Part 13

"What General Ward has done to and for China is as yet but imperfectly known, for those whose duty it is to transfer to posterity a record of this great man are either so wrapped in speculation as to how to build themselves up on his deeds of the past time, or are so fearful that any comment on any subject regarding him may detract from their ability, that with his last breath they allow all that appertains to him to be buried in the tomb. Not one in ten thousand of them could at all approach him in military genius, in courage, and in resource, or do anything like what he did."

In his native land Ward has never been honoured as he deserves to be. On the contrary, severe criticism has been accorded him because he was fighting in China for money during our civil war, "when," said his detractors, "he might have been using his talents for the protection of the flag under which he was born."

But this was the fault of circumstances rather than of intention. Ward wished, above everything, to be a soldier, and when he found fighting waiting for him in China, it was the most natural thing in the world for him to accept the opportunity the gods provided. But he did what he could under the circumstances for his country. He offered ten thousand dollars to the national cause--and was killed in the Chinese war before the answer to his proffer of financial aid came from Minister Anson Burlingame.

It is rather odd that just the amount that he wished to be used by the North for the advancement of the Union cause has recently (1901) been bequeathed to the Essex Institute at Salem by Miss Elizabeth C. Ward, his lately deceased sister, to found a Chinese library in memory of Salem's soldier of fortune. Thus is rounded out this very romantic chapter of modern American history.

THE WELL-SWEEP OF A SONG

That the wise Shakespeare spoke the truth when he observed that "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin" has never been better exemplified than in the affectionate tenderness with which all sorts and conditions of men join in singing a song like "The Old Oaken Bucket." As one hears this ballad in a crowded room, or even as so often given--in a New England play like "The Old Homestead," one does not stop to analyse one's sensations; one forgets the homely phrase; one simply feels and knows oneself the better for the memories of happy and innocent childhood which the simple song invokes.

Dear, delightful Goldsmith has wonderfully expressed in "The Deserted Village" the inextinguishable yearning for the spot we call "home":

"In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs--and God has given my share-- I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return and die at home at last,"

and it is this same lyric cry that has been crystallised for all time, so far as the American people are concerned, in "The Old Oaken Bucket."

The day will not improbably come when the allusions in this poem will demand as careful an explanation as some of Shakespeare's archaic references now call for. But even when this time does come, and an elaborate description of the strange old custom of drawing water from a hole in the ground by means of a long pole and a rude pail will be necessary to an understanding of the poem, men's voices will grow husky and their eyes will dim at the music of "The Old Oaken Bucket."

It is to the town of Scituate, Massachusetts, one of the most ancient settlements of the old colony, that we trace back the local colour which pervades the poem. The history of the place is memorable and interesting. The people come of a hardy and determined ancestry, who fought for every inch of ground that their descendants now hold. To this fact may perhaps be attributed the strength of those associations, clinging like ivy around some of the most notable of the ancient homesteads.

The scene so vividly described in the charming ballad we are considering is a little valley through which Herring Brook pursues its devious way to meet the tidal waters of North River. "The view of it from Coleman Heights, with its neat cottages, its maple groves, and apple orchards, is remarkably beautiful," writes one appreciative author. The "wide-spreading pond," the "mill," the "dairy-house," the "rock where the cataract fell," and even the "old well," if not the original "moss-covered bucket" itself, may still be seen just as the poet described them.

[Illustration: OLD OAKEN BUCKET HOUSE, SCITUATE, MASS.]

In quaint, homely Scituate, Samuel Woodworth, the people's poet, was indeed born and reared. Although the original house is no longer there, a pretty place called "The Old Oaken Bucket House" still stands, a modern successor to the poet's home, and at another bucket, oaken if not old, the pilgrim of to-day may stop to slake his thirst from the very waters, the recollection of which gave the poet such exquisite pleasure in after years. One would fain have the surroundings unchanged--the cot where Woodworth dwelt, the ponderous well-sweep, creaking with age, at which his youthful hands were wont to tug strongly; and finally the mossy bucket, overflowing with crystal nectar fresh from the cool depths below. Yet in spite of the changes, one gets fairly well the illusion of the ancient spot, and comes away well content to have quaffed a draught of such excellent water to the memory of this Scituate poet.

The circumstances under which the popular ballad was composed and written are said to be as follows: Samuel Woodworth was a printer who had served his apprenticeship under the veteran Major Russell of the _Columbian Centinel_, a journal which was in its day the leading Federalist organ of New England. He had inherited the wandering propensity of his craft, and yielding to the desire for change he was successively in Hartford and New York, doing what he could in a journalistic way. In the latter city he became associated, after an unsuccessful career as a publisher, in the editorship of the _Mirror_. And it was while living in New York in the Bohemian fashion of his class, that, in company with some brother printers, he one day dropped in at a well-known establishment then kept by one Mallory to take a social glass of wine.

The cognac was pronounced excellent. After drinking it, Woodworth set his glass down on the table, and, smacking his lips, declared emphatically that Mallory's _eau de vie_ was superior to anything that he had ever tasted.

"There you are mistaken," said one of his comrades, quietly; then added, "there certainly was one thing that far surpassed this in the way of drinking, as you, too, will readily acknowledge."

"Indeed; and, pray, what was that?" Woodworth asked, with apparent incredulity that anything could surpass the liquor then before him.

"The draught of pure and sparkling spring water that we used to get from the old oaken bucket that hung in the well, after our return from the labours of the field on a sultry summer's day."

No one spoke; all were busy with their own thoughts.

Woodworth's eyes became dimmed. "True, true," he exclaimed; and soon after quitted the place. With his heart overflowing with the recollections that this chance allusion in a barroom had inspired, the scene of his happier childhood life rushed upon him in a flood of feeling. He hastened back to the office in which he then worked, seized a pen, and in half an hour had written his popular ballad:

"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view! The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew,-- The wide-spreading pond and the mill which stood by it, The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell; The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well,-- The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.

"The moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure; For often at noon when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing! And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness it rose from the well,-- The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well.

"How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, As, poised from the curb, it inclined to my lips! Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from the loved situation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well,-- The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well."

Woodworth's reputation rests upon this one stroke of genius. He died in 1842 at the age of fifty-seven. But after almost fifty years his memory is still green, and we still delight to pay tender homage to the spot which inspired one of the most beautiful songs America has yet produced.

WHITTIER'S LOST LOVE

In the life of the Quaker poet there is an unwritten chapter of personal history full to the brim of romance. It will be remembered that Whittier in his will left ten thousand dollars for an Amesbury Home for Aged Women. One room in this home Mrs. Elizabeth W. Pickard (the niece to whom the poet bequeathed his Amesbury homestead, and who passed away in the early spring of this year [1902], in an illness contracted while decorating her beloved uncle's grave on the anniversary of his birth), caused to be furnished with a massive black walnut set formerly used in the "spare-room" of her uncle's house--the room where Lucy Larcom, Gail Hamilton, the Cary sisters, and George Macdonald were in former times entertained. A stipulation of this gift was that the particular room in the Home thus to be furnished was to be known as the Whittier room.

In connection with this Home and this room comes the story of romantic interest. Two years after the death of Mr. Whittier an old lady made application for admission to the Home on the ground that in her youth she was a schoolmate and friend of the poet. And although she was not entitled to admission by being a resident of the town, she would no doubt have been received if she had not died soon after making the application.

This aged woman was Mrs. Evelina Bray Downey, concerning whose schoolgirl friendship for Whittier many inaccurate newspaper articles were current at the time of her death, in the spring of 1895. The story as here told is, however, authentic.

Evelina Bray was born at Marblehead, October 10, 1810. She was the youngest of ten children of a ship master, who made many voyages to the East Indies and to European ports. In a letter written in 1884, Mrs Downey said of herself: "My father, an East India sea captain, made frequent and long voyages. For safekeeping and improvement he sent me to Haverhill, bearing a letter of introduction from Captain William Story to the family of Judge Bartley. They passed me over to Mr. Jonathan K. Smith, and Mrs. Smith gave me as a roommate her only daughter, Mary. This was the opening season of the New Haverhill Academy, a sort of rival to the Bradford Academy. Subsequently I graduated from the Ipswich Female Seminary, in the old Mary Lyon days."

Mary Smith, Miss Bray's roommate at Haverhill, and her lifelong friend--though for fifty years they were lost to each other--was afterward the wife of Reverend Doctor S. F. Smith, the author of "America."

Evelina is described as a tall and strikingly beautiful brunette, with remarkable richness of colouring, and she took high rank in scholarship. The house on Water Street at which she boarded was directly opposite that of Abijah W. Thayer, editor of the _Haverhill Gazette_, with whom Whittier boarded while at the academy. Whittier was then nineteen years old, and Evelina was seventeen. Naturally, they walked to and from the school together, and their interest in each other was noticeable.

If the Quaker lad harboured thoughts of marriage, and even gave expression to them, it would not be strange. But the traditions of Whittier's sect included disapproval of music, and Evelina's father had given her a piano, and she was fascinated with the study of the art proscribed by the Quakers. Then, too, Whittier was poor, and his gift of versification, which had already given him quite a reputation, was not considered in those days of much consequence as a means of livelihood. If they did not at first realise, both of them, the hopelessness of their love, they found it out after Miss Bray's return to her home.

About this time Mr. Whittier accompanied his mother to a quarterly meeting of the Society of Friends at Salem, and one morning before breakfast took a walk of a few miles to the quaint old town of Marblehead, where he paid a visit to the home of his schoolmate. She could not invite him in, but instead suggested a stroll along the picturesque, rocky shore of the bay.

This was in the spring or early summer of 1828, and the poet was twenty years old, a farmer's boy, with high ambitions, but with no outlook as yet toward any profession. It may be imagined that the young couple, after a discussion of the situation, saw the hopelessness of securing the needed consent of their parents, and returned from their morning's walk with saddened hearts. Whatever dreams they may have cherished were from that hour abandoned, and they parted with this understanding.

In the next fifty years they met but once again, four or five years after the morning walk, and this once was at Marblehead, along the shore. Miss Bray had in the meantime been teaching in a seminary in Mississippi, and Whittier had been editing papers in Boston and Hartford, and had published his first book, a copy of which he had sent her. There was no renewal at this time of their lover-like relations, and they parted in friendship.

I have said that they met but once in the half-century after that morning's walk; the truth is they were once again close together, but Whittier was not conscious of it. This was while he was editing the _Pennsylvania Freeman_, at Philadelphia. Miss Bray was then associated with a Miss Catherine Beecher, in an educational movement of considerable importance, and was visiting Philadelphia. Just at this time a noted Massachusetts divine, Reverend Doctor Todd, was announced to preach in the Presbyterian church, and both these Haverhill schoolmates were moved to hear him. By a singular chance they occupied the same pew, and sat close together, but Miss Bray was the only one who was conscious of this, and she was too shy to reveal herself. It must have been her bonnet hid her face, for otherwise Whittier's remarkably keen eyes could not have failed to recognise the dear friend of his school-days.

Their next meeting was at the reunion of the Haverhill Academy class of 1827, which was held in 1885, half a century after their second interview at Marblehead. It was said by some that it was this schoolboy love which Whittier commemorated in his poem, "Memories." But Mr. Pickard, the poet's biographer, affirms that, so far as known, the only direct reference made by Whittier to the affair under consideration occurred in the fine poem, "A Sea Dream," written in 1874.

In the poet, now an old man, the sight of Marblehead awakens the memory of that morning walk, and he writes:

"Is this the wind, the soft sea wind That stirred thy locks of brown? Are these the rocks whose mosses knew The trail of thy light gown, Where boy and girl sat down?

"I see the gray fort's broken wall, The boats that rock below; And, out at sea, the passing sails We saw so long ago, Rose-red in morning's glow.

* * * * *

"Thou art not here, thou art not there, Thy place I cannot see; I only know that where thou art The blessed angels be, And heaven is glad for thee.

* * * * *

"But turn to me thy dear girl-face Without the angel's crown, The wedded roses of thy lips, Thy loose hair rippling down In waves of golden brown.

"Look forth once more through space and time And let thy sweet shade fall In tenderest grace of soul and form On memory's frescoed wall,-- A shadow, and yet all!"

Whittier, it will be seen, believed that the love of his youth was dead. He was soon to find out, in a very odd way, that this was not the case.

Early in the forties, Miss Bray became principal of the "female department" of the Benton School at St. Louis. In 1849, during the prevalence of a fearful epidemic, the school building was converted into a hospital, and one of the patients was an Episcopal clergyman, Reverend William S. Downey, an Englishman, claiming to be of noble birth. He recovered his health, but was entirely deaf, not being able to hear the loudest sound for the remainder of his life. Miss Bray married him, and for forty years endured martyrdom, for he was of a tyrannous disposition and disagreeably eccentric.

Mrs. Downey had never told her husband of her early acquaintance with Whittier, but he found it out by a singular chance. When Reverend S. F. Smith and his wife celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage the event was mentioned in the papers, and the fact that Mrs. Smith was a schoolmate of Whittier was chronicled. Mr. Downey had heard his wife speak of being a schoolmate of the wife of the author of "America," and, putting these two circumstances together, he concluded that his wife must also have known the Quaker poet in his youth. He said nothing to her about this, however, but wrote a letter to Whittier himself, and sent with it a tract he had written in severe denunciation of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll. As a postscript to this letter he asked: "Did you ever know Evelina Bray?" Whittier at once replied, acknowledging the receipt of the tract, and making this characteristic comment upon it:

"It occurs to me to say, however, that in thy tract thee has hardly charity enough for that unfortunate man, Ingersoll, who, it seems to me, is much to be pitied for his darkness of unbelief. We must remember that one of the great causes of infidelity is the worldliness, selfishness, and evil dealing of professed Christians. An awful weight of responsibility rests upon the Christian church in this respect."

And to this letter Whittier added as a postscript: "Can you give me the address of Evelina Bray?" Mr. Downey at once wrote that he was her husband, told of his service of the Master, and indirectly begged for assistance in his work of spreading the gospel. At this time he was an evangelist of the Baptist church, having some time since abandoned the mother faith. And, though he was not reduced to poverty, he accepted alms, as if poor, thus trying sorely the proud spirit of his wife. So it was not an unwonted request.

Of course, the poet had no sympathy with the work of attack Mr. Downey was evidently engaged in. But he feared the girl friend of his youth might be in destitute circumstances, and, for her sake, he made a liberal remittance. All this the miserable husband tried to keep from his wife, who he knew would at once return the money, but she came upon the fact of the remittance by finding Whittier's letter in her husband's pocket.

Naturally, she was very indignant, but her letter to Whittier returning the money was couched in the most delicate terms, and gave no hint of the misery of her life. Until the year of his death she was an occasional correspondent with the poet, one of his last letters, written at Hampton Falls in the summer of 1892, being addressed to her. Their only meeting was at the Haverhill Academy reunion of 1885, fifty-eight years after the love episode of their school-days.

When they met at Haverhill the poet took the love of his youth apart from the other schoolmates, and they then exchanged souvenirs, he receiving her miniature painted on ivory, by Porter, the same artist who painted the first likeness ever taken of Whittier. This latter miniature is now in the possession of Mr. Pickard. The portrait of Miss Bray, representing her in the full flush of her girlish beauty, wearing as a crown a wreath of roses, was returned to Mrs. Downey after the poet's death, by the niece of Whittier, into whose possession it came.

Mrs. Downey spent her last days in the family of Judge Bradley, at West Newbury, Massachusetts. After her death some valuable china of hers was sold at auction, and several pieces were secured by a neighbour, Mrs. Ladd. The Ladd family has since taken charge of the Whittier birthplace at East Haverhill, and by this chain of circumstances Evelina Bray's china now rests on the Whittier shelves, together with the genuine Whittier china, put in its old place by Mrs. Pickard.

[Illustration: WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE, EAST HAVERHILL, MASS.]

It was not because of destitution that Mrs. Downey made application to enter the Old Ladies' Home which Whittier endowed, but, because, cherishing until the day of her death her youthful fondness for the poet, she longed to live during the sunset time of her life near his grave. In all probability her request would have been granted, had not she, too, been suddenly called to the land where there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage.

THE END.

INDEX

Adams, John, 96.

Adams, Mrs. John, 111.

Adams, Samuel, 119.

Agassiz, Mrs., 290.

Alford, Mrs. A. G., 297.

Allston, 270.

Antigua merchant, 60.

Auburn, Mount, 323.

Bana, Doctor, discovers Deborah Sampson's secret, 181; sends letter to General Patterson, 188.

Bancroft, 309.

Barlow, Mrs., 301.

Barr, George L., buys Royall House, 72.

Bartley, Judge, 368.

Bath, 13; death of Frankland at, 55.

Beck, Doctor, 286.

Belem, Frankland sails from, 53.

Belknap, Jeremy, letter of, 265.

Berkeley, Bishop, 11; student at Dublin University, 12; fellow at Trinity College, 12; life as a tutor, 12; reception in London, 28: marriage, 29; sails for Rhode Island, 30; arrives at Newport, 30; writes "Minute Philosopher," 32; bequeaths books to Yale College, 33; dies at Oxford, 34; portrait by Smibert, 35.

Bermuda, proposed college at, 13.

"Blithedale Romance," 300, 307.

Bradley, Judge, 380.

Bray, Evelina, born at Marblehead, 368.

Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education organised, 296.

"Brothers and Sisters" at Fay House, 292.

Brown, Rev. Arthur, 248.

Brownson, 301.

Brunswick, triumphs of Riedesels at, 145.

Burgevine, Henry, 346.

Burlingame, Anson, 355.

Burgoyne, 56, 136.

Burr, Aaron, 123.

Burr, Thaddeus, 120.

Bynner's story, Agnes Surriage, 45.

Cadenus and Vanessa, poem, 24.

Caldwell, Sir John, 305.

Carlyle visited by Ripley, 299.

Caroline, Queen (consort George Second), 29.

Carter, Madam, 135.

Cary Sisters, 367.

Channing, Ellery, 334.

Channing, Lucy, 282.

Channing, Mary, 281.

Channing, William Henry, 282, 314.

Chambly, Baroness Riedesel at, 131.

Charlestown City Hall, 270.

Chichester, Eng., 56.

Child, Professor, 286.

Christ Church, Boston, 104.