Chapter V: Our Father

(THE LATE DR. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE.)

There is so much to tell about our father that I hardly know where to begin. First, you must know something of his appearance. He was tall and very erect, with the carriage and walk of a soldier. His hair was black, with silver threads in it; his eyes were of the deepest and brightest blue I ever saw. They were eyes full of light: to us it was the soft, beaming light of love and tenderness, but sometimes to others it was the flash of a sword. He was very handsome; in his youth he had been thought one of the handsomest men of his day. It was a gallant time, this youth of our father. When hardly more than a lad, he went out to help the brave Greeks who were fighting to free their country from the cruel yoke of the Turks. At an age when most young men were thinking how they could make money, and how they could best advance themselves in the world, our father thought only how he could do most good, be of most help to others. So he went out to Greece, and fought in many a battle beside the brave mountaineers. Dressed like them in the “snowy chemise and the shaggy capote,” he shared their toils and their hardships; slept, rolled in his cloak, under the open stars, or sat over the camp-fire, roasting wasps strung on a stick like dried cherries. The old Greek chieftains called him “the beautiful youth,” and loved him. Once he saved the life of a wounded Greek, at the risk of his own, as you shall read by and by in Whittier’s beautiful words; and the rescued man followed him afterward like a dog, not wishing to lose sight of him for an hour, and would even sleep at his feet at night.

Our father’s letters and journals give vivid pictures of the wild life among the rugged Greek mountains. Now he describes his

lodging in a village, which he has reached late at night, in a pouring rain:--

“Squatted down upon a sort of straw pillow placed on the ground, I
enjoy all the luxury of a Grecian hut; which in point of elegance,
ease, and comfort, although not equal to the meanest of our negro
huts, is nevertheless somewhat superior to the naked rock. We have
two apartments, but no partitions between them, the different rooms
being constituted by the inequality of the ground,--we living up
the hill, while the servants and horses live down in the lower
part; and the smoke of our fires, rising to the roof and seeking in
vain for some hole to escape, comes back again to me.”

Again, he gives a pleasant account of his visit to a good old Greek priest, who lived with his family in a tiny cottage, the best house in the village. He found the good old man just sitting down to supper with his wife and children, and was invited most cordially to join them. The supper consisted of a huge beet, boiled, and served with butter and black bread. This was enough for the whole family, and the guest too; and after describing the perfect contentment and cheerfulness which reigned in the humble dwelling, our father makes some reflections on the different things which go to make up a pleasant meal, and decides that the old “Papa” (as a Greek priest is called) had a much better supper than many rich people he remembered at home, who feasted three times a day on all that money could furnish in the way of good cheer, and found neither joy nor comfort in their victuals.

Once our father and his comrades lay hidden for hours in the hollow of an ancient wall (built thousands of years ago, perhaps in Homer’s day), while the Turks, scimitar in hand, scoured the fields in search of them. Many years after, he showed this hollow to Julia and Laura, who went with him on his fourth journey to Greece, and told them the story.

When our father saw the terrible sufferings of the Greek women and children, who were starving while their husbands and fathers were fighting for life and freedom, he thought that he could help best by helping them; so, though I know he loved the fighting, for he was a born soldier, he came back to this country, and told all that he had seen, and asked for money and clothes and food for the perishing wives and mothers and children. He told the story well, and put his whole heart into it; and people listen to a story so told. Many hearts beat in answer to his, and in a short time he sailed for Greece again, with a good ship full of rice and flour, and cloth to make into garments, and money to buy whatever else might be needed. When he landed in Greece, the women came flocking about him by thousands, crying for bread, and praying God to bless him. He felt blessed enough when he saw the children eating bread, and saw the naked backs covered, and the sad, hungry faces smiling again. So he went about doing good, and helping whenever he saw need. Perhaps many a poor woman may have thought that the beautiful youth was almost like an angel sent by God to relieve her; and she may not have been far wrong.

When the war was over, and Greece was a free country, our father came home, and looked about him again to see what he could do to help others. He talked with a friend of his, Dr. Fisher, and they decided that they would give their time to helping the blind, who needed help greatly. There were no schools for them in those days; and if a child was blind, it must sit with folded hands and learn nothing.

Our father found several blind children, and took them to his home and taught them. By and by some kind friends gave money, and one--Colonel Perkins--gave a fine house to be a school for these children and others; and that was the beginning of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, now a great school where many blind boys and girls learn to read and study, and to play on various instruments, and to help themselves and others in the world.

Our father always said, “Help people to help themselves; don’t accustom them to being helped by others.” Another saying of his, perhaps his favorite one, next to the familiar “Let justice be done, if the heavens fall!” was this: “Obstacles are things to be overcome.” Indeed, this was one of the governing principles of his life; and there were few obstacles that did not go down before that keen lance of his, always in rest and ready for a charge.

When our father first began his work in philanthropy, some of his friends used to laugh at him, and call him Don Quixote. Especially was this the case when he took up the cause of the idiotic and weak-minded, and vowed that instead of being condemned to live like animals, and be treated as such, they should have their rights as human beings, and should be taught all the more carefully and tenderly because their minds were weak and helpless.

“What do you think Howe is going to do now?” cried one gentleman to another, merrily. “He is going to teach the idiots, ha, ha, ha!” and they both laughed heartily, and thought it a very good joke. But people soon ceased to laugh when they saw the helpless creatures beginning to help themselves; saw the girls learning to sew and the boys to work; saw light gradually come into the vacant eyes (dim and uncertain light it might be, but how much better than blank darkness!), and strength and purpose to the nerveless fingers.

So the School for Feeble-minded Children was founded, and has been ever since a pleasant place, full of hope and cheer; and when people found that this Don Quixote knew very well the difference between a giant and a windmill, and that he always brought down his giants, they soon ceased to laugh, and began to wonder and admire.

All my readers have probably heard about Laura Bridgman, whom he found a little child, deaf, dumb, and blind, knowing no more than an animal, and how he taught her to read and write, to talk with her fingers, and to become an earnest, thoughtful, industrious woman. It is a wonderful story; but it has already been told, and will soon be still more fully told, so I will not dwell upon it now.

But I hope you will all read, some day, a Life of our father, and learn about all the things he did, for it needs a whole volume to tell them.

But it is especially as our father that I want to describe this great and good man. I suppose there never was a tenderer or kinder father. He liked to make companions of his children, and was never weary of having us “tagging” at his heels. We followed him about the garden like so many little dogs, watching the pruning or grafting which were his special tasks. We followed him up into the wonderful pear-room, where were many chests of drawers, every drawer full of pears lying on cotton-wool. Our father watched their ripening with careful heed, and told us many things about their growth and habits. We learned about the Curé pear, which, one fancied, had been named for an old gentleman with a long and waving nose; and about the Duchesse d’Angoulême, which suggested, in appearance as in name, a splendid dame in gold and crimson velvet. Then there were all the Beurrés, from the pale beauty of the Beurré Diel to the Beurré Bosc in its coat of rich russet, and the Easter Beurré, latest of all. There, too, was the Winter Nelis,--which we persisted in calling “Winter Nelly,” and regarded as a friend of our own age, though this never prevented us from eating her with delight whenever occasion offered,--and the Glout Morceau, and the Doyenne d’Eté, and hundreds more. Julia’s favorite was always the Bartlett, which appealed to her both by its beauty and its sweetness; but Flossy always held, and Laura held with her, and does hold, and will hold till she dies, that no pear is to be named in the same breath with the Louise Bonne de Jersey.

Oh good Louise, you admirable woman, for whom this green-coated ambrosia was named! what a delightful person you must have been! How sweetness and piquancy must have mingled in your adorable disposition! Happy was the man who called you his! happy was the island of Jersey, which saw you and your pears ripening and mellowing side by side!

I must not leave the pear-room without mentioning the beloved Strawberry Book, which was usually to be found there, and over which we children used to pore by the hour together. “Fruits of America” was its real name, but we did not care for that; we loved it for its brilliant pictures of strawberries and all other fruits, and perhaps even more for the wonderful descriptions which were really as satisfying as many an actual feast. Was it not almost as good as eating a pear, to read these words about it:--

“Skin a rich golden yellow, dappled with orange and crimson, smooth
and delicate; flesh smooth, melting, and buttery; flavor rich,
sprightly, vinous, and delicious!”

Almost as good, I say, but not quite; and it is pleasant to recall that we seldom left the pear-room empty-handed.

Then there was his own room, where we could examine the wonderful drawers of his great bureau, and play with the “picknickles” and “bucknickles.” I believe our father invented these words. They were--well, all kinds of pleasant little things,--amber mouthpieces, and buckles and bits of enamel, and a wonderful Turkish pipe, and seals and wax, and some large pins two inches long which were great treasures. On his writing-table were many clean pens in boxes, which you could lay out in patterns; and a sand-box--very delightful! We were never tired of pouring the fine black sand into our hands, where it felt so cool and smooth, and then back again into the box with its holes arranged star-fashion. And to see him shake sand over his paper when he wrote a letter, and then pour it back in a smooth stream, while the written lines sparkled and seemed to stand up from the page! Ah, blotting-paper is no doubt very convenient, but I should like to have a sand-box, nevertheless!

I cannot remember that our father was ever out of patience when we pulled his things about. He had many delightful stories,--one of “Jacky Nory,” which had no end, and went on and on, through many a walk and garden prowl. Often, too, he would tell us of his own pranks when he was a little boy,--how they used to tease an old Portuguese sailor with a wooden leg, and how the old man would get very angry, and cry out, “Calabash me rompe you!” meaning, “I’ll break your head!” How when he was a student in college, and ought to have known better, he led the president’s old horse upstairs and left him in an upper room of one of the college buildings, where the poor beast astonished the passers-by by putting his head out of the windows and neighing. And then our father would shake his head and say he was a very naughty boy, and Harry must never do such things. (But Harry did!)

He loved to play and romp with us. Sometimes he would put on his great fur-coat, and come into the dining-room at dancing-time, on all-fours, growling horribly, and pursue us into corners, we shrieking with delighted terror. Or he would sing for us, sending us into fits of laughter, for he had absolutely no ear for music. There was one tune which he was quite sure he sang correctly, but no one could recognize it. At last he said, “Oh--Su-_san_na!” and then we all knew what the tune was. “Hail to the Chief!” was his favorite song, and he sang it with great spirit and fervor, though the air was strictly original, and very peculiar. When he was tired of romping or carrying us on his shoulder, he would say, “No; no more! I have a bone in my leg!” which excuse was accepted by us little ones in perfect good faith, as we thought it some mysterious but painful malady.

If our father had no ear for music, he had a fine one for metre, and read poetry aloud very beautifully. His voice was melodious and ringing, and we were thrilled with his own enthusiasm as he read to us from Scott or Byron, his favorite poets. I never can read “The Assyrian came down,” without hearing the ring of his voice and seeing the flash of his blue eyes as he recited the splendid lines. He had a great liking for Pope, too (as I wish more people had nowadays), and for Butler’s “Hudibras,” which he was constantly quoting. He commonly, when riding, wore but one spur, giving Hudibras’s reason, that if one side of the horse went, the other must perforce go with it; and how often, on some early morning walk or ride, have I heard him say,--

“And, like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn.”

Or if war or fighting were mentioned, he would often cry,--

“Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!”

I must not leave the subject of reading without speaking of his reading of the Bible, which was most impressive. No one who ever heard him read morning prayers at the Institution (which he always did until his health failed in later years) can have forgotten the grave, melodious voice, the reverent tone, the majestic head bent above the sacred book. Nor was it less impressive when on Sunday afternoons he read to us, his children. He would have us read, too, allowing us to choose our favorite psalms or other passages.

He was an early riser, and often shared our morning walks. Each child, as soon as it was old enough, was taught to ride; and the rides before breakfast with him are things never to be forgotten. He took one child at a time, so that all in turn might have the pleasure. It seems hardly longer ago than yesterday,--the coming downstairs in the cool, dewy morning, nibbling a cracker for fear of hunger, springing into the saddle, the little black mare shaking her head, impatient to be off; the canter through the quiet streets, where only an early milkman or baker was to be seen, though on our return we should find them full of boys, who pointed the finger and shouted,--

“Lady on a hossback,
Row, row, row!”

then out into the pleasant country, galloping over the smooth road, or pacing quietly under shady trees. Our father was a superb rider; indeed, he never seemed so absolutely at home as in the saddle. He was very particular about our holding whip and reins in the right way.

Speaking of his riding reminds me of a story our mother used to tell us. When Julia was a baby, they were travelling in Italy, driving in an old-fashioned travelling-carriage. One day they stopped at the door of an inn, and our father went in to make some inquiries. While he was gone, the rascally driver thought it a good opportunity for him to slip in at the side door to get a draught of wine; and, the driver gone, the horses saw that here was _their_ opportunity; so they took it, and ran away with our mother, the baby, and nurse in the carriage.

Our father, hearing the sound of wheels, came out, caught sight of the driver’s guilty face peering round the corner in affright, and at once saw what had happened. He ran at full speed along the road in the direction in which the horses were headed. Rounding a corner of the mountain which the road skirted, he saw at a little distance a country wagon coming slowly toward him, drawn by a stout horse, the wagoner half asleep on the seat. Instantly our father’s resolve was taken. He ran up, stopped the horse, unhitched him in the twinkling of an eye, leaped upon his back, and was off like a flash, before the astonished driver, who was not used to two-legged whirlwinds, could utter a word.

Probably the horse was equally astonished; but he felt a master on his back, and, urged by hand and voice, he sprang to his topmost speed, galloped bravely on, and soon overtook the lumbering carriage-horses, which were easily stopped. No one was hurt, though our mother and the nurse had of course been sadly frightened. The horses were turned, and soon they came in sight of the unhappy countryman, still sitting on his wagon, petrified with astonishment. He received a liberal reward, and probably regretted that there were no more mad Americans to “steal a ride,” and pay for it.

This presence of mind, this power of acting on the instant, was one of our father’s great qualities. It was this that made him, when the wounded Greek sank down before him--

“ ... fling him from his saddle,
And place the stranger there.”

It was this, when arrested and imprisoned by the Prussian government on suspicion of befriending unhappy Poland, that taught him what to do with the important papers he carried. In the minute during which he was left alone, before the official came to search

him, he thrust the documents up into the hollow head of a bust of the King of Prussia which stood on a shelf; then tore some unimportant papers into the smallest possible fragments, and threw them into a basin of water which stood close at hand.

Next day the fragments carefully pasted together were shown to him, hours having been spent in the painful and laborious task; but nobody thought of looking for more papers in the head of King Friedrich Wilhelm.

Our father, though nothing could be proved against him, might have languished long in that Prussian prison had it not been for the exertions of a fellow-countryman. This gentleman had met him in the street the day before, had asked his address, and promised to call on him. Inquiring for him next day at the hotel, he was told that no such person was or had been there. Instantly suspecting foul play, this good friend went to the American minister, and told his story. The minister took up the matter warmly, and called upon the Prussian officials to give up his countryman. This, after repeated denials of any knowledge of the affair, they at length reluctantly consented to do. Our father was taken out of prison at night, placed in a carriage, and driven across the border into France, where he was dismissed with a warning never to set foot in Prussia again.

One day, I remember, we were sitting at the dinner-table, when a messenger came flying, “all wild with haste and fear,” to say that a fire had broken out at the Institution. Now, in those days there lay between Green Peace and the Institution a remnant of the famous Washington Heights, where Washington and his staff had once made their camp.

Much of the high ground had already been dug away, but there still remained a great hill sloping back and up from the garden wall, and terminating, on the side toward the Institution, in an abrupt precipice, some sixty feet high. The bearer of the bad news had been forced to come round by way of several streets, thus losing precious minutes; but the Doctor did not know what it was to lose a minute. Before any one could speak or ask what he would do he was out of the house, ran through the garden, climbed the slope at the back, rushed like a flame across the green hill-top, and slid down the almost perpendicular face of the precipice! Bruised and panting, he reached the Institution and saw at a glance that the fire was in the upper story. Take time to go round to the door and up the stairs? Not he! He “swarmed” up the gutter-spout, and in less time than it takes to tell it was on the roof, and cutting away at the burning timbers with an axe, which he had got hold of no one knows how. That fire was put out, as were several others at which our father assisted.

Fire is swift, but it could not get ahead of the Doctor.

These are a few of the stories; but, as I said, it needs a volume to tell all about our father’s life. I cannot tell in this short space how he worked with the friends of liberty to free the slave; how he raised the poor and needy, and “helped them to help themselves;” how he was a light to the blind, and to all who walked in darkness, whether of sorrow, sin, or suffering. Most men, absorbed in such high works as these would have found scant leisure for family life and communion; but no finger-ache of our father’s smallest child ever escaped his loving care, no childish thought or wish ever failed to win his sympathy. We who had this high privilege of being his children love to think of him as the brave soldier, the wise physician, the great philanthropist; but dearest of all is the thought of him as our loving and tender father.

And now, to end this chapter, you shall hear what Mr. Whittier, the noble and honored poet, thought of this friend of his:--

THE HERO.

“Oh for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear;
My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!

“Oh for the white plume floating
Sad Zutphen’s field above,--
The lion heart in battle,
The woman’s heart in love!

“Oh that man once more were manly,
Woman’s pride and not her scorn;
That once more the pale young mother
Dared to boast ‘a man is born’!

“But now life’s slumberous current
No sun-bowed cascade wakes;
No tall, heroic manhood
The level dullness breaks.

“Oh for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear!
My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!”

Then I said, my own heart throbbing
To the time her proud pulse beat,
“Life hath its regal natures yet,--
True, tender, brave, and sweet!

“Smile not, fair unbeliever!
One man at least I know
Who might wear the crest of Bayard,
Or Sidney’s plume of snow.

“Once, when over purple mountains
Died away the Grecian sun,
And the far Cyllenian ranges
Paled and darkened one by one,--

“Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder,
Cleaving all the quiet sky;
And against his sharp steel lightnings
Stood the Suliote but to die.

“Woe for the weak and halting!
The crescent blazed behind
A curving line of sabres
Like fire before the wind!

“Last to fly and first to rally,
Rode he of whom I speak,
When, groaning in his bridle-path,
Sank down a wounded Greek.--

“With the rich Albanian costume
Wet with many a ghastly stain,
Gazing on earth and sky as one
Who might not gaze again!

“He looked forward to the mountains,
Back on foes that never spare;
Then flung him from his saddle,
And placed the stranger there.

“‘Alla! hu!’ Through flashing sabres,
Through a stormy hail of lead,
The good Thessalian charger
Up the slopes of olives sped.

“Hot spurred the turbaned riders,--
He almost felt their breath,
Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down
Between the hills and death.

“One brave and manful struggle,--
He gained the solid land,
And the cover of the mountains
And the carbines of his band.”

“It was very brave and noble,”
Said the moist-eyed listener then;
“But one brave deed makes no hero;
Tell me what he since hath been?”

“Still a brave and generous manhood,
Still an honor without stain,
In the prison of the Kaiser,
By the barricades of Seine.

“But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew.

“Wouldst know him now? Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lip language,
The idiot clay a mind;

“Walking his round of duty
Serenely day by day,
With the strong man’s hand of labor,
And childhood’s heart of play;

“True as the knights of story,
Sir Lancelot and his peers,
Brave in his calm endurance
As they in tilt of spears.

“As waves in stillest waters,
As stars in noon-day skies,
All that wakes to noble action
In his noon of calmness lies.

“Wherever outraged nature
Asks word or action brave;
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave;

“Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,--
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own!

“Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?”