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

Full many a field of dewy grass breast-high
His long sharp scythe ere breakfast time did lay;
Full many a hurrying shower came by,
But to the mow still faster went the hay.

To him as inward fires were ice and snow,
They urged his pulse with warm vivacious blood;
How made his furrowed cheeks in winter glow
With ruddy health and iron hardihood!

Superfluous to him was coat or vest,
Let blow hot or cold or stormiest weather;
He, as his hardy fathers, liked the best
His shirt sleeves free and brimless cap of leather.

Few were his books, his learning was but small;
He boasted not of thoughts beyond his speech;
Some few and simple maxims bounded all
That he had learned, or wished to teach.

He loved his home, his farm, his native town;
These were the walls his happy world confined;
And heaven with unaccustomed joy looked down
To see fulfilled a life itself designed.

Sadly his neighbors bore him to his grave
Beneath the old perpetual mourning pine,
Where honest tears and praise they duly gave,
For all he was, the immemorial sign.


THE DORR WAR AND MILLERISM


There was trouble enough in Bellingham in 1840. The sleepy old town in its previous existence had never felt a ripple of excitement more moving than a sewing bee, a travelling phrenologist or temperance lecturer, a summer picnic or a winter revival. Now it was invaded on one hand by Millerism and on the other by the Dorr War. The seat of the latter was in Rhode Island; but Bellingham, being a border town, was in danger of a raid. The Dorrites did, in fact, advance as far as Crook's Tavern on the southern boundary of the town, where, having drunk up what rum they could find, and hearing that the other tavern in the center of the town was kept on teetotal principles, they at once retreated. Not, however, before an alarm had been rung out by the church bell and the militia company called to arms. Great was the fright of the women and children. There was no sleeping in any house, no working and little eating for several days. My mother took her family to the top of a neighboring hill to reconnoitre and was prepared to run for the woods in case the enemy appeared. She was in great distress, having no man to care for and protect her little brood. She was a small, delicate and timid woman, extremely unfitted to play the heroine, and only used to suffering, which she bore like a saint. On the contrary I aged seven, armed with a long fishpole, threatened the advance of the rebels, and was eager to have them come on. I did not go far from my mother and sisters however. I enjoyed the situation, for I loved danger, with plenty of protection and means of escape. I loved fire, deep and threatening water, the roofs of houses, high, dangerous places, thin ice and a bull in the pasture. These tempted me to trials of boyish bravery. At heart, a little coward, I brandished my fishpole and clung to my mother's dress. We could see our soldiers with their high hats surmounted by pompons, parading in front of the town house and could hear the snare drum beat the time of their movement. Nothing came of the affair beyond great excitement and town talk. The Dorrites retreated to Smithfield, the militia men went back to their farms and the town was saved. I was terribly disappointed, and the succeeding days were too flat and dull to be endured. I got through them by playing at soldiering for the remainder of the summer, making forts and wooden guns and gay uniforms out of bright bits of calico, cocked hats of paper stuck full of cock tail feathers. I had also a long-handled lance which had come down in the family from Revolutionary times with which I charged the woodpile and the hen house, made of sods, at an angle in the orchard wall. Through this I thrust so fiercely one day that I killed our only rooster, to the consternation of my mother and sisters. As I was much in need of more tail feathers for my military hat, it did not seem to me such a tragedy. I was punished by not getting the drumstick and wishing bone when he was cooked, and the tail feathers, to my chagrin, were made into a hearth duster.

The Dorr Rebellion was not long past when the terrifying prophecies of Rev. William Miller began to be preached. He had figured out by Biblical and historical dates that the world was to last six thousand years, and that era would be reached about 1843. The Dorr scare was a trifle compared to the panic which now seized upon many people in the country towns of New England. Even those who disbelieved or scoffed could not conceal their dread. It sobered everybody and banished all joy and gaiety. A sad expectancy and presentiment of impending disaster oppressed whole communities. Church members and serious minded persons thought it as well to be prepared and to be on the safe side, in case the end should come. Revivals were going on everywhere and the churches were refilled. What impression did this talk and excitement make on children? I can say for one that I enjoyed it almost as much as the Dorr War. I comprehended nothing of what it meant. I never thought of anything happening to myself, to the house or my dog and kites. The general agitation filled me inwardly with a lively joy; the danger seemed to threaten only our neighbors, that is, such as were Millerites. I reasoned that they and their houses would somehow disappear while we should remain. So every morning I climbed a little hill to see if Sylvanus White's house was standing. He was the leading believer in the end of the world among our neighbors, a prosperous farmer living in a large, frame house. I heard my mother say that he had no children, and it did not make much difference to him what happened. I pondered this remark of my mother trying to think what she meant. I got no farther than the curious conclusion that all the Millerites were grown up people without children, and, by a natural deduction, that my mother and sisters and myself were safe from the end of the world. But I was not altogether satisfied. In my heart, so much did I delight in having something going on, that I wanted to see the great event, which I pictured to myself, remembering the words, flame, smoke and thunder, as something like the mimic Indian fights I had once seen represented on the annual training day of the militia men; only this promised to be on a grander scale.

It is well known that children play at death and funerals without sorrow; so I played the destruction of the world with great delight. I made my world of small boxes for houses, one over the other, and on top of all, a crippled kite which represented Farmer White, as I had heard that he had prepared a white robe in which to ascend. I wanted of course some people in my doomed world besides Farmer White. I manufactured quite an assemblage out of one thing and another and gave them names, mostly of older boys whom I disliked, my Sunday-school teacher, who gave me a bad half hour every week, and my uncle Slocomb who was always telling my mother I would never be a man if she did not stop indulging me so much. I added a few pretended animals of corn cobs, a dead snake, a live frog; and, as these did not seem the real thing, I tied my dog and cat and a lame chicken close to the sacrificial heap. I surrounded the whole with sticks, paper and pine cones and then came the exciting moment when I "touched her off," as boys say. What fun, what glee I experienced at that moment, no one can know, who does not keep in his bosom a fragment of his boyish heart. Creation may please the gods, but it cannot equal the boy's pleasure in destruction, especially by fire. I only needed a few spectators and I soon had them. The flames began to singe the dog and cat, and fricassee the chicken. Their howling and screaming brought the family upon the scene, and none too soon to save the lives of my pets. I was shut in a dark closet on bread and water for the remainder of the day and left to meditate, as my mother charged me, when I confessed my intentions, on "the naughtiness of mocking serious things." Thus did I innocently anticipate in my own person that dies irae which I had prepared for my imaginary town. I took no further interest in Millerism and in neighbor White's big house and ascension robe. After this I made new and less destructible worlds which continue to this day.

But the delusion did not expire by my neglect. It is still cherished as the candid faith of many readers of scriptural oracles. And now they are comforted by the astronomers who terrify us with their calculations on the inexorable cataclysm impending over our trusty and splendid earth. Never mind; we shall not be at the exit. To the vast future belong all these disconcerting predictions--and welcome. Time has already inscribed our urns, and, without mathematics, appointed for each one his separate and appropriate catastrophe. We who have lived fifteen lustrums have already witnessed the dissolution of our world. What more could the Rev. William Miller do for us?


WOODS AND PASTURES


There are many matters in the recollections of our earliest years so minute that to speak of them is only becoming to second childhood. "The soul discovers great things from casual circumstances", says Porphory. Providence provides temporary bridges through life which commonly fall to pieces after we pass over them and are forgotten. It is not so with me; one bridge remains whole and more beautified by time--that on which I return to my native town. I require no daylight or lantern for the journey. Some men can number their happy days; I more often count my happy nights, when I soothe myself to repose by recalling the sweet and tender joys of childhood. I travel the roads and pastures or wade the brook hand in hand with Launa Probana.

There was no gate out of Bellingham in my childhood. Its confines I never thought to question, or to suspect that there was anything beyond. It had its own sun, moon and stars, its river, its pond, its pastures and woods as full of interests and resources and as exhilarating as any place discovered later on the map of the world. This concentration and limitation give to children experiences and illusions which color the whole subsequent life. They are implicit in that soil where we find the roots of our