The Bay State Monthly. Volume 1, No. 1, January, 1884

Such is the unadorned statement of facts as sworn to the next day in the Council by these riders, and their oath was attested by Edward Randolph, the "evil genius of New England." I present it in its legal baldness of detail. The two horsemen are no reminiscence of Mr. James's celebrated opening, but two substantial citizens of Boston, Captain Peter Bowden and Dr. Thomas Clarke; and the young man with somewhat original objurgatory tendencies was one Wiswell, as they called him—presumably not a son of the excellent Duxbury parson of the same name; and for the same reason, even less probably, a student of Cambridge University, as it was at that early day sometimes called.

The original paper in which the foregoing facts are recorded has long been in my possession; and as often as my eye has rested on it, I have wondered what made that young man swear so; and by what nicety of moral discrimination he found his justification in blessing the Duke and cursing the King—"unus et idem"—in the same breath. Who and what was he? and of what nature were his grievances? Was there any political significance in that strange mingling of curses and blessings? That his temper was not of martyr firmness was evident enough from the sudden change in the current of his thoughts brought about by the tingling of the horsewhip. All else was mystery. But the commonest knowledge of the English and colonial history of those days was sufficient to stimulate conjecture on these points. At the date of the incident recorded James II had been on the throne more than a year, and for a long time both as duke and king had been hated and feared on both sides of the ocean. The Duke of Monmouth's ill-fated adventure for the Crown had failed at Sedgemoor, and his young life ended on the block, denied expected mercy by his uncle, the king: ended on the block: but not so believed the common people of England. They believed him to be still living, and the legitimate heir to the British crown, and that his unnatural uncle was only Duke James of England. In those days English affairs were more closely followed by the colonists than at present, and for obvious reasons; and it is quite open to conjecture at least that the feelings of English yeomen and artisans were known to, and shared by, their cousins in Massachusetts Bay, and that Master Wiswell only gave expression to a sentiment common to people of his class on both sides the water.

This, however, is mere conjecture. But there are important facts. On the preceding day, in the Town House, which stood at the head of State Street, where the old State House now stands, events culminated, in comparison with which the causes which led to the war of the Revolution sink into utter insignificance. On the twenty-third of October, 1684, in the High Court of Chancery of England, judgment was entered on the writ of scire facias, by which the charter of Massachusetts Bay was vacated; and as a consequence, the title to the soil, with all improvements, reverted to the Crown, to the ruin of those who had wrested it from the wilderness, and guarded it from the savage foe. The old government, so endeared to the people, and defended against kingly assault with the truest courage, was swept away by arbitrary power, and in its place a new one established, under the presidency of Joseph Dudley, and he a recreant son of the colony. It was the inauguration of this government which had taken place on the day before Captain Bowden and Dr. Clarke encountered John Wiswell, Jr., on their ride to Cambridge. There ceremonies of the inauguration were not without circumstances of pomp, and are set forth in the Council records at the State House, from which I transcribe the following incidents: When the new government, the president, and Council were assembled, the exemplification of the judgment against the charter of the late governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, publicly (in the court where were present divers of the eminent ministers, gentlemen, and inhabitants of the town and country) was read with an audible voice. The commission was read and the oaths administered, and the new president made his speech, after which, proclamation was openly read in court, and commanded to be published by beat of drum and trumpet, which was accordingly done.

The people in the Forum heard these drum and trumpets—young Wiswell, doubtless, with the rest—and knew what they signified: the confiscation of houses and lands; the abrogation of existing laws; taxes exacted without consent or legislation; the enforced support of a religion not of the people's choice; and navigation laws ruinous to their foreign commerce, then beginning to assume importance; and from these consequences they were saved only by the revolution, which two years later drove James II from his throne. It is difficult to credit these sober facts of history, and still more to fully realize their destructive import; but they should always be borne in mind; for if any one reflecting on the causes assigned by the leaders of the great Revolution, as justifying the violent partition of an empire, is led for a moment to question their sufficiency, let him then consider that they were assigned by a people full of the traditions of the long struggle against kingly injustice, in the days of the second Charles and the second James.

A few words—the result of later investigation—as to the actors in the events of this ride to Cambridge. When Bowden and Clarke had attested their loyalty by horsewhipping young Wiswell, they took him in charge to Cambridge, and vainly tried to persuade Nathaniel Hancock, the constable, to carry him before a magistrate. This refusal brought him into difficulty with Council; but his humble submission was finally accepted and he was discharged on payment of costs, on the plea that upon the change of the government there was no magistrate authorized to commit him to prison. Not quite so fortunate was John Wiswell, Jr., for on the third of August the grand jury found a true bill against him for uttering "these devilish, unnatural, and wicked words following, namely, God curse King James." That he was brought to trial on this complaint I cannot find. And so the actors in these scenes pass away. Of Bowden and Clarke I know nothing more; and the little which appears of John Wiswell's subsequent life is not wholly to his credit, I am sorry to say, and the more so, as I have recently discovered that he was once a townsman of mine, and doubtless a playmate of my kindred at Rumney Marsh.

These actors have all gone, and so has gone the old Town House; not so, as yet, let us heartily thank God, has gone the old State House which stands where that stood; on the one spot—if there is but one—which ought to be dear to the heart of every Bostonian, and sacred from his violating hand. For here, on the spot of that eastern balcony, looking down into the old Puritan Forum, what epochs in our history have been announced: the abrogation of the First Charter—the deposition of Andros—the inauguration of the Second Charter—the death and accession of English sovereigns—the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States; and here still stands the grandest historic edifice in America, and within it?—why add to the hallowing words of old John Adams?—"Within its walls Liberty was born!"

ONE SUMMER. A REMINISCENCE

BY ANNIE WENTWORTH BAER

It was a beautiful morning in June. The sun was just peeping through the pines fringing the eastern horizon; fleecy mists were rising, like "ghosts of the valley," from every brook and low place in field and pasture, betokening a warm, fair day. As I opened the heavy front door of Mr. Wetherell's old gambrel-roofed house, and stepped out onto the large flat stone at the door-sill, every blade of grass was glistening with dew-drops; such a sweetness pervaded the air as one only realizes when the dew is on the grass and bushes. At my right, close to the door-stone, a large bush of southern-wood, or man's-first-love, was growing; just beyond it and under the "middle-room" windows two large, white-rose bushes were bending beneath the weight of a multitude of roses and buds. A large yellow-rose bush claimed the left, and spread itself over the ground. Single red roses were standing guard at the corner of the house. A rod or more below the front door the garden fence stood and looked as if it had been standing for many a year. It was made of palings, pointed; I should think it was five feet high. The posts had begun to lean into the garden and the palings were covered with a short green moss, which seemed soft and growing in the dew. The old gate swung itself to after me with a bang, and I noticed that a string with a brick fastened to it and tied to the gate at one end, and twisted around a stake driven into the ground a few feet from the gate, was the cause of its closing so quickly. Red-cherry trees loaded with small green cherries were growing on one side of the garden; purple-plum trees skirted the other side; and I knew full well how two months later those creased, mouldy-looking plums would be found hiding in the short, green grass beneath the trees.

Peach-trees were leaning over the fence in the southeast corner; a long row of red-currant bushes ran through the middle of the garden; English gooseberry bushes threw out their prickly branches laden with round, woolly fruit at the north end. Rows of hyssop, rue, saffron, and sage, and beds of lettuce, pepper-grass, and cives, all had their place in this old-fashioned garden. In the southwest corner an immense black-currant bush was growing on both sides of the fence. Out in the field below the garden two Bell-pear trees, as large as elms, were bending their branches, loaded with fruit, a luscious promise for the autumn-time. A button-pear tree, just beyond, was making up in quantity what its fruit lacked in quality.

While I was exploring this well-cultivated spot, Mrs. Wetherell called me to breakfast. The kitchen was a large room, running across one end of the house; it had four windows in it, two east and two west. All this space was filled with the fragrance of coffee and cornmeal bannocks.

Mrs. Wetherell said: "I don't know as you will like your coffee sweetened in the pot, but I always make ours so."

I assured her I should.

During breakfast Mr. Wetherell passed me some cheese, and I asked Mrs. Wetherell if she made cheese.

"Not this month," she replied, "in July and August I shall. I am packing butter now."

"Do you think you are going to be contented back here?—you won't see as much going on as you do at home," Mr. Wetherell asked me.

"O, yes," I answered; "I expect to enjoy myself very much."

Samanthy, the daughter, now well advanced in life, seemed very solemn and said very little. I wondered if she were sick, or unhappy. A little later in the day, while I was watching Mrs. Wetherell salt a churning of butter in the back porch, she said to me: "You mustn't mind Samanthy, she isn't quite right in her head: a good many years ago she had a sad blow." She hesitated; I disliked to ask her what it was, so I said "Poor woman!" "Yes," said her mother, "she is a poor soul. She was expecting to be married to Eben Johnson, a young man who worked on our new barn. She got acquainted with him then, and after a year or so they were promised. Eben was a good fellow, a j'iner by trade. He lived in the village. In the fall before they would have been married, in the spring, he had typhoid fever, and they sent for Samanthy. She went and took care of him three weeks, and then he died. She came home, and seemed like one in a maze. After a little while she was took with the fever, and liked to died, and my two girls, Margaret and Frances, both had it and died with it. Samanthy has never been the same since she got well. Her health has been good, but her mind is weak." I had noticed that Mrs. Wetherell seemed very much broken in health and spirits, and after hearing this story I did not wonder that the blows of Providence had weakened her hold on life.

Samanthy was very shy of me at first, but after a few days she would talk in her disjointed way with me.

One morning I was out in the well-house. The well was very deep, and by leaning over the curb, and by putting one's arms around one's head, one could see the stars mirrored in the bottom of the dark old well. Samanthy came out for some water, while I was star-gazing in this way. She said: "What you lost?"

"O, nothing. I am only looking at the stars."

Samanthy looked as if she thought I might be more profitably engaged. I took hold of the handle of the windlass, swung off the great oaken bucket, and watched it descend its often-traveled course, bumping against the wet, slippery rocks with which the well was stoned.

Samanthy said: "You can't pull that up; it's heavy."

"Let me try," I said. "I never drew water with a windlass."

I had a much harder task than I supposed, but succeeded in swinging the bucket onto the platform of the curb, and turned the water into Samanthy's pail. I never asked permission to draw another bucketful.

I noticed below the well a large mound, grass-grown, with an apple-tree growing on its very top. I wondered how it came there, and one day asked Mr. Wetherell.

He said: "That's where we threw the rocks and gravel out of the well fifty years ago; we never moved it. It grassed over, and the apple-tree came up there; it bears a striped apple, crisp and sour."

I thought, What a freak of Nature! and I wished that many more piles of rubbish might be transformed into such a pretty spot as this.

Below the mound stood the old hollow tree; its trunk was low and very large, one side had rotted away, leaving it nearly hollow. Still there was trunk enough left for the sap to run up; and every year it was loaded with fruit.

Close by the path across the field to the road stood the Pang apple-tree. This tree was named Pang because a dog by that name was sleeping his last sleep beneath the tree. He was much beloved by the family. I thought, What a pretty place to be buried in! and a living monument to mark his grave. From the stories I heard of Pang, I know he must have been a fine dog, and I should have liked to have known him.

Just back of the house stood the cider-house. At this season of the year the wood for summer use was stored there, but in autumn all the neighbors brought their apples, and ground them into cider. Samanthy told me how she used to clean the cider nuts with a shingle; this was when she was small.

She said: "A cousin of mine, living at Beech Ridge, got his arm caught while cleaning the pummy out, and ground it all up. After that father was afraid for we children to do it."

Back of the building I saw thousands of little apple-trees, growing from the pomace which was shoveled out there year after year.

The loft, over the part where the cider-mill was, was the corn-house. I went up over the wide plank stairs and looked around.

Traces of snapping-corn and of white-pudding corn were hanging over a pole at one end. A large chest, filled with different kinds of beans, stood at one side. On the plates which supported the rafters, marks made in this wise—[Symbol: Tally mark of 5]—told of the bushels of corn carried up there and spread on the clean, white floor.

These marks had been made by many hands, and I wondered where they were now. Some undoubtedly were sleeping the

"Sleep that knows not breaking:Morn of toil, nor night of waking."

Others, perhaps, were making their mark somewhere else.

"Independence Day," as Mr. Wetherell called it, was observed in a very liberal manner on the farm. A lamb was slaughtered, green peas were picked, and a plum-pudding made.

Lemonade, made of sparkling spring water, was a common drink. Mr. Wetherell told me how his father always kept the day. He brought out the large blue punchbowl and square cut-glass decanters, which his father used on such occasions.

The next morning after the Fourth, I started out through the field for the pasture. The grass was tall, and it waved gently in the morning breeze. The whiteweed and clover sent forth an agreeable perfume. In the low ground buttercups were shining like gold dollars, sprinkled through the tall herdsgrass. Yellow-weed, the farmer's scourge, held up its brown and yellow head in defiance.

On a knoll, a little before I reached the graveyard, I passed over a piece of ground where the winter had killed the grass roots. Here I found sorrel, cinque-foil, and a few bunches of blue-eyed grass growing. Nature seemed to try to conceal the barrenness of the spot with beauty. It was a grave, decorated.

Off to my right, in a piece of rank grass, where branches of dock had sprung up, bobolinks were swinging the pale, green sprays, filling the air with melody. "Bobolink, bobolink, spirk, spank, spink, chee, chee, chee!"

I knew that "Mrs. Robert of Lincoln" was sitting contentedly on her little round nest, under a tuft of grass, very near the sweet singer. I paused at the graveyard, and looked over the wall. I read: "Margaret and Frances Wetherell, daughters of John and Hannah Wetherell, aged 18 and 20 years." I knew these were the girls who had died of the fever; a twin gravestone had been put up to their graves. Another stone told of a little girl, two and a half years old—Catherine. I reckoned up the date, and had she been living, she would have been over forty years old. Many other stones stood there, but I left them without reading the inscriptions, and hastened on to the pines.

I stepped over the low wall between the field and pasture and walked down by the brook until I came to the Stony Bridge. This I crossed and followed up on the broad wheelpath. The pines smelled so sweet: the grass was short and green: everything seemed calm and cool. I sat down by a large Norway pine and watched the birds. Right below me I saw a fox-hole, with the entrance so barricaded with sticks and stones, that I felt very sure poor Reynard must have been captured unless he dug out somewhere else. I began to walk around. Six or seven feet to the south of the besieged door, I discovered another entrance. I don't know whether some animal was still living in the old house, or no: but this hole looked as if it were used. A little pine grew in front, a juniper made its roof and spread its fine branches over the door, squaw vines and checkerberry leaves grew on either side.

I walked on in the wheelpath. On the north side many tall Norway pines were growing, with white pines scattered here and there. Crimson polygalas were carpeting the ground in open spaces; pale anemones and delicate star-flowers were still blooming under the protection of small pines; wild strawberries were blossoming in cold places; and I wondered when they would fruit.

Finally I came to an open field, or what looked like land that had been cultivated. Hosts of bluets and plots of mouse-ear everlasting, had taken possession of the land. Small pines were scattered here and there, like settlers in a new country. Junipers were creeping stealthily in, as if expecting the axe. There were traces of where a fence had run along. I concluded that this was years ago a field, but now the cows roamed over it at will.

Going around in the edge of the woods I came to four pines growing from one root; two grew on each side close together, and left a fine seat between the pairs. I sat down there, and felt thankful that I was living, and that my abiding-place was among the granite hills of New England.

Soon I saw something move a few rods beyond me in the woods. I looked again and saw the finest woodchuck I ever saw. He stood in a listening attitude. I suppose he had heard me, but had not seen me. His fur was yellow and brown mixed; his nose and feet were black; his countenance was expressive of lively concern. He disappeared and I left my sylvan seat, and walked up where the woodchuck had been standing. I found his home and numerous little tracks around the door. I hastened off, because I feared my presence would worry him.

I knew it must be near noontime, so I began to retrace my way. I walked up through the pasture and passed the "Great Ledge." This ledge was on the side of a steep hill. One side of it was perpendicular thirty feet. It was covered with crisp, gray moss. In the chinks and crannies on the top, short grass was growing in little bunches.

As I followed down in the lane which led from the pasture to the cow-yard, striped squirrels were playfully skipping through the dilapidated wall, coming out, and disappearing; sitting down and putting their forefeet up to their faces as if they were convulsed with laughter to think how the old black-and-white cat had gone to sleep lying on the wall in the sun, only a few rods below them.

Dinner was ready, as I expected. I told Mrs. Wetherell of my walk over the Stony Bridge.

"Yes," she said. "Years ago, when I kept geese, one night I went out to feed them and I found that they hadn't come. I knew something must be the matter. I started for the brook. When I got out on the hill by the graveyard, I heard the gander making an awful noise. I hurried on, and, when I got to the corner of the field, I found a fox jumping at the old gander as he was walking back and forth in front of the geese and goslings. I screeched and the fox run. The geese came right up to me. I was pretty pleased to save them. I had two geese and thirteen goslings beside the gander."

I said: "Is that a ledge out in the field where sumachs and birches are growing?"

Mrs. Wetherell said: "Yes; and that piece of ground is where Father Wetherell raised the last piece of flax. I don't suppose you ever saw any growing?"

"No," I said. "Only in gardens. A field must be very handsome."

"Yes, the flower is a bluish purple, with a little yellow dot in the middle."

I asked her when they cut it.

"O, they never cut it; they pulled it after the seeds got ripe; then they would beat the seeds out of the pods. These pods look like little varnished balls. When the seed was out, the flax was laid in a wet place in the field for weeks; occasionally the men would turn it over. When it was well rotted they dried it and put it up in the barn until March. Then Father Wetherell would take it down and brake it in the brake. After that he would swingle it over a swingling-board, with a long knife; then he made it into hands of flax. The women used to take it next and comb it through a flax-comb; this got out all the shives and tow. There was a tow which came out when it was swingled, called swingle tow. Mother Wetherell said that, years before, when she was young she used to use this to make meal-bags and under-bedticks of. But I never used any of it."

I asked her how they used the flax after it was combed.

"Then it was wound onto the distaff."

"What was that?" Mrs. Wetherell smiled at my ignorance, but proceeded kindly to explain.

"A distaff was made of a small pine top. They peeled off the bark, and when it was dry, tied down the ends, and put the other end onto the standard of the wheel. Then they would commence and wind on the flax. A hand of flax would fill it. I used to be a pretty good hand to spin tow on a big wheel, but I never could spin linen very even. Old Aunt Joanna used to spin linen thread; and Mother Wetherell used to buy great skeins of her. She said it was cheaper to buy than to spend so much time spinning."

Mrs. Wetherell told me that I should go up in the garret and see the wheels and all the old machinery used so long ago.

That evening I asked Mr. Wetherell: "Has there ever been a field beyond the pines?"

"Yes," he said: "Father cleared that piece nigh onto eighty year ago. We always called it 'the field back of the pines.' When father got old, and I kinder took the lead, I said we better turn that field out into the paster. He felt bad about it at first, but when I told him how much work it was to haul the manure over there, and the crops back, he gave in. Them Norrerway pines are marster old; I s'pose they'd stood there a hundred and fifty year."

I felt a thrill of pity for the old man, now at rest. He must have been nearly at the base of life's western slope, when he rescued those few acres from the forest. The little field was his pride, I think it ought to have been left, while he lived.

One morning when Lucy, as Mrs. Wetherell called her, was washing at the farm, she said to me: "Did you ever have your fortin told?" I answered, "No."

"Well," she said, "I dunno as I b'lieve all they say, but some can tell pretty well. Did you ever try any projects?"