A Boy's Impressions of Hosea

— “ Here, take my hand.” “ Why, where are you going?舡 “Just going to show them that there’s some truth in old saws. I hate short cuts, and if you come with me we 'll prove that the longest way round’s the shorter way home,” with a playfully contemptuous glance at another group, just landed at Snug Harbor, — the other group consisting of the father and sisters of the first speaker.

The gentleman under whose guidance I toddled by the devious way here indicated was a well-built, active-looking young man of about twenty-five. In those days red hair was not viewed with the same favor that it is now, and I think I ant stating it mildly in remarking that it took considerable merit to outvalue that blemish, as it was universally considered, and that even I, just passing from kilted infancy to the divided skirt of early boyhood, was aware of some compassion therefor. My companion had reddish-yellow hair, but then he took notice of us boys, and talked to us, and romped, not with the easily detected purpose of condescending adultness, but as one who felt himself every inch a boy.

We walked rapidly, so rapidly that when we reached the hall door of my father’s house the short-cut party, which we had left to tiptoe over a wooden dike, had not yet arrived. The door was opened for us with the eagerness of strained expectancy, and a lady stood before us, of a beauty which compelled my boy’s heart to acknowledge that my companion’s reddish hair had not marred his fortunes, for the lady was his wife.

I still, after so many years, recall her face : pale, with the restful hue of alabaster, features admirably chiseled, with perhaps undue prominence given to the eyes, and a certain hollowness about the orbital cavities, intensified by delicate blue veins seeming to arise from the long-lashed eyelids and to creep furtively to the temples, where they lost themselves in the hair. She was petite, and dressed with the utmost simplicity, even to the hair, as was then the fashion.

On being joined by the separatists, — for so my companion called the remnant of our party,— we soon descended to tea, where were already assembled various members of my own family, marshaled by my governess, a lady from Boston, of the strictest propriety, who also wrote verses. She too had red hair, a highly nervous temperament, and gazed upon the young poet of Cambridge with a rapture known only in those days when Bostonian met Bostonian on alien soil. After a rather prolonged grace, listened to with unconcealed delight by my mother, who was a devout worshiper of Saint John Wesley, the conversation went splashing about the table, as is its wont among the newly returned and their friends. Sundry disasters or rumors of disasters to the American army were discussed, for the all-engrossing topic at that time was the war.

The Mexican war had come. Not a great national uprising like the rebellion, in which almost the entire population, North and South, felt pledged as to the great underlying principles, but a war which involved no principle at all, and which the people of the New England States were wont to regard as aggressive, cruel, and unjustifiable. Already in our rural section—rural although only seven miles from New York city — “ the drum with its tantarra sounds had come,” and swept from our village most of the bad boys, idlers, and floating population. Already the fond mothers of those bad boys were searching the lists of the dead in the New York Herald, and the smallest among us felt that we were making history.

While the latest war news was under consideration, we were startled by the sound of stentorian singing, of the rough, emphatic seaman’s fashion. It proceeded from the “ Decatur boys,” nephews of the great commodore, and our own next-door neighbors, who, having come to make a call, were singing in the drawing-room overhead while, awaiting our appearance. The Minute Gun at Sea, a duet by King from one of the English operas, was familiar in maritime and musical circles.

“ Ah ! ” observed the old clergyman, the father of our hero, “that is a forgotten ceremony ; the song has little significance nowadays.”

“ Why, father,” exclaimed James, “ don’t you remember the minute gun which was fired when we made the voyage together from Portland to Boston ? That must be,” looking at the ceiling reflectively, “ some nineteen years ago.”

“ How odd it seems for James,” remarked the young wife, “to speak of nineteen years ago ! ” looking fondly at the youthful figure beside her.

“ Why, I was eight years old even then,” James rejoined, with the ready candor which has no years to clip, nor need to clip them.

We soon, after the unabridged return of thanks, ascended to the parlor, where we met the “ Decatur boys ; ” and heroes they were in our boyish eyes. True, they were scant of stature, swarthy and unimpressive in appearance, overmuch addicted to the use of a certain weed and to the misuse of certain theological terms. Our Sunday-school superintendent had cautioned us against them, and yet did not they in some way represent our country’s maritime supremacy ? One was already an officer in the navy, with the added emphasis of a bullet in his leg. They proceeded to tell us the still later Mexican news : that there was n’t a percussion cap in the Federal army, but, on the other hand, British capital had furnished to our enemies powder warranted not to explode, with other evidences of enlightened neutrality on the part of J. Bull.

I well remember the surprise of the “Decatur boys” on learning that James was an “abolitionist.” He had given promise of something better, of broader views, in his graduation poem. Too had ! too had !

Presently, at a signal from my mother, the double quotidian ceremony of family prayers was announced, and my memory, wandering mistily back to those events, recalls the fervor of the minister, who made pointed allusions to our rulers ; recalls the to us remarkable fact that the Boston ladies declined to kneel upon the well-swept carpet, but contented their genuflections upon a chair ; that James, who had, according to his habit, strayed into the open air earlier in the evening, did not come in, but walked up and down the veranda during prayers. He entered at their close, with a faint apology, which the old minister took up, gently saying to my mother, “No, James isn’t serious as yet, but he has a good heart, and is the foe of every mortal wrong.”

Some time after — I cannot now say whether weeks, or months, or even years — our governess called us children together and read from some unfamiliar journal the first number of The Biglow Papers. Of course we boys thought it delightful, — more, I fear, for its apparent justification of slang, in which we were proficient, than for the noble sentiments contained. When she came to the line,

“ You’ve a darned long row to hoe,” the embarrassment of our worthy martinet gave us great delight, as will the taste of forbidden fruit at most times ; but it was not very long before the most idle and frivolous of us learned to appreciate the truth of the old clergyman’s apology, “the foe of every mortal wrong.”