See America First Part 20

A happy smile flits 'cross his face, The dream of fair Elysian fields, A vision of the old home place To darkened memories swiftly yields.

G.o.d had turned the trenches to roses again When they bore him home across the wave He was true to self, to G.o.d, and man And was leaving a land he died to save.

How quiet on that August morn The tolling bell gave forth its sound.

In star-draped casket, slowly borne, A treasure not of earth was found.

Like dew upon a flower sleeping Or fairest hue of sunset skies A jewel in the master's keeping A radiant pearl of greatest price.

Like amber-tinted clouds of May By many vagrant breezes driven; That frail form swiftly pa.s.sed away To melt and fade in dawn's fair heaven.

Death is but the mist of early morn Seen rising o'er the placid river, An open gateway into heaven Where the pure with G.o.d shall dwelt forever.

CHAPTER X

LEXINGTON AND CONCORD

Coming into Lexington from the south one pa.s.ses Follen church, where Emerson preached. Farther along on the right is the house of John Harrington, last survivor of the battle; then, near the corner of Maple street, the great elm planted by his father.

About a quarter of a mile further, on the left, is the Munroe Tavern, headquarters and hospital of Earl Percy, now the property of the Lexington Historical Society. The granite cannon by the High School marks the site of one of the field-pieces placed by Earl Percy to cover the retreat of the British troops.

In the town hall is the admirable painting of the Battle of Lexington, by Sandham; also in the town offices statues of Hanc.o.c.k and Adams.

The Hayes memorial fountain, with an ideal statue of the Minute Man, by Henry H. Kitson, sculptor, faces the line of approach of the British from the easterly end of the common. Behind it a granite pulpit marks the site of the old church past which Pitcairn led his men; a boulder to the left locates the position of the Old Belfry from which the alarm was sounded on its bell, April 19, 1775. A boulder on the common to the right from the fountain, together with the old monument, under which the eight men killed during the battle are buried, marks the line of the Minute Men. The Jonathan Harrington house, on the corner of Bedford street, was the scene of a touching incident of the battle. Across Bedford street is the Masonic Temple. The main part of this building was erected in 1822 for the Lexington Academy, and in this building the first normal school in America was opened on July 3, 1839, with three pupils enrolled.

It is good to be here in this section of country not alone for its historical a.s.sociations, with which it is so rich, but for the a.s.sociation of great minds, from which emanated those flowers of song "that shall bloom in fragrance and beauty in the gardens of the human heart forever." We note in journeying here that the scenery is superb, yet we love the land more for the n.o.ble souls who lived and labored here that humanity might rise to higher things.

One does not wonder that Ma.s.sachusetts can boast of so many ill.u.s.trious names, for "its lovely landscape and stern climate seem to have been made for the development of genius," and no other period of history could have afforded more telling inspiration than that in which they lived. Their songs had in them the purity of its crystal springs, the beauty of its autumn landscapes, the strength of its rock-strewn hills.

How quiet was all the landscape on that Sabbath afternoon as we stood on the North bridge, where once stood the embattled farmer gazing up the elm-lined vista at the alert figure of the Minute Man. As one writer has said, it seemed difficult to a.s.sociate this charming spot with strife, and try as we would it ever remained what its name implies, "Concord."

How peaceful the dark, slow-moving stream glided by the town, with scarce a murmur to break the serene stillness! How gently the Old Manse looked from its leafy elms! The noise of automobiles pa.s.sing along the highway, the rippling laughter of our little guide, or the gurgling melody of a red-winged blackbird scarce disturbed its peaceful slumbers. On the golden stillness of the hot mid-summer afternoon the almost imperceptible current seemed more sluggish still. The graceful foliage of willow, elm and alder, joined in friendly groups by wild grape vines, leaned over the dark water "as if still listening for the golden thoughts of Hawthorne, Chinning, Emerson and Th.o.r.eau." It was their spirits that seemed to rule over the brooding landscape rather than that of the Minute Man, clothing each rock and tree with a l.u.s.ter the remembrance of which shall illuminate many a somber-colored day of life.

Yet here was the first battle of the Revolution. The only flag we saw was the vivid red of cardinal flowers, the blue of the chicory, and the white of the elder. We heard no gun save that of the bittern, which savored more of love than war. The calm skies knew no harsher sound than the explosive boom of the night- hawk. The only drum was that of the bullfrog, calling raw recruits from among the lily-pads. The dark waters harbored no submarine save a great turtle who slipped from a log and submerged, sending a ma.s.s of ripples around a much-frightened blue heron. The woods echoed to the bold bugle of the Carolina wren. But there, on April 19, 1775, "murmured the first faint tide of war" that continued until, as the stone on the right tells us, "it gave peace to the United States."

Gage sent troops to proceed to Concord to destroy the military stores collected there, but they, like Adams and Hanc.o.c.k in Lexington, had vanished. They were as much surprised as the farmer who planted his peas near a woodchuck den; when he went out to look at them all he had was the smell. For the British, too, only the smell of the powder remained. After they had left a small force to guard the bridge, the troops set fire to the court house. They then cut down the liberty pole, spiked several cannon, threw several barrels of flour into the river, and proceeded to hunt for the arms and ammunition that were not there. The burning flames from the court house kindled the wrath of the little force of Minute Men, who had seen the ominous clouds of smoke on that April day. Soon four hundred men were on their way to Concord. Two hundred regulars, on arriving, seized the bridge. Here they received and returned the British fire and were only overcome by numbers. Major b.u.t.trick forced them back into the village.

As we gazed across again at the Old Manse we thought of the wonderful essays that had been written here. In the rear of the old house is a delightful study. It was here that Emerson wrote "Nature." Here, too, Hawthorne wrote "Mosses from an Old Manse."

We thought of the brave clergyman who, from the north window, commanding a broad view of the river, stood watching the first conflict of a long and deadly struggle between the mother country and her child.

Realizing the danger they were in, the British troops began their retreat of eighteen miles. They had eaten little or nothing for fourteen hours. Ages ago freedom loving Nature had conspired to aid the Americans by shaping the field of battle.

Huge boulders had been left by the glacier, the potent rays of the April sun made dense ma.s.ses of verdure in willows, which thus became an ally of the pine. Stone fences and haystacks became ready-made fortifications, and every rising spot was filled with irate hostile yeoman who harried them with aim true and deadly. They soon began to run and leave their wounded behind, and in place of a retreat their disorderly flight must have had the appearance of a Marathon race, the rattle of musketry acting or serving as signals for each to do his best on the home stretch.

They were almost exhausted when they fell into a little hollow square made by Percy's men to receive them. Here the weary, frightened Redcoats took refuge as in a sanctuary, and immediately threw themselves upon the ground to rest. Many of them had either lost or thrown away their muskets. Pitcairn had lost both his horse and the elegant pistols with which. the first shot of the war for independence had been fired. They may now be seen in the town library of Lexington. When the British soldiers reached Arlington, several miles from Boston, they had an obstinate fight with the Yanks. The road swarmed with Minute Men and they could not keep order--but at sunset, when they entered Charlestown under the welcome shelter of the fleet, it was upon the full run. Considered as a race, the British stood far in the lead. Two hundred and seventy-three British were lost and but ninety-three Americans.

As we still lingered on the banks of the sleeping river we recalled these lines from Emerson: "My home stands in lowland with limited outlook, and on the outskirts of the village. But I go with my friend to the sh.o.r.e of our little river, and with one stroke of the paddle I leave the village politics and personalities behind and pa.s.s into a delicate realm of sunset and moonlight." Alert and watchful still stood the figure near the bridge, and as we turned away from this quiet spot "his att.i.tude of eternal vigilance still seemed prophetic." He became at once the n.o.ble spirit of a brave Anglo-Saxon, standing for Freedom and Right; the spirit that gained our independence; that of 1867 that freed the slave; and that of 1917 that sent the sons of America across the ocean. This glorious Freeman should be placed on some lofty mountain peak in the pure, free air of heaven, where all might read the lesson of Freedom and Human Rights. This is one of America's shrines of which she may be duly proud. Could the European tourist carry back no other memory, it would be well to cross the Atlantic to see this sight. Leaving the guardian at the bridge standing there, we made our way to Sleepy Hollow.

We are not particularly fond of cemeteries, but the knowledge that finally one has to go there himself makes a visit not wholly purposeless. We strolled past. the quiet homes to the more quiet plot of ground, "hallowed by many congenial and great souls." Here on a lofty elevation of ground stood the headstones of Louise May Alcott, Th.o.r.eau and Charming, with that of Hawthorne enclosed by a fence and withdrawn a short distance.

"What a constellation of stars, whose radiance shall shine on undimmed through countless centuries!"

Here is what Th.o.r.eau wrote concerning monuments: "When the stone is a light one and stands upright, pointing to the sky, it does not repress the spirits of the traveler to meditate by it; but these men did seem a little heathenish to us; and so are all large monuments over men's bodies from the Pyramids down."

A monument should at least be "starry-pointing," to indicate whither the spirit has gone, and not prostrate like the body it has deserted. There have been some nations who could do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only traces they have left. They are the heathen. But why these stones so upright and emphatic like exclamation points? What was there so remarkable that lived? Why should the monument be so much more enduring than the fame which it is designed to commemorate--a stone to a bone? "Here lies ___" Why do they not sometimes write, "There rises?" Is it a monument to the body only that is intended?

"Having ended the term of his natural life." Would it not be truer to say, "Having ended the term of his unnatural life?" The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth. If any character is given it should be as severely true as the decision of judges, and not the partial testimony of friends. Friends and contemporaries should supply only the name and date, and leave it to posterity to write the epitaph.

OPPOSITE THE OLD Sh.o.r.e ROAD

The Old World bended low beneath a load Of bigotry and superst.i.tions dark, When Liberty, amid the tottering thrones Of despots born, with gladness filled the homes Of men, e'en the Eternal City bade Her gates imperial open wide; and, like A cloud the darkness lifted from the land.

Then Freedom's gentle, buoyant spirit, like The Magi's wand, extended far across The sea, and thereupon the gloomy flood Was parted wide asunder, and revealed A glorious paradise for Freedom's sons.

Columbia, beneath thy banner's stars, The mind of man in rare luxuriance blooms, Unfolding one by one the attributes Of deity. In vision we foresee The perfect man. In form the image of His Maker, G.o.d. In toleration filled With charity for all. In Reason's Ways Profound. In thought, he mounts the throne of power And sways the world. He tries frolic Nature's grasp To lure her secrets still untold till we, Amazed at his bold course, recoil abashed.

--Willis Boughton.

CHAPTER XI

THE OLD Sh.o.r.e ROAD AND THE PILGRIM SPIRIT

The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock bound coast, And the woods against the stormy sky Their giant branches tossed.

"Thus sang Felicia Hemans in the early years of the last century, and anyone who has sailed in by White Horse beach and 'Hither Manomet' when one of those fierce gales that winter brings to this section of the coast sends great billows thundering up against the cliff and churns all the sea into froth and foam, will readily see how truthful this singer has portrayed the scene he has beheld. True, you will not find granite ledges, which follow the coast almost continuously farther north, as at Scituate, Nahant, Rockport, and farther on; but it is rock-bound, nevertheless, with great heaps of boulders, thickly sown, of various shapes and sizes, with a sombre gray color that makes them appear inexpressibly stern even on a bland summer day."

The most picturesque of all the highways leading from Boston to Plymouth is the South Sh.o.r.e road, pa.s.sing through Milton, Quincy, Hingham, Scituate, Coha.s.set, Marshfield, and Duxbury, for one of the chief delights of this route is the frequent glimpses of the sea, whose jagged, rocky coast Nature has softened until we only feel that it is rock bound. When the day is clear how the sunshine dusts the water with purplish bloom, mellowing its hard, cold tint of greenish blue. Here one seems to feel the spirit, the mystery of the ocean, and a voice at once grand and irresistible calls from those walls of siren- haunted rocks until he is among them, listening to the music of the waves as they come rolling against their rugged sides. Then one never tires of gazing at the beautiful homes so charmingly embowered amidst their grand old trees and s.p.a.cious grounds adorned with many flowers, in brilliant ma.s.ses of various colors. Thus no time is lost by the ardent admirer of the beauties of land and sea, and the ever-varied and changing scenes allow just that variety which the most prosaic person cannot help enjoying.

We shall always remember this road as a sort of traveler's paradise. It is an almost ideal sh.o.r.e road, indeed one of the finest that New England can boast, and one really regrets it is not longer. How many times we have gone over it since that first journey! "Memory and imagination are true yoke-fellows, and between them they are always preparing some new and greater pleasure as we allow them the opportunity."

Many have been the times since those memorable days spent on the old Sh.o.r.e Road; that memory of them gave for a moment a pleasure more real than any we had experienced while strolling at will along that scenic highway. Sometimes seemingly imaginary delights are far from being imaginary. We can see the lovely stretches of beach this moment and hear the breakers booming among the granite boulders--yes, and the grating of the pebbles that are being ground to shifting sand to form the beach.

Then, too, who can ever forget the exhilarating effect of a dip in those waves? The great unfailing attraction of the place, then as now, is the ocean, forever an emblem of unrest, changeable in its unchangeableness. To our minds the ocean seems alive. We could sooner believe in sirens and water-nymphs than in many existences that are commonly spoken of as much more certain "matters of fact." We could believe in them, we say, but do not.

Our communings are not with any monster of the unfathomable deeps of the ocean, but with the spirit of the ocean itself. It grows somber and sullen under a leaden sky, and its voice has in it something of that inexpressible sadness heard in the raging wind among the pines. Then on a calm day in mid-summer how placid and serene its water appears, wearing on its bosom that exquisite blue bloom, like the haze that clothes distant mountains. It scintillates and sparkles like rare jewels in the sunlight, and ever its dancing waves with silvery crests proclaim it a thing of life and motion. You might say that it is dead, yet after all, how many know what life really is? In certain moods, especially when strolling by the sea, you will feel measurably sure of being alive yourself; and the longer you tarry by it the less liable you will be to entertain doubts about the matter.

On the afternoon of our first journey along this Sh.o.r.e Road the sky was overcast with low-hung clouds that foreboded rain.

Towhees were calling noisily from wayside thickets; catbirds sang their self-conscious airs or mewed in derision as we pa.s.sed; chickadees were calling their names and occasionally uttered their pensive minor strains; and far away in a dim- lighted hemlock grove we heard a new bird song that seemed in exquisite accord with our own thoughts.

Again and again the notes came from the forest. How delicious the music was! A perfect song of peace and spiritual tone that told us at once the singer was a thrush--but what thrush? We had heard the song of the hermit among the Berkshire Hills and could never confuse his wonderful hymn with that of another species; yet here was a song possessing the same character of sacredness.

It was a restful lullaby like ,the mingled benediction of wood and sea on the tired spirits of weary travelers. It had in it nothing of "pride or pa.s.sion," but contained the same serene harmony that vagrant breezes draw from the myriad-stringed pines; something of the melodies breathed from the ocean. It proved to be the evening hymn of the veery.

The song of the nightingale, with its trills and phrases, would make harmony seemingly crude if compared to either the hermit or veery thrush, nor would the skylark, famous in poetry and song, bear off the prize were the two birds to be heard alternately.

The English blackbird has a very sweet song, which made the weary, homesick heart of the soldier in France rejoice, when he announced that spring was near. Yet if the European traveler complains that our songsters are not brilliant, let him visit our land when the brown thrasher, the bobolink or mocking bird are singing, and he will hear melodies as full of joy and exuberance as any he may have remembered in his native land.

We have been straying a bit from the Sh.o.r.e Road but, as we said, the scenery along it is varied, so will your thoughts be as you move enraptured from place to place.

One almost forgets to eat while so much of beauty lies all about him; but, once reminded that it is meal time, what a ravenous appet.i.te he seems to have! It almost provokes a smile now as we think of the many places along the various roads that are connected in our minds with the question of something to eat.

Many of the places (might say nearly all of them) were places where we had dined the year before. Remembering how voracious and indiscriminating our appet.i.tes were, we cannot help wondering that we are here to tell the story; for how many new fruits we sampled because we wanted to learn their flavor!

This feeling is no doubt shared by all who recall similar excursions, when the open air and exercise whetted their appet.i.tes to an unusual degree. We Americans are objects of much comment in restaurants and hotels of foreign countries, and no doubt many of the waiters think that we have been blessed with more than a spark of life, else it would have been smothered long ago by the constant fuel which we furnish for it. But on a summer trip, where one all but lives out-of-doors, breathes deeply the resin-scented air and has little to worry about, there is not so much of a mystery connected with his ability to keep on the go.