The William Henry Letters

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

My dear Young Friends: —

Much to my surprise, I was asked one day if I would be willing to edit the William Henry Letters for publication in a volume.

At first it seemed impossible for me to do anything of the kind; "for," said I, "how can any one edit who is not an editor? Besides, I am not enough used to writing." It was then explained to me that my duties would simply be to collect and arrange the Letters, and furnish any little items concerning William Henry and his home which might interest the reader. It was also hinted, in the mildest manner possible, that I was not chosen for this office on account of my talents, or my learning, or my skill in writing; but wholly because of my intimate acquaintance with the two families at Summer Sweeting place, – for I have at times lived close by them for weeks together, and have taken tea quite often both at Grandmother's and at Aunt Phebe's.

After a brief consideration of the proposal, I agreed to undertake the task; at the same time wishing a more experienced editor could have been found.

My acquaintance with the families commenced just about the time of William Henry's going to school, and in rather a curious way.

I was then (and am now) much interested in the Freedmen. While serving in the Army of the Potomac, I had seen a good deal of them, and was connected with a hospital in Washington at the time when they were pouring into that city, hungry and sick, and half-naked. I belonged to several Freedmen's Societies, and had just then pledged myself to beg a barrelful of old clothing to send South.

But this I found was, for an unmarried man, having few acquaintances in the town, a very rash promise. I had no idea that one barrel could hold so much. The pile of articles collected seemed to me immense. I wondered what I should do with them all. But when packed away there was room left for certainly a third as many more; and I had searched thoroughly the few garrets in which right of search was allowed me. Even in those, I could only glean after other barrel-fillers. A great many garrets yielded up their treasures during the war; for "Old clo'! old clo'!" was the cry then all over the North.

Now, as I was sitting one afternoon by my barrel, wishing it were full, it happened that I looked down into the street, and saw there my unknown friend, waiting patiently in his empty cart. This unknown friend was a tall, high-shouldered man, who drove in, occasionally, with vegetables. There were others who came in with vegetables also, and oftener than he; but this one I had particularly noticed, partly because of his bright, good-humored face, and partly because his horse had always a flower, or a sprig of something green, stuck in the harness.

At first I had only glanced at him now and then in the crowd. Then I found myself watching for his blue cart, and next I began to wonder where he came from, and what kind of people his folks were. He joked with the grocery-men, threw apples at the little ragged street children, and coaxed along his old horse in a sort of friendly way that was quite amusing. And though I had never spoken a word to him, nor he to me, I called him my unknown friend, for a sight of him always did me good.

It was a bony old gray horse that he drove, with a long neck poking way ahead; and the man was a farmer-like man, and wore farmer-like clothes; but he had a pleasant, twinkling eye, and the horse, as I said before, was seldom without a flower or bit of green stuck behind his ear or somewhere else about the harness.

And often, when the town was hot and dusty, and business people were mean, I would say to myself, as my friend drove past on his way home, How I should like to ride out with him, no matter where, if 't is only where they have flowers and green things growing in the garden!

On this particular afternoon, as I have said, I observed my friend sitting quietly in his cart, "bound out," as the fishermen say, – sitting becalmed, waiting for something ahead to get started.

It happened that I was just then feeling very sensibly the heat and confinement of the town, and was more than usually weary of business ways and business people; actually pining for the balmy air of pine woods and the breath of flowery fields. And perhaps, thought I, my friend may live among warm-hearted country folk, who will be delighted to give to my poor contrabands, and whose garrets no barrelman has yet explored!

So, giving a second look, and seeing that he still sat there, patiently awaiting his turn, I ran down, without stopping to think more about it, and asked if I might ride out with him.

"O yes. Jump in! jump in!" said he, in the pleasantest manner possible; then he offered me his cushion, and began to double up an empty bag for himself.

"No, no. Give me the bag," said I; and folding it, I laid it on the board, just to take off the edge of the jolting a little. And my seat seemed a charming one, after having been perched up on an office-stool so long.

That cushion of his took my eye at once. It looked as if it came out of a rocking-chair. The covering was of black cloth, worked in a very old-fashioned way, with pinks and tulips. The colors were faded, but it had a homespun, comfortable, countrified look; in fact, the first glance at that queer old cushion assured me that I was going to exactly the right place.

Presently we got started, and certainly I never had a better ride, nor one with a pleasanter companion. He asked me all sorts of funny questions about electricity, and oxygen, and flying-machines, and the telegraph, and the moon and stars.

"Now you are a learned man, I suppose," said he; "and I want you to tell me how that golden-rod gets its yellow out of black ground." I said I was not a learned man at all, and I didn't believe learned men themselves could tell how it got its yellow, and the asters their purple, and the succory its blue, and the everlasting its white, all out of the same black ground. He said he was pretty sure his wife couldn't boil up a kettleful and color either of those colors from them.

So we went talking on. He asked me where I'd been stopping, and what I did for a living. And I told him what I did for a living, and all about soldier life, and the contrabands, and about my barrel. Our road led through woods part of the way, and I drew in long breaths of woody air. He told me a funny woodchuck story, and had a good deal to say about wood-lots, – how some rich men formerly owned great tracts, but becoming poor were forced to sell; and how, when pines were cut off, oaks grew up in their place. And among other things he told me that a hardhack would turn into a huckleberry-bush. I said that seemed like a miracle. He was going on to tell me about one that he had watched, but just then we turned into a pleasant, shady lane.

We hadn't gone far down this shady lane before we heard a loud screaming behind us, and looking round saw a small boy caught fast in the bushes by the skirt of his frock.

"Do you see that little boy?" I asked.

"O yes, I see him," he said, laughing. "Hullo, Tommy! what you staying there for?"

The boy kept on crying.

"What you waiting for?" he called out again, just as if he couldn't see that the bushes would not let the child stir.

We found out afterwards that little Tommy had hid there to jump out and scare his father, but got caught by the briers. I went to untangle him, – his clothes had several rents, – and was going to put him in the cart; but he would get in "his own self," he said. Then he stopped crying, and wanted to drive. His father said, "No, not till we get through the bars."

Then Tommy began again. And at last he said, half crying and half talking, "When I'm – the – father, and you 'm – the – ittle Tommy – you can't – drive – my – horse!"

His father laughed and said: "Well, when I'm the little Tommy, I'll brush the snarls off my face – so, and throw them under the wheels – so, and let 'em get run over!"

This made Tommy laugh, and very soon after we came to the bars.

I looked ahead and saw a neat white house, not very large, with green blinds and a piazza, where flowering plants were climbing. There was a garden on one side and an orchard on the other. Just across the garden stood an old, brown, unpainted house. There were tall apple-trees growing near it, that looked about a hundred years old. My friend, Uncle Jacob, – I've heard him called Uncle Jacob so much since that I really don't know how to put a Mister to his name, – said those were Summer Sweeting trees, that had pretty nigh done bearing. He said there used to be Summer Sweeting trees growing all about there; and that when he took part of the place, and built him a house, he cut down the ones on his land, and set out Baldwins and Tallmans and Porters; but his mother kept her's for the good they had done, and for the sake of what few apples they did bear, to give away to the children.

The houses had their backs towards me, and I was glad of that, for I always like back doors better than front ones.

Uncle Jacob whistled, and I saw a blind fly open, and a handkerchief wave from an upper window, where two girls were sitting. Uncle Jacob's wife stepped to the door and waved a sunbonnet, and then stepped back again.

"Here, Tommy," said Uncle Jacob, "you carry in the magazine to Lucy Maria, and here's Matilda's gum-arabic. I don't see where Towser is."

I jumped out, and said I guessed I would keep on; for I began to feel bashful about seeing so many women-folks.

"Where you going to keep on to?" Uncle Jacob asked. "This road don't go any farther."

I said I would walk across the fields to the next village and find a hotel.

"O no," said he, "stay here. Grandmother'll be glad enough to hear about the contrabands. She'll knit stockings, and pick up a good deal about the house to send off. And I want to ask much as five hundred questions more about matters and things myself. Come, stay. Yes, we'll give you a good supper, a first-rate supper. Don't be afraid. My wife'll – There! I forgot her errand, now! But if you – Whoa! whoa! Georgiana, take this pattern in to your Aunt Phebe, and tell her I forgot to see if I could match it; but I don't believe the man had any like it."

Georgiana was a nice little girl that just then came running across the garden, – William Henry's sister, as I learned afterwards.

Just then Aunt Phebe stepped to the door again.

"Here are two hungry travellers," said Uncle Jacob, "and one of us is bashful."

"Well," said Aunt Phebe, very cheerily, "if anybody is hungry, this is just the right place. How do you do, sir? Come right in. We live so out of the way we 're always glad of company. Father, can't you introduce your friend?"

"Well – no – I can't," said he. "But I guess he's brother to the President!"

I said my name was Fry.

Aunt Phebe said her father had a cousin that married a Fry, and asked what my mother's maiden name was. I told her my mother was a Young, and that I was named for my father and mother both, —Silas Young Fry.

I heard a tittering overhead, behind a pair of blinds, where I guessed some girls were peeping through. And afterwards, when I was sitting on the piazza, I heard one tell another, not thinking I was within hearing, that a young fry had come to supper.

When we all sat round the table the girls seemed full of tickle, which they tried to hide, – and one of them asked me, – I think it was Hannah Jane, – with a very sober face, —

"Mr. Fry, will you take some fried fish?"

I laughed and said, "No, I never take anything fried."

Then we all laughed together, and so got acquainted very pleasantly; for I have observed that a little ripple of fun sets people nearer together than a whole ocean of calm conversation.

After supper Uncle Jacob read the paper aloud, while the girls washed up the dishes. All were eager to hear; and I found they kept the run of affairs quite as well as townspeople. When there was too much rattling of dishes for Uncle Jacob to be heard, and the girls lost some important item, he was always willing to read it over. Little Tommy was rolled up in a shawl and set down in the rocking-chair (that cushion did come out of it) while his mother mended his clothes. This was the way he usually got punished for tearing them. He was done up in a shawl, arms and all, and kept in the rocking-chair while the clothes were being mended, and he was obliged to remain pretty quiet, or the chair would tip. Aunt Phebe said Tommy was so careless, something must be done, and keeping him still was the worst punishment he could have.

When the girls finished their dishes and took out their sewing, and were going to light the large lamp, their mother said that we mustn't think of settling ourselves for the evening. She said we must all go in to grandmother's, for she'd be dreadful lonely, missing Billy so.

Then Aunt Phebe told me how her nephew, Billy, a ten-year old boy, had gone away to school only the day before, and how they all missed him.

"Isn't he pretty young to go away to school?" I asked.

"That's what I told his father," said she.

"His father sent him away to keep him," said Uncle Jacob. "Grandmother was spoiling him."

"Ruining the boy with kindness?" said Lucy Maria.

"Well," said Aunt Phebe, "I suppose 't was so. I know 't was so. But we did hate to have Billy go!"

Uncle Jacob then took me across the garden, and introduced me to Mr. Carver, the father of William Henry, and to Grandmother, – old Mrs. Carver, as the neighbors called her.

She was a smiling, blue-eyed old lady, though with a little bit of an anxious look just between the eyes. I thought there was no doubt about her being a grandmother that would spoil boys.

"Why, there's Towser, now?" said Uncle Jacob. "He didn't come to meet me to-night."

"He's been there, off and on, pretty much all day," said grandmother. "You see what he's got his head on don't you?"

"Billy's old boots!" said Uncle Jacob.

"Yes. He set a good deal by Billy. I haven't put the boots away yet," she said, with a sigh.

"Here, Towser! come here, sir!" cried Uncle Jacob.

Towser was a big, shaggy, clever-looking dog. He got up slowly, sniffed at my trousers, then walked to Uncle Jacob, then round the room, then to the door, then up stairs and down again, and then back he went and lay down by the boots.

"He misses my grandson," said grandmother to me, trying to smile about it.

The little girl, Georgiana, sat on a cricket, holding a kitten, tying and untying its ribbon. A square of patchwork had fallen on the floor. She stooped to pick it up and dropped her spool. That rolled away towards the door, and kitty jumped for it and soon got the thread in a tangle. The door opened so suddenly that she hopped up about two feet into the air and tumbled head over heels.

It was Lucy Maria who opened the door. The other girls came soon after; and when Tommy was asleep Aunt Phebe came too. We had a very sociable time. I don't call myself a talker, but I didn't mind talking there, they seemed so easy, just like one's own folks. I told grandmother many things about the contrabands, and about Southern life, and Southern people, and about soldier life and battles and rations and making raids, and the Washington hospitals, and how needy the contrabands were, and about my barrel. "Poor creatures!" said she. "I must look up some things for them to-morrow." Aunt Phebe thought there might be a good many things lying about that would be of use to folks who hadn't anything.

"Billy's boots!" cried Hannah Jane.

"Why, yes," said her mother, "no use keeping boots for a growing boy."

This and other remarks brought us back to William Henry again, and grandmother seemed glad of it. She liked to keep talking about her boy.

"I shall feel very anxious," she said. "I hope he will write soon as he gets there. I told him he'd better write every day, so I could be sure just how he was. For if well one day, he mightn't be the next."

"O grandmother, that's too bad!" said Lucy Maria. "'T is cruel to ask a boy to write every day!"

"I wouldn't worry, mother," said Aunt Phebe. "Billy's always been a well child."

"These strong constitutions," said grandmother, "when they do take anything, 't is apt to go hard with 'em."

"He's taken pretty much everything that can be given to him already," said Aunt Phebe.

"I suppose they'll put clothes enough on his bed," said grandmother. "I can't bear to think of his sleeping cold nights."

"Perhaps they have blankets in that part of the country," said Uncle Jacob.

"But people are not always thoughtful about it," said grandmother. "I really hope he'll take care of himself, and not be climbing up everywhere. Houses and trees were bad enough; but now they have gymnastic poles and everything else, to tempt boys off the ground. O dear! when we think of everything that might happen to boys, 't is a wonder one of them ever lives to grow up. Isn't there a pond near by?"

"O yes," said Lucy Maria, "Crooked Pond. That's what gives the name to the school, – Crooked Pond School."

"I hope he won't be whipped," said his little sister.

"Whipped!" cried Aunt Phebe, "I should like to see anybody whipping our Billy!"

"O mother, I shouldn't," said Matilda.

"'T isn't an impossible thing," said grandmother. "He's quick. Billy's good-hearted, but he's quick. He might speak up. I gave him a charge how to behave. But then, what's a boy's memory? I don't suppose he'll remember one half the things I told him. I meant to have charged him over again, the last thing, not to stay out in the rain and get wet, where there's nobody to see to his clothes being dried."

"Well," said Uncle Jacob, "if a boy doesn't know enough to go into the house when it rains, he better come home?"

"What I hope is," said Aunt Phebe, "that he'll keep himself looking decent."

"If he does," said Lucy Maria, "then 'twill be the first time. The poor child never seemed to have much luck about keeping spruced up. If anybody here ever saw William Henry with no buttons off and both shoes tied, and no rip anywhere, let 'em raise their hands!"

Everybody laughed. I thought grandmother's eye wandered round the circle, as if half taking it all in earnest, and half hoping some hand would go up. But no hand went up.

"Billy always was hard on his clothes," she said, with a sigh. "If he only keeps well I won't say a word; but there's always danger of boys eating unwholesome things, where there's nobody to deny them."

"Billy's stomach's his own, and he must learn to have the care of it," said Mr. Carver.

Mr. Carver seemed a very quiet, thoughtful man, and of quite a different turn from his brother.

I suggested that boarding-house diet was apt to be plain; and then told grandmother about a nephew of mine, a nice boy, who was rather older than her grandson, who was named after me, and of whom I thought everything. I told her he had been away at school a year, and that he enjoyed himself, and went ahead in his studies, and never had a sick day, and came home with better manners than he had when he went away. As this pleased her, I said everything I could think of about my nephew, including some anecdotes of little Silas, when he was quite small; and she told a few about William Henry, the others helping her out, now and then, with some missing items.

Uncle Jacob said he shouldn't dare to say how many times she'd been frightened almost to death about Billy. Many and many a time she was sure he was lost, or drowned, or run over, or carried off, and would never come back alive; but he always managed to come out straight at last. Uncle Jacob said that if all the worry that was worried in this world were piled up together, 't would make a mountain; but if all of it that needn't be worried were knocked off, what was left wouldn't be bigger than a huckleberry hill.

Mr. Carver said there was one thing which made him entirely willing to trust William Henry away, and that was, he had always been a boy of principle. "I have watched him pretty closely," said Mr. Carver, "and have noticed that he has a kind of pride about him that will not permit him to lie, or equivocate in any way.

"That's true!" cried Aunt Phebe. "True enough! Billy don't always look fit to be seen, but he isn't deceitful. I'll say that for him!"

"When he went to our school," said Matilda, "and was in the class below me, and there was a fuss among the boys, and all of 'em told it a different way, the teacher used to say she would ask William Henry, and then she could tell just how it happened."

"He couldn't have a better name than that," said Mr. Carver.

Grandmother wiped her eyes, she seemed so gratified that her boy's good qualities were remembered at last.

I am almost certain that an editor should not be so long in telling his story. But I should like to say a little more about that first night, – just a very little more.

Grandmother wouldn't hear of my going to a hotel. Anybody that had been a soldier, and was doing good, should never go from her house to find a night's lodging. And she might as well have said, particularly anybody that had a little Silas away at school, for I saw she felt it.

It required very little urging to make me stay; for in all my travels I had never met with a pleasanter set of people. My choice was offered me, whether to lodge in the front chamber, or in the little back chamber where Billy slept. Of course I chose the last; for people's best, front, spare chambers never suit me very well.

Billy's room was a snug little room, low in the walls, and papered with flowery paper. There were two windows, the curtains to which were made of paper like that on the walls. You had to roll them up with your hands, and tie them with a string that went over the top. The room was over the sink-room, and in going into it we stepped one step down. There was no carpet on the floor, excepting a strip by the bedside and a mat before the table. Grandmother said the table Billy and she made together, so the legs didn't stand quite true. It was covered with calico, and more calico was puckered on round the edge and came down to the floor. That was done, she said, to make a place for his boots and shoes. She thought 't was well for a boy to have a place for his things, even if he did always leave them somewhere else. There was nothing under the table but one rubber boot, with the rubber mostly cut off, and some pieces of new pine, easy to whittle, that Billy had picked up and stowed away there. A narrow looking-glass hung over the table. It had a queer picture at the top, of two Japanese figures. The glass had a little crack in one corner, – cracked by his ball bouncing up when he was trying it. Some green tissue-paper hung around this fracture with a very innocent, ornamental air. Not far from the glass I observed a rusty jack-knife stuck in the wall, close to the window-frame; and on its handle was hanging a string of birds'-eggs. In stepping up to examine these I stumbled against an old hair-covered trunk, quite a large one. The cover seemed a little askew, and not inclined to shut. This trunk was the color of a red cow, and for aught I know was covered with the skin of a red cow. In the middle of the cover the letters W. C. were printed in brass nails, which led me to guess that the trunk had belonged to William Henry's father. Grandmother raised the cover, to see what kept it from shutting, and found 't was a great scraggly piece of sassafras (saxifax) root, which lay on top.

There was everything in that trunk, – everything. Of course I don't mean meeting-houses, or steamboats, or anacondas; but everything a boy would be likely to have. I saw picture papers, leather straps, old pocket-books, a pair of dividers, the hull of a boat, a pair of boot-pullers, a chrysalis, several penholders, a large clam-shell, a few pocket combs, – comb parts gone, – fishing-lines, reels, bobs, sinkers, a bullet-mould, arrows, a bag of marbles, a china egg, a rule, hammers, a red comforter, two odd mittens, "that had lost the mates of 'em," a bird-call, a mask, an empty cologne-bottle, a dime novel, odd cards, – all these, and more, were visible by merely stirring the top layer a little. Also several tangles of twine, twining and intertwining among the mass. Grandmother shook up the things some, – by means of a handle which probably belonged to a hatchet, but the hatchet part was buried, – and I saw that the bottom was covered with marbles, dominos, nails, bottles, slate-pencils, bits of brass clock machinery, and all the innumerable nameless, shapeless things which would be likely to settle down to the bottom of a boy's trunk. Grandmother said she should set it to rights if it weren't for fish-hooks; but anybody's hands going in there would be likely to get fish-hooks stuck into them.