Confessions of Boyhood by John Albee (free e reader .TXT) 📕

me the end of his thumb calloused and hard as the knurl of white oak; only fire could clean it to the original skin. He shakes out his blue frock for fear of fire in it, and goes his way. There is always something to spare by those who have more, to those who have less. Whoever kills a fatted cow or a pig in early winter sends a portion to the Red House; and a load of wood is left in the night by some farmer who does not wish his right hand to know what his left doeth. Money is scarce; but everything else is shared with those in distress or in sickness. This is so much a matter of course that no one thinks of credit or reward.

In such ways as I have described were the widow and her fatherless children saved from destitution or loss of their respectable position in the little community. I am sure my mother relied with complete trust on the scriptural promises made to those in her difficult circumstances. If they were fulfilled by human agencies, that, also, was the doing of the Divine Director of the affairs of the poor. In those days men and women were good and simple, obedient, not only unto the commands and examples of their Bible, but also to the impulses of their own kind hearts.

Yet the household never again felt the highest happiness of domestic life. A soft and tranquil resignation took its place. They moved about with a gentler step, speaking in subdued tones, more often not at all. They had to live out their lives, although it now seemed hardly worth the struggle. Tears were in their eyes at the table, and one or another would arise before the meal was half finished. I heard suppressed sobs as I went to sleep on a truckle-bed beside my mother, who during the day was more composed than her daughters. Neighbors soon began to call; there was then a hearty cry in which everybody in the room joined. Nothing so relieves the pent-up feeling as this, if only a little sympathy is present, as it were, to receive and consecrate the precious and sacred tribute of tears.

As for me when I returned from the grave of my father, unconscious of what had happened, I resumed my interrupted play under the apple tree. I had never as yet wept for anything except the crossing of my will--April tears, soon dried.


MY MOTHER'S RED CLOAK


My mother was a silent woman, seldom speaking unless first addressed, and she never asked questions of callers beyond what an extreme courtesy required. I noticed the latter trait when a child, in contrast to the custom of most people; for to ask questions seemed to be the usual and almost only manner of carrying on conversation among the neighbors. Moreover, I was myself pestered beyond endurance by a fire of questions whenever I went anywhere, or anybody came to us. I inherit from my mother a great reserve in speech and fondness for silence; and, as the latter can only be purchased by retirement, I have added to silence a love of solitude in which I have doubtless too much indulged myself. All sorts of suppositions follow a man who retires and declines the ambitions of his contemporaries. By some he is thought a coward or eccentric; by others he is believed to be a philosopher. Those of a more indulgent temper guess that delicate health or some disappointment in love, in business or profession has driven him away from his kind. None of these solutions hits the marks. And although I have no wish to relieve myself of responsibility for my course of life, still less to apologize for it, destiny, in form of a woman, my mother, has directed my life in spite of reason, the persuasion of friends or the allurements of the world--the world which inflicts its just penalties upon him who refrains from becoming an actor, who persists in being a spectator. The paradox of my nature is that I love my kind as much as I love solitude and silence. My friendships are now sixty years old. My mother also enjoyed society although she never sought it. She was easily amused, but I never heard her laugh aloud; her whole face smiled and it was more contagious than the outbursts of more demonstrative persons. She listened apparently with all her senses and faculties. It was this characteristic I imagine, that, when outward voices were withdrawn, made possible the turning of an inward ear to the responses of her soul. In no other way can I account for the fact that without education or opportunities she became a refined gentle-woman, became intelligent without books and had an insight and judgment in all matters within her sphere, much depended upon by her family and acquaintances. She was feminine to the tips of her fingers, and sympathetic with distress and misfortune. From her scanty cupboard she fed all who asked for food. She believed and often said that the loaf which is divided is never consumed. Wandering beggars knew her door and were never turned away. But, as her house was small, and without a man, if they asked for shelter, she sent them to the next neighbor.

Bred in such a quiet atmosphere I was usually very silent in my mother's presence. When alone on the road, or in the fields, or with my playthings I talked to myself a great deal; or rather I addressed inanimate objects as if they were living beings, a habit which still clings to me, although the voice is no longer needed. My days were full; I found everywhere enough to keep my feet moving and my hands busy. I was completely filled and satisfied with the earth just as I found it in the town of Bellingham. When, however, evening came on and I had to go into the house, everything shrank to the size of the room. I became restless and fretful. Having exhausted every amusement which the house afforded and, however sleepy, unwilling to go to bed, I sat down upon a cricket at my mother's knee and kept saying, "tell me one little story."

One such evening I recall when the days were growing short and shorter and the candle was lighted at half past four o'clock. It was a privilege always granted me to light the candle. If no one happened to be looking I blew it out for the pleasure of relighting it; for, like other children I loved to play with fire and the candles and the open hearth gave me ample opportunities. The bellows and I were intimate and constant playmates. We played many a trick together; sometimes stealing up behind one of my sisters and blowing into her ear, or going some distance away from the candle I made a current of air which would sway the candle flame, when my mother would exclaim, "how the wind does blow; some door must be open." Then my titter would reveal the rogue, who was reminded that it was his bedtime.

But, on the evening to which I have referred, I was a good boy having expended my naughtiness during the day. There was a still calm throughout the house and the intense cold had hushed the air over field and wood. The candle was alight on the three-footed stand and my mother was counting the stitches in the setting of a new stocking. As usual I was coaxing for a story. Perhaps it was the red yarn which reminded my mother of her red cloak, or some sudden flash of tender memories. When she had fairly started the stocking so that she could knit without counting or looking at her work she said, "I had a red cloak once; would you like to hear about it?"

"Oh yes, and tell it long, long, mother."

"I was a little girl then, so the cloak was short, and so the story. Red was the color I most admired when I was ten years old. It became me, so I thought, for I was almost as dark skinned as an Indian. Folks called me Widow Thayer's red-winged blackbird when I wore my cloak, of which I was very proud. It had no sleeves and came down to my feet and was closed at the neck with a fastening of silk cord braided in a pretty pattern.

"I went to meeting in it all one winter, proud and gay, but never wore it on any other day except the Sabbath. At the end of winter it was packed away in a great chest where our winter clothing was kept in summer with tansy laid among the garments to prevent moths. My red cloak was placed at the bottom of the chest and I myself spread an unnecessary number of green tansy sprays over it. I never thought of the cloak again until the next winter. When it was taken out for me to wear one cold November Sabbath, what was my grief to see the cloak, as I thought, ruined. The tansy leaves had printed their exact shapes in a dark brown color all over the back, which had lain uppermost in the bottom of the chest. The pressure and the heat had acted like a dye. I cried my eyes red and would not go to meeting. Every one thought the cloak was spoilt. But one day the minister's wife called at our house, and the sad tale of the cloak was related to her, and asking to see it she said, "Why, if it wasn't pretty before--and I never liked red for little girls--it certainly is now. It is beautiful with those brown leaves; it looks almost like a palm-leaf cashmere shawl." Now a palm-leaf cashmere shawl was the finest and most costly outer garment a woman could possess in those days. My mother and sisters agreed with the minister's wife, as her opinion about all women's concerns was as much respected as was her husband's on religious matters. So I began to wear the cloak again, and people thought it was a new one, and wondered how my mother could be so extravagant when she was so poor. But the cloak was much admired and thought to become me more than the last year's red one. The secret was not kept long for the minister's wife explained it to someone to free my mother from the charge of extravagance. Soon everybody knew it and many inquiries were made how it happened. Some of our neighbor's daughters even tried to produce the same effects on their dresses and cloaks by pressing green leaves on them with hot flatirons. But it did not succeed. You cannot imitate accidents; they just happen once; the next one is something different. So all the girls envied me my cloak. It lasted me ten years, for I was not much taller at twenty than at ten."

My mother was silent again and I exclaimed "is that all, mother? Tell some more, do."

"Stories, my son, must have an end or you would not like them--but there would never be another. I have heard of a book that had a thousand, but it took a thousand evenings to tell them. So one an evening ought to be enough, and it is your bedtime."

Here my youngest sister, Harriet, who was fifteen years old, said, "Mother, why don't you tell him the other part of the cloak story?"

"Yes, tell it," I entreated.

My mother appeared to be wholly absorbed in her stocking; she had dropped a stitch and was working her needles painfully, trying to recover it. A half sad smile, half pleased expression came into her face and a