University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

I was born in Charleston, South Carolina; I had very
bad health there in my early childhood, and “My Aunt
Betsey,” of whom I have before spoken, took a voyage
by sea, from Baltimore to my birth place, for the purpose
of returning with me to a climate which the physician
had said would strengthen my constitution.

She brought me up with the greatest kindness, or
rather I should say, she kept me comparatively feeble
by her over-care of my health. When I was about
fourteen years of age, my father brought my mother
and my little sister Virginia, from Charleston to see
me. My meeting with my kind mother I shall never
forget. She held me at arms' length for an instant, to
see if she could recognize, in the chubby boy before her,
the puny, sickly child with whom she had parted with
such fond regret on board the Caroline but a few years
before; and when, in memory and in heart, she recognized
each lineament, she clasped me to her bosom with
a wild hysteric joy, which compensated her—more than
compensated her—she said, for all the agony which our
separation had caused her. I loved my mother devotedly,
yet I wondered at the emotion which she exhibited
at our meeting; and, child though I was, a sense of
unworthiness came over me, possibly because my affections
could not sound the depth of hers.

My father's recognition was kinder than I had expected,
from what I remembered of our parting in Charleston.
He felt prouder of me than at our parting, I
presume, from my improved health and looks, and this
made him feel that my being tied to the apron strings
of my good old aunt, would not improve my manliness.
A gentleman whom he had met at a dinner party, who
was the principal of an academy, a kind of miniature
college, some thirty miles from Baltimore, had impressed
my father, by his disquisitions, with a profound respect
for such a mode of education.

“William,” said my father, in speaking on the subject
to Mr. Stetson, “will be better there than here
among the women; he'll be a baby forever here. No,
I must make a man of him. I shall take him next week
with me, and leave him in charge of Mr. Sears.”

My mother insisted upon it that I should stay longer,
that she might enjoy my society, and that my sister and
myself might become more attached to each other ere
they returned to Carolina. But my father said, “No,
my dear; you know it was always agreed between us,
that you should bring up Virginia as you pleased, and
that I would bring up William as I pleased.”

“Let us take him, then, back to Charleston,” exclaimed
my mother; “he is healthy enough now.”

“But he would not be healthy long there, my dear.
No, I have made inquiry; Mr. Sears is an admirable
man, and under his care, which I am satisfied will be
paternal, William will improve his mind, and learn to
be a man—will you not, William?”

I could only cling to my mother without reply.

“Here,” exclaimed my father, exultingly, “you see
the effect of his education thus far.”

“The effect of his education thus far!” retorted my

aunt Betsey, who did not relish my father's remark;
“he has been taught to say his prayers, and to love his
parents and tell the truth. You see the effects in him
now,” and she pointed to me, seated on a stool by my
mother.

All this made no impression upon my father. He
was resolved that I should go to Belle-Air, the country
town, situated twenty-four miles from Baltimore, where
the school was, the next week, and he so expressed himself
decidedly.

The condemned criminal, who counts the hours that
speed to his execution, scarcely feels more horror at
the rush of time than I did. One appalling now seemed
to possess me. I was deeply sensitive, and the
dread of my loneliness away from all I loved, and the
fear of the ridicule and tyranny of the oldsters haunted
me so that I could not sleep and I laid awake all
night picturing to myself what would be the misery of
my situation at Belle-Air. In fact, when the day arrived,
I bade my mother, aunt Betsey, and my little sister,
Virginia farewell, with scarcely a conciousness, and
was placed in the gig by my father, as the stunned criminal
is assisted into the fatal cart.

This over-sensitiveness—what a curse it is! I lay
no claims to genius, and yet I have often thought it
hard that I should have the quality which makes the
“fatal gift” so dangerous, and not the gift. My little
sister, Virginia, who had been my playmate for weeks,
cried bitterly when I left her. I dwelt upon her swimming
eye with mine, tearless and stony as death. The
waters of bitterness had gathered around my heart, but
had not yet found an outlet from their icy thrall, 'neath
which they flowed dark and deep.

Belle-Air, at the time I write of, was a little village of

some twenty-five or more houses, six of which were
taverns. It was and is a county town, and court was
regularly held there, to which the Baltimore lawyers
used to flock in crowds; and many mad pranks have I
known them to play there for their own amusement, if
not for the edification of the pupils of Mr. Sears.

My father drew up at McKenny's tavern, and as it
was about twelve when we arrived, and the pupils were
dismissed to dinner, he sent his card to the principal,
who in a few minutes made his appearance. Talk of a
lover watching the movements and having impressed
upon his memory the image of her whom he loveth!—
the school boy has a much more vivid recollection of
his teacher. Mr. Sears was a tall, stout man, with
broad, stooping shoulders. He carried a large cane,
and his step was as decided as ever was Dr. Busby's,
who would not take his hat off when the King visited
his school, for the reason, as he told his Majesty afterwards,
that if his scholars thought that there was a
greater man in the Kingdom than himself, he never
could control them. The face of Mr. Sears resembled
much the likeness of Alexander Hamilton, though his
features were more contracted, and his forehead had
nothing like the expansion of the great statesman's;
yet it projected very similarly at the brows. He welcomed
my father to the village with great courtesy, and
me to his pupilage with greater dignity. He dined with
my father, with me by his side, and every now and then
he would pat me on the head and ask me a question.
I stammered out monosyllabic answers, when the gentleman
would address himself again to his plate with
renewed gusto.

Mr. Sears recommended my father to board me at
the house of a Mr. Hall, who had formerly been the

Sheriff of the county, and whose wife and daughters,
he said, were very fine women. He regreted, he said,
when he first took charge of the academy, that there
was not some general place attached to it where the
pupils could board in common; but after-reflection had
taught him that to board them among the town-people
would be as well. He remarked that I was one of his
smallest pupils, but that he would look on me in loco
parentis, and doubted not that he could make a man
of me.

After dinner he escorted my father, leading me by
the hand, down to the academy, which was on the outskirts
of the town, at the other end of it from McKenny's.
The buzz, which the usher had not the power to
control in the absence of Mr. Sears, hushed instantly
in his presence; and as he entered with my father, the
pupils all rose, and remained standing until he ordered
them to be seated. Giving my father a seat, and
placing me in the one which he designed for me in the
school, Mr. Sears called several of his most proficient
scholars in the different classes, from Homer down to
the elements of English, and examined them. When
a boy blundered, he darted at him a look which made
him shake in his shoes; and when another boy, gave a
correct answer, and took his fellow's place, and glanced
up for Mr. Sears' smile, it was a picture which my friend
Beard, of Cincinnati, would delight to draw. The
blunderer looked like one caught in the act of sheep-stealing,
while the successful pupil took his place with
an air that might have marked one of Napoleon's approved
soldiers, when the Emperor had witnessed an
act of daring on his part. As for Mr. Sears, he thought
Napoleon a common creature to himself. To kill men,
he used to say, was much more easy than to instruct

them. He felt himself to be like one of the philosophers
of old in his academy; and he considered Dr.
Parr and Dr. Busby, who boasted that they had whipped
every distinguished man in the country, much
greater than he of Pharsalia or he of Austerlitz.

When the rehearsal of several classes had given my
father a due impression of Mr. Sears' great gifts as an
instructor, and of his scholars' proficiency, he took my
father to Mr. Hall's, to introduce us to my future host.

We found the family seated in the long room in
which their boarders dined. To Mr. Sears they paid
the most profound respect. Well they might, for without
his recommendation they would have been without
boarders. Hall was a tall, good humored, careless
man. His wife was older than himself, tall too, but full
of energy. He had two daughters, Harriet and Jane.
Harriet was a quick, active, lively girl, and withal pretty;
whilst Jane was lolling and lazy in her motions, and
without either good looks or smartness. The matter of
my boarding was soon arranged, and it had become
time for my father to depart. All this while the variety
and excitement of the scene had somewhat relieved my
feelings, but when my father bade me be a good boy,
and drove off, I felt as if the “last link” was indeed
broken; and though I made every effort, from a sense
of shame, to repress my tears, it was in vain, and they
broke forth the wilder from their previous restraint.—
Harriet Hall came up instantly to comfort me. She
took a seat beside me at the open window at which I
was looking out after my father, and with a sweet voice,
whose tones are in my memory yet, she told me not to
grieve because I was away from my friends; that I should
soon see them again, and that she would think I feared
they would not be kind to me if I showed so much sorrow.

This last remark touched me, and, whilst I was
drying my eyes, one of the larger boys, a youth of
eighteen or twenty, came up to the window (for the
academy by this time had been dismissed for the evening,)
and said:

“Ah, Miss Harriet, is this another baby crying for
home?”

In an instant my eyes were dried. I cast one glance
at the speaker; he was a tall, slim, reckless looking
fellow, named Prettyman; and from that day to this I
have neither forgotten it, nor, I fear, forgiven him.

In the night, when we retired to our rooms, I found
that my bed was in a room with two others, Prettyman
and a country bumpkin by the name of Muzzy. As
usual on going to bed, I kneeled down to say my prayers,
putting my hands up in the attitude of supplication.
I had scarcely uttered to myself the first words,
“Our Father,” but to the ear that heareth all things,
when Prettyman exclaimed:

“He's praying! `By the Apostle Paul!' as Richard
the Third says, that's against rules. Suppose we cob
him, Muzzy?” Muzzy laughed, and got into bed;
and I am ashamed to say that I arose with the prayer
dying away from my thoughts, and indignation and
shame usurping them, and sneaked into bed, where I
said my prayers in silence, and wept myself in silence
to sleep. In the morning, with a heavy heart, and none
but the kind Harriet to comfort me, I betook myself to
the academy.

Parents little know what a sensitive child suffers at a
public school. I verily believe that these schools engender
often more treachery, falsehood and cruelty,
than exist in West India slavery; I was about saying
even in the brains of an abolitionist. Most tenderly nurtured,

under thecare of an affectionate old aunt, who was
always fixing my clothes to keep me warm, coddling up
something nice to pamper me with, watching all my outgoings
and in-comings and seeing that everything around
me conduced to my convenience and comfort, the contrast
was indeed great when I appeared at the Belle-Air
academy, one of the smallest boys there, and subjected
to the taunts and buffetings of every larger boy than
myself in the institution. My father little knew what
agony it cost me to be made a man of.

I am not certain that the good produced by such
academies is equal to their evils. I remember well for
two or three nights after Prettyman laughed at me, that
I crept into bed to say my prayers, and, at last, under
this ridicule—for he practised his gift on me every
night—I not only neglected to say them, but began to
feel angry toward my Aunt that she had ever taught
them to me, as they brought so much contempt on me.
Yet, such is the power of conscience, at that tender
age, that, when I awoke in the morning of the first
night I had not prayed, I felt myself guilty and unworthy,
and went into the garden and wept aloud tears of
sincere contrition.

Too often, in public schools, the first thing a youth
learns from his elders, is to laugh at parental authority,
and to exhibit to the ridicule of his fellows the letter of
advice which his parent or guardian feels it his duty to
write to him, taking care, with a jest upon them, to pocket
the money they send, with an air of incipient profligacy,
which any one may see will soon not only be rank
but prurient. Such a moral contagion should be avoided;
and I therefore am inclined to think that the Catholic
mode of tuition, where some one of the teachers is
with the scholars, not only by day but by night, is preferable.

And, in fact, any one who has witnessed the
respectful familiarity which they teach their pupils to
feel and exhibit towards them, and the kindness with
which it is met cannot but be impressed with the truth
of my remarks.

There were nearly one hundred pupils at Belle-Air,
at the period of which I write, and the only assistant
Mr. Sears had, was a gaunt fellow named Dogberry.—
Like his illustrious namesake in Shakspeare, from whom
I believe he was a legitimate decendant, he might truly
have been “written down an ass.”

The boys invented all sorts of annoyances to torture
Dogberry withal. A favorite one was, when Mr. Sears
was in the city, which was at periods not unfrequent,
for them to assemble in the school before Dogberry
came, and, setting one by the door to give notice when
the usher was within a few feet of it, to begin as soon
as he appeared in sight, to shout as with one voice—
first “Dog,” and then, after a pause, by way of chorus,
“berry,”

As soon as notice was given by the watcher, he leaped
to his seat, and every tongue was silent, and every
eye upon the book before it. The rage of Dogberry
knew no bounds on these occasions. He did not like
to tell the principal; for the circumstance would have
proved not only his want of authority over the boys,
but the contempt in which they held him.

A trick which Prettyman played him, nearly caused
his death, and, luckily for the delinquent, he was never
discovered. Dogberry was very penurious, and he
saved two-thirds of his salary; as it was not large, he
had, of course, to live humbly. He dined at Hall's and
took breakfast and supper in his lodgings, if he ever
took them, and the quantity of the dinner of which he

made himself the receptacle caused it to be doubted.
His lodgings were the dormant story of a log cabin, to
which he had entrance by a rough flight of stairs without
the house and against its side. Under the stairs
was a large mud-hole, and Prettyman contrived one
gusty night to pull them down, with the intention of
calling the usher in the tone of Mr. Sears, (for he was a
good mimic,)and causing him to fall in the mud. Unluckily,
the usher heard the racket without, and not
dreaming it was the fall of the stairs, he leaped from his
bed, and hurried out to see what caused it. He fell on
them, and though no bones were broken, he was laid
up for several weeks. The wind always had the credit
of this affair, and Prettyman won great applause for his
speedy assistance and sympathy with Dogberry, whom
he visited constantly during his confinement.

The night of the adjournment of court, the lawyers,
and even the judges, had what they called a regular
frolic. Mr. Sears was in Baltimore, and the scholars
were easily induced to join in it—in fact they wanted
no inducement. About twelve o'clock at night we were
aroused from our beds by a most awful yelling for the
ex-sheriff. “Hall! Hall!” was the cry. Soon the door
was opened, and the trampling of feet was heard—in
a minute the frolickers ascended the stairs, and one of
the judges, with a blanket wrapped round him, like an
Indian, with his face painted and a red handkerchief
tied round his head, and with red slippers on, entered
our room, with a candle in one hand and a bottle in
the other; and, after making us drink all round, bade
us get up. We were nothing loath. On descending
into the dining-room, lo! there were the whole bar,
dressed off in the most fantastic style, and some of them
scarcely dressed at all. They were mad with fun and

wine. The ex-sheriff brought forth his liquors, and
was placed on his own table a culprit, and tried and
found guilty of not having been, as in duty bound, one
of the originators of the frolic. He was, therefore, fined
glasses round for the company, and ordered by the
judges to pay it at Richardson's bar. To Richardson's
the order was given to repair. Accordingly, they formed
a line without, Indian file. Two large black women
carried a light in each hand beside the first judge,
and two smaller black women carried a light in their
right hands beside the next one. The lawyers followed,
each with a light in his hand, and the procession closed
with the scholars, who each also bore a light. I, being
smallest, brought up the rear. There was neither man
nor boy who was not more or less intoxicated, and the
wildest pranks were played.

When we reached Dogberry's domicil, one of the
boys proposed to have him out with us. The question
was put by one of the judges and carried by unanimous
acclamation. It was further resolved, that a deputation
of three, each bearing a bottle of different liquor,
should be appointed to wait on him, with the request
that he would visit the Pawnee tribe, from the far West,
drink some fire-water with them, and smoke the pipe of
peace.

Prettyman, whose recklessness knew no bounds, and
who, as I suppose, wished to involve me in difficulty,
moved that the smallest and tallest person in the council
be of that deputation. There happened to be by
Dogberry's a quantity of logs, which had been gathered
there for the purpose of building a log house. Mr.
Patterson, (I use here a fictitious name) was at this
time the great lawyer of Maryland. He was dressed
in a splendid Indian costume, which a Western client

had given him, and he had painted himself with care
and taste. He was a fine looking man, and stretching
out his hand, he exclaimed—

“Brothers, be seated; but not on the prostrate forms
of the forest, which the ruthless white man has felled
to make unto himself a habitation. Like the big warrior,
Tecumseh, in council with the great white chief,
Harrison, we will sit upon the lap of our mother, the
earth—upon her breast we will sleep—the Pawnee has
no roof but the blue sky, where dwelleth the Great
Spirit—and he looks up to the shining stars, and they
look down upon him—and they count the leaves of the
forest and know the might of the Pawnees.”

Every one, by this time, had taken a seat upon the
ground, and all were silent. As the lights flashed over
the group, they formed as grotesque a scene as I have
ever witnessed.

“Brothers,” he continued, “those eyes of the Great
Spirit,”—pointing upward to the stars—“behold the
rushing river, and they say to our fathers, who are in
the happy hunting grounds of the blest, that, like it,
is the might of the Pawnee when he rushes to battle.
The white men are dogs—their carcasses drift in the
tide—they are cast out on the shore, and the prairie-wolf
fattens on them.

“Brothers: the eyes of the Great Spirit behold the
prairies and the forest, where the breath of the wintry
wind bears the red fire through them—where the prairie-wolf
flies and the fire flies faster. Brothers, the white
man is the prairie-wolf, and the Pawnee is the fire.

“Brothers: when the forked fire from the right arm
of the Great Spirit smites the mountain's brow, the
eagle soars upward to his home in the clouds, but the
snake crawls over the bare rock in the blast, and hides

in the clefts and hollows and holes. Behold! the forked
fire strikes the rock and scatters it as the big warrior
would throw pebbles from his hand, and the soaring
eagle darts from the clouds and the death-rattle of
the snake is heard, and he hisses no more.

“Brothers: the Pawnee is the eagle, the bird of the
Great Spirit, and the white man is the crawling snake
that the Great Spirit hates.

“Brothers: the shining eyes of the Great Spirit see
all these things, and tell them to our fathers, who are
in the happy hunting grounds of the blest, and they
say that some day, wrapped in the clouds, they will
come and see us, for our land is like theirs.”

This was said with so much eloquence by the distinguished
lawyer, that there was the silence of nearly
a minute when he concluded. In the company was a
lawyer named Short, who, strange to say, was just six
feet three inches and a half high, and he had a client—
which is stranger still—named Long, who was but
five feet high.

“Who has precedence, Judge Williard?” called out
some one in the crowd, breaking in upon the business
of the occasion, as upon such occasions business always
will be broken in upon—“who has precedence,
Long or Short?”

“Long,” exclaimed the judge, “of course. It is a
settled rule in law, that you must take as much land
as is called for in the deed—therefore, Long takes
precedence of Short. May be, Short has a remedy
in equity; but this court has nothing to do with that—
so you have the long and the short of the matter.”

“Judge,” cried out the ex-sheriff, “we must go to
Richardson's—you know it is my treat.”

“The Pawnee, the eagle of his race,” exclaimed Patterson,

“the prophet of his tribe; he who is more than
warrior—whose tongue is clothed with the Great Spirit's
thunder—who can speak with the eloquence of the
spring air when it whispers amidst the leaves and
makes the flowers open and give forth their sweets—
he, the Charming Serpent, that hath a tongue forked
with persuasion—he, even he, will go unto the white
man, and invite him to come forth and taste the fire-water,
and smoke the pipe of peace with the Pawnee.
Then, if he comes not forth when the Charming Serpent
takes him by the hand and bids him, the Pawnees
shall smoke him out like a fox, and his blazing habitation
shall make night pale, and there shall be no resting
place for his foot, and children and squaws shall
whip him into the forest, and set dogs upon his trail,
and he shall be hunted from hill to hill, from river to
river, from prairie to prairie, from forest to forest, till,
like the frightened deer, he rushes, panting, into the
great lakes, and the waters rise over him, and cover
him from the Pawnee's scorn.”

This was received with acclamation. Mr. Patterson
played the Indian so well that he drew me one of the
closest to him in the charmed circle that surrounded
him. His eye flashed, his lips quivered with fiery ardor,
though but in a mimic scene. He would have
made a great actor. I was so lost in admiration of
him, that I placed myself beside him without knowing
it. He saw the effect he had produced upon me, and
was evidently gratified. Taking me by the hand, he
said—

“Warriors and braves: give unto me the brand, that
the Charming Serpent may light the steps of the boy to
the hiding place of the pale-face. He shall listen to the
eloquence of the Charming Serpent when he takes the

white man by the hand—he shall learn to move alike
the heart of the pale-face and the red-man.

“Brothers: the Charming Serpent to-night,” said he`
handing me the candle, and placing himself in an
oratorial attitude, while every man lifted up his candle
so that it shone full upon him—“Brothers, the Charming
Serpent to-night could speak unto the four winds
that are now howling in the desolate Pawnee paths of
the wilderness, and make them sink into a low moan,
and sigh themselves to silence, were he to tell them of
the many of his tribe who are now lying mangled, unburied,
and cold, beneath the shadow of the Rocky
Mountains—victims of the white man's treacherous
cruelty.

“Brothers: O! that the Great Spirit would give the
Charming Serpent his voice of thunder—then would
he stand upon the highest peak of the Alleghanies, with
the forked lightening in his red right hand, and tell a
listening and heart-struck world the wrongs of his race.
And, when all of every tribe of every people had come
crouching in the valleys, and had filled up the gorges
of the hills, then would the Charming Serpent hurl
vengeance on the oppressor. But come,” said he,
taking the candle in one hand, and myself in the other,
“the Pawnee talks like a squaw. The Charming Serpent
will speak with the pale-face, and lead him forth
from his wigwam to the great council fire.”