CHAPTER V

SCHOOL DAYS

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, The master of the district school Held at the fire his favored place. Its warm glow lit a laughing face, Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared The uncertain prophecy of beard. He teased the mitten-blinded cat, Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat, Sang songs, and told us what befalls In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.

...

A careless boy that night he seemed; But at his desk he had the look And air of one who wisely schemed, And hostage from the future took In trained thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed—of such as he Shall Freedom’s young apostles be.

—_Snow-Bound._

Until he was nineteen Whittier went only to the district school, and he used to say that in all that time only two of the teachers were worth anything at all. Both of these were Dartmouth students, and are fairly well described in the above quotation from “Snow-Bound.” One was Joshua Coffin, Whittier’s first teacher. He came back again some years later, and often spent his evenings at the Whittier homestead. In later years he was the poet’s friend and helper in the antislavery cause.

Little Greenleaf started to school when he was very small, and before he had learned his letters. Among his poems is a sweet little one, entitled “In School Days.” He begins by describing the schoolhouse:

Within, the master’s desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife’s carved initial.

You must read for yourself the story of the little boy and the little girl, and how the latter said:

“I’m sorry that I spelt the word: I hate to go above you, Because,”—the brown eyes lower fell,— “Because, you see, I love you!”

Of books to read they had not many in the Whittier household, and most of them were the works of saintly Quakers. The Bible was the chief book, and that they read until they had it by heart. Joshua Coffin used to bring various books which he had and read them aloud to the older people, not paying much attention to the boy of fifteen who sat in the corner and listened. Once he brought a volume of Burns’s poems and read page after page, explaining the Scotch dialect. Greenleaf, then a tall, shy lad, listened spellbound. He had got into what his Uncle Moses called his “stood.” The teacher saw that he was interested, and offered to leave the book with him. That was about the first good poetry he had ever heard. It kindled the fire of poetic genius in his own mind and heart, and he soon began to write poetry himself. But he was only a farmer’s lad, and writing poetry does not come easy to one in such surroundings.

While he was in his teens he made his first visit to Boston, staying with a relative who was post-master of the city. You may imagine how he looked, a gawky country boy, with broad-brimmed Quaker hat and plain, homespun clothes. But he wore for the first time in his life “boughten buttons” on his coat, and his Quaker hat had been covered by his Aunt Mercy with drab velvet. These made him feel very fine.

He was induced to buy a copy of Shakespeare; and at the table of his relative was a brilliant lady, who was very kind to him. He had been warned against the temptations of the town, and you can imagine how shocked he was to find out that this fine lady was an actress. She invited him to go to the theater; but he hastily declined, and was almost ashamed of himself for having bought a volume of plays, even if they were Shakespeare’s.

Somehow or other a copy of one of the Waverley novels came into the Quaker home, and Whittier and his sister read it together without letting their parents know. They read late into the night; and at one time, just as they were getting to an exciting part, the candle burned out and they had to go to bed in the dark, for it was quite impossible to get another.

There is a story that Whittier’s first verses were written on the beam of his mother’s loom. At any rate he wrote verses on his slate in school, and passed them around among the scholars. One stanza his sister remembered, and repeated afterward:

And must I always swing the flail, And help to fill the milking-pail? I wish to go away to school; I do not wish to be a fool.

The desk on which the poet wrote his first verses was built by that original Thomas Whittier, more than a hundred years before Greenleaf was born. It stood in the kitchen for many years; then it was packed away. But a few years before Whittier died, a niece of his had it taken out and repaired, and he used it until the end of his life.

In those old days his sister Mary thought his verses exceedingly fine, quite as good as those she read in the “Poet’s Corner” of the _Free Press_. This paper had just been started in Newburyport by William Lloyd Garrison, who was only three years older than Whittier, but had had every advantage of education. John Whittier, the father, liked the solid tone of it, and subscribed. Without letting her brother know, Mary got one of his poems and sent it anonymously to the editor of the paper. When, a week or so afterward, the postman came along by the field where the Whittiers were at work and flung the paper over the fence, Greenleaf looked at once to see what was in the “Poet’s Corner,” and was immensely surprised to see his own poem there. He says he simply stood and stared at it, without reading a word. His father suggested that he had better go to work; but he couldn’t help opening the paper again and looking at his own poem.

Another poem was sent, and Garrison wrote a note to introduce it, in which he said: “His poetry bears the stamp of true poetic genius, which, if carefully cultivated, will rank him among the bards of his country.” How strange a prophecy, and how strange the fortune that brought together the great reformer, William Lloyd Garrison, and the great poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, when both were so young and inexperienced!