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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59642 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OLD DAYS
+
+AT
+
+BEVERLY FARMS
+
+BY
+
+MARY LARCOM DOW
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY NORTH SHORE PRINTING CO. FIVE WASHINGTON STREET
+BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS 1921
+
+
+COPYRIGHT 1921 BY KATHARINE P. LORING
+
+
+[Illustration: _Door of the Larcom House where Mrs. Dow lived_]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+During the last month of his life, Mr. Dow asked his friend and pastor,
+Rev. Clarence Strong Pond, to see that "Old Days at Beverly Farms,"
+written by Mrs. Dow, was printed. He also asked me to write a sketch of
+her life to publish with it. The answer is this little book, a loving
+tribute from many friends.
+
+Beside those whose names appear on its pages, Mrs. Alice Bolam
+Preston has drawn the front door and knocker of the "Homestead." Mrs.
+Bridgeford and Mrs. Edwin L. Pride supplied the originals of the
+portraits. Mrs. Howard A. Doane, "Elsie," has collected information,
+in which task she has been helped by many of the neighbors. The money,
+without which we could have done nothing, has been given by Mrs. F.
+Gordon Dexter, Mrs. Charles M. Cabot, Miss Elizabeth W. Perkins and
+Miss Louisa P. Loring.
+
+Mrs. William Caleb Loring bought Mrs. Dow's house after her death and
+gave it to St. John's Parish for a parish house. She directed that a
+tablet should be placed in it to preserve the memory of our friend.
+
+In examining the titles Mr. Samuel Vaughan found that Mrs. Dow's
+great grandfather, Jonathan Larcom, did not sell his slaves. He was
+administrator of his father, David Larcom's estate in 1775. In the
+appraisal, six slaves are mentioned by name, valued at £106 13s. 4d.
+but none are mentioned in the division. It appears that they became
+free when their master died. All slaves were considered free in
+Massachusetts when the State Constitution was adopted in 1780.
+
+KATHARINE P. LORING
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                        Page
+Sketch of Mary Larcom Dow                  9
+
+Old Days at Beverly Farms                 25
+
+Lucy Larcom--A Memory                     63
+
+Letters written by Mrs. Dow               68
+
+Appreciation by Sarah E. Miller           79
+
+Extracts from letters about Mrs. Dow      81
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE
+
+OF
+
+MARY LARCOM DOW
+
+
+"It seems as if the spirit had dropped out of Beverly Farms since Molly
+Ober died."
+
+One of her friends said this and the others feel it. For sixty years
+or more she was the leader in the real life of the place. And speaking
+of friends, there is no limit of them, for her genial kindly nature
+allowed us all to claim that prized relationship.
+
+Mary Larcom Ober was the daughter of Mary Larcom and Benjamin Ober.
+Mrs. Ober's parents were Andrew and Molly, (Standley) Larcom. Andrew's
+father and mother were Jonathan and Abigail (Ober) Larcom; they had
+eight children, the three youngest of whom are connected with this
+story. The oldest of these three was David who married Elizabeth
+Haskell known as "Aunt Betsey"; they had a son David. The next brother
+was Benjamin whose first wife was Charlotte Ives, and his second, Lois
+Barrett. Of this second marriage, one of the daughters was Lucy Larcom,
+the poetess and the editor also of the "Lowell Offering." Andrew Larcom
+was the youngest of these brothers. Thus it is that his granddaughter,
+our Mary, was a cousin in the next generation of Lucy Larcom; although
+she was older than Mary they were always great friends and what Lucy
+tells us in "A New England Girlhood" of her experience is as true of
+one as of the other little girl.
+
+
+     "Our parents considered it a duty that they owed to the youngest
+     of us to teach us doctrines. And we believed in our instructors,
+     if we could not always digest their instructions."
+
+     "We learned to reverence truth as they received it and lived it,
+     and to feel that the search for truth was the one chief end of
+     our being. It was a pity that we were expected to begin thinking
+     upon hard subjects so soon, and it is also a pity that we were set
+     to hard work while so young. Yet these were both the inevitable
+     results of circumstances then existing, and perhaps the two
+     belonged together. Perhaps habits of conscientious work induce
+     thought and habits of right thinking. Certainly right thinking
+     naturally impels people to work."
+
+
+Mr. Andrew Larcom lived on the farm where Mr. Gordon Dexter now lives;
+here our Mary's mother was born and passed her childhood. It was a
+delightful farm with much less woodland than now and its boundaries
+were much larger; salt hay was cut on the marsh land that stretched
+toward the sea, and where it ended above the beach there were thickets
+of wild plum, whose purple fruit made delicious preserves. This marsh
+was not drained as it is now, little rivers of water ran through it at
+high tide reflecting the sunlight.
+
+When Benjamin Ober, who was first mate of an East Indiaman, married
+Mary Larcom they went to live in the house on the north side of Mingo
+Beach Hill. It was a smaller house then, and close to the road, with a
+lovely outlook over the sea. A page of Lucy Larcom's gives so charming
+an account of "the Farms" it must be quoted here, as Mary Ober was fond
+of it. The old homestead was where Andrew and Mary Larcom lived, while
+"Uncle David" and "Aunt Betsey" lived in the house which we know as
+Mary Ober's house in the middle of the village.
+
+
+     "Sometimes this same brother would get permission to take me on
+     a longer excursion, to visit the old homestead at the "Farms."
+     Three or four miles was not thought too long a walk for a healthy
+     child of five years, and that road in the old time, led through
+     a rural Paradise beautiful at every season,--whether it was the
+     time of song sparrows and violets, or wild roses, or coral-hung
+     barberry bushes, or of fallen leaves and snow drifts. We stopped
+     at the Cove Brook to hear the cat birds sing, and at Mingo Beach
+     to revel in the sudden surprise of the open sea and to listen to
+     the chant of the waves always stronger and grander there than any
+     where along the shore. We passed under dark wooded cliffs out into
+     sunny openings, the last of which held under its skirting pines
+     the secret of the prettiest wood path to us, in all the world, the
+     path to the ancestral farm-house."
+
+     "Farther down the road where the cousins were all grown up men and
+     women, Aunt Betsey's cordial old-fashioned hospitality sometimes
+     detained us a day or two. We watched the milking, fed the chickens
+     and fared gloriously. Aunt Betsey could not have done more to
+     entertain us had we been the President's children."
+
+     "We took in a home-feeling with the words 'Aunt Betsey' then
+     and always. She had just the husband that belonged to her in my
+     Uncle David, an upright man, frank-faced, large of heart and
+     spiritually-minded. He was my father's favorite brother, and to
+     our branch of the family, 'the Farms' meant Uncle David and Aunt
+     Betsey."
+
+
+The Farms was of greater relative importance in those days. The farms
+were fairly fertile and were carefully tilled. Their owners, former sea
+captains, were well-to-do, there were two good schools and the Third
+Social Library was founded in 1806. The first catalogue, written in
+1811, is still preserved, there are some books marked "Read at Sea,"
+among them "The Saint's Everlasting Rest," "Edwards on Affliction" and
+the first volume of Josephus, cheerful reading for the young captains.
+
+Toward the middle of the century summer fishing took the place of
+merchant voyages, so the sea-men turned to shoe making in the winter.
+Almost every house had its little 10 x 10 shoe shop, in which was room
+for one man on a low stool, a chair for a visitor, an iron stove, a
+bench with tools, the oval lap-stone to peg shoes on, with rolls and
+scraps of leather, withal a pungent smell.
+
+In the house on Mingo Beach Hill our Mary Larcom Ober was born in 1835
+and here her father died in the same year. There was an older sister
+Abigail, who died when she was a young woman.
+
+After a while, the widow returned to her father's home; in 1840 she was
+married to her cousin David Larcom the younger, and they lived in the
+Larcom House at the Farms. As his father, the first "Uncle David" died,
+in the same year, his widow, "Aunt Betsey", moved upstairs. David and
+his wife with her children Abby and Mary lived below; four children
+were born to them David, Lydia, Joseph and Theodore.
+
+From Mingo Beach Hill and the homestead the West Farms school was
+nearer, so Mary must first have gone to school in the little square
+building which was later for one year the High School, now since many
+years a dwelling house near Pride's Crossing. After the family moved to
+the Farms she probably went to the East Farms school, which was nearly
+opposite the church. She spent some time at the Francestown Academy,
+Hillsboro County, New Hampshire, and finished her education at the
+State Normal School in Salem where she was graduated with the second
+class after its foundation. She with her sister Abby worked their way
+through this school by binding shoes. This was the women's share of the
+hand-made shoe described in Lucy Larcom's "Hannah binding shoes."
+
+Soon after graduation, Mary was appointed teacher in a grammar school
+at Brewster on Cape Cod. The next year she was engaged for a school in
+Castine, Maine. Here she found the pupils were big boys, almost men
+grown, and she feared she would not be able to manage them. However,
+when they found that she was a good teacher who could give them what
+they wanted to learn, there was no trouble.
+
+Then in 1858 and 1859 our Miss Ober began to teach the Farms School
+(the two schools being united) on Indian Hill just above Pride's
+Crossing station; the building was remodelled later and is now the
+house of Mrs. James F. Curtis. Grades were unknown, she had some
+twenty to thirty pupils of all ages, but she managed to keep them
+in order and to teach them so well that they always remembered what
+they learned. She stimulated the bright children to greater effort
+and she encouraged the dull ones so that they were surprised into
+understanding. One of her old girls told me how they loved her but
+feared her in school, and enjoyed her when out. She especially liked
+boiled lobster and dandelion greens served together; whenever these
+viands were for dinner the child was told by her mother to bring the
+teacher home to share them, and "then what a good time we had." She
+smiled as she said it, but there was a tear in her eye.
+
+At about this time Miss Ober was engaged to an attractive young man, a
+teacher in the Beverly Farms school. There was every promise of a happy
+life, but unfortunately he died. Miss Ober went on with her school
+until 1870, except during 1862 and 1865, but she was not strong and her
+health was impaired.
+
+In a much loved and worn volume of Whittier's poems, given to Mary Ober
+in 1858-1859 is written in her own hand, "the happiest winter of my
+life." Pinned to a leaf is a cutting, with the following epitaph from
+an old English burial ground:
+
+
+     "I will not bind myself to grief:
+     'Tis but as if the roses that climbed
+         My garden wall
+     Had blossomed on the other side."
+
+
+The poems she marked are: "The Kansas Emigrants," "Question of Life,"
+and "Gone," in this last poem she underscored the verse:
+
+
+     "And grant that she who trembling here,
+     Distrusted all her powers,
+     May welcome to her holier home
+     The all beloved of ours."
+
+
+These are keys to her thoughts, she believed in abolition, in the
+saving of the Union, she was absorbed in the Civil War, in the going
+away of relatives and friends, and she took great interest in the work
+of the Sanitary Commission. My grandmother, Mrs. Charles G. Loring,
+worked in the commission rooms in Boston by day, in the evening she
+would bring materials and drive about in her buggy to distribute them
+among the neighbors, collecting the finished garments to be carried
+back to Boston by an early train. Mary Ober often went with her,
+helping in all ways, and they became great friends; it was partly
+through her influence that Mary went to Florida for the benefit of
+her health in the winter of 1871. The next winter she took a school
+in Georgia under the "Freedman's Bureau" where she taught the little
+darkies, who adored her. In 1872 and 1873 she taught the children of
+the poor whites in the school at Wilmington, North Carolina, and it was
+here that she met Sarah E. Miller who was to be her devoted, life-long
+friend. This was the Tileston School founded by Mrs. Mary Hemenway, its
+principal was Miss Amy Bradley; it was perhaps the best known school
+carried on by the northerners in the South.
+
+For two years longer she taught half terms in Beverly Farms and then as
+she regained health and strength, from 1875 to 1899 Miss Ober was head
+of the Farms School, then in Haskell Street, beginning with a salary of
+$180. She never had a large salary. It was considered the best school
+in the town. The building was the wooden one, now a house, on the
+next lot to the brick school. She kept up with the times, introduced
+grades and had several assistants as the years went on. She continued
+her career as a most successful teacher, she was strict but just and
+kind, always interested in her children whether in school or afterward,
+keeping in touch with them and following their careers with sympathy.
+When Mr. Charles H. Trowt was elected Mayor of the City she wrote: "And
+you were my curly-headed, fair-haired little boy in school."
+
+She had a happy home with her mother and stepfather; "Uncle David"
+she always called him, though she maintained the relation of a loving
+daughter. Her mother died in the spring of 1876 and Mr. Larcom died in
+1883.
+
+Miss Ober was always a great reader, she chose the best books and kept
+in touch with the topics of the day. We all remember her long walks in
+the woods and fields, her delight in the first spring flowers and the
+song of the birds; she shared Bryant's regret in the autumn, but her
+winters were made cheerful by her hospitality at home. Friends were
+always dropping in to read, to sew or to have a good game of whist in
+the afternoon or evening.
+
+Another quotation from "A New England Girlhood" seems appropriate here.
+
+
+     "The period of my growing up had peculiarities which our future
+     history can never repeat, although something far better is
+     undoubtedly already resulting thence. Those peculiarities were
+     the natural development of the seed sown by our sturdy Puritan
+     ancestry. The religion of our fathers overhung us children like
+     the shadow of a mighty tree against the trunk of which we rested,
+     while we looked up in wonder through the great boughs that half
+     hid and half revealed the sky. Some of the boughs were already
+     decaying, so that perhaps we began to see a little more of the sky
+     than our elders; but the tree was sound at its heart. There was
+     life in it that can never be lost to the world."
+
+
+In reading this charming biography one is impressed with the strict
+doctrine under which Lucy Larcom was brought up. Miss Ober's theology
+was more liberal. The church at the Farms was established in 1829 under
+the auspices of the First Parish in Beverly, (Unitarian) it was called
+simply the "Christian Church" and it was some years before it became
+Baptist. Miss Ober was an active and devoted member of the church and a
+good helper in parish work.
+
+It seems as if their common interest in the church and love for flowers
+must have first attracted her to Mr. James Beatty Dow, to whom she was
+married in 1889. Mr. Dow was a Scotchman with the virtues of that race.
+Of course he had a good education, he was a gardener by profession and
+a successful one. Beside his work for the church and the Sunday school
+he was interested in civic affairs; at one time he was representative
+at The Great and General Court and he was a member of the School
+Committee of Beverly.
+
+Mrs. Dow did not give up her school until ten years after her
+marriage but she paid more attention in equally successful manner
+to housekeeping and social duties. Miss Miller, her friend from the
+days of the Wilmington School, was a constant and welcome guest. They
+loved books, they read and played together, they formed reading clubs
+to discuss works of importance and enjoyed poetry and good fiction.
+There were flashes of wit and a lightness of touch in Mrs. Dow's
+approach which were quite un-English, they may be attributed to her
+Larcom ancestry. The Larcoms were the La Combes of Languedoc, Huguenots
+who escaped to Wales, later moved to the Isle of Wight, and thence
+came to New England in the ship Hercules in 1640. The Obers came from
+Abbotsbury in England in early days, there is every reason to believe
+that they were also of Huguenot descent, by name "Auber," but this is
+not proved.
+
+The years passed rapidly, the quiet life at the Farms broken by
+little excursions to the theatre, concerts and visits to friends in
+Boston, with occasional trips to the White Mountains, New York and
+other places. There were endless interests and accomplishments and
+enjoyments. The World War brought grief and tragedy and abounding
+opportunity for sympathy and action; by no one was a saner interest
+taken in all its phases than by Mary Dow.
+
+As time passed and strength failed, Mrs. Dow never grew old; she joked
+about her "infirmities" but we did not see them. She mastered them and
+kept on in her lively active interests and duties to the end.
+
+During the winter of 1919-20 Mr. Dow was very ill. His wife nursed him
+with too great devotion and her strength gave out. Mercifully, she was
+spared a long illness, she died on the eleventh of June, 1920. Mr. Dow
+lingered until the sixteenth of September.
+
+This is the end of the story, or is it the beginning?
+
+
+
+
+OLD DAYS
+
+AT
+
+BEVERLY FARMS
+
+
+In writing these hap-hazard memories of the old days at Beverly Farms,
+I did not mean that they should be egotistical, but in spite of my good
+intentions I am afraid they are. You see it is almost impossible to
+separate yourself from your own memories! I throw myself upon the mercy
+of the Court!
+
+
+SUMMER OF 1916.
+
+We have a little Reading Club here at Beverly Farms. We read whatever
+happens to come up, from Chesterton's Dickens to "The Woman who was
+Tired to Death," interspersed with _real_ poems from "North of Boston."
+I belong to the Club. I am the oldest member of it, in fact, I am the
+oldest person in New England--on stormy days! When the weather is fine
+and the wind south-west, I am young enough to have infantile paralysis!
+
+One day, in my enforced absence from the Club, my colleagues conspired
+against me, and with no regard to my feelings, selected me to write up
+some remembrances of old Beverly Farms. Hence these tears! Elsie Doane
+belongs to this Club. Elsie is _behind_ me about half a century, if you
+allow the Family Bible to know anything about so indifferent a thing as
+age. She was one of the few infants under my care when she was pupil
+and I was teacher, who had a real love for literature for literature's
+sake, and we had good chummy times when it was stormy and we carried
+dinner to school, and ate it peacefully in an atmosphere that smelt of
+a leaky furnace and fried doughnuts, in spite of open windows.
+
+It doesn't smell that way now, for Mr. Little has made the school-house
+of that day a pretty summer home for whomsoever will live in it. Elsie
+promises to set me right whenever I go astray as to what happened at
+old Beverly Farms, how it looked, what legends it had--how its people
+lived and behaved, and so forth, and so forth. She is a foxy little
+thing, and I suspect that when she is floored on my reminiscences, she
+will appeal to her mother, who, she says is older than she is! We do
+not promise any coherence in our stories. It will be somewhat of a
+hash that we shall give our listeners wherein it will be difficult to
+decide whether it is "fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring." But we
+have no reporter at our Club, so we give our memories free rein.
+
+I often wish I could catch and fix, by the kodak of memory, some of the
+celebrities of my childhood, in this little village.
+
+What a character, for instance, was Uncle David Larcom! Among the old
+Puritans who were his ancestors, and among whom he was raised, what a
+constant surprise he must have been! Certainly no hero of a dime novel
+could have done more startling and audacious things. He ran off to sea
+in his youth and stayed away from the village for three years. During
+that time, he had seen and experienced enough to satisfy Tom Sawyer; he
+had messed with Indian Lascars and acquired a taste for curry and red
+pepper which he never lost. And with the love for stimulating diet he
+gained a love for stimulating stories, and could draw the very longest
+kind of an innocent bow, that carried far and never hurt anybody.
+
+Who could forget his yarns of the sea serpent and his life on the old
+English Brig? "Has he got to the old English brig?" his waggish son
+would inquire, as he listened from an adjoining room.
+
+He gave away a wonderful old mirror, beautifully carved, with a lion's
+head at the bottom, and a boy astride a goose at the top, with leaves
+and bunches of grapes at the sides, and glass, as it seems to me,
+almost an inch thick. It hangs now in the drawing room of its possessor
+restored to pristine beauty and bearing an inscription setting forth
+that it came from the wreck of the "Schooner Hesperus."
+
+Uncle David told this yarn when he gave away the beautiful mirror.
+Nobody had ever before heard of this connection with the Schooner
+Hesperus. My own impression is that the mirror was brought to the old
+house, which I now own, by Aunt Betsey Larcom, the great grandmother
+of Elsie Doane. Dear old Uncle David! Sometimes his language was not
+choice, but how big his heart was!
+
+After he uncoiled his sea legs and settled down to teaming, mildly
+flavored with farming was there ever a more generous or a more kindly
+neighbor?
+
+People often cheated him, in fact, he almost seemed to like being
+cheated.
+
+His patient wife once remarked that he always wanted to give his own
+things away, and buy things for more than people asked for them. He
+would match Uncle Toby's army in Flanders for profanity, but he would
+go miles to help a sick friend, or, (and this is to my mind, the
+last test of friendship in a horse owner) turn out his old "Bun" on
+the stormiest night that ever raged, to help a brother teamster up a
+hill. And when were ever his own rakes and plows and forks at home?
+Weren't they always lent out somewhere? What a reverence for all
+things sacred, way down in the bottom of his large heart he always
+had! How deferential to _ministers_ he was! How angry he would be at
+any unnecessary breaking of the "_Sah-bath_" as he called it. How
+steadily he read, (though he wouldn't go to church) all day and all
+the evening of the Lord's Day--taking up his book at night, where he
+left it to feed his "critturs," and holding his sperm oil lamp in his
+hand as he finished his day of rest. Some of his expressions remain
+in my mind as, for instance "From July to Eternity," to indicate his
+weariness at something too much prolonged. He liked to exaggerate as
+well as Mark Twain did, as when he used to wish on a furiously stormy
+night, that he were way over on Half Way Rock, always being careful to
+have a _tremendous_ fire going, and a pitcher of cider at hand, before
+he expressed the desire. The memory of his good, religious father was
+always with him, and when he was in a particularly genial frame of
+mind, he would sing snatches of the old tunes he had heard his father
+sing:--
+
+
+     "The Lord into his garden comes
+     The spices yield their rich "Perfooms"
+     The lillies grow and thrive"
+
+
+was one of his special favorites.
+
+His kindly handsome face, his enormous size, his laugh, which was ten
+laughs in one, are among the clear remembrances of my childhood.
+
+And I can hardly close this sketch better than by quoting his old
+family doctor's words: "Swear, yes, but his swearing was better than
+some folks' praying."
+
+I should like to "summon from the vasty deep" some of the other old
+people, both white and black, who lived here in the old days. Just back
+of where Mr. Flick's stable now stands at Pride's Crossing lived Jacob
+Brower, a little old man of Dutch descent, with his wife and family.
+She was a sister of Mrs. Peter Pride, who lived in the first house west
+of the Pride's Crossing station. I remember Aunt Pride as an extremely
+handsome, tall, dark, dignified woman. She belonged to the Thissell
+family. Lucy and Frank Eldredge came of this family, and Willis Pride,
+and I suppose "Thissell's Market" claims relation too!
+
+The next house east of the station, on the other side of the road was a
+tumble down old house innocent of paint, and black with age, inhabited
+by three old African women--named Chloe Turner, Phillis Cave and Nancy
+Milan, all widows.
+
+The house, after the railroad cut it off from the main road, was so
+near the track that one could almost step from the rock doorstep to the
+rails, and the old crazy structure shook every time an infrequent train
+passed, we had four trains to Boston daily then. I remember how the old
+house smelt and how the rickety stairs creaked under one's feet.
+
+When my great great-grandfather, David Larcom, married the widow of
+John West and brought her to his home (now the Gordon Dexter place)
+she brought with her as part of her dower, a negro woman, a remarkable
+character, named Juno Freeman. This woman was the mother of a large
+family. Mary Herrick West's father was a Captain Herrick and he brought
+Juno, a slave from North Carolina in his ship.
+
+Juno's children took the Larcom name and remained as slave property in
+the Larcom family, till, in my great-grandfather's time they were sold.
+My uncle Rufus told me that this ancestor, Jonathan Larcom, was sharp,
+and, hearing that all slaves in Massachusetts were to be freed, _sold_
+his.
+
+The old house I have mentioned was given to Juno Larcom, it being on
+the land known as the "gate pasture" and in after years, when Mr.
+Franklin Haven wanted to open an avenue there, he took a land rent
+from my stepfather, David Larcom, had the old house torn down, and put
+a little house for Nancy Milan (who was then the only survivor of the
+three old widows) right by my piazza, on the east side, and there Aunt
+Milan died peacefully in the spring of 1869.
+
+Aunt Milan's mother, Phillis Cave, was brought to Danvers in the boot
+of Judge Cave's chaise, and afterwards somehow drifted to Beverly.
+Judge Cave's daughter, Maria Cummins, wrote the "Lamplighter," a book
+of great popularity in this region, in her day. Phillis worked in the
+best Beverly families, the Rantouls, Endicotts, and others, and used
+to walk to Beverly, work all day, and walk home at night. I remember
+wondering if all the washing she did had made the palms of her hands so
+much whiter than the rest of her.
+
+Aunt Chloe and Aunt Milan were pretty lazy old things, but everybody
+liked them and contributed good naturedly to their support. After
+Aunt Milan came down to live by us, Mr. Asa Larcom and my step-father
+furnished a good deal of her living, and the town gave her fifty cents
+a week. She never could hear of the poor house. Wherever Aunt Chloe
+got the candy and nuts she always had on hand for children, I cannot
+imagine. She wore a pumpkin hood (a headgear made of wadded woolen or
+silk, with a little back frill,) and the Brazil nuts used to be taken
+out of the back of the hood. My brother David said he used to eat candy
+from the same receptacle, but then he was a Larcom and had imagination!
+
+The old brick meeting house had a wooden bench built upstairs near the
+choir, and there these three black persons sat, every Sunday, thro'
+their peaceful lives. I think that was a pretty low down trick of those
+old Baptists, particularly as the ladies in question always sat at our
+tables.
+
+We old dwellers at Beverly Farms,--Obers and Haskells and Woodberrys
+and Williamses and Larcoms, are pretty well snarled up as to
+relationship, and I am always coming upon some new relative in an odd
+way.
+
+For instance, Miss Haven gave me the other day the appraisal of my
+great grandfather's estate, that same David Larcom of slave times. He
+died in 1779 possessed of £899 sterling, all in real estate. I found
+in the appraisal and settlement among his children, that my old friend
+Mrs. Lee and I have probably a common ancestor, Jonathan Larcom. It
+amuses us, because we have never before found any trace of commingling
+blood. I fancy it would be pretty difficult to find any two old Beverly
+Farmites, who are not related. My principal pride in the old paper
+is that it sets forth, over the signature of the Judge of Probate in
+Ipswich, that a Larcom once was worth about $5,000! (His brother's
+estate was appraised at £219 15s. 6d. Ed.)
+
+My good neighbor, Mrs. Goddard, came in last evening and brought me a
+fragrant bouquet of thyme and rosemary and marjoram and sage, which
+makes me remember that I have not yet tried to describe Aunt Betsey
+Larcom's garden in those ancient days.
+
+The striped grass is still growing in one corner of my garden--the
+very same roots that were there in my childhood, and up to a year or
+so ago, the old lilac bush that Uncle Ed. Larcom picked blossoms from
+when he was a small boy, was there too. Aunt Betsey's garden was a
+beautiful combination of use and loveliness. All along the stone wall
+grew red-blossomed barm and in the long beds were hyssop (she called
+it _isop_) and rue and marigolds and catnip and camomile and sage
+and sweet marjoram and martinoes. Martinoes were funny things with a
+beautiful, ill-smelling bloom which looked like an orchid, and when the
+blossoms dropped there succeeded an odd shaped fruit, with spines and
+a long tail, which was used for pickles. Then there were king cups,
+a glorified buttercup, and a lovely little blue flower called "Star
+of Bethlehem" and four o'clocks. Right here I want to say that Frank
+Gaudreau has more varieties of four o'clocks than I ever supposed were
+known to lovers of flowers and I think he deserves the thanks of the
+village for his pretty garden.
+
+All the different herbs were carefully gathered by Aunt Betsey, and
+tied in bundles, and hung up to the rafters of the old attic. Sometimes
+I fancy I can smell them now on a damp day, and I like to recall the
+dear old lady in her tyer and cap, busy with her simples. I like to
+think of her as my tutelar divinity for I came to love her dearly,
+though I am sure that when I was first landed in her house, I was a
+big trial. Elsie Doane remembered another garden of that time, where,
+she says, they never picked a flower. I remember it too, but I had
+forgotten that they didn't pick the flowers. It flourished right where
+the engine house and those other buildings stand, and Elsie _thinks_
+the garden reached way out to the sign post. Uncle Asa Ober owned that
+garden--the ancestor of Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Hooper and
+Helen Campbell, and many others of our fast fading away villagers. His
+two stepdaughters were cousins to my mother, and they had a little
+shop in an ell that ran from the house to the street, where they did
+dressmaking and millinery.
+
+Right in front of the shop was the garden all fenced in, but I had the
+right of way for I could sing! And whenever I learned a new _music_
+from Joe Low's Singing School, I used to be called in to act as prima
+donna to the two ladies.
+
+There were cucumbers in the garden extension and artichokes by the old
+walls.
+
+But my regrets are not for the gardens. We have gardens now, but nobody
+can bring back the beautiful fields, stretching from the woods to the
+sea, where cows and oxen grazed. Nobody can bring back the brooks, now
+polluted and turned into ditches. Nobody can bring back the roadsides
+bordered with wild roses, now tunneled and bean-poled out of all
+beauty. I do love some of our summer people, particularly those who
+have kept their hands off and have not removed the old landmarks, but
+I find it hard to forgive the bean-poling and the cementing. Look at
+the lovely old Sandy Hill Road (West Street). Over these happy summer
+fields of the olden days walked James Russell Lowell and his beautiful
+betrothed, Maria White. Later he came again,--but without her. Among
+those old first visitors to our Shore were John Glen King and Ellis
+Gray Loring. These two gentlemen married sisters, southern women I
+think; they took kindly to our New England cookery. Mrs. King, one
+day, asked my aunt, Mrs. Prince, if she could give them a salt fish
+dinner, with an Essex sauce. Mrs. Prince knew all about a salt fish
+dinner, but the Essex sauce floored her, and she humbly acknowledged
+her ignorance. "Oh," said Mrs. King, "it is very simple. You take thin
+slices of fat pork and fry them out." Mrs. Prince laughed and proceeded
+to her kitchen to make "pork dip." Mrs. King also liked a steamed
+huckleberry pudding and she said "And please, Mrs. Prince, make it all
+huckleberries, with just enough flour to hold them together." We got
+four or five cents a quart when we picked these same huckleberries. I
+did not have a very big bank account in that direction, owing to my
+short sight, and to my preference for making corn stalk fiddles with a
+jack-knife. I remember making one on a Sunday morning, uninterrupted
+by the "Sabbathday dog" which was supposed to lie in wait for Sabbath
+breakers.
+
+Diagonally opposite my house lived Mr. Nathaniel Haskell, a little old
+gentleman, who wore a cut away blue coat, with buttons on the tail,
+over which, in cool weather, he put a green baize jacket. How funny he
+looked. He was interested in what he called the _tar_-iff, and he was
+awfully afraid of lightning. I remember the whole family filing into
+our dining room whenever a specially dark cloud appeared. I do not
+think a single descendant of "Uncle Nat" is left here, tho' there was a
+large family.
+
+There was a cheese press in our back yard and "changing milk" was a
+great scheme. One week all the milk from four or five farms would be
+sent to us and my mother would make delicious sage cheese.
+
+Then, the next week all the milk would go to "Uncle Nat's," and so on,
+till all the cow owners were supplied with cheeses, which were duly
+greased with butter and put on shelves to dry, a sight to make the
+prophet smile.
+
+I wish I could get a picture of Beverly Farms as it looked to my
+child's eyes. I came over to "the Road," as it was called by my
+maternal relatives, when I was five years old. They lived in that
+Paradise now occupied by millionaires, the region that holds the Gordon
+Dexter place, the Moore place, the Swift place, and part of the Paine
+place. At that time, the whole section was long green fields bordered
+by woods, the "log brook" running through it. There were then three
+roads in Beverly Farms, the road now called Hale Street, the beautiful
+old Sandy Hill Road (West Street) and the Wenham road (Hart Street).
+My two homes after my mother's widowhood were at the Gordon Dexter
+place, and at my father's old homestead, at Mingo's Beach (where Bishop
+McVickar lived). There were about twenty houses at that time, between
+Beach Hill and Saw Mill Brook. This was West Farms and the Schoolhouse
+stood just back of Pride's Crossing station--afterwards removed to
+where it now stands as a dwelling house, occupied by the heirs of
+Thomas Pierce.
+
+There was then no railroad and the main road ran by Mr. Bradley's
+greenhouses, and along where the railroad now is, coming out near
+the schoolhouse. That part of Hale Street where the Catholic church
+is, was then Miller's Hill, a pasture, where I have often tried to
+pick berries. The railroad came in 1845. The little shanties where
+the laborers who were building the road lived temporarily with their
+families, were a great curiosity. I used to run away and peep into
+them and I can remember how they smelled. My mother, who did the work
+of twenty women every day almost as long as she lived, made knotted
+"comforters" for these shanties. Our way of getting to Beverly and
+Salem was by stage coaches between Gloucester and Salem. In my few
+journeys in these delightful conveyances I used to clamber to the top
+seat and sit with Mr. Page the kindly driver, who was one of our first
+conductors on the railroad.
+
+To the house where I now live my happy life, I was brought at five
+years. I could then read about as well as I can now. I found in this
+old house a garret, a beautiful garret, where bundles of herbs hung
+from the rafters, and where books, books galore had collected in
+old sea chests. Fancy my delight, at finding, one red letter day,
+Christopher North's, "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life."
+
+There were other books not so well fitted for the education of a child,
+but it was all fish that came to my net, and I calmly read up to my
+tenth year, "The Criminal Calendar," "Tales of Shipwrecks," Barber's
+"Historical Massachusetts," Paley's "Moral Philosophy," Pollock's
+"Course of Time," Alleine's "Alarm to the Unconverted," Richardson's
+"Pamela" and the "Spectator!" Some years afterwards, when I had read
+the covers off this miscellaneous collection of books, some of the
+earlier summer people, the elder Lorings and Kings, I think, put a
+small library into Uncle Pride's house and gave us Jacob Abbott's Rollo
+Stories and a few other delights. Please picture to yourself the "light
+of other days" by which the reading and sewing and knitting of old
+Beverly Farms used to go on at night.
+
+Luckily, there was as much daylight then, as now. The lamp that
+illuminated my childish evenings was a glass lamp, that held about
+a cup full of whale oil, "sperm oil," it was called. There were two
+metal tubes at the top of this lamp, thro' which protruded two cotton
+wicks. These wicks could be pulled up for more light or pulled down for
+economy, by means of a pin. No protection whatever was afforded from
+the flame, and my hair was singed in front most of the time, as I crept
+close with book or stocking, to this illumination. One use of the old
+oil lamp was medicinal. If there were a croupy child in the house, he
+might be treated immediately, in the absence of a doctor, to a dose
+from the lamp on the mantel. I remember my blessed brother David being
+ministered unto in that way. After this, came the fluid lamp, with an
+alcoholic mixture that was dangerous, but clean.
+
+In hunting about among ancestors, I am sometimes reminded of the
+story of Dr. Samuel Johnson's marriage. The lady to whom he proposed,
+demurred a little. She said she had an uncle who was hanged. Dr.
+Johnson assured her that that need make no difficulty, for he had no
+doubt that he had several who ought to have been hanged. I remember my
+disgust at finding that I was related thro' my maternal grandmother,
+Molly Standley, to "Aunt Massy." Aunt Massy, (her real name was Mercy)
+was a mildly insane, gray-haired, stoutish woman, who lived just before
+you reach the fountain at the top of the hill, on Hale St. There was
+a well with a windlass and bucket at one side of her old house and
+Aunt Massy used to lean on the well curb and abuse the passers by. She
+remembered all the mean things one's relatives ever did, and how she
+could scold! I was often sent to Mr. Perry's grocery store where Pump
+Cottage now stands and I used to try to get by without hearing her
+uplifted voice. But if I had a new gown there was no escape.
+
+The two districts I have mentioned, (East and West Farms) were divided
+by "Saw Mill Brook," the little half choked stream that now filters
+under the road between Mr. Hardy's and Mr. Simpkins' places. It was
+a beautiful brook in those old days, clear water running through
+fields, with trout in it. The saw mill must have stood about where that
+collection of tenement houses now is.
+
+The "child in the mill pond" belongs to the legendary history of
+Beverly Farms.
+
+Coming down the hill towards Beverly, the most terrible shrieks would
+often be heard, but if one crossed the brook to West Farms, all was
+silent. I never heard these shrieks, I took good care never to be
+caught over there after dark. I should have liked to see the little
+screech owl, who, no doubt, had his quiet home up back of the mill,
+and sang his evening song, after the miller had closed his gates. We
+villagers have a question to propose to all our friends of uncertain
+age,--"Do you remember the saw-mill?" If, inadvertently, they confess
+to its acquaintance, it settles the question of age. It is as good as a
+Family Bible.
+
+Miss Culbert showed me the other day, a great find, the remnant of the
+"Third Social Library of Beverly." I had never heard of such a library
+and was greatly interested. It is now in our beautiful branch library,
+in a neat book case made by one of the Obers, in whose house the
+Library was placed. I mean the old Joseph Ober house which stood where
+Mrs. Charles M. Cabot's house is.
+
+Elsie did not live opposite that house then, but she was going to live
+there. I dare say she wouldn't read any one of those books, any more
+than I would. The books date back to 1810, and many of the honored
+names I have been mentioning are there, all written down in beautiful
+handwriting, and with a tax of ten cents opposite their names, for
+the carrying on of this little library. There are two sermons of the
+beloved Joseph Emerson, who preached at Beverly before there was any
+church here, a funeral sermon preached on the occasion of Dr. Perry's
+grandfather's death, loads of sermons by Jonathan Edwards, great
+bundles of religious magazines, and other interesting antiquities. Not
+one story, no fiction of any sort. Those forefathers of ours fed on
+strong meat. Among the curiosities are several letters from anxious
+fathers in Boston, making the most vigorous and pathetic protest
+against a proposed _second_ theatre in Boston on Common Street.
+
+A second theatre in Boston! The souls of young people in peril! One
+sighs to think what these good fathers would have said if they could
+have pulled aside the curtain of the future and seen little Beverly
+with crowds of children accompanied by their fathers and mothers and
+uncles and aunts and cousins, all pouring into the "movies!" (One of
+these movies named for Lucy Larcom!) One must go on, and now we are
+trying to hope that some good may come out of the "movies!" If our
+little religious library was the "Third Social" there must have been
+two more in old Beverly.
+
+I want you to go back in your mind to a Sunday of that time when even
+a walk to the woods or to the beach was wicked, when the only books
+that were proper to read were religious books, when there were three
+religious services every Sunday and pretty awfully long services.
+My cousin and my sister and I crawled up a long ladder to the third
+floor of our barn, among the pigeons' nests, and, nestling down in
+the hay, produced a _novel_, a real novel, a wishy washy thing, that
+no money could hire me to read today, and with quiet whisperings
+read that _wicked_ book. We were in mortal terror lest "Aunt Phebe"
+should suspect our deep degradation, and "Aunt Phebe" was not a foe
+either. She was a beautiful, big, kindly woman, as Mrs. Crowell, her
+step-daughter, would gladly attest.
+
+One whose memory goes back like Elsie Doane's and mine must remember
+the old brick meeting house. My memories of it are pretty hazy and
+I fancy Elsie will have to go farther back than her mother, for
+information about that fine specimen of architecture. It had neither
+cupola nor spire and must have been pretty ugly. It must have been
+the second meeting house, in which I recall the beautiful alto Mrs.
+Otis Davis's mother used to sing. I shall never forget how affected my
+childish ears were when she sang "Oh, when thou city of my God shall I
+thy Courts ascend" as the choir rendered the anthem "Jerusalem."
+
+Speaking of meeting houses, our third and present, one of the most
+beautiful and "resting" buildings one could worship God in, is a
+lasting memorial of the taste and genius of our beloved Mrs. Whitman.
+To her and to Mr. Eben Day, we owe its beauty; and to the generous old
+church members we owe its existence at all, for they gave freely to its
+construction.
+
+The first minister I have much recollection of was Mr. Hale, who
+lived with his family in the house now owned by Miss Lizzie Hull. My
+step-father bought a horse from him, and named him "Sumner." That was
+Mr. Hale's Christian name. I have often wondered how Mr. Hale felt to
+have a horse named for him, but I am sure Uncle David meant it as a
+compliment.
+
+In those far away days we had a hermit of our own. It would be more
+damaging to a claim of youthfulness, on the part of my readers to
+remember "Johnny Widgin," than to remember the saw-mill.
+
+One late afternoon, coming out with my playmates from Mr. Gordon
+Dexter's avenue, then my grandfather's lane, we saw a most grotesque
+figure, standing by "Rattlesnake Rock," just across the railroad--a
+tall man, of perhaps fifty years, to us, of course, "an old man." His
+trousers, which, thro' all the years I perfectly remember, were of some
+kind of once white material, with little bows of red ribbon and silk
+sewed all over them. He spoke to us gently but we were all terrified
+and ran home as fast as our legs could carry us. This singular being
+afterwards came and went in the village for several years, cooking his
+own little vile smelling messes on kindly disposed women's stoves,
+sleeping in barns, repeating chapter after chapter of the Old Testament
+for the edification of his hearers, and always gentle and kindly. I
+recall his recitation of the last chapter of Malachi beginning "And
+they shall all burn like an oven." He was, no doubt, mildly insane and
+of Scandinavian descent, but nobody ever knew anything definite about
+him. He lived a part of his time, in warm weather, in a hole or cave
+of rocks, on the beach formerly owned by Mr. Samuel T. Morse, below
+Colonel Lee's. He had a similar retreat at York Beach. He finally faded
+out of our lives, no one knew how. He may have been taken up in a
+chariot of fire like his beloved prophet Elijah, for all that any of us
+ever knew of his departure from these earthly scenes. He was supposed
+to be Norwegian, hence his name "Johnny Widgin." My grandfather said
+that if he could not pronounce "the thick of my thumb" in any way but
+the "tick of my tumb" he was Norwegian. That settled it in my mind,
+for my grandfather was my oracle. (Andrew Larcom, Grandfather Ober had
+died, Ed.)
+
+My grandfather did not go much to church but he loved his Bible and
+Psalm book and from several things that I remember about him, I think
+he was Unitarian in belief, though in those days I did not know a
+Unitarian from a black cat, and whenever I heard of one, I supposed he
+must be a terrible kind of being. I was a grown woman, when one day,
+speaking of Starr King and his love for the White Hills and his loyalty
+in keeping California in the Union during the Civil War, the woman to
+whom I was speaking said "Well, he wasn't a good man." "Not a good
+man," I said. "Why" said she, "You know he was a Universalist." We have
+got on a little since that time in toleration, but we need to get on a
+little more.
+
+My uncles on my mother's side were great hunters. Foxes and minks and
+woodchucks were plentiful in those days and a good many of them fell
+into my uncles' traps. I remember remonstrating with my uncle "Ed
+Larcom," about traps, telling him it was cruel, and that I didn't see
+how a good kind man like him could earn his living that way. "Oh," he
+said, "They were made for me!" Doesn't the Bible say "And he shall have
+dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
+over all the cattle, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the
+earth?" My uncles all said there was no better eating than a good fat
+woodchuck; that the chucks fed on grain and roots and clean things. The
+manner of cooking was to parboil them, stuff with herbs and bake.
+
+Some years ago, I was invited to join the Daughters of the Revolution,
+and to this end to look up my ancestry. To my surprise I could not
+find a single forbear of mine who was connected in any way with wars
+or rumors of wars, and I reported that I hadn't been able to find any
+of my kin who ever wanted to kill anything but a woodchuck. Since this
+writing, my cousin, Dr. Abbott, still living, at the age of ninety-five
+in Illinois, has informed me that my remote ancestor, Benjamin Ober,
+did valiant work on the sea in the Revolution.
+
+Elsie Doane seems to think that these scraps of antiquity would not
+be quite satisfactory without mention of "Jim" Perry's grocery store,
+though she never bought a pound of coffee in it, and, if she says
+she did, she thinks she is her mother. It was our only store and so
+was quite a feature. It was presided over by Mr. James Perry, a tall
+dignified man, whom his wife in her various offices as helpmate, always
+called "Mr. Perry." Mr. Perry was color blind and whenever my mother
+sent me for blue silk or blue yarn, he always selected green or purple.
+
+You may wonder how blue silk comes to be a grocery product, but this
+was really a _department_ store. When we had a half cent coming to
+us, Mrs. Perry always produced a _needle_, for the exact change.
+You see how honest we were! This honest department store stood, in
+fact it _was_ Pump Cottage, for I think Pump Cottage is the same old
+jackknife with different blades and handles. Farther up, on the Wenham
+Road, lived Deacon Joseph Williams, a beautiful old gentleman, with
+a disposition as sunny as a ripe peach. His house was small and his
+family large. All the Williamses in this region would look back to that
+little house as their old family homestead, and I was sorry when Mr.
+Doane decided that it could not be remodelled, but had to be taken down.
+
+Deacon Williams had a dog, a little black fellow named Carlo, who
+always followed the good man about except on Sundays. On Sundays, Carlo
+took a look at his master and then went and lay down dejectedly. But,
+as I have intimated before, when you remember the Sundays of those
+days, a sensible dog really had the best of it. In a former page of
+these odds and ends of memory I have mentioned Uncle Ed Larcom and his
+fondness for hunting. A good many of us _aborigines_ of old Beverly
+Farms will remember his talks of _his_ dog Tyler, a mongrel dog, half
+bull dog and half Newfound_land_, as Uncle Ed pronounced it. Tyler,
+according to his master (and his master was the most accurate teller
+of stories that ever lived, always telling his yarns in exactly the
+same words,) was a most remarkable dog, understanding what one said
+to him as well as a man, going a mile if he were merely told to fetch
+a missing jacket, and as full of fun and tricks as a monkey. Uncle Ed
+used to delight his young audiences with anecdotes of Tyler, and in his
+old age, when mind and memory began to fail, it was rather hard to hear
+him say, "Did I ever tell you about my dog Tyler?"
+
+He must have been named for John Tyler. It was hard on a good dog to be
+named for John Tyler, one of the poorest presidents we ever had.
+
+There seems to be a great deal of interest among our summer people in
+the old houses still left at Beverly Farms. I have mentioned the James
+Woodbury house now owned by Mr. J. S. Curtis; another very old house
+is the William Haskell house, owned by Mr. Gordon Dexter. I have a
+little doubt as to whether the date on the house is right. I have a
+very strong impression that Aunt Betsey Larcom, born Haskell, told me
+in my childhood that her father built the house in which Aunt Betsey
+was born, in 1775. She also said that when they dug the well back of
+the house, they struck a spring and were never able to finish stoning
+it, a fact which accounted for its never running dry, when all the
+other wells in the village gave out. I think Mr. Dexter bought it of
+the James Haskell heirs, but I am not able to state what relation James
+Haskell (Skipper Jim) was to Mr. William Haskell, or how he came into
+possession of it.
+
+I wonder how many people are now left in Beverly Farms who ever tasted
+food cooked in a brick oven. I am sure there are not many. But those
+of us who ate of an Indian pudding or a pot of baked beans from that
+ancient source of supply will never forget the deliciousness of that
+kind of cookery.
+
+The pudding would stand straight up in its earthen pan, a quivering
+red, honey-combed mass, surrounded with a sea of juice to be eaten
+with rich real cream in clots of loveliness. The beans would be brown
+and whole, with the crisp home cured pork on top. That old New England
+cookery, it seems to me, filled a big bill for health and physical
+nourishment. We did not know much about proteins and calories and
+fibrins, in fact, we had never heard of them. But we somehow hit upon
+the best combinations as to taste and efficiency. We almost never had
+candy, and we rarely had all flour bread. A good deal of Indian meal
+went into my mother's bread.
+
+Our amusements in those days were primitive enough. On Old Election
+Day, which came the last Wednesday in May, there was just one thing to
+do. We youngsters had an election cake all shining with molasses on
+top, and raisins in the middle, and we went down to the beach and dug
+wells in the sand. Now and then we hunted Mayflowers (saxifrage) and
+played about the old fort left from the Revolution and now owned by Mr.
+F. L. Higginson. Evenings we had parties and played Copenhagen and hunt
+the slipper or knit the family stockings by our dim oil lamps. Winters,
+there were singing schools. Those were great larks if we came at the
+money to buy a copy of the "Carmina Sacra," or the "Shawm." I still
+think they were fine collections of tunes, comprising all the old
+standbys. Mrs. Lee's father, Mr. John Knowlton, was a wonderful singing
+master, and a great disciplinarian, with a beautiful bass voice. He
+would stand a good deal of fun at the recess, but when Mr. Knowlton
+struck his bell and took up his violin, we all knew it meant singing
+and no nonsense. I think my grandfather, Benjamin Ober, and Elsie's
+great-grandfather, Deacon David Larcom, were also singing masters in
+the old days, but neither Elsie nor I remember them,--old as we are.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Daguerreotype taken about 1859_]
+
+Over "t'other side," as we called it, in the house now owned by Mr.
+J. S. Curtis, lived Uncle "Jimmy" Woodbury. He must have been a
+"character." He was once very much troubled by rats in his barn. So he
+conceived a plan for getting rid of them at his neighbor's expense.
+Uncle David Preston's estate, where Miss Susan Amory's house now
+stands, was diagonally opposite.
+
+Uncle "Jimmy" wrote a letter to the rats, in which he told them that
+in Uncle David's barn was more corn and better corn than they were
+getting in his barn, and he strongly recommended that they move. Then
+Uncle Jimmy kept watch and on a beautiful moonlight night he had the
+satisfaction of beholding a long line of rodents with an old gray
+fellow as leader, crossing the road on their way to Uncle David's.
+(I tell the story as it was told to me). Uncle Jimmy's daughter,
+Mary, married Dr. Wyatt C. Boyden, for many years the skilful family
+physician of half the town. The fine public spirited Boydens of Beverly
+are her descendants.
+
+By the way, the old vernacular of the village ought not to perish from
+the earth. It was unique. Our ancestors just hated to pronounce any
+word correctly, even when they were fairly good scholars and spellers.
+They called a marsh a "mash." Capt. Timothy Marshall, the rich man of
+the place, was called Capt. "Mashall"; Mr. Osborne was Mr. "Osman";
+the Obers were "Overs", a lilac was a "laylock" a blue jay was a blue
+"gee," etc.
+
+In closing these rambling papers of the old days at Beverly Farms,
+my conscience accuses me a little of not sufficiently emphasizing
+the _virtues_ of the villagers. Truly, they were a good, interesting,
+law-abiding, religious people. Everybody went to church; a tramp
+was unknown; a drunken person was nearly as much an astonishment as
+a circus would have been. It would be unfair to class them as rude
+fishermen and shoemakers for they came of the old Puritan ancestry, who
+built their churches and schoolhouses on a convenient spot, before they
+attended to anything else, and they paid their debts so promptly that
+Mr. William Endicott, the good merchant of Beverly, said that he never
+had any hesitation in selling on credit to "Farms" people. As one got
+on to middle life, almost every householder had his horse, his cows and
+often a yoke of oxen. Our favorite conveyance to school, in deep snows,
+was an ox team with poles on the sides of the sled, where we held on
+with shouts and screams of laughter.
+
+Nobody thought of hiring a _nurse_ in cases of serious illness. The
+_neighbors_ came with willing hands and helped out. It was a peaceful
+little hamlet, with kind, straightforward, honest inhabitants, and
+the small remnant of us who are left have reason to be proud of our
+ancestry.
+
+Elsie repeated to us, the other day, the epitaph on her
+great-grandfather's grave stone, the Deacon David Larcom, who built my
+old house, who asked the town for a cemetery for this village and was
+laid to rest there in 1840, the first one to be buried in its peaceful
+shadows: "His life exhibited in rare combination and in an uncommon
+degree all the excellencies of the husband, the father, the citizen and
+the Christian."
+
+The epitaph was written by Lucy Larcom, whose home here was on West
+Street. After she left Beverly for Lowell, and was a factory girl, she
+wrote for the "Lowell Offering," a little magazine published by the
+nice New England working girls. Copies of this little magazine were in
+the wonderful attic of my house when I came here. They were probably
+scented with Aunt Betsey's _simples_ that hung from the roof.
+
+How I wish I could have foreseen how very precious they would be to me
+now.
+
+[Illustration: _Head enlarged from a group taken about 1899_]
+
+
+
+
+LUCY LARCOM--A MEMORY
+
+BY MARY LARCOM DOW
+
+
+_Extracts from the Beacon, published in Beverly for a charity November
+1, 1913._
+
+I am proud to be asked to record some of my pleasant days with my
+mother's cousin, Lucy Larcom. It will, of course, be natural to me to
+speak principally of the six or seven years during which she lived at
+Beverly Farms, the only time in which she had a real home of her own.
+It has always seemed strange to me that Doctor Addison in his biography
+of her, should have dismissed that part of her life with so few words.
+I know that it meant a great deal to her.
+
+My very first recollection of her was as a child, when she, as a young
+lady, came to my house (then owned by "Aunt Betsey") spoken of so
+affectionately in "A New England Girlhood." Afterward, when I bought
+the old house, she expressed her great pleasure and when I told her I
+had spent all my money for it, she said that was quite right; it was
+like the turtle with his shell, a retreat.
+
+When she came here in 1866, she was in her early forties, a beautiful,
+gracious figure, with flowing abundant brown hair, and a most benignant
+face. She was then editor of "Our Young Folks." She took several sunny
+rooms near the railroad station, almost opposite "The witty Autocrat."
+He dated his letters from "Beverly Farms by the Depot," not to be
+outdone by his Manchester neighbors. The house was then owned by
+Captain Joseph Woodberry, a refined gentleman of the old school.
+
+She brought with her at first, to these pleasant rooms, a favorite
+niece who resembled her in looks and in temperament, and she at once
+proceeded, with her exquisite taste, to make a real home for them. The
+bright fire on the hearth where we sat and talked and watched the logs
+fall apart and the sparks go out, was a great delight to her, and I
+have always thought that that beautiful poem "By the Fireside" must
+have been written "in those days."
+
+The woods and fields of Beverly Farms were then accessible to all of
+us, and she knew just where to find the first hepaticas and the rare
+spots where the linnea grew, and the rhodora and the arethusa, and that
+last pathetic blossom of the year, the witch hazel, and she could paint
+them too.
+
+To this home by the sea, came noted people; Mary Livermore, Celia
+Thaxter, whose sea-swept poems were our great delight, and many others.
+I recall one great event when Mr. Whittier came and took tea. He was
+so gentle and simple. The conversation turned on the softening of
+religious creeds, and he gave us some of his own experiences. He told
+us that when Charles Kingsley came to America, he went to see him at
+the Parker House, and as they walked down School Street, Mr. Whittier
+expressed his appreciation to Mr. Kingsley for his work in that
+direction. Mr. Kingsley laughed and said,--"Why, when I first went to
+preach at Eversley, I had great difficulty in making my parishioners
+believe that God is as good as the average church member."
+
+There was a comfortable lounge in the living room at Beverly Farms, by
+an east window, and by that window was written "A Strip of Blue."
+
+I do not think that Lucy Larcom had a very keen sense of humor, but she
+enjoyed fun in others, and was always amused at my absurd exaggerations
+and at my brother David's comical sea yarns. This brother of mine
+strongly resembled her in face and build, and also in his determination
+not to be poor. They would be rich, and they were rich to the end of
+the chapter. Her income must have been always slender, but I do not
+think I ever heard her say she could not afford anything. If she wanted
+her good neighbor, Mr. Josiah Obear, to harness up his red horse and
+rock-away and take her about the countryside, she said so, and we would
+go joyfully off, coming home, perhaps from the Essex fields, with a
+box of strawberries for her simple supper. Always the simple life with
+nature was her wish.
+
+She was decidedly old-fashioned, and though I do not suppose she
+thought plays and cards and dancing wicked, she had still a little
+shrinking from them. I remember that now and then we played a game
+called rounce, a game as innocent and inane as "Dumb Muggins" but she
+always had a little fear that Captain Woodberry would discover it,
+which pleased me immensely.
+
+Those pleasant days at Beverly Farms came too soon to an end, and for
+the last part of her life I did not see so much of her. She remains
+to me a loving and helpful memory of a serene and child-like nature,
+and "a glad heart without reproach or blot," and I am glad to lay this
+witch hazel flower of memory upon the grave of that daughter of the
+Puritans, Lucy Larcom.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+
+Beverly Farms,
+April 25, 1893.
+
+My dear Miss Baker:
+
+I get such pleasant letters from you that I quite love you, though I
+dare say I should not know you if I met you in my porridge dish being
+such a short sighted old party. And liking you, when you joined those
+other despots and lie awake o' nights, thinking how you can pile up
+more work and make life a burden to school ma'ams, means a good deal!!
+
+Here is Miss Fanny Morse, now, whom I have always considered a
+Christian and a philanthropist, commissioning me to count and destroy
+belts of caterpillars' eggs for which the _children_ are to have prizes!
+
+The children indeed! The prizes are at the wrong end! Miss Wilkins and
+I come home nights--"meeching" along--our arms full of the twigs--from
+which the nasty worms are beginning to crawl!
+
+And now come you, asking for a tree! Yes, yes, dear body, we will do
+our possible, only if you hear of my raiding somebody's barn yard for
+the necessary nourishment of said tree, or stealing a wheelbarrow or a
+pick and shovel, please think of me at my best.
+
+Now as to Mr. Dow, I must write his part seriously, I suppose, as he is
+a grave old Scotchman.
+
+He says he will use a part of the money--after proper consultation with
+the selectmen, etc. And he suggests that a part of the money be used to
+take care of the triangle and the trees already planted. He will write
+you when he has decided where to put additional trees. And if I live
+through the week I will write you whether we got a '92 tree in anywhere.
+
+Yours very much,
+
+MARY L DOW.
+
+
+Miss Baker was Secretary of the Beverly Improvement Society; these
+letters refer to her work.--(Editor.)
+
+
+Beverly Farms, March 21, 1899
+
+My Dear Miss Baker:
+
+I want very much to go to Mrs. Gidding's high tea but I do not get out
+of school till 3.30 and the train leaves at 3.34.
+
+But after I am graduated from a school, for good and all, I mean to
+go to some of the rest of these "feasts of reason and flow of soul."
+We are making fine progress with the _wurrums_ and Miss Wilkins is
+prospering with her enterprise in Wenham.
+
+Yours truly
+
+MARY L. DOW.
+
+P.S. My regards to your father. I am sorry he has been ill. I told my
+sub-committee that I thought, if Mr. Baker had been present when my
+resignation was accepted, they would have sent me some little pleasant
+message to remember. It seemed to me that after teaching about a
+century in the town they might have at least told me to go to the
+d----, or something of that sort.
+
+M.L.D.
+
+
+"Beverly Farms-by-the-Depot" 1918.
+
+Dearly Beloved G.P.:
+
+"Pink" has just brought me this little squigley piece of paper, so that
+my letter to you may be of the same size as hers--some people are so
+fussy. You sent me nine or ten bushels of love, and I have used them
+all up, and am hungry for more, for that kind of diet my appetite is
+always unappeased.
+
+How I do wish we had you within touching distance as well as within
+loving distance; I have always had a great desire to see more of you
+since first my eyes fell upon you. I do just hate to get so old that
+perhaps I shall never see you again in the flesh. But I'll be sure to
+look for you, and now and then, when you get a particularly good piece
+of good luck,--I shall have had something to do with it. That does not
+mean that the undertaker has been called and to hear James and Sarah
+Elizabeth talk, you would suppose that nothing could kill me--I only
+mean that 84 years is serious; but, for the life of me, I never do get
+very serious for long at a time.
+
+Jimmy and I have been out to Northfield for five days, went to meeting
+and sang psalms for seven hours a day. Jimmy takes to meetings, being
+as Huxley said of somebody "incurably religious"--and really I did not
+talk much.
+
+The country was so sweet and beautiful, the spirit of the place was
+like the New Jerusalem come down again. We slept in the dormitory in
+the little iron beds side by side, "Each in his narrow bed forever
+laid", only we did not stay forever.
+
+We meant to come home by way of the Monadnock region, and we had a few
+drives along the Contacook River, but we ran into a Northeaster, and
+came ingloriously home.
+
+Have not you been in lovely places, and in great good fortune in your
+vacation? I am glad of it.
+
+I love you--so does Jimmy--and Sambo, and so would Billy, the
+neighbors' dog, who hangs about me for rice and kidneys, if he knew
+you. As to Pink, she flourishes like a green bay horse, teaches French
+and is in good spirits. Molly goes away on a vacation tomorrow. Poor
+Jim! With us for cooks!
+
+Remember him in your prayers.
+
+Thine, thine,
+
+MOLLY POLLY.
+
+
+Beverly Farms. Jan. 25, 1919.
+
+My Dear Mrs. Goddard:
+
+I didn't know till the other day, when I accidentally met Mr. Hakanson,
+that you had had an anxious and worried time this winter, with Mr.
+Goddard in the hospital. I am glad to know that he is able to be at
+home now. Tell him with my love, that our old neighbor, Mrs. Goodwin,
+once broke her leg, and she told me that though she expected to be
+always lame, that in a year she could not remember which leg was broken.
+
+I hope you and the boys have been well, in this winter of worries. As
+to ice, I am scared to death of it, nothing else ever keeps me in the
+house.
+
+My old assistant at school, declares that one winter she dragged me up
+and down Everett St., every school day! Nothing like the quietness of
+this winter at Beverly Farms was ever seen. I think I must suggest to
+the Beacon St. people to come down. We have had a good many dark days,
+but now and then, I lie in my bed and watch the sun come up and glorify
+the oaks on your hill.
+
+And then I quote to "Jim" Emerson's lines:
+
+
+     "Oh! tenderly the haughty day
+     Fills his blue urn with fire."
+
+
+And he likes that about as well as he likes the stars in the middle of
+the night!
+
+By the way, we are thinking of going to Colorado and Florida next month
+for a few weeks. We have got the bits in our teeth, though we may have
+to go to the City Home when we get back. We mean to try the month of
+March in warmer climes. We haven't anything to wear--but that does not
+matter.
+
+Miss Miller comes down now and then, always serene, though what she
+finds in the inlook or the outlook is difficult to see. Serenity in her
+case, does not depend on outward circumstances.
+
+God bless you all, and we shall be glad to see our kind sensible
+neighbors back.
+
+Affectionately,
+
+MARY L. DOW.
+
+
+My Dear Mrs. Goddard:
+
+I told the nice young person at your door, that I hoped I should some
+day soon see your dear face, and so I do hope. But I understand all
+your busy moments, and you understand my limitations, my having been
+born so many years ago; and we both know what fine women we both be,
+and that's all about it!
+
+Then there never was such a salad as we had for our fourth of July
+dinner. And I did have a little real oil, too good for any hawked about
+stuff. I put it right on to those dear little onions, and that happy
+looking lettuce! And that isn't all about that, for there are still
+carrots--gentle and sweet--for our tomorrow's lunch. I told "Jim" they
+were good for the disposition and he said he didn't need carrots for
+his! Men are awfully conceited. And I am so pleased to see Mr. Goddard
+a'walking right off, without a limp to his name. James and Miss Miller
+send love, and so do I, while the beautiful hill holds you and always.
+
+MARY LARCOM DOW.
+
+
+Monday, July 7, 1919.
+
+
+Mrs. Dow wrote to a California friend, Mrs. Gertrude Payne Bridgeford, a
+short time before her death:
+
+"I'd give my chance of a satin gown to see you, and I hope I shall live
+to do that, but if I don't, remember that I love you always, here or
+there, and I quote here my favorite verse from Weir Mitchell,
+
+
+     'Yes, I have had dear Lord, the day,
+     When, at thy call, I have the night,
+     Brief be the twilight as I pass
+     From light to dark, from dark to light.'"
+
+
+Her prayer was answered for the twilight was brief.
+
+
+Dear Elsie:
+
+As soon as Mary said "E. Sill"--I found the Fool's Prayer directly.
+
+It was in my mind and would not stay out. How well it expresses that
+our sins are often not so bad as our blunders! A splendid prayer for an
+untactful person. Perhaps I should not go so far as to say that want
+of tact is as bad as want of virtue--but it is pretty bad! From that
+defect, you will go scot free! But I often blunder.
+
+Your TAT is here, I am keeping it as a hostage.
+
+Thine,
+
+YOUR OLD SCHOOLMA'AM.
+
+Friday, April 9, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS
+
+
+"Wouldn't it be lovely if one could fall--like a leaf from a tree?"
+
+"Longevity is the hardest disease in the world to cure, you are beat
+from the start, and get worse daily!"
+
+"Ah, dear, sometimes I wish--almost wish--I did not love life so well!
+But I try to think that if it is not a long dreamless sleep bye and
+bye, that I shall take right hold of that other existence and love it
+too!"
+
+And speaking of Mr. Dow's serious illness she wrote:
+
+"I try to believe that God will not take him first--and leave me with
+no sun in the sky--nor bird in the bush--no flower in the grass."
+
+
+
+
+APPRECIATION
+
+BY
+
+SARAH E. MILLER
+
+
+It was in the autumn of 1872 that I first met my friend, Mary Larcom
+Ober, at Wilmington, North Carolina, where we were teaching in the same
+school.
+
+In the spring of 1873, she invited me to her home in Beverly Farms.
+
+How well I remember that first happy visit to beautiful Beverly Farms,
+and the first walk in its woods. We went through the grounds of the
+Haven estate and then to Dalton's hill which has such a fine outlook.
+
+From that time my friend's home held a welcome for me whenever I chose
+to come, and the welcome lasted till the close of her life.
+
+What a hospitality, rest and peace there was in the dear "house by the
+side of the road," and a never-failing kindness and love. What cheer at
+Thanksgiving and Christmas festivals when friends and neighbors came in
+to bring greetings, and stayed for friendly chat or a game of cards.
+
+In the first years of our friendship, I made close acquaintance with
+the woods of Beverly Farms, for we lived our summer afternoons mostly
+out of doors in those days. We had two favorite places under the trees,
+one, on a little hill deep in the pines, the other, with glimpses of
+the sea, and we took our choice of these from day to day.
+
+Here in the company of books, birds and squirrels we used to sit, read
+and sew till the last beams of sunlight crept up to the tops of the
+pines, then gathered up books and work and went home.
+
+I learned much of book-lore in those days from my friend, much also of
+wood-lore. She knew the places where the spring flowers were hidden,
+hepeticas, violets, blood-root, the nodding columbines, and all the
+others, and we searched them out together.
+
+The memory of those first years at Beverly Farms, and of all the
+following years are among the most precious possessions that I hold.
+
+S. E. M.
+
+
+
+
+EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS WRITTEN TO MR. DOW
+
+
+_From Mrs. Cora Haynes Crosby_:
+
+"I have known and loved her, our dear wonderful friend who has left us,
+ever since I can remember, and what a friend she has been.
+
+Not only was she dear to father and mother, but just as precious with
+her great, noble, beautiful spirit to all of us younger ones, for she
+was no older than we.
+
+That happy outlook on life, her love of everything beautiful and fine
+in nature, books and people, made her an inspiration to all who knew
+her."
+
+
+_From a letter by Mrs. Margaret Haynes Pratt_:
+
+"Ever since I was a little girl, Molly has been almost a member of our
+household. As a child, her visits were as much a joy to me as to mother
+and father.
+
+I never thought of her as old, even then--and a child generally marks
+off the years in relentless fashion, for Molly was always young to me,
+as she must have been to everyone who knew her.
+
+It is wonderful to have had a nature that so helps all who knew her to
+believe that life is immortal."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Old Days at Beverly Farms, by Mary Larcom Dow
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59642 ***