The Girlhood of Harriet Beecher Stowe Read online

  THE GIRLHOOD OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE BY HER SON, CHARLES EDWARD STOWE AND HER GRANDSON, LYMAN BEECHER STOWE

  HARRIET BEECHER'S earliest recollections were of her mother, who died in 1816, before Harriet was six years old. She says of her mother, in describing the first of these memories: "Mother was an enthusiastic horticulturist in all the small ways that her limited means allowed. Her brother John, in New York, had just sent her a small parcel of fine tulip bulbs. I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nursery, one day when she was gone out, and being strongly seized with the idea that they were good to eat, and using all the little English I then possessed to persuade my brothers that these were onions, such as grown people ate, and would be very nice for us. So we fell to, and devoured the whole, and I recollect being somewhat disappointed at the odd, sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not as nice as I had supposed.

  "Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door, and we all ran toward her and began to tell our discovery and achievement. We had found this bag of onions and had eaten them all up.

  "Also, I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of impatience, but that she sat down and said: 'My dear children, what you have done makes mama very sorry. Those were not onions, but roots of beautiful flowers; and, if you had let them alone, mama would have had in the garden, next summer, great, beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you never saw.' I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew at this picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag."

  This was one of the two incidents which, as she says, "twinkle like rays through the darkness." The other was "of our all running and dancing out before her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning, and her pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'"

  She goes on to say: "Then I have a recollection of her reading to the children, one evening, Miss Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which had just come out, I believe, and was exciting a great deal of interest in the educational circles of Litchfield. After that I remember a time when every one said she was sick. I used to be permitted once a day to go into her room, where she lay bolstered up in bed. I have a vision of a very fair face with a bright red spot on each cheek, and a quiet smile as she offered me a spoonful of her gruel; of our dreaming one night, we little ones, that mama had got well, and waking in loud transports of joy, and of being hushed down by some one coming into the room. Our dream was indeed a true one. She was forever well; but they told us she was dead, and took us in to see something that seemed so cold and so unlike anything we had ever seen or known of her."

  Then came the funeral, which, in those stern days, had none of the soothing accessories of our gentler times. We are told of Harriet's little baby brother, Henry Ward, that, after the funeral, he was seen by his sister Catherine digging with great energy under her window, the bright sunlight shining through the long curls that hung down on either side of his little flushed face. When she asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm doing down to find mama!"

  "Although mother's bodily presence disappeared from our circle," says Mrs. Stowe, "I think that her memory and example had more influence in molding her family, in deterring from evil and exciting to good, than the living presence of many mothers. It was a memory that met us everywhere; for every person in the town seemed to have been so impressed by her character and life that they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon us. The passage in 'Uncle Tom' where Augustine St. Clair describes his mother's influence is a simple reproduction of this mother's influence as it has always been in her family." Such a woman was Roxana Foote, Dr. Lyman Beecher's first wife and the mother of eight of Dr. Beecher's eleven children.

  Lyman Beecher's Love of Music

  Harriet Beecher was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, in June, 1811. The house in which Harriet was born and grew up was originally a square building with a hipped roof, to which before her birth her father had built an addition known as the "new part." In the "Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher" it is described, in part, as follows:

  "The ground floor of the new part was occupied by a large parlor in which memory recalls ministers' meetings with clouds of tobacco smoke, and musical soirées with piano, flute, and song. Over this were sleeping-rooms, and in the attic was the study, the windows of which looked out into an apple orchard."

  Mrs. Stowe wrote of this home, and of her father:

  "Father was very fond of music, and very susceptible to its influence; and one of the great eras of the family in my childish recollection is the triumphant bringing home from New Haven of a fine-toned upright piano, which a fortunate accident had brought within the range of a poor country minister's means. The ark of the covenant was not brought into the tabernacle with more gladness than this magical instrument into our abode. Father soon learned to accompany the piano on his violin in various psalm tunes and Scotch airs, and brothers Edward and William to perform their part on their flutes. So we had often domestic concerts, which, if they did not attain to the height of artistic perfection, filled the house with gladness.

  "One of the most decided impressions of the family, as it was in my childish days, was of a great household inspired by a spirit of cheerfulness and hilarity, and of my father, though pressed and driven with business, always lending an attentive ear to anything in the way of life and social fellowship. My oldest sister, whose life seemed to be a constant stream of mirthfulness, was his favorite and companion, and he was always more than indulgent towards her pranks and jokes." This eldest sister, Catherine, says of her father: "I remember him more as a playmate than in any other character during my childhood."

  In spite of the fact that he was ever bubbling over with fun, he was respected and obeyed by his children in the minutest particulars. Catherine says of her father:

  "As to family government, it has been said that children love best those that govern them best. This was verified in our experience. Our mother was tender, gentle, and sympathizing; but all the discipline of government was with father. With most of his children, when quite young, he had one, two, or three seasons in which he taught them that obedience must be exact, prompt, and cheerful, and by a discipline so severe that it was thoroughly remembered and feared. Ever after, a decided word of command was all-sufficient. The obedience was to be speedy and without fretting or frowns. 'Mind your mother! Quick! No crying! Look pleasant!' These were words of command, obeyed with almost military speed and precision."

  "Team Work" in the Beecher Family

  Never was a father more idolized by his children than was Lyman Beecher. Mrs. Stowe mentions especially his power of exciting family enthusiasm. "Whenever he had a point to be carried, or work to be done, he would work the whole family up to a pitch of fervent zeal, in which the strength of each seemed quadrupled. For instance, the wood for the family used to be brought in winter on ox-sleds, and piled up in the yard exactly over the spot where father wished to plant his cucumbers and melons. Of course, as all this wood was to be cut and split and carried into the wood-house before the garden could be started, it required a miracle of generalship to get it done, considering the immense quantity of wood required to keep an old windy castle of a house comfortable in winter weather. The axes would ring and the chips fly; the jokes and stories would fly faster, till all was cut and split. Then came the great work of wheeling in and piling."

  Harriet would work like one possessed, sucked into the vortex of enthusiasm by her father's remarking, "I wish Harriet were a boy! She would do more than any of them!" Then she would throw aside her book or her needle and thread, and,
donning a little black coat which she thought made her look more like a boy, she would try to outdo all the rest till the wood was all in and the chips swept up. Frequently Mr. Beecher would raise a point of theology and start a discussion, taking the wrong or weakest side himself, to practise the youngsters in logic. If the children did not make good their side of the case, he would stop and explain to them the position, and say, "The argument is thus and so! Now, if you take this position you will be able to trip me up!" Thus he taught them to reason as he would have taught them to box or wrestle, by actual face-to-face contest.

  Dr. Beecher's Fishing Parties

  The task done, the Doctor always planned to have a great fishing expedition with the children. Before Harriet was old enough to go, she looked on these fishing expeditions as something pertaining only to her father and the older boys, and watched the busy preparations with regretful interest. They were all going to Great Pond, and to Pine Island, to that wonderful blue-pine forest that she could just see on the horizon; and who could tell what strange adventures they might meet!

  When they were gone, the house seemed so still and deserted all day long--no singing, shouting, tramping, and wrestling of noisy, merry boys. Harriet would sit silent and lonely, sewing a long seam on a sheet by way of beguiling the time. At last it would begin to be dark, and the stars, peeping out one by one, would look down as if surprised to find a little girl who had gone to bed but not to sleep. With what joy she finally hailed in the distance the tramp of feet, the shouts and laughter of her father and brothers, as, glad with triumph, they burst into the kitchen with long strings of perch, roach, pickerel, and bull-heads, with waving blades of sweet-flag and lofty heads of cat-tail, and pockets full of fragrant wintergreen, a generous portion of which was always bestowed upon her. To her eyes, these were trophies from the dreamland of enchantment for which she had longed. She was then safe from being sent back to bed for an hour or more, and watched with delight the cheerful hurrying and scurrying to and fro, the waving of lights as the fish were cleaned in the back shed, the fire kindled into a cheerful blaze, and her father standing over the frying-pan, frying the fish. To his latest day, Doctor Beecher was firm in the conviction that no feminine hand could fry fish with that perfection of skill which was his as a king of woodcraft and woodland cookery.

  The Minister's Study

  One of Harriet's favorite haunts was her father's study. It was an arched garret room, high above all the noise and confusion of the busy household, with a big window that commanded a view of Great Pond with its fringe of steel-blue pines. Its walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the quiet, friendly faces of books, and there stood her father's study-chair and writing-table, on which always lay open before him Cruden's Concordance and the Bible. Here Harriet loved to retreat, and to snuggle down in a quiet corner with her favorite books around her. She had a restful, sheltered feeling as she sat and watched her father at his sermon-writing, turning his books, and speaking to himself from time to time in a loud, earnest whisper. She vaguely felt that he was about some holy and mysterious work, far above her childish comprehension.

  The books ranged around filled her, too, with solemn awe. There, on the lower shelves, were enormous folios, on whose backs she spelled in black letters "Lightfooti Opera"--a title whereat she marveled, considering the bulk of the volumes. And, overhead, grouped along in sociable rows, were books of all sizes and bindings, the titles of which she had read so often that she knew them by heart. There were "Bell's Sermons," "Bonnett's Inquiries," "Bogue's Essays," "Toplady on Predestination," "Boston's Fourfold State," "Law's Serious Call," and other works of the kind, that she had looked over wistfully, day after day, without finding even a hope of something interesting.

  Harriet Discovers Cotton Mather

  It was a happy hour for Harriet when her father brought home and set up in his book-case Cotton Mather's "Magnalia." What wonderful stories, these, and stories, too, about her own country! Stories that made her feel that the very ground under her feet was consecrated by some special dealings of God's wonder-working providence. When the good Doctor related how a plague had wasted the Indian tribes, and so prepared a place for the Pilgrim fathers to settle undisturbed, she felt in no wise doubtful of his application of the text, "He drove out the heathen, and planted them." No Jewish maiden ever grew up with a more earnest faith that she belonged to a consecrated race, a people especially called and chosen of God for some great work on earth. Her faith in every word of the marvels related in this book was fully as great as the dear old credulous Doctor Mather could have desired. It filled her soul with an eagerness to go forth and do some great and valiant deed for her God and her country. She wanted then, as always, to translate her feelings into deeds.

  But, aside from her father's study, Harriet found poetry and romance in the various garrets and cellars of the old parsonage. There was, first, the garret over the kitchen, the floors of which in the fall were covered with stores of yellow pumpkins, fragrant heaps of quinces, and less fragrant piles of onions. There were bins of shelled corn and of oats, and, as in every other garret in the house, there were also barrels of old sermons and pamphlets.

  Bunyan in the Smoke-house

  But most stimulating to the imagination of a Puritan child steeped in that wonderful allegory, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," was the smoke-house, which was a wide, deep chasm made in the kitchen chimney, in which the dried beef and the hams were prepared. The door that opened into this dismal recess glistened with condensed creosote, and Harriet trembled as she listened to an awful rumbling within, followed by crackling reverberations. One day she summoned courage to open the door and peep in, and was reminded of a passage in "Pilgrim's Progress" that reads: "Then I saw in my dream that the shepherds had them to another place, in a bottom, where was a door in the side of a hill; and they opened the door and bid them look in. They looked in, therefore, and saw that within it was dark and smoky; they also thought that they heard a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry of some tormented, and they smelt the smell of brimstone." Harriet closed the door and ran away trembling.

  Old Sermons and the "Arabian Nights"

  She delighted in upsetting the barrels of old sermons and pamphlets on the floor, pawing about in the contents, and reading with astonished eyes the queer titles. It seemed to her that there were thousands of unintelligible things. "An Appeal on the Unlawfulness of a Man's Marrying His Wife's Sister" turned up in every barrel she investigated. But, oh joy and triumph! one rainy day she found at the bottom of a barrel a copy of the "Arabian Nights"! Thenceforth her fortune was made. She had no idea of reading as is the fashion in these days--to read and dismiss a book. To read, with her, was a passion, and a book once read was read daily, becoming ever dearer, as an old friend.

  It was also a great day when she discovered an old torn copy of the "Tempest." This experience she wrought into that romance of the Maine coast, "The Pearl of Orr's Island," where she pictures Mara exploring the garret and finding in an old barrel of cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she begged of her grandmother for her own.

  Harriet's Fear of the Rats

  There was one class of tenants whose influence on Harriet's youthful mind must not be passed over. They were the rats. They had taken formal possession of the old parsonage, grown, multiplied, and become ancient, in spite of traps, cats, or anything that could be devised against them. The family cat, in Harriet's day, having taken a dispassionate survey of the situation, had given up the matter in despair, and set herself philosophically to attend to other concerns. She selected a corner of the Doctor's study as her special domestic retreat. Here she made her lair on a heap of old pamphlets and sermons, whence, from time to time, she led forth litters of well-educated kittens, who, like their mother, gazed on the rats with respectful curiosity, but ran no imprudent risks. Consequently the rats had, as it were, the "freedom of the city" in the old parsonage.

  They romped all night on the floor of the garret over Harriet's sl
eeping-room, apparently busy hopping ears of corn across the floor and rolling them down into their nests between the beams. Sometimes she would hear them gnawing and sawing behind the wainscoting at the head of her bed as if they had set up a carpenter's shop there, and would be filled with terror lest they should come through into her bed. Then, there were battles and skirmishes and squealings and fightings, and at times it would seem as if a whole detachment of rats rolled in an avalanche down the walls, with the cobs of corn they had been stealing. When the mighty winds of the Litchfield winters were let loose, and rumbled and thundered, roaring and tumbling down the chimneys, rattling the windows and doors, when the beams and rafters creaked and groaned like the timbers of a ship at sea, and the old house shook to its very foundations, then would the uproar among the rats grow louder and louder, and Harriet would dive under the bedclothes, quaking with fear. Thus did the old parsonage exert its silent influence, every day fashioning the sensitive, imaginative child.

  The Seafaring Uncle

  There was probably no one who more profoundly influenced Mrs. Stowe's intellectual development than did her seafaring uncle, Captain Samuel Foote. Of him her sister Catherine says:

  "Uncle Samuel came among us, on his return from each voyage, as a sort of brilliant genius of another sphere, bringing gifts and wonders that seemed to wake up new faculties in all. Sometimes he came from the shores of Spain, with mementoes of the Alhambra and the ancient Moors; sometimes from Africa, bringing Oriental caps or Moorish slippers; sometimes from South America, with ingots of silver, or strange implements from the tombs of the Incas, or hammocks wrought by South American tribes of Indians.