University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S SCHOOL AND EASTHAM.

Although our story lies at least as much among
grown-up people as among boys, yet we begin it among
these, because our hero happens to be one of them.

Saint Bartholomew's School in Eastham, or St.
Bart's, as it is called for shortness, or Bartlemas, as
the boys call it in kindly nickname, stands, or ought to
stand, on high ground of easy climbing, surrounded by
higher ground on all the colder sides. Below, between
it and the town, lies a pretty lake, three-quarters of a
mile or a mile across, shored with in-and-out grassy or
wooded slopes, green in summer, almost or quite to the
water's edge, on all sides but the eastern. On that shore
is a shelving beach of sand and gravel. Near that side
lies the highway going up northward, white against the
high bank of the lake. There is a green and pretty
winding lane at the western side; and on the northern
bank, approached by an irregular path from the school-buildings
above, are two or three boat-houses, two of
which are surmounted by flag-staffs.

The school buildings, which are a good mass of brick,
make a pretty broad show, and are already kindly taken

into fellowship by great Nature, although at first foreign;
for her friendly grass has drawn up close to their feet,
and She is encouraging woodbine and ivy to play, as
they do, gracefully and freely on the brick walls, while
awnings over windows, here and there, match, with
their green or blue stripes, the earth or sky.

The house is somewhat impressive in the daytime
by its size; and in the earlier hours of night glowing
with bright light through a long row of windows in the
lower story, and here and there above.

What may be called a lawn — for it is a good stretch
of green, though broken by scattered trees and shrubs,
and clumps of trees and shrubs — spreads outwards and
downwards to the bank of the lake.

About these school-buildings of St. Bart's there is a
story, — a story not indeed so long as that of St.
Martin's Church in the Strand, or University College,
Oxford, or the Round Mill at Newport even, and yet a
story which might, with pains enough taken, be worked
up into romance.

These ample buildings the local memory reports to
have been first thrust up into the air, boldly and ambitiously,
among the standing and living things of the
universe, for a “hat manufactory;” and in that capacity
to have “made a failure of it,” as the neighbors express
themselves. They were still standing up, empty and
desolate, among the other things of the universe, when
the infatuation about “The Midland Summer House”
went through that part of the country.

Under the influence of this epidemic, which rose and
spread like any fever, one or two retired city-men, and
three or four brisk men still in business in the city,
but lodging and spending their spare time among the

fields and trees, had put in their few thousands apiece;
a country merchant or two had been moved to do as
much; and two or three scores of saving farmers and
other country people had put in their hundred, or their
fifty, or their less; and so altogether they had turned the
big building into a hotel and boarding-house. The huge
rooms had been cut up with partitions into dining-hall,
dance-hall, parlors, and chambers; a wing, two-thirds
as long as the main building, and one story lower, had
been pushed back from the western end, and filled, like
a beehive, with small cells, called bedrooms, on both
sides of a long, narrow passage on each floor; verandas
had been run along the front and wing; and a consistent
cupola, above every thing, caught the fresh breezes and
surveyed the broad country.

“The Midland Summer House,” when finished, was a
joy to the neighborhood, and a hope and expectation to
the shrewd investors, and the no less shrewd holders-off;
for it was to bring society to the city-men's families,
easy and profitable practice to the medical men, a
market for the country-people, employment to all the
washerwomen, chore-women, masons, carpenters, painters,
and whom not?

Besides all this, it was to add one-half to the worth
of every foot of ground within five miles from that
centre, or, in other words, within a circle of ten miles
diameter.

Mr. Thomas Parmenter, of Eastham, was very energetic
and public-spirited about it. Mr. Parmenter, once
a country merchant, had now for some years had a
handsome place in the city, where (without a sign) he
dealt in choice foreign fruits and flowers, including,
somehow, the specialties of “Aqua-rose” and “Melitrech.”

He had been twice married, and twice a
widower. His experience, as we see, had been large
and varied.

He, like the others, had invested his money; and, for
his own good and theirs, was busy in all the planning
and building; and then had a chief voice in securing
one Mr. Sharon Andrews, a bright-colored, pleasant-spoken
man, who was understood to have been making
money in keeping “The Great European Casino” at
the corner of Utopia and Back-bay Streets in Boston,
and was willing to come for a year or two to “set the
enterprise on its legs.”

With this successful gentleman, things lived and
flourished at the Summer House through one season of
free invitations, and of neighborhood assessments of
milk, butter, and vegetables, in which Mr. Parmenter,
and some of his rich city-men, bore their shares.

During this time its passages and doorways and
piazzas swarmed with guests; the roads of Eastham
flashed, and were lively with carriages and saddle-horses,
and scarfs and ribbons; the passages of the
house were redolent with “Parmenter's Aqua-rose,” and
all the tables bright with crystal vases of “Parmenter's
Melitrech.” It had its “hops” and balls, and concerts,
sacred and others; it had its private theatricals, and
almost its oratorio, which two members of the Handel
and Haydn Society nearly succeeded in getting up; it
had its moonlight serenades, and pic-nics, and chowders,
and clam-bakes, on the lake and its shores, and its
ramblers and strollers in the woods. In short, it had
all the forms of elegance and intelligence which are
usually exhibited by a good many (not perhaps first-rate)
fashionable young men and women, and a few

“fast” young men and some foolish young women,
when they are enjoying themselves and showing themselves
off in the sight of rustics. It wound up the season
with dinners of “The Agricultural Union,” of which
Dr. Evans was president, and of “The Farmers' Reserves,”
of which Mr. Waite, manufacturer at Weston,
was president. It had paragraphs in the papers. It had
done something toward making a name.

The second year it advertised early, and opened a
little late, with the launch of the yacht “Iris” on the
lake, and a reunion of “The Three Counties' Medical
Association;” languished through three rainy weeks;
and then — Mr. Parmenter, having called a meeting of all
the persons interested, and then having furnished them
with a reasonable feeding of cold chicken and pickles in
the dining-room of the hotel, addressed them all as
fellow-investors with himself; proposed a plan by which
Mr. Sharon Andrews — who had been absent for a few
days — should accept an extraordinary opening just
offered him in Chicago, and a committee of their own
appointing should wind up the affairs of the Summer
House, and secure the buildings and property to the
common benefit of those concerned. One of the city-men
moved the appointment of three gentlemen whom
he named, — a farmer, the merchant of the place, and
Mr. Parmenter; and, after the going over several
times of the whole matter, the committee was appointed.
Almost everybody grumbled, especially those
who “had always said so when they first put in their
money.” Mr. Parmenter undertook to “run the house”
for the two and a half months remaining, in connection
with its clerk; he carried it through; lost only eleven
hundred dollars, he said, where he had expected to lose,

at the least, thirty-five hundred; the buildings and
furniture, after a year or two, were sold by auction, in
lots to suit purchasers; Mr. Parmenter had bought the
land and buildings, and the bulk of the household stuff;
and, within a month after that, Mr. Parmenter had got
together a set of gentlemen, of different professions and
more or less note, as a Board of Trustees for a school.
Within three months they had secured an Act of
Incorporation for St. Bartholomew's School, Eastham.

On the Board there were two ex-judges, — Allen and
Pearson, — of one court or other; one law lecturer,
Pethrick; the Rev. Dr. Cruden Baxter, one of the
editors of “The Supplementary Cyclopedia of the
Bible,” now abroad; the Rev. Dr. Farwell, a member
of several Committees and Boards; Dr. Button, whose
name we will spell, if we have occasion to use it, with
two n's, to show that the accent falls upon the last
syllable (Dr. Buttonn was once accountant in a boot-factory,
and now for many years a priest); the Rev.
Mr. Manson, rector of the little parish in Eastham, and
editor of “The Church Post,” which he pleasantly called
a pillar of the church; the Rev. Mr. Merrill, a long,
sober-looking clergyman, member of half as many
Boards and Committees as Dr. Farwell; the enterprising
Mr. Thomas Parmenter; Mr. Isaiah Don, who, though
a man of business, a director in a savings bank, last
year a compromise member of the legislature, was after
all most notable for being an admirer of Mr. Parmenter
and his success, and Mr. Pettie, a man with a face
like one of the lesser quadrupeds, but who had become
of some account on 'Change by shrewd management of
an unexpected legacy. He was the eleventh member
of the Board.

As indicating the individual standing of the members
and their importance in the community, the Rev. Dr.
Farwell, one of them, a man of very moderate size, but
of large manner, after studying the written list for some
time, remarked to Mr. Manson, a strong, hearty, and
hale man, who was a brother clergyman and brother
trustee, —

To this the other added, —

“We must bring in two more, — Mr. Parmenter and
Mr. Don. Well, we can bring them both in, in some
such fashion as this, I suppose: —

“There's ten,” said Dr. Farwell. “Who's left out?”

Mr. Manson looked at the list. “Mr. Pettie,” said
he.

“Well,” answered Dr. Farwell, with a solemn jocosity
of manner, “we can't make poetry of him.”

There was the Board of Trustees of St. Bartholomew's
School.

The change in the buildings from the Midland Summer
House to St. Bart's School was easily made. The
long rows of little bedrooms were thrown open to the
long passages between, and then hung with curtains
instead of doors; and in this way made as good alcoves
for a boys' dormitory as if at first planned for them.
Larger rooms were kept here and there for tutors, and

for household purposes; some parlors became recitation-rooms;
the dining-room stayed much as it was; the
ball-room became a school-room; a handsome share of
the main house was given to family use; and the cupola
became an astronomical observatory, to be furnished
when the time should come. The thing was done, and
well done; and, what was more, the buildings looked
well, and answered their purpose.

Thereafter the liveliness of boys, and the public
and private spendings of a large establishment, and the
success of a great institution, were to take the place of
the fashion and show which had so soon and so utterly
fleeted with the second season of the Midland Summer
House.

The town of Eastham, in which St. Bart's School
stands, and is the chief thing, is as pretty as almost any
country place with neat houses and some fine trees, and
that which gives it its greatest beauty, — its lake.

As we shall have many readers who are very studious
and scholarly persons, and as some of them have already
got map in hand to fix their memory of our geography,
and as a lake is one of the best things in any landscape,
and people know it, we must be a little precise here
about this great treasure of St. Bart's and Eastham, and
show how it comes that there is a conflict of names in
maps and in people's mouths.

Now, all learned readers are, of course, aware of the
way in which the human race always makes its additions
to the stock of names bestowed by Adam. In all essential
respects that way was followed by those members
of the race who took upon them the naming of this
lake at the seventeenth meeting of “The St. Bart's
Boat Club.”

Two classical factions in the school laid claim to the
privilege of giving it a Greek and a Roman name respectively:
the one, on the ground that the Greeks were
the finest men that ever lived, and the Greek language
was the finest language that ever existed, the Caput
said so; the other, because it was a self-evident proposition
that the Romans had whipped the Greeks. At
length it was reluctantly arranged between the leaders
— Gaston, then in the third form, and Burgess, in the
fourth, — and accepted with acclamations by the multitude
on both sides, who were heartily tired of the discussion,
that the water should bear a “Græco-Roman”
name, by the combination of the two proposed, which
were “Copais,” from a lake in Bœotia, the largest that
the Phil-Hellenes could find in Greece, and “Trasymenus,”
from a pond in Etruria. “Copais-Trasymene”
it was to be for ever called; Gaston, the Hellene, having
secured that ending, which he said was musical and
poetical; and a committee, consisting of the aforesaid
leaders, was appointed to convey the results of this
important deliberation to the map-makers and writers
of gazetteers throughout the land, and throughout the
world.

The committee, having divided the labor between
them, sent carefully written, and of course carefully
worded, notes in abundance to the Messrs. Thompson
and Mr. Sharpe, and to Mr. Lock, and to Mr. Ledwaite,
and to all the rest of the map and atlas men, and in the
end achieved this success: one of those publishers got
it printed “Eastham P.,” and underneath, in parenthesis,
(“L. C. T.”); three of them returned answer that
“they would attend to it when they made new plates”
(which Gaston, who was a learned fellow, said was putting

off to the Greek Kalends); one got it down as
“Copious P.,” and in explanation wrote that he
“thought the rest was only boys' fooling.”

A party in the school strongly set about nicknaming
it “Cop;” another tried to call it “Trasy;” and the
school settled down upon “Lake Thrash,” and there it
is this day with that name belonging to it; and the
boys of St. Bart's are resolutely determined never to
buy map or atlas made by any one of those men.