 
 ships were black because the Richard was. 
 
 " As I said, I was on the main deck, aft. We were 
 
42 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 all lying stretched out in the larboard ports to see and 
 hear what we could, when Captain Pearson himself 
 hailed, " What ship is that? " I could not hear their 
 answer, and he hailed again, and then said, if they did 
 not answer, he would fire. We all took this as good as 
 an order, and, hearing nothing, tumbled in and blazed 
 away. The Poor Richard fired at the same time. It 
 was at that first broadside of hers, as you remember, 
 that two of Jones s heavy guns, below his main deck, 
 burst. We could see that as we sighted for our next 
 broadside, because we could see how they hove up the 
 gun-deck above them. As for our shot, I suppose 
 they all told. We had ten eighteen-pounders in that 
 larboard battery below. I do not see w r hy any shot 
 should have failed. 
 
 " However, he had no thought of being pounded 
 to pieces by his own firing and ours, and so he bore 
 right down on us. He struck our quarter, just for 
 ward of my forward gun, struck us hard, too. We 
 had just fired our second shot, and then he closed, so 
 I could not bring our tw T o guns to bear. This w r as 
 when he first tried to fasten the ships together. But 
 they would not stay fastened. He could not bring a 
 gun to bear, having no forward ports that served 
 him, till we fell off again, and it was then that Cap 
 tain Pearson asked, in that strange stillness, if he had 
 struck. Jones answered, I have not begun to fight. 
 And so it proved. Our sails were filled, he backed 
 his top-sails, and we wore short round. As he laid 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 43 
 
 us athwart-hawse, or as we swung by him, our jib- 
 boom ran into his mizzen-rigging. They say Jones 
 himself then fastened our boom to his main-mast. 
 Somebody did, but it did not hold, but one of our an 
 chors hooked his quarter and so we fought, fastened 
 together, to the end, both now fighting our star 
 board batteries, and being fixed stern to stem. 
 
 " On board the Serapis our ports were not open on 
 the starboard side, because we had been firing on the 
 other. And as we ran across and loosened those guns, 
 the men amidships actually found they could not open 
 their ports, the Richard was so close. They therefore 
 fired their first shots right through our own port-lids, 
 and blew them off. I was so far aft that my port-lids 
 swung free. 
 
 " What I said in beginning this letter will explain 
 
 to you the long continuance of the action after this 
 
 moment, when, you would say, it must be ended by 
 
 boarding, or in some other way, very soon. As soon 
 
 as we on our main deck got any idea of the Richard s 
 
 main deck, we saw that almost nobody replied to us 
 
 there. In truth, two of the six guns which made her 
 
 lower starboard battery had burst, and Jones s men 
 
 would not fight what were left, nor do I blame them. 
 
 Above, their gun-deck had been hoisted up, and, as it 
 
 proved the next day, we were cutting them right 
 
 through. We pounded away at what we could see, 
 
 and much more at what we could not see, for it 
 
 was now night, and there was a little smoke, as you 
 
44 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 may fancy. But above, the Richard s upper deck was 
 a good deal higher than ours, and there Jones had 
 dragged across upon his quarter a piece from the lar 
 board battery, so that he had three nine-pounders, 
 with which he was doing his best, almost raking us, as 
 you may imagine. No one ever said so to me, that I 
 know, but I doubt whether we could get elevation 
 enough from any of our light guns on our upper deck 
 (nines) to damage his battery much, he was so much 
 higher than we. As for musketry, there is not much 
 sharp-shooting when you are firing at night in the 
 sinoke, with the decks swaying under you. 
 
 " Many a man has asked me why neither side 
 boarded, and, in fact, there is a popular impression 
 that Jones took our ship by boarding, as he did not. 
 As to that, such questions are easier asked than an 
 swered. This is to be said, however : about ten o clock, 
 an English officer, who had commanded the Union 
 letter-of-marque, which Jones had taken a few days 
 before, came scrambling through one of our ports 
 from the Richard. He went up aft to Captain Pear 
 son at once, and told him that the Richard was sinking, 
 that they had had to release all her prisoners (and she 
 had hundreds) from the hold and spar-deck, himself 
 among them, because the water came in so fast, and 
 that, if we would hold on a few minutes more, the 
 ship was ours. Every word of this was true, except 
 the last. Hearing this, Captain Pearson who, if 
 you understand, was over my head, for he kept the 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 45 
 
 quarter-deck almost throughout hailed to ask if they 
 had struck. He got no answer, Jones in fact being 
 at the other end of his ship, on his quarter, pounding 
 away at our main-mast. Pearson then called for 
 boarders ; they were formed hastily, and dashed on 
 board to take the prize. But the Richard had not 
 struck, though I know some of her men had called for 
 quarters. Her men were ready for us, under cover, 
 Captain Pearson says in his despatch, Jones him 
 self seized a pike and headed his crew, and our men 
 fell back again. One of the accounts says we tried 
 to board earlier, as soon as the vessels were made fast 
 to each other. But of this I know nothing. 
 
 " Meanwhile Jones s people could not stay on his 
 lower deck, and could not do anything, if they had 
 stayed there. They worked their way above. His 
 main deck (of twelves) was fought more successfully, 
 but his great strength was on his upper deck and in 
 his tops. To read his own account, you would almost 
 think he fought the battle himself with his three quar 
 ter-deck cannon, and I suppose it would be hard to 
 overstate what he did do. Both he and Captain Pear 
 son ascribe the final capture of the Serapis to a strange 
 incident which I will tell you. 
 
 " The men in the Richard s tops were throwing 
 hand-grenades upon our decks, and at last one fellow 
 worked himself out to the end of the main-yard with 
 a bucket filled with these missiles, lighted them one 
 by one, and threw them fairly down our main hatch- 
 
46 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 way. Here, as our ill luck ordered, was a row of our 
 eighteen-gun cartridges, which the powder-boys had 
 left there as they went for more, our fire, I suppose, 
 having slackened there : cartridges were then just 
 coming into use in the navy. One of these grenades 
 lighted the row, and the flash passed bang bang 
 bang back to me. O, it was awful! Some 
 twenty of our men were fairly blown to pieces. There 
 were other men who were stripped naked, with nothing 
 on but the collars of their shirts and their wristbands. 
 Farther aft there was not so much powder, perhaps, 
 and the men were scorched and burned more than 
 they were wounded. I do not know how I escaped, 
 but I do know that there was hardly a man forward 
 of my guns who did escape, some hurt, and the 
 groaning and shrieking were terrible. I will not ask 
 you to imagine all this, in the utter darkness of 
 smoke and night below-decks, almost every lantern 
 blown out or smashed. But I assure you I can 
 remember it. There were agonies there which I 
 have never trusted my tongue to tell. Yet I see, in 
 my journal, in a boy s mock-man way, this is passed 
 by, as almost nothing. I did not think so or feel so, 
 I can tell you. 
 
 " It was after this that the effort was made to board. 
 I know I had filled some buckets of water from our 
 lee ports, and had got some of the worst hurt of my 
 men below, and was trying to understand what Brooks, 
 who was jammed, but not burned, thought we could 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 47 
 
 do, to see if we could not at least clear things enough 
 to fight one gun, when boarders were called, and he 
 left me. Cornish, who had really been captain of the 
 other gun, was badly hurt, and had gone below. Then 
 came the effort to board, which, as I say, failed ; and 
 that was really our last effort. About half past ten, 
 Captain Pearson struck. He was not able to bring a 
 gun to bear on the Alliance, had she closed with us ; 
 his ship had been on fire a dozen times, and the ex 
 plosion had wholly disabled our main battery, which 
 had been, until this came, our chief strength. But 
 so uncertain and confused was it all, that I know, 
 when I heard the cry, They ve struck, I took it for 
 granted it was the Richard. In fact Captain Pearson 
 had struck our flag with his own hands. The men 
 would not expose themselves to the fire from the Rich 
 ard s tops. Mr. Mayrant, a fine young fellow, one 
 of Jones s midshipmen, was wounded in boarding us, 
 after we struck, because some of our people did not 
 know we had struck. I know, when Wallis, our first 
 lieutenant, heard the cry, he ran up stairs, suppos 
 ing that Jones had struck to us, and not we to him. 
 
 " It was Lieutenant Dale who boarded us. He is 
 still living, a fine old man, at Philadelphia. He found 
 Captain Pearson on the lee of our quarter-deck again, 
 and said, 
 
 " Sir, I have orders to send you on board the ship 
 along-side. 
 
 " Up the companion comes Wallis, and says to Cap 
 tain Pearson, 
 
48 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " Have they struck ? 
 
 " i No, sir, said Dale, * the contrary : he has 
 struck to us. 
 
 " Wallis would not take it, and said to Pearson, 
 
 " 4 Have you struck, sir ? 
 
 " And he had to say he had. Wallis said, I have 
 nothing more to say, and turned to come down to us, 
 but Dale would not let him. Wallis said he would 
 silence the lower-deck guns, but Dale sent some one 
 else, and took them both aboard the Richard. Little 
 Duval a volunteer on board, not yet rated as mid 
 shipman went with them. Jones gave back our 
 captain s sword, with the usual speech about bravery, 
 but they quarrelled awfully afterwards. 
 
 " I suppose Paul Jones was himself astonished when 
 daylight showed the condition of his ship. I am sure 
 we were. His ship was still on fire : ours had been 
 a dozen times, but was out. Wherever our main bat 
 tery could hit him, we had torn his ship to pieces, 
 knocked in and knocked out the sides. There was 
 a complete breach from the main-mast to the stern. 
 You could see the sky and sea through the old hulk 
 anywhere. Indeed, the wonder was that the quarter 
 deck did not fall in. The ship was sinking fast, and 
 the pumps would not free her. For us, our jib-boom 
 had been wrenched off, at the beginning ; our main 
 mast and mizzen-top fell as we struck, and at day 
 break the wreck was not cleared away. Jones put 
 Lieutenant Lunt on our vessel that night, but the next 
 
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL. 49 
 
 day he removed all his wounded, and finally all his 
 people, to the Serapis, and at ten the Poor Richard 
 went to the bottom. I have always wondered that 
 your Naval Commissioners never named another frig 
 ate for her. 
 
 " And so, my dear boy, I will stop. I hope in God 
 it will never be your fate to see such a fight, or any 
 fight between an English and an American frigate. 
 
 ci We drifted into Holland. Our wounded men were 
 sent into hospital in the fort of the Texel. At last 
 we were all transferred to the French government as 
 prisoners, and that winter we were exchanged. The 
 Serapis went into the French navy, and the only im 
 portant result of the affair in history was that King 
 George had to make war with Holland. For, as soon 
 as we were taken into the Texel, the English minister 
 claimed us of the Dutch. But the Dutch gentlemen 
 said they were neutrals, and could not interfere in the 
 Rebel Quarrel. Interfere or fight, said England, 
 and the first clause of the manifesto which makes war 
 with Holland states this grievance, that the Dutch 
 would not surrender the Serapis when asked for. 
 That is the way England treats neutrals who offer 
 hospitality to rebels." 
 
 So ends the letter. I suppose the old gentleman 
 
 got tired of writing. I have observed that the end of 
 
 all letters is more condensed than the beginning. Mr. 
 
 Weller, indeed, pronounces the " sudden pull-up " to 
 
 3 D 
 
50 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 be the especial charm of letter- writing. I had a mind 
 to tell what the old gentleman saw of Kempenfelt and 
 the Royal George, but this is enough. As Denis 
 Duval scrambles across to Paul Jones s quarter-deck, 
 at eleven o clock of that strange moonlight night, he 
 vanishes from history. 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 
 
 [Tnis story mostly relates to a period early in Colonel Ing- 
 ham s life, although, as will be seen, his own accurate knowledge 
 of the facts came a generation later. It is necessary to observe 
 to readers distant from Massachusetts Bay, that, in the language 
 of that country, a " hack " is a hired carriage, not, as in the lan 
 guage of Mr. Todd, " a horse let out for hire." To Dr. Johnson, 
 it seems, the word was not known in either sense. 
 
 The story was first printed in the Atlantic Almanac for 1869.] 
 
 IT is an old Boston story. One would never tell it 
 at a dinner-party here, or in the Evening Transcript, 
 because in Boston everybody knows it better than 
 you know it yourself. But the Atlantic Almanac goes 
 to Sceattle and Boothia Felix, which is your excuse 
 for telling it in these pages at all. 
 
 I can hear Listen growl as he finds that seven good 
 pages of his new Atlantic Almanac are consumed by 
 a story w r hich everybody heard in his cradle, or should 
 have heard there. But, dear Liston, all babies were 
 not lulled by an east-wind, and all school-boys did not 
 wait on " Johnny Snelling " at " Mason Street." 
 
52 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Let it be understood, then, that I tell the story for 
 the benefit of Sceattle, of Boothia Felix, and of 
 Assiut, and the other outlying purchasers. Let it be 
 understood that it is a story of a generation ago. And 
 if any of the inhabitants here do not like the way I 
 tell it, why, let them tell it themselves, only do not 
 let us have any more of these beastly interruptions. 
 How shall we ever get on, if we have to stop all the 
 time to explain ? 
 
 I. OF JOSHUA CRADOCK. 
 
 A generation ago, then, kindest of naturalists in 
 Sceattle, erst my fellow-laborer in the infants society 
 of naturalists at Worcester, a generation ago, O 
 president of the rising college of those parts, a gen 
 eration ago, O foreman over the manufactory of teapots 
 at Assiut, a generation ago the people of Boston 
 liked to know something. I fear that that generation 
 has now passed, and is regarded as mythical. What 
 I know of this generation is this, that it likes to be 
 amused. It goes into raptures as well as any genera 
 tion I ever heard of. It even knows the difference 
 between the emotions produced on it by the overture 
 to the second act of La Belle HeUne, and that of the 
 first act of La Duchesse. But I do not find that it 
 cares so much about being instructed. The last gen 
 eration did, which is, perhaps, my dear young friend, 
 the cause of a notable difference remarked in some 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 53 
 
 circles between your mother and yourself. But let 
 that go ! The consequence was that, a generation 
 ago, the public entertainment of Boston was found in 
 solid lectures, of which the staple was instruction, 
 instruction given in good faith, from those who knew 
 to those who did not know, exactly according to 
 the advice of the Dervish Nasr Eddin. Do not ask 
 me for that story. If you want that story, take ship, 
 and go ask the Consul. 
 
 So it was, that, one evening in the week, if you 
 were of the blue blood of Boston, you went to the 
 lecture-hall of the Masonic Temple, the same spot in 
 space where we boys went to hear Mr. Hillard defend 
 a pirate-boy in his young eloquence " And Costa 
 the cabin-boy, shall he die ? " and where, with his 
 manly acumen, he now convicts any pirates who may 
 happen to be brought under the bar of the law. Thus 
 we change ! I say you went once a week, in the 
 evening, to this amphitheatrical lecture-room, where 
 about five hundred of the very nicest people in the 
 world met together, and there you were instructed. 
 John Farrar, most entertaining of physicists, taught 
 you of the steam-engine, with veritable models which 
 worked, and with sections which he worked, whose 
 valves opened and shut before your eyes. John 
 Webster poured acid into tall glass reservoirs of 
 litmus-water, and it turned red ; and then he poured 
 in ammonia, and it turned green. George Ticknor 
 illustrated Shakespeare. Ralph Waldo Emerson told 
 
54 THE ESGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 of Mahomet ; Edward Hitchcock explained as much 
 as he knew about the crust of the earth. John Pick 
 ering told about telegraphs and language ; James 
 Trecothick Austin gave the history of the siege of 
 Boston ; Convers Francis, that of the French Hu 
 guenots. It had not yet occurred to any man boldly to 
 lecture on the History of Form, or the Form of His 
 tory ; on the Substantiality of Shadows, or the Shad 
 ows of Substance ; on the Decorum of Ideas, or the 
 Ideas of Decorum. The formula of the modern 
 lecture was first stated, long afterwards, by Starr King. 
 " It consists," said he, " of four parts of sense and 
 five parts of nonsense, and there are but ten men in 
 New England who know how to mix the two." He 
 was chief of the ten, as he was chief everywhere ! 
 This formula had not then been discovered, far less, 
 stated ; and, as I say, people still went to lectures to 
 be informed. 
 
 If, now, I should here insert a long excursus on 
 what we learned, on the nice girls who went to learn 
 also, and the very nice young men who went, par 
 ticularly on the cosy family way in which the fathers 
 and mothers went also ; and then how you all went 
 home in little knots, and had, after the whole, a few 
 games of whist (euchre not yet known, far less Bos 
 ton), and then some hot oysters at half past nine, not 
 in a disreputable cellar, but brought in by John, on a 
 waiter, into the drawing-room ; and how you laid 
 down the cards, while Amanda served you all round, 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 55 
 
 if, I say, I went into this excursus, the editor 
 would score it all out of the manuscript ; so it is as 
 well not to write it, although every word of it is 
 essential to the true understanding of this story. 
 
 For it happened, one night, that, at the first or 
 second lecture of an excellent course on astronomy, at 
 the " Useful Knowledge," the lecturer, who must 
 have been, I think, Professor Farrar, made the expla 
 nation, since then not unfrequent, that this world on 
 which we live is round. In connection with the phe 
 nomena of eclipses, he had some excellent illustra 
 tions ; and in connection with summer, winter, day 
 and night, he had more ; and there was a terrestrial 
 globe, and on the globe, I think, a large ship, length 
 several degrees of latitude, whose topmasts could be 
 distinctly seen by a wooden man with a spy-glass, on 
 a distant continent, while her hull was still far below 
 the horizon. By way of illustration and entertain 
 ment, Mr. Farrar, if it were he, then told of the peo 
 ple who had sailed around the world, of Magelhaens 
 and Captain Cook, and, likely enough, alluded to Wil 
 liam Sturgis, who was probably present, and to our 
 rights in the Columbia River. (Else, dear friends, 
 how would you be in Sceattle in this living 1869 ?) 
 
 The lecture was excellent, as dear John Farrar s 
 always were. The little clusters of people made them 
 selves up, as I have told, Alice with Arthur, not arm 
 in arm, following after Mr. and Mrs. Paterfamilias ; 
 and Clara, Dolly, and Emily giggling a little behind ; 
 
56 THE IXGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Fred and Grace, in like manner, decorously following 
 Mr. Materfamilias and his wife ; Horace, Impey, and 
 John following, in eager discussion as to whether they 
 would make their electrical machine with a junk-bottle, 
 or try to persuade the boy at Brewer s to let them 
 have for forty-two cents a cracked cylinder they had 
 there. In a group of more advanced age, Joshua 
 Cradock and Mrs. Champernoon walked up Park 
 Street, and old Champernoon with Mrs. Cradock, and 
 so down to the Cradocks house in Beacon Street. 
 
 It was one of those comfortable old white marble 
 houses on the south side of Beacon Street, of which I 
 think there were none left the last time I was there. 
 It was but a short walk from the Temple, but that 
 they chose to go up Park Street with the lecturer and 
 his party ; not long, however, at the longest. They 
 came home, had their whist, Mr. Cradock lost all 
 three games, which was unusual, and, as the Cham- 
 pernoons afterwards thought, was a little silent and 
 meditative. But I do not believe they ever would 
 have thought of this, had they ever seen his face 
 again. 
 
 But this was their last whist-party. Seth brought 
 in the oysters, with a decanter of old Juno. The 
 Champernoons declined another rubber, and went 
 home. 
 
 As Joshua Cradock took off his coat and vest that 
 night (he took them off together, not being of He- 
 
ROUND THE WOULD IN A HACK. 57 
 
 brew parentage), he said to his wife, " Mary, would 
 not you like to go round the world ? " 
 
 " O, I should be sea-sick," said she (inevitably a 
 woman s first answer). 
 
 " But one might go by land, Mary ? " For Cra- 
 dock was not a Sturgis, nor a Dorr, a Woodbridge, 
 Hale, or Worcester. He was in no sort a geographer. 
 True, he descended, I suppose, from old Matthew 
 Cradock, the Moses of our infant State, who, from the 
 Pisgah of London Town, looked across the howling 
 Jordan to the land of Medford, milk and honey 
 from hollow trees, which, alas ! he never saw. 
 The first President of the Massachusetts Company 
 was he. From him it must have been that Joshua 
 Cradock inherited the adventurous disposition which 
 lurked in him. But Joshua had been educated for 
 and in the produce business. When he tasted a cheese, 
 he knew whether, the week it was made, the Widow 
 Somerby, who made it, had had visitors or no. But 
 he did not know over what parallels of latitude the 
 waves were flowing, and which parallels climbed crests 
 of snow as they ringed in the solid land. He knew 
 of the hoops of firkins, but not of the parallels of the 
 earth. So he suggested to Mary that they might go 
 by land. 
 
 " None of these people he spoke of went by land," 
 said she, meditatively, " neither Captain Sturgis, 
 nor Captain Cook, nor the other man. And on the 
 globe it was a ship, and not a stage." 
 3* 
 
58 THE ENGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " I think," said Joshua Craclock, " you could go by 
 land ! " And they went to bed. 
 
 Mrs. Cradock fortunately remembered this conver 
 sation the next day ; not that Joshua himself alluded 
 to it. They came down to breakfast, poached eggs, 
 steak rare, fried potatoes, cold hot-cakes, and hot bread- 
 cakes, with two slices of toast red-hot, and two pats of 
 choice Kinsman butter, a special present from Mrs. 
 Kinsman to Mrs. Cradock, coffee from Java, present 
 from Mr. Balestier, Seth waiting, breakfast quiet 
 and protracted. After breakfast, Mrs. Cradock went 
 up stairs ; Mr. Cradock did not go out ; read his Adver 
 tiser, skipped Casimir Perier s speech, skipped protocol 
 on Polish revolution, skipped Lord Brougham s address 
 before the London University, read the price of hops, 
 beans, pot and pearl ashes. Then he rang the bell ; sent 
 Seth to Niles s for a carriage, and bade him tell Hitty 
 to go up stairs for his valise. Hitty brought down the 
 valise. Mr. Cradock opened the lower part of his 
 bookcase, and took out three little leather bags tightly 
 tied ; weight of each, say, ten pounds. These three 
 he put in the valise. Seth announced the hack. Mr. 
 Cradock put on his coat, and, from the foot of the 
 stairs, said, "Good by, Molly. "Good by" came 
 down stairs on a high key. They always bade each 
 other good by. But when Mr. Cradock said good by 
 to Seth, and bade him say good by to " the girls," 
 Seth was surprised. He was also surprised at the 
 weight of the valise. Excepting for these surprises, 
 
BOUND THE WOKLD IN A HACK. 59 
 
 Mr. Cradock s departure was as usual, when he did 
 not choose to walk to North Market Street. He got 
 into the carriage. The hackman stood a moment on 
 the sidewalk, and then said, respectfully, "Where 
 to, sir?" 
 
 And Mr. Cradock answered, 
 
 u ROUND THE WORLD." 
 
 So the hackman mounted the box. His horses were 
 headed up the street, aimed, indeed, at North Market 
 Street. But he quickly turned, drove down Beacon 
 Street upon the Mill Dam ; they passed the toll-house 
 without stopping, only Mr. Cradock looked out pleas 
 antly at the keeper, and said " Cradock," and this 
 was the last word Boston ever heard from him from 
 that day to this day. 
 
 That is the way I have always heard the story told. 
 It is generally told to illustrate the character of the 
 Boston hackman of the best school, who is indeed the 
 superior of any of his kind I have ever found in travel 
 elsewhere, save in Sybaris ; nor are the hackmen of 
 the Sybarites any better than he. He is a wholly 
 different man from the baggage-smasher of Babel, 
 or from the cabman of London. When he takes his 
 summer vacation, you meet him in the mountains with 
 his wife and child, as much a gentleman in the essen 
 tials as you are yourself ; and for non-essentials, as St. 
 Augustine says, differing from you in that he drives a 
 
60 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 better horse, and drives him much better than you 
 would. When he retires from business, he takes a 
 nice house back in some mountain valley, and, if you 
 visit him, he will give you his views of your old friends, 
 your belles and your beaux, affected, it may be, by 
 the punctuality with which they left their parties ; for 
 the hackman likes Cinderella better than her sisters. 
 So, for that matter, did the Prince, and so do I. 
 
 The time may come when I shall have the leisure 
 to edit what I have by me, some " Passages from 
 the Diary of a Hackman." But I do not propose to 
 edit them now, but to stick closely to this story, 
 which, as I say, is generally told to illustrate the char 
 acter of the high-toned Boston hackman ; how he 
 obeys orders without quarrelling with you or squab 
 bling about his fare. " As Cradock said, Drive 
 round the world, and they started." That is the way 
 the story is generally told. 
 
 But the story does not properly stop there. 
 
 II. OF MRS. CRADOCK. 
 
 Dinner-time came at the Cradocks . Oyster-soup, 
 sirloin of beef, the second cut, boiled apple-dump 
 lings, shag-barks and raisins, almonds and dates ; Juno 
 again. But, as you know, Mr. Cradock did not come. 
 Mrs. Cradock had been down in Federal Street, to take 
 her turn at visiting at the Infant School. She had 
 called on Mrs. Blowers on her way home. She had 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 61 
 
 dressed for dinner, and at ten minutes of two was in 
 the parlor, waiting for Joshua. But, as I said, he did 
 not come. The clock struck two ; at five minutes past 
 she sent Seth out on the mall to see Park Street 
 clock, because she felt sure the parlor clock was 
 wrong. Her own watch had stopped, as is the custom 
 of the watches of the more powerful sex. But Seth 
 reported that the parlor clock was right, as it always 
 was. Let Mr. Bond alone for that. At fifteen min 
 utes past two Mrs. Cradock went to the window. No 
 Joshua in sight. Then she rang for Seth again. 
 
 " Did not Mr. Cradock order a carriage this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Yes, m m, at Niles s." 
 
 " Did he go to the store ? " 
 
 " No, m m, I think not." 
 
 Why not, Seth ? " 
 
 u He took his valise with him, m m. Hitty thought 
 he was going to Providence, m m. But I do not 
 think he was." 
 
 " Why not, Seth ? " 
 
 " Because I heard him speak to the hackman, m m." 
 
 " And what did he say, Seth ? " 
 
 " He said, Round the world. " 
 
 Mrs. Cradock had felt it in her bones before. All 
 through the movements of the children at the Infant 
 School she had sat hardly conscious whether they 
 were in the first position or the second ; so sorry was 
 she that she had, for the first time in her life, refused 
 
62 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 to Joshua something he proposed. So seldom did he 
 propose anything ! She always was glad to get him 
 away from that horrid store. And now, when he had 
 hinted at going away, she had thrown cold water on 
 the plan. She had said she should be sea-sick. What 
 if she were ? better be sea-sick than heart-sick ; 
 better be sea-sick with Joshua than land-sick alone. 
 All the time Mrs. Blowers had been telling her about 
 the cook s impudence and the second girl s marriage, 
 she had been thinking, how, at dinner, she would 
 bring up the plan of going round the world. She had 
 thought what she would wear. She would wear that 
 
 o 
 
 brown merino that Mr. Cradock had bought for her 
 at Whitaker s. He had bought it, and it would wear 
 well. She would only take the small black trunk ; 
 and in the bottom of it, for summer wear, she would 
 put in that dress-pattern of seersucker which she had 
 never made up. When she came home, she had told 
 Hannah to have the cranberries strained for dinner, 
 so as to make it seem more like a feast, and she had 
 even had the best knives and forks put on, because 
 he would notice that. And now it was too late. If 
 only she had said " Yes ! " Now he was gone ! Poor 
 Mrs. Cradock ! 
 
 " Then we will not wait any longer, Seth. You 
 can bring up dinner." 
 
 She did not say anything more. Silent women 
 those Ipswich Brewsters, I have always noticed, when 
 they were moved, silent, but not the less decided. 
 It must be the old Elder s blood. 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 63 
 
 She ate her beef alone, and pretended to eat cran 
 berry. But Seth. was not deceived. He knew she 
 did not touch it. The table was cleared, and she ate 
 her apple-pudding. Cleared again, and she had nuts 
 and raisins on her plate. Then she rang up Seth 
 again. 
 
 " Were they good horses, Seth ? " 
 
 " The best Niles has, m m, the bay team you had 
 last Monday." 
 
 " Then you need not go to Niles s this afternoon. 
 Go down to Fullum s, in Bowdoin Square. Tell him 
 I want a carriage at four ; and, Seth, see that he gives 
 us good horses. I am going round the world, Seth, 
 after Mr. Cradock. Would you like to go ? " 
 
 " Yes, m m," said Seth. And that is the way he 
 came to go. 
 
 " Mr. Cradock never drives after dark, Seth. I 
 think if we drive late in the evening, we shall catch 
 him in a day or two." 
 
 " Yes, m m," said Seth. 
 
 And Mrs. Cradock went up stairs, and packed the 
 little black trunk. She put the seersucker in the bot 
 tom. She put in the diamond necklace her husband 
 gave her the day they had been married twenty-five 
 years. She took the pocket-book which kept the 
 quarter s housekeeping. She put in her Bible, and 
 " Taylor s Holy Living and Dying," and the " Se 
 lections from Fenelon." Then she put in Mr. 
 Cradock s best coat, which she found he had left, 
 
64 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 and some articles of apparel whose names I do not 
 know. 
 
 She put on the brown merino from Whitaker s. 
 
 At four the hack came. Seth put the trunk on the 
 driver s seat. The driver shut Mrs. Cradock in ; and, 
 like the other driver, said, " Where to ? " 
 
 " Round the world," said Mrs. Cradock ; and the 
 driver mounted by Seth s side, and they started. 
 
 Niles s were good horses, but these were better. 
 Seth had understood his commission. Perhaps he 
 gave the driver a hint that a stern chase was a long 
 chase. They took a good pace from the beginning, 
 and they held it. They drove faster than Joshua did, 
 I know, for I have both journals before me at this 
 moment. But they did not catch him. It was a 
 misfortune, but they did not catch him. And this 
 was the reason. 
 
 Seth had observed that Niles s horses headed up the 
 street when they started and he shut the house-door. 
 That was all he knew. So, when Mrs. Cradock said 
 " Round the world," Seth bade her driver push boldly 
 by the corner of Park Street. They passed the Thorn- 
 dike house, the Bean s and the D wight s, struck Han 
 over Street and Winnissimet Ferry ; and, with a feel 
 ing they must continue east, crossed to Chelsea and 
 the Salem turnpike. And when, that evening, after 
 a very hard push, Mr. Cradock stopped at six, at the 
 sign of Neptune, on Shrewsbury Hill, Mrs. Cradock 
 was just driving out of Lynn. And her persever- 
 
ROUND THE WOELD IN A HACK. 65 
 
 ance in keeping on till near eleven o clock, which 
 brought her even to the Wolfe tavern at Newburyport, 
 only separated her twenty odd miles farther from her 
 husband than if she had stopped when he did. Ah 
 me ! it was worse than Evangeline. For she, at least, 
 was staying still while Gabriel sailed by her. But 
 this man and this woman, under two motives, were 
 going farther from each other with every differential 
 of every revolution of their wheels. 
 
 Palmer, on the west, and Saco, on the east, marked 
 their stopping-places of the second night ; but, the 
 third day, one of Mrs. Cradock s horses was amiss. 
 She was fain to dine at Portland, and spend the night 
 there. 
 
 Seth, I need not say, made inquiries from day to 
 day in the stables. In the forgotten days of travel, 
 when there were stables connected with inns, the peo 
 ple in the parlors knew nothing of what w T as passing 
 till the people from the stables came in and told them. 
 Seth got information at Portland, and came and told 
 Mrs. Cradock, as she sat over her nuts and raisins 
 again, that " they said " the best way round the world 
 was to go by sea. Seth was an implicit believer in 
 Mrs. Grundy, only, like most persons bred in a 
 democratic country, he personified her as a noun 
 of multitude. What " they said " the voice of the 
 people was to Seth indeed as the very voice of God. 
 
 To Mrs. Cradock his remark was a sad one. It was 
 only just what she had said only three short days 
 
66 THE IXGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 before. And what wretchedness of separation had 
 sprung from her saying it ! 
 
 " Do they say so, Seth ? " said she, sadly. " I 
 said so once." 
 
 " Yes, m m. They say there s oceans of people 
 as goes round the world every year ; but they goes in 
 ships, thousands on em. They call em whalers. 
 They goes for sperm oil and whalebone. Richardson 
 keeps the best, We always has Richardson s." 
 
 " I know you can go by water, Seth. But Mr. 
 Cradock preferred to go by land. They have not 
 heard of Mr. Cradock, have they ? " 
 
 " All of em s heard on him, m m. There is not a 
 shop-keeper in the place but has heard on him. But 
 none on them has seen him, nor knew he was trav 
 elling." 
 
 " I thought you did not inquire for him at the last 
 toll-gate, Seth ? " 
 
 But Seth declared he did. Mrs. Cradock s faith 
 that they should overtake him held firm, though she 
 was surprised that, while they paid toll steadily down 
 the old turnpike, no one had seen Mr. Cradock s 
 carriage, nor had they gained any clue to him at one 
 of the inns. Yet her faith did not waver, and she still 
 said, " We will go by land. " 
 
 And the next morning Seth heated her soap-stones, 
 folded round her a handsome bear-skin he had found 
 in a furrier s shop : u The best skin they is in the 
 State ; keeps out cold, they say, five hundred times 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 67 
 
 better than them buffaloes ; they say the Indians 
 makes them." He substituted a fur cap for the stove 
 pipe with which he had started, and again they pressed 
 Down East. The same morning Mr. Cradock left the 
 little tavern at Chester Factories, and began to pull 
 up the hills. He was already on runners ; but Mrs. 
 Cradock, as it happened, did not have to take them 
 till she came to Bangor. There she lay by three or 
 four days in her first heavy snow-storm. She lost no 
 courage, however. " If it stops me, it will stop him," 
 she said ; and, after the roads were broken out, she 
 started again. 
 
 But this is not a diary of her journey nor of his ; for 
 I do not think it would be fair to print either his diary 
 or hers. I will tell you, before I have done, how I 
 came to have them. Her journey of that winter was 
 her hardest, harder, as it happened, than his. It 
 was but a slow journey too, for Seth was very care 
 ful, and not over bold ; if the weather were too cold, he 
 invented endless reasons why they should not go on. 
 Who does not know how completely a traveller is in 
 his courier s hands ? most of all when that traveller 
 is a woman, innocent of geography, and without a 
 guide-book ; and, if that courier have always managed 
 her household, hard for her indeed ! A horrid busi 
 ness they had pulling across from Bangor to Eastport. 
 And there Seth made a long stop. Once and again he 
 suggested the ocean experiment. But Mrs. Cradock 
 answered, as before, that Mr. Cradock proposed to go 
 
68 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 by land, till she had come to the very end of the pe 
 ninsula of Nova Scotia, had bravely crossed the Gut of 
 Canso to the island of Cape Breton, drove into hospi 
 table Sydney, and there looked eastward on the sea. 
 How should she go by land now ? 
 
 For my part, I should be well pleased, if, as she had 
 hoped, she had found Mr. Cradock also sea-bound in 
 Sydney, and if this story had ended there. I do not 
 know if there is better place for a story to end than 
 there, where so many stories have begun. Is it the 
 eastern point of a southeastern branch of the Lauren- 
 tian hills ? Then it is, if I understand Agassiz, the 
 first spot of this world that lifted itself above the hot 
 water. 
 
 " When the young sun revealed the glorious scene 
 Where oceans gathered, and where fields grew green." 
 
 A good deal began when that bit of lowland beach first 
 put its nose for air above the brine ! And so a good 
 many hundred million of years afterwards (ask Darwin 
 and Lesley how many), when " the time was come " 
 for John Cabot and his son to open up North America 
 to England and to the world, this same old shore was 
 the " New-Found-Land " that peered out from the fog 
 to them on St. John s morning. Not the island of 
 Newfoundland, but Cape Breton. So Mr. Deane tells 
 me, and, if he does not know, nobody does. A good 
 deal began then ; and so if you want to get either to 
 the beginning of all things American, or to the veritable 
 jumping-off place either, you may go to Sydney. And 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 69 
 
 are there not some such charming people there ? And 
 do I not wish I was there at this living moment when 
 I write these words ? A good place to celebrate St. 
 John s day ! Here, at all events, Mrs. Cradock came, 
 and found, of course, that she could travel east in a 
 hackney-coach no longer. " Nothing, madam, but the 
 sea between you and Ireland," as the native guides say 
 so proudly on so many sea-shores. 
 
 " And has no one seen Mr. Cradock, Seth ? " No: 
 no one had seen him. How should they ? Mr. Cra 
 dock had arrived that night, after a good many chances 
 and crosses, at his fourth station in the prairies west 
 of Detroit. He had been welcomed by a stray Cana 
 dian who had made himself a log-cabin there the year 
 before. Neither of them could understand a word of 
 the other s language. But in that cabin he stayed till 
 the frost of that winter was wholly out of the ground. 
 
 III. _ OF HIM. 
 
 I asked dear old Robert Owen once what we should 
 all do, when he had the whole world successfully di 
 vided off into " Family Unions " of 2,500 people each, 
 all the Peruvians, Patagonians, Chinchillas, and 
 Cattarauguses happily ordered under the same order 
 of society, each with its own cotton-factory and its own 
 lyceum, and all the babies nursed in central nurseries 
 by the most approved system, with night-gowns worn 
 in the daytime all cut by one cosmopolitan standard. 
 
70 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " What shall we all do, when the world is well ad 
 justed?" asked I. 
 
 And the dear old man s face beamed with a happy 
 smile of transfiguration, as he thus contemplated the 
 new mathematical paradise, grateful to me for recog 
 nizing its possibility, even by conjecture ; and he 
 answered, u Do ? we will travel! " 
 
 There is a good deal in it. When education has 
 completed itself at home, travel is a first-rate univer 
 sity ; and the poor, stunted freshman of Life College, 
 who at first dares not say his soul is his own, or, if he 
 dares, says what is not true, after a little travel through 
 the different courses of this beneficent Alma Mater s 
 direction, proceeds " Bachelor at Arts." 
 
 That means, he gets " the power of speaking as often 
 as anybody asks him to," a very great power, as I 
 have observed men.* A few years more of travel, and 
 he is " Master of Arts," which means, he receives the 
 power of professing that he is acquainted with things, 
 if anybody asks him. This power, as the world goes, 
 is also a considerable one.f 
 
 Many is the well-trained Bostonian who will admit 
 that a course of travel of much less compass than 
 Joshua Cradock s has opened his eyes mightily to the 
 
 * "Cum privilegio publice praelegendi, quotiescumque ad hoc 
 munus, cvocati fueritis." These are the words which accompany a 
 Bachelor s degree. 
 
 t " Cum privilegio publice profitendi, quotiescumque ad hoc munus 
 evocati fueritis." These make one a Master of Arts, if spoken with 
 authority. 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 71 
 
 size of the world and to his own duty and place in it. 
 And Joshua Cradock, as I remember this experience 
 of his life, stands out to me, not as a disappointed ad 
 venturer following a phantom, ruined by his own igno 
 rance, and homeless because too proud to make in 
 quiry in time ; but rather as a true, brave man, who, 
 in his narrow life at home, found one chance for an 
 outlook on the larger world, used that chance, and was 
 himself changed in the using, and so saved, con 
 verted. He was faithful in such little duty as he had 
 in North Market Street ; but he did not make the one 
 great mistake of thinking that duty was all. In his 
 ignorance, even, of the world without, there seemed 
 to open to him a chance for enlarging his study of it, 
 and that chance he took ; because he took it, his life 
 also became what it did, and he knew the honors, if 
 he knew the sufferings, of a true, unselfish child of 
 God. 
 
 I do not pretend to say that I can unravel all his 
 journal ; it was kept originally in a book ruled for a 
 ledger, of which one end had, in fact, been used for 
 posting the book-accounts of some customers of his in 
 some early adventure. Mixed right up with the diary 
 are memoranda of accounts, draughts of letters, one 
 sketch of a speech he made to some Indians on the 
 Plains, a very curious and original calculation of the 
 longitude from his notes of the great lunar eclipse of 
 1832, and I know not what beside. In the first win 
 ter, as I said, he came as far as Michigan ; but then 
 
72 THE INGHAM PAPEKS. 
 
 mud stopped him, who had not faltered before snow. 
 The journal, brief like all journals, when there was 
 anything to tell, becomes, like other journals, voluble 
 when he had nothing to do. Evidently he fascinated the 
 Canadian s children. He taught them to read and 
 write, and to talk English ; and Hubert, the oldest of 
 them, held to him for years afterwards. 
 
 Farther on, when they had worked along to the 
 southern end of Lake Michigan, there are the traces 
 of a long stay he made there, in which he must have 
 devoted himself to the fortunes of the new slab city of 
 Rochambeau. Rochambeau has gone to its reward 
 before now, at least I cannot find it on the map, far 
 less on the spot, but here was Cradock, learned in 
 the lumber trade, disentangling those poor settlers from 
 the snares into which they had been led by a sort of 
 Dousterswivel who gloried in the name of Dodwell, 
 and making clear to them how they were to get their 
 timber at fair rates ; nay, waiting there till the first 
 cargo came ; if, in fact, he did not himself command the 
 craft that bore it. Here he lost or gained a great deal 
 of time ; and, indeed, all the slowness of his Western 
 progress is to be accounted for by his determination to 
 see wrong righted in many such an enterprise. At 
 last, after the burning of the prairies, or before, or at 
 the possible time, whenever that was, Flagg and 
 Staples and the rest of them will explain to you, he 
 struck the Mississippi quite low down, got his craft on 
 a steamer which was exploring the upper river, then 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 73 
 
 so little known, made some northing, and then, in the 
 freshness of one early spring, they pushed across, he and 
 the faithful driver and Hubert, by the Great Pipe 
 Rock to the upper Missouri. From that time it is 
 wild adventure indeed. The getting the carriage 
 through was of course now a mere piece of pride. 
 But they had all the time there was. They concili 
 ated all those roving tribes, even of Yellow-Stones. 
 Who in this world does not such a man as Cradock 
 conciliate ? and there is something racy in the tri 
 umph with which he announces the running of suc 
 cessive canons as they work down what I suppose to 
 have been Lewis s River. 
 
 " October 27. Fair, water not so high, but high 
 enough. Sighted the wheels to-day, after a good deal 
 of doubt whether they had not passed in the night. 
 
 Hubert lassoed the raft and hauled it in. All rio-ht. 
 
 & 
 
 " October 28, 6 A. M. Rainy, cleared afterwards. 
 Started the old booby (by this name the carriage-body 
 has been called for some months) at six, and the 
 wheels at eight, following with Hubert still on the 
 south side. Lost sight of the little raft at once ; but 
 there is a red hide trails behind the big raft, which we 
 saw on the foam for half a mile. Road on the south 
 side very hard, but this pony would go anywhere. 
 
 " October 29. Fair. Did not make two miles. 
 Vorse must have gone some other way. If he did 
 not, we shall never see the booby again. 
 
 " October 30. Rain with thunder. Dead lost. 
 
74 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 After a day s work, struck the river half a mile above 
 last night s camp ! 
 
 " October 31. Rain. Found the trail. Pushed 
 twenty miles and came into camp. Vorse had made 
 a good fire, and had biscuits baking. Best of all, he 
 had sighted both rafts in the back-water yesterday, and 
 had hauled them both in. They are floating just off 
 shore now. The Mission is only two hundred miles 
 below." 
 
 At this Mission I suppose they spent that winter ; 
 for it is not till the 4th of July of next year that I 
 find them in Walrussia, spending that day in Sitka. 
 And this man, who left his home simply an honest 
 produce merchant, who had tried hard to believe that 
 the Boston schools were the only schools, the Boston 
 streets the only streets, the Boston newspapers the 
 only newspapers, and the Boston Society for promot 
 ing Useful Knowledge the only possible society, 
 this man had, since he left Boston, taught one Western 
 town how to save its children s children from epidemic 
 in reorganizing their drainage ; had watched in another 
 through all the horrors of a relapse of the first cholera 
 invasion ; had attended to that little matter of the 
 lumber at Rochambeau ; had made certainly two 
 treaties, and I know not how many more, between 
 squabbling tribes of Indians, who, but for him, would 
 have cut their throats, and here at Sitka, at last, he 
 gives a public dinner to the Russian Governor and the 
 agents of the North American Company, to Captain 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 75 
 
 Taganoff and the other naval officers in port, and 
 actually makes them a speech in French (acquired 
 from Hubert), on the relations between the two great 
 powers which divide the northern zones. Mr. Seward 
 would like to print that speech in the archives of 
 Alaska. 
 
 IV. OF LAKE BAIKAL, OR THE SEA so CALLED. 
 
 For myself, the way I came to have these papers be 
 fore me, and to be able to tell you what Seth and 
 the rest said and did, and what they did not do, is 
 easily told. 
 
 In one of the inter-acts of the drama of a some 
 what varied life, I had taken the contract for laying 
 the Inter- Hemispheric wire, on the fourth section of 
 the Siberian Telegraph Division, and this led me to 
 spend the better part of two years not far from the 
 Chinese Wall, between Krasnoyarsk and Yakoutsk. 
 Properly speaking, our part of the line began at Kras 
 noyarsk, though, for reasons I need not name here, 
 we took from Section 3 one hundred and eleven wersts 
 this side of that place, beginning at Post Station 87. 
 The first time I went over my line, in company with 
 my dear friend Bolkhorinitoff of the Imperial engineers, 
 the country was as new to me as it is to you, dear 
 reader. And then came that delicious first visit at 
 Irkutsk, where every visit has been so delicious. Is 
 there any traveller who does not bless the Mouravieffs 
 with a full heart, and remember them every night 
 
76 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 as he puts his head on the pillow ? Well, we had all 
 the fun there, such coasting as there is not in all 
 Russia beside, nor even in New Bedford. Dancing, 
 music, what did we not have that was charming in 
 a wilderness ? We arranged our head-quarters there, 
 and then with Bolkhorinitoff I pushed on to determine 
 the eastern line. 
 
 Of course there must be a station at Irkutsk. It is 
 the capital of Eastern Siberia. Beyond that was the 
 question. I was rather for clinging to the Chinese 
 frontier, and carrying it right through Kiachta. But 
 the reader will understand that the difficulty was with 
 Lake Baikal. Before the ice broke up, we pushed 
 across once to Posolskoi, and so down to Kiachta on 
 the snow, and back again. A magnificent expedition 
 it is. You have the best horses I ever rode behind, 
 and you know and they know what is the wager as 
 you cross the ice. You leave and they leave the west 
 ern shore at ten in the morning. You are on ice 
 which is so clear that you cannot believe you are stand 
 ing on anything; thick, who knows how thick? 
 On - on you push across, are turned here by a 
 ridge which has formed itself after some storm, get 
 the eastern line there, holding your landmark in sight 
 steadily, on and on seventy-five wersts, fifty 
 miles, you have driven in four hours, with the ther 
 mometer at the point of frozen mercury ! That is a 
 good match against time for you, and the stakes are 
 worth considering. 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 77 
 
 If only the ice would last all through the year, 
 there, of course, would the wire go, but for six months 
 this sea of glass, dear Mr. Calvin, is a sea of water ; 
 and where shall our wires go then ? We went to 
 Kiachta, came back round the southern end of the 
 lake, and were dissatisfied. 
 
 Bolkhorimtoff and I agreed that, as soon as the 
 navigation was opened, he should go north by post on 
 the west side, I would go up by boat over the lake to 
 Nofpo Staun, a new place which none of them had 
 seen, at the very northeastern point, we would meet 
 there, and see if the lake might not be doubled better 
 on the northward. The lake, (Heaven forgive me, 
 I have called it so three times !) I mean the sea, is, 
 you see, as long as Lake Superior. 
 
 So, when we got into May, poor Bolkhorinitoff left 
 me ; and early in June I went down to the sea, it 
 is forty miles from Irkutsk, and chartered a queer 
 craft for the voyage. She had just come in with 
 omully, or omoule , the herring of that region. She 
 smelt of the cargo after it was gone, as vases do of 
 attar. I made friends with the skipper, and had a 
 chance to learn to speak " Russia-in-Asia," if I had 
 never had it before ; for we were windbound there 
 ten days. He did not want to beat to windward, and, 
 after I knew better, I did not want to either. 
 
 The Irkutsk people say that no man knows how to 
 pray from his heart till he has been on the Baikal Sea 
 in autumn. I can understand the proverb very well 
 
78 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 from my experience of that spring. We stayed in 
 shore for ten days, the skipper and I playing a detest 
 able form of sledge on the villanous pack of Russian 
 cards he had, whiling away time by his teaching and 
 my learning to talk " Russia-in-Asia," as I said, and I 
 working up my journal with some notes I have never 
 published, on the traces of Sandemanianism in the 
 architecture of the parish churches of the Ural. At 
 last we got to sea, and such a sea ! 
 
 It is from forty to sixty miles wide. It is certainly 
 five hundred miles long. When the wind blows the 
 wrong way, the best thing you can do is to get out 
 and wait, if you can. But sometimes you cannot, the 
 conditions being severe. We started too soon ; the 
 wind hauled round into the northeast when we were 
 thirty miles off-shore, and we had to take it, cold and 
 heavy, very cold and very heavy. 
 
 With the help of my dictionary I asked the skipper 
 if there were no shelter on the east side of the lake, 
 thinking we might claw a little to windward, and gain 
 something in distance. I was amazed as he begged 
 me to be still ; if I could say nothing better than 
 that, to say nothing ; and, somewhat snubbed, I went 
 below. After the gust was over, he apologized. I 
 had called the Baikal " osero" a lake, instead of 
 " more" a sea. Now this was an insult to the ruling 
 powers. He told me with perfect seriousness, that an 
 ungodly fellow, years ago, swore it was a lake, and 
 lake it should be called. So he called it " a lake." 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 79 
 
 44 But," whispered the skipper, " whichever way that 
 man sailed, the wind was always against him. Six 
 weeks, two months, it blew always ahead ; no matter 
 how he tacked, the wind tacked too ; till at last he 
 swore a terrible oath, and said it was a sea, and should 
 be a sea ; and, before the words were well out of his 
 mouth, the fog lifted and he was on shore." 
 
 I told the skipper coolly that this must be a Dutch 
 man ; and he said he was ; quite innocent of my 
 satire. And I found the story afterwards in Gmelin s 
 Travels. He tells it of a countryman of his. This 
 was the reason the skipper wanted me to mind my ^> s 
 and q s as I talked upon such risky water. 
 
 I confess I had some sentiment all this time. Have 
 not you a sentimental feeling about some parallels of 
 latitude and meridians of longitude ? Yes ? well, so 
 have I, a great deal of it. Here is this dear old 
 meridian of 71 runs right through Boston Harbor. 
 I feel as if I could kiss it every time I cross it on 
 Hough s Neck, and I walk my horse if I drive over it 
 on the Salem turnpike. Do you wonder at Wendell 
 Phillips s interest in Toussaint ? Why, the meridian 
 of Boston crosses the middle of Hayti ! how can a 
 Boston boy help feeling himself at home there ? And 
 I never wondered why they thought Valparaiso was 
 the Valley of Paradise, when they found out that, so 
 far as the longitude went, they were under this blessed 
 Boston meridian. And when you complete the great 
 circle, and come on the other side of the world, you 
 
80 THE INGHAM PAPEES. 
 
 feel it all the more. That is the reason why Coram 
 enjoyed Java so much ; because this meridian of 109 
 east, just half-way round, as the sun moves, makes 
 everything seem so natural. Six o clock here when 
 it is six o clock there, only here it is night when there 
 
 it is mornino;. 
 
 O 
 
 So I was a little sentimental in the old herring-boat, 
 for I was on or about 108 east, and knew I was near- 
 ing 109. Did they think of me at home ? I was 
 almost as far from them as on that parallel I could go, 
 and after that point I should be coming nearer. Per 
 haps it was this ; perhaps I took cold by getting wet 
 when we shipped those heavy seas the fourth day out, 
 for it was very slow work. 
 
 I had all the tortures in my lower jaw, left side ; 
 I did not know there was a bad tooth there, but there 
 was something. O, what a night that was ! Miss 
 Martineau says we do not remember pain. I should 
 like to try her on that toothache. I smoked some 
 wretched Chinese tobacco, no good. Then I took 
 some nostrum of the skipper s, no good. Then I 
 dropped fifty drops of laudanum, no good. Then I 
 thought I might as well die one way as another, and I 
 raked out some Cannabis Indica (hasheesh, you know) 
 that was in Orloff s medicine-chest ; I chewed that, 
 no good. Finally I put myself to sleep with ether, 
 and lay like a log till, long after dark, I waked, found 
 the skipper had covered me warm, and that we had 
 made a splendid run. It was just midnight, and 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 81 
 
 we were running up to the wharf, or slip, of Nofpo 
 Staun. 
 
 I said I would go ashore. The skipper tried to make 
 me wait till morning. " No : I had had enough of 
 the lake, I begged his pardon, of the sea." I 
 wrapped myself warmly, stepped on the wharf, and 
 found it a little peninsula connecting with another, just 
 as the T connects with the old Long Wharf of Boston. 
 And up this other longer wharf I walked,, under the 
 silent moonlight, into the little town. Was I asleep ? 
 I knew I was not drunk ! was it the hasheesh ? was it 
 the ether ? or was there in fact a little old State House 
 at the head of the street ? and was there the dome 
 of another State House beyond it, only very small ? 
 There was nobody to tell me ; but, as I went up and 
 on, I found I was in a quaint, queer, old-fashioned 
 little Boston. Was it Duchesne s model, which had 
 grown a little ? or was I still dreaming in the skipper s 
 cabin ? Up State Street I went, up Court Street I 
 went, I passed the funny little Tremont House and 
 the funnier Tremont Theatre. I passed the Deblois 
 House, where our Horticultural Hall is now. When I 
 came to the little Park Street Church and the little 
 Common, I was convinced I was crazy. I walked 
 sadly back to the little Tremont House, went up the 
 low steps, made a row at the door, and was admitted 
 by a sleepy Buraet, who looked like the half-Chinaman 
 that he was. A little pantomime and a little Russia- 
 in-Asia gave me a good bed any way ; and I went to 
 
 4* F 
 
82 THE INGHAM PAPEES. 
 
 sleep, and slept off twelve hours more of toothache, 
 cannabis, laudanum, and nostrum. 
 
 When I crawled down to breakfast the host came, 
 attentive, as Chinese as his waiter ; but he talked a 
 little German. So did I. Two littles in language 
 may not fit very closely, however, and our " littles " 
 were not the same " littles," and to my joy he soon 
 sent for an interpreter ; for he wanted to be attentive. 
 And in fifteen minutes an indubitable Yankee, gray- 
 haired and. smiling, appeared, who was, as it proved, 
 no other than Seth, of whom I have been telling you. 
 He had lived in this place, he said, for nigh thirty 
 years. " There wa n t nothin when I came," said 
 he ; " but Mr. Cradock liked to stay here, and he 
 w r ent into the lumber business, and we make the town 
 as much like the old place as we can." And so he 
 launched me on the story I have been telling you. 
 
 Y. OF MRS. CBADOCK AGAIN. 
 
 For Mrs. Cradock never turned back from Sydney. 
 Not she. She stayed till summer, making friends of 
 high and low in her gentle, tender way. But she 
 only waited for a chance to go farther. A little 
 French fishing-vessel ran in for doctor s help for the 
 skipper s wife, who was on board. Dear Mrs. Cradock 
 helped her more than all the faculties ; and when she 
 was better, and the little schooner started for St. Malo, 
 the Boston hack was hauled upon her deck, covered 
 
BOUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 
 
 with a tarpaulin, the horses were sold, and Madam 
 and Seth and Nimshi Jehusson, the driver, took passage 
 eastward. Madam was deadly sea-sick ; but she said, 
 If I could only be sea-sick and he here," for she 
 remembered. The French people could not under 
 stand a word they said, nor they the seamen. But 
 they understood that Madam was a saint, and that 
 the others were her familiars. So when they came 
 to Brest, before running up to St. Malo, the French 
 people told all comers that here was a Lady Abbess 
 from a great American convent. And Madam smiled 
 and was courteous, and Seth was voluble and unintel 
 ligible, and Nimshi said nothing. A Lady Superior 
 came down to see them. She found Madam on deck 
 reading her Selections from Fe ne lon and her Bible. 
 The Lady Superior was not strong in literature, but 
 she knew the word " Bible " when she saw it, and 
 she knew the word " F^nelon " when she saw that, 
 and she knew the little gold cross which Madam Cra- 
 dock wore because Joshua gave it her on her birth 
 day. So the Lady Superior took them with all the 
 honors to her convent, all officers of customs bowing 
 respectful, and here they stayed till Nimshi and Seth 
 had bought little Bre*ton horses that suited them, and 
 then they started on what the Lady Superior called, 
 properly enough, their " pelerinage sainte" She di 
 rected them to the next holy house, and so, by good 
 luck, they started east with a better introduction than 
 all the savans and all the diplomatists in the world 
 
84 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 could have given them. It was very droll to hear 
 Seth s account of how they got a passport. A " sport " 
 he always called it, rejecting the first syllable, and it 
 was long before I found out what he was talking about. 
 The Lady Abbess had used some pretty stiff influence, 
 I fancy ; at all events, what with the American Con 
 sul at Brest, and the Abbess, and some ecclesiastics 
 whom Seth designated as " them priests," something 
 was arranged which answered the purpose for two 
 continents. 
 
 And once, as they rode from one holy house to 
 another, Madam Cradock took into that Boston hack 
 ney-coach, at which the village children stared so, a 
 little waif of an orphan, for whom the sisters were 
 caring, who was supposed to need change of air. She 
 promised to deliver her safely to the sisters at Grand 
 Luce . And this little puss, with her French ques 
 tions, which Mrs. Cradock could not answer, and with 
 her relish of Mrs. Cradock s store of bonbons, and 
 with dropping asleep hot afternoons in Mrs. Cradock s 
 arms, and laying her head resolutely in Mrs. Cra 
 dock s lap as evening drew on, became so dear to the 
 good lady that, when they came to Grand Luce*, she 
 could not bear to part with her. And after they had 
 rested there the accustomed three days, Madam begged 
 her of the sisters that she might carry her on to Bon- 
 nelles ; and at Bonnelles, she begged that she might 
 take her on to Rampillon. Now the child was no 
 body s child but the good God s, so far as man knew 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 85 
 
 or nun knew, and at Rampillon there was no difficulty 
 in letting her go to Bruyres. And at Bruyeres she 
 started again with them to Weil, and so to Ellwangen 
 and Bruck, and indeed never left Mrs. Cradock more. 
 Whether, indeed, the nuns, any of them, understood 
 one word of the pantomime by which Madam Cradock 
 told the story, I think may be doubted. For she and 
 Seth and Nimshi resolutely held, all the way through, 
 to the language to which they were born. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that those people who 
 know nothing of a foreign language fare better, in the 
 parts where it is spoken, than those who think they 
 know something. They are put through by the cour 
 tesy of the natives, while the people who insist on doing 
 their own talking are e en left to care for themselves. 
 So was it, at least, with Seth, and Nimshi, and Mrs. 
 Cradock. And by the courtesy of the nuns to the 
 child, Mrs. Cradock became proprietor of this little 
 Adele, without any apprentice-papers or act of sale. 
 
 So from convent to convent they fared on. Nimshi 
 and Seth made their sets of acquaintances among 
 horse-people ; Mrs. Cradock and Adele made theirs 
 in chapels and ghostly parlors. If winters came, they 
 made long pauses. If summer came, they drove, 
 toward sunrise. Little they knew of the politics of 
 the countries they passed through ; but there were 
 love and faith and hope inside the carriage, and 
 resolution and courage outside ; and little Adele, who 
 sat now within and now without, became, in those 
 
86 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 long stages, mediator and interpreter between the 
 two. 
 
 And so it happened at last, one bright September 
 day, as they were crossing the flat at the northern 
 end of the Baikal Sea, that Seth pointed to Nimshi 
 a tandem team approaching them far distant ; three 
 Lapland reindeer scampering down with a heavier 
 carnage behind them than the usual low Russian post- 
 coach, and asked him what he would give to boot, if 
 the post-boy offered to swap the three deer against 
 their half-blood Tartars. Nimshi replied with some 
 good-natured chaff; but as they approached the stran 
 ger, he admitted that the heavy-clad post-boy kept his 
 wild team well in hand, and that they were a handier 
 set than he would have supposed. They drew up off 
 the road for the " little beggars " to go by ; not ex 
 pecting conversation, for which, indeed, they were not 
 prepared. But the stranger was more communica 
 tive. By a wild Lapland cry he threw the little crea 
 tures back on their haunches, and in three or four 
 words addressed the Yankee. 
 
 " Irkutsk shipko gliibnik ? " asked he. 
 
 And Seth said : " We speak English, if you please." 
 
 " English," cried the bearded Laplander ; " who are 
 you ? I said to myself that the driving was like the 
 driving of Nimshi Jehusson, are you Seth Cor 
 bet ? " 
 
 And by this time a woman s head was out of one 
 window of the Eastward hack ; and a man s out of 
 one of the Western. 
 
ROUND THE WORLD IN A HACK. 87 
 
 " Joshua ! " 
 
 " Molly I " 
 
 They had met half-way. 
 
 VI. OF NOFPO STAUN. 
 
 At the spot where the carriages met I found them 
 still standing, thirty years after, as a monument of the 
 happy rendezvous. 
 
 Just above it rises the mimic State House, below is 
 the mimic Common, around which their travels ended; 
 here they founded the New Boston, which was their 
 after home. 
 
FRIENDS MEETING. 
 
 [MR. IXGHAM visited the Friends Meeting here described, at 
 the Franklin Street Meeting-house, Philadelphia, on the 16th 
 of May, 1847. His report of it was first published in " The 
 Rosary," a collection of poems and essays, in 1848.] 
 
 I HAD been to a Friends meeting before. But that 
 was when I knew that a distinguished English Friend 
 would be present. I went with a crowd of others, 
 who went to hear him. We knew he would speak, or 
 thought we knew it, because the streets were placarded 
 with announcements that he would be there. And 
 we heard him. 
 
 But this day my only Sunday in Philadelphia for 
 a long time I w r anted to go to a real, usual Friends 
 meeting. And therefore we had gone without especial 
 expectation to hear any one. I wish everybody could 
 go to meeting, always, as free from that sort of associa 
 tion. Here, at least, the Friends have the better of 
 the rest of us Protestants. 
 
 It was a beautiful Sunday, most beautiful in 
 May ; and, in beautiful Philadelphia, "May " means 
 
FRIENDS MEETING. 89 
 
 May. Fortunately enough, we were very early at the 
 meeting, so that the doors were not opened ; and we 
 walked once and again, as we waited for the service, 
 around Franklin Square ; in which the fountain was 
 flashing in the sun, the grass and foliage green and 
 fresh and bright as fairy-land ; and the crowds of peo 
 ple, men, women, and children, as cheerful, though as 
 quiet, as Sunday. 
 
 And thence we walked on, and arrived a second 
 time at the meeting-house, together with others, so 
 that the gradual gathering showed that this was the 
 right hour. One after another the Friends came, 
 almost all stopping in the outer square, to bid each 
 other good day, and to drink a little of that sparkling 
 water from the can which is chained there. As I sit I 
 can see the little boys drag their fathers aside to the 
 hydrant, if they pass it without this draught; and 
 then each sips a little, so that one would half fancy it 
 was a preparatory rite ; the boys whisper a little, 
 while their fathers say " good day " to each other, and 
 then all walk into the house together. Is it fancy or 
 not, that they come in with a more natural, unaffected 
 air than worshippers into temples of more pretension ? 
 Is there a sort of formal pace for our carpeted aisles, 
 as if the organ voluntary, like a military tune, de 
 manded a movement of its own ? I hardly know. 
 Perhaps I never before looked thus at the different 
 people scattering into church. I cannot help watching 
 them here. Indeed, I do not care to help it. These 
 
90 THE INGHAM PAPEKS. 
 
 people all come in, reverently indeed, but not more 
 reverently than they walk the streets every day. 
 At least, there is no sombre look on their faces. 
 
 Every one is in. No ! there is one of the world s 
 people creaking in at the end door. How can he 
 make that noise in the midst of this silence ? Why 
 could he not come in time ? But now he is seated, 
 and the silence No! there is another and an 
 other. But they sit nearer the door ; I am glad of 
 that. I hope nobody will come in now. This si 
 lence, real silence, while one has the perfect con 
 sciousness of communion, is refreshing, truly. I remem 
 ber how utterly a lonely silence always impressed me. 
 
 This is like it, but I had rather be here than 
 there. I sat in one of the long halls in the cave of 
 Schoharie. C. and the rest of them had gone by, and 
 I had only my lamp for company. They were quar 
 ter of a mile in advance, and the world quarter of a 
 mile above me, and nothing but thick rock between. 
 I remember the instant when I put out my lamp, that 
 I might be quite alone. I was never less alone ; a 
 familiar thing to say, often said, but how wonder 
 fully felt when one feels God with him, in the fearless 
 ness, the trust, the excited enthusiasm, of one of those 
 cave or mountain solitudes ! Great God ! whose 
 lessons, whose handwriting, whose voices are like 
 those of thine? 
 
 What is that bird? 0, I am in the Friends 
 meeting ! How they sing, those cheerful little fel- 
 
FRIENDS MEETING. 91 
 
 lows on those branches which will swing to and fro 
 across the open doorway ! One, two, and then a 
 third strikes in, to show that he can sing as well. 
 They understand Sunday wonderfully well. Or, bet 
 ter, I suppose they keep Sunday every day. There is 
 no inconsistency between their Sunday and their week 
 day lives. Sing away, little fellows ; there are no better 
 masses than those, to-day, all round the world ! As 
 the world turns to-day, there is sounding something 
 better than a perpetual morning drum-beat. To-day, 
 as land after land flashes into the sun, there is a per 
 petual morning prayer going up to God, from that 
 Church which he sees as one, though we subdivide it 
 so. And every day, as the lands turn to meet the 
 sun, there is poured upwards this chorus of praise, 
 which does not know, perhaps, that it is praise, and 
 yet is perpetual, has been, ever since Adam was. 
 An eternal hymn, of bird and beast, going up to the 
 God of life ! Great God ! how beautiful this world 
 is ! Sound and sight always delighted, never be 
 wildered. Spring crowded with wonders, which we 
 say we never felt before ; nay, which we never did 
 feel before. For, thank God ! if one power of our na 
 ture does grow as we grow older, it is this with which we 
 so enjoy nature. Was ever anything before so beauti 
 ful to me as the trees in Franklin Square to-day, and that 
 rich grass, and the willows hanging over the basin, 
 green fountains as they seemed, and the bright 
 sparkles of the other fountains, that delicate spray I 
 
92 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 and the beautiful rainbow, when we walked round 
 so as to catcli the right light of the sun ! Certainly, 
 I never enjoyed anything in the world more. Why, 
 the very May-flower hunt, of last Tuesday, in Massa 
 chusetts, has made me enjoy Franklin Square to 
 day ! Thank God that we do gain so, that every 
 spring, every walk, teaches Sterling s lesson of the 
 night : 
 
 " As night is darkening o er, 
 
 And stars resume their tranquil day, 
 They show how Nature gives us more 
 Than all she ever takes away ! " 
 
 Why, there is the dancing shadow of the branch on 
 the wail yonder! Never, till this moment, have I 
 noticed such easy gracefulness of movement in a 
 shadow. It is on one side of the doorway. I do not 
 see the branch itself. 
 
 But here, of course, I must not move. I had for 
 gotten I was in meeting. Nobody has spoken yet. 
 I do not wonder. Why should they speak ? . . . . 
 How simply arranged everything here is ! They 
 carry their simplicity too far. Because they would 
 be simple, their house need not be ugly. That 
 window would have answered the same purpose if 
 it had been of agreeable proportions. How the eye 
 seeks for something graceful, nay, must have it I 
 That is the reason that mine, so unconsciously, has 
 been resting on that cord with which they pull up 
 the curtain. They forgot to stretch that tight when 
 
FKIENDS MEETING. 93 
 
 they arranged the room. And so, of itself, as we 
 blasphemously say, it has fallen into that graceful 
 curve. It is the only graceful thing inside the build 
 ing on that side on which I am looking. It is the 
 only thing which men have left alone. Curiously 
 graceful that catenary curve in which it hangs ! You 
 cannot draw one by your eye. Not the truest artist ! 
 And yet, the world over, there is not a loose cord but 
 is hanging in that delicately graceful way. Why, 
 even those that they stretch the tightest that they 
 say are perfectly tight really bend a little, a very 
 little, and in this exquisite curve. The world over, 
 they are obeying the same law. And because it is 
 God s law, that form, in which they fall obedient, 
 pleases my eye, pleases every one who looks on it. 
 The same here, there, and everywhere ; the same 
 arrangement that makes Leverrier s planet sweep 
 around in an orbit of such consummate grace ; the 
 same makes the trough of the waves of such sweep as 
 it is ; the cordage of a ship so beautiful ; yes, and that 
 law has been strong enough to defeat this mistake of 
 my Friends (they are Friends, though I never saw 
 one of them) here in their meeting-house. Strong 
 enough for that ? Why, yes. I remember, that men 
 prove by the calculus, by its highest flight and 
 best, which is, as always in the mathematics, the 
 highest and best flight of poetry, I remember, that 
 by the most elaborate and recondite of calculation, 
 they prove, that, in fact, no human power, no finite 
 
94 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 power, can strain a cord that it shall be absolutely 
 straight ; that it shall not have something of this beauti 
 ful God-ordered curve. The highest power of man, 
 his best calculation, shows, like his weakest and his poor 
 est, that God has ruled all things in beauty, and that 
 all man s twitchings and struggles are powerless, when 
 they act against this eternal Law. God of order ! 
 God of beauty ! how can we thank thee for such 
 daily miracles ? How can we learn grow to 
 prize as we ought life and its wonders ? Strengthen 
 us, Father ! strengthen us ! that our free lives, also, 
 may accord better and more often with thy Eternal 
 Life ; that we may labor with thy laws, with thy 
 power, thou in us, and we in thee ! 
 
 Some one spoke ! No ; it was the moving door 
 which startled me. I hope it will not swing to. I 
 must see still that shadow of the branch flitting to 
 and fro on the outer wall there. What a handwriting 
 it is ! So graceful ! and with every new motion so 
 different from that before ! beautiful, and infinite, like 
 all the rest ! Must these inner walls around us be left 
 so bare, and coldly white, and unornamented ? Sure 
 ly we should not be made more worldly if the memory 
 of God s love came to us from the inner as well as 
 that outer wall of this house. And could it make us 
 more worldly to see him in the pure works of brave 
 men, made strong by his strength, than it does to see 
 him in the shadow there, or the leaf, or the bough ? 
 
FEIENDS MEETING. 95 
 
 If that dead white wall which is opposite me, beneath 
 the little windows, and above the elders seats, bore 
 some representation of one of the victories of God 
 when he works in the soul of man ? Suppose it were 
 of the very beginning of this gathering which is here 
 to-day ? The first day that William Penn, a gentle 
 manly, courtly, spirited young fellow, went with his 
 college companions to hear Thomas Loe, the Quaker 
 itinerant, as they called him, preach in Oxford, 
 what a day that was for this Pennsylvania, for us 
 here, nay, for the whole world ! I can figure them 
 out for myself on the large blank wall, Loe preach 
 ing that which he remembered these college sprigs of 
 nobility and gentility needed. Plainly dressed he, 
 but nobly moved; feeling that the spirit is on him. 
 I can see his face as it would lighten up, as he spoke 
 to that crowd around him of wondering citizens, grow 
 ing more and more cordial to him, and to that group 
 of students, who have gone there to laugh, to ridi 
 cule, or, in one word, to " see fun." Why, on the 
 picture, even their faces should be growing grave, 
 beneath his solemn spirited, gospel eloquence ! And 
 what ought to be the face of Penn ? At this moment 
 he is receiving the influence which shall last through 
 his life, the preacher is fanning into a flame the 
 sparks which have always been in his heart ; and those 
 words, that spirit of that man, are mastering him ; are 
 compelling him to listen ; are compelling him to obey ; 
 and, from this moment forward, he will be the true- 
 
96 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 hearted, God-seeking friend of man! It is a moment 
 to study expression. As he leans on John Locke s 
 shoulder there, as he listens with more ardor and 
 more, his face must lighten with the most intense 
 light. It is fervent devotion, resting on grave thought. 
 Penn, ardent and moved, resting on Locke, thought 
 ful, but perhaps no less touched in his own way. 
 What a pair these, to stand among these flaunting 
 laughers, gay dressed and half listless, and those sober, 
 undemonstrative citizens, in their simpler aspect, to 
 be listening to such a preacher as Thomas Loe ! 
 What a triumph of the true sincere spirit of Loe, if 
 he could have only known what should come from that 
 moment ! Penn did stand by his death-bed, remem 
 ber, a few years after, and the dying saint knew then that 
 here was a young man all ready to go forward in his own 
 work. But he could not know that that young man 
 should be the beginning of a nation ; the visible sym 
 bol to all time of the uselessness of war, whose name 
 should be synonymous with peace ; and he did not 
 know who does know ? how far that day s preach 
 ing rested on Locke s conscience, and made him the 
 true man he was. Unconscious genius ! how brave 
 is this working in faith when there is no sight ! 
 this preaching to those who seem scoffers, perhaps, 
 who are the regenerators of the world ! It is God s 
 work again. Faith, noble faith, so much more no 
 ble than knowledge like all things noble, it leads us 
 up to Him of whom it tells us ! Father ! let it do 
 
FRIENDS MEETING. 97 
 
 more ; as it brings us up to Thee, let it inspirit us 
 also, and make us also alive, that, though we see 
 nothing of the harvest, we may still forever sow the 
 seed ; that, though the heaviest thunders are above 
 us, and the blackest clouds and the darkest day, we 
 may still scatter it on the field ; and do Thou, by the 
 lightning itself, and these very storms which over 
 whelm us, give it life and strength ; that, though long 
 after we have left our work, it shall still spring up, 
 and yield abundantly ! 
 
 But there is no picture ! The wall is only white. 
 I wish there were ! I wish George Wall, the Quaker 
 painter, would paint one there. I should be glad to 
 be reminded oftener of these brave men, God s true 
 children ; and, by their deeds, of their Father. What 
 picture could we have on the other side, the woman s 
 side ? There is a blank wall also. It matches this : 
 there should be a woman s picture too : one of wo 
 man s Christian victories. Such resolution as they 
 have, in all their weakness ! Such wisdom as they 
 have, coming straight from their unlogical simplicity ! 
 Such power as they have, from their mere quiet truth, 
 unconcealmg, unconcealed! Ready, if they think 
 there is need, ready as the stoutest man, to go 
 even to the scourge or to the stake ! Poor Jane 
 Dare ! Her only fault that she loved her country and 
 her countrymen too well, and acted out her love in 
 the crude language her time had; in that brutal 
 
 5 
 
98 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 outer fighting, the only way she knew of ; as brave 
 as the bravest of them ; and stronger and more hope 
 ful than the strongest of them, because she trusted 
 in the Eternal Truth, in Eternal Righteousness, 
 trusted in God ! You almost say that it never hap 
 pened in fact ! that the picture of her would be 
 only a type of what is always true. Faith like hers 
 should be mounted on the charger of victory ; yes, 
 and it should be clothed with that helmet and breast 
 plate, that heavenly armor, of which Paul tells. How 
 natural to represent that Spirit in her form, and 
 around her the group of soldiers, wondering, fearing 
 I forget myself! Jane of Orleans must not be in 
 a Friends meeting-house. Some one else must be 
 painted on that panel. Mrs. Fry, perhaps, in a prison ? 
 Or some Quaker mother here among the Indians ? 
 Or some of the sufferers among the English, or New 
 English ? the martyrdom of a later saint ? No, not 
 that ; we will not preserve the memory of the perse 
 cutions. That shall die, as other old forms die, and old 
 languages, when men have done with them. But the 
 true spirit of all these, that must be preserved. That 
 spirit of perpetual confidence, unshrinking faith in 
 the secret conscience call of God, that is immortal. 
 The picture shall show that ! It was in all of them, 
 just as it was in the young, steel-clad French 
 maiden. I can see her, I can almost hear her, with its 
 supernatural eloquence, exciting starved and fearful 
 soldiers. Or, in that little minute, when men s awe 
 
FKIENDS MEETING. 99 
 
 of death leaves even a convict wholly free, just before 
 he dies, to speak all he will, I can see her, as she 
 stands chained to the stake ; her face alive with more 
 than earthly life ; her eyes flashing with heavenly 
 fire, and yet soft with heavenly love, as she speaks 
 her last words to those dull persecutors ! 
 
 But I forget myself again. A warrior, a woman 
 of the sword, must not be in a Friends meeting-house I 
 No. But who shall be ? Not Judith, not Debo 
 rah, not the Queen of Sheba. She was coldly in 
 tellectual ; no ! it shall be a Christian woman, who 
 gives life to the scene with Christian faith, with Chris 
 tian endurance, and Christian power. It shall be one 
 of the martyrs among women who have consecrated 
 the church which has so often made saints of them ; 
 who have carried forward, so often and so far, the 
 gospel, which spoke to the first of them so truly, 
 though they were in anguish, in a woman s tears, 
 and suffering with all a woman s sympathy, when he 
 looked down upon them from the cross. They also 
 have been apostles, though unnamed ; they also have 
 been preachers, whether they spoke aloud or not ; they 
 also have been Christian soldiers, whether they have girt 
 on armor or not. The heroine of France, in rallying 
 the soldiers, is only an outward exhibition of what so 
 
 many of them have been before. We see her do 
 
 what so many of them have done, unseen lead on 
 thousands by the word of faith. We hear her say 
 what so many of them have said, unheard that the 
 
100 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 call of God makes the weakest powerful. We see 
 her suffer, as so many have suffered, unheralded, a 
 true, brave woman ; true to the last, and brave in 
 the midst of torture. 
 
 I will think of Jane Dare ! I will draw out her 
 picture there on the wall, as I look at it. This is not 
 a vague wandering of thought that brings me back to 
 her ; and she and her sufferings are not unfit associates 
 of the place. For one does not think of the fighting ; 
 it is not of that sad bloodshed that I am reminded. 
 Their memory has gone ; it is lost to me as is the old 
 dialect in which she spoke ; or the fashion, indeed, of 
 any of the outward dresses which she wore ; of any 
 of the outward seemings through which her spirit 
 spoke. God be praised for that ! God be praised 
 that the bitter form of fighting and bloodshed does 
 seem old and gone ! that these Friends here have 
 
 o 
 
 helped to push it away, to bury it in rust ! But 
 the spirit which spoke through it the trust in God, 
 the consciousness of God s inner voice, which enliv 
 ened it will never die. That is immortal! And 
 it is the one Spirit which enlivened all those other 
 martyrs. God be praised for that ! God indeed be 
 praised ! I thank thee, Father, for this also, that 
 in all the past which is gone, as in this present, thou 
 art unchanging, unchanged ; that as time passes by, 
 God s spirit does not pass by, but is Right Eternal, 
 Truth Immortal! Do thou, the Eternal God, the 
 unchangeable I Am, enter my heart with all the 
 
FRIENDS MEETING. 101 
 
 power of thy presence, that in me the right and the 
 truth may not falter, may not yield ; make me to be 
 thine forever ! 
 
 Hark ! some one speaks. It is one of the elders 
 beneath the narrow windows. " They who wait upon 
 the Lord shall renew their strength. They who wait 
 upon the Lord shall renew their strength. I am glad, 
 my friends, that there is still a company of those who 
 are willing to wait upon the Lord, although in silence, 
 knowing that he will renew their strength. I am 
 glad, that in this time, when there are so many voices, 
 and so many men who oppose him and his people, 
 there is still a company of those who are willing to 
 meet, as their fathers did, and wait for the influence 
 of his Spirit. When all philosophy tells us that even 
 of dead matter there is no end, that its atoms sep 
 arate but to unite in other forms, and never perish, 
 how can it be that the spirit, which gives all its life to 
 matter, shall end, or be of no worth or of no account ? 
 And how can we forget to seek the Eternal Spirit ; 
 the Spirit of spirits ? to wait for it in prayer, and 
 in communion, that it may inspirit our lives ? " 
 
 How can we, indeed ? how can we ? I hope he 
 will say nothing more ! No ! he has sat down. How 
 can we go through the world as if it were a dead 
 world, a giant corpse, and talk of dead philosophies as 
 if we were dissecting it, and studying the anatomy of 
 it as it would be if there were no Spirit to give order 
 
102 THE INCH AM PAPERS. 
 
 and law ? How can we do this, and talk of this, and 
 think of this forever ? And that God is so near us, 
 speaking to us, if we will only hear ; calling us, if we 
 will only listen ; his spirit knocking, if we will only 
 receive it ; every pulse, every fibre of this corpse, as 
 I called it, alive ; and alive because it is his will ! 
 God of life ! now, at least, I do remember thee ; now, 
 at least, I do seek thee ! O, seek me, Father, when 
 I am dead, or sleeping ! seek me in the living voices 
 of truth and love, that I may wake again, and live 
 again, in Christ s life, in thy life, in the life 
 which thy goodness has made eternal ! 
 
 There is a woman speaking ! u They that wait 
 upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall 
 mount up with wings of eagles ; they shall run and 
 not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." She 
 says nothing more. But what an answer is here to 
 prayer ! Before it is offered, before it has conceived 
 itself, God has promised thus to hear it and to bless it. 
 God finds us thus the moment that we seek him. He 
 is with us when we try to be with him. 
 
 God ! direct my wandering thought 
 
 To centre upon Thee ; 
 Direct my eyes to look through aught, 
 
 Till Thee, their God, they see ! 
 
 In every leaf of every tree, 
 
 In all the world around, 
 My wandering eye has looked, till Thee, 
 
 The God of love, it found. 
 
FRIENDS MEETING, 1C 3 
 
 In every work where labors man, 
 
 With true or selfish mood, 
 My wandering thought finds God sustain, 
 
 And crown each toil for good ; 
 My wandering thought finds all in vain 
 
 The toil which turns from God. 
 
 Praise God, for wandering eyes his world of love to see ! 
 Praise God, for thought which wanders always free ! 
 Praise God, for faith which bends a willing knee, 
 Draws me to Him, the while He smiles on me. 
 
 Ah ! One of the elders is standing up ! See ! he 
 shakes hands with another. And there, those others 
 are shaking hands. They are beginning to go away. 
 The meeting is done. 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 
 
 [AFTER Mr. Ingham first retired from naval service, and 
 after his first rebuff in the Sandemanian ministry, having 
 established his residence in the minister s lot, No. 9, in the 3d 
 range in Maine, he then assumed a position of modest useful 
 ness in the city of Boston, which compelled him and Mrs. Jng- 
 ham to reside here for some years. To this period of his life be 
 longs the year 1860, and Mr. Haliburton s adventure which is 
 here recorded. My impression is that Mr. Haliburton was at 
 that time connected with the Methuselah and Admetus Life 
 Company. 
 
 The narrative was first published in the Atlantic Monthly for 
 May, 1868.] 
 
 DID he take the Prince to ride? How should I 
 know ? The Prince never told me anything about 
 it. I never saw the Prince but twice, once was 
 out by the old Francis House, in Brookline, where 
 I rode into a pasture that Zyness might pass by 
 with his suite, and once was as he came in from 
 Cambridge on the old Concord Turnpike, when I 
 and my wife sat in the buggy and joined in general 
 enthusiasm. There is a photograph of him in the tray 
 there ; but he never told me, nor did the photograph, 
 whether Haliburton took him to ride. Don t ask me. 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 105 
 
 Haliburton does not know himself. He thought 
 he took him to ride ; and he came to our house and 
 told me and my wife he had done so. But when he 
 read the " Advertiser " the next day, the " Advertis 
 er " said the Prince went with the City Government 
 to see the House of Correction, the Insane Hospital, 
 the Mount Hope Cemetery, or some of the other 
 cheerful entertainments which are specially provided 
 for distinguished persons. So Haliburton was a little 
 dashed, thought perhaps he had been sold ; and to this 
 hour when we want to stir him up a little, we ask him, 
 44 Did he take the Prince to ride ? " 
 
 This is the story : 
 
 The afternoon of the day when his Royal Highness, 
 Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Duke of Saxony, 
 Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Grand Steward of 
 Scotland, Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Count of 
 Chester, Count of Carrick and Dublin, Baron Ren 
 frew, Lord of the Isles, visited the University at Cam 
 bridge in New England, left his autograph in the Li 
 brary, and inspected a room or two in Holworthy, 
 of the day when, as above, I backed the buggy into a 
 corner for Zyness to pass, and attempted vainly to 
 entice the burghers of Cambridgeport into a unani 
 mous cheer, this day, I say, he visited, with a few 
 friends, the beautiful Library of the Historical Society 
 in Tremont Street ; the most attractive public book- 
 room, let me say, in New England, and therefore the 
 best public lion in Boston. There he saw the Dowse 
 5* 
 
106 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Library, the pen that signed the Articles of Confed 
 eration, the Manchester velvet small-clothes of Frank 
 lin, and the curious swords from Prescott s library. 
 These are the swords of the English Captain Linzee, 
 who first opened fire on Bunker Hill, and of the 
 Yankee Colonel Prescott, who had thrown np its forti 
 fication. Prescott s grandson, the historian, married 
 Linzee s granddaughter ; and so, in that household, 
 the two swords worn that day by the two chiefs came 
 lovingly together. Blessed be the omen ! These 
 curiosities, and others, the Prince saw ; he expressed 
 a kind interest in them ; asked for an autograph of 
 Washington for his brother Alfred, which some gentle 
 man gave him, and went away. 
 
 Haliburton happened to be there, or says he was 
 there, and it is there that the story begins. How 
 Haliburton came to be there I am sure I do not know. 
 He is not a member of the society, and probably nev 
 er will be. We tell him he smuggled himself in from 
 the street, and was mistaken by his hosts for one of the 
 delegation from Prince Edward s Island. But being 
 there, if he were there, and talking with one of 
 those thoroughly intelligent gentlemen of the Prince s 
 suite, who have left behind them such pleasant mem 
 ories here, Haliburton said that it was a pity the 
 Prince should see only those things in which America 
 could not, from the nature of the case, rival other 
 countries, and in which, of course, she had least that 
 was individual or of special interest. " History," said 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO EIDE? 107 
 
 Haliburton, must, of course, " be the element of least 
 interest of all in the country whose past is the shortest 
 of any." And so he went on to say, that, almost 
 from the nature of the case, the Prince, like all 
 other travellers, was seeing just those things in which 
 nations most resemble each other, and was seeing 
 least of the peculiarities of domestic life which make 
 nations what they are, and different from each other. 
 
 This gentleman, whose name Haliburton never told 
 me, if he knew, and if he had I would not tell 
 you, said this was true enough; but he did not see 
 how the matter could be mended. Only the Caliph 
 Alraschid could get into the private life of his people ; 
 and it might be doubted whether the Vizier Jaffir had 
 not sold the Caliph in each of the celebrated visits 
 of inspection. As Haliburton had said, private life, 
 because it was private, could not be seen in a public 
 visit of ceremony. 
 
 As to this, Haliburton said, where there was a will 
 there was a way. If the Prince, or any gentleman 
 of his suite, wanted to see private life in Boston, al 
 most any man of sense in Boston could show it to him. 
 Whether that was what the cortege was here for Hali 
 burton did not know. He had sometimes doubted 
 whether princes saw much of domestic life outside of 
 palaces at home, or if they wanted to. 
 
 His friend laughed, and said he could not say. But 
 he did think that, abroad, a traveller, as keen as his 
 Royal Highness, wanted to see what there was; and he 
 
108 THE INCH AM PAPERS. 
 
 ventured to say that he would be very much obliged 
 to any American gentleman who could put him in the 
 way of seeing how people lived. And so their talk 
 ran on, rather more into detail ; and it ended in Hali- 
 burton s promising to call in his buggy at the side-door 
 of the Revere House at ten o clock the next day, and see 
 if there was anybody who cared to drive round Boston 
 with him. Not a word was said to the Prince, or the 
 Duke of Newcastle, nor to General Bruce. The visit 
 to the Library was ended, and they all went home. 
 
 The next morning Haliburton had Peg harnessed, 
 and, at the stroke of ten, drove up at the Bulfinch 
 Street door. Then, he says, as sure as Peg is a living 
 horse, at the moment, before he had time to get out of 
 the carriage, the door of the hotel opened, and a slight 
 young man, of fresh, ruddy face, with a very shiny 
 hat, looking as if it had been bought that morning, 
 stepped quickly down, looked up brightly in his face, 
 asked if he were Mr. Haliburton, and stepped in, 
 Haliburton making room for him, but actually not 
 leaving his seat. If he had said, " Are you the Prince 
 of Wales ? " there could be no question now like that 
 at the head of this article. But he did not say any 
 thing of the kind. Either he was dashed by the pres 
 ence of royalty in posse, or he felt too certain of his 
 passenger to ask, or he felt modest and thought it 
 would be impertinent. The young gentleman took 
 the left side of the seat. Haliburton lifted the reins. 
 Peg started, and they drove through Bowdoin Square 
 into Green Street, and the expedition had begun. 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 109 
 
 After a word or two of mutual civility, Haliburton 
 asked his friend how much time he could give him. 
 He said it was arranged that they were all to lunch 
 together at three, and till that time he would be at 
 Halibur ton s service. Haliburton then said that he 
 had undertaken to show him how people lived, that, 
 if he might direct the morning, he would try to bring 
 into it as much variety as possible. He would show 
 his friend how an Irish emigrant lived in the first 
 month after his landing. He would show him how 
 another Irish emigrant lived after he had been here 
 five years. He would show him how a Vermont me 
 chanic lived, who had moved here from the country, 
 and was at work on wages. He would show him how 
 the same man s cousin lived, who had been twenty years 
 in active life, and had made his fortune. He would 
 show him as well how another emigrant family lived 
 when the father took to drink and went to the dogs. 
 And he would show him how the staid old Bostonian 
 lived who had Copley s pictures of his great-grandfa 
 thers hanging in the hall and the dining-room, who 
 had other grandfathers who sold stay-laces in Pudding 
 Lane, but who, for all that, descended from higher 
 families, who came over in Winthrop s fleet. " This 
 is a small town," said Haliburton, "and I think we 
 can do this, though not in this order perhaps, before 
 the time you name." 
 
 I asked Haliburton once how he called his incog, 
 companion, whether he said " Uryness " to him, or 
 
110 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " Prince," or assumed the familiar " Albert." But 
 Haliburton said, " Do I call you Ingham all the 
 time, or Colonel, or Parson, or Fred, or do I say 
 * you ? I said you to the young man, whoever he 
 was, and he said 4 you to me." 
 
 I may not get the order of their morning calls right 
 ly. I ought to say, to Haliburton s credit, that, when 
 ever I have heard him tell the story, he has told it at 
 very great length, and with much detail. I hope 
 this is not important ; for what with not listening 
 always, and with forgetting, I am not very strong on 
 the details. But I am sure as to the general drift of 
 the expedition. 
 
 They brought up first, say in Seneca Street, or one 
 of the parallels, at a three-story tenement-house. 
 Haliburton jumped out, fastened the horse by his iron 
 weight, which he wound around the lamp-post, and 
 which was a novelty to his companion, who inspected 
 the simple machinery, and asked about it with interest. 
 Haliburton bade him follow, opened the front door 
 without knocking, and pushed up two flights of stairs. 
 The passage was dark, and had that odious man-smell 
 which most school-houses and prisons have, some hos 
 pitals even, and the halls of all tenement-houses which 
 are not kept under very strict regime. A few of the 
 banisters were knocked out from the .balustrade. 
 
 Arrived at the third story back, Haliburton knocked. 
 " Come in ! " And they went in. A room twelve 
 by fourteen. The floor white with sand and elbow- 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PEINCE TO RIDE? Ill 
 
 grease, and a six-foot-square bit of worn carpet in the 
 middle. A Banner stove, size No. 3-|-, well cleaned 
 with black lead, without fire, in front. On the man 
 tel, a china image of St. Joseph with the infant Sav 
 iour ; a canary-bird, in wax, fastened on some green 
 leaves ; a large shell from the West Indies ; a kero 
 sene lamp ; three leather-covered books without titles 
 on their backs ; a paper of friction-matches ; and a 
 small flower-pot with a bit of ivy in it, placed in the 
 order I name, going from right to left. On the wall 
 behind, a colored lithograph of Our Mother of the 
 Bleeding Heart, her bosom anatomically laid open 
 that the heart might be seen, and the color repre 
 sented accurately by the artist ; another colored lith 
 ograph of Father Mathew ; and a Connecticut clock, 
 with the fight of the Constitution and Guerriere. 
 Between the windows another colored lithograph, 
 " Kathleen Mavourneen " ; table under it ; a rocking- 
 chair ; four wooden chairs ; another table between the 
 doors ; small bedstead in one corner. All this I can 
 describe so accurately because I was often there, and 
 recollect the room as well as this I am in. 
 
 Mrs. Rooney rises, as they enter, from a settee on 
 rockers, across two thirds of the front of which is a 
 rail, convenient cradle and rocking-chair joined, 
 puts by Rooney fils into the cradle part, and steps for 
 ward cheerfully, neat as wax, trig and bright. 
 
 " How d ye do, Mrs. Rooney ? " 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Haliburton ; and welcome to you. 
 Won t you gentlemen take seats? " 
 
112 THE INGHAM PAPEKS. 
 
 " This is my friend Mr. Edward ; Mrs. Rooney ; 
 he is riding with me to-day." 
 
 Mrs. Rooney quickly, a little clumsily, takes the 
 shiny hat, with Haliburton s felt, puts them both on 
 the table, quite unconscious that she is serving the 
 son of her sovereign (if, indeed, that day Haliburton 
 did take the Prince to ride). That was the first and 
 last that passed between her and him during the call. 
 He kept his eyes open ; beckoned to little Phil Roo 
 ney, who stood in the corner with his thumb in his 
 mouth, but the boy would not come. Not that he 
 knew a Saxon from a Kelt. Duke of Saxony was all 
 one to him with Brian Boroghue ; he would have 
 come to neither. The Prince (if it was the Prince) 
 had no pence or lozenges, or did not know enough to 
 produce them. The conversation was all between 
 Haliburton and Mrs. Rooney. 
 
 " Children well ? " 
 
 Yes, pretty well ; Phil there cutting some back 
 teeth ; Terence, a bad cold, but wanted to go to school 
 again ; and Miss Cutter had been round, and wanted 
 him to go, and so he had gone. 
 
 " All three at school now ? " 
 
 " Yes, Delia Bridget, that is, but she likes us to 
 call her Delia is at school still. If I found a good 
 place at service, I would take her away. But she is 
 particular, and so am I. Terry, he would be glad 
 enough to be out ; but his father says, No ; if there s 
 a chance for learning, the boy must have it. And 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PEINCE TO RIDE? 113 
 
 the boy, if he is my boy, is a good boy to mind ; and, 
 if he is fond of play, he does well at school too. 
 Yonder is his last certificate, and there is the other 
 which he had in Miss Young s room." 
 
 Delia, it seems, or Bridget, has three certificates ; 
 but her father has sent them all to Borriscarra, County 
 Mayo, province of Connaught. Terry s are framed 
 in mahogany, and hang above the Prince s head (if 
 indeed it were H. R. H.). 
 
 "And how did the children stand the summer?" 
 They had not stood it too well. Dreadfully close 
 some of those hot nights ! Delia made a visit of a 
 week at Maiden, and Terry made friends with a boy 
 whose father sailed from Beverly for mackerel, so that 
 he was away all the vacations ; but for Mrs. Rooney 
 and the little children it was hard. Indeed, Mrs. Roo- 
 ney often thought of the bit cottage, a mile outside Bor 
 riscarra, as you go to Ballintubber, and could not but 
 wish that her children had the chance to run outdoors 
 that she had there. On this, H. R. H. (if it were he) 
 showed signs of curiosity, and Haliburton, having 
 waited in vain for him to ask the question he wanted 
 to, put it himself. 
 
 " And would not you like to go back again, Mrs. 
 Rooney, and show them the children, and live in the 
 old cottage again ? " 
 
 u Indade, no, your honors. Dick has just sent out 
 fifty-five dollars for the old people, and we expect 
 them before Christmas here. What should we do at 
 
 H 
 
11-i THE IKGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Borriscarra ? The times are harder there than iver. 
 Nothing has gone well with them since the Queen 
 took the spinning-wheels away ! " 
 
 (Expression of surprise on the younger man s face. 
 But he says nothing.) 
 
 " Then why does not Dick go up country, take 
 a bit land there and a house, and let the children 
 play about as you and he did ? " persisted the perse 
 vering Haliburton. And for an answer he was told 
 that indeed Dick would be glad to do so, and that he 
 had had a good deal of talk with a man they dealt 
 with at the yard, who owned a marble-quarry near 
 Rutland. But Bridget must be at service soon. She 
 could not yet find a good place for her ; and they were 
 very well off as they were, and so on and so on, and 
 so forth and so forth. Haliburton knew too much to 
 make a fuss with his advice, seized his felt, gave his 
 companion his stove-pipe, and they retired. 
 
 " What did she mean about the spinning-wheels ? " 
 said the Englishman, as they started again. And 
 Haliburton told him that there was a popular super 
 stition among five or six millions of her Majesty s 
 subjects, to the effect that the decline of house-spin 
 ning was due to an edict of the Queen, that spinning 
 should be done in factories rather than at firesides. 
 And as they talked thus they came into Osborn Place, 
 (not Osborn House, Uryness,) and Haliburton took 
 his friend into an up-stairs parlor of one of the pretty 
 suites of a u model lodging-house." 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 115 
 
 It is very odd how this word " model " is changing 
 its meaning, when you apply it to such places. Often 
 and often it is given to some wretched huddle of 
 crowded rooms, which never should be model or pat 
 tern for anything. I am not sure but its technical use 
 in connection with lodging-houses is due to some 
 model houses of Prince Albert s, this boy s own father. 
 However this may be, the houses in Osborn Place are 
 models which I wish the cities of the world would 
 largely follow. Up stairs and up stairs, a good many 
 flights, they ran, Haliburton leading. He rang at the 
 door-bell when they reached the right landing, and 
 pretty Caroline Freeman opened to them, and ushered 
 them in. 
 
 " ! beg y ur pardon," said the voluble Haliburton, 
 " for calling before hours, but you and I are not for 
 mal, you know. My friend was shy of coming up, 
 but I said you would not mind. Mr. Edward, Miss 
 Freeman," and she offered them chairs, in her pret 
 ty parlor, and they sat down. A bright view I 
 
 know not how many miles through the vines and 
 other greenery of her windows ; a cheerful glow from 
 the bright carpet ; a good water-color by her brother, 
 scene in the harbor of Shanghae, or Bussora, or 
 somewhere outlandish, no matter ; and a good chro- 
 molith. But to my mind, always the prettiest orna 
 ment was Caroline herself, and I believe her visitors 
 thought so then. 
 
 Haliburton s real object was accomplished when 
 
116 THE INCH AM PAPERS. 
 
 they had sat long enough to give his companion a 
 chance to see the room, but he had to make an excuse 
 for coming at all. He was going down to Buzzard s 
 Bay for some shooting. Could not Fred come with 
 him? Say start on Thursday and be back Tuesday? 
 Caroline would ask Fred, but doubted. Wished 
 Fred would go, for Fred was low-spirited arid blue. 
 He had been disappointed about the opening at Nag- 
 uadavick ; they had determined, after all, not to start 
 their steam-mill this winter. Fred had had full prom 
 ise of the charge of the eno-ine-room there, as Hali- 
 
 ?T> G 
 
 burton knew; but this threw him out again, and 
 times were dull everywhere, and he said he was fated 
 to get nothing. He had been talking with the chief 
 at the navy-yard, who was an old friend of his ; but 
 there was no chance there, and no chance that there 
 would be a chance. She would rather Fred should go 
 to sea again ; he was always better at sea. 
 
 " And how is your mother ? " at which moment 
 that lady appeared. 
 
 I never can describe people, but you all of you 
 know just one nice person, who, at forty, looks for 
 sweetness as if she were seventeen, and for serenity 
 as if she were seventy. Well, Mrs. Freeman, Car 
 oline s mother, is the one I know. She would not 
 own she was ill, though she was ; she said she was 
 a great deal better than she had been, and would be a 
 great deal better the next day, for all which it was 
 clear enough that both of them were delicate. A pity 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PKINCE TO REDE? 117 
 
 they should have to rough it through here in this 
 vilain winter. But she parried all talk about herself, 
 and in a moment was making " Mr. Edward " talk ; 
 had he been travelling far? was it his first visit West? 
 was he fond of sporting? were the Western grouse 
 like the Scotch ? and, before he knew it, the young 
 Englishman was talking rapidly; Haliburton chuck 
 ling, and withdrawing with Caroline into an aside, 
 showing her a memorandum he had in his note-book. 
 This done, the other two were not done. So Halibur 
 ton and she kept on ; her maiden article in " Mer 
 ry s Museum"; Ingham s (that s my) sermon of 
 Sunday at the chapel ; the Philharmonic programme 
 for the winter ; Lucy Coleman s new piano, which 
 Lucy said should be at Caroline s use for the winter 
 while Lucy was in Cuba, and so on, and so on. At 
 last Haliburton looked at his watch, and told the 
 young gentleman they must go ; and so tore him away 
 while he was telling how they ran the rapids at the 
 mouth of the Ottawa. 
 
 " Those are nice people," said he ; " what class of 
 society are they of ? " 
 
 " Umph," mused Haliburton aloud. " Classes do 
 not divide themselves quite so distinctly with us as 
 with you. That is the class of widows in delicate 
 health ; who live in an upper story of a model lodging- 
 house, supported by the earnings of a son and daugh 
 ter, neither of whom is of age. That girl will to 
 night be at an evening music party of fifty of the 
 
118 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 nicest people in Boston, and to-morrow morning she 
 will be in the basement of the first house we went to, 
 teaching her scales on the piano to the daughter of 
 a well-to-do Irish stone-mason, who wants his girl 
 to learn to play, at fifty cents a lesson. I never 
 thought," added Haliburton, laughing, " that Caroline 
 Freeman would make a good duchess ; she has not 
 weight of guns enough, aplomb, or self-assertion for a 
 duchess ; but, say for a viscountess, she would do 
 nicely, or for a schoolmistress in Dubuque, Iowa. I 
 am not sure which class in society she belongs to." 
 
 They both laughed, and Haliburton, following his 
 hand, rather than the plan which he had laid out in 
 the morning, crossed the town, passing the Common, 
 and called on Lucy Coleman, to see what she could 
 tell him about Mrs. Freeman s cough. It is a way 
 Haliburton has of doing one thing at once, he calls 
 it making one hand wash another ; he says he learned 
 it from John Jacob Astor, who told him, the only time 
 Haliburton ever saw him on business (Haliburton s 
 father had a lot of otter-skins), that he should like to 
 settle the matter there and then, that he never might 
 have to think of it again, or see Haliburton himself 
 more. So, I say, Haliburton, forgetting his plan, 
 drove through Charles Street, between the Public 
 Garden and the Common, and called on Lucy Cole 
 man. 
 
 " I had not meant to come here," said he to the 
 Prince (if it w. t. P.), as they left the carnage, " but 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 119 
 
 it is as well as if we had gone to see the Copleys. If 
 there are no Copleys here, and by the way there 
 are, there are others as good, Allstons and Champ- 
 neys." 
 
 " You forget that I do not know what Copleys and 
 Allstons and Champneys are. What are they? 
 people, or things to eat, or fashions of clothes ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I forgot ; they are pictures. Copley was a 
 bright boy here, went to the Latin School, where 
 you were Tuesday, and painted first-rate portraits a 
 hundred years ago ; then went to England, and died 
 there twenty years before you were born ; left a son 
 you have seen, your old Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst. 
 Allston was a Carolinian, who lived and died with us, 
 painted such landscapes, and such lovely faces ! Look 
 there ! " and his friend was by this time absorbed 
 in the exquisite dream of beauty before him. 
 
 Miss Lucy came running down stairs. " I saw 
 your carriage, and I would not keep you waiting," she 
 said, and then paused, seeing the stranger, welcomed 
 him, and made no further apology. It was still long 
 before calling-hours, but she had bravely run down in 
 her exquisite morning cashmere. Haliburton was, 
 I think, rather glad that he had been moved to come 
 round here. He had meant fairly to show the Prince 
 what should make a fair average of life, and to put no 
 best foot foremost. He knew, however, that he had 
 lapsed from grace in going up to the Freemans rooms, 
 that there were ten people in Osborn Place, not near 
 
120 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 so pretty as Caroline, where he had an equal right to 
 call. But here he had called fairly. And if the par 
 lors were perfectly furnished and hung, if the half- 
 dozen pictures, all on the line of the eye, were of the 
 choicest, yes, in the world ; if the little low book 
 cases were tempting in what they revealed, and 
 tempting in what they concealed ; if the two or three 
 pamphlets and the three or four books that lay loose 
 were of just the latest freshness, and most appetizing 
 qualities ; if the cannel coal had just crusted over so 
 that the room was not a bit heated by it, yet so that 
 one dig from the steel poker would wake it to a frenzy 
 of light and life, was this any fault of his. Had he 
 chosen to come here ? or was there not an irresistible 
 destiny which compelled him ? Once more he inti 
 mated that he brought his friend up, rather than leave 
 him in the carriage ; the young man sank in an easy- 
 chair, with a volume of Darley s prints, and Halibur- 
 ton and Miss Lucy fell to talk about the Freemans. 
 
 Had he heard ? Did she know ? Yes, he knew 
 this, and she knew that, and both knew this and that, 
 and she had not heard thus, and he did not understand 
 the other, and so on. What had made Haliburton for 
 get the Prince s ride was his uneasiness about Caro 
 line s flushed face, which had made her look so pret 
 ty, by the way, and his determination to see whether 
 something could not be done about that and her moth- 
 
 O 
 
 er s cough. So, in that wild, impulsive way of his, 
 instead of writing a note to Lucy Coleman, he had 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 121 
 
 slammed right over there, before she had even got her 
 morning-dress off, to consult with her. 
 
 But nothing could be done about it. Lucy had 
 been more eager than he ; Lucy had been begging 
 Caroline to go with her to Charleston, and so to Cuba, 
 and then to Santa Lucia and St. Thomas. Mr. Cole- 
 man himself had been interested about it, knew 
 how much pleasure it would give Lucy, and had been 
 down to call on Mrs. Freeman. But they said they 
 could not break up their establishment. Fred must 
 not be left adrift so little while after he had come home ; 
 Fred had himself tried to persuade them, but they 
 would not think of it. As to the cough, Mrs. Free- 
 man was sure it would be better the next week ; and 
 as for the flush, Caroline would not have it talked of 
 at all. So Haliburton had had his ride for his pains. 
 "I wish you could manage it," said the bright young 
 lady, " for I shall lose my journey if something does 
 not come to pass. Papa is discouraged already, and 
 would give it all up in two seconds, if anything else 
 happened amiss. And yet he will not go unless there 
 is somebody I like who will go with me. As if I 
 could not take care of myself! True enough, I 
 dread the idea," she said, rather sadly, and Haliburton 
 knew she was thinking of her last journey. 
 
 And this was all their tSte-d-tSte. She laughed at 
 
 him because he never called unless he had an^ axe to 
 
 grind, said he had not heard her new piano, and never 
 
 came to her little musical parties. He said he never 
 
 6 
 
122 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 was asked ; and she said he never came when he was, 
 but had a general invitation. He said there was no 
 time like the present, and went to the piano, and 
 opened it. She readily enough consented to play, 
 asked what she should play, and they both turned to 
 their silent companion, who had put down his u Mar 
 garet," and crossed the room. 
 
 Then it is that the first bit of evidence as to the 
 question you have asked me comes into the story. 
 For when the young man was asked what Miss Lucy 
 should play, he stammered and blushed, and ha-haed, 
 and bothered generally, and finally screwed himself up 
 to saying that there were some very nice waltzes by 
 Strauss. 
 
 Lucy Coleman did n t even let her eyes twinkle. 
 She took care not to look at Haliburton, said " O yes," 
 very sweetly, and blazed away, two, three, four 
 good brilliant Strauss waltzes. Then the gentlemen 
 thanked her, she rewarded Haliburton by a little scrap 
 of Mozart ; he said they must not stay, and tore him 
 self and his young friend away. But when, after 
 wards, she was told that this young man was the 
 Prince, she said " No." And to this moment, red- 
 hot pincers would not persuade her that the Prince 
 of Wales, the son of Prince Albert, would ask her to 
 play one of Strauss s waltzes. It is in vain that we 
 tell her of the glories of Strauss s own orchestra; it is 
 in vain that we dwell on a young boy s early enthusi 
 asm for the Coldstream Guards and their band ; in 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 123 
 
 vain that we hint at a fondness for dancing. " Nev- 
 
 O 
 
 er," she cries ; " the blood-royal never asked me for 
 Strauss." I even sent her a stray programme of a 
 concert given at Windsor, when Saxe-Meiningen came 
 on a visit, in which was a selection of these waltzes 
 played for his delectation. She will not be persuaded, 
 nor will my wife, nor will Annie. So much for the 
 high classical ! 
 
 They went away from Lucy s, crossed the town 
 again, where was a corduroy road two hundred years 
 ago, and, by way of contrast, they went into one of those 
 man-sties that there used to be in Orange Lane, running 
 back to the railroad. Thank God, that nuisance is 
 abated now ! there are wild beasts hard by, but no wild 
 men there ; and I will not tell you what they saw. 
 John Gough would tell such a story better than I 
 should. The man had not been three weeks over from 
 Ireland. He had been drinking the spirits of the new 
 country as he drank the beer of the old, and was wal 
 lowing there on the pile of straw on one of those dark 
 back-bins, without a window, dead asleep, if you 
 call that sort of thing " sleep," after last night s 
 " spree." And his wife was in the dirty ten-foot 
 room front, that did have one window, offered her only 
 chair to the son of her Queen (if it were he), and 
 apologized that it had no back, cuffed the child with the 
 dirtiest face, and laid the baby on the straw by its 
 father, that she might render the hospitalities that the 
 position permitted. Ask Mr. Gough for the detail. 
 
124 THE INGHAM PAPEES. 
 
 Haliburton forgot what sent him there, as he 
 saw the wretchedness. She looked wholly broken 
 down ; and he, of course, had no word of reproach 
 for her. But she said she could not keep things nicer, 
 and nobody who saw him would let him have any bet 
 ter room, how could she leave the children ? and 
 what could she do, indeed, but die ? What indeed ? 
 I do not think Haliburton knew. The younger man 
 wanted to give her money, but Haliburton would not 
 let him. " If you like," said he, " we will send them 
 some meal and potatoes ; but money is the most dan 
 gerous of drugs, as it is the cheapest, for the relief of 
 suffering. I had no idea things would be so bad, or I 
 should not have brought you here. This place, you 
 see, is a little neater, and this and this quite nice in 
 comparison," as they passed one and another of the 
 open doors of that old rookery. 
 
 " Now let us get a little air at the least " ; and they 
 drove across the Dover -Street Bridge, and came out 
 to my house. I was then living in D Street, over in 
 South Boston. Unfortunately, I was out, and so was 
 Polly. We, as I have said, had seen the Prince in 
 Cambridgeport ; so, if we had been in, we could have 
 answered the question. But I was at a meeting of 
 the Board for providing Occupation for the Higher 
 Classes (mem. "Boards are made of wood, they 
 are long and narrow"); and Polly was I know 
 not where. Haliburton ran in without ringing, upset 
 Agnes and Bertha, found we were out, opened the 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PEINCE TO EIDE? 125 
 
 cake-box himself, and got out doughnuts, and gave an 
 orange also to his companion, besides taking one for 
 himself. Thus refreshed, they started again, this 
 time, I believe, to hunt up his Vermont mechanic who 
 had lived here twenty years. But, just as they left 
 the house, Wingate Paine came running by; and 
 Haliburton stopped him, and introduced him to Mr. 
 Edward. Mr. Edward was studying tenement-houses, 
 he said. Could Paine take him in the buggy over to 
 Washington Village, and show him how some of 
 their operatives lived there ? 
 
 Certainly, Wingate could and would, if Mr. Edward 
 would stop a moment at the works. He was already 
 late with his errand there, but the horse and buggy 
 would correct all that. So they both got into the 
 carriage. Haliburton told Paine to keep it as long as 
 he chose, and betook himself to playing with Agnes and 
 Bertha, and cutting pussy-cats out of paper for Clara 
 and the babies. The clock struck one as these delights 
 
 o 
 
 engrossed him, struck two, indeed, before the fifty- 
 second cat had been added to the long procession, and 
 before the rattle of wheels announced the young men s 
 return. 
 
 " We took you at your word," said Paine. " I 
 have shown your friend the tenement-houses, and half 
 the rest of the town." Haliburton said he was satis 
 fied, if they were, that there was still full time to 
 meet the latter end of their appointment. Paine bade 
 good by, and Haliburton resumed the reins. His 
 
126 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 companion told him that, when they came to thelron- 
 works, he had been interested by the processes he saw 
 there, which were, strange to say, new to him ; that 
 Mr. Paine offered at once to show him the varieties of 
 South Boston iron-work. They had been in at Alger s 
 to see cannon cast ; they had seen wire drawn at an 
 other mill, and, I believe, rails. u Oddly enough," he 
 said^ " though the world is very small, after all, 
 we met Mr. Coleman at their first establishment, the 
 father of your pretty friend. I think, indeed, Mr. 
 Paine said he was President of their Company." 
 Haliburton said " Yes." " He talked to Mr. Paine 
 about his proposed journey," said the other ; " he 
 seemed a little annoyed at the delay; said to Mr. 
 Paine that, if he could get off, he should want to 
 place him in the counting-room in town, and send 
 some one else out to the works ; hoped he would like 
 that, for he should be much more at ease if the corre 
 spondence were in Paine s hands. Then he was very 
 civil to me, thougli he did not know me from Adam. 
 He took us across to the Cronstadt Works, and was 
 at the pains to stop one of the rollers for me, that I 
 might see how the power was applied. So I took my 
 first apprenticeship in iron-work. George ! it does 
 one good to see those brave fellows handle those hot 
 blooms, push them up so relentlessly to the rolls, and 
 compel the rolls to bite them, whether they will or no ! 
 I should have got mad with the machines, but the men 
 seemed to have gained the imperturbability of the 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 127 
 
 great engine itself. And then, when the bloom is 
 once between the rolls, there is nothing more for it but 
 to succumb. 
 
 Fine by degrees and beautifully less, 
 
 with a vengeance ; for, before you are done with it, 
 you see the great stupid block transformed into a spin 
 ning, spitfire serpent, hundreds of yards long, writhing 
 all over the floor." 
 
 This was the longest speech which anything drew 
 from this young gentleman. After following through 
 the various iron-works, giving up Loring s iron ship 
 yard for lack of time, they had gone to the new 
 tenement-houses, and so back to D Street." As Hali- 
 burton crossed the bridge again, his friend reminded 
 him of the meal and potatoes ; they stopped at a shop, 
 and ordered these to be delivered to Michael Fogarty, 
 and drove on, with Haliburton s last call in view, 
 when 
 
 Ge-thump ; ge-thump again ; once more ge-thump ; 
 a sharp strain on the reins, pulling Haliburton over 
 the dasher ; dasher, Haliburton, and friend then all 
 rapidly descend into the street, horse, reins, front- 
 axle, and wheels depart at the rate of 5.20, hind 
 wheels, gentlemen, and buggy-top picking themselves 
 up as they could. There had been something amiss 
 in the paving, the king-bolt had parted, and the buggy 
 had broken in two. 
 
 " What I thought of," said Haliburton, " was this, 
 
128 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 What is the name of this man s oldest brother ? For, 
 if I have broken his neck, I have broken the suc 
 cession. But I had not broken his neck at all. He 
 was up on the other side as soon as I was. His nose 
 was bleeding, but he was laughing. I made a thousand 
 apologies, led him out of the crowd upon the sidewalk, 
 terrified lest we should be recognized ; saw to my joy 
 that we were on Adoniram Newton s doorstep ; rang, 
 and after waiting two or three minutes we were let in." 
 
 Curious feature that of half the doorsteps in New 
 England ! South of Mason and Dixon s line, the 
 instinct of curiosity sends the black servant to the 
 door in two seconds, when the bell rings, to know 
 what has turned up. But with us, Bridget, hard 
 worked, not looking very trig, loiters and loiters, 
 hopes, indeed, that something may turn up. Carter 
 has a clever little sketch-book, of street incidents, 
 which he has drawn while waiting on doorsteps. He 
 keeps it in his ticket pocket outside. Indeed, it was 
 always said that Wetherell and his wife made each 
 other s acquaintance, and were engaged, on Boston 
 doorsteps. Some malicious gossip had started the 
 story that they were engaged, when they did not know 
 each other by sight. They went round to contradict 
 it. The town was smaller than it is now ; and they 
 spent so much time on different doorsteps, that, be 
 fore the report was contradicted, he had offered 
 himself to her, and it was true ! 
 
 At last Haliburton and friend got into the hall at 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 129 
 
 Adoniram s. Then, with great difficulty, Bridget got the 
 parlor door unlocked ! It was dark, and had the smell of 
 seven years before on it, as if it had not been opened 
 since Thanksgiving of 1852. Haliburton bade Bridget 
 call her mistress, pulled up the green shades and the 
 other shades with unnecessary indignation, thrust open 
 one set of blinds, and revealed a magnificent velvet 
 carpet of very positive colors, and very large figures. 
 Upon the walls, covering their part of the gilded 
 paper-hangings, were two immense mirrors and four 
 prints, selected for their size, so that they might con 
 ceal as much as possible. Two china dancing-girls 
 and an Odd Fellows Manual made up the ornament 
 of the room. Here again they soon completed their 
 survey of the ornaments; Haliburton stood at the 
 window watching the policemen who watched the 
 wreck of his carriage, chafing as he waited for Mrs. 
 Adoniram ; his companion s handkerchief grew redder 
 and redder, and at last she came, radiant in wine- 
 colored moire-antique, gold chain, eye-glass tucked in 
 her belt, showy cap, and so on. 
 
 Haliburton made " short explanations," as Neptune 
 said on an occasion not , dissimilar. He begged for a 
 basin of water ; and so at the very moment when Mrs. 
 Newton was internally fretting because the school- 
 committee men of their ward had refused her a ticket 
 to the Music Hall, so that she could not hear the 
 thousand children sing " God save the Queen " to the 
 Prince, at that moment, I say, had she but known 
 
 6* 
 
130 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 it, her hands were occupied in unbuttoning his wrist 
 bands for him, and in holding the towel, as he chilled 
 the wounded blood-vessels, and stopped the blood of 
 Egbert as, after a thousand years, it dropped from his 
 nose; for that this was the blood of Egbert is certain, 
 whether this were the Prince or no ! " Whoever you 
 are, reader," says Dr. Palfrey, wisely, " whose eye 
 lights upon these lines, if you be of Anglo-Saxon 
 lineage, it is certain that the blood of King Egbert 
 runs in your veins ! It is as certain that it meets 
 there with the blood of Egbert s meanest thrall ! " 
 Haliburton saw the bathing process well started, and 
 then rushed out to find officer No. 67 leading back 
 Peg after her run, the wheels still whole. The box 
 under the seat furnished a new king-bolt, a New 
 Worcester wrench fitted the new nut, and by the time 
 the Egbert blood was stopped, and the hands were 
 washed, the renovated carriage was at the door. I 
 would give sixpence to know what Mr. Edward had 
 said to Mrs. Adoniram meanwhile, and what she had 
 said to him. Whether he found out how people live 
 in those desolate bowling-alley parlors, or whether he 
 found that they never live there, I do not know. I 
 do not believe that centre-table was ever put to half 
 such useful service before. 
 
 u We must give up our last calls," said Haliburton, 
 after he had apologized once more for the accident, 
 and holding Peg in hand a little more carefully ; " I 
 had other varieties of home to show you." 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 131 
 
 " Of course," replied the other, " no two homes are 
 alike, bat, really, what we have seen has interested 
 me immensely. I was thinking," he added in a mo 
 ment, " that the young man we did not see holds the 
 key of the position." 
 
 Haliburton did not understand, and had the sense 
 to say so. 
 
 " Why, don t you see, if this young Mr. Freeman 
 Fred, his sister called him should get a position 
 at sea again, his mother would go to Rehoboth to her 
 sister s, and Miss Caroline could join the Cuba party." 
 
 " Of course," said Haliburton. 
 
 " If Miss Caroline would say she would go, that 
 impetuous Mr. Coleman and your bright Miss Lucy 
 would sail next week for Charleston." 
 
 " I know they would," said Haliburton. 
 
 " In that event, Mr. Paine, here, would be pro 
 moted into the city counting-room, and his salary would 
 be raised. He would be married, I know ; for, though 
 he said no word of it, I could see that he is engaged 
 to somebody." 
 
 " It is to Sybil Throop, over in the Arbella School," 
 said Haliburton. 
 
 " I think," continued the other, " that such a couple 
 as that, moving into the Freeman s suite of rooms, 
 would like to take Delia Rooney to service, and, if it 
 were my business, I should advise Mrs. Rooney to 
 place her there." 
 
 Haliburton stared aghast at these words of wisdom 
 from, lips so young. 
 
132 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " Then the Rooneys could go up to the stone-quarry, 
 as she evidently wanted to ; and I should think you 
 might arrange that that drunken beast and his wife 
 might be transferred from their den one peg up to 
 the other s better quarters. If I have read to-day s 
 lesson well, it is the lesson of keeping open the lines 
 of promotion. That, Mr. Haliburton, is the duty of 
 a free country ! " 
 
 And here they came to the private entrance of the 
 Revere again. Haliburton had no moment to answer 
 this address, or even to comment on it. His com 
 panion asked him to come in. He declined, and the 
 clock struck three. 
 
 Haliburton drove slowly home, meditating on the 
 plan of promotion which the youngster had blocked 
 out for him. He was himself not then married. He 
 was in a Life Office, I think, and had begged a holi 
 day for the day, borrowing Danforth s horse and car 
 riage for this expedition, as we all did, whenever 
 Danforth was stationed here. He came over at once 
 to our house, and astonished us by telling us, " How 
 he took the Prince to ride ! " 
 
 But the next morning, as I said, when we read the 
 " Advertiser," it taught us how a guard of police had 
 marched the Prince to the City Hall, and how he and 
 the mayor and aldermen had spent the day in visiting 
 penitentiaries and hospitals. 
 
 How could this be ? 
 
 I do not know. Haliburton does not know. If 
 
DID HE TAKE THE PRINCE TO RIDE? 133 
 
 you write to England they will say General Brace is 
 dead, and that they do not know themselves. Only 
 the Prince knows, and it is not proper to write to him. 
 Polly and I, who had seen the real Prince, quizzed 
 Haliburton unmercifully. We said he had spent the 
 whole morning with a Canadian dry-goods clerk from 
 Toronto, who had come East, for the first time, to 
 buy an assorted stock of winter goods, and mistook 
 Haliburton for a drummer whom he had met in the 
 hotel reading-room the night before, and I believe 
 myself it was so. 
 
 But the next Tuesday Haliburton had the laugh on 
 us. The Prince bade good by to Boston, went to 
 Portland, and embarked. And, the evening of the 
 day he got to Portland, Haliburton received from 
 Portland an immense envelope, with an immense 
 seal. Opened, it proved to contain a warrant : 
 
 " For Mr. Frederic Freeman of Boston, appointing 
 him first assistant engineer on her Majesty s steamer 
 Stromboli, with instructions to report at Halifax." 
 
 Fred reported at Halifax, and is in the Queen s 
 service to this hour. 
 
 Mrs. Freeman broke up housekeeping, and went to 
 Rehoboth or Swansea, and Caroline went to Cuba 
 with the Colemans. 
 
 Wingate Paine was promoted to a salary of two 
 thousand dollars, and married Sybil Throop, and went 
 to live in the Freemans rooms in Osborn Place. 
 They took Delia Rooney for their maid of all work. 
 
134 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 The Rooneys went to Chittenden, above Rutland. 
 He owns a marble-quarry in that region now, and 
 gratefully sent Haliburton a present of two grave 
 stones last week. 
 
 Haliburton got Mr. Way to let the Rooneys two 
 rooms to the Fogartys ; made Fogarty take the pledge 
 in compensation. He took the place below Rooney 
 in the stone-yard; and really, the last time I was 
 there, they were all so decent that I called the oldest 
 girl Delia instead of Margaret, as if she were a 
 Rooney, forgetting that nine years had gone by. 
 
 The only person whose condition could not be 
 improved, of all they saw that morning, was Mrs. 
 Adoniram Newton. For she lived in a palace already. 
 
 All this I know. But, as I said, I cannot answer, 
 when you ask me, " Did Haliburton take the Prince 
 to ride ? " 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE 
 PREACHED IT. 
 
 [THIS sermon was first published in the " Atlantic Monthly " 
 for February, 1867. My friend, Mr. Robert Colly er, in a public 
 criticism of it, takes issue with Mr. Frye for saying that extra 
 wages had worked him woe. Mr. Collyer says it has not been 
 so with him, that " extra money " has been a great comfort to 
 him. This I can well believe. But he adds, that to many work 
 men it is a snare and delusion. Mr. Frye, many of whose fail 
 ings are studied from the life, is one of them. 
 
 The sermon, which Mr. Frye heard the strange minister 
 preach in the new church was printed in the " Christian Reg 
 ister " the week that Mr. Frye s was printed in the " Atlantic." 
 It has since been reprinted by the American Unitarian Associa 
 tion.] 
 
 MR. FRYE and his little wife live at our house. 
 They took a room for themselves and their little girls, 
 with full board, last December, when the Sloanmakers 
 went to Illinois. This is how it happened that one 
 Sunday, after dinner, in quite an assembly of the full 
 boarders and of the breakfast boarders also, all of 
 whom, except Mr. Jeffries, dine with us on Sunday, 
 Mr. Frye told how he would have preached it. 
 
136 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 What made this more remarkable was, that the 
 Fryes are not apt to talk about themselves, or of their 
 past life. I think they have always been favorites at 
 the table ; and Mrs. Frye has been rather a favorite 
 among the " lady boarders." But none of us knew 
 much where they had been, excepting that, like most 
 other men, he had been in the army. He brought out 
 his uniform coat for some charades the night of the 
 birthday party. But till Sunday week, I did not 
 know, for one, anything about the things he told us, 
 and I do not think any one else did. 
 
 Every one had been to church that Sunday in the 
 morning. Mrs. Whittemore gives us breakfast on 
 Sunday only half an hour late, and almost all of us do 
 go to church. I believe the Wingates went out to 
 Jamaica Plains to their mother s, but I am almost sure 
 every one else went to church. So at dinner, natu 
 rally enough, we talked over the sermons and the ser 
 vices. The Webbers had found Hollis Street shut, 
 and had gone on to Mr. Clarke s, where they had a 
 sort of opening service, and a beautiful show of fall 
 flowers, that some of their orphan boys had sent. Mr. 
 Ray is rather musical. He told about a new Te Deum 
 at St. Peter s. The Jerdans always go to Ashburton 
 Place. They had heard Dr. Kirk. But it so hap 
 pened that more of us than usual had been to the new 
 church below Clinton Street. We had not found Dr. 
 Willis there, however, but a strange minister. Some 
 said it was Mr. Broadgood, one of the English dele- 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 137 
 
 gates. But I knew it was not lie. For he said, " If 
 you give an inch they take an ell," and this is a sen 
 tence the English delegates cannot speak. The sexton 
 thought it was Mr. Hapgood, from South Norridge- 
 wock. I asked Mr. Eels, one of the standing com 
 mittee, and he did not know. No matter who it was. 
 He had preached what I thought was rather above the 
 average sermon, on " The way of transgressors is 
 hard." 
 
 Well, we got talking about the sermon. My wife 
 liked it better than I did. George Fifield liked it 
 particularly, and quoted, or tried to quote, the close to 
 the Webbers ; only, as he said, he could not remember 
 the precise language, and it depended a good deal on 
 the manner of the delivery. Mrs. Watson confessed 
 to being sleepy. Harry said he had sat under the 
 gallery, and had not heard much, which is a less 
 gallant way of making Mrs. Watson s confession. 
 The Fryes were both at church. They sat with me 
 in Mrs. Austin s pew. They were the only ones who 
 said nothing about the sermon. Mrs. Frye never does 
 say much at table. But at last the matter became 
 quite the topic of after-dinner discussion ; and I said 
 to Frye that we had not had his opinion. 
 
 " O," said he, " it was well enough. But if I had 
 had that text, I should not have preached it so." 
 
 " How would you have preached it ? " said Harry, 
 laughing. 
 
 Oddly enough, Frye s face evidently flushed a little ; 
 
138 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 but he only said, " Well, not so, I should not have 
 preached it that way." 
 
 I did not know why the talk should make him 
 uncomfortable, but I saw it did, and so I tried to 
 change the subject. I asked John Webber if he had 
 seen the Evening Gazette. But Harry has no tact ; 
 and after a little more banter, in which the rest of 
 them at that end of the table joined, he said : " Now, 
 Mr. Frye, tell us how you would have preached it." 
 
 Mr. Frye turned pale this time. He just glanced 
 at his wife, and then I saw she was pale too. But 
 whatever else Frye is, he is a brave man, and he has 
 very little back-down about him. So he took up the 
 glove, and said, if we had a mind to sit there half an 
 hour, he would tell how he would have preached it. 
 But he did not believe he could in less time. Harry 
 was delighted with anything out of the common run, 
 and screamed, " A sermon from Mr. Frye! a ser 
 mon from Mr. Frye ! reported expressly for this 
 journal. No other paper has the news." Poor Mrs. 
 Frye said she must go up and see to her baby, and she 
 slipped away. A gentleman whom I have not named 
 said, in rebuke of us all, that we might be better em 
 ployed, and he left also. He is preparing for a Sun 
 day paper a series of sketches of popular preachers, 
 and it is my opinion that he spent that afternoon in 
 writing his account of the Rev. Dr. Smith. I do not 
 know, but I used to think he was a correspondent of 
 the New York Observer, for I noticed once that he 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 139 
 
 spoke of Jacqueline Pascal as if Jacqueline were a 
 man s name, and as if she wrote the Pensees. When 
 they were gone, Mr. Frye told us 
 
 HOW HE SHOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 
 
 " I should have said," said Mr. Frye, " that^when 
 Jenny and I were married, fourteen years ago, at Mil- 
 fold, there was not so good a blacksmith as I in that 
 part of Worcester County. To be a good blacksmith 
 in a country town requires not only strength of arm, 
 and a reasonably correct eye, but a good deal of nerve. 
 And when I first worked at the trade, and after 
 wards here, once when I worked in Hawley Street for 
 good Deacon Safford, I got the reputation of being 
 afraid of nothing. And I think I deserved it as far as 
 any man does. Certainly I was not easily frightened. 
 So it happened that I was at work for the Semple 
 Brothers, in Milfold, at the highest journeyman s 
 wages, and with lots of perquisites for shoeing the ugly 
 horses. For a circle of fifteen miles round there was 
 not a kicking brute of the Cruiser family who, in the 
 end, was not brought to our shop for Heber Frye to 
 shoe. I have shod horses from Worcester, who came 
 down with all four of their shoes off because nobody 
 dared touch them. Now in the trade all such work is 
 well paid for. As I say, I had the highest journey 
 man s wages. And in any such hard case I was paid 
 extra ; and as likely as not, if they had had trouble, I 
 
140 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 got a present beside. The Semples liked the reputa 
 tion their shop was getting ; and so, though I was a 
 little fast, and would be off work at working hours 
 sometimes, they kept me ; and if I had chosen to lay 
 up money, I could have made myself what I never 
 did make myself a forehanded man. 
 
 " Well, I fell in with Jenny there. And while we 
 were engaged she took care of me, and made me stick 
 
 O O 
 
 to work, and kept me near her. I did not want any 
 other excitement, and I did not want any other com 
 panion. She would not go where I could drink, and 
 I would not go anywhere where she did not go. And 
 for the six months of our engagement I was amazed 
 to find how rich I was growing. When we were 
 married I was able to furnish the house prettily, as 
 nicely as any man in Milfold, though it was on a 
 baby-house scale, of course. But, as Tom Hood s 
 story says, we had six hair-cloth chairs, a dozen sil 
 ver spoons, carpet on every room in the house, and 
 everything to make us comfortable." 
 
 But here Mr. Frye stopped and said : " This is go 
 ing to be a longer sermon than I supposed, and those 
 of you who are going to meeting had better go, for 
 I hear the Old South bell." But nobody started. 
 Even Mrs. Whittemore held firm, only moving her 
 chair so that Isabel might take the dirty plates. The 
 rest of us moved up a little way, and Mr. Frye went 
 on. 
 
 " We were married, and we lived as happily as could 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 141 
 
 be, a great deal more happily than I deserved, and 
 almost as happily as my wife deserves, even. But, I 
 tell you, there is nothing truer than the saying, 4 Easy 
 earned, easy spent ; and I believe that perquisites 
 and fees, unexpected and uncertain remunerations, are 
 apt to be rather bad for a man. At least they make a 
 sort of excuse for a man. I never could be made half as 
 careful as Jenny is, or as I had better be. I spent pretty 
 freely. I liked to spend money on her. And then I 
 would get short ; and then I would find myself hop 
 ing some half-broken, kicking beast would be brought 
 in, which nobody could manage but me. And if one 
 came, and I managed him, and shod him, instead of 
 feeling proud of the victory, as I fairly might, I would 
 feel cross if the owner did not hand me a dollar-bill 
 extra as he went away. Then I knew this was mean ; 
 and then I would be mad with myself; and then, as I 
 went home, I would stop at Williams s or Richards s, 
 and get something to drink; and then, when I got 
 home, I would scold Jenny; and after the baby 
 came I would swear at the baby if she cried; and 
 then Jenny would cry, and then I would swear again ; 
 and I would go out again, and meet some of the fel 
 lows at Edwards s, and would not know when I came 
 home at night, and would be down at the shop late 
 the next morning, and, what was worse, had not the 
 nerve and grit which had given me the reputation 
 I had there. Dutch courage, for practical purposes, 
 ranks with Dutch gold-leaf or German silver. 
 
142 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " Well," said Fiye, rather pale again, but trying to 
 laugh a little, " perhaps, my beloved hearers, you 
 don t know what this sort of thing is. If you don t, 
 lucky for you. When they asked that Brahmin, Gan- 
 gooly, if he believed in hell, he said he believed there 
 were a good many little hells, as he walked through 
 Washington Street to come to the church that evening. 
 If he had come into my house almost any evening, he 
 would have found one. Poor Jenny did her best. 
 But a woman can t do much. It is not coaxing you want. 
 You know it s hell a great deal better than anybody can 
 tell you. It is will you want. You can make good 
 enough resolutions about it ; the thing is to keep them. 
 All this time the Semples were getting cross. At last 
 they got trusteed for my wages. And old Semple told 
 me he would discharge me if it ever happened again. 
 Then one day, Tourtellot s black mare got away from 
 me, knocked me down, and played the old Harry 
 generally in the shop ; and the other hands said it was 
 because I did not know what I was doing, which, by 
 the way, was a lie. It was because my hand was not 
 steady, nor my eye. What is it we used to speak at 
 school, about failing brand and feeble hand ? It was 
 not that night, but it was some other night when I was 
 blue as Peter and cross as a hand-saw, that I stopped to 
 take something on my way home. I remember now 
 that Harry Patrick, who was always my true friend, 
 tried to get me by the shops. He did get me by the 
 hotel, for a strong man can do almost anything with a 
 
HOW MR. FEYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 143 
 
 broken one ; but after I had promised him I would go 
 home, he was fool enough to leave me, and then I 
 stopped somewhere else, no matter where, you 
 do not know Milfold, and when I got home, it 
 might as well have been anybody else. I don t re 
 member a thing. If the Prince Camaralzaman had 
 gone there, I should now know as little what he did 
 from my own memory. But what I did, or rather 
 what this hand, and arm, and leg, and the rest of the 
 machine did, was, to kick the baby s cradle over 
 into the corner; to knock poor Jane down with a 
 chair, on top of it ; to put the chair through one win 
 dow, and throw it out of the other ; then to scream, 
 4 Murder ! fire ! murder ! fire ! and then to tumble 
 on the 4 hair-cloth Sofa, which was to make us so 
 comfortable, and go into a drunken sleep. 
 
 44 This was what I learned I did, the next morning, 
 when I found myself in a justice s court ; and for this 
 the judge sent me up to Worcester to the House of 
 Correction for three months. It was a < first offence, 
 or it would have been longer. As for poor Jenny and 
 the baby, neither of them could come and see me." 
 
 By this time Frye was done with pretending to smile. 
 He stopped a minute, drank a little water from his 
 tumbler, and said : " Now you would think that would 
 cure a man. Or you would think, as the law does, 
 that three months in the House of Correction would 
 4 correct him. That is because you do not know. 
 At the last day of the three months I thought so. 
 
144 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 There is not a man here who dreads liquor as I did 
 that day. Harry Patrick, who, as I said, was my best 
 friend, came to meet me when I went out. Richard 
 son, the sheriff, as kind a man as lives, took pains to 
 come down and see me, and said something encourag 
 ing to me. Harry had a buggy, that I need not be 
 seen in the cars. And as we went home, I talked as 
 well to him as any man ever talked. Jenny kissed me, 
 and soothed me, and comforted me. The baby was 
 afraid of me, but came to me before night ; and so, 
 before a month was over, we had just such another 
 scene again, and went through much the same after- 
 
 o 7 o 
 
 scene, but that this time I went to Worcester for six 
 
 months. For now it was not a first offence, you see. 
 
 " Well, not to disgust you more than I can help," 
 
 and the poor fellow choked for the only time in the 
 sermon, " not to disgust you more than I can help, 
 
 this happened three times. I believe things always 
 do in stories. This did in fact. The 4 third time 
 you go for twelve months. And one Sunday Harry 
 had been over to see me, and had brought me a dear 
 kind letter from poor Jenny, who was starving, with 
 two children now, in an attic, on what washing she 
 could get, and vest-making, and all such humbugs, 
 one Sunday, I say, we were marched out to chapel, 
 
 they have a very good chapel in Worcester, and 
 a man preached ; and he preached from this very text 
 you talk about, The way of transgressors is hard. 
 
 " What the man said I know no more than you do. 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 145 
 
 I don t think I did then. Indeed, I do not think I 
 cared much when he began. But it is a great luxury 
 to hear the human voice, when you have been at work 
 on shoes for a week in a prison on our Massachusetts 
 system, which they call the Silent System, where you 
 have heard no word except the overseer s directions. 
 So I sat there, well pleased enough, even glad to 
 hear a sort of yang-yang they had for music, -and 
 very glad to have some good souls who had come in 
 smg. I remember they sang Devizes, which my father 
 used to sing. So I got into a mood of revery as this 
 preacher went on, and was thinking of Harry, and 
 old Deacon SafFord, and father, and Jenny, and what 
 we would call the baby, when to my surprise the 
 minister was finished. And he ended with the text, 
 as some men do, you know. And he said, < The way 
 of transgressors is hard. And I caught Wesson s 
 eye, he was my turnkey, and Wesson half 
 laughed ; and, in violation of all order, I said across 
 the passage to Wesson, Damned hard 1 Wesson. 
 Mrs. Whittemore, I beg your pardon, but I did say so. 
 4 Wesson nodded, and looked sad. If he had in 
 formed on me, I don t know where I should be now. 
 But he looked sorry, an d I have not touched liquor 
 since. 
 
 "I was discharged the next Wednesday. Harry 
 came for me again, as he always did. I told him I 
 did not want to go on in Milfold. And the good 
 fellow agreed. He brought me and Jenny and the 
 
 j 
 
146 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 babies down here to Boston. I 11 tell you where we 
 lived. We took two rooms in the third story in 
 Genessee Street, and we began life again. 
 
 < Now any of you who are tired can go away. But 
 this is only one head of the sermon." 
 
 Nobody went, only Mrs. Whittemore made us 
 leave the table,- and we moved up to the windows. 
 Isabel took off the cloth, and put on the tea-cloth, and 
 went off, I suppose, to the half-Sunday which was one 
 of her " privileges." Mr. Frye went on. 
 
 " People always have an excuse. Perhaps if we 
 had not used the cars more or less, I should not have 
 had this head in my discourse ; I know it all began 
 with these Metropolitan tickets. I would not work at 
 shoeing any more. I got a place in that shop where 
 your firm are now, Mr. Webber, -the Beals were 
 there then, as a machinist. I had no difficulty ever 
 with tools and iron. Pay was good enough. Work 
 was steady, though rules were much stricter than at 
 Milfold. But I had not got away, I have not till this 
 hour, from that passion for extras. It is so much 
 easier to earn an extra than to economize ; and it is a 
 great deal easier still to plan how you will earn one, 
 and to think that is the same thing. I was tearing 
 a strip of Neck car-tickets in two, one day, to give 
 Jenny half, when it occurred to me that there was a 
 great moth of money. We spent twenty or thirty 
 dollars a year on these tickets, and should be glad to 
 spend twice as much. I think the fun of the thing at 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 147 
 
 first, and then curiosity about it, set me on the busi 
 ness. I know I did not tell her. And before 1 had 
 got my little hand-press started, and had succeeded in 
 my electrotypes to my mind, and had spoiled a dozen 
 blocks of wood in cutting my pattern, I had spent as 
 much money five times over as all the car-tickets 
 I ever printed would have cost me." 
 
 "You printed car-tickets?" said Mrs. Webber. 
 " I don t understand." 
 
 "O," said poor Mr. Frye, blushing. "I forgot 
 that all people do not look on things as a machinist 
 does, to see how they were made. Yes, Mrs. Web 
 ber, for two or three years I printed all the Metro 
 politan tickets my wife and I used in riding. And 
 eventually we rode a good deal. I satisfied such 
 conscience as I had, by never selling any. And, as I 
 said, I never told my wife. I tried to persuade my 
 self it would be an economy after the plant was paid 
 for. But it never was an economy. What was the 
 worst part of it was, that I had the plant. I had this 
 little handy printing-press. You did not think why I 
 got it, Mrs. Whittemore, when I printed your cards 
 for you. That is rather a tempting thing to have in 
 the house. And that little Grove s battery, that I 
 gilded your silver thimble with, Mrs. Stearns, is more 
 of a temptation. Both together, I can tell you all, 
 they start a man on more enterprises than are good 
 for him. 
 
 " There is no danger," he added, rather medita- 
 
148 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 lively, " of the kind people call danger, if a man will 
 only be reasonable, and be satisfied with what is good 
 for him. It is the haste to be rich which is dangerous 
 in that way, to people who would never have been 
 4 detected, as they call it, if they were willing to be 
 reasonable and comfortable. But it is not the detec 
 tion and punishment which play the dogs with a 
 man. It is the meanness and lying, after the first 
 excitement of the enterprise is over. As I said, I 
 never sold any car-tickets or stage- tickets. I just 
 made enough for my own use and Jenny s. I did give 
 away a lot of concert-tickets one week at the shop ; and 
 I told the men that I had them for printing them. It 
 was the off-part of the season, and the Music Hall was 
 not half full as it stood. I have sometimes thought 
 the Steffanonis, or whoever it was, may have thanked 
 me in their hearts for the audience. No. The 
 trouble is, you see, you have to do things on the sly. 
 I thought it would be a satisfaction to me to have five 
 or six books out of the library at once ; and I got up 
 my own library cards, easy enough to fill them out 
 with the names of dead people. But I never took any 
 comfort in those books. George Fiske went into the 
 gift-concert business. He knew I had this battery up 
 stairs, and I used to gild his watch-backs for him. 
 Well, George always paid me fairly, and I never told 
 the lies at the counter and office and in the news 
 papers ; but I never saw a man take out his watch in 
 the street, but I felt I was lying. I should not have 
 
HOW MR. FRYE "WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 149 
 
 stood it long, I suppose, any way ; but I got tripped 
 up at last pretty suddenly." 
 
 " You were arrested ? " said little Lucas. 
 
 "Arrested, my dear fellow? No! Whose busi 
 ness was it to arrest me. You do not keep your 
 police to arrest people, do you? No. The first 
 breakdown was all along of the war. Look at that 
 quarter-dollar." 
 
 And Mr. Frye handed us a well-worn American 
 quarter. 
 
 " I carry that for a warning to transgressors. But 
 I never told its story before. Now see here." 
 
 And he lighted the gas at his side, balanced the 
 quarter on his knife-blade, held it over the jet a min 
 ute, and the two silver sides fell on the table, while a 
 little puddle of melted solder burned the " Living 
 Age," which he held in his hand beneath. 
 
 There," said he, " did you ever see a worse quar 
 ter than that ? Yet five minutes ago you would all 
 have said it was worth thirty-seven cents in currency. 
 Now, do you think, I had deposited with that battery, 
 night after night, at last, eleven hundred and fifty-two 
 silver eagles like that, and eleven hundred and fifty- 
 two reverses like that, twenty-four to a frame ; and 
 I set the frames forty-eight times. I had just adjusted 
 my lathe for polishing the backs, if this thing was 
 not so hot, I could show you, when the banks sus 
 pended in 1861. And before I could get the backing 
 in, and the soldering done, and the milling, and the 
 
150 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 tarnish well on, you have to tarnish them, Mrs. 
 Whittemore, in a mixture of lapis-lazuli and aqua- 
 regia, why, silver coin was at a premium of ten per 
 cent. Not a quarter was offered by anybody in the 
 shops ; and if anybody got one, it was sent somewhere 
 where it was weighed within twenty-four hours. So 
 all that speculation of mine flatted out. I kept two or 
 three as a warning, like this one. But for the rest, 
 I had to melt down my silver to pay my little bills for 
 turning-lathes and acids and lapis-lazuli, Mrs. Whitte 
 
 more." 
 
 And this time he laughed rather more good-na 
 turedly. 
 
 I laugh," said he, " because this is the beginning 
 of the end. We were living in Tyler Street when 
 this happened ; and I had just enough persistency in 
 me to say that if I could not have one quarter, I would 
 another. But currency is a great deal harder. No ! 
 Mrs. Webber, you can t print bank-bills on a hand- 
 press like that I have up stairs. It is not very easy 
 to print them at all. But I was just so mad at my 
 failure about the silver, that I went into my largest 
 enterprise of all. I moved away my lathe to the 
 shop ; I fitted up the closet in the attic for my chemi 
 cals ; I bought that pretty Voigtlander camera I 
 showed you the other day, Mr. Barnes ; I sent out to 
 Paris for the last edition of Barreswil s book on Pho 
 tography ; and that was where my skill in portraits 
 began. I had to give up my place in the machine- 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 151 
 
 shop. You can mill silver quarters at midnight ; but 
 you need sunshine to photograph currency. And 
 then I had to open a photographic establishment, to 
 satisfy the butcher and baker, and Jenny s friends, 
 and the mild police of the neighborhood generally, 
 that I had something to do, and was entitled to have 
 black fingers. I bought a show-case full of pictures 
 of a man in Manchester, New Hampshire, and hor 
 rid things they were. I hung that out at the door. 
 Sometimes, to my rage and dismay, a sitter would 
 come. I took care to be cross as a bear, to charge 
 high, and to send them off with wretched pictures. 
 They never came a second time. But I had to have 
 some come, because of the mild police as I said ; and 
 I had to take Jenny s friends for nothing. A photo 
 graph man has a good many dead-heads, as well as 
 one or two lay-figures. All this set me back. Then 
 the government kept changing the pattern of its quar 
 ters. Worst of all, I had to let Jenny know this 
 time, because it changed my life so entirely. I was, 
 you see, roped into it by accident, I did not really 
 know how. I promised her that, as soon as I was well 
 out of debt, and the things all paid for, I would give 
 it all up. But we were pretty badly in debt, and I 
 should have to get more than two thousand dollars to 
 make things square. And I had my pride up, and 
 went on, till I did have, though it is a poor thing to 
 boast of, as handsome a set of sheets of that second 
 issue, and of their reverses (they were printed for 
 
152 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 security on thin paper to be pasted together), as Mr. 
 Chase himself ever looked upon. Now, you need not 
 look so frightened, my dear Mrs. Webber, for that was 
 the end ! " 
 
 " How was it the end ? " said she. 
 
 u Why, my dear Mrs. Webber, as the minister said 
 this morning, The wicked flee when no man pur- 
 sueth. That comes into my sermon as it did into his. 
 I had these lovely sheets, they were lovely, though 
 I say it, three thousand sheets, twelve bills on a 
 sheet, and the reverses too. I had just got up the gold 
 sizing for the blotch round the face, when the door 
 bell rang. It was eight in the evening. Now we 
 often had evening visitors ; but it was arranged be 
 tween Jenny and me, that, when they were all safe, 
 Jenny should just touch a private bell that came up 
 into the attic to my work-room. I heard the door-bell, 
 but after the entry, no ting on my own. 
 
 " Who in thunder was it ? I slipped down one 
 flight, and could see and hear nothing. I bolted the 
 double doors. I put those precious negatives into my 
 coal-stove, and opened the lower draught. I took 
 those precious sheets and laid them in the two full 
 bath-tubs that stood ready. That saint, Jenny, still 
 kept the officers down stairs. They must be searching 
 the cellar. If I only could get three minutes more ! 
 The glass of the negatives ran out in a puddle in 
 the ashes. So far so good. The different piles of 
 paper softened ; and, pile by pile, I rolled them and 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 153 
 
 rammed them into the open waste-pipe which for 
 months had been prepared to take them in such an exi 
 gency to the sewer. I have not, no, Mrs. Webber, 
 
 not one of those bills to show you. In seven minutes 
 from that happy door-bell ring the last shred of them 
 was floating, in the condition of double-refined papier 
 mache, under ground, in Tyler Street, to the sea ; and 
 I walked down stairs to see where Jenny was, and the 
 officers. 
 
 " Officers ! there were no officers. Only her nice 
 old uncle and his wife had missed the train to Melrose, 
 and had come to take tent with us. 
 
 " Jenny saw that I was nervous. But what could 
 I say ? O dear ! we talked about early squashes and 
 Old Colony corn, and the best flavor for farina blanc 
 mange ; and then he and I talked politics, Governor 
 Andrew, and the fall of Fort Henry, and what would 
 happen to General Floyd. Till at last, after ten eter 
 nities, bed occurred to them as among the possibilities, 
 and the dear old souls bade good night. His wife 
 made him go. He had just got round to Jeff Davis ; 
 and his last words to me were, The way of trans 
 gressors is hard. 
 
 " 4 Hard indeed, said I, as I turned round to Jenny. 
 I was too wild with rage to scold. She did not know 
 
 O 
 
 what was the matter. I spoke as gently as if I were 
 asking her to marry me. And she all amazement 
 
 declared she had struck my bell ! 
 
 " She had tried to. But as we tried it again, it was 
 
154 THE INGHAM PAPEKS. 
 
 clear something had happened. It had been a piece 
 of my own bell-hanging, and a kink in the wire had 
 given way. Jenny had sent her signal, but the signal 
 had not come. And I had sent my currency down to 
 the sea for the sculpins to buy bait from the flounders 
 with ! 
 
 " 4 Jenny, said I, as I took down the candle from 
 the ceiling, you and I will go to bed. " The way of 
 the transgressor is hard," beyond a peradventure. 
 
 " And as I looked at Jenny, I saw she was still too 
 much frightened to begin to be glad. For me, I was 
 not mad any longer. Do none of you fellows know 
 what it is to feel that a game is played through, wholly 
 through, and that you are glad it is done with ? Well, 
 I can tell you what you do not know, that if that 
 game has required one constant lie, or, what is the 
 same thing, a steady concealment of real purpose, 
 and if it has forced you to lead some little saint like 
 my poor wife into the lie, the relief of feeling that it 
 is through is infinite. 
 
 " 4 Jenny, darling, said I, don t be afraid to be 
 glad, don t be afraid of me. I was never so much 
 pleased with anything in my life. 
 
 u And she looked up so happily ! < Heber, said 
 she, the way of the transgressor is hard ; and we 
 went to bed. 
 
 " That is the end, brethren and sisters, of the sec 
 ond head of this discourse. Let us go into the parlor." 
 
 So we went into the parlor. 
 
HOW ME. FEYE WOULD HAVE PKEACHED IT. 155 
 
 Nobody said much in the parlor. But I noticed 
 that all of them came in, which was unusual. Some 
 of us lighted our cigars ; I did. But Frye said 
 nothing ; and I, for one, did not like to ask him to go 
 on. But George Fifield, who, with a good deal of ten 
 derness, has no tact, and always says the wrong thing, 
 if there is any wrong thing to be said, blurted out, 
 " Go ahead, Mr. Parson, we are all ready." 
 
 " Does any one want to hear the rest of such mad 
 ness ? " said poor Mr. Frye. 
 
 " Not if it pains you to tell us," said good Mrs. 
 Webber. " But really, really, you were very good to 
 tell us what you did." 
 And Mr. Frye went on. 
 
 " If I had been preaching the sermon in my way," 
 said he, " I should have told you, what you could have 
 guessed, that, having played that act through, I did 
 not care to stay in Boston more than I liked to stay in 
 Milfold. I had been married ten years, and I had 
 learned two things : first, that a man can t live unless 
 he keeps his body under ; next, that he can t live and 
 lie at the same time, that he can t live unless he 
 keeps his ingenuity under, and his cunning and snaki- 
 ness in general. To learn the first lesson had cleaned 
 me out completely, and I hated Milfold, where I 
 learned it. To learn the second had cleaned me out 
 again, and left me two thousand dollars and more in 
 debt, so much worse than nothing. And, very 
 naturally, I hated Boston, where I learned that too. 
 
156 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " What did I do ? I did what I had always done 
 
 in trouble. I went to Harry Patrick, who happened 
 
 to be here on business at the time. Harry had fought 
 
 for me at school. He had coaxed my father for me 
 
 when I was in scrapes. He took care of me when I 
 
 was an apprentice. I have told you what he did for 
 
 me in Milfold. He established me here. He sent his 
 
 friends to see my wife. He had me chosen into his 
 
 Lodge. He lent me money to buy my tools with. He 
 
 introduced me at the Beals . When I wanted my 
 
 cameras and things he helped me to my credit. So 
 
 of course I went to him. Well, I thought I was done 
 
 with lying ; so I told him just the whole story. There 
 
 was a quarter s rent due the next Monday. All the 
 
 quarter s bills at the shops were due, and some of 
 
 them had arrears behind the beginning of the quarter. 
 
 My winter s overcoat, my best clothes, indeed, of 
 
 every name, were at the Fawners Bank, where they 
 
 keep your woollen clothes from the moths as well as 
 
 those people on Washington Street do, but where they 
 
 charge you quite as much for the preservation. Then 
 
 I had borrowed, in money, twenty-five dollars here, 
 
 five there, a hundred of one man, and so on, old 
 
 fellow-workmen at the machine-shop, saying and 
 thinking that I should be able to pay them in a few 
 clays. This was the reason, indeed, why I had hurried 
 up the negatives, and printed off the impressions as 
 steadily as I had, because the 1st of October was at 
 hand. 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 157 
 
 "No. I was glad I did not have to write to him. 
 I told him straight through, much as I have been tell 
 ing you. If it has seemed to you that I was talking out 
 of a book, it has been because once though of course 
 
 o 
 
 never but once I have been all over this wretched 
 business in words before. I told Harry the whole. 
 They say a man never tells all his debt. I suppose 
 that is true. I did not tell him of some of the mean 
 est of mine, and some that were most completely debts 
 of honor. I said to myself that I could manage those 
 myself some day. But then I told no lies. I said to 
 him that this was about all. And he, he did, as he 
 always does, the completest and noblest thing that can 
 be done. He gave me three coupon bonds which he 
 had bought only the day before, meaning them for a 
 birthday present for his mother. He gave me three 
 hundred and twenty dollars in cash, and he went with 
 me to the office of the photographic findings people, 
 with a note of introduction Mr. Rice gave to him, and 
 gave a note, jointly with me, for the chemicals and the 
 cameras. So I was clear of debt that night, except 
 the little things I had not told ; and I had near fifty 
 dollars in my pocket. 
 
 " And what now ? said he, when I went to thank 
 him again the next morning, and he spoke to me 
 as cheerily as if I had never caused him a moment s 
 care. 
 
 " Well, he wanted me to go on with the photograph 
 room. But I hated it. I hated Boston. I hated the 
 
158 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 old shop. I hated the Tyler Street house. I hated 
 the very color on my hands. I begged him to 
 let me go with him to Washington. Perhaps I 
 thought I should do better under his wing. I am 
 ashamed to say that I had not then any special wish to 
 serve the country, God bless her ! though I knew 
 he was serving her so nobly. Nor did I know the 
 whole meaning of the way of transgressors. Simply 
 I hated Boston. 
 
 " So he told me to leave the forty- three dollars with 
 Jenny, and to come with him the next day to Wash 
 ington. I had never been even to New York before. 
 And at Washington not once did he fail me. For two 
 or three weeks that I was hanging round, living at 
 his charges, and hopelessly unable to do a thing for 
 him, seeming like a fool, I suppose, because I know I 
 felt like one, not once did he forget himself, nor speak 
 an impatient word to me. And when he came unex 
 pectedly back to our lodgings one day, an hour after 
 he had gone out, to say that the head of the Depart 
 ment had that morning given him an appointment for 
 me, or the promise of one, in the Bureau of Special 
 Supplies, he was more glad than I was, you would 
 have said. Not really ; but he was gentle about it, 
 and took no credit to himself, and would have been 
 glad if I could have believed that 4 The Chief had 
 heard of me from my own fame, and had sent to him 
 to find out where such a rare bird could be caught. 
 
 "So pleasant days began again. Jenny and the 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 159 
 
 children came on. Washington is, to my notion, the 
 pleasantest city in America, if you have only the 
 wherewithal. Always, you see, the great drama is 
 going on before your eyes, and you are one of the 
 chorus. You see it all and hear it all, before the 
 scenes and behind, and yet are even paid for standing 
 and hearing the very first performers in the world. 
 Tragedy sometimes, comedy sometimes, farce how 
 often ! melodrama every day. If you only obey Mi- 
 cawber, and insure the result happiness. But I 
 could not do that, you know. Jenny could, and 
 would, if I had let her. But I would buy books, 
 and I would take her on excursions, I don t know, 
 Harry went off and I got in debt again. But I 
 worked like a dog at the bureau. I brought home 
 copying for Jenny. Always these odd jobs were my 
 ruin. I was always hoping to help myself through. 
 But I was early at work, and at night I screwed out the 
 gas in the office ; and so I got promoted. That helped, 
 but it ruined too. Promotion, too, was an odd job. 
 I ran behind again, and I got promotion again. But 
 when I ran behind a third time, no promotion came, 
 and I 
 
 " O, no ! dear Mrs. Webber. I did not do as 
 Floyd or those people do. I did what was a great 
 deal worse, as much worse as the sin of a being with 
 a heart can be than the sin of a being with only a 
 brain. 
 
 " In my new post I had the oversight of all the 
 
160 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 accounts from the Artificers Department in the field. 
 By one of the intricacies, which I need not explain, 
 they were in the habit of sending over for us to use, 
 from the Quartermaster-General s, the originals of all 
 the reports they received, for us to see what we 
 wanted by way of confirming our vouchers ; and we 
 then sent them all back to them. This was because 
 we were ahead of them. They were some weeks 
 behindhand, and we were "fly," as our jargon called 
 it. So it happened that I used to see Harry s own 
 official reports to their office, even before they read 
 them themselves. They opened them, you know, 
 and sent them to us, we copied what we wanted, 
 and sent them back again. 
 
 " Of course I was interested in what he was doing. 
 I need not say that ha was doing it thoroughly well. 
 He loved work. He loved the country. He believed 
 in the cause. And off there, at that strange little post, 
 curiously separated from the grand armies, and in 
 many matters reporting direct to Washington, he was 
 cadi, viceroy, commissary, chief-engineer, schoolmaster, 
 minister, major-general, and everything, under his 
 modest major s maple-leaves. It was a queer post, 
 just the place one dreams of when he fancies himself 
 fit for everything, just the place for an honest man, 
 yes, just the place for him. 
 
 u Strictly speaking, I had no right to read his re 
 ports. But then I did read them. I liked to know 
 what he was doing. At last, one infernal day, I hap- 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 161 
 
 pened to notice that he had misunderstood one of the 
 service regulations about returns, which had made us 
 infinite trouble when I was in the large room with 
 Blenker. I knew all about it. But it had confused 
 Harry. I was glad I observed it before they did, and 
 I wrote to him at once about it. I knew it might 
 save him money to notice it ; for they would stop his 
 pay while they notified him. I wrote. But he never 
 got the letter. The next week and the next this same 
 variation in his accounts-keeping came in. Nothino- 
 wrong, you know ; but look here if I had a 
 blank I could show you. Well, no matter, but 
 just one of those things which you world s people call 
 red tape. Really, one part of it sprang from his not 
 understanding where the apostrophes belonged in 
 4 Commissaries wagoners assistants rations. I wrote 
 to him again and again and again. Four letters I 
 wrote; but Sherman and Hardee and Benham and 
 Hayes, and I do not know who, were raising Ned with 
 the communications, and he never got one of my let 
 ters. And when the sixth of these accounts of his 
 
 came, well, I was in debt, I wanted a change, 
 
 well, your Doctor to-day would have said the Devil 
 came. I wish I thought it was anybody s fault but 
 mine. What did I do, but send over to the Quarter 
 master s for the whole series, which we had sent back ; 
 and then I went up to the chief, I sent in my card, 
 and I said to him that my attention had been called to 
 this obliquity in accounts, that I had warned Mr. 
 
162 
 
 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Patrick, because I had formerly known him, that he 
 was not construing the act correctly, that he per 
 sisted in drawing as he did, and making the returns as 
 he did, and that, in short, though strictly it was not 
 my business, yet, as it would be some months before 
 the papers would be reached in order (this was a lie, 
 -they had really come to the first of them), I 
 thought it my duty to the government to call attention 
 to the matter. As we both knew, I said, it was an 
 isolated post, and an officer did not pass under the 
 same observation as in most stations. 
 
 " Yes, I said all that. It was awful. I can t tell 
 you wholly how or why I said it. I did not guess it 
 would turn out as it did. I did hope I should be sent 
 out on special service to inspect. But I did not think 
 of anything more. But a man cannot have just what 
 he chooses. The chief, not his old chief, you know, 
 who appointed me, but a new Pharaoh, a real Shep 
 herd King who did not know him or me, the chief 
 was one of those chiefs who makes up for utter incom- 
 petency in general by immense fiddling over a detail, 
 the chief, I say, had his cigar, and was comfortable, 
 and knew no more about this post than you do, and 
 asked me, in a patronizing way about it, not confessing 
 ignorance, but as a great man will. That temptation I 
 could not resist. Who can ? You know a man s busi 
 ness better than he knows it himself; and he asks you 
 to tell it to him, and sits and enjoys. I say, not Abdiel 
 nor Uriel in the host of heaven would have been pure 
 
HOW MB. FEYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 163 
 
 enough to have resisted that temptation, if the Devil 
 had feigned ignorance, and asked advice about keeping 
 the peace in Pandemonium. At all events, I could 
 not resist. I stood, I sat at last, when he asked 
 me, and told him the whole story, adorned as I 
 chose. 
 
 " The next day he sent for me again ; and I found 
 more than my boldest hopes had fancied, that he 
 was thinking of displacing poor Harry, and putting 
 me there as his substitute. Of course I blocked his 
 wheels, you say, and explained. No such thing. I 
 snapped at the promotion ! Was not promotion what 
 I must have ? I played modest to be sure. I had 
 not expected but if the government wished there 
 were reasons our bureau my own early training, 
 this, that, and the other. Don t make me tell the 
 whole ; it was too nasty. The end was, that I was 
 ordered to leave Washington with a colonel s commis 
 sion, outranking -Harry two grades, the right to name 
 my staff when I got upon the ground, and a separate 
 commission making me military governor of the dis 
 trict of Willston, Alabama, to report in duplicate to 
 Washington and to the district head-quarters. Poor 
 Harry was to report in person to the Department, in 
 disgrace. 
 
 " Here was a prize vastly higher than I had sought 
 for. I was not very happy with it. But I had the 
 grace to say to myself that I could pay my debts now, 
 and would never go in debt again. I would even pay 
 
164 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 poor Harry, I thought ; but then I had another qualm, 
 as I remembered that there were near three thousand 
 dollars due him, and that even a colonel s pay and 
 allowances would not stand that, in the first quarter. 
 I did not go back to my own office then. I went 
 home and told Jenny. I did not tell her where I was 
 going. I only told her it was promotion, and high 
 promotion. I bade her take comfort ; and that very 
 afternoon I turned over my papers and keys and hur 
 ried away. 
 
 " I went on to Willston. I wish I were telling you 
 how; but that is not a part of the sermon. I got 
 there. I found Harry. He was amazed to see me. 
 He was delighted. He took me right into his own 
 little den, asked if there was bad news, asked what 
 brought me, and well, my friends, the worst thing 
 of the whole, the worst thing in my life, was my tell 
 ing him I had superseded him ! 
 
 41 And now, do you believe I had the face to say to 
 him, that it was the saddest moment of my life ? That 
 was true enough, God knows ! But I said more. I 
 dared tell him that I had had no dream of what was 
 in the wind. That I did not receive my orders till I 
 had left Washington, and that I had not a thought or 
 suspicion who could have been caballing against him 
 at the Department ! I told him this, when I knew I 
 had done the whole ! 
 
 " Good fellow ! He cried. I believe I did. He 
 said, I can t talk about it ; and he hurried away. I 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 165 
 
 did not see him again till the war was done. I went 
 out and found the gentlemen of his staff. Of course 
 they hated me. By and by I had my own staff. 
 They did not love me. The people hated me. Did 
 you hear that man "read to-day, The citizens hated 
 him, and said, We will not have this man to reign 
 over us ? But I am ahead of my story. It was 
 Saturday night that I arrived. Sunday I dressed up 
 and attended religious worship with the garrison. 
 Do you believe, the chaplain, a little wiry Sandemanian 
 preacher, chose to tell those men, 4 The way of trans 
 gressors is hard. And I had to stand and take it, 
 without the consolation I am giving myself to-day. 
 
 " It was not he that told me, what I found out 
 the night before, when I quailed under Harry s eye, 
 
 that it is the way that is hard. I had always tried 
 
 to think that it was a hard station that you got to, 
 a lock-up or a bankruptcy. But as I lied to Harry, 
 and then as I met the staff, and now again behind this 
 chaplain, I knew that what was hard was the way. 
 And from that moment till I had to resign my commis 
 sions, I knew every second of life that the way was 
 hard. I had good things happen, some, and lots of 
 bad ones ; but I never got that feeling about the way 
 out of my heart. I said just now my own gentlemen 
 did not love me. I don t know why I say so, but 
 that I thought so. For I thought nobody liked me or 
 believed in me, just because I hated myself after I 
 stood there with Harry, and did not believe in myself. 
 
166 
 
 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 I tell you it was very hard for me to go through the 
 routine of life there. As for success, why, if Ve 
 suvius had started up next door to us and overwhelmed 
 us, I should not have cared. 
 
 " I suppose you know what did happen. If you do, 
 the sermon is ended. There never should have been 
 any post at Willston. We were there to < make Union 
 sentiment. In fact, the Rebels lived on us, laughed 
 at us, and hated us. Harry did conciliate some people, 
 I think, and frightened more. I conciliated nobody, 
 and frightened nobody. I had begun wrong. < Sinful 
 heart makes feeble hand, and it makes feeble head 
 too, Mr. Marmion; and, worse than that, a man 
 can t make any friends of himself or anybody else with 
 it. I tried a great diplomatic dodge. There was a 
 lot of rice on a plantation, and I started a private nego 
 tiation with one Haraden who owned it, not for my 
 self, really, but for government. We wanted the rice. 
 Then my chief woke up one day from a long sleep, 
 and sent us a perfectly impossible string of instructions. 
 Then I heard that Dick Wagstaff, one of the enemy s 
 light-horse, was threatening my outpost at Walker. 
 I did not know what to do. How should I ? But I 
 put on a bold face, and marched out the garrison, and 
 went part way to Walker ; and then I thought I had 
 better go down to Haraden s ; and then, I tell you, 
 it was just like a horrid dream, then I remembered 
 that the gunboats might have been sent up to help us, 
 and I sent an express for them, and marched that 
 
HOW MR. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 167 
 
 way ; but then news came that we had been wrong 
 about Walker, and I thought we had better cross back 
 there. But while we were crossing, there came an 
 awful rain. We could not get the guns on, and had 
 to stop over night, not only in the wettest place you 
 ever saw, but in the only place we ought not to have 
 been in at all. And there, at the gray of morning, 
 before my men could or would start a cannon, down 
 came Dick Wagstaff s flying squadron. What is 
 worst is, that we found out, afterwards, there were but 
 forty of them, and yet, in one horrid muddle of con 
 fusion, we left the guns, left what rice we had got, 
 left ever so many men who had not time to tumble up, 
 and, indeed, we hardly got back alive to Willston. If 
 Dick Wagstaff had known his business half as well as 
 he was thought to, not one of us would have seen the 
 place again. But the queer thing of all this shame 
 and disgrace to me was, that it almost comforted me. 
 I remember my mother used to flog me when I was 
 sulky, and say she would give me something to cry 
 for. As we trailed back through the mud, it fairly 
 pleased me to think that now, if I looked like a cursed 
 hang-dog, people would not wonder. My outside was 
 as bad at last as my in. I remember, as we came to 
 the last bridge over the Coosa River, I, who was 
 riding after the rear of the column, overtook McMurdy, 
 this chaplain I told you of. He was walking, lead 
 ing his own horse, on which sat or crouched a man 
 faint as death, so he could hardly hold on. I made 
 
168 
 
 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 McMurdy take my horse and trudged beside him for 
 the rest of the way. < This is pretty hard, Doctor , 
 said I. 
 
 " Hard for us, said the grim little man, but not 
 so hard for us as for the Graybacks. 
 
 " I don t see that, said I. But in a minute I saw 
 that the little man was clear grit, and true to his cloth. 
 " He set his teeth, and said : < Not so hard for us, 
 because we are right, and they are wrong. Every 
 dog has his day, Colonel. They are bound to come 
 to grief when the clock strikes for them. 
 
 " Poor little Doctor. He preached at me harder, 
 when he said that, than the first day I saw him, when 
 he was < secondlying it, and < in conclusioning it, to 
 the men. I made my mouth up to say, The way of 
 transgressors is hard, Doctor. But the cant stuck in 
 my throat. That would have been too steep. Who 
 was I, to say it? I said nothing. He said nothing. 
 But I trailed after him, up to my knees in that Ala 
 bama mud; and I said to myself, It is the way that s 
 hard, by Jove. It is not the consequence that is hard, 
 nor the punishment. That is rather easy in compari 
 son. And I spoke aloud : < It s the way. Just then a 
 contraband s mule pitched into me, almost knocked 
 me down, and the little nigger said to me : Beg 
 pardon, massa ; Jordan mighty hard road to trabble 
 to-night. I did not swear at him. I stood by and let 
 him pass. And I said to myself: 4 Mighty hard. It 
 is the way that s hard, and not the bed you lie on at 
 the end of it. 
 
HOW ME. FRYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 169 
 
 " Indeed, at that very moment of misery, utter fail 
 ure, beastly defeat, I felt the first reaction from the 
 misery that had galled me ever since I lied to Harry s 
 face. This was the end at last. All that was the way. 
 
 " As soon as they heard of all this, of course I was 
 relieved, in disgrace. I was bidden to report at Wash 
 ington, just as Patrick had done. I swear to you I 
 was a happier man than I had been since the day he 
 left me there." 
 
 Mr. Frye stopped. And then he walked up and 
 down the room. It was long since he had smiled, or 
 pretended to. But he rested on a chair-back now, 
 and said : " That is all the sermon. I shall feel better 
 now I have told you. I shall never tell any one again. 
 But one revelation of such a thing a man had better 
 make, where it costs him something. So I am glad 
 to have told you." 
 
 Mrs. Webber had her eyes full of tears. " You 
 don t tell us all," said she, " you don t tell how you 
 came here." 
 
 "That hardly belongs to the sermon," said he. 
 " Yes it does. When I met Jenny, I told her the 
 whole thing right through. 
 
 " Poor boy, said she ; < it is hard, meaning to 
 comfort me. 
 
 " Jenny, said I, it is hard. Drinking is hard ; 
 cheating is hard. You and I found that out before. 
 And this infernal intriguing politics, I believe they 
 call it is the hardest of all. It s a hard way, Jenny. 
 
 8 
 
THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " Body, mind, and soul, said poor Jenny: it is 
 hard any way ; and she cried. 
 
 " So did I. And then I went across, and sent in 
 my name to Harry. He was all right again, and bre- 
 vetted brigadier. And I said, Harry, ten times you 
 have lifted me out of the gutter ; ten times I have 
 gone in deeper than before. This time I help myself. 
 This time I have found out, what till now I have never 
 believed, that I carried failure with me, that I was 
 therefore bound to fail, and had to fail. Harry, said 
 I, the very God in heaven does not choose to have a 
 broken wire carry lightning, nor a lying life succeed. 
 That s why I Ve failed. Now see me help myself. 
 
 ;t Harry gave me both his hands, shook mine heart 
 ily, and we said good by. I came on here, because 
 here I had been in the mud. I started this little 
 patent about the clothes-brushes. I let the results 
 look out for themselves. For me, all I care for now 
 is the way. I pay as I go ; and I take care that Jor 
 dan shall be an easy road to travel. Harry came on 
 last fall, and we ate our Thanksgiving together at 
 Jenny s father s. 
 
 " That is all my sermon." 
 And now Frye lighted his cigar. 
 We agreed among the boarders that we would not 
 mention this. But last Sunday, at a church I was at 
 m Boothia Felix, the man led us through three 
 quarters of an hour of what my grandfather s spelling 
 book would have called "trisyllables in ality, elity, 
 
HOW MR. FEYE WOULD HAVE PREACHED IT. 171 
 
 and ility," and " polysyllables in ation, ition, etion, and 
 otion." It was three dreary quarters of abstract ex 
 pression. When the fourth quarter began, he said, 
 " History is full of illustrations of our doctrine, but I 
 will not weary you by their repetition." 
 
 " Old Cove," said I, " I wish you would. If you 
 would just take that lesson from Mr. Frye ! " Or I 
 should have said so, had the ritual and etiquette of that 
 congregation permitted. 
 
THE KAG-MAN AND THE KAG-WOMAN 
 
 [ I WAS tempted to write out this passage of Mr. Haliburton s 
 memoirs by a few words which fell from one of our most dis 
 tinguished students of social order. He told me of the hint he 
 had received from a great paper-maker, of the wastefulness of 
 burning paper stock which cost $ 220 a ton. And he urged 
 some of us whom he supposed interested in publication, to start 
 a magazine for the people, which, in teaching them how to live, 
 which the American people do not know, should inculcate 
 at the same time the lesson of frugality, which, in the unheard- 
 of bounty of nature throughout the land, the American people 
 has yet to learn. Whoever shall undertake that magazine will 
 have it in his power to teach a great lesson to our people, if he 
 can make them read it. Not waiting for its appearance, I offered 
 as my contribution to the first number of the Atlantic Almanac 
 the really tempting results of the honest frugalities of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Haliburton. F. I.] 
 
 " IT was a downfall indeed, or it seemed so then. 
 
 " There was I, as comfortable a young fellow as wore 
 nice kid gloves in Boston. My place was easy enough 
 and hard enough. My salary was eighteen hundred a 
 year. I had a reasonable vacation. I liked the other 
 clerks and they liked me. I understood my business, 
 
THE BAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 173 
 
 as it proved, only too well. Best of all, perhaps, I 
 had fitted up my two rooms at Mrs. Thayer s as 
 prettily as heart could wish. The bed was large 
 enough, and you could air the bedroom. The carpets 
 were ingrain, of small figure ; they were cheap, but 
 of that dark claret and black which give a warm tone 
 and make things feel comfortable. Not too many pic- 
 tures, but those hung low enough. Not too many 
 books, but the free list at the old Boston Library, four 
 or five cards at the Public Library, and three or four 
 friends on the staff there, a minister s right at the 
 Athenseum, and a pleasant intimacy with Loring. I 
 owed no man a dollar. I had no enemy in the world. 
 I was at home in a dozen nice cordial families of 
 friends ; and what more could man require ? 
 
 " Of a sudden the bolt fell ! Or is it a sword that 
 falls ? I believe it is a sword. Make it 4 sword, Mr. 
 P roof-Reader. Of a sudden the sword fell ! 
 u Thus : - 
 
 " The office that I was in was the newly established 
 Methuselah and Admetus Life-Assurance Company. 
 To say Assurance, instead of Insurance, is rather 
 natty ; it sounds English, and people fancy the Barings 
 and the Bank of England pay the bills. Methuselah 
 was to attract the biblical, and Admetus the classi 
 cal gudgeons. For, though the great hope of the man 
 who insures his life is that he may be beloved of the 
 gods and so die young, yet practically people insure in 
 the vague feeling that they thus take a bond against 
 
174 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Death, or turn him the cold shoulder. It is somewhat 
 as you carry an umbrella in the hope of preventing 
 rain. 
 
 " We had got our advertisements and prospectuses 
 out, and really we had a great many new features. If 
 you held our scrip eleven years and four months, and 
 then did not sell it for two years and one month more, 
 at the end of that time we declared a dividend of four 
 nineteenths of all the profits before undivided, after 
 striking a balance between two elevenths of the risks, 
 and seventy-three per cent of the premiums, reserv 
 ing, of course, $37,273,642.17 to secure the cousins 
 of the bondholders. That feature may have been in 
 some other companies, but -I never saw it. We had a 
 very fine sign in front of our office in Queen Street, 
 with a picture of Methuselah kissing Admetus, and Al- 
 cestis crying in the corner, because her husband could 
 not die, I believe. Within, we had a velvet carpet 
 for the President s room, a tapestry carpet for the 
 Directors room, English brussels for the Secretary s, 
 American brussels for ours, and that nice, clear Russian 
 mat, that smells so pleasantly of tar, for the customers. 
 We had comfortable chairs, and all the newspapers. 
 
 " I should have been there to this hour, I suppose, 
 but that one day a very stupid customer came in. 
 Not but this often happened. But, this day, the 
 President found his velvet lonesome, and had come 
 forward into our office. I thought he was reading the 
 4 Cornhill, but, as it happened, he was listening over 
 
THE BAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 175 
 
 his spectacles to me. That sentence is not quite right, 
 but I cannot alter it. People do not listen over their 
 spectacles, they listen over their collars ; they peek 
 over their spectacles. Perhaps he did that too. 
 
 " Well, I explained and explained to the customer, 
 who finally went away without customing. He took 
 the little pink book, and the large blue pamphlet, and 
 the card with the head of Methuselah, and both the 
 little cards, but he did not take out a policy, and he 
 did not say he would. I am sure I did not wonder, 
 but it seems the President did. 
 
 " What did you say to that man ? said he. 
 
 u I explained the system of Life Insurance, I 
 mean Life Assurance, said I, as well as I could. 
 
 " Yes, said the President. * But what did you 
 tell him about invalid lives ? 
 
 u O, I had shown him the Northampton tables, and 
 the Carlisle tables, and the Equitable tables, and I 
 repeated to him Cowper s lines to the Registrar. 
 
 " i I know, I know, said the President, who is a 
 little hasty, though he is my aunt Lucy s brother-in- 
 law, which accounts for my being there indeed. c I 
 know all that, but what were you saying about invalid 
 lives ? 
 
 " Why, I explained to him that nothing was so 
 certain as the average law of death. We had these 
 tables, and so we knew, on an average, just how 
 long people would live. And we fixed our risk ac 
 cordingly, so as to meet the average. And he asked 
 
176 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 me why lie was to go to a medical e.- 
 And I told him that it was because we only waTuedTo 
 pure healthy lives. And he asked me whether only 
 healthy hves came into the tables of mortality _ 
 whether they were only healthy people who lived in 
 Carlisle and Northampton and the rest, -and why 
 d not do our business on our own principles, and 
 a e healthy people and sick people togethe, And 
 I told hnn that ,f the company did not make any 
 profit we could not keep up the office. And he asked 
 me why we d,d not say so in the prospectus, and what 
 was the use of making so much talk about the cer- 
 tamty of the average of mortality, when we had 
 nothmg to do w,th the average of mortality, but only 
 -th some of the best lives in the communUv. I told 
 mn that was our business, and not his. And he said 
 he thought the profit of the business ought to come to 
 the people who paid the money. And I said if he 
 bought that he had better go to a mutual company, 
 he would find one the other side of the street. And 
 then he went away. 
 
 "It was the longest address I ever made to my 
 aunts brother-in-law, and it did not seem to be satis 
 factory. He scowled and said, I don t wonder. 
 And then he went away. 
 
 " The next day I received a note informing me that 
 my services were no longer needed. He enclosed a 
 check for the balance due m e ,_fif t y. se v eil dollars 
 and eleven cents, -and that was all. I took my 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG- WOMAN. 177 
 
 umbrella and my office coat, bade the clerks good by, 
 and went home. And I have never been there since." 
 
 We were sitting in Haliburton s smoking-room in 
 his nice house on Commonwealth Avenue, when he 
 told me the story above repeated. It is the only house 
 I thoroughly like in Boston. He bought eight lots, 
 and so got a front of near two hundred feet. Then 
 he was able to extend his house on the floor, instead 
 of running it up into sky-parlors. He. was able to 
 have the air on every side, as they have in Sybaris, 
 and a little garden on every side too. If I had been 
 he, I would have had no staircase, but those which 
 went into the cellars. But he yielded to the popular 
 taste enough to have his house two stories high. If 
 you care to look for it, I think you will find it between 
 Fairfield Street and George the Third Street, if 
 that is the next in the alphabetical order. 
 
 We had just dined, the girls had gone up to see 
 the babies, and Haliburton told me this story. It was 
 a bad tumble, I said, and I asked how he got out of it. 
 
 " Well," said Haliburton, " they say everything is 
 an accident. For me, I say nothing is. You shall 
 judge. I went home to my pretty crimson and black 
 ingrain carpet, and I thought I looked my last on it. 
 The rent was paid till the end of that month. And 
 what was I to do then ? I could not dig, and the one 
 thing I was sure of was, that I would not borrow. I 
 was a little blue, I can tell you, when George Plunkett, 
 
 8* L 
 
178 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 whom I had met at Lebanon not long before, came in. 
 He was down in Boston, it seemed. I tried to be 
 hospitable, found two chairs for him ; we talked over 
 the Columbia House and the rest, what had become 
 of the partners of the summer, and I offered him a 
 cigar. 
 
 " As it happened, I twisted up the back of a letter 
 for him to light it with, and so it happened that you 
 and I are here. 
 
 "For Plunkett lighted the cigar, - gave me back 
 the paper, I lighted mine, and threw the rest of 
 the scrap into the grate. 
 
 " He made sure of his light, and then said, < So you 
 burn paper here ? 
 
 ^ " Why, I burnt that, said I, because I had to 
 light the cigars. For a regular fuel I burn Lehio-h 
 coal. 
 
 " Pretty expensive fuel, said Plunkett, to burn 
 paper at two hundred and twenty dollars a ton. 
 
 " I suppose at another time I should have let it go 
 with a laugh. But I felt wretchedly poor, and was 
 not above sixpences, I can tell you. Plunkett, who is 
 a thorough gentleman, would gladly have dropped the 
 subject with his joke ; but when I pressed him, he 
 said, earnestly enough, that they had occasion to see 
 the shocking extravagance of the country in their busi 
 ness, that they were at their wits end to get material 
 for paper, this was in the war when paper stock was 
 very high ; that every man in the country was paying 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 179 
 
 twice as much for his newspaper as he need pay, 
 because every man and every woman was wasting like 
 all the Danaides together ; and that that was what had 
 moved him to speak. If I felt sore he would apologize. 
 
 " No ! I did not feel a bit sore. To tell the truth, 
 even then, I felt a little comforted. And when 
 Plunkett went away, good fellow, he and his wife 
 are coming to stay with us when the Italians are here, 
 send Polly round to see her, I say, when he went 
 away, I got up to examine my stock in trade. And I 
 made this calculation. 
 
 " I could stay with Mrs. Thayer, and live just as 
 before, for four dollars and ninety-three cents a day. 
 That is, I could pay my board ; I could send home two 
 hundred dollars to my mother ; keep up the policy on 
 my life at the old New England Mutual ; lay out a 
 hundred and fifty on my summer journey ; and have 
 as much for the poor-box, or any poor rascal that had 
 not thriven as well as I. Four dollars and ninety- 
 three cents, with old paper at eleven cents a pound, 
 would be forty-five pounds a day. Thunder ! Had 
 not there been days in the past week when I had 
 given away more than that weight of prospectuses ? 
 I think poor Dennis would say so, who used to carry 
 them to the post-office ! Let me see what I had got 
 on hand. 
 
 " 1st. Eleven volumes of the Atlantic Monthly, or 
 rather fifty-five numbers. By a curious fatality there 
 were regularly two numbers lost in every year, so I 
 
180 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 never could bind them. Lucky for me now. For, if 
 they had been books, I might not have thought of 
 them. I took them down, blew off the dust, and 
 * hefted them. Wished I had practised more often 
 on cakes at fairs. Could not guess the weight. So, 
 
 " 2d. I took down one hundred and eighty-one old 
 Harpers, 4 hefted them. 
 
 " 3d. Files of the Transcript and Advertiser, not 
 bound for four years. How fortunate that I had had 
 this passion for filing journals. And never once had 
 I unrolled one of the files ! 
 
 " 4th. Play-bills, concert-bills, private theatrical 
 programmes, &c., &c., from a large travelling-trunk, 
 where they had been waiting for me to find the leisure 
 to file them. 
 
 "5th. Envelopes for the last eighteen months. I 
 had pitched them all into two empty coal-barrels in my 
 wood-closet for some philanthropist to take off stamps 
 for one of the postage-stamp people who are to be 
 fitted for the University by the dextrine on the back 
 of a million cancelled stamps. Nobody had appeared 
 to claim them ; so here was an accumulation of about 
 seven cubic feet of paper, pretty tightly crammed 
 down. 
 
 " 6th. Reports of charitable societies, copies of the 
 laws, quarterly school reports, and a thousand other 
 pamphlets which I had always kept, I knew not why 
 till now ; on the principle of the Chinese, whom I was 
 now learning to respect as a most intelligent nation, 
 never to destroy a piece of paper. 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 181 
 
 " All these I piled together in a corner of my bed 
 room, and I gloated over them. I did not know how 
 much they weighed, but I fancied that they weighed 
 a great deal more than they proved to. Not that I 
 deceived myself for an instant. I knew that here were 
 the accumulations of six years. I knew that in sending 
 them to the mill I was but cutting down the ancestral 
 oaks. Still, if by so doing I could be learning how to sell 
 oak timber, and at the same time could plant new acorns 
 for new harvests, and could myself subsist till those new 
 harvests budded, bourgeoned, and fell before the axe, 
 my modest destiny was secure. To this future I ad 
 dressed myself. I saw I had first to arrange for my 
 sales. Then I had to arrange for packing and trans 
 portation ; and, essential to the whole, I had to be sure 
 of the sources of supply. But when I thought of the 
 acres of useless paper which were thrust every day 
 across my line of march, I could not but hope that 
 they were thick enough, in all their flimsiness, to weigh 
 on the average forty-five pounds. 
 
 " If the thing were to be done, of course it was to 
 be done with system. I remember perfectly the feel 
 ing with which I lay in wait for Nolan the teamster, 
 whom we used to employ at the store, and arranged 
 with him to call at my side door early Tuesday 
 morning as he drove down for his day s work. Nolan 
 was fond of me, for I had many a night kept the store 
 open that he might get through his jobs the easier, 
 when I was the youngest apprentice. And I arranged 
 
182 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 on very cheap terms that he should call early in the 
 morning every Tuesday for my stock, and that on Fri 
 day night as he came home after the day s work he 
 should bring me home a crockery crate from Basset s. 
 Cronyn, you know, who is now in the East Indies, 
 arranged about crates for me. I found I could not 
 manage to have them returned to me after they were 
 emptied. Eventually it proved best only to send off 
 one every fortnight. All this detail stands out in my 
 memory now as freshly as if it were yesterday. It 
 was like a boy s examination to enter college. It was 
 really to me the shoving off into a wholly new career. 
 
 " But I do not mean to tell you the details, even of 
 that whole year, as I tell you this beginning. Many 
 a begging circular, many a shop advertisement, stuck 
 into my letter-box, many an explanation from Jew 
 oculist about his pebble glasses, and from eclectic 
 physician about the days he would be in Boston and 
 the days he would not, many a notification from Mr. 
 Secretary McCleary that I was to give in my ballot, 
 many a hint from the water commissioner that I must 
 not waste Cochituate, went into my Balaam basket, of 
 which no sign is left beyond what is in my little day 
 books yonder, and those, I think, will never be edited 
 by living man, or by admiring biographer of mine. 
 
 It is if you will think of it a very strange 
 passion we have in our age, this of printing circulars. 
 So far as I know, it works no good under heavens, 
 excepting to rag-men and to printers. No one answers 
 
THE EAG-MAN AND THE BAG-WOMAN. 183 
 
 a begging circular, no man goes to the exhibition which 
 is announced by a printed circular, no one remembers 
 even the number in the street on the corn-doctor s card. 
 Yet we print them and send them round as a salve 
 for a wounded conscience. It is as people leave cards 
 when they cannot call. I know I ought to ask John 
 to contribute ten dollars to the Orphan Asylum ; I 
 hate to do it, and I therefore excuse myself by print 
 ing a hundred circulars, asking a hundred Johns to 
 contribute, and leaving them at a hundred doors. Or, 
 it is as people leave tracts. The Master virtually pro 
 hibited sowing seed by the wayside ; he said the Devil 
 ate up all such seed, and he most certainly does ; he 
 said that if we had any seed to sow, we should sow it 
 in good ground ; that we were not to stop to talk by 
 the w r ayside, and, if we could possibly help it, we were 
 never to waste any seed there. Yet there are even 
 Tract Societies that, for want of good ground, print 
 what they call " Wayside Series," and give them to 
 children in the streets, or people who want shaving- 
 paper, or leave them on the seats of railroad cars. As 
 if Infinite Wisdom had not taken pains to prohibit that 
 very thing. 
 
 " These tracts have given me infinite trouble. Be 
 cause, in forty-five pounds of paper, a good many of 
 them would stray in, and I always had to pick them 
 out and get them back to the offices they started from 
 once a year. I made that distinction between people 
 who wanted to save my soul and people w r ho wanted 
 
184 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 
 
 to line their own pockets. And, while I sent a quack 
 doctor s almanac relentlessly to the mill, I always re 
 turned to the office that issued it any short-metre 
 guide to heaven that in its kindness it had sent to me. 
 " Well here is one of the day-books ; you see how 
 methodical I grew. I knew, as I say, that I could not 
 rely on past accumulations. My business was practi 
 cally to develop such a movement as should bring 
 into those rooms forty-five pounds of paper a day. 
 The receipts varied with the season. After Congress 
 met, the mail supply was always the largest ; next to 
 that generally the i delivery boys ; and least, my own 
 walks. But on election-days, or when there was a 
 circus, I often picked up in the streets as much as the 
 boys brought to my door. There, over here, Decem 
 ber 31st, is the footing carried out for that year, you 
 see: 
 
 Ibs. oz. 
 
 Mail 13,623 4 
 
 Delivery 2,119 3 
 
 Pockets ...... 1,863 11 
 
 By delivery, I mean things poked under the door or 
 into the box. 
 
 " 4 What are pockets ? O, I had my exercise to 
 keep up, you know, and I had really a good deal to 
 do in so large a business as I soon carried on with the 
 manufacturers. So, after allowing an hour after break 
 fast to set the batteries running, I walked down town 
 and met all the boys who thrust papers in your face, 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE EAG- WOMAN. 185 
 
 always was pleasant to them, read what they gave me, 
 and put it in my pocket. If you have leisure for such 
 things, you meet at the reading-rooms and libraries a 
 great many men who would nothave thought of you, who 
 ask if you have seen their statement of the method of 
 resuming specie payment, and hand you a copy. As 
 old as you and I are, you are entitled to a good many 
 things by dint of old assessments. You are entitled 
 to a copy of the laws, and the catalogues of a vast 
 number of schools and libraries, to the School Com 
 mittee s Report, and many other things for which you 
 pay taxes, and it is but fair that you should have back 
 some return. In fact, if you only will take such 
 things, there are a great many people in the world 
 eager to get them out of their offices. Do you not 
 know that the last phase of that precious old humbug, 
 the Smithson, is that they circulate through the world 
 the publications of societies who cannot otherwise get 
 their volumes off their hands ? A great central ex 
 press-office for distributing knowledge in the concrete ! 
 But if you want to see the detail, look at any page of 
 my journal." 
 
 Accordingly I opened at November 8, 1862. 
 
 u State Election to-day: I went to vote. Voted 
 straight ticket. Lots of split tickets. I told them I 
 should not vote them, but they made me take them. 
 Passed the Ward Ten office. They pressed votes on 
 me there. Told them I had voted already. They 
 seemed to want to get rid of the things. Called on 
 
THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Fergus. He asked me to accept some Reports on 
 Emigration which had been sent him from Belgium. 
 Told him I had no use for them (which was not true). 
 He said they were in his way. Passed ward-room of 
 Ward Eight. More tickets. Told them I had voted. 
 They would crowd them on me. Called on Mrs. 
 Fettyplace. She gave me memoir of her husband s 
 uncle. Stopped at Longmans . They asked me to 
 notice their reprint of Gulliver. Said they would 
 send it home. 
 
 "Home at eleven. Large mail. Clara s wedding 
 cards. What a nice girl she is, and he is a cr 00 d 
 allow. Cards thick and heavy. Four of them, 
 too. Two lottery advertisements ; a pamphlet about 
 Sozodont; a prospectus of building-lots; circulars of 
 three joint-stock companies ; requests to furnish my 
 works for the Adelphic Harmonian Society of Bush- 
 University, Wisconsin ; three requests for auto 
 graphs; four catalogues of book sales; two more dupli 
 cates of the fifth volume of the President s Message of 
 four years ago. They seem behindhand in the printing. 
 " Walk again before dinner. Election still brisk. 
 They tried to give me more votes, but I would not take 
 them. Four bills of fare; notices of auction sale at 
 Greenville ; of new shop opened in Tyler Street ; of 
 opposition dentist at No. Ill Fulton Street; and of a 
 new medium in Lowell Street. Dined at club. 
 
 " Afternoon. Our majority is immense, they say. 
 Witherspoon, who had been at work all day, trying 
 
THE BAG-MAN AND THE BAG- WOMAN. 1ST 
 
 to run in Ingham to the Legislature on a split ticket, 
 came home to take a cigar. Ingharn had but four 
 votes, after all. Witherspoon left here all the tickets 
 he had not distributed. I could not make him take 
 them with him. He seemed cross and out of spirits. 
 Did not stay long. Afternoon mail good. Exhibit of 
 National Steamship Company ; three life insurance 
 circulars ; memorial for signature against liquor law ; 
 another for it. Representation (too late) that Waldo 
 was left off the ticket by a cabal ; another (also too 
 late), that he was not. Circular requesting all Re 
 publicans to contribute for the expenses of head-quar 
 ters. Four other circulars. Full set of documents 
 of Anti-take-hold-of-the-Fork Society, forwarded by 
 Izaaks, good fellow. 
 
 " Delivery for the day small ; two quack almanacs ; 
 notice from city to put out ashes Tuesday morning ; 
 notice that grocer has moved to the other corner of 
 the street ; that Frye has a new partner, and the firm 
 will be Frye & Co. 
 
 " Called on Bertha by appointment, and took her 
 to the Howard. Maggie Mitchell. They have a new 
 style of bills, a little newspaper. Brought Bertha s 
 home by mistake, but sent it to her afterwards. 
 
 Account for day, 
 
 51 
 A good day. Oh ! Si sic omnia I " 
 
 Mail 
 
 Ibs. oz. 
 37 11 
 
 Pockets (3 walks) . 
 Delivery, papers, &c. . 
 
 8 9 
 5 2 
 
188 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 I handed back the book to Haliburton, a little 
 puzzled. I said I did not see how he came to have so 
 many of these things. I had more or less of them, 
 more than I had ever known what to do with, in 
 deed, more rather than less. But I never had quite 
 forty-five pounds in a day, I thought. 
 
 "As to that," said he, "you have had more than 
 you think for. As Plunkett said, a vast deal goes in 
 fuel which you are not aware of. But, I confess, I 
 cultivated my crop. I am, and always was, curious that 
 way. And when I once found that lists of respecta 
 ble names were considered 4 property in this world, 
 bought and sold by people who distribute circulars, 
 advertised and bragged of, I saw no objection to my 
 name going in on as many as might be. Thus I wrote 
 one day, in perfectly good faith, for a sort of sun-dial 
 they advertise in New York, they call it a gilt time 
 keeper. I got my dial, and forgot it. Now, do you 
 think that letter put my name on a list, and once a 
 month, I suppose, I now receive lottery prospectuses, 
 -schemes for making money out of nothing, propos 
 als to become an agent in this or that rascality, I know 
 not what. There is no way known to me by which to 
 get your name off one of these Mists, and so I e en 
 turn the circulars into white paper as soon as I may. 
 " I suppose the largest single return I ever got was 
 by starting The Unfortunates Magazine. I studied 
 the thing with care, and it turned out well. Maga 
 zines do not always ; but that is because the publishers 
 
THE BAG-MAN AND THE KAG-WOMAN. 189 
 
 are over-ambitious. We only printed two hundred 
 and fifty copies of The Unfortunates to begin with. 
 We sent them free to ladies schools and colleges. 
 We got very few subscribers. We never had two 
 hundred and fifty, and never had to print five hun 
 dred copies. We had good large type and cheap paper, 
 so that it was not very burdensome ; only forty-eight 
 pages a number, you know. And we had, I can tell 
 you, contributions by the hundred-weight. The rule 
 was to be very generous to new contributors, and we 
 got the reputation in the Sigma Delta Societies, and 
 United Sisters, and all that kind, of introducing many of 
 the younger and newer lights. I think Marie Montrose 
 and Nannie of Nonantum and Olive Oglethorp and 
 Pollie Playfair and Quinsie Quiggle all made their 
 first appearance before the public in 4 The Unfortu 
 nates Magazine. The year we offered our first 
 premiums, fifty dollars for the best story, twenty-five 
 for the second, and twenty for the third, all manu 
 scripts to be at our disposition, we had enormous 
 receipts. I think we had four thousand and odd 
 pounds of manuscript. Stock was very high that 
 year, and thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds paid 
 the prizes, so the rest was clear profit." 
 
 I suggested that it was hard-earned profit, if Halibur- 
 ton had to read all the manuscripts. But he explained 
 that it would be entirely improper for the editor him 
 self to make the decision, and that the custom was to 
 select a committee of clergymen of different denomi- 
 
190 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 nat,o ns to read the s ^ 
 
 We sorted out a dozen or two," said he, "that 
 seemed to be worth saving, but really it was a charity 
 > society to put the rest into the pulp-mill." 
 
 And I do not mean to say," said he, that I had 
 no conscience about the pulp-mill. If I cou l d have 
 dumped in all the paper that came, without opening 
 envelopes, it would have been another thin. ! 
 fact, I only felt at liberty to do so where men were 
 trying to use me to serve their own interest. Then I 
 thought tit for tat was fair. You would be surprised, 
 though, to know how easily a wave would get started 
 Ingham coaxed me out of twenty dollars for Antioch 
 College one day ; I wish it had been twenty thousand 
 Ihen my poor twenty was printed in his acknowledg 
 ment of contributions. From that hour to this I have 
 received begging circulars for every cause that has a 
 name under heaven, having got my name, I suppose, 
 
 upon the list of somebody that manages such mat 
 
 ters." 
 
 The people wanted to clear the dinner-table and 
 we went into the back-parlor and sat on the veranda 
 here Haliburton told me the other half of the story 
 
 "I had been in the paper business more than a 
 year," he said, "and I found it was a cash business, 
 needing and giving no credit, and therefore a comforta 
 ble one, when one day, as I was coming home, I was 
 poking through Oswego Street, when a pretty little 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 191 
 
 girl in front of me ran suddenly into the middle of the 
 street. I saw in a moment that she was chasing a bit 
 of rag which was blown off the sidewalk. Poor child ; 
 she was not quick enough, or she was too eager ; she 
 tripped and fell, struck her head heavily and did not, 
 at the moment, rise again. I ran after the little thing, 
 and found her stunned by the blow. I carried her in 
 to the grocer s shop, washed her, and waited till she 
 came to. She was confused for a few minutes, and 
 then said she could go home, that she knew she 
 could. She asked eagerly for her large bag, which I 
 gave her, and tried to take it with her. 
 
 " But this I would not have. I carried the bag, 
 and led her; or rather she led me, into one of the 
 parallel South Cove streets there. I fairly carried her 
 up three nights of stairs, and there, in attic rooms as 
 sweet and pretty as ever Rigolette s were, we found 
 her sister. 
 
 " A charming person, I can tell you. I thought so 
 then, and I have never changed my mind. Broad, 
 sunny forehead, large hazel, wondering eyes, perfectly 
 cut nose, rather large mouth, all this tells nothing, I 
 know, head wonderfully poised, voice very sweet, 
 ears did I say no bigger than little shells, hair 
 light and dark at the same time, but what nonsense 
 to talk detail ! Some women have an atmosphere, 
 some do not. If they are as beautiful as Juno, it is 
 no good if. they have no atmosphere. If they have 
 the atmosphere, I believe their cheeks might be pea- 
 
192 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 green and it would make no difference. My little 
 girl s sister had more atmosphere than any woman I 
 had ever seen." 
 
 Of course, I knew who Haliburton was talkino- 
 
 } 
 
 about all this time, but he had forgotten I knew, 
 
 O 
 
 and, as he pleased himself, I let him describe her. He 
 then continued : 
 
 " I told my story, and received her thanks. I 
 saw I must not stay. I could not pretend the doctor 
 was needed. I saw she wanted to put Elsie to bed ; 
 so I bowed myself down stairs, and called the next 
 night to inquire, taking round Miss Leslie s Girls 
 Own Book, for Elsie. And I called the next night, 
 and I called the next night. But the third nio-ht I 
 
 O o 
 
 found Miss Anna was not at home. 
 
 " None the less, though Elsie got well obstinately 
 soon, did I call frequently. I made another excuse 
 for calling after Elsie was at school again, in discussing 
 business arrangements. For it seemed that Miss Anna 
 understood enough more of my business than I did. 
 Since her father and mother died, she had supported her 
 self and Walter and Elsie and little Phil by rag-picking, 
 with its professional accompaniments of sorting and 
 packing. I found great help from her experience and 
 suggestions, though it was some time before I told her 
 that I was an humble beginner in her line. 
 
 " Of course, if a woman or a man chooses to go 
 
 O 
 
 about in rags into the dirt, with a long pointed stick, 
 as in the pictures of professional chiffonniers in the 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 193 
 
 magazines and in the exhibitions, either of them may 
 become u very disagreeable being to others or at home. 
 But Miss Anna had no such views for Elsie or the 
 others. Indeed, she said, the profession involved no 
 special hardship, but that of very early hours for the 
 children. She had them up before it was light every 
 blessed day. They had a very merry breakfast, always 
 by lamplight. Then she started them, Walter alone, 
 Elsie and Philip together, with their wagons. These 
 were just such wagons as boys call trucks, with 
 champagne-baskets tied on. The children spent an 
 hour, much more in summer, in going to the 
 " out-door places " as they called them. I coaxed 
 them one morning to let me go with them. They 
 knew every back door of every large workshop, where 
 there would be any form of shred swept out by lazy 
 or careless porter. They knew as well what shops 
 were well administered, so that there would be no need 
 even of looking at the gutter. To my surprise they 
 did not stop for paper. Elsie had said to me, when I 
 first knew them, with perfect unconsciousness, that 
 paper was a different business, and that her sister found 
 it did not pay to mix them. The child did not know 
 then why I blushed, nor did I know, I certainly 
 was not ashamed that I was in that branch of the 
 calling. This hour s out-door work was a good brisk 
 tramp, with the little wagons rattling behind in the 
 still streets. But neither of them was half filled when 
 we came home again, meeting, almost, at the lower 
 
194 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 door. I said to myself that there was nothing like 
 forty pounds, there were not five pounds in both bas 
 kets. But Walter claimed me this time, it seemed 
 we were to go to the depots as they called them, 
 and now I understood matters better. 
 
 " It seemed that these nice, well-behaved children, 
 partly, I suppose, by Miss- Anna s introduction, and 
 partly from their own good sense, had ingratiated 
 themselves each in eight or ten of the large clothing 
 establishments ; not with the chiefs, who probably did 
 not know that there were such children in the world, 
 but with the parties, younger apprentices, char 
 women (the proper spelling would be chore women, I 
 believe), or whoever else had the last charge of clean 
 ing up at night for the next day. In many of the 
 work-rooms the small rags clippings and parings 
 are the perquisites of these people ; all larger pieces be 
 longing, of course, to the establishment. The children 
 had made their own bargains. From five in the after 
 noon till six or seven, and sometimes till nine, in the 
 evening they were busied in these shops, sweeping, 
 or running errands, carrying water, doing messages for 
 the sewing-women, according as the bargain might be. 
 And so at each shop, every night, they left the bag 
 of scraps which, on the morning s trip, was to be col 
 lected and carried home. They had a reputation, it 
 was clear enough, for neatness, quickness, honesty, and 
 good-nature. They were favorites, I could see, at all 
 these places where they looked in for their store. At 
 
THE BAG-MAN AND THE BAG- WOMAN. 195 
 
 one or two Walter supplied the girls with the Herald ; 
 that was the contract, he said. At one he carried up 
 a block of ice for the water-pitcher ; that was in the 
 contract. Two or three times the night before he 
 
 ^ 
 
 only nodded, but there he had done what he had bar 
 gained for. It took two trips back to their house to 
 cany home these collections ; and when Elsie arrived, 
 a little after us, her stores were quite as large as ours. 
 
 u The children washed themselves, told their times, 
 and sat down to rest, while Miss Anna weighed their 
 morning s work. Again it reminded me so of home. 
 She marked it down in their little books, Elsie and 
 Phil, twenty-six pounds three ounces. Walter, twenty- 
 four pounds eleven ounces. The boy doubled up his 
 fist at his sister, but it was clear that he was glad of 
 her success. I ll beat you to-morrow, he said. 
 Dear old Morris says they are to take account of 
 stock to-day, and that somehow that is to bring great 
 things into my net. And so, well pleased with the 
 morning s tramp, they went off to school. 
 
 " Poor things, said Miss Anna ; c it seems hard 
 they should have it to do. But I had a great deal 
 rather have them with me so, than put her to 
 sewing, or him to carrying parcels in a store. From 
 now till five they will have only to study or to play. 
 Then come from two to four hours of pretty hard 
 work. But it is varied, and so far they stand it 
 well. 
 
 44 Fifty-one pounds and fourteen ounces would be 
 
196 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 a very good average, said I, more professionally than 
 I meant to do. 
 
 " She stared at me a moment with her great eyes, 
 and then said it was higher than her year s average, 
 but that the children grew stronger and better ac 
 quainted every year. 4 1 am laying up for something 
 better for them, said she ; 4 and we get on so well that 
 I am quite encouraged. My part begins now that all 
 this trash is to be separated into linen white, cotton 
 white, hemp-cord, cotton-cord, junk, silk, and shoddy. 
 And after this suggestion of her part, I had to bow 
 myself away. 
 
 Was that all ? No, it was not all, at all ; it was 
 only the beginning of all. 
 
 " I got in the habit of calling there every Wednes 
 day evening. Miss Anna would not let me come 
 more than once a week, I found that out very soon. 
 She would not accept any of my invitations, even for 
 the most modest dissipations. She would not take one 
 of the seats I could offer her at church. She let me 
 take the children to the circus, but she would not 
 let me join her if I met her walking in the mall, far 
 less would she talk with me. I had dead-head tickets 
 for rehearsals and concerts, because * The Unfortu 
 nates Magazine had got on the list of journals in the 
 Directory ; yet she would not use them if I sent them, 
 but she would let Walter and Elsie go with them. 
 So I got in the habit of always calling there Wednes- 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 197 
 
 day evening, and, unless I met her by good luck in 
 the street, I never saw her at any other time. Walter 
 liked to come up to my room to see my coins and rny 
 autographs, and I was always glad to have him, to lend 
 him books, and to help him in his map-drawing. 
 
 " Well, we did not always talk shop ; but one night 
 I had carried her up Gisquet s Memoirs, with his 
 queer account of the French rag-pickers. She had 
 asked me for this ; and this led to my asking her if 
 the children never found things of value in the streets. 
 
 " She said they had, two or three times, the more 
 was the pity. She did not want them to get the 
 piratical feeling, but to understand they were in an 
 honorable, above-board business, earning their living 
 honestly, and serving the country by cheapening paper, 
 as bravely as if they were ramming down cartridges 
 or wiping the brows of sick soldiers. When the 
 children did bring home anything of value, there was 
 the plague of advertising, of watching the advertise 
 ments, and all that, it excited them and did no good 
 to anybody. Then Miss Anna stopped, began to 
 speak again, and stopped again. I got confused, 
 and, of course could not think of anything to say ; she 
 blushed and laughed, and said, I will tell you of our 
 most remarkable prize, I do not know why I hesi 
 tated ; and she took out from her drawer a steel- 
 mounted pocket-book, a lady s, which she said 
 Elsie picked up in the fresh snow, in the evening, ten 
 months ago. It had nearly eighty dollars in it, two or 
 
198 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 three of the owner s cards ; and yet Miss Anna had 
 never been able to find her. 
 
 " The name is not in the Directory, said she. 4 1 
 have advertised it at three several times. They have 
 a memorandum of it at the Chief of Police s office ; 
 but here it is. Nobody has ever claimed it. 
 
 " The children used to be immensely interested, 
 she said. They liked the handwriting of the cards, 
 and took it for granted that a tin-type there is in it 
 was a portrait of the owner. If it is, she is a very 
 pretty girl. We have made up a great many stories 
 about her. Sometimes we have her an English lady on 
 her travels. Sometimes we have her a distinguished 
 Italian in disguise. Sometimes we have her a hidden 
 agent of Jeff Davis. Indeed, said she, after another 
 pause, the reason I stopped and blushed so absurdly 
 was that I think of her more than you would suppose. 
 It really seems to rne sometimes that her destiny was 
 interwoven with mine ; and she blushed again. 
 
 " Now, for myself, I have plenty of such imagina 
 tions, and they make me very happy. I once wrote 
 an article for The Unfortunates Magazine on Castles 
 in the Air, but it got crowded out. But this was the 
 first confession of weakness I had ever heard from 
 this lonely, well-poised, independent girl, who had had 
 to be father, mother, sister, and all, to these children, 
 and who had almost provoked me sometimes by being 
 sweet-tempered, calm, and gentle, when I should have 
 been blazing with rage. I laughed heartily, and cried 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 199 
 
 out : " The Pocket-Book Recovered ; or, The Double 
 Destiny," or better, "The Lost Destiny, and the 
 Recovered Pocket-Book," no, let us have it, c The 
 Destined Pocket-Book ; or, Two Hearts in One." I 
 foresee a serial for " The Unfortunates Magazine." 
 Surely this time you will write for me. 
 
 " No, Mr. Haliburton, said she ; and if I did, I 
 would write on tissue paper, in a microscopic hand, so 
 that the article might be placed on a sixpence, like the 
 Declaration of Independence. I am not going to fill 
 up your old crates for you. But why do you not look 
 at the princess ? 
 
 "I opened the pocket-book, took out the picture, 
 and recognized it in an instant. 4 Why, said I, it is 
 Bertha Traill ! 
 
 " l And do you know Bertha Traill ? said Miss 
 Anna, fairly pale this time. 
 
 " I danced with her at Mrs. Gordon s last night, 
 took her down to supper, and afterwards handed her 
 to her carriage, said I, laughing. 
 
 " You danced with Bertha Traill ! said she ; and 
 still she did not get back to her quiet manner, to those 
 average tones, under which it is our general duty to 
 conceal all emotion. 
 
 " Why yes, said I, < I know Bertha better than I 
 know almost any one. I have known her since I was 
 in college. She calls our class her class. Wither- 
 spoon, her guardian s son, is a great ally of mine. 
 He is as much at home at my mother s as I am, and I 
 
200 THE IXGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 am as much at home at his father s. So I have known 
 Bertha since I taught her how to scan ; and a very 
 charming person she is too. 
 
 4 Miss Anna fairly put down her eternal sewing, 
 and looked me through and through. I tried to keep 
 up the laughing tone I had begun with, or at least 
 the familiar tone of our ordinary conversation. But 
 she was too intent for that, I felt that she had been 
 day-dreaming so much and so long, as she sat there 
 sewing, that she was giving quite too much importance 
 to the accident of my knowing Bertha. And I tried, 
 as quickly as I could and as wisely as I could, to re 
 lieve the strain on her mind, and to let her down. 
 
 "Why in the world, said I, did she never see 
 your advertisement? I knew she lost her money. 
 She hated to tell old Mr. Witherspoon ; as for the 
 Chief of Police, I thought I went there myself. No, 
 George undertook to. But it was just as they were 
 going to Florida with poor Bessie, and it was all 
 confusion. 
 
 "Miss Anna had recovered a little, and said she 
 advertised in the Transcript and the Advertiser. That, 
 too, accounted for her failure in part. The old gentle 
 man was as seccsh as Bertha was loyal, and would not 
 have either paper in the house. But why had not 
 George seen it? George always was a goose. So I 
 ran on, trying to give her time. 
 
 "And she became wholly herself again in two 
 minutes. Indeed, she almost seemed to avoid the 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 201 
 
 subject. I tried to tell her about Mrs. Gordon s 
 party. I wanted to let her know what a really nice 
 person Bertha is. I thought all that pretty story 
 about the poor child s own mother would please her. 
 But she had got at her sewing again, only said what 
 I made her say, and was more quiet than I ever saw 
 her. But when I got up to go, she took up the 
 pocket-book, and said she wished I would take it to 
 Miss Traill, and say she had done her best that she 
 might have it before. 
 
 " 4 1 shall do no such thing, said I, 4 1 shall bring 
 Bertha here, and you shall give it to her yourself. 
 
 " She turned as pale as a sheet, as if Bertha 
 belonged underground. No ! no ! no ! Mr. 
 Haliburton. Do not do that. You must not do that. 
 I I I beg you, do not do that. 
 
 " i Why in the world not ? said I. 4 Bertha is not 
 the ghoul Amine. She does not eat people s hearts 
 with the end of a bodkin. I know you will like her, 
 and I know she will like you. 
 
 < < Why not ? repeated the poor girl, wistfully, 
 4 why not, indeed ? Why, because I had rather you 
 should not. Do not bring her, Mr. Haliburton. 
 Pray, do not bring her. I ask it as a favor, really. 
 
 " Of course, I shall not bring her, said I ; and I 
 bowed : the only formal words I ever said to her. 
 
 " 4 Thank you ever so much, said she, and she tried 
 to smile ; still so excited, however. And she gave me 
 the pocket-book, and said, Pray, take it to her. 
 9* 
 
202 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " I walked home, and I lay awake all night. Anna 
 had asked a favor of me. A favor. the first time 
 she had said such a word. This lovely girl, this 
 even-tempered, gentle, kind, true, far-seeing, wise, 
 inspired girl, this girl who had let me see her and 
 talk with her, and play with her playmates, but had 
 kept me just in my place, no hair s breadth nearer, 
 had asked a favor of George Haliburton, and George 
 Haliburton had the good luck to be able to grant it. 
 
 " What a pity she could not have asked something 
 more ! 
 
 " But why was the whole thing so dramatic ? Why 
 was this pocket-book such a Leyden jar that one could 
 not touch it, inside and outside, without a jump and a 
 quiver ? How could it be that Anna and I, in bed, 
 to myself, I could call her Anna, and, save to Phil 
 and Walter and Elsie, I had never named her name 
 aloud, how could it be that Anna and I should have 
 been in a gale like that? Were we possibly a little 
 nearer together? Could she perhaps see that there 
 was something in the truth and loyalty and devotion 
 of a poor penniless dog of a rag-picker, which made 
 him, so far, the equal of herself, perfect woman though 
 she was, so nobly planned ? No ! that was nonsense, 
 and I was a fool. But what made her blush ? And 
 what made her turn pale ? I was a fool. Somehow 
 or other I had managed to wound acutely the noblest 
 woman in the world, whom I knew I loved with all 
 a man s worship. That was bright in me. Women 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 203 
 
 know women. I had ten minds to tell Bertha the 
 whole story, and ask her why Anna turned pale. 
 
 " But of course I did not. I was a fool, but not so 
 bad a fool as that. I took the pocket-book round, gave 
 it to Bertha ; and Bertha was amazed indeed. She 
 explained some things which made it not so strange 
 that they had missed the advertisements. But more 
 than her interest in the pocket-book was her interest 
 in Anna. Let me go see her, said she. Take 
 me now. 
 
 " I told her that was just what I wanted to do, but 
 that Anna would not let me. 
 
 " < Of course not, said Bertha, turning round in a 
 flash, as is the custom of some sexes, to sustain the 
 opinion which was precisely the reverse of that she 
 had expressed just before, 4 of course not. Do you 
 suppose I should let you bring any girl you chose to 
 call on me, or that I should think much of anybody 
 who let you bring her ? I shall call myself on Miss 
 Davenport. I dare say I am the older person, or that 
 I know Boston better than she. Where shall I find 
 her? 
 
 " I felt that I should like to have Bertha know 
 Anna, should like to have her call. But I did not 
 choose to tell her how to find her. Anna had asked 
 as a favor that I should not bring her, and I had 
 promised. I was not going to dodge or to seem 
 to by letting her go alone. So I refused to tell. 
 Bertha pressed : I was firm. She persevered : and I. 
 
204 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Slie scolded : I said nothing. She grew angry : and I. 
 It ended in an up-and-down quarrel, the first we 
 two ever had. I bowed myself to the door. She 
 would not say good by, and I pensively went home. 
 I had three things to think of now: first, why did 
 Anna turn pale, and then blush, when I told her 
 about Bertha ? second, why did she refuse to see 
 Bertha? and, third, why did Bertha want to see her ? 
 On these points I meditated much that afternoon, and 
 after I had turned off my gas at night. How little 
 things affect you at such a time ! I could tell you now 
 how bad the delivery of that day was ; and, of course, 
 I had almost nothing in my pockets, one or two 
 dentists cards, and a puzzle Bertha had given me, 
 were all. I know that, all told, that night, there was 
 not fifteen pounds on the balance. Misfortunes never 
 come single. 
 
 " And Bertha, as I learned afterwards, as soon as I 
 left the house, put on her hat and shawl, and went to 
 the Quincy School-house. She remembered Walter s 
 name, which I had mentioned ; and she guessed 
 rightly that this was his school, down by the South 
 Cove. She asked the head-master which room he was 
 in ; then told his teacher that she wanted to find his 
 sister, but had not her address. The teacher gave it, 
 of course ; and so, by the time I was well at home at 
 Mrs. Thayer s, Bertha was timidly knocking at Anna 
 Davenport s attic door. 
 
 " Anna called, 4 Come in, cheerfully ; and Bertha, 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 205 
 
 eagerly, but frightened to death, went in, to Anna s 
 entire surprise. Bertha saw her, felt the atmosphere, 
 loved her ; put out both hands to her, and told her how 
 much obliged she was to her ; how her brother Fergus 
 gave her the pocket-book ; how she hardly ever carried 
 it ; why she took it that particular day ; how she went 
 back to look for it ; how she cried when she found she 
 had lost it ; and then, all wrought up and mixed up 
 with the various successes of the day, the recovery 
 of Fergus s present, and the outgeneralling me, and 
 the finding Anna so sympathizing and truly lovely, 
 poor, grand, triumphant Bertha broke down, and had 
 a good cry. 
 
 " Which was probably, under her circumstances, 
 the best thing she could do. Anna soothed her ; made 
 her sit on the sofa, and put up her feet ; brought her 
 cologne, untied her hat, and petted her in general. 
 Then she got her talking about details ; and before 
 Bertha knew it, she was telling all about Fergus and his 
 letters from Freyburg, and reading little scraps from 
 them. How women carry such things round in their 
 pockets I And before Anna knew it, she was telling 
 about Walter, and Elsie s smart sayings, and showing 
 Bertha about Elsie s new frock. And so it happened 
 that Bertha stayed there till dark. And Elsie herself 
 came in ; and Bertha kissed her, and had a frolic with 
 her, and made her promise to come and see her, and 
 got up to go away. And she and Anna felt as if they 
 had known each other for a thousand years. 
 
206 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 u And so it happened that the two next afternoons 
 Bertha called, and took Anna to ride with her, went 
 to church with her Sunday, and insisted on her coming 
 round there to tea Monday night. And that was the 
 way that it happened that, at the theatre that even 
 ing, when I caught sight of old Mr. Witherspoon s 
 figure in the balcony, and w r ent round to the other 
 side to see who were the ladies he had with him, I 
 got a very triumphant bow from Miss Bertha, and a 
 very modest, pretty bow from Miss Anna. But I 
 could not get in to speak to them. And I had to go 
 away and guess why Anna would go to the theatre 
 with Bertha, when she would not let me take Bertha 
 to see her. 
 
 u She would see Bertha without me. She would 
 not see her with me. Could it be that my personality, 
 my Ego, as Kant would say, was of any kind or sort 
 of consequence to her? Did she think of me enough 
 to care two straws whether I knocked at her door or 
 went and peddled matches in Perth, in West Austra 
 lia ? I thought of her day and night. Had she so 
 little to think of that she ever thought of me, when I 
 was not lecturing there Wednesday evenings ? I and 
 Bertha must not go there together. Was there then 
 could it be possible was it crazy conceit to 
 suppose that rny being mixed up with Bertha was 
 anything of a midge s importance to her, even-bal 
 anced, self-sustained, independent Anna ? I was an 
 
THE BAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 207* 
 
 ass to think it. But it was by no means the first time 
 I had been an ass. And thinking it, I was happier 
 than I had been since Wednesday. I knew now, at 
 the least, what I would do on Tuesday morning, or as 
 soon as it was noon. And I did it. 
 
 " I walked round to Anna s, and, the hour being 
 wholly unusual, I got in. I told her I loved her, had 
 loved her, and always should love her ; that I was as 
 poor a stick as she thought me, but that I was always 
 true to my friends ; and that I should always be true 
 to her, whatever she chose to say to me ; that I had 
 longed to say this before, but never dared to ; that 
 now she had asked one favor of me, and had broken 
 her guard by doing it, so that I could not help asking 
 another. 
 
 u And she said nothing. And that is the way we 
 came to be here. 
 
 u I do not know how long we might have ground 
 on, but for the pocket-book. I do know that she was 
 right when she said her destiny pivoted there, and 
 mine did as well. 
 
 " Bertha was married, you know, that winter, and 
 Anna was a bridesmaid. Anna and I were married in 
 the spring, and Bertha danced at the wedding. And 
 that is the way we came to be here, as I said before." 
 
 I intimated that I had not always observed that 
 when two young people married on a limited income, 
 a handsome house on eight lots on Commonwealth 
 
208 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Avenue was the direct or logical consequence. Polly 
 and I had done the same thing, and were well satisfied 
 with our own house three doors from the corner of 
 D Street, as you go south from the Capuchins . So 
 Haliburton explained. 
 
 He took Anna and the children to Mrs. Thayer s. 
 Mrs. Thayer had got tired of keeping lodgers, and went 
 to Sceattle, leaving all the house to them. Anna 
 insisted on it that the children should keep at work till 
 they could do something better. The business on each 
 side reinforced the other, the union indeed made 
 savings in correspondence and expressage and other 
 expenses. She was a nice accountant as well as a 
 perfect housekeeper, and all ran smoothly. Soon 
 enough, indeed, Anna found her Kelts burning news 
 papers in kindling the range and furnace fires. " Like 
 the Jew in Thackeray s story, who used Bank-of- 
 England notes to light the candle," said she. This 
 would never do. She made Haliburton send her 
 round a barrel of shavings, and made the women 
 promise, gladly enough, to kindle with them. 
 
 Haliburton paid nothing for the shavings. But he 
 had to send down a barrel to the carpenter s and pay 
 fifteen cents for sending it ; he had to pay as much 
 more for bringing it back ; then he forgot all about it ; 
 and so the first morning that the thermometer was 
 eighty-four degrees below zero, he came down stairs to 
 find no fire, and Bridget and Mrs. Flynn triumphantly 
 informed him that this was because the shavings were 
 
THE RAG-MAN AND THE RAG-WOMAN. 209 
 
 all gone. Haliburton could not stand that of course. 
 He made the fire without swearing. Good practice 
 that in saving one s soul alive, or learning to possess it 
 in patience, which is the same thing. Then he made 
 the range fire. Meanwhile Anna had boiled some 
 water over the gas, scrambled some eggs on the same 
 furnace, made her dip-toast ditto ditto ; and had her 
 coffee done and her milk hot by the time he had 
 washed his hands. They ate their breakfasts shawled 
 and coated. And Haliburton at once proceeded to 
 Nolan s. 
 
 He started Nolan s son Stephen that morning with 
 a one-horse express-wagon, paid for the horse and for 
 his keeping for three months. Steve was a bright 
 boy : he is now running a lumber-mill on the North 
 Naguadavick. Every morning he took on his wagon 
 ten barrels of shavings, as soon as fire-lighting began. 
 He carried them from house to house till he got his 
 regular customers. He sold them, not for money, but 
 for newspapers ; a barrel of shavings for twenty-five 
 newspapers, after you had paid for the barrel. The 
 profit, of course, w r as enormous, too enormous, you 
 would have said, to last; only housekeepers stand 
 everything. The shavings really cost Haliburton al 
 most nothing. They were glad to have their shops 
 regularly cleared. The business grew. One man 
 and cart with a boy could distribute in a winter s 
 day an immense number of barrels, as soon as they 
 got it in system. Haliburton said a steady man, 
 
 N 
 
210 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 with a bright boy, would distribute in ten hours two 
 hundred barrels when the route was all adjusted. 
 Two hundred barrels, with paper stock at eight cents, 
 brought them in forty dollars a day ; and even after 
 they started their own planing-mills, and had to buy 
 their own lumber, half this forty dollars was profit. 
 By this time the business was established. There was 
 not a family in Boston, Chelsea, Dorchester, Cam 
 bridge, Brookline, or Roxbury that had not rather 
 kindle with shavings ; and when Haliburton had sixty- 
 three carts running regularly, as he had when he told 
 me the story, one thousand two hundred and sixty 
 dollars profit a day through the winter made a very 
 pretty business. Naturally, at the same time, he got 
 into lumbering and paper-making ; he knew the busi 
 ness in its detail, which is always good training for the 
 general, you know ; and so it was that he felt able to 
 build his pretty palace in which we were sitting. 
 
 He said they had asked him to be President of the 
 Seventy-second National Bank ; but he had said, 
 though his fortune was made of rags, he preferred 
 the crude to the manufactured article. 
 
DINNER SPEAKING. 
 
 A LETTER TO MY NEPHEW. 
 
 So you did not enjoy your first Phi Beta dinner, 
 dear Torn, because you were afraid all the time that 
 the new members would be toasted, and then u the 
 fellows " had said you must reply for them. That is 
 a pity. As, after all, the fellows were not toasted, it 
 is a great pity. I am glad you write to me about it, 
 however, and now it is for me to take care that this 
 never happens to you again. 
 
 I will tell you how to be always ready. I will tell 
 you how I do. 
 
 My first Phi Beta dinner was, like yours, my first 
 public dinner. It was on the day, which this year 
 everybody remembered who was old enough, when 
 Mr. Emerson delivered his first Phi Beta oration at 
 Cambridge. How proudly he has the right to look 
 back on the generation between, all of which he has 
 seen, so much of which he has been ! Well, he is no 
 older this day, to all appearance, than he was then, 
 and your uncle, my dear boy, though older to appear 
 ance, is not older in reality. What is it dear G 
 
 Q sings, who sat behind me that early day at 
 
 Phi Beta ? 
 
212 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " When we ve been there ten million years, 
 
 Bright shining as the sun, 
 We 11 have more days 
 To sing God s praise, 
 
 Than when we first begun ! " 
 
 Remember that, my dear oldest nephew, as the ten 
 million years go by, and, remembering it, keep 
 young or grow young. 
 
 Mr. Emerson was young, I say, and I. We 
 were all young. 
 
 Mr. Edward Everett was young. He was then 
 Governor, and, I think, presided, certainly spoke, 
 at that Phi Beta dinner. By the almanac he must 
 have been that year forty-five years old, just as 
 old, dear Tom, as some other people are this year by 
 the almanac. He had been pretty much everything, 
 had gone most everywhere, had seen almost all the 
 people that were worth seeing, and remembered more 
 than all the rest of us had forgotten. And lie was 
 very young. To those who knew him he always was. 
 The day he died he was about the youngest man in 
 most things that I knew. 
 
 And so it happened that he made the first dinner 
 speech that I remember. We were all in the South 
 Commons Hall of University, now used as somebody s 
 lecture-room, say, at a guess, Professor Lovering s. 
 And he gave some charming reminiscences of Edward 
 Emerson, brother of the philosopher, -too early lost, and 
 everywhere loved, and then, speaking of the oration 
 of the day, and of the new philosophy to which it 
 
DINNER SPEAKING. 213 
 
 belonged, and of which the orator was, is, and will be 
 the prophet, he said, in his gracious, funny, courtly, 
 and hearty way, that he always thought of its thunders 
 as he did of the bolts of Jupiter himself! Could one 
 have complimented an orator more than to compare 
 him to Jupiter ? And then he went on to verify the 
 comparison by quoting the description, 
 
 " Trcs imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosas 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri," 
 
 and translated the words for his purpose, 
 
 " Three parts were raging fire, and three were whelming waves ! 
 Bat three were thirsty cloud, and three were empty wind! " 
 
 Ah well, my boy ! You do not remember what all 
 the world, except a few of the elect, then said of 
 " Transcendentalism." So you cannot imagine the 
 scream of fun and applause which saluted this good- 
 natured analysis of its thunder. 
 
 And I, I was delighted at this aptness of quota 
 tion. Should I ever bring my capping lines to such a 
 market ? Here was a hit as good as the famous par 
 liamentary retorts, which were so precious to us in the 
 I. 0. H. and in the Harvard Union. Should I ever 
 live to see the happy day when I should find that it 
 was wise, witty, and just the thing to say, 
 
 " Tu quoque litoribus nostris, JEneia nutrix 
 
 or 
 
 " Tityre dum redeo, brevis est via, pasce capellas," 
 or any other of the T s ? Or, 
 
214 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " JEsopus auctor quam materiara reperit," 
 
 or, 
 
 " JEacus ingemuit, tristique ita voce locutus/ 
 
 or any other of the M diphthongs ? It did not seem 
 possible, but we would see. 
 
 Now it happened that, in the vacation following, a 
 French steamer, I think the Geryon, came to Boston. 
 And there was, perhaps a civic dinner, certainly an 
 excursion down the harbor, to persuade her officers, 
 and through them Louis Philippe, for this was in the 
 early age of stone, that Boston Harbor was the best 
 point for the projected line of French packets to stop 
 at, and somebody invited me to go. And it turned 
 out that few of the Frenchmen spoke English, and few 
 of the Common Councilmen spoke French, so that 
 poor little I came to some miserable use as a half-inter 
 preter. I remember telling a Lieutenant de Vaisseau 
 that the " Centurion " rock was called so because the 
 74 Centurion was lost there ; and that an indignant 
 civic authority, guessing out my speech, told me they 
 did not want the Frenchmen to know anything was 
 ever lost in Boston Harbor ! Perhaps that was the 
 reason the French packets never came. Well, by and 
 by there was the inevitable collation in the cabin. (A 
 collation, dear boy, is a dinner where you have nothing 
 to eat.) And we went down stairs to collate. I 
 began to think of the speeches. Suppose they should 
 call on the youngest of the interpreters, what could he 
 say ? What Latin quotation that would answer ? 
 
DINNER SPEAKING. 215 
 
 Not Tityrus certainly ! No. Nor JSneas s nurse 
 certainly, for she went overboard, bad luck to her ! 
 or was she buried decently? Bad omen that! 
 But yes ! certainly what better than the thun 
 derbolts of Jove ? Steam-navigation forever, Rob 
 ert Fulton, Marquis of Worcester, madman in the 
 French bedlam, bolts of heaven secured for service 
 of earth, Franklin, the great alliance, steam- 
 navigation uniting the world ! Was not the whole 
 prefigured, messieurs, quand le grand poete forged the 
 very thunderbolts of the Dieu des Cieux ? 
 
 " Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri." 
 
 What better description of the power which at that 
 moment was driving us along, 
 
 " Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more, 
 Of winged southern winds, and cloudy store, 
 As many parts the dreadful mixture frame " ? 
 
 Could anything have been more happy ? And for 
 tunately no member of Phi Beta was present but 
 myself. But, unfortunately, there was no speaking, 
 and for the moment I lost my opportunity. 
 
 But not my preparation, dear Tom. And for this 
 purpose have I written this long story, to show you 
 how, in thirty happy years since, when I have had 
 nothing else to say, u Tres imbris torti radios " has 
 always stood me in stead. One good quotation makes 
 an after-dinner speaker the match of the whole world. 
 
216 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 And if you have it in Latin, the people who under 
 stand that language enjoy it especially, and those who 
 do not always appear to enjoy it more especially. 
 Perhaps they do. There is also the advantage of 
 slight variations in the translation. Note the dif- 
 erence between Mr. Everett s above, and John Dry- 
 den s. 
 
 Imagine yourself, for instance, an invited guest at a 
 Cincinnati dinner in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, my 
 dear boy, none of your ancestors rose even to the 
 rank of drummer in the army of the Revolution. 
 Your great-grandfather s brother had Chastellux to 
 dinner one day. If you can, make your speech out of 
 that. But I do not think you can. Still, you are 
 called up to speak : " Our friend from New England," 
 - " Connecticut, Israel Putnam, Bunker Hill, 
 
 Groton, Wooster," &c., &c. What will you 
 do, my boy ? You must do something, and you must 
 not disgrace old Wooster. Do ? You have your 
 thunderbolts. 
 
 " This army," " gathered from North and South 
 and East and West," - " like another army," 
 " whose brave officers still linger among us, cheer 
 us," &c., &c., " this army," " combining such 
 various elements of power, endurance, and wisdom, 
 
 this army, always when I think of it, more 
 than ever to-day, sir, when I see these who repre 
 sent it in another generation, when I think of 
 Manly coming from the yeasty waves of the out- 
 
DINNER SPEAKING. * 217 
 
 stretched Cape, of Ethan Allen descending from 
 the cloudy tops of the Green Mountains, of Knox, 
 sweaty and black from the hot furnace work of Salis 
 bury, where 
 
 He created all the stores of war, 
 
 all meeting at the same moment with the Morgans, 
 and Marions, and the one Washington from the distant 
 South, this army always seems to me to be the 
 prefigured thunderbolt which the Cyclops forged for 
 Jupiter. 
 
 Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosge 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri. 
 
 Three from the sultry South, three from the storm-beat shore, 
 Three parts from distant mountains cloudy store, 
 While raging heat fused all with three parts more ! " 
 
 You see, dear Tom, these audiences are always 
 good-natured, and by no means critical of your ver 
 
 sion. 
 
 Why, at the only time I was ever at a regimental 
 dinner on the Plains, long before the war, you know, 
 when to the untaught mind it did seem as if there was 
 no reason why we were there, and no pretence for 
 mutual congratulation, I remember when poor Pen- 
 dergrast called me up to represent science (I was 
 at that time in the telegraph business), the dear old 
 quotation came to my relief like an inspiration. 
 I got round to the Flag. Do you remember how 
 safe General Halleck always found it to allude to 
 the Flag ? 
 
 10 
 
218 -* THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 " The flag, gentlemen," " colors," " rainbow 
 of our liberties," " Liberty everywhere." " Blue, 
 white, and red of Low Countries," " Red, white, 
 and blue of France," " English Constitution," 
 u Puritan fathers, Cavaliers," &c., &c. 
 
 " Does it seem too much to say, gentlemen, that, 
 with the divine instinct of poetry, the unequalled bard 
 of the court of Augustus, looking down the ages be 
 yond the sickly purple of the palace, to the days when 
 armies should be the armies of freemen, and not 
 the Praetorian guards of a tyrant, that he veiled 
 the glad prophecy of the future in the words in 
 which he describes even the thunderbolt itself? 
 The white crest of the foam, the blue of the sky, 
 the red of the fiery furnace, are all tossed together, 
 and play together, and rejoice together there, in 
 the smiles or in the rage of the very breeze of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosco 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri. 
 
 Three parts of white the crested billows lent, 
 Three parts of blue the heavens themselves had sent, 
 Three parts of fiery red with these were blent, 
 And on the free-born wind across the world they went. " 
 
 You are not old enough, my dear nephew, to re 
 member the great consistory which the Pope held at 
 Somerville, when for a moment he thought that the 
 churches of the world had recognized that Union 
 which in fact does make them one, and were willing 
 
DINNER SPEAKING. 219 
 
 to offer one front to the Devil, instead of fighting, as 
 they always had done, on ten thousand hooks of their 
 own. You understand, it was not this Pope, Pius 
 IX. It was the pope who came after Gregory XVI. 
 and before Pius IX. Well, at that immense dinner- 
 table, which had been built on the plan of John 
 O Groat s, so that each of the eleven thousand six 
 hundred and thirty folks present might sit at the 
 head, I was fortunate enough to be appointed to 
 , represent the Sandemanian clergy, the only body, 
 as I will venture to say to you, which really preserves 
 the simplicity of Gospel institutions, or in the least 
 carries into our own time the spirit and life of funda 
 mental Christianity. Now you may imagine the diffi 
 culty of speaking on such an occasion. I had thought 
 it proper to speak in Latin. The difficulty was not 
 so much in the language as in what to say, that one 
 might be at once brave as a Sandemanian, and at the 
 same time tolerant, and catholic as a Christian. Now 
 it is not for me to say how well I acquitted myself. 
 If you want to see my speech, you had better look in 
 the Annales de Foi ; and, if it is there, you will cer 
 tainly find it. I did not think it amiss, certainly, that 
 I was able to close by comparing the great agencies 
 which the United Church would be able to employ to 
 the thunderbolt itself. We had there present bishops 
 from England of perpetual rain, from Sitka of perpet 
 ual cloud, from the eternal fires of the torrid zone, and 
 from the farthest south of Patagonia. When we 
 
220 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 selected our sacred twelve, it was easy for us to take 
 them, as if we were forging thunders. 
 
 " Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosse 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri." 
 
 Now, my dear Tom, I am sure my lesson needs no 
 moral. Of course I do not think you had better start 
 in life with my quotation. To tell you the truth, I 
 am still young. I am a life-member of many socie 
 ties, and, as they outlive other usefulness, the more, 
 frequently do they dine together. I may therefore 
 have some other occasion when I may be reminded of 
 the Cyclops. But if, at your dinner, I had happened 
 to be called upon, I think, I do not know, but I 
 think that, seeing such men as you describe, I should 
 have been irresistibly led to consider the varied gifts 
 which the University every year scatters over the 
 land, and the exquisite harmony by which, from such 
 different callings, different homes, and different des 
 tinies, they unite in the merriment or in the wisdom 
 of her festivities. The men of practice who have been 
 taming the waterfall, and made it subservient; the 
 men of the gentle ministries of peace, whose blessings 
 distil upon us like the very dews of heaven ; and the 
 men of the spoken word, of the spirit of truth, of 
 which, like the wind itself, no man knoweth whence 
 it cometh or whither it goeth, these, and the men 
 of war who have passed through its fires to give us 
 the free America of to-day, all were around you. 
 
DINNER SPEAKING. 221 
 
 Surely in such a union I should have been reminded 
 of the divine harmony by which elements the most 
 diverse were welded into the bolts of Jove. 
 
 " Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosas 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri." 
 
 " Three parts like dews from heaven, three from the wave-beat shore, 
 Three from the soft-winged breeze, and three from blood-red war." 
 
 Always, dear Tom, your affectionate uncle, 
 
 FREDERIC INGHAM. 
 
 SUBSEQUENT POSTSCRIPT BY ME. INGHAM. 
 
 The subject, perhaps, needs no further illustration ; 
 but I am tempted to add, as I file this printed copy 
 of the letter away, that my friend, George Hussey, 
 hearing, the week after it was printed, that we had no 
 good cherry-brandy at our house, sent me round some, 
 which has proved excellent in a year s medical prac 
 tice, with the following formula for its manufacture : 
 
 " Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosas 
 Addiderant, rutili tres ignis, et alitis Austri/ 
 
 " Three parts from fruits wet from the dews of Heaven, 
 Three by stiff southern gales brought from Jamaica s shore ; 
 Three rays of torrid heat in tropic cave inwoven, 
 And three of pelting rain from Nature s aqueous store." 
 
 Nor was it long after, that I found myself called on 
 for a few after-dinner remarks at the Beta Phi. 
 
 It was just after Edward Rice had delivered his ad 
 mirable poem of " Andromeda," " The old world set 
 
222 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 free," in which were brilliant passages on our late 
 war, and the various European revolutions. What 
 more inevitable than that I should be reminded as 
 I saw the thunderbolt which had been thus in forge for 
 the overthrow of tyrants of 
 
 " Tres imbris torti radios," 
 which for the purpose I rendered as follows : 
 
 " Three tempest blasts of Prussia s wrath divine, 
 Forged in three twisted rays of Western sunset shine, 
 Fanned by three blasts of stormy Apennine, 
 And three, O wild Euroclydon of Crete ! were thine." 
 
 F. I. 
 

 GOOD SOCIETY. 
 
 [First published in the New York Ledger of October 31, 1868.] 
 
 WE were very fond of Maria. She was a thorough 
 ly good girl, and at heart thoroughly sensible ; and I, 
 who told her her faults when it was best for her, which 
 was not often, for it is not best to talk much of 
 faults to any one, I never scolded her for anything 
 but taking dark views instead of bright of a world 
 which a good God had made, and in which he had 
 chosen that she should live. 
 
 One day she said, in reply to me, that this was all 
 very well for me, because I lived in a pleasant town 
 among pleasant people. I lived then in Worcester, 
 Massachusetts. But, she said, if I had to live where 
 she did, I should sing to a different tune. She had no 
 difficulty, whatever, in taking bright views of things 
 in Worcester. She always did when she made a visit 
 there. But if I would come and make them a visit 
 in that smoky, snuffy, musty, fusty old forlorn New- 
 Altona, that they lived in, I should not take any brighter 
 view of life than she. 
 
 I have looked in the Gazetteer, dear reader, to make 
 sure that there is no such town as New-Altona. 
 
224 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Really, Maria, whose real name is not Maria, lived in 
 a driving manufacturing town, which was not old, 
 though she called it so. I call it New-Altona for fear 
 of hurting the people s feelings there, when they open 
 the Ledger ; because this is a true story we are en 
 gaged on in the substance. You can call the town 
 anything you choose, call it Paterson or New Bruns 
 wick, or Germantown or Newark. Newark is a good 
 name, only it is not the right one. 
 
 "Well," said I, "what is the matter with New- 
 Altona ? Emily has a very good sewing-bird that 
 was made there." 
 
 " Suppose she has. Do you suppose I want to eat 
 and drink sewing-birds, and to have sewing-birds 
 for tea, cooked with French sauce, to give an even 
 ing party and have nothing but sewing-birds come 
 to it ? That is just it, there is no society in New- 
 Altona." So groaned poor Maria, half crying, half 
 laughing. 
 
 u There must be society," said I, " because there 
 are forty thousand people there. And you must have 
 social intercourse with them, for I know you bought 
 your pretty hat there, which so astonished our natives. 
 You did not pick it off a tree as they do in the Swiss 
 Family Robinson ! " (Foul Play was not then writ 
 ten.) 
 
 " No," said Maria, rather seriously this time. "You 
 have just hit it. I can buy a bonnet there, or a mut 
 ton-chop, I can tell Mr. Doak what pear-trees I 
 
GOOD SOCIETY. 225 
 
 want to set out in the spring. And I can call on 
 Madam Chenavard, and have her tell me how the 
 Chenavards are an old Huguenot family (as they are 
 not), whose name ought to be spelt something else, 
 which is all a mistake of hers. But this is all the 
 same, one day as another. And it is horribly tedious. 
 You say it is society. Suppose it is. It is not good 
 society." 
 
 " And you must own," said Polly Ingham, who had 
 come up at that moment, a very bright person she, 
 who is wholly at home in our house, u you must own 
 that good society means something." 
 
 " Of course it does," interrupted Maria, " it means 
 such society as I have in this house." We all bowed 
 double. " You shall not laugh me out of it ; it means 
 society where people know something, where they talk 
 about nice things, about books, and pictures, and 
 music, and political economy, and flowers, and people, 
 and history, and religion, and talk easily, not because 
 they want to teach you nor because they want to 
 learn, but because they are nice themselves, and be 
 cause the others are nice. That is what I mean by 
 good society. Such society as you read about in 
 books. Such society as Mr. Warrington lived in some 
 times. Well, such society as they have in Europe." 
 
 " Yes," said Polly, dreamily, 4i do you remember 
 those charming three months we spent with the Steins, 
 the Von Steins, when Fred was laying the wire in 
 Siberia ? That was really good society." 
 
 10* o 
 
226 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 I saw what Polly meant, and I confessed that it was. 
 So Maria begged me not to scold her any more, but 
 tell all about it, and I sent for the photograph portfolio, 
 and showed her Baron Von Stein s house, before and 
 behind, and the lovely bow-window, and the interior, 
 with the old Baroness knitting, and the family pictures, 
 and then told her of the pleasant time we spent there. 
 I was not there three months, nor anything like it. 
 But I believe the ladies were, and I was there long 
 enough to see and enjoy. 
 
 It was one of those immense Silesian estates, as 
 big as a reasonable county, and the life was indeed 
 thorough domestic life. There were guests dis 
 tinguished, and guests not distinguished. Most of us 
 met at breakfast, all of us at dinner, and after 
 dinner we generally were all together, on the lawn, 
 or in the great library, or in the music-room. Bil 
 liards, if you wanted billiards ; books, if you wanted 
 books ; cards, if you wanted cards ; and music, if you 
 wanted music. But really the talk was so good, that, 
 for my part, I liked that better than all the rest, and 
 so did most of the company ; and so we fell to telling 
 Maria about the company, about Yon Stein himself, 
 how well he bore his almost total blindness, how little 
 he complained of his sufferings, what a marvellous 
 man he was, in his remembrances and in his accom 
 plishments. A nobleman of the bluest blood, with 
 sixteen times sixteen quarterings ; one of his ancestors, 
 whose autograph and sword and boots he showed us, 
 
GOOD SOCIETY. 227 
 
 was a nobleman in Luther s time, and distinguished in 
 that Protestant history ; and Von Stein himself had 
 inherited all that Protestantism. He was the most 
 radical of noblemen. His house was even then full 
 of exiles. " A perfect State Prison for State offend 
 ers," he used to call it. There was Rivoli from 
 Genoa, the popular preacher of yesterday ; there was 
 young Rodinoff and his pretty German wife. His 
 father was in Siberia, and it had been intimated to 
 him that he had better travel outside of Russia. There 
 was Van der Donck, who had lived so long in the 
 Levant; and those charming Lavater girls, whose 
 poor father " O, there were too many, too many 
 for to name." But we told Maria enough about them 
 to interest her, and I sent Nelly to bring the Christmas 
 album which Von Stein printed in memory of our 
 visit. 
 
 It had exquisite etchings and lithographs of the 
 drawings the ladies and Van der Donck had made. 
 It had two little waltzes which Friesland had written 
 for Clara Lavater. It had a long letter which I had 
 written them from Bellinzona, after I left them. It 
 had a sermon which Rivoli preached to us one Sunday 
 on the terrace, which had been privily taken down 
 in short-hand by Emert Von Stein. It had a ballad 
 by Count George, and a story by Fanny. Polly said 
 there was nothing of hers but a crochet pattern, which 
 she had given the Baroness. There was something 
 from everybody, and Von Stein had had forty copies 
 
228 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 elegantly printed that autumn, and had sent one to 
 each of us with his Christmas wishes for many happy 
 returns of our visit. 
 
 I said Von Stein was certainly one of the most 
 accomplished men I ever knew. Such a master of 
 languages, for his English was as grammatical as 
 mine, and he seemed to speak six other languages 
 as well ; he drew so well, he played on the violin and 
 piano so well, he rode so well, he danced so well, and 
 he talked so well. Then, best accomplishment of all, 
 for it did not come of nature, but by grace to Von 
 Stein, he was so lovely to every one, kept his hot 
 temper under so completely, and was so perfectly 
 unselfish. 
 
 Polly laughed at my enthusiasm, and said, 
 
 " The Baron always was your hero ; but, for my 
 part, I liked our dear George the best of all that bril 
 liant company." 
 
 " There is no need of telling me that," said I. 
 
 And my wife laughed, and Polly blushed. 
 
 " I don t care," said she, " you may laugh as much 
 as you choose, but I like him, and I like his wife, too. 
 There s a nice letter I had from Gertrude only yester 
 day. If you could see him with the children as much 
 as I have, if you knew how he brought everything 
 into play for them, and for everybody ; if Wilhelm 
 was tired in the train, he would take out his scissors 
 and cut out stags and boars and knights out of the 
 newspaper. If little Minnie was sleepy, he would tell 
 
GOOD SOCIETY. 229 
 
 such ravishing fairy stories. I had rather a man 
 should do that than compose sixty sonatas." 
 
 " Especially," said I, " if he be a real count, and 
 be named on the great book at Vienna." 
 
 And we all laughed, and went out to dinner. 
 
 II. 
 
 After I had helped every one to boiled mutton, and 
 had given red gravy to all who would, Maria began 
 again. 
 
 " Now, cousin," said she, " you will own that there 
 is such a thing as good society, and that such people 
 as the Baron and Mrs. Ingham s Count give you good 
 society when you meet them, and that that is better 
 society than a tea-party at Madam Chenavard s, or a 
 sewing-society with the Dorcases." 
 
 " Well, Maria," said I, " I never met the Dorcases, 
 and I do not know Madam Chenavard ; but I dare 
 say what you say is true, and that Polly s Count 
 George and my Baron Von Stein received me into 
 better society than either." 
 
 Maria thanked me, and said I was not cross a bit, 
 and was a real reasonable cousin. And Polly s eyes 
 twinkled, for the whole conversation had been her- 
 plan. " And how, do you think," said she, " that we 
 got received into this good society ? " 
 
 Maria said she had meant to ask. 
 
 " I will tell you," said I. " I saw the Baron first 
 on the stoop here. I was sitting just where you were 
 
230 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 when the dinner-bell rang. He came up Hammond 
 Street, from Main Street, looking very dusty and very 
 tired. He was very shabby, too. He had a little 
 bundle made of a red cotton handkerchief, and a 
 walking-stick. I asked him to sit down, and said he 
 looked tired, and sent for a glass of water. Then I 
 found he had had no dinner, and I ordered cold 
 mutton here, and bread and cheese. And we came 
 in, and he sat just where you are sitting now, and 
 lie ate and talked, and I sat here and questioned. 
 After he had eaten his mutton, he had a pear, as I 
 hope you will when you have eaten yours. Then 
 we crossed the entry and came into the study, and we 
 had a long talk together. At last we got more at 
 ease, and I said to him that I thought he was about 
 my size, and that I had an old coat which I thought 
 would about fit him, and would he like to try it on. 
 He said he would, and I went up stairs and got it ; and 
 that was my first acquaintance with the Baron Von 
 Stein, and that was the way that afterward he came 
 to ask us to stay with him in Silesia." 
 
 " O cousin," said Maria, u you are joking ! " 
 " Not in the least, my dear child. The poor fellow 
 had been exiled after 49, and had come over here. 
 Here, it was the old story of exile. He very soon 
 ran through his ready money. What could he do 
 here? Why, he could write, he could translate. 
 And he did ; wrote his twelve hours a day, and I do 
 not know how many a night. Ruined his eyesight by 
 
GOOD SOCIETY. 231 
 
 his night proof-reading. He must do it, or starve, you 
 know. Then he was blind for months. Then he got 
 a little sight, just enough to go from door to door. 
 What could he do ? What but what he did ? He 
 went bravely from town to town, looking for pupils. 
 But who wanted a teacher that could not see the book 
 nor read the exercises ? Ah, Maria, you do not know 
 exile yet, nor how soon such a man s coat comes out 
 at elbows." 
 
 " But for all that, he was as accomplished a man 
 when he ate his cold mutton here as he was in his own 
 palace. And I remember I enjoyed our talk about 
 Ulric Von Hutten as much, that afternoon, as I ever 
 did any talk with him or with any man. I felt that 
 we had been in very good society that day. As it 
 happened, you see, he was the first baron I had ever 
 shaken hands with." 
 
 " And I," said Polly, who, as I said, had led this 
 whole talk, almost unknown to me, and wholly to 
 Maria, "I came into the society of the high nobility 
 of the old families in this way. I was spending the 
 summer and autumn in Cincinnati. Fred was sup 
 plying the pulpit there. There came down a note 
 from Governor Vance, to say that he had heard noth 
 ing from a German artist, named George Lichtenstein, 
 who had promised to write to him. Would Fred or 
 I call and see if they were all well ? I went to the 
 place, and found the furniture had been sold at auction 
 the week before. This looked odd ; and on inquiry it 
 
232 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 proved that it had all been pledged for the rent and 
 seized by the landlord. Then where were Mr. George 
 and his wife and little girls ? A pretty hunt they gave 
 .me. But what with the police and the schoolmistress, 
 and some children in the street, after three or four 
 days, I found them in a tenement room, three stories 
 high, perhaps twelve feet square. The Count George 
 was on his knees scrubbing up the floor, and his three 
 daughters were sitting on a trunk, because there was 
 nothing else to sit on, eating three doughnuts, with 
 nothing else to eat. That was the way Fred and I 
 came to be invited afterwards to visit them in Wirtem- 
 burg, and then went with them to Von Stein s. He 
 and Von Stein had been at Halle together when they 
 were young men." 
 
 " I do not say, Maria," said I, "that my luck with 
 tramps was always as good as this. They are often 
 sad sticks, almost always." 
 
 " And I do not say," said Polly, " that in up-stairs 
 ten-foot tenements, where are people who have run 
 away from their landlords, I have always found lovely 
 German girls or Counts of the Empire." 
 
 " But I do say," said I, " that the first requisite of good 
 society is, that you shall find some one who knows what 
 you do not, and has some notions to exchange against 
 yours, and that the wider the range of my acquaint 
 ance the more good society have I found." 
 
 And I say," said Polly, " that, though I never 
 made any effort about good society, it has happened 
 
GOOD SOCIETY. 233 
 
 that I have found it as often among the people who 
 were not trained in my way, at my schools, in my set, 
 or among my relatives, as anywhere." 
 
 " And I have found," said I, " that by entertaining 
 strangers, I have sometimes entertained angels una- 
 
DAILY BREAD. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 
 [First published in the Boston Daily Advertiser of Dec. 25, 1869.] 
 
 I. 
 A QUESTION OF NOURISHMENT. 
 
 "AND how is he?" said Robert, as he came in, 
 from his day s work, in every moment of which he 
 had thought of his child. He spoke in a whisper to 
 his wife, who met him in the narrow entry at the head 
 of the stairs. And in a whisper she replied. 
 
 u He is certainly no worse," said Mary; "the doc 
 tor says, maybe a shade better. At least," she said, 
 sitting on the lower step, and holding her husband s 
 hand, and still whispering, " at least he said that the 
 breathing seemed to him a shade easier, one lung 
 seemed to him a little more free, and that it is now a 
 question of time and nourishment." 
 
 tc Nourishment ? " 
 
 " Yes, nourishment, and I own my heart sunk as 
 he said so. Poor little thing, he loathes the slops, and 
 I told the doctor so. I told him the struggle and fight 
 to get them down his poor little throat gave him more 
 
DAILY BREAD. 235 
 
 flush and fever than anything. And then he begged 
 me not to try that again, asked if there were really 
 nothing that the child would take, and suggested every 
 thing so kindly. But the poor little thing, weak as he 
 is, seems to rise up with supernatural strength against 
 them all. I am not sure, though, but perhaps we may 
 do something with the old milk and water; that is 
 really my only hope now, and that is the reason I spoke 
 to you so cheerfully." 
 
 Then poor Mary explained more at length that 
 Emily had brought in Dr. Cummings s Manual about 
 the use of milk with children, and that they had sent 
 round to the Corlisses , who always had good milk, 
 and had set a pint according to the direction, and had 
 watered it thus and so according to the formula ; and 
 that though dear little Jamie had refused the groats 
 and the barley, and I know not what else, that at six 
 he had gladly taken all the watered milk they dared 
 to give him, and that it now had rested on his stomach 
 half an hour, so that she could not but hope that the 
 tide had turned, only she hoped with trembling, be 
 cause he had so steadily refused cow s milk only the 
 week before. 
 
 This rapid review in her entry, of the bulletins of 
 a day, is really the beginning of this Christmas story. 
 No matter which day it was, it was a little before 
 Christinas, and one of the shortest days, but I have 
 forgotten which. Enough that the baby, for he was a 
 baby still, just entering his thirteenth month, enough 
 
236 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 that he did relish the milk, so carefully measured and 
 prepared, and hour by hour took his little dole of it as 
 if it had come from his mother s breast. Enough that 
 three or four days went by so, the little thing ly 
 ing so still on his back in his crib, his lips still so blue, 
 and his skin of such deadly color against the white of 
 his pillow ; and that, twice a day, as Dr. Morton came 
 in and felt his pulse, and listened to the panting, he 
 smiled and looked pleased, and said, " We are getting 
 on better than I dared expect." Only every time he 
 said, " Does he still relish the milk ? " and every 
 time was so pleased to know that he took to it still, 
 and every day he added a teaspoonful or two to the 
 hourly dole ; and so poor Mary s heart was lifted day 
 by day. 
 
 This lasted till St. Victoria s day. Do you know 
 which day that is ? It is the second day before Christ 
 mas, and here, properly speaking, the story begins. 
 
 n. 
 
 ST. VICTORIA S DAY. 
 
 St. Victoria s day the doctor was full two hours 
 late. Mary was not anxious about this. She was be 
 ginning to feel bravely about the boy, and no longer 
 counted the minutes till she could hear the door-bell 
 ring. When he came he loitered in the entry below, 
 or she thought he did. He was long coming up 
 stairs. And, when he came in, she saw that he was 
 
DAILY BEE AD. 23 T 
 
 excited by something, was really even then panting 
 for breath. 
 
 " I am here at last," he said. " Did you think I 
 should fail you ? " 
 
 Why no, poor innocent Mary had not thought of 
 any such thing. She had known he would come ; 
 and baby was so well that she had not minded his 
 delay. 
 
 Morton looked up at the close-drawn shades, which 
 shut out the light, and said, You did not think of 
 the storm ? " 
 
 " Storm ? no ! " said poor Mary. She had noticed, 
 when Robert went to the door at seven and she 
 closed it after him, that some snow was falling. But 
 she had not thought of it again. She had kissed him, 
 told him to keep- up good heart, and had come back to 
 her baby. 
 
 Then the doctor told her that the storm which had 
 begun before daybreak had been gathering more and 
 more severely; that the drifts were already heavier 
 than he remembered them in all his Boston life ; that 
 after half an hour s trial in his sleigh he had been glad 
 to get back to the stable with his horse, and that all he 
 had done since he had done on foot, with difficulty she 
 could not conceive of. He had been so long down 
 stairs while he brushed the snow off, that he might be 
 fit to come near the child. 
 
 "And really, Mrs. Walter, we are doing so well 
 here," he said cheerfully, that I will not try to come 
 
238 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 round this afternoon, unless you see a change. If you 
 do, your husband must come up for me, you know. 
 But you will not need me, I am sure." 
 
 Mary felt quite brave to think that they should not 
 need him really for twenty-four hours, and said so ; 
 and added, with the first smile he had seen for a fort 
 night : " I do not know anybody to whom it is of less 
 account than to me, whether the streets are blocked 
 or open. Only I am sorry for you." 
 
 Poor Mary, how often she thought of that speech, 
 before Christmas day went by ! But she did not 
 think of it all through St. Victoria s day. Her hus 
 band did not come home to dinner. She did not 
 expect him; The children came from school at two, 
 rejoicing in the long morning session and the half-holi 
 day of the afternoon which had been earned by it. 
 They had some story of their frolic in the snow, and 
 after dinner went quietly away to their little play-room 
 in the attic. And Mary sat with her baby all the 
 afternoon, nor wanted other company. She could 
 count his breathing now, and knew how to time it 
 by the watch, and she knew that it^vvas steadier and 
 slower than it was the day before. And really he 
 almost showed an appetite for the hourly dole. Her 
 husband was not late. He had taken care of that, 
 and had left the shop an hour early. And .as he 
 came in and looked at the child from the other side of 
 the crib, and smiled so cheerfully on her, Mary felt 
 that she could not enough thank God for his mercy. 
 
DAILY BREAD. 239 
 
 in. 
 
 ST. VICTORIA S DAY IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Five-and-twenty miles away was another mother, 
 with a baby born the same day as Jamie. Mary had 
 never heard of her and never has heard of her, and, 
 unless she reads this story, never will hear of her till 
 they meet together in the other home, look each other 
 in the face, and know as they are known. Yet their 
 two lives, as you shall see, are twisted together, as 
 indeed are all lives, only they do not know it, as 
 how should they ? 
 
 A great day for Huldah Stevens was this St. Vic 
 toria s day. Not that she knew its name more than 
 Mary did. Indeed, it was only of late years that 
 Huldah Stevens had cared much for keeping Christ 
 mas day. But of late years they had all thought of 
 it more ; and, this year, on Thanksgiving day, at old 
 Mr. Stevens s, after great joking about the young 
 people s housekeeping, it had been determined, with 
 some banter, that the same party should meet with 
 John and Huldah on Christmas eve, with all Huldah s 
 side of the house besides, to a late dinner or early 
 supper, as the guests might please to call it. Little 
 difference between the meals, indeed, was there ever 
 in the profusion of these country homes. The men 
 folks were seldom at home at the noonday meal, call 
 it what you will; for they were all in the milk 
 business, as you will see. And, what with collecting 
 
240 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 the milk from the hill-farms, on the one hand, and then 
 carrying it for delivery at the three-o clock morning 
 milk-train, on the other hand, any hours which you, 
 dear reader, might consider systematic, or of course 
 in country life, were certainly always set aside. But, 
 after much conference, as I have said, it had been 
 determined at the Thanksgiving party that all hands 
 of both families should meet at John and Huldah s 
 as near three o clock as they could the day before 
 Christmas ; and then and there Huldah was to show 
 her powers in entertaining, at her first state family 
 party. 
 
 So this St. Victoria s day was a great day of prep 
 aration for Huldah, if she had only known its name, 
 as she did not. For she was of the kind which pre 
 pares in time, not of the kind that is caught out when 
 the company come, with the work half done. And as 
 John started on his collection beat that morning at 
 about the hour Robert, in town, kissed Mary good by, 
 Huldah stood on the step with him, and looked with 
 satisfaction on the gathering snow, because it would 
 make better sleighing the next day for her father and 
 mother to come over. She charged him not to forget 
 her box of raisins when he came back, and to ask at 
 the express if anything came up from town, bade him 
 good by, and turned back into the house, not wholly 
 dissatisfied to be almost alone. She washed her baby, 
 gave her her first lunch, and put her to bed. Then, 
 with the coast fairly clear, what woman does not 
 
DAILY BREAD. 241 
 
 enjoy a clear coast, if it only be early enough in the 
 morning? she dipped boldly and wisely "into her 
 flour-barrel, stripped her plump round arms to their 
 work, and began on the pie-crust which was to appear 
 to-morrow in the fivefold forms of apple, cranberry, 
 Maryborough, mince, and squash, careful and discrimi 
 nating in the nice chemistry of her mixtures and the 
 nice manipulations of her handicraft, but in no wise 
 dreading the issue. A long, active, lively morning 
 she had of it, Not dissatisfied with the stages of her 
 work, step by step she advanced, stage by stage she 
 attained of the elaborate plan which was well laid out 
 in her head, but of course, had never bsen intrusted 
 to words, far less to telltale paper. From the oven 
 at last came the pies, and she was satisfied with the 
 color ; from the other oven came the turkey, which 
 she proposed to have cold, as a relay, or piSce de 
 resistance, for any who might not be at hand at the 
 right moment for dinner. Into the empty oven went 
 the clove-blossoming ham, which, as it boiled, had 
 given the least appetizing odor to the kitchen. In the 
 pretty moulds in the wood-shed stood the translucent 
 cranberry hardening to its fixed consistency. In other 
 moulds the obedient calf s-foot already announced its 
 willingness and intention to gell " as she directed. 
 Huldah s decks were cleared again, her kitchen table 
 fit to cut out work > upon, -all the pans and plates 
 were put away, which accumulate so mysteriously 
 where cooking is going forward ; on its nail huno- the 
 
 11 
 
242 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 weary jigger, on its hook the spicy grater, on the roller 
 a fresh towel. Everything gave sign of victory, 
 the whole kitchen looking only a little nicer than usual. 
 Huldah herself was dressed for the afternoon, and so 
 was the baby ; and nobody but as acute observers as 
 you and I would have known that she had been in 
 action all along the line, and had won the battle at 
 every point, when / two o clock came, the earliest 
 moment at which her husband ever returned. 
 
 Then, for the first time, it occurred to Huldah to 
 look out doors and see how fast the snow was gather 
 ing. She knew it was still falling. But the storm 
 was a quiet one, and she had had too much to do to 
 be gaping out of the windows. She went to the shed 
 door, and, to her amazement, saw that the north wood 
 pile was wholly drifted in ! Nor could she, as she 
 stood, see the fences of the roadway ! 
 
 Huldah ran back into the house, opened the par 
 lor door and drew up the curtain, to see that there 
 were indeed no fences on the front of the house to 
 be seen. On the northwest, where the wind had full 
 sweep, between her and the barn, the ground was 
 bare. But all that snow, and who should say how 
 much more, was piled up in front of her ; so that 
 unless Huldah had known every landmark, she would 
 not have suspected that any road was ever there. 
 She looked uneasily out at the northwest windows, 
 but she could not see an inch to windward; dogged 
 Bnow, snow, snow, as if it would never be done. 
 
DAILY BREAD. 243 
 
 Huldah knew very well then that there was no hus 
 band for her in the next hour, nor most like in the 
 next or the next. She knew very well, too, what she 
 had to do, and, knowing it, she did it. She tied on 
 her hood, and buttoned tight around her her rough 
 sack, passed through the shed and crossed that bare 
 strip to the barn, opened the door with some difficulty, 
 because snow was already drifting into the doorway, 
 and entered. She gave the cows and oxen their water, 
 and the two night horses theirs ; went up into the 
 loft and pitched down hay enough for all ; went 
 down stairs to the pigs and cared for them ; took one 
 of the barn shovels and cleared a path where she 
 had had to plunge into the snow at the doorway ; took 
 the shovel back, and then crossed home again to her 
 baby. She thought she saw the Empsons chimney 
 smoking as she went home, and that seemed com 
 panionable. She took off her over-shoes, sack, and 
 hood, said aloud, " This will be a good stay-at-home 
 da} ," brought round her desk to the kitchen table, 
 and began on a nice long letter to her brother Cephas 
 in Sceattle. 
 
 That letter was finished, eight good quarto pages 
 written, and a long-delayed letter to Emily Tabor, 
 whom Huldah had not seen since she was married ; 
 and a long pull at her milk accounts had brought them 
 up to date, and still no John. Huldah had the 
 table all set, you may be sure of that ; but for her 
 self, she had had no heart to go through the formalities 
 
244 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 of lunch or dinner. A cup of tea and something to 
 eat with it as she wrote did better, she thought, for 
 her; and she could eat when the men came. It is a 
 way women have. Not till it became quite dark, and 
 she set her kerosene lamp in the window that he might 
 have a chance to see it when he turned the Locust 
 Grove corner, did Huldah once feel herself lonely, or 
 permit herself to wish that she did not live in a place 
 where she could be cut off from all her race. " If 
 John had gone into partnership with Jo Winter, and 
 we had lived in Boston ! " This was the thought that 
 crossed her mind. Dear Huldah, from the end of 
 one summer to the beginning of the next, Jo Winter 
 does not go home to his dinner ; and what you ex 
 perience to-day, so far as absence from your husband 
 goes, is what his wife experiences in Boston ten 
 months, save Sundays, in every year. 
 
 I do not mean that Huldah winced or whined. 
 Not she. Only she did think "if." Then she sat in 
 front of the stove and watched the coals, and for a 
 little while continued to think " if." Not long. Very 
 soon she was engaged in planning how she would ar 
 range the table to-morrow, whether mother Stevens 
 should cut the chicken-pie, or whether she would have 
 that in front of her own mother. Then she fell to 
 planning what she would make for Cynthia s baby ; 
 and then to wondering whether Cephas was in ear 
 nest in that half-nonsense he wrote about Sibyl Dyer ; 
 and then the clock struck six ! 
 
DAILY BREAD. 245 
 
 No bells yet, no husband, no anybody. Lan 
 tern out and lighted. Rubber boots on, hood and 
 sack. Shed-shovel in one hand, lantern in the other. 
 Roadway still bare, but a drift as high as Huldah s 
 shoulders at the barn door. Lantern on the ground ; 
 snow-shovel in both hands now. One, two, three ! 
 one cubic foot out. One, two, three ! another 
 cubic foot out. And so on, and so on, and so on, 
 till the doorway is clear again. Lantern in one 
 hand, snow-shovel in the other, we enter the barn, 
 draw the water for cows and oxen ; we shake down 
 more hay, and see to the pigs again. This time we 
 make beds of straw for the horses and the cattle. Nay, 
 we linger a minute or two, for there is something com 
 panionable there. Then we shut them in the dark, 
 and cross the well-cleared roadway to the shed, and so 
 home again. Certainly Mrs. Empson s kerosene lamp 
 is in her window. That must be her light which gives 
 a- little halo in that direction in the falling snow. 
 That looks like society. 
 
 And this time Huldah undresses the baby, puts on 
 her yellow flannel nightgown, makes the whole as 
 long as it may be, and then, still making believe be 
 jolly, lights another lamp, eats her own supper, clears it 
 away, and cuts into the new Harper which John had 
 brought up to her the day before. 
 
 But the Harper is dull reading to her, though 
 generally so attractive. And when her Plymouth 
 Hollow clock consents to strike eight at last, Huldah, 
 
246 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 who has stented herself to read till eight, gladly puts 
 down the " Travels in Arizona," which seem to her as 
 much like the " Travels in Peru," of the month before, 
 as those had seemed like the " Travels in Chinchilla." 
 Rubber boots again, lantern again, sack and hood 
 a;ain. The men will be in no case for milkino- when 
 
 3 O 
 
 they come. So Huldah brings together their pails, 
 takes her shovel once more and her lantern, digs 
 out the barn drift again, and goes over to" milk little 
 Carry and big Fanchon. For, though the milk of a 
 hundred cows passes under those roofs and out again 
 every day, Huldah is far too conservative to abandon 
 the custom which she inherits from some Thorfinn or 
 some Elfrida ; and her husband is well pleased to hu 
 mor her, in keeping in that barn always at least two 
 of the choicest three-quarter blood cows that he can 
 choose for the family supply. Only, in general, he or 
 Reuben milks them ; as duties are divided there, this 
 is not Huldah s share. But on this eve of St. Spiri- 
 don the gentle creatures were glad when she came in ; 
 and in two journeys back and forth Huldah had 
 carried her well-filled pails into her dairy. This 
 helped along the hour, and just after nine o clock 
 struck she could hear the cheers of the men at last. 
 She ran out again with the ready lighted lantern to 
 the shed door, in an instant had on her boots and 
 sack and hood, had crossed to the barn, and slid 
 open the great barn door, and stood there with her 
 light, another Hero for another Leander to buffet 
 
DAILY BREAD. 247 
 
 towards, through the snow. A sight to see were the two 
 men, to be sure ! And a story indeed they had to tell ! 
 On their different beats they had fought snow all day ; 
 had been breaking roads with the help of the farmers 
 where they could ; had had to give up more than hali 
 of the outlying farms, sending such messages as they 
 might, that the outlying farmers might bring down 
 to-morrow s milk to such stations as they could ar 
 range ; and, at last, by good luck, had both met at the 
 depot in the hollow, where each had gone to learn at 
 what hour the milk-train might be expected in the 
 morning. Little reason was there indeed to expect 
 it at all. Nothing had passed the station-master since 
 the morning express, called lightning by satire, had 
 slowly pushed up with three or four engines five hours 
 behind its time, and just now had come down a mes 
 senger from them that he should telegraph to Boston 
 that they were all blocked up at Tyler s Summit, 
 the snow drifting beneath their wheels faster than they 
 could clear it. Above, the station-master said^ noth 
 ing whatever had yet passed Winchendon. Five en 
 gines had gone out from Fitchburg eastward, but in the 
 whole day they had not come as far as Leominster. 
 It was very "clear that no milk-train nor any other 
 train would be on time the next morning. 
 
 Such was, in brief, John s report to Huldah, when 
 they had got to that state of things in which a man 
 can make a report ; that is, after they had rubbed dry 
 the horses, had locked up the barn, after the men had 
 
248 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 rubbed themselves dry and had put on dry clothing, 
 and after each of them, sitting on the fire side of 
 the table, had drunk his first cup of tea and eaten his 
 first square cubit of dip-toast. After the dip-toast, 
 they were going to begin on Huldah s fried potatoes 
 and sausages. 
 
 Huldah heard their stories with all their infinite 
 little details ; knew every corner and turn by which 
 they had husbanded strength and life ; was grateful to 
 the Corbetts and Varnums and Prescotts and the rest, 
 who, with their oxen and their red right-hands had 
 given such loyal help for the common good ; and 
 she heaved a deep sigh when the story ended with the 
 verdict of the failure of the whole, " No trains on 
 time to-morrow." 
 
 " Bad for the Boston babies," said Reuben bluntly, 
 giving words to what the others were feeling. " Poor 
 little things ! " said Huldah, " Alice has been so pretty 
 all day." And she gulped down just one more sigh, 
 disgusted with herself as she remembered that " if" 
 of the afternoon, " If John had only gone into 
 partnership with Jo Winter." 
 
 IV. 
 
 HOW THEY BROKE THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 Three o clock in the morning saw Huldah s fire 
 burning in the stove, her water boiling in the kettle, 
 her slices of ham broiling on the gridiron, and quarter 
 
DAILY BREAD. 249 
 
 past three saw the men come across from the barn, 
 where they had been shaking down hay for the cows 
 and horses, and yoking the oxen for the terrible onset 
 of the day. It was bright starlight above, thank 
 Heaven for that. This strip of three hundred thou 
 sand square miles of snow cloud, which had been drift 
 ing steadily east over a continent, was, it seemed, only 
 twenty hours wide, say two hundred miles, more or 
 less, and at about midnight its last flecks had fallen, 
 and all the heaven was washed black and clear. The 
 men were well rested by those five hours of hard sleep. 
 They were fitly dressed for their great encounter, and 
 started cheerily upon it, as men who meant to do their 
 duty, and to both of whom, indeed, the thought had 
 come that life and death might be trembling in their 
 hands. They did not take out the pungs to-day, nor, 
 of course, the horses. Such milk as they had col 
 lected on St. Victoria s day they had stored already at 
 the station and at Stacy s, and the best they could do 
 to-day would be to break open the road from the Four 
 Corners to the station, that they might place as many 
 cans as possible there before the down train came. 
 From the house, then, they had only to drive down 
 their oxen that they might work with the other teams 
 from the Four Corners ; and it was only by begging 
 him that Huldah persuaded Reuben to take one lunch 
 can for them both. Then, as Reuben left the door, 
 leaving John to kiss her good by, and to tell her 
 not to be alarmed if they did not come home at night, 
 
 11 * 
 
250 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 she gave to John the full milk- can Into which she 
 had poured every drop of Carry s milk, and said, " It 
 will be one more, and God knows what child may 
 be crying for it now." 
 
 So they parted for eight-and-twenty hours ; and in 
 place of Huldah s first state party of both families, she 
 and Alice reigned solitary that day, and held their lit 
 tle court with never a suitor. And when her lunch- 
 time came, Huldah looked half mournfully, half mer 
 rily, on her array of dainties prepared for the feast, 
 and she would not touch one of them. She toasted 
 some bread b efore the fire, made a cup of tea, boiled 
 an egg, and would not so much as set the table. As 
 has been before stated, this is the way with women. 
 
 And of the men, who shall tell the story of the 
 pluck and endurance, of the unfailing good-will, of the 
 resource in strange emergency, of the mutual help and 
 common courage, with which they all worked that 
 day on that wellnigh hopeless task, of breaking open 
 the highway from the Corners to the station ? Well- 
 nigh hopeless, indeed ; for although at first, with fresh 
 cattle and united effort, they made in the hours, which 
 passed so quickly up to ten o clock, near two miles 
 headway, and had brought yesterday s milk thus far, 
 
 more than half-way to their point of delivery, at 
 ten o clock it was quite evident that this sharp north 
 west wind, which told so heavily on the oxen and 
 even on the men, was filling in the very roadway they 
 had opened, and so was cutting them off from their 
 
DAILY BREAD. 251 
 
 base, and, by its new drifts, was leaving the roadway 
 for to-day s milk even worse than it was when they 
 began. In one of those extemporized councils, then, 
 such as fought the battle of Bunker Hill, and threw 
 the tea into Boston Harbor, it was determined, at 
 ten o clock, to divide the working parties. The larger 
 body should work back to the Four Corners, and by 
 proper relays keep that trunk line of road open, if 
 they could ; while six yoke, with their owners, still 
 pressing forward to the station, should make a new 
 base at Lovejoy s, where, when these oxen gave out, 
 they could be put up at his barn. It was quite clear, 
 indeed, to the experts, that that time was not far dis 
 tant. 
 
 And so indeed it proved. By three in the after 
 noon, John and Reuben, and the other leaders of the 
 advance party, namely, the whole of it, for such is the 
 custom of New England, gathered around the fire at 
 Lovejoy s, conscious that after twelve hours of such 
 battle as Pavia never saw, nor Roncesvalles, they 
 were defeated at every point but one. Before them 
 the mile of road, which they had made in the steady 
 work of hours, was drifted in again as smooth as the 
 surrounding pastures, only, if possible, a little more 
 treacherous for the labor which they had thrown away 
 upon it. The oxen which had worked kindly and 
 patiently, well handled by good-tempered men, yet all 
 confused and half dead with exposure, could do no 
 more. Well, indeed, if those that had been stalled 
 
252 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 fast, and had had to stand in that biting wind after 
 gigantic effort, escaped with their lives from such 
 exposure. All that the men had gained was, that they 
 had advanced their first depot of milk, two hundred 
 and thirty-nine cans as far as Lovejoy s. What 
 supply might have worked down to the Four Corners 
 behind them, they did not know and hardly cared, 
 their communications that way being wellnigh cut off 
 again. What they thought of and planned for was 
 simply how these cans at Lovejoy s could be put on 
 any downward train. For, by this time, they knew 
 that all trains would have lost their grades and their 
 names, and that this milk would go into Boston by the 
 first engine that went there, though it rode on the 
 velvet of a " palace car." 
 
 What train this might be they did not know. From 
 the hill above Lovejoy s they could see poor old Dix, 
 the station-master, with his wife and boys, doing his 
 best to make an appearance of shovelling in front of 
 his little station. But Dix s best was but little, for he 
 had but one arm, having lost the other in a collision ; 
 and so, as a sort of pension, the company had placed 
 him at this little flag-station, where was a roof over 
 his head, a few tickets to sell, and generally very 
 little else to do. It was clear enough that no working 
 parties on the railroad had worked up to Dix, or had 
 worked down, nor was it very likely that any would 
 before night, unless the railroad people had better luck 
 with their drifts than our friends had found. But as 
 
DAILY BREAD. 253 
 
 to this, who should say ? Snow-drifts are " mighty 
 onsartain." The line of that road is in general north 
 west, and to-day s wind might have cleaned out its 
 gorges as persistently as it had filled up our cross-cuts. 
 From Lovejoy s barn they could see that the track was 
 now perfectly clear for the Jbalf-mile where it crossed 
 the Prescott meadows. 
 
 I am sorry to have been so long in describing thus 
 the aspect of the field after the first engagement. But 
 it was on this condition of affairs that, after full con 
 ference, the enterprises of the night were determined. 
 Whatever was to be done was to be done by men. 
 And after thorough regale on Mrs. Lovejoy s green 
 tea, and continual return to her constant relays of thin 
 bacon gilded by unnumbered eggs ; after cutting and 
 coming again upon unnumbered mince-pies, which, I 
 am sorry to say, did not in any point compare well 
 with Huldah s, each man thrust many doughnuts 
 into his outside pockets, drew on the long boots again, 
 and his buckskin gloves and mittens, and, unencum 
 bered now by the care of animals, started on the work 
 of the evening. The sun was just taking his last look 
 at them from the western hills, where Reuben and 
 John could see Huldah s chimney smoking. The plan 
 was, by taking a double hand-sled of Lovejoy s, and by 
 knocking together two or three more, jumper-fashion, 
 to work their way across the meadow to the railroad 
 causeway, and establish a milk depot there, where 
 the line was not half a mile from Lovejoy s. By 
 
254 THE IXGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 going and coming often, following certain tracks well 
 known to Lovejoy on the windward side of walls 
 and fences, these eight men felt quite sure that, by 
 midnight, they could place all their milk at the spot 
 where the old farm crossing strikes the railroad. 
 Meanwhile Silas Lovejoy, a boy of fourteen, was to 
 put on a pair of snow-shoes, go down to the station, 
 state the case to old Dix, and get from him a red 
 lantern and permission to stop the first train where it 
 swept out from the Pitman cut upon the causeway. 
 Old Dix had no more right to give this permission 
 than had the humblest street-sweeper in Ispahan, and 
 this they all knew. But the fact that Silas had asked 
 for it would show a willingness on their part to submit 
 to authority, if authority there had been. This satis 
 fied the New England love of law on the one hand. 
 On the other hand, the train would be stopped, and 
 this satisfied the New England determination to get 
 the thing done any way. To give additional force to 
 Silas, John provided him with a note to Dix, and it was 
 generally agreed that, if Dix was n t ugly, he would 
 give the red lantern and the permission. Silas was 
 then to work up the road and station himself as far 
 beyond the curve as he could, and stop the first down 
 train. He was to tell the conductor where the men 
 were waiting with the milk, was to come down to 
 them on the train, and his duty would be done. Lest 
 Dix should be ugly, Silas was provided with Lovejoy s 
 only lantern, but he was directed not to show this at 
 
DAILY BREAD. 255 
 
 the station until his interview was finished. 
 started cheerfully on his snow-shoes ; John and Love- 
 joy, at the same time, starting with the first hand-sled 
 of the cans. First of all into the sled John put 
 Huldah s well-known can, a little shorter than the 
 others, and with a different handle. " Whatever else 
 went to Boston," he said, " that can was bound to go 
 through." 
 
 They established the basis of their pyramid, and 
 met the three new jumpers with their makers as they 
 went back for more. This party enlarged the base of 
 the pyramid, and, as they worked, Silas passed them 
 cheerfully with his red lantern. Old Dix had not 
 been ugly, had given the lantern and all the permis 
 sion he had to give, and had communicated some intel 
 ligence also. The intelligence was, that an accumu 
 lated force of seven engines, with a large working 
 party, had left Groton Junction downward at three. 
 Nothing had arrived upward at Groton Junction, and, 
 from Boston, Dix learned that nothing more would 
 leave there till early morning. No trains had arrived 
 in Boston from any quarter for twenty-four hours. So 
 long the blockade had lasted already. 
 
 On this intelligence it was clear that, with good 
 luck, the down train might reach them at any moment. 
 Still the men resolved to leave their milk, while they 
 went back for more, relying on Silas and the " large 
 working party" to put it on the cars, if the train 
 chanced to pass before any of them returned. So 
 
256 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 back they fared to Lovejoy s for their next relay, and 
 met John and Reuben working in successfully with 
 their second. But no one need have hurried ; for, as, 
 trip after trip, they built their pyramid of cans higher 
 and higher, no welcome whistle broke the stillness of 
 the night, and by ten o clock, when all these cans 
 were in place by the rail, the train had not yet come. 
 John and Reuben then proposed to go up into the 
 cut, and to relieve poor Silas, who had not been heard 
 from since he swung along so cheerfully like an " Ex 
 celsior " boy on his way up the Alps. But they had 
 hardly started, when a horn from the meadow recalled 
 them, and, retracing their way, they met a messenger 
 who had come in to say that a fresh team from the 
 Four Corners had been reported at Lovejoy s, with a 
 dozen or more men, who had succeeded in bringing 
 down nearly as far as Lovejoy s mowing-lot near a 
 hundred more cans ; that it was quite possible in two 
 or three hours more to bring these over also ; and, 
 although the first train was probably now close at 
 hand, it was clearly worth while to place this relief in 
 readiness for a second. So poor Silas was left for the 
 moment to his loneliness, and Reuben and John re 
 turned again upon their steps. They passed the house, 
 where they found Mrs. Lovejoy and Mrs. Stacy at 
 work in the shed, finishing off two more jumpers, and 
 claiming congratulation for their skill ; and after a cup 
 of tea again, for no man touched spirit that day nor 
 that night, they reported at the new station by the 
 Mowing-Lot. 
 
DAILY BREAD. 257 
 
 And Silas Lovejoy, who had turned the corner 
 into the Pitman Cut, and so shut himself out from 
 sight of the station light, or his father s windows, or 
 the lanterns of the party at the Pyramid of Cans, 
 Silas Lovejoy held his watch there hour by hour, with 
 such courage as the sense of the advance gives boy or 
 man. He had not neglected to take the indispensable 
 shovel as he came. In going over the causeway he 
 had slipped off the snow-shoes and hung them on his 
 back. Then there was heavy wading as he turned 
 into the Pitman Cut, knee deep, middle deep, and he 
 laid his snow-shoes on the snow, and set the red lan 
 tern on them, as he reconnoitred. Middle deep, neck 
 deep, and he fell forward on his face into the yielding 
 mass. " This will not do ; I must not fall like that 
 often," said Silas to himself, as he gained his balance 
 and threw himself backward against the snow. Slowly 
 he turned round, worked back to the lantern, worked 
 out to the causeway, and fastened on the shoes again. 
 With their safer help he easily skimmed up to Pit 
 man s bridge, which he had determined on for his sta 
 tion. He knew that thence his lantern could be seen 
 for a mile, and that yet there the train might safely be 
 stopped, so near was the open causeway which he had 
 just traversed. He had no fear of an up train behind 
 him. 
 
 So Silas walked back and forth, and sang, and 
 spouted ; pieces," and mused on the future of his life, 
 and spouted "pieces" again, and sang in the loneli- 
 
 Q 
 
258 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 ness. How the time passed he did not know. No 
 sound of clock, no baying of dog, no plash of waterfall, 
 broke that utter stillness. The wind, thank God, had 
 at last died away, and Silas paced his beat in a long 
 oval he made for himself, under and beyond the bridge, 
 with no sound but his own voice when he chose to 
 raise it. He expected, as they all did, that every mo 
 ment the whistle of the train, as it swept into sight a 
 mile or more away, would break the silence ; so he 
 paced, and shouted, and sang. 
 
 " This is a man s duty," he said to himself; " they 
 would not let me go with the Fifth Regiment, not as 
 a drummer-boy ; but this is duty such as no drummer- 
 boy of them all is doing. Company, march ! " and he 
 " stepped forward smartly " with his left foot. a Really 
 I am placed on guard here quite as much as if I were 
 on picket in Virginia." "Who goes there? Ad 
 vance, friend, and give the countersign." Not that 
 any one did go there, or could go there ; but the boy s 
 fancy was ready, and so he amused himself during the 
 first hours. Then he began to wonder whether they 
 were hours, as they seemed, or whether this was all a 
 wretched illusion, whether the time passed slowly to 
 him because he was nothing but a boy, and did not 
 know how to occupy his mind. So he resolutely said 
 the multiplication-table from the beginning to the end, 
 and from the end to the beginning, first to himself, 
 and again aloud, to make it slower. Then he tried 
 the ten commandments. " Thou shalt have none other 
 
DAILY BREAD. 259 
 
 gods before me " ; easy to say that beneath those \ 
 stars ; and he said them again. " No, it is no illusion. 
 I must have been here hours long ! " Then he began 
 on Milton s hymn : 
 
 " It was the winter wild 
 
 While the heaven-born child 
 All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies." 
 
 "Winter wild indeed," said Silas aloud; and if 
 he had only known it, at that moment the sun be 
 neath his feet was crossing the meridian, midnight 
 had passed already, and Christmas day was born ! 
 
 " Only with speeches fair 
 She wooes the gentle air 
 To hide her guilty front with innocent snow." 
 
 " Innocent, indeed," said poor Silas, still aloud ; 
 " much did he know of innocent snow " ; and vainly 
 did he try to recall the other stanzas as he paced back 
 and forth, round and round, and began now to won 
 der where his father and the others were, and if they 
 could have come to any misfortune. Surely, they 
 could not have forgotten that he was here. Would 
 that train never come ? 
 
 If he were not afraid of its coming at once, he would 
 have run back to the causeway to look for their lights, 
 and perhaps they had a fire. Why had he not 
 brought an axe for a fire ? " That rail-fence above 
 would have served perfectly, nay, it is not five rods 
 to a load of hickory we left the day before Thanksgiv- 
 
260 THE EvfGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 ing. Surely one of them might come up to me with 
 an axe. But maybe there is trouble below. They 
 might have come with an axe, with an axe, with 
 
 an axe , with an axe " " I am going to 
 
 sleep," cried Silas, aloud again this time, as his 
 head dropped heavily on the handle of the shovel he 
 was resting on there in the lee of the stone-wall. " I 
 am going to sleep, that will never do. Sentinel 
 asleep at his post. Order out the relief. Blind his 
 eyes. Kneel, sir. Make ready. Fire. That, sir, 
 for sentinels asleep." And so Silas laughed grimly 
 and began his march again. Then he took his shovel 
 and began a great pit where he supposed the track 
 might be beneath him. " Anything to keep warm and 
 to keep awake. But why did they not send up to 
 him ? Why was he here ? Why was he all alone ? 
 He who had never been alone before. Was he alone ? 
 Was there companionship in the stars, or in the 
 good God who held the stars ? Did the good God 
 put me here ? If "He put me here, will He keep me 
 here ? Or did He put me here to die ! To die in this 
 cold ? It is cold ; it is very cold ! Is there any good 
 in my dying ? The train will run down, and they will 
 see a dead body lying under the bridge, black on 
 the snow, with a red lantern by it. Then they will 
 stop. Shall I I will just go back to see if the 
 lights are at the bend. I will leave the lantern here 
 on the edge of this wall ! " And so Silas turned, half 
 benumbed, worked his way nearly out of the gorge, 
 
DAILY BREAD. 261 
 
 and started as he heard, or thought he heard, a baby s 
 scream. " A thousand babies are starving, and I am 
 afraid to stay here to give them their life," he said. 
 " There is a boy fit for a soldier ! Order out the 
 relief! Drum-head court-martial! Prisoner, hear 
 your sentence ! Deserter to be shot ! Blindfold, 
 kneel, sir ! Fire ! Good enough for deserters ! " 
 And so poor Silas worked back again to the lantern. 
 
 And now he saw and felt sure that Orion was bend 
 ing downward, and he knew that the night must be 
 broken ; and, with some new hope, throwing down the 
 shovel with which he had been working, he began his 
 soldier tramp once more, as far as soldier tramp was 
 possible with those trailing snow-shoes, tried again 
 on "No war nor battle sound," broke down on 
 " Cynthia s seat " and the music of the spheres, but 
 at last, working on " beams," " long beams," and 
 " that with long beams," he caught the stanzas he 
 was feeling for, and broke out exulting with, 
 
 " At last surrounds their sight, 
 
 A globe of circular light, 
 That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed ; 
 
 The helmed cherubim 
 
 And sworded seraphim 
 Are seen in glittering ranks " 
 
 " Globe of circular light, am I dreaming, or have 
 they come ? " 
 
 Come they had ! The globe^of circular light swept 
 full over the valley, and the scream of the engine was 
 
262 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 welcomed by the freezing boy as if it had been an 
 angel s whisper to him. Not unprepared did it find 
 him. The red lantern swung to and fro in a well- 
 practised hand, and he was in waiting on his firmest 
 spot as the train slowed and the engine passed him. 
 
 " Do not stop for me," he cried, as he threw his 
 weight heavily on the tender side, and the workmen 
 dragged him in. " Only run slow till you are out of 
 the ledge ; we have made a milk station at the cross 
 road." 
 
 " Good for you," said the wondering fireman, who 
 in a moment understood the exigency. The heavy 
 plough threw out the snow steadily still. In ten sec 
 onds they were clear of the ledge, and saw the fire 
 light shimmering on the great pyramids of milk-cans. 
 Slower and slower ran the train, and by the blazing 
 fire stopped, for once because its masters chose to 
 stop. And the working party on the train cheered 
 lustily as they tumbled out of the cars, as they appre 
 hended the situation, and were cheered by the work 
 ing party from the village. 
 
 Two or three cans of milk stood on the embers of 
 the fire, that they might be ready for the men on the 
 train with something that was at least warm. An 
 empty passenger car was opened, and the pyramids of 
 milk-cans were hurried into it, forty men now as 
 sisting. 
 
 " You will find Jo Winter at the Boston station," 
 said John Stevens to the " gentlemanly conductor " 
 
DAILY BREAD. 263 
 
 of the express, whose lightning train had thus become 
 a milk convoy. u Tell Winter to distribute this among 
 all the carts, that everybody may have some. Good 
 luck to you. Good by ! " And the engines snorted 
 again, and John Stevens turned back, not so much as 
 thinking that he had made his Christmas present to a 
 starving town. 
 
 V. 
 
 CHRISTMAS MORNING. 
 
 The children were around Robert Walter s knees, 
 and each of the two spelled out a verse of the second 
 chapter of Luke, on Christmas morning. And Rob 
 ert and Mary kneeled with them, and they said to 
 gether, U 0ur Father who art in heaven." Mary s 
 voice broke a little when they came to " daily bread," 
 but with the two, and her husband, she continued to 
 the end, and could say " Thine is the power," and 
 believe it too. 
 
 " Mamma," whispered little Fanny, as she kissed 
 her mother after the prayer, " when I said my prayers 
 up stairs last night, I said c our daily milk, and so did 
 Robert." This was more than poor Mary could bear. 
 She kissed the child, and she hurried away. 
 
 For last night at six o clock it was clear that the 
 milk was sour, and little Jamie had detected it first of 
 all. Then, with every one of the old wiles, they had 
 gone back over the old slops, but the child, with that 
 old weird strength, had pushed them all away. 
 
264 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 Christmas morning broke, and poor Robert, as soon 
 as light would serve, had gone to the neighbors all, 
 their nearest intimates they had tried the night 
 before, and from all had brought back the same 
 reply ; one friend had sent a wretched sample, but the 
 boy detected the taint and pushed it, untasted, away. 
 Dr. Morton had taken the alarm the day before. He 
 was at the house earlier than usual with some con 
 densed milk, which his wife s stores had furnished ; but 
 that would not answer. Poor Jamie pushed this by. 
 There was some smoke or something, who should 
 say what ? it would not do. The doctor could see 
 in an instant how his patient had fallen back in the 
 night. That weird, anxious, entreating look, as his 
 head lay back on the little pillow, had all come back 
 again. Robert and Robert s friends, Gaisford and 
 Warren, then went down to the Old Colony, to the 
 Worcester, and to the Hartford stations. Perhaps 
 their trains were doing better. The door-bell rang 
 yet ao;ain. " Mrs. Appleton s love to Mrs. Walter, 
 and perhaps her child will try some fresh beef-tea." 
 As if poor Jamie did not hate beef-tea ; still Morton 
 resolutely forced three spoonfuls down. Half an hour 
 more and Mrs. Dudley s compliments. " Mrs. Dudley 
 heard that Mrs. Walter was out of milk, and took the 
 liberty to send round some very particularly nice 
 Scotch groats, which her brother had just brought 
 from Edinburgh." " Do your best with it, Fanny," 
 said poor Mary ; but she knew that if Jamie took those 
 
DAILY BREAD. 265 
 
 Scotch groats, it was only because they were a Christ 
 mas present. Half an hour more ! Three more 
 spoonfuls of beef-tea after a fight. Door-bell again. 
 Carriage at the door. " "Would Mrs. Walter come 
 down and see Mrs. Fitch ? It was really very par 
 ticular." Mary was half dazed, and went down, she 
 did not know why. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Walter, you do not remember me," 
 said this eager girl, crossing the room and taking her 
 by both hands. 
 
 " Why no, yes, do I ? " said Mary, crying and 
 laughing together. 
 
 " Yes, you will remember, it was at church, at the 
 baptism. My Jennie and your Jamie were christened 
 the same day. And now I hear, we all know how 
 low he is, and perhaps he will share my Jennie s 
 breakfast. Dear Mrs. Walter, do let me try." 
 
 Then Mary saw that the little woman s cloak and 
 hat were already thrown off, which had not seemed 
 strange to her before, and the two passed quietly up 
 stairs together ; and Julia Fitch bent gently over him, 
 and cooed to him, and smiled to him, but could not 
 make the poor child smile. And they lifted him so 
 gently on the pillow, but only to hear him scream. 
 And she brought his head gently to her heart, and 
 drew back the little curtain that was left, and offered 
 to him her life ; but he was frightened, and did not 
 know her, and had forgotten what it was she gave him, 
 and screamed again ; and so they had to lay him back 
 
 12 
 
266 THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 gently upon the pillow. And then, as Julia was 
 saying she would stay, and how they could try 
 again, and could do this and that, then the door 
 bell rang again, and Mrs. Coleman had herself come 
 round with a little white pitcher, and herself run up 
 stairs with it, and herself knocked at the door I 
 
 The blockade was broken, and 
 
 The milk had come ! 
 
 Mary never knew that it was from Huldah Stevens s 
 milk-can that her boy drank in the first drops of his 
 new life. Nor did Huldah know it. Nor did John 
 know it, nor the paladins who fought that day at his 
 side. Nor did Silas Lovejoy know it. 
 
 But the good God and all good angels knew it. 
 Why ask for more ? 
 
 And you and I, dear reader, if we ever forget that 
 always our daily bread comes to us, because a thousand 
 brave men and a thousand brave women are at work 
 in the world, praying to God and trying to serve him, 
 we will not forget it as we meet at breakfast on this 
 blessed Christmas day I 
 
 THE END. 
 
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