CHAPTER IV
SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS
My first school was the pioneer Kindergarten of America, established and taught by Miss Elizabeth Peabody, in a house on Pinckney Street, near the corner of Joy Street. Miss Peabody was an enthusiastic follower of Froebel, and did much to introduce his system of education into this country. My fellow pupils were many, but I only remember Kitty Alger and Frankie Watson, later the distinguished surgeon, Doctor Francis Sedgwick Watson. We sat on tiny chairs, around a fascinating low table, where we modeled birds’ nests in clay and filled the nests with tiny eggs. Another useful art was the weaving of patterns with narrow strips of colored paper. My first lessons in arithmetic were had at the Kindergarten, with the help of a frame strung with red, green, and yellow beads. The system by which addition and subtraction were taught has passed from my mind, but the pleasure of juggling with the pretty colored balls remains.
My sister Flossie, trying to help me with my arithmetic, set me a simple sum, using as a textbook “Greenleaf’s Arithmetic.” After a stormy argument, the ink bottle was hurled against the nursery wall, with the passionate exclamation:
“Greenleaf is a liar!”
On leaving Miss Peabody’s Kindergarten, I went to Mr. Henry Williams’ school in Temple Place. The entrance was extremely mysterious to me. To reach the classrooms, we passed through a paved inclosed court and up a long flight of stairs, to a shadowy corridor that always depressed me. I was not exactly afraid of it, as of the passage outside my room inhabited by the foxes, nor did any hairy beast lurk there, as under the staircase at Number 13 Chestnut Street, but it was uncanny and I took care not to pass in or out alone.
I remember little of what I learned at the Temple Place School but a deal about Mr. Williams, a commanding figure, in spite of such personal defects, as a lump on his forehead and a missing forefinger. He had a musical voice and a sort of masterful sweetness that won the heart of every child. On Sundays he led the singing at the “Indiana Place Chapel”, the first home of the Church of the Disciples, where my mother’s beloved friend, James Freeman Clarke, was the pastor. The older girls were taught by Mr. Williams, but I was in the primary department, presided over by Miss Paul, a little lady who looked more like a brown wren than a schoolma’am.
For me, the school of schools was the Hilliards’ at Number 113 Mount Vernon Street, kept by Miss Julia and Miss Miriam Hilliard. Their mother, one understood, had met with “reverses.” Whatever their nature, they had left her dependent on her daughters. Mrs. Hilliard was super-stately, remote, kindly, and painstaking in her dealings with us. She wore stupendous corkscrew ringlets that must have taken hours every morning to arrange. She gave me music lessons. Half-past nine found me in the Hilliard “best parlor”, seated on an embroidered revolving stool before the square piano, with the metronome tick-tacking beside me.
“One, two, three--keep the wrists low, raise the fingers high; _one_, two, three; _one_, two, three!” I can feel the touch of the bamboo rod now, as she places my hands in the proper position above the keyboard.
After the music lesson came arithmetic.
“No, Maud, seven times nine do not make fifty-four. Try again!”
This from Miss Julia, firmly holding my wandering gaze with her great smoldering eyes. I can only look and look, with almost a lover’s gaze, at the glorious wave of her dusky hair swept back from the perfect brow, and calculate the weight of the great shining coil at the nape of her neck. When she smiles, the sight of her small perfect teeth, and the dimple that breaks the oval of her olive cheek, stir me to a mighty effort. For her--not for Greenleaf--I master the multiplication table; for her bend the full force of my will to make a fair copy of the wise sentences, written out in her neat pointed hand. On Saturday mornings, I am the first to arrive and place my little chair close to hers for the sewing lesson.
“There is no choice; the thimble _always_ on the third finger of the right hand. Do not pucker the cloth; hold the two edges firmly together, the stitch not too deep.” So Miss Julia exhorts, while I bend my obstinate fingers in a desperate effort to sew a fine seam; and in the end learn, after a fashion, to hem, over and over, stitch, backstitch, buttonhole, darn,--all, all for her!
“Half-past eleven. Recess. Have a good play; bring me back some roses in your cheeks!”
So she dismisses us to those quiet streets of Beacon Hill, where we are safe in our romping as in a walled garden. Those in funds rush round the corner, to break breathlessly into Marm Horn’s tiny shop on Charles Street; she is waiting for us, her eye on the clock. The Marm wears shining brown side curls, that fit neatly into the hollows of her sallow cheeks. She is slim and rather elegant in her stiff alpaca apron and black silk half-mits.
“What’s the good word to-day?” Her invariable greeting.
The best word was “Jessups”, but that implied five cents in your pocket, which purchased a very thick stick of candy, done up in brown paper, stamped chocolate, lemon, or strawberry. For two cents, you got a stick of black molasses candy and a pickled lime from the big bowl, like a goldfish’s, in the window. It took courage, as well as bravado, to eat that bitter lime, bought solely because at home all pickled “abominations” were forbidden.
Our pennies safely invested, the whole troop rushes headlong uphill, to Louisburg Square, the nerve-center of the great game of “I spy.” The first to arrive takes possession of the granite doorsteps of Number One (the Russell house); the others stand on the pavement in a circle, to be “counted.” As soon as “_It_” is chosen, she takes her place on the doorsteps, and, with closed eyes, recites in a loud singsong:
“Eeny meeny mony my, Barcelony bony stry, kay, bell, broken well, harryky, warryky, we woe, wack!”
While these words are slowly chanted, the other children scatter and hide. The moment “_It_” pronounces the final “wack”, the chase begins. Never were such wonderful houses for hiding as those in Louisburg Square and Mount Vernon Street. The Thayer, Sears, Hemenway, Warren, Paine, and Gray houses have fine vestibules, with outer doors hospitably ajar, or at least unlocked. Their owners are ranked as public benefactors. It is a matter of honor that their hospitality must never be abused, and no crumb of bread or scrap of orange peel be allowed to drop on their immaculate steps. One child in one hiding place is the rule of the game, and the competition is keen for certain favorite “hidey holes.”
Up and down the steep streets, we tore and ramped, in all weathers, gathering Miss Julia’s roses. On zero days, when the sidewalks were sheets of glare ice, sliding in a row, with hands on each other’s shoulders, took the place of all other games. When spring came, and the melancholy black trees in Louisburg Square broke out of bounds and waved their slender branches in the world-ecstasy of the new birth, skipping ropes appeared, as if by magic, governed by the same occult law that on a certain day produces marbles among men children. With April, when the streets were finally clear of ice and snow, mysterious hieroglyphics in white chalk were sketched upon the sidewalks, and hop-scotch became the only sport worthy of the name.
I am often asked in these days to subscribe money for a playground, attendant guardians and new-fangled apparatus for play. At such times I am glad that I was young when I was! No playground could ever make up for the splendid freedom of those old Boston streets, where the children of my time were turned loose to amuse themselves. When the old games, played by the girls of Athens and Rome, grew stale, we invented new games of our own.
Certain bolder spirits formed a secret society, called “the Rovers of Boston.” Dinner, at this time, was commonly eaten at two or half-past two o’clock, though some “fashionable” families dined at three. After dinner the Rovers met at the Joy Street entrance of the Common, to plan the afternoon adventures. At the time I am now speaking of, we were living in Boston in one of the various houses my father either rented or owned. The elder children were growing up and, for their sakes, he reluctantly closed the Green Peace home and moved into the city, which my mother greatly preferred. We enjoyed for several seasons the Sargent house, Number 13 Chestnut Street, for many years the home of the Radical Club.
As founder and leader of the Rovers, I had a sense of responsibility for the afternoon’s fun. Life has brought me few sensations more thrilling than the peculiar musical sound that, on certain cold winter mornings, roused me from sleep. Metallic, muffled, rhythmic, all-pervading, a solo under my window, and a distant chorus thundering from every street and alley on Beacon Hill.
“The Snow Shovels!”
Out of bed in a flash and to the window, to see if it has stopped snowing yet; or whether the snow is coming down in sharp small crystals, which mean intense cold, or in great kindly flakes that settle gently upon the earth and transform it into a wonderful white paradise. The little spiteful flakes make the best sleighing and coasting, for they pack harder and firmer; but for fortifications, snowballing, snow statues, and snow ice cream, give me the big gentle flakes, that oftenest bring a peculiar bracing ecstatic thrill to the air, without the sting of extreme cold. On such a day as this, the Rovers’ best sport was to see how many “rides behind” they could coax from the good-natured hackmen, as the great booby-hucks swung slowly up and down the hill of Chestnut Street, a secluded thoroughfare between Mount Vernon and Beacon streets, which the children were allowed to make their very own. The people who lived there seemed all to be parents, or grandparents, and mothered and fathered each other’s children.
The Reverend Cyrus Bartol, of whom Phillips Brooks once spoke as “that little old moth-eaten angel”, lived just below us, and Mr. Patrick Grant a few doors above. On the opposite side of the street was the fine old double house, with wide brownstone steps, divided by the families of Mr. Patrick Jackson and Doctor Luther Parks. Doctor Lothrop lived a few doors off, and the Jere Abbotts next door but one. The Grant boys, Pat, Harry, and Bob, probably had no idea with what longing eyes the little girl at Number 13 watched them, wishing above all else to be invited to join their play. They took no more notice of me than if I had not existed, looking through me as if I had been glass. They were merry lads and famous snow architects. The moment the snow stopped, they were out with their shovels, clearing the steps and the sidewalk. That duty over, they were free for snowballing, building snow bastions, coasting on great “double-runners”, or hiking off to Jamaica Pond with their skates under their arms. Like many other little girls, I wanted to be a boy and play with boys. I did not like dolls, doll houses, or any of the pleasures which at that time little girls were supposed to content themselves with. Later in life, I grew to have a pleasant acquaintance with Judge Robert Grant, distinguished as a jurist and author.
My mother felt an old-fashioned obligation of courtesy toward her neighbors. Just because they were neighbors, they had an almost sacred claim that must never be neglected. They were always included in her entertainments; and as they often had little in common with the other guests, it came about that there was great variety in the people who came to our parties. We did not belong to any set, while people from every set came to our house. I have always been grateful to my parents for this catholicity, for I have felt at home in whatever company I have found myself. I had a smiling acquaintance with most of the neighbors, not only in our own, but in the adjacent streets. One figure, however, filled me with a blind panic, a pale man, who wore black-rimmed spectacles and used two stout canes when he walked. I can see him now, tramping with a sort of desperate energy for a few blocks, and then sitting down to rest. To come upon him unexpectedly, lying in wait for me on a doorstep, or walking along at a terrific clip as if some demon were after him, curdled my blood. I have never feared any mortal as I feared that pale specter. The terror lay far too deep for words, like that other fear of the hangman that haunted my youth. One day, walking with my mother, my heart stood still, for she stopped and spoke to the sinister figure.
“I am glad to see you out again, Mr. Parkman. You look much better than when I last saw you.”
They shook hands, he remaining seated, she leaning over him with gentle friendliness in face and voice.
“You know him?” I whispered, as we walked on together.
“Very well. That is the father of your friend Katie. He has been so ill that he can only walk a little distance without resting. He is writing a very important book, but he can only work at it twenty minutes at a time.”
Years afterward, I learned that the man with the two sticks was Francis Parkman, the great historian, who at that time was at work upon his “Pioneers of France in the New World.”
At the time I am writing of, the early sixties, the houses of Beacon Street extended only a short distance beyond the Public Garden. We went for long walks, across what is now the Back Bay, to the Milldam. The Brighton Road was the stretch where the Boston horse fanciers showed the paces of their famous trotters. When the sleighing was good, it was crowded of an afternoon with stately family sleighs, filled with young people, old people, and children. A prettier carnival scene it would be hard to imagine than a bright Saturday afternoon on the Brighton Road in sleighing season. Up and down the middle, the jaunty cutters raced back and forth, to the delight of the youngsters, and to the scandal of the elders; for many of them were driven by sporting characters, who had no relation with good society, as represented by the wealthy merchants and manufacturers and their families, who kept demurely to the outer edges of the “Road.” I owe these glimpses of the sleighing carnival to kind Mrs. William Gray, the mother of my playmate, Ellen, who sometimes took me in her handsome sleigh, filled with buffalo robes and children. I never remember taking a mere pleasure drive with either of my own parents. We kept horses and were all taught to ride; my father rode every day for his health, taking one of his daughters with him. He found that he could get the greatest amount of exercise in the shortest time on horseback. When he drove, it was to get somewhere, to accomplish some specific thing. I have been thankful all my life that I was not born of the class to whom the afternoon drive is as much a part of life’s daily routine as eating or sleeping.
“The Rovers of Boston” was not a long-lived society; its membership was fluctuating, but it was extremely active during the few years of its life. How the city streets belonged to us! How jealously we watched any change or innovation! How we raged when the noble old Hancock House was torn down. How faithfully we reported to our elders any over vigorous pruning of city trees, or any abuse of city property. We had a sense of citizenship, of holding a stake in the community, sometimes lacking in “grown-ups.” Arlington and Berkeley streets already existed, and we waited impatiently for the naming of the other streets, which were to follow an alphabetical sequence. To us, there was something romantic in the plan. We hailed every new name as each street came into being,--Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Hereford, Gloucester; each one brought a new thrill. They were such distinguished names, familiar too, if one had studied English history, and so well suited to the population that was to inhabit them.
On Monday and Thursday afternoon, I went to Papanti’s dancing school, on Tremont Street, nearly opposite the old Boston Museum. You entered a narrow door, walked past a dentist’s showcase filled with dreadful grinning false teeth, mounted two flights of stairs, and made your way into the ladies’ dressing room. Here you took off your wraps, hung them up, put your snow boots in the locker below, and waited your turn before the long cheval glass to see if your curls were in order, your guimpe straight, your sash properly spread out. I remember my first dancing lesson well. Clinging to my mother’s hand, I was led into the most magnificent ballroom in the world. It was surrounded on two sides with raised benches; the third was filled with long gilded mirrors, the fourth by a “Minstrel’s Gallery.” The benches and hangings were neatly covered with brown holland, the great crystal chandelier veiled by a bag sheer enough to give a glimpse of its glories. Kitty Alger held my hand as we were presented to that distinguished Neapolitan _Maestro di Ballo_, Signor Lorenzo Papanti.
He was in evening dress, with black silk stockings, patent-leather pumps, and his historic snuff-colored wig. He laid his hand on his heart, as he bowed low to my mother, greeting her in Italian:
“_Signora, è un honore di farla, la benvenuta!_” Then turning to the two trembling children, he said:
“And these I shall call my leetle vite mice!”
One little white mouse was frightened as she rarely remembers having been.
If Papanti’s biography has not been written, it should be. He was the Czar of dancing masters, a stern but beneficent despot; the inventor of the classic Boston waltz, the best of all round dances. While he lived and ruled, Boston girls and boys had the name of being the best dancers in the country; he taught at least five generations of us, and is gratefully remembered by many elderly beaux and belles. With shy, heavy-footed, or awkward children, he was satirical to the verge of cruelty,--a cruelty that was really kindness, for he labored with that biting satire of his to make the children committed to his care little ladies and gentlemen with good manners, as well as twinkling feet. I cannot remember Mr. Papanti without the fiddle, on which he played for us beginners. I can feel the tip of his bow against my toes, as he tapped my feet into the “first position.” How he labored to teach Kitty and me to make a proper courtesy.
“’Eels together, slide ze right foot to ze right, left foot out be’ind, one, two, t’ree; one, two, t’ree; one, two, t’ree!”
We were taught the waltz, galop, polka, lancers, and quadrille. The best dancers learned the gavotte and shawl dance, to the secret envy of the others. The Burgess boys, Sydney and Edward (the famous yacht builder) and one or two more brothers, wonderfully turned out lads, with immaculate clothes and tightly curling hair, were the champion dancers among the boys; Annie Merwin, Susie Spring, and Fannie Bartlett among the girls. On the wonderful “last day”, the dancing class was transformed into a real party. The boys wore white kid gloves--on ordinary days only the girls sported them. The brown holland disappeared from benches and wall hangings, revealing a handsome dark-blue brocade. The crystal chandelier came out of its chrysalis and became a blaze of glory. There was a real orchestra in the “Minstrel’s Gallery”; the mysterious double doors leading to the supper room were thrown wide, the boys coerced into offering ice cream and cake to their partners before falling-to themselves. The benches were crowded with admiring parents; some, to encourage the youngsters, “took a turn” with the dancing master or his assistant, Miss Hunt, a correct lady in brown silk, gloves to match, and bronze slippers!
Most of the children came from the exclusive quarter known as “Beacon Street” and belonged to the conservative class called by the Young Whigs, “Hunkers.” On a certain afternoon, soon after my introduction to Papanti’s, I came running home, weeping bitterly, and threw myself into my mother’s arms, crying out:
“Mama, Mama! What is an abolitionist? Are we that sort of thing? The big girls at the dancing school wouldn’t speak to the Andrew children and me; they said we were nasty little abolitionists.”
This was the first, but not the last time that I have been made to suffer for holding a minority opinion. I connect this incident with General McClellan’s visit to Boston, in the year of emancipation, 1862. Feeling ran very high over the question of McClellan’s loyalty. My father, Governor Andrew, and Charles Sumner thought little of him, but the Hunkers made much of him, invited him to Boston, where they held a great reception for him and presented him with a sword, though he had but lately been relieved from his last command in the Union Army; and from a military point of view, at least, his career was over.
My last school was Miss Wilby’s, on Bowdoin Street. During my time, the old régime changed, Miss Wilby retiring, full of honors, after a long useful career, and Miss Hubbard taking over the school. The teacher I remember with the most affection here was Mr. Theodore Weld, with whom we read Shakespeare. We prepared for our lessons by marking in the text lines that, for us, contained passages of especial beauty, or references we did not understand. Among my fellow students were Effie Bird, later Mrs. Linzee Tilden, and Alice Kent Robertson-Quimby. Alice Kent became a professional reader and Effie an amateur of distinction. Often in after years, while enjoying the acting of these two friends, I have remembered our old master with gratitude.
Mr. George Bradford, who taught me history and astronomy, was a Transcendentalist and, I believe, a member of the Brook Farm Colony. I once overheard my mother say that he was “Bourbon faced.” His features certainly did suggest an affectionate sheep. His clothes were unlike any I have ever seen. On reading Thoreau’s account of a conversation between himself and his tailoress, the mystery of Mr. Bradford’s garments was explained; I believe that, like Thoreau, he employed a tailoress. The dear quaint old pedagogue succeeded in interesting me more in my work than most of my teachers. His method of teaching ancient history had one feature that I hope survives in some educational backwater.
“You will find in this,” he said at our first lesson, handing me a long, narrow, green volume, “charts of all the centuries. Each page stands for one century and is subdivided with a space for every year. After each lesson you will make an illustration in water color, with the tints indicated, of the events that have most impressed you, using your own fancy and judgment.”
At our next lesson I submitted the book to Mr. Bradford, who ran over my illustrations encouragingly:
“Here we have the siege of Troy, 1180 B.C., a walled town well indicated. This illustrates the Passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, quite clear, well colored and striking. This marks the year when Tiglath-Pileser was at the height of his power and suggests Hosea’s bribe of gold and silver talents, happily thought out!”
If I were asked to name the man with whom I had most enjoyed “star-gazing”, I could not hesitate for one moment,--George Bradford, of course!
With great patience he strove to give me some knowledge of astronomy, and, because he so loved his subject, succeeded in imparting a rudimentary understanding of the science. The indoor lessons, with books and plates of the firmament, had a romantic interest; we believed in the Nebular Hypothesis then; it has doubtless long since been superseded. Mr. Bradford was at his best in the lessons in practical star-gazing. At night he wore a curious close-fitting cap. If the weather were cool, he wrapped a green knitted scarf about his neck and buttoned the tailoress’s coat over it. Walking by his side, up and down the garden at Green Peace, I made those lifelong friends, Sagittarius, Corona, Aquila, Cassiopeia, the greater and the lesser Dipper.
In spite of my affection for several of my teachers, I did not love my lessons; life was so tremendously interesting, such great affairs were always going on about me! Much as I regret the wasted hours, I cannot think it strange that I began to live at a period when I ought to have been learning how to live.
Writing of his own childhood, Henry James the elder says:
“I am satisfied that, if there had been the least spiritual Divine leaven discernible within the compass of the family bond; if there had been the least subordination in it to any objective or public and universal ends, I should have been very sensitive to the fact. But there was nothing of the sort. Our family righteousness had as little felt relation to the public life of the world, as little connection with the hopes and fears of mankind, as the number and form of the rooms we inhabited, and we contentedly lived the same life of stagnant isolation from the race which the great mass of modern families live, its surface never dimpled by anything but the duties and courtesies we owed our private friends and acquaintances.”
Our home was the exact opposite of this. A swift current of the world’s life flowed through our house. Great public questions, the causes of freedom, education, and the succoring of the weak and afflicted of our own and other lands took precedence over all private affairs. Among our guests were distinguished European travelers, political exiles, Greeks, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, who had sought refuge in our country and were made welcome at our table.
“To ride the errand of the hour,” is a phrase my mother used in speaking of my father’s restless activity. Whether the errand took him to President Lincoln in Washington with a message from John Andrew, or to Crete with a shipload of food and clothing from Boston to help the Cretans in their fight for liberty, he was ready, booted and spurred for action. In his youth, he was given a Greek decoration, carrying the title of Chevalier. His friends gave him the nickname of “Chev”; I never heard my mother address him by any other name.
In thinking back over my first decade, I realize that my best teachers were my father, my mother, and my sister Julia. One of my early memories is of an evening when I was allowed to sit up to see Julia dressed for a party. She wore a white tarletan dress; Madame Canagalli, the Italian hairdresser, and my mother had a discussion as to which camellia they should place in her beautiful black hair, fine as a baby’s and softer than any other! I remember noticing that the white camellia was the same color as her smooth forehead “that looked like marble and smelt like myrrh”, that the red camellia matched the color in her cheeks and lips. This is the first impression I have of personal beauty. The vision persists, clear-cut as it was that night, when I first realized that some people are better to look at than others.
Julia read me all the Waverley novels and all of Dickens. I have often read them since, but that first impression remains the strongest. Julia, who introduced me to this company, was the intimate of my childhood, but I remember a curious withdrawal the moment my feet touched the threshold of girlhood. She had been the beneficient and adored elder sister of my childhood, but when I braided my tawny mane and “put up” my hair like a big girl, I lost something that had been an intrinsic part of our comradeship. I understand it all now, I could not then.
In the evening my father read us the poems of Byron, Scott, and Macaulay. He had a fine voice and read--recited rather, for he knew them by heart--many a stirring poem in the hour of rest he allowed himself after the evening meal. I can hear his voice now, reciting a line he always gave with great spirit:
“Roderick Vich Alpin Dhu, ho ieroe!”
While my father was teaching me to love poetry, my mother was teaching me to love good music. At dusk we gathered around the Chickering grand piano, while Mama sang to us. She had a beautiful, cultivated voice, and the flexible hands of the trained pianist, which she kept to the end of her life. Her repertoire was immense; she sang the florid arias of Bellini, the grand recitatives of Handel, folk-songs of France and Italy, Scotch and English ballads, German _lieder_, plantation melodies. We all joined in the chorus of these polyglot songs,--Irish, Polish, and Russian!
Beside a taste for poetry and music, the most valuable life asset I acquired in these days was a love of art. Our house was filled with pictures and statuary. While I do not remember either parent talking to me about them, their influence was none the less powerful. A copy of the Greek Clytie stood on the stairs; I loved her so much that on going up to bed, after having kissed all the family good night, I would pause and, if nobody were looking, reach up and kiss the cold lips of the marble woman. A set of engravings of the Greek temples hung in my father’s study; long before I knew what they were, I had learned to love the Parthenon, the Temple of Victory, the Erectheum, so that when I first saw the Acropolis at Athens I was well prepared for its glories. Mama had inherited a number of old masters from her father’s gallery, remembered as the first private picture gallery in the country. Of these I liked best the Velasquez portrait of the Little Prince. There were a dozen good Italian and Dutch pictures, all of which I studied thoroughly, if unconsciously, for when I went to live in Italy, I found no difficulty in attributing these pictures to their proper schools.