Confessions of Boyhood by John Albee (inspirational books txt) 📖

have been trained in more philosophical directions than any I had met. Here I had some new insights which helped me forward, and I heard much of the worthlessness of religious dogmas. It was, however, with a tin pedler, a friend and distant relative of this family, that I turned the newest leaf in my mental progress. He usually travelled through Grafton twice a month, and made it his convenience to put up over night with his friends. It was there I used to meet him. His name was Daboll, and he claimed to be descended from that ancient Connecticut maker of arithmetics and almanacs, Nathan Daboll. He said that was why he became a pedler--he was born to calculate. Yet his occupation sat very lightly upon him. It gave him abundant opportunities for reflection and conversation. In the latter he took delight, and lost no chance of displaying his skill in setting forth his own ideas and drawing out those of his customers. If he sold a pan or a broom it was accompanied by some bit of philosophy that he had evolved on the lonesome stretches of road between farmhouse and farmhouse. I write evolved; but that was not his own word, nor his theory of the origin of his ideas. He claimed that they came to him when he escaped his own control. I have forgotten many of the details and examples which he used to give in explanation of his doctrine, and should not remember them at all after so many years, save that at various times I have had similar experiences, and that I have been often reminded of them by the modern discussions of psychology, and especially of the operations of the subjective mind. He said that he was led into his view from thinking about his dreams which were beyond control of the will. His next step was to observe that he sometimes dreamed when awake; that is, thoughts came into his mind without conscious effort, and at times when his head was wholly vacant or wholly occupied with his business. Many things were made clear to him in this manner, and he had come to the conclusion that the best way to get the wisdom enjoined by the Bible and learned men, was to escape from yourself, in short, to become passive. In long summer days, slowly travelling his circuit of some forty miles, calling at every house where he was well known, and must needs be in no haste to trade, (for country people were never sure of what they wanted until they looked the cart over), he had plenty of time to resign himself to the involuntary and dreamlike states of mind, which solved for him the questions in which he was most interested. I was not so much impressed that such notions should come from a tin pedler as by the notions themselves; for at that period the democracy of our New England towns considered and treated a pedler as a man and a brother. His business was not regarded as demeaning, and frequently was an apprenticeship to that of a store keeper, and he might, and sometimes did, become the rich merchant of a great city. Many young men peddled small wares, books and pictures between terms to help themselves in paying for their education. So Reuben Daboll was no phenomenon; but his philosophy was phenomenal, at least to me, and kept me awake on the nights when the evening had been spent with him. It kept me awake, I say, for I never could reason far, and trying to think gave me a headache. I was perplexed by a thousand problems, my own, and those propounded by my companions and elders, and others suggested in books; and I wondered if Daboll's way was not an easier and shorter method of answer than the pros and cons of argument. It is interesting now for me to reflect upon the two influences following each other so closely, that were quickening my own faculties; for they were in direct contrast with each other; one, the animated debates and attempted logical presentation of a subject with its related facts, as presented at the Worcester Academy; and this new method of passive receptivity, this opening of the inner eye of the mind to receive impressions. It was a long time before I could experiment with any success in this new direction, for I was of an active and impatient temperament, longing to hurry to an end that I might begin something new, and wishing to arrive rather than to profit by each day's march. As I grew to maturity, the latter method was more congenial and became of more practical use to me, and one of my favorite mottoes has been, "Our thoughts are a pious reception."

The winter school being over in the spring, I returned to Worcester Academy feeling older and more sobered. I began Latin with a dim idea of going to college, how and when, I did not dare to forecast. I was not as happy as formerly in the school. The debates, compositions and declamations interested me less, and I should have been quite dull except for some young girls at the Oread Institute. This institution had just been opened on the hill, directly opposite our academy. It was not within speaking distance, but was within writing and signalling distance. All intercourse between the girl students and ourselves was prohibited. I have frequently noticed this juxtaposition of schools for the sexes, and also that laws of non-intercourse are enacted for no other purpose than to make their infringement the more tempting and delightful. My chum knew one of the Oreads, a girl from his own village; with this key we carried the citadel. We established a post office in the neighboring stone wall and arranged many a clandestine meeting, walk or drive. The girl whom I had chosen for my devotions was from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She wore her hair in long curls, that fell over her neck and shoulders, and were constantly straggling over her face. Then with a toss of her comely head and a pretty gesture of her hand she would throw them back. This little trick captivated me and fixed my fate. She constantly came between me and the Latin declensions and conjugations that I was trying to memorize. However, I was saved from anything like a formal attachment by her early announcement to me that she was engaged to the son of an ex-governor of New Hampshire. I had reason to suspect afterward that this was a subterfuge to forestall any serious consequences from our intercourse. If so, she was a wise maiden, and whatever claims we men may arrogate to ourselves, women are better tacticians than we in their personal relations. With this barrier, thus timely erected, I was kept on my good behavior and we amused ourselves with each other's company in many a stolen woodland walk, and in a frequent defrauding of the Worcester post-office of its revenues. She wrote a tiny hand and could crowd more upon a page than I could upon four. I treasured her notes in my inmost pocket, and our secret correspondence gave me almost as deep a joy as did our companionship.

It was at this time I began to make verses, as much from an imitative instinct as from my sentimental relation with the pretty Oread; for there was now in the school a young man who set up for a poet and was much admired by us all. It seems to me he must have had a sense of musical rhythm, for there has remained in my ear ever since a stanza of his which I caught as he read it to a little coterie of students. There is nothing in it save its melody.

"The while amid the greenwood
Whistled the summer breeze
Fair Mantua's maiden swore to wed
Her loving Genoese."

Those two names, Mantua and Genoese, had a wonderful, faraway imaginative association for me, and still have. Matthew Arnold's magic of poetry, magical words and lines, explain all its charm for me. A feeling beyond the words or the sense is what I require in poetry. In vain did I try to express in rhyme what I felt. The lines halted for the last word. I never ventured to read them to my Oread or fellow students. Thus I cherished two secrets and discovered that the private indulgence of verse-making is almost as sweet as a hidden love. The terms of the Academy and the Oread Institute ended on the same day, and I parted from my sweetheart never to meet again.


FARM HAND


What to do with myself during the long summer vacation was the next question. My money was fast wasting in spite of my economies. There were no country schools open to male teachers in summer. My sister advised me to find employment on a farm. I thought at once of Bellingham, and my dear Uncle Lyman. He did not want help and eventually I hired myself to another uncle who lived in the extreme southern part of the town, close upon the boundary of Rhode Island. My wages were to be twelve dollars per month with board. My uncle's wife was my father's only surviving sister. Their children were married and settled elsewhere. All that was left to them was a large farm and old age. The one made them rather poorer than richer; the other brought upon them a growing habit of penuriousness, gloom and irritability. I was expected to do all the heavy work and most of the chores, except the milking; that, they would allow no one to do, for fear of not squeezing out the last drop. My aunt still made butter and cheese to sell, and in this work I usually helped her the first thing in the morning before the regular day's work. We had breakfast at sunrise, often before. After breakfast my uncle went into the sitting-room where:

"He waled a portion with judicious care,
'And let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air."

I suppose that is what he did, for I could hear the low mumble of his voice and occasionally catch a scriptural phrase, but neither my aunt nor myself participated in this mockery of family prayers. She said she had too much to do, and she could not spare me from the cheese tub and the churn. She scolded her husband for his contributions to the church, and begrudged every cent that was spent. She had Franklin's prudential maxims at her tongue's end, besides many another gathered in the course of her long life of thrift and hard work. She never rested from her labors until the Sabbath. Our food was of the coarsest kind, but well cooked, and work and hunger were sauce enough. She baked once a week in a great brick oven; her other daily cooking was done by an open fire. Brown bread and cheese were the staff of our life, and I became more fond of them than of any viands I have since eaten. In vain have I besought my household to discover the recipe of my aunt's brown loaves. Who can recover for me the relish that went with them? With this aged couple I led a lonely yet healthful life. I came nearer to the earth than ever before; I mean her dirt, her stones, her odors and dews as well as to cows, sheep and horses, whose closer relation to the soil insensibly affects those who have the care of them. I felt myself a brother to the ox that I yoked