CHAPTER V

UNCLE SAM WARD

While proud of being a Bostonian, I had from the beginning a sort of sneaking affection for New York. My mother, though of mixed New England and Southern descent, was born and bred a New Yorker. Some consciousness of these different strains of blood made me resent equally the disparagement with which Bostonians spoke of New York, and the condescension with which New Yorkers mentioned Boston. Like Annie in Enoch Arden, I wanted to be “little wife to both.”

My first visit in New York was in the spring of 1863. My mother and I stayed at Number 8 Bond Street, the home of her uncle, John Ward. Bond Street was already unfashionably downtown, though still dignified; its stately houses had immaculate white doorsteps. The rooms of Number 8 were large and high, the doors of heavy Santo Domingo mahogany, the furniture Georgian, in keeping with the rest.

Uncle John was adored by my mother and her sisters, to whom he was a second father; to me he is but a shadowy memory, not so distinct as his brother, Uncle Richard, who lived with him. Both were very tall men; Uncle Richard was slender, Uncle John heavily built, with a clean-shaven face, rare in those days when the moustache was almost universal. He was the President of the New York Stock Exchange, where his portrait by Wensler may still be seen. Did I hear Uncle Richard say to my mother, speaking of himself and his five brothers, all men over six feet tall?

“They were fine men, dearie! I am the least of them!”

“The Corner”, the house Grandfather Ward built on the corner of Bond Street, with the picture gallery extension running along Broadway, was still standing, a handsome house of soft-toned brick with white marble “trimmings.” The gallery had no windows, the lighting being from the top. The other day a gentleman said to me _à prôpos_ of the extension:

“When I was a boy, I thought that was the city treasury and that all the money in New York was kept there, because there were no doors or windows for robbers to break in!”

“The Corner” was now owned by Mr. Sampson, from whom my mother got permission to show me the home of her youth. I received an impression of greater state than I had before known; it pleased me to think of my mother as a girl receiving her guests in the long drawing-rooms, one hung with blue, one with yellow, brocade. I admired the mantelpieces, with graceful sculptured figures, the work of Thomas Crawford, while still the marble cutter’s apprentice. There was ample space in the entrance hall and well-balanced stairway, that might have been planned by our own Boston architect, Bulfinch. We were not asked to go upstairs; I never saw the room where my mother sat “tied to her chair”, studying hour after hour. Was she thinking of that time of severe study when she wrote?

Who sows in tears his early years May bind the golden sheaves; Who scatters flowers in summer bowers Shall reap but their withered leaves.

At Number 23 Bond Street lived Aunt Henry, widow of my mother’s uncle, Henry Ward, and mother of Cousin Henry.

“Mis’ Henry Ward will be pleased to see ye, Mis’ Julia,” the old negro butler exclaimed, as he opened the door, grinning until he showed all his ivories. In the darkened parlor I was startled by a savage cry:

“Good-by!”

“You shut up,” said the darkey, raising the blind. “It’s only the parrot, Missie; dat bird is most one hundred years old.”

There was something depressing about Number 23--the gloom deepened when I saw Aunt Henry--it is all too intangible to put into words. I was to hear much about her later, and to read in her biography that she was “noted for a remarkable talent for painting, intellectual power and great benevolence!” I never heard her spoken of by her own name, she was always “Aunt Henry” the widow of Mama’s Uncle Henry. _He_ must have been a delightful person; whenever the Three Graces of Bond Street, my mother and her two sisters, wanted to dance or sing, they always sent across the street for Uncle Henry to play for them. All that was long ago, when the parrot, the butler, Aunt Henry herself were young. Uncle Henry had long been dead; Cousin Henry, his son, now lived with Aunt Henry at Number 23. I was curious enough about him. I had heard him spoken of as a “club man”; none of the people who came to our house were exactly “club men”, and I wanted to see one badly. Mama, who was possessed to nickname all her intimates, spoke of him as “poor dear Hutie.”

Did I ever see the heroine of Number 23? I cannot be sure! She was the affianced of Cousin Henry. Their union was opposed by Aunt Henry, though some people believed them to be secretly married. Every day at two o’clock Cousin Henry called upon the lady and passed the afternoon with her. For many years, twenty--perhaps thirty--the lovers were faithful to each other. In Spain such romances are common enough. Cousin Henry was more like a Spanish _novio_ than an American lover. I have known one other such case, of two lives that should have been passed together, divided by the opposition of the lover’s mother: in both cases the mother was able to control the son’s action, not his affections!

When Aunt Henry died at the age of eighty-five the family supposed the lovers would marry, but Cousin Henry, as if still controlled by the stronger will, followed his mother almost immediately. He left Number 23 and all his property to the lady. Then a strange thing happened. My uncle had kept open house; even after he was gone Number 23 was a friendly house, like all the Ward dwellings,--the family has strong traditions of hospitality. The day the house came into the lady’s hands, the family and friends were refused admittance. The old servants were kept on with the parrot and the lap-dogs; everything was maintained exactly as it had been in the lifetime of Aunt and Cousin Henry. At two o’clock, every day in the year, the lady came to the house and spent the afternoon alone there. She lived to be an old woman; when she died she left Number 23 and all the property--even the family miniatures--to her own relations. Perhaps it is not wonderful that to a child, Number 23 was already, in 1863, a house of mystery with a certain creeping sense of hidden secrets, perhaps half divined, between mother and son.

The figures of my grandfather’s generation--even those I have known--glimmer faintly in the background of my memory; they are hardly more real than Grandfather Ward himself, who died before my mother’s marriage and was the most important personage in the family. He was a banker of the firm of Prime, Ward and King, founder and president of the Bank of Commerce, patron of artists, literati, political exiles, and poor relations to the third, fourth and fifth degree.

In calling up the memories of this, my first visit to New York, I touch more solid ground, for I now met for the first time in my memory, my own uncle, Sam Ward, my mother’s only surviving brother, “uncle to half the human race”, as some one once called him. He was so universal and generous a soul that I long confounded him with that greater national figure, “Uncle Sam”, and applied all references in the comic papers to him. My chagrin was poignant on finding out my mistake.

My first impression of Uncle Sam is characteristic of the man. We had come to New York in the hope of distracting my mother from the black grief that consumed her after little Sam’s death. She received a message from her brother that we must all be ready at a certain hour when he would call for us and take us down to Islip, Long Island, to pass a few days at an hotel,--a new experience for me!

Punctual to the minute he arrived in a smart carriage, with a large bouquet for Mama and a small bouquet for me. I have forgotten the name of the hotel, but I remember certain splendors of the table, certain luxuries in the way of handsome carriages, fine horses, and a confusing number of servants. All these seemed in some magical manner to be attached to Uncle Sam, to come and

[Illustration: UNCLE SAM WARD

From a photograph by W. & D. Downey]

[Illustration: MY FATHER, DR. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE

From a photograph by Whipple]

go at his nod, purvey flowers, afternoon tea, sparkling wines, and other luxuries unknown at home, which give to this memory of my first hotel a rich flavor of careless expenditure in strong contrast to the New England thrift I knew.

Uncle Sam was the most agreeable man I have ever known. He threw a spell over me in those days at Islip that still holds, though he has been dead more than thirty years. I knew, even then, that on most subjects his views were directly opposed to my father’s. He was suspected of having southern sympathies, and if not an out-and-out “copperhead”, he was equally far from being an abolitionist.

He was rather French than American in appearance and manner, sparkling, effervescent, full of laughter, motion, gesture. His dress was striking. He wore handsome rings and scarfpins, checked trousers, superb waistcoats, an overcoat of pale gray box cloth with large white pearl buttons, unmistakably from London. I have heard men of fashion say that his brilliant cravats suited him to a T, but could not have been worn by any other living man.

On the train a gentleman spoke to him, calling him by name.

“You must excuse me, Sir,” said my uncle, “if I cannot remember your name.”

“I am ----, to whom you were so kind in London.”

Still Uncle Sam could not remember.

“But, Mr. Ward, you must remember me--you saved my life!”

This was no help. Embarrassed and annoyed, the stranger pulled a gold watch from his pocket.

“If you don’t remember me--you may remember this watch that you gave me.”

Uncle Sam patted him on the shoulder and nodded with his wonderful smile:

“Well, well! I shall know you next time: may it not be so many years between meetings.”

“I can’t remember anything about that man!” he told us later. The scene was characteristic of Uncle Sam: he seemed under some compulsion to give, give, give,--expensive watches to strangers, jewels to all his female relatives, flowers to every pretty woman he met, golden smiles to all the world!

Uncle Sam was twice married. His first wife was Emily Astor, with whom he lived happily during her short life. She died soon after the marriage, leaving him one daughter, Emily Margaret Ward. Later he married Medora Grimes. At that time I am now writing of, he was already separated from his second wife, who with their two sons lived in Paris. I knew vaguely that here was a mystery and unhappiness I must not ask about. The two boys died young; I never saw either of them. My mother neither criticized nor tolerated criticism of Uncle Sam’s second wife. The marriage had not been happy--it was a case of incompatibility; that was all there was to say about it. His first wife’s death was his greatest misfortune. For posterity that brief union with Emily Astor was a fortunate one, for from it sprang the Clan Chanler, those interesting younger cousins of ours, Uncle Sam’s only descendants, who have inherited much of his charm, many of his gifts, and are among the marked men and women of their time. Their mother, my Cousin Maddie, married Winthrop Chanler, and became the mother of eleven children, eight of whom are now living. I remember Cousin Maddie as a gracious, delightful woman and can see her now in fancy with her fine, red-gold hair and beautifully shaped head, her little brood of children clustered about her, at their Newport villa on the cliffs overlooking the first beach.

Was it on this, my first visit to New York, or a later one, that some reckless New York relative took me to Niblo’s Garden to see the “Black Crook”? It was a dazzling performance, revealing undreamed-of theatrical possibilities. The shame which, I afterwards learned, I should have felt at the sight of the lightly clad _corps de ballet_ was entirely lacking. I only felt wonderment at their agility, at the flexibility of their pink satin toes. The normal healthy child recognized instinctively the art, the labor, the long training that enabled those nymphs, fairies, and amazons to fly from wing to wing, rise on tiptoe, sink to earth, whirl on one foot, the other extended at right angles! Far from being shocked, I was delighted and spent hours in trying to copy the agility, the poetry of motion of those poor _coryphées_ of the “Black Crook.” My fixed resolve to become a bareback circus rider was shaken. Would it not be even better than vaulting lightly through paper rings held up by a clown, to shoot up from the stage in an enormous rose, descend lightly and caper to hidden music?

There was a flying trip to Washington during the New York visit. To have been in the Capital and have no memory of the great events and famous men of the time is distressing. What I do remember is so trivial. We stopped at Wilmington, Delaware, where a powerful negro dressed in white boarded the train and passed through the cars calling out:

“Here’s your hot fried oysters! You, Miss? You, Sah?”

At home we had our oysters stewed or, as a rare concession, escalloped. There was something worldly, sophisticated even, about these crisp fried oysters that sustained us on our trip to Washington. This, like the visit to Islip, was “seeing life.”

We arrived at night. Congress was in session; my mother pointed out from the train the great dome glowing, its welcoming windows all aflame. The next morning I received my first impression of the Capitol. Mixed with awe and admiration was the sense that it was all mine, as no other Capitol, palace, or temple could ever be mine.

“Look up!” said Mama, pointing to the Indian on the summit of the dome. “That statue was made by your Uncle Crawford, whose fireplaces you saw at the Corner.”

Either on this visit or a later one, my mother, going early to some function at the Capitol, was obliged to stand for some time before the closed doors. A panel of sculptured bronze in one of the doors caught her eye.

“Why, this is my family!” she exclaimed. “That is Louisa with Frank, Annie, and Mimoli.”

In the bronze bas-relief Crawford had put portraits of his wife and children. Frank was later to become famous as Marion Crawford the novelist.

The contrast between the fine government buildings and the shabby Washington streets and down-at-heel houses was startling, even to a child. The manners and dress of the law-makers of the land were not those of Mr. Sumner or Governor Andrew. The hotel was thronged with men in black frock coats and tall hats worn at an acute angle. The corridors and even the richly furnished parlors were provided with spittoons, which were in constant use. The man who did not chew tobacco smoked long black cigars. We stayed at Wormley’s Hotel, where Uncle Sam seemed more at home than any one else, ruling the proprietor, an intelligent mulatto, the servants, and the guests, with his persuasive authority. Though at home we heard constant talk about the negroes, my parents being forever busy in their interests, I had until now seen very few of them and was much interested in the black servants at the hotel.

Uncle Sam’s rooms were near Wormley’s, and here I passed the happiest hours of that Washington visit. My father, who had joined us, was occupied with Sanitary Commission business, leaving my mother free to enjoy Uncle Sam’s companionship.

“What do you think I saw?” a sharp-faced woman was heard to say to a friend, “Mrs. Howe--_the_ Mrs. Howe--being kissed in the parlor of Wormley’s hotel by Sam Ward--what is more, she kissed him back. What do you think of that?”

“I think that if Sam Ward were my brother, I should have done the same thing!” was the answer.

The gossiping woman did not know of the relationship between the two well-known figures, though she knew both by sight. I have often remembered this incident, which justifies the wise old saw:

“Believe nothing that you hear, and half that you see!”

Uncle Sam had the remains of a lovely tenor voice. He and Mama sang together the songs of many countries. We owe to him the Heidelberg _lieder_, the Polish drinking song, and the Russian chorus which still resound in the nurseries of my nieces and nephews.

On one of our visits to his rooms Mama took with us a pretty young friend, who sang for Uncle Sam. He applauded generously until she began the song,

“_Si tu savais comme je t’aime._”

“That song again!” he cried. “I have heard it once too often.”

It must have been on this trip that I made my first visit to Bordentown, the home of my mother’s sister Annie Ward, married to the handsome Frenchman, Adolph Mailliard, called by us children “Uncle Do.” They lived on a large estate in Bordentown with their four children,--Louisa, Joseph, Cora, and John. Uncle Do raised thoroughbred colts and race horses and grew the finest peaches that could be raised outside of Green Peace. He was a man of great beauty and charm. His eyes were among the most remarkable I have seen, and I did not wonder that my aunt had a miniature painted of one of them which she always wore in a locket. I was afraid of Uncle Do, but from first to last Aunt Annie was a loving and loyal friend. She was a saint, but such a witty, gay, unconscious saint that nobody could hold her sainthood against her. We had family prayers at Bordentown, a new experience to me. I gave some offense by refusing to repeat part of the Lord’s Prayer. My aunt asked my reason for this.

“I do not forgive those who trespass against me, and I will not say that I do!” I exclaimed. My aunt somehow made my scruples disappear.

Bordentown is associated with some of our most cherished family possessions, the Gobelin carpet at Green Peace and the pair of bronze candelabra at Oak Glen. Some years before the time of which I am writing Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, lived here in such state as an ex-king could then find in the United States. When he returned to Europe the house was broken up, the furniture sold at auction, and these articles were secured for us by my aunt. Uncle Do’s father, _Père Mailliard_, had been attached to King Joseph’s suite at Madrid and followed him into exile; that is how the Mailliards came to settle in Bordentown.

At my aunt’s house were many Bonaparte relics,--Napoleon’s camp equipage with gold knives, forks, and spoons, a locket with some of his hair, and most precious of all, a manuscript diary kept by his physician at Elba, giving a minute account of the daily happenings. One of the members of the suite contrived a process by which ice cream could be made. Napoleon was very much interested in the experiment, and for many days the chronicler puts down what the emperor said on the subject. The pathos of this deeply impressed me, that the mind that had planned the subjugation of Europe should occupy itself with the petty contrivances of an ice-cream freezer!

Inextricably confused with my reminiscences of Bordentown and the Mailliards are memories of the Gilder family, their friends and neighbors. Did I really see Richard Watson Gilder there, a romantic looking boy in a short jacket with a round collar, or is the impression received from an old daguerreotype? I can’t quite recover this faintest impression, but it will not “down.” The Gilders, Richard, Joseph, and Jeanette, were the playmates of my cousins, and in the chance meetings of later years the word “Bordentown” opened for them and for me a long vista peopled by the same figures; my aunt with her white teeth and smoothly parted dark hair, Uncle Do, and the lovely Louisa, one of the most distinguished looking girls I ever saw. The atmosphere of my aunt’s house was unlike any other. The children were repressed and demure, the language was French, the point of view European. Slight as was my contact with Uncle Do, he gave me fresh ideas, and my experience under his roof threw out a new wing to my house of life. It is fortunate that aunts and uncles, especially “in laws”, rarely realize their influence upon nieces and nephews. It would be more than they could bear. It is bad enough to be responsible for your own children; to be responsible for other people’s is out of the question. And yet, next to our parents, some of us are influenced more by uncles and aunts than by any other people.

When I returned to Boston after this wonder trip, I had gained a deal of experience and had opened two accounts in the bank of family affection upon which I was henceforward to draw heavily. One stood in the name of my Uncle Sam Ward, the other of my Aunt Annie Mailliard.

During the World War I received from a stranger a request for an autograph letter of Uncle Sam’s for a private collection. I chose one from my treasured correspondence full of the warm charm of the man. It described a breakfast he had given for Sara Bernhardt and dwelt on his last gift to me, a certain web of glimmering yellow satin, reminding me that a blonde need not fear to wear yellow, as Paul Veronese and Rubens both painted fair-haired women in golden satins.

Shortly after I sent the letter off, I received two epistles from England, both bearing coronets. I quote from one of them.

27 Old Burlington St. W.

Dear Mrs. Elliott

I have just received from Mr. Louis C. May the very interesting autograph letter of Mr. Samuel Ward that you have so kindly given for the collection of His Majesty. It is a great addition and is greatly appreciated by Sir Dighton Probyn, who has been interesting himself in getting the collection together. Out of 1600 signatures there are only seven now outstanding, which will give you an idea of the success Sir Dighton has met with.

He has just written me that he is sending you a line of thanks for your courtesy. I take the opportunity of adding my own and remain,

Yours sincerely, Fairfax. June 13, 1917.

I was pleased that dear Uncle Sam’s letter was wanted for King George’s collection, impressed with the good manners that prompted the two gentlemen to take the trouble to acknowledge it, and cheered by this side light of the way the English “carried on” their peaceful avocations during that year of chaos, 1917.