JudgeⒶemendation  Draper , dead without issue.

. Wife, . Sons: , , , . Daughter, .

Dr. Meredith . Sons, Charley and John . Two old-maid sisters. He had been a sailor, and had a deep voice. Charley went to California and thence to hell; John, a meek and bashful boy, became the cruelest of bushwhacker-leaders in the war-time.

Dr. Fife . Dr. Peake.

Lawyer Lakenan .

Captain Robards . Flour mill. Called rich. George (flame, Mary Moss ,) an elder pupil at Dawson ’s, long hair, Latin, grammar, etc. Disappointed, wandered out into the world, and not heard of again for certain. Floating rumors at long intervals that he had been seen in South America (Lima) and other far places. Family apparently not disturbed by his absence. But it was known that Mary Moss was.

John Robards . When 12, went to California across the plains with his father . Gone a year. Returned around Cape Horn. Rode in the Plains manner, his long yellow hair flapping. He said he was appointed to West Point and couldn’t pass because of a defect in [begin page 94] his eye. Probably a lie. There was always a noticeable defect in his veracity. Was a punctual boy at the Meth. Sunday school, and at Dawson ’s; a good natured fellow, but not much to him. Became a lawyer. Married a Hurst—new family. Prominent and valued citizen, and well-to-do. Procreated a cloud of children. Superintendent of the Old Ship of Zion Sunday school.

Clay Robards . A good and daring rebel soldier. Disappeared from view.

Sally Robards . Pupil at Dawson ’s. Married Bart Bowen , pilot and captain. Young widow.

Russell Moss . Pork-house. Rich. Mary , very sweet and pretty at 16 and 17. Wanted to marry George Robards . Lawyer Lakenan the rising stranger, held to be the better match by the parents, who were looking higher than commerce. They made her engage herself to L. L. made her study hard a year to fit herself to be his intellectual company; then married her, shut her up, the docile and heart-hurt young beauty, and continued her education rigorously. When he was ready to trot her out in society 2 years later and exhibit her, she had become wedded to her seclusion and her melancholy broodings, and begged to be left alone. He compelled her—that is, commanded. She obeyed. Her first exit was her last. The sleigh was overturned, her thigh was broken; it was badly set. She got well with a terrible limp, and forever after stayed in the house and produced children. Saw no company, not even the mates of her girlhood.

Neil Moss . The envied rich boy of the Meth. S. S. Spoiled and of small account. Dawson ’s. Was sent to Yale—a mighty journey and an incomparable distinction. Came back in swell eastern clothes, and the young men dressed up the warped negro bell ringer in a travesty of him—which made him descend to village fashions. At 30 he was a graceless tramp in Nevada, living by mendicancy and borrowed money. Disappeared. The parents died after the war. Mary Lakenan ’s got the property.

Dana Breed . From Maine. Clerk for old T. R. Selmes , an Englishman. Married Letititia Richmond . Collins and Breed—merchants. ThisⒶemendation lot all dead now.

[begin page 95] Lot Southard . Clerk. Married Lucy Lockwood . Dead.

Jesse Armstrong . Clerk for Selmes . Married - - - - - - -Ⓐemendation. After many years she fell in love with her physician. One night somebody entered the back door—A. jumped out of bed to see about it and was chopped to pieces with an axe brought from his own woodpile. The widow and the physician tried for the murder. Evidence insufficient. Acquitted, but Judge, jury and all the town believed them guilty. Before the year was out they married, and were at once and rigorously ostracised. The physician’s practice shrunk to nothing, but Armstrong left wealth, so it was no matter.

Bill Briggs . Drifted to California in ’50, and in ’65 was a handsome bachelor and had a woman. Kept a faro-table.

John Briggs . ( Miss Torrey and Miss Newcomb and Mrs. Horr .) Worked as stemmer in Garth ’s factory. Became a 6-footer and a capable rebel private.

Artemissa Briggs . ( Miss Torrey , N. and Mrs. H. ) Married Richmond the mason, Miss Torrey’s widower.

Miss Newcomb —old maid and thin. Married Davis , a day laborer.

Miss Lucy Davis . Schoolmarm.

Mrs. Hawkins . Widow about 1840. ’Lige —became rich merchant in St Louis and New York.

Ben . City marshal. Shot his thumb off, hunting. Fire marshal of Big 6 Company.

Jeff . Little boy. Died. Buried in the old graveyard on the hill.

Sophia . Married - - - - -Ⓐemendation the prosperous tinner.

Laura . Pretty little creature of 5 at Miss Torrey ’s. At the Hill street school she and Jenny Brady wrote on the slate that day at the noon recess. Another time Laura fell out of her chair and Jenny made that vicious remark. Laura lived to be the mother of six 6-foot sons. Died.

Little Margaret Striker .

- - - - - StrikerⒶemendation the blacksmith .

McDonald the desperado (plasterer.)

Mrs. Holiday . Was a MacDonald, born Scotch. Wore her father’s ivory miniature—a British General in the Revolution. Lived [begin page 96] on Holiday’s Hill. Well off. Hospitable. Fond of having parties of young people. Widow. Old, but anxious to marry. Always consulting fortune-tellers; always managed to make them understand that she had been promised 3 by the first fraud. They always confirmed the prophecy. She finally died before the prophecies had a full chance.

Old Stevens , jeweler. Dick , Upper Miss. pilot. Ed , neat as a new pin. Miss Newcomb ’s. Tore down Dick Hardy ’s stable. Insurrection-leader. Brought before Miss N., brickbats fell out of his pockets and J. Meredith ’s. Ed was out with the rebel company sworn in by Col. Ralls of the Mexican war.

Ed. Hyde , Dick Hyde . Tough and dissipated. Ed. held his uncle down while Dick tried to kill him with a pistol which refused fire.

Eliza Hyde . “Last Link is Broken.”Ⓔexplanatory note Married . Thought drifted to Texas. Died.

Old Selmes and his Wildcat store. Widower. married well—St Louis.

’Gyle Buchanan . Robert , proprietor of Journal. Shouting methodists. Young Bob and Little Joe , printers. Big Joe a fighter and steamboat engineer after apprenticeship as a moulder. Somebody hit young Bob over the head with a fire-shovel.

Sam Raymond —fire company, and editor of (Journal?) St Louis swell. Always affected fine city language, and said “Toosday.” Married Mary Nash ?

Tom Nash . Went deaf and dumb from breaking through ice. Became a house-painter; and at Jacksonville was taught to talk, after a fashion. His 2 young sisters went deaf and dumb from scarlet fever.

Old Nash . Postmaster. His aged mother was Irish, had family jewels, and claimed to be aristocracy.

Blankenships . paupers and drunkards; the girls charged with prostitution—not proven. Tom , a kindly young heathen. Bence , a fisherman. These children were never sent to school or church. Played out and disappeared.

[begin page 97] Captain S. A. Bowen . Died about 1850. later.

John , steamboat agent in St Louis; army contractor, later—rich.

Bart . Pilot and Captain. Good fellow. Consumptive. Gave $20, time of Pennsylvania disaster. Young McManus got it. Left young widow.

Mary . Married lawyer Green , who was Union man.

Eliza —stammered badly, and was a kind of a fool.

Will . Pilot. Diseased. Mrs. Horr and all the rest (including Cross ?) Had the measles that time. Baptist family. Put cards in minister’s baptising robe. Trouble in consequenceⒺexplanatory note. Helped roll rock down that jumped over Simon ’s dray and smashed into coopershop. He died in Texas. Family.

Sam . Pilot. Slept with the rich baker’s daughter, telling the adoptive parents they were married. The baker died and left all his wealth to “Mr. and Mrs. S. Bowen.” They rushed off to a Carondolet magistrate, got married, and bribed him to antedate the marriage. Heirs from Germany proved the fraud and took the wealth. Sam no account and a pauper. Neglected his wife; she took up with another man. Sam a drinker. Dropped pretty low. Died of yellow fever and whisky on a little boat with Bill Kribben the defaulting secretary. Both buried at the head of 82. In 5 years 82 got washed away.

Rev. Mr. Rice . Presbyterian. Died.

Rev. Tucker . Went east.

Roberta Jones . Scared old Miss - - - - - -Ⓐemendation into the insane asylum with a skull and a doughface. Married Jackson. “Oh, on Long Island’s Sea-girt Shore.”Ⓔexplanatory note

Jim Quarles . Tinner. Set up in business by —$3,000—a fortune, then. Popular young beau—dancer—flutist—serenader—envied—a great catch. Married a child of 14. Two babies the result. Father highly disapproved the marriage. Dissipation—often drunk. Neglected the business—and the child-wife and babies. Left them and went to California. The little family went to Jim’s father. Jim became a drunken loafer in California, and so died.

[begin page 98] Jim Lampton . A popular beau, like the other. Good fellow, very handsome, full of life. Young doctor without practice, poor, but good family and considered a good catch. Captured by the arts of Ella Hunter , a loud vulgar beauty from a neighboring town—one of the earliest chipper and self-satisfied and idiotic correspondents of the back-country newspapers—an early Kate Field Ⓔexplanatory note. Moved to St Louis. Steamboat agent. Young Dr. John McDowell boarded with them; followed them from house to house; an arrant scandal to everybody with eyes—but Jim hadn’t any, and believed in the loyalty of both of them. God took him at last, the only good luck he ever had after he met Ella. Left a red-headed daughter, Kate . Doctor John and Ella continued together.

In sixty years that town has not turned out a solitary preacher; not a U.S. Senator, only 2 congressmen, and in no instance a name known across the river. But one college-man.

Wales McCormick . J—sⒶemendation H. C.

Dick Rutter .

Pet McMurry . His medicine bottle—greasy auburn hair—Cuba sixes. Quincy. Family. Stove store.

Bill League . Married the gravestone-cutter’s daughter. “Courier.” Became its proprietor. Made it a daily and prosperous. Children. Died.

The two young sailors—IrishⒺexplanatory note.

Urban E. Hicks . Saw Jenny Lind . Went to Oregon; served in Indian war.

Jim Wolf . The practical jokes. Died.

Letitia Honeyman . School. Married a showy stranger. Turned out to be a thief and swindler. She and her baby waited while he served a long term. At the end of it her youth was gone, and her cheery ways.

Sam . Lost an arm in the war. Became a policeman.

Pavey . “Pigtail done.” A lazy, vile-tempered old hellion. His wife and daughters did all the work and were atrociously treated. Pole —went to St Louis. Gone six months—came back a striker, with wages, the envy of everybody. Drove his girl Sunday in buggy from Shoot ’s stable, $1.50 a day. Introduced poker—cent ante. Became [begin page 99] second engineer. Married a pretty little fat child in St. Louis. Got drowned.

Becky . Came up from St Louis a sweet and pretty young thing—caused many heart-breaks. Silver pencil—$1.50—she didn’t care for it. Davis a widower, married her sister Josephine , and Becky married Davis’s son . They went to Texas. Disappeared. The “long dog.”Ⓔexplanatory note

The other sisters married— Mrs. Strong went to Peoria. One of them was Mrs. Shoot —married at 13, born at 14. Mrs. Hayward’s daughter tried the stage at home, then at Daly’s, didn’t succeed. Finally a .

Jim Foreman . Clerk. Pomeroy Benton & Co. Handkerchief.

Mrs. Sexton (she pronounced it Saxton to make it finer, the nice, kind-hearted, smirky, smily dear Christian creature—Methodist.)

Margaret . Pretty child of 14. Boarders in 1844 house. and , rivals. Mrs. S. talked much of N-Yorliuns; and hints and sighs of better days there, departed never to return. Sunday-school.

[CloakⒶemendation of the time, flung back, lined with bright plaid. Worn with a swagger. Most rational garment that ever was.

Slouch hat, worn gallusly.

Hoop-skirts coming in.

Literature. Byron, Scott, Cooper, Marryatt, Ⓔexplanatory note. Pirates and knightsⒶemendation preferred to other society. Songs tended to regrets for bygone days and vanished joys: Oft in the Stilly NightⒺexplanatory note; Last Rose of SummerⒺexplanatory note; The Last LinkⒺexplanatory note; Bonny DoonⒺexplanatory note; Old Dog TrayⒺexplanatory note; for the lady I love will soon be a brideⒺexplanatory note; Gaily the TroubadourⒺexplanatory note; Bright AlfarataⒶemendation Ⓔexplanatory note.

Negro melodies Ⓐemendation the same trend: Old Kentucky Home; (de day goes by like a shadow on de wall, wid sorrow where all was delight;) Massa’s in de Cold Ground; Swanee RiverⒺexplanatory note.

The gushing Crusaders admiredⒺexplanatory note; the serenade was a survival or a result of this literature.

Any young person would have been proud of a “strain” of Indian [begin page 100] blood. Bright AlfarataⒶemendation of the blue Juniata got her strain from “a far distant fount.”

All that sentimentality and romance among young folk seem puerile, now, but when one examines it and compares it with the ideals of to-day, it was the preferable thing. It was soft, sappy, melancholy; but money had no place in it. To get rich was no one’s ambition—it was not in any young person’s thoughts. The heroes of these young people—even the pirates—were moved by lofty impulses: they waded in blood, in the distant fields of war and adventure and upon the pirate deck, to rescue the helpless, not to make money; they spent their blood and made their self-sacrifices for “honor’s” sake, not to capture a giant fortune; they married for love, not for money and position. It was an intensely sentimental age, but it took no sordid form. The Californian rush for wealth in ’49 introduced the change and begot the lust for money which is the rule of life to-day, and the hardness and cynicism which is the spirit of to-day.

The three “rich” menⒺexplanatory note were not worshiped, and not envied. They were not arrogant, nor assertive, nor tyrannical, nor exigeantⒶemendation. It was California that changed the spirit of the people and lowered their ideals to the plane of to-day.

Unbeliever. There was but one— , the young Kentucky lawyer, a fascinating cuss—and they shuddered to hear him talk. They expected a judgment to fall upon him at any moment. They believed the devil would come for him in person some stormy night.

He was very profane, and blasphemous. He was vain of being prayed for in the revivals; vain of being singled out for this honor always by every new revivalist; vain of the competition between these people for his capture; vain that it was the ambition of each in his turn to hang this notable scalp at his belt. The young ladies were ambitious to convert him.

Chastity. There was the utmost liberty among young people—but no young girl was ever insulted, or seduced, or even scandalously gossiped about. Such things were not even dreamed of in that society, much less spoken of and referred to as possibilities.

[begin page 101] Two or three times, in the lapse of years, married women were whispered about, but never an unmarried one.

Ouseley . Prosperous merchant. Smoked fragrant cigars—regalias—5 apiece. Killed old Smar . Acquitted. His party brought him huzzaing in from Palmyra at midnight. But there was a cloud upon him—a social chill—and he presently moved away.

Ⓔexplanatory note. He raped and murdered a girl of 13 in the woods. He confessed to forcing 3 young women in Va, and was brought away in a feather bed to save his life—which was a valuable property.

The Stabbed Cal. Emigrant. Saw himⒺexplanatory note.

knocked MacDonald down with a mallet and saved Charley Schneider . Mac in return came near shooting Col. Elgin in the back of the head.

Clint Levering drowned. lived to have a family and be rich and respected.

Garth . Presbyterians. Tobacco. Eventually rich. David , teacher in S. school. Later, Supt.

John . Mrs. Horr and the others. He removed to New York and became a broker, and prosperous. Returned, and brought Helen Kercheval to Brooklyn in ’68. Presently went back to St P. and remained. Banker, rich. Raised 2 beautiful daughters and a son.

Old Kercheval the tailor . Helen did not like his trade to be referred to.

saved ’s life—aged 9—from drowning, and was cursed for it by Simon for 50 years.

Daily Packet Service Ⓔexplanatory note to Keokuk. The merchants—envied by all the untraveled town—made trips to the great city (of 30,000 souls). St. L papers had pictures of Planters HouseⒺexplanatory note, and sometimes an engraved letter-head had a picture of the city front, with the boats sardined at the wharf and the modest spire of the little Cath CathedralⒺexplanatory note showing prominently; and at last when a minor citizen realized the dream of his life and traveled to St. Louis, he was thrilled to the marrow when he recognized the rank of boats and the spire and the Planters, and was amazed at the accuracy of the [begin page 102] pictures and at the fact that the things were realities and not inventions of the imagination. He talked St Louis, and nothing but S L and its wonders for months and months afterward. “Call that a fire-uniform! you ought to see a turn-out in St L.—blocks and blocks and blocks of red shirts and helmets, and more engines and hosecarts and hook and ladder Co’s—my!”

4th July. Banners. Declaration and Spreadeagle speech in public square. Procession—Sunday schools, Masons, Odd Fellows, Temperance Society, Cadets of TemperanceⒺexplanatory note, the Co of St P GreysⒺexplanatory note, the FantasticsⒺexplanatory note (oh, so funny!) and of course the Fire Co and Sam R. Maybe in the woods. Collation in the cool shade of a tent. Gingerbread in slabs; lemonade; ice cream. Opened with prayer—closed with a blessing.

Circus.

Mesmerizer Ⓔexplanatory note.

Nigger Show Ⓔexplanatory note. (the swell pet tenor) Prendergast

Bell-Ringers (Swiss)Ⓔexplanatory note

Debating Society Ⓔexplanatory note.

National Intelligencer. Dr. Peake .

St. L. Republican.

Old Pitts , the saddler. Always rushed wildly down street putting on coat as he went—rushed aboard—nothing for him, of course.

John Hannicks , with the laugh. See black smoke rising beyond point—“Steeammmboat a coming!” Laugh. Rattle his dray.

Bill Pitts , saddler, succeeded his father .

Ben Coontz —sent to W. Point.

Glover (protégé of old T. K. Collins ) really did become a famous lawyer in St L., but St P always said he was a fool and nothing to him.

The Mock Duel Ⓔexplanatory note.

Lavinia Honeyman captured “celebrated” circus-rider—envied for the unexampled brilliancy of the match—but he got into the penitentiary at Jefferson City and the romance was spoiled.

Ratcliffes . One son lived in a bark hut up at the stillhouseⒶemendation branch and at intervals came home at night and emptied the larder. [begin page 103] Back door left open purposely; if notice was taken of him he would not come.

Another son had to be locked into a small house in corner of the yard—and chained. Fed through a hole. Would not wear clothes, winter or summer. Could not have fire. Religious mania. Believed his left hand had committed a mortal sin and must be sacrificed. Got hold of a hatchet, nobody knows how, and chopped it off. Escaped and chased his stepmother all over the house with carving knife. arrived and rescued her. He seemed to be afraid of his father, and could be cowed by him, but by no one else. He died in that small house.

One son became a fine physician and in California ventured to marry; but went mad and finished his days in the asylum. The old Dr., dying, said, “Don’t cry; rejoice—shout. This is the only valuable day I have known in my 65 years.” His grandfather’s generation had been madmen—then the disease skipped to his. He said Nature laid a trap for him: slyly allowed all his children to be born before exposing the taint.

enlarged upon it and said Nature was always treacherous—did not single him out, but spared nobody.

B. went to K. to get married. All present at the wedding but himself. Shame and grief of the bride; indignation of the rest. A year later he would be found—bridally clad—shut into the family vault in the graveyard—spring lock and the key on the outside. His mother had but one pet and he was the one—because he was an infidel and the target of bitter public opinion. He always visited her tomb when at home, but the others didn’t. So the judgment hit him at last. He was found when they came to bury a sister. There had been a theft of money in the town, and people managed to suspect him; but it was not found on him.

Married in Lexington in ’23; he 24, 20. She married him to spite young , to whom she was engaged, and who wouldn’t go to a neighboring town, 9 miles, in the short hours of the night, to bring her home from a ball.

He was a small storekeeper. Removed to Jamestown and kept a [begin page 104] store. Entered 75,000 acres of land (oil land, later). Three children born there. The stray calfⒺexplanatory note.

Removed to village of Florida. born there—died at 10. Small storekeeper. Then to St P middle of 1838. Rest of the family born there— Han and B. died there. The mother made the children feel the cheek of the dead boy, and tried to make them understand the calamity that had befallen. The case of memorable treachery.

Still a small storekeeper—but progressing. Then Ira Stout , who got him to go security for a large sum, “took the benefit of the bankrupt law” and ruined him—in fact made a pauper of him.

Became justice of the peace and lived on its meagre pickings.

Stern, unsmiling, never demonstrated affection for wife or child. Had found out he had been married to spite another man. Silent, austere, of perfect probity and high principle; ungentle of manner toward his children, but always a gentleman in his phrasing—and never punished them—a look was enough, and more than enough.

Had but one —she wanted to be sold to Beebe , and was. He sold her down the riverⒺexplanatory note. Was seen, years later, ch. on steamboat. Cried and lamented. Judge whipped her once, for impudence to his wife—whipped her with a bridle.

It was remembered that he went to church—once; never again. His family were abandoned Presbyterians. What his notions about religion were, no one ever knew. He never mentioned the matter; offered no remarks when others discussed it. Whoever tried to drag a remark out of him failed; got a courteous answer or a look which discouraged further effort, and that person understood, and never approached the matter again.

If he had intimates at all, it was Peake and Draper . Peake was very old in the 40s, and wore high stock, pigtail and up to ’40, still wore kneebreeches and buckle-shoes. A courtly gentleman of the old schoolⒶemendation—a Virginian, like Judge C.

Judge C. was elected County Judge by a great majority in ’49, and at last saw great prosperity before him. But of course caught his death the first day he opened court. He went home with pneumonia, 12 miles, horseback, winter—and in a fortnight was dead. [begin page 105] First instance of affection: discovering that he was dying, chose from among the weepers, who were kneeling about the room and crying—and motioned her to come to him. Drew her down to him, with his arms about her neck, kissed her (for the first time, no doubt,) and said “Let me die”—and sunk back and the death rattle came. Ten minutes before, Ⓔexplanatory note had said, “Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that through his blood only you can be saved?” “I do.” Then the preacher prayed over him and recommended him. He did not say good-bye to his wife, or to any but his daughter.

The autopsy Ⓔexplanatory note.

Jimmy Reagan , from St Louis.

Carey Briggs , from Galena and also from Bayou Lafourche.

. Old maid at 25, married W. Moffett , mouldy old bachelor of 35—a St L commission merchant and well off. He died 1865, rich ($20,000) leaving little and .

. Born Jamestown, 1825. About 1842, aged 17, went to St. L to learn to be a printer, in Ustick ’s job office.

At 18, wrote home to , that he was studying the life of Franklin and closely imitating him; that in his boarding house he was confining himself to bread and water,Ⓐemendation and was trying to persuade the other young boarders and Ustick’s other cubs, to eschew beer. They called him Parson Snivel and gave him frank and admirable cursings, and urged him to mind his own business. All of which pleased him, and made him a hero to himself: for he was turning his other cheek, as commanded, he was being reviled and persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and all that. Privately his little Presbyterian mother was not pleased with this too-literal loyalty to the theoretical Bible-teachings which he had acquired through her agency, for, slender and delicately moulded as she was, she had a dauntless courage and a high spirit, and was not of the cheek-turning sort. She believed fervently in her religion and strenuously believed it was a person’s duty to turn the cheek, but she was quite open and aboveboard in saying that she wouldn’t turn her own cheek nor respect anybody that did. “Why, how do you reconcile that with—” “I don’t reconcile it with anything. I am the [begin page 106] way I am made. Religion is a jugfullⒶemendation; I hold a dipperfull; youⒶemendation can’t crowd a jugful of anythingⒶemendation into a dipper—there’s no way. I’m holding what I can, and I’m not going to cry because I can’t crowd the rest in. I know that a person that can turn his cheek is higher and holier than I am, and better every way. And of course I reverence him; but I despise him, too, and I wouldn’t have him for a doormat.”

We know what she meant. Her attitude is easily understandable, but we get our comprehension of it not through her explanation of it but in spite of it. Her language won’t scan, but its meaning is clear, all the same.

She did not show Oscar’s letter to ; the Judge would have taken no great interest in it. There were few points of contact between him and his son; there were few or no openings for sympathy between the two. The father was as steady as a church-tower, the son as capricious as the weather-vane on its top. Steady people do not admire the weather-vane sort.

But the mother answered the letter; and she poured out her affection upon her boy, and her praises, too; praises of his resolution to be a Franklin and become great and good and renowned; for she always said that he was distrustful of himself and a prey to despondencesⒶemendation, and that no opportunity to praise him and encourage him must be lost, or he would lose heart and be defeated in his struggles to gain the front in the race of life. She had to do all the encouraging herself; the rest of the family were indifferent, and this wounded her, and brought gentle reproaches out of her that were strangely eloquent and moving, considering how simple and unaffected her language was, and how effortless and unconscious. But there was a subtle something in her voice and her manner that was irresistablyⒶemendation pathetic, and perhaps that was where a great part of the power lay; in that and in her moist eyes and trembling lip. I know now that she was the most eloquent person whom I have met in all my days, but I did not know it then, and I suppose that no one in all the village suspected that she was a marvel, or indeed that she was in any degree above the common. I had been abroad in the world for twenty years and known and listened to many of its best talkers before it at last dawned upon me that in the matter of [begin page 107] moving and pathetic eloquence none of them was the equal of that untrained and artless talker out there in the western village, that obscure little woman with the beautiful spirit and the great heart and the enchanted tongue.

Oscar’s mother praised in her letter what she was able to praise; and she praised forcefully and generously and heartily, too. There was no uncertain ring about her words. But her gorge rose at the cheek-turning heroisms, and since she could not commend them and be honest, she skipped them wholly, and made no reference to them.

Oscar’s next week’s letter showed further progress. He was now getting up at four in the morning, because that was Franklin’s way; he had divided his day on the Franklin plan—eight hours for labor, eight for sleep, eight for study, meditation and exercise; he had pinned Franklin’s rules up in a handy place, and divided the hours into minutes, and distributed the minutes among the rules, each minute sacred to its appointed duty: so many minutes for the morning prayer; so many for the Bible chapter; so many for the dumb-bells; so many for the bath; so many for What did I do yesterday that was morally and mentally profitable? What did I do which should have been left undone? What opportunity did I neglect of doing good? Whom did I injure, whom did I help, whose burden did I lighten? How shall I order this day to the approval of God, my own spiritual elevation, and the betterment of my fellow beings? And so on, and so on, all the way through: sixteen waking hours cut up into minutes, and each minute labeled with its own particular duty-tag.

He wrote it all home to his mother; and added that he found that life was a noble and beautiful thing when reduced to order and system; that he was astonished to see what briskness, mentally and physically, early rising gave him, and what a difference he could already notice between himself and the late-rising boarders—the greatest difference in the world, and all in four days.

But he said he had taken to his lamp again, for he had found that he could not read his fine-print books by the Franklin tallow candle. Also, he had been to a lecture, and was now a vegetarian, and an [begin page 108] enthusiastic one. He had discarded bread, and also water; vegetables, pure and simple, made the most effective and inspiring diet in the world, and the most thoroughly satisfying; he wondered how his intellect had ever survived the gross food with which he had formerly burdened it; but he sometimes almost feared that it had suffered impairment. He had mentioned this fear to the foreman of the office, but the foreman had said, almost with enthusiasm, considering what a lifeless and indifferent man he usually was, “Don’t worry—nothing can impair your intellect.”

The mother’s face flushed when she read that, and the foreman was better off where he was than he would have been, here, in reach of her tongue.Ⓐemendation