When Life Was Young Part 1

When Life Was Young.

by C. A. Stephens.

THE FARM ON THE PENNESSEEWa.s.sEE

Away down East in the Pine Tree State, there is a lake dearer to my heart than all the other waters of this fair earth, for its sh.o.r.es were the scenes of my boyhood, when Life was young and the world a romance still unread.

Dearer to the heart;--for then glowed that roseate young joy and faith in life and its grand possibilities; that hope and confidence that great things can be done and that the doing of them will prove of high avail.

For such is ever our natural, normal first view of life; the clear young brain's first vision of this wondrous bright universe of earth and sky; the first picture on the sentient plate of consciousness, and the true one, before error blurs and evil dims it; a joy and a faith in life which as yet, on this still imperfect earth of ours, comes but once, with youth.

The white settlers called it the Great Pond; but long before they came to Maine, the Indians had named it Pennesseewa.s.see, p.r.o.nounced Penny-see-was-see, the lake-where-the-women-died, from the Abnaki words, penem-pegouas-abem, in memory, perhaps, of some unhistoric tragedy.

From their villages on the upper Saco waters, the Pequawkets were accustomed to cross over to the Androscoggin and often stopped at this lake, midway, to fish in the spring, and again in winter to hunt for moose, then s...o...b..und in their "yards." On snowshoes, or paddling their birch canoes along the pine-shadowed streams, these tawny, pre-Columbian warriors came and camped on the Pennesseewa.s.see; we still pick up their flint arrow-heads along the sh.o.r.e; and it may even be that the short, brown Skraellings were here before them, in neolithic days.

There are two ponds, or lakes, of this name, the Great and the Little Pennesseewa.s.see, the latter lying a mile and a half to the west of the larger expanse and connected with it by a brook.

To the northeast, north and west, the land rises in long, picturesque ridges and mountains of medium alt.i.tude; and still beyond and above these, in the west and northwest, loom Mt. Washington, Madison, Kearsarge and other White Mountain peaks.

The larger lake is a fine sheet of water, five miles in length, containing four dark-green islets; and the view from its bosom is one of the most beautiful in this our State-of-Lakes.

Hither, shortly after the "Revolution," came the writer's great-grandfather, poor in purse; for he had served throughout that long, and at times hopeless struggle for liberty. In payment he had received a large roll of "Continental Money," all of which would at that time have sufficed, scarcely, to procure him a tavern dinner. No "bounties," no "pensions," then stimulated the citizen soldiery. With little to aid him save his axe on his shoulder, the unremunerated patriot made a clearing on the slopes, looking southward upon the lake; and here, after some weeks, or months, of toil, he brought his young family, consisting of my great-grandmother and two children. They came up the lake in a skiff, fashioned from a pine log. Landing on a still remembered rock, it is said that the ex-soldier turned about, and taking the roll of Continental scrip from his pocket, threw it far out into the water, exclaiming,--

"So much for soldiering! But here, by the blessing of G.o.d, we will have a home yet!"

While going through the forest from the lake up to the clearing, a distance of a mile or more, they lost their way, for night had fallen, and after wandering for an hour, were obliged to sleep in the woods beneath the boughs of a pine; and it was not till the next forenoon that they found the clearing and the little log house in which my great-grandmother began her humble housekeeping.

Other settlers made their way hither; and other farms were cleared.

Indians and moose departed and came no more. Then followed half a century of robust, agricultural life, on a virgin soil. The boys grew large and tall; the girls were strong and handsome. It was a hearty and happy era.

But no happy era is enduring; the young men began to take what was quaintly called "the western fever," and leave the home county for greater opportunities in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. The young women, too, went away in numbers to work in the cotton factories at Lowell, Lawrence and Biddeford; few of them came back; or if they returned, they were not improved in health, or otherwise.

The third son of the Revolutionary soldier and pioneer remained at the old farm and lived on alone there after his own sons had left home, to enter other and less certain avocations than farming.

Then came war again, the terrible Civil War, when every one of these sons, true to their soldier ancestry, entered the army of the Republic.

Of the five not one survived that murderous conflict. And so it happened that we, the grandchildren, war waifs and orphaned, came back in 1865-6, to live at grandfather's old farm on the Pennesseewa.s.see.

We came from four different states of the Union, and two of us had never before even seen the others. It is, therefore, not remarkable that at first there were some small disagreements, due to our different ideas of things.

We were, of course, a great burden upon the old folks, who were compelled to begin life over again, so to speak, on our account. At the age of sixty-five grandfather set himself to till the farm on a larger scale, and to renew his lumbering operations, winters. Grandmother, too, was constrained to increase her dairy, her flocks of geese and other poultry, and to begin anew the labor of spinning and knitting.

It is but fair to say, however, that we all--with one exception, perhaps--had a decent sense of the obligations we incurred, and on most occasions, I believe, we did what we could to aid in the labors of the farm.

Much as we added to the burdens of our grandparents, I can now see that our coming lent fresh zest to their lives; they had something new to live for; they took hold of life again, for another ten years.

Ten years of youth.

It was Life's happy era with us, full of hopes and plans for the future, full, too, of those many jolts which young folks get from inexperience, nor yet free from those mistakes which all of us make, when we first set off on Life's journey. Like some bright panorama it pa.s.ses on Memory's walls, so many pictures of that hopeful young life of ours at the old farm, as we grew up together, getting an education, or the rudiments of one, at the district school, and later at the village Academy, Kent's Hill Seminary and Bowdoin College.

And later I may try to relate how we came out and what we are still doing in life.

CHAPTER I

A NOSE IN COMMON

It was on a sunny, windy May afternoon, late in the month, that the old gentleman drove to the railway station, eight miles from the farm, to fetch home the writer of this narrative. Till that day I had never seen either of my grandparents. But I knew that grandfather was to meet me at the station, and immediately on getting out of the car, I saw an erect, rather tall, elderly man with white hair and blue eyes, peering over the crowd, as if on the lookout for a boy. The instinctive stir of kinship made me sure who he was; but from some childish bashfulness I did not like to go directly to him and came around from one side, then touched his arm. He glanced down. "Are you looking for a small fellow like me, sir?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!" he exclaimed and laughed.

He looked at me searchingly, and his face grew sorrowful as he gazed.

"Yes, you are poor Edmund's boy. You've your father's forehead and eyes.

Well, well, my son, I am glad to see you, and I hope you will like with us. You are coming to your father's old home, where he used to live when he was a boy. Your grandmother will be glad to see you; and you must not think of such a thing as being homesick. Your cousins are there; and there will be plenty of things to take up your mind."

I hastened to say that I was thankful for the home he was giving me, and that I had come to work and pay my way. (My mother had fully explained the situation to me.)

Grandfather smiled and looked at me again. "Yes, you are quite a boy!"

he said. "If you are as good a boy as your father was, your coming may prove a blessing instead of an additional tax on us."

I felt much gratified that he considered me "quite a boy," and said that I knew so many of us must be a great care; but that I meant to do my best and to take my father's place with him, if he ever needed a son.

(More of my good mother's ideas, rather than my own, I am afraid.) Unwittingly I had touched a pleasant chord, albeit a sad one.

Grandfather grasped me by the hand, and I saw that his worn blue eyes had moistened.

I drew out my baggage check and ran to get my small trunk, which I dragged forward while grandfather backed the wagon up to the platform.

We drove off much rea.s.sured in each other; and I remember still that the old gentleman's kind words stirred me to an impulsive boyish resolve never to disappoint his confidence; but it was a resolve that I often lost sight of in the years that followed.

Presently our road led along the sh.o.r.e of the Pennesseewa.s.see, past woodland and farms, mile on mile, with the lake often in sight. I was much interested in watching the loons, and also a long raft of peeled hemlock logs which four men were laboriously poling down the lake to the saw-mills.

After a time grandfather began to talk more cheerily; he spoke of farming and of town affairs to me as if I were older; and once or twice he called me Edmund, although that was not my name; but I did not correct the mistake; I thought that I could do that some other time.

"There will be six of you now," he said, "six cousins, all in one family; and all not far from the same age." Then he asked me my age.

"Twelve, almost thirteen," I replied. "Why, I thought you were fourteen," he said. "Well, now Addison is fifteen, or sixteen, and Theodora is near fourteen. Addison is a good boy and a boy of character, studious and scholarly. I do not know what his learning may lead to; sometimes I am afraid that he is imbibing infidelic doctrines; but he is a boy of good principles whom I would trust in anything. He is your Uncle William's son, you know, and came to our house two years ago, after his father's death at Shiloh. Theodora came at about the same time; she is your Aunt Adelaide's daughter. Poor Adelaide had to send her home to me after your Uncle Robert's death at Chancellorsville.

Theodora is a n.o.ble-hearted child, womanly and considerate in all her ways; and she is as good a scholar as Addison.

"Then there's Halstead." Grandfather paused; and looking up in his face, I saw that a less cheery expression had come there. "Sometimes I do not know what to do with Halstead," grandfather remarked, at last. "He is a strange boy and has a very unsteady disposition. He came to us after your Uncle Henry's death. Your Uncle Henry and Uncle Charles both lost their lives in the Gettysburg fight. O this has been a terrible war! But what we have gained may be worth the sacrifice; I hope so! I hope so!"

exclaimed the old gentleman, fervently.

"How old is Halstead?" I asked, after a silence of some minutes.

"He is fifteen; and your little cousins, Ellen and Wealthy, are twelve and nine," replied the old gentleman, resuming his account of my cousins to me. "They are your Uncle Charles' little girls, good dutiful children as one would ever need to have."

It was a long drive. At length the road, bending round the north end of the lake, led for half a mile or more up an easy hill. Here, on either hand, fields, inclosed with wide stone walls, were now beginning to show green a little through the dry gra.s.s of last year. Other fields, ploughed and planted, faintly disclosed long rows of corn, just breaking ground, presided over by tutelar scarecrows which drummed on pans and turned glittering bits of tin as the breeze played over them.