my earliest recollections that i can feel quite sure are real are about my family and home. my father was a miller, and had a little grist-mill by the side of the creek, just in the shade of some large oak-trees. his mill must have been very small, for i always knew that he was poor. still, it seemed to me that the mill was a wonderful affair, almost as large as the big white church that stood upon the hill. it was run by water when the creek was not too low, which i am sure was very often, as i think it over now. above the mill was a great dam, which made an enormous pond, larger than the atlantic ocean, and much more dangerous to any of us boys venturesome enough to go out upon it in a boat, or even on skates in the winter time. but the most marvellous part of all was the wonderful water-wheel hidden almost underneath the mill. it seemed as if 22there were a great hollow in the ground, to make room for the wheel; and if i had any opinion on the subject, i must have thought that the wheel grew there, for surely no one could make a monster like that. often i used to go with my father up to the head of the mill-race, when he lifted the big wooden gate and let the waters come down out of the dam through the race and the wooden flume over the great groaning wheel. i well remember how i used to stand in awe and wonder while my father opened the gate, and then run down the path ahead of the rushing tide and peep through a hole to see the old wheel start. then i would scamper over the mill, from the cellar with its cogs and pulleys, up to the garret with its white dusty chutes and its incomprehensible machines. then i played around the great sacks and enormous bins of wheat and corn, and watched the grain as it streamed into the hopper ready to be ground to pieces by the slowly turning stones.
how real, and still how unreal, all this seems to-day! is it all a dream? and am i writing a fairy-story like “little red riding hood” or “the three black bears”? surely all these 23events are as clear and vivid as the theatre party of last week. but while i so plainly see the little, idle, prattling child, looking with wondering eyes at the great turning wheel, and asking his simple questions of the grave, kind old man in the great white coat, somehow there is no relation between that simple child and the man whom the world has buffeted and tossed for so many years, and with such a rough unfriendly hand, that he cannot help the feeling that this far-off child was really someone else.
my father was a just and upright man,—i can see him now dipping his bent wooden measure into the hopper of grain and taking out his toll, never a single kernel more than was his due. no doubt the suspicious farmers who brought their sacks of wheat and corn often thought that he dipped out more grain than he had a right to take; and even many of those who knew that he did not, still thought he was a fool because he failed to make the most of the opportunities he had. as i grew up, i learned that there are all sorts of people in the world, and that selfishness and greed and envy are, to say the least, very common in the 24human heart; but i never could be thankful enough that my father was honest and simple, and that his love of truth and justice had grown into his being as naturally as the oaks were rooted to the earth along the little stream.
the old wheel ceased turning long ago. the last stick of timber in its wondrous mechanism has rotted and decayed; the old mill itself has vanished from the earth. the drying stream and the great mills of the new northwest long since conspired to destroy my father’s simple trade. even the dam has been washed away, and a tiny thread of water now trickles down over the hill where the rushing flood fell full upon the great turning wheel. last summer i went back to linger, like a ghost, around the old familiar spot; and i found that even the great unexplored pond had dried up, and a field of corn was growing peacefully upon the soil that once upheld this treacherous sea. and the old miller too, with his kindly, simple, honest face,—the old miller with his great white coat,—he too is gone, gone as completely as his father and all the other fathers and grandfathers who have come and gone; the dear, kind old miller, who listened to my 25childish questions, and taught me, or rather tried to teach me, what was right and wrong, has grown weary and lain down to rest, and will soon be quite forgotten by the world,—unless this story shall bring his son so much fame that some of the glory shall be reflected back to him.
somehow the mill seems to have made a stronger impression than the house on my young mind. perhaps it was because it was the only mill that i had ever seen or known; perhaps because the associations that naturally attached to the mill and its surroundings were such as appeal most to the mind of a little child. of course, from the very nature of things the home and family must have been among my earliest recollections; yet i cannot help feeling that much of the literature about childhood’s home has been written for effect,—or not to describe home as it really is to the child, but from someone’s ideal of what home ought to be.
i know that my mother was a very energetic, hard-working, and in every way strong woman, although i did not know it or think about it then. i know it now, for as i look back to 26my childhood and see the large family that she cared for, almost without help, i cannot understand how she did it all, especially as she managed to keep well informed on the topics of the day, and found more time for reading and study than any of her neighbors did.
in the main, i think our family was like the other families of the neighborhood, with about the same dispositions, the same ideas and ideals,—if children can be said to have ideals,—that other people had.
there were seven of us children, and we must have crowded the little home, to say nothing of the little income with which my father and mother raised us all. our family life was not the ideal home-life of which we read in books; the fact is, i have never seen that sort of life amongst children,—or amongst grown people either, for that matter. if we loved each other very dearly, we were all too proud and well-trained to say a word about it, or to make any sign to show that it was true. when a number of us children were together playing the familiar games, we generally quarrelled and fought each other much more than 27was our habit when playing with our neighbors and our friends. in this too we were like all the rest of the families that i knew. it seems to me now that a very small matter was always enough to bring on a fight, and that we quarrelled simply because we liked to hurt each other; at least i can see no other reason why we did.
we children were supposed to help with the chores around the house; but as near as i can remember, each one was always afraid that he would do more than his share. i recall a story in one of our school readers, which i read when very young; it was about two brothers, a large one and a small one, and they were carrying a pail on a pole, and the larger brother deliberately shoved the pail nearer to his end, so that the heavier load would fall on him; but i am sure that this incident never happened in our family, or in any other that i ever knew.
most home-life necessarily clusters around the mother; and so, of course, it must have been in our family. but my mother died when i was in my earlier teens, and her figure has not that clearness and distinctness that i wish 28it had. she seems now to have been a remarkable combination of energy and industry, of great kindness, and still of strong and controlling will; a woman who, under other conditions of life, and unhampered by so many children and such pressing needs, might have left her mark upon the world. but this was not to be; for she could not overlook the duties that lay nearest her for a broader or more ambitious life.
both my father and mother must have been kind and gentle and tender to the large family that so sorely taxed their time and strength; and yet, as i look back, i do not have the feeling of closeness that should unite the parent and the child. they were new england people, raised in the puritan school of life, and i fancy that they would have felt that demonstrations of affection were signs of weakness rather than of love. i have no feeling of a time when either my father or my mother took me, or any other member of our family, in their arms; and the control of the household seemed to be by such fixed rules as are ordinarily followed in family life, with now and then a resort to rather mild corporal punishment 29when they thought the occasion grave enough. both parents were beyond their neighbors in education, intelligence, and strength of character; and with their breadth of view, i cannot understand how they did not see that even the mild force they used tended to cause bitterness and resentment, and thus defeat the object sought. i well remember that we were all glad if our parents, or either of them, were absent for a day; not that they were unkind, but that with them we felt restraint, and never that spirit of love and trust which ought always to be present between the parent and the child.
while i cannot recall that my mother ever gave me a kiss or a caress, and while i am sure that i should have been embarrassed if she had, still i well remember that when i had a fever, and lay on my bed for what seemed endless weeks, she let no one else come near me by day or night. and although she must have attended to all her household duties, she seemed ever beside me with the tenderest and gentlest touch. i can still less remember any great affection that i had for her, or any effort on my part to make her 30life easier than it was; yet i know that i must have loved her, for i can never forget the bitterness of my despair and grief when they told me she must die. and even now, as i look back after all these weary years, when i think of her lying cold and dead in the still front room i feel almost the same shudder and horror that filled my heart as a little child. and with this shudder comes the endless regret that i did not tell her that i loved her, and did not do more to lighten the burdens of her life.
this family feeling, or lack of it, i think must have come from the puritanic school in which my father and mother were born and raised. it must be that any intelligent parent who really understands life would be able to make his children feel a companionship greater than any other they could know.
with my brothers and sisters my life was much the same. we never said anything about our love for each other, and our nearness seemed to bring out our antagonism more than our love. still, i am sure that i really cared for them, for i recall that once when a brother was very ill i was wretched with fear 31and grief. i remember how i went over every circumstance of our relations with each other, and how i vowed that i would always be kind and loving to him if his life were saved. fortunately, he got well; but i cannot recall that i treated him any better after this sickness than before.
i remember how happy all of us used to be when cousins or friends came to stay a few days in our house, and how much more we liked to be with them than with our own family. i remember, too, that i had the same feeling when i visited other houses; and i have found it so to this day. true it is, that in great trouble or in a crisis of life we seem to cling to our kindred, and stand by them, and expect them to stand by us; and yet, in the little things, day by day, we look for our comradeship and affection somewhere else.
so i think that in all of this neither i nor the rest of my people were different from the other families about us, and that the stories of the ideal life of brothers and sisters, of parents and children, are largely myths.
