Peter Parley's Own Story. From the Personal Narrative of the Late Samuel G. Goodrich, («Peter Parley»). Goodrich Samuel Griswold
his calling: his heart was in his work; and so, what he pretended to teach, he taught well. When I entered the school, I found that a huge stride had been achieved in the march of mind since I left West Lane. Webster's Spelling-book had taken the place of Dilworth, which was a great improvement. The drill in spelling was very thorough, and applied every day to the whole school. I imagine that the exercises might have been amusing to a stranger, especially as one scholar would sometimes go off in a voice as grum as that of a bull-frog, while another would follow in tones as fine and piping as those of a peet-weet. The blunders, too, were often very ludicrous; even we children would sometimes have tittered, had not such an enormity been certain to have brought out the birch. As to rewards and punishments, the system was this: whoever missed, went down; so that perfection mounted to the top. Here was the beginning of the up and down of life.
Reading was performed in classes, which generally plodded on without a hint from the master. Nevertheless, when Zeek Sanford – who was said to have "a streak of lightning in him" – in his haste to be smart, read the 37th verse of the 2nd chapter of the Acts, – "Now when they heard this, they were pickled in their heart," – the birch stick on Master Stebbins's table seemed to quiver and peel at the little end, as if to give warning of the wrath to come. When Orry Keeler – Orry was a girl, you know, and not a boy – drawled out in spelling, "k – o – n, kon, s – h – u – n – t – s, shunts, konshunts," the bristles in the master's eyebrows fidgeted like Aunt Delight's knitting-needles. Occasionally, when the reading was insupportably bad, he took a book, and himself read as an example.
Master Stebbins was a great man with a slate and pencil, and I have an idea that we were a generation after his own heart. We certainly achieved wonders in arithmetic, according to our own conceptions, some of us going even beyond the Rule of Three, and making forays into the mysterious regions of Vulgar Fractions.
But, after all, penmanship was Master Stebbins's great accomplishment. He had no pompous lessons upon single lines and bifid lines, and the like. The revelations of inspired copy-book makers had not then been vouchsafed to man. He could not cut an American eagle with a single flourish of a goose-quill. He was guided by good taste and native instinct, and wrote a smooth round hand, like copper-plate. His lessons from A to &, all written by himself, consisted of pithy proverbs and useful moral lessons. On every page of our writing-books he wrote the first line himself. The effect was what might have been expected – with such models, patiently enforced, nearly all became good writers.
Beyond these simple elements, the Up-town school made few pretensions. When I was there, two Webster's Grammars and one or two Dwight's Geographies were in use. The latter was without maps or illustrations, and was, in fact, little more than an expanded table of contents, taken from Morse's Universal Geography – the mammoth monument of American learning and genius of that age and generation. The grammar was a clever book, but I have an idea that neither Master Stebbins nor his pupils ever fathomed its depths. They floundered about in it, as if in a quagmire, and after some time came out pretty nearly where they went in, though perhaps a little confused by the din and dusky atmosphere of these labyrinths.
Let me here repeat an anecdote, which I have indeed told before, but which I had from the lips of its hero, a clergyman, of some note thirty years ago, and which well illustrates this part of my story. At a village school, not many miles from Ridgefield, he was put into Webster's Grammar. Here he read, "A noun is the name of a thing – as horse, hair, justice." Now, in his innocence, he read it thus: "A noun is the name of a thing – as horse-hair justice."
"What, then," said he, ruminating deeply, "is a noun? But first I must find out what a horse-hair justice is."
Upon this he meditated for some days, but still he was as far as ever from the solution. Now, his father was a man of authority in those parts, and, moreover, he was a justice of the peace. Withal, he was of respectable ancestry, and so there had descended to him a stately high-backed settee, covered with horse-hair. One day, as the youth came from school, pondering upon the great grammatical problem, he entered the front door of the house, and there he saw before him his father, officiating in his legal capacity, and seated upon the old horse-hair settee. "I have found it!" said the boy to himself, greatly delighted – "my father is a horse-hair justice, and therefore a noun!"
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the world got on remarkably well in spite of this narrowness of the country schools. The elements of an English education were pretty well taught throughout the village seminaries of Connecticut, and, I may add, of New England. The teachers were heartily devoted to their profession: they respected their calling, and were respected and encouraged by the community. They had this merit, that while they attempted little, that, at least, was thoroughly performed.
I went steadily to the Up-town school for three winters; being occupied during the summers upon the farm, and in various minor duties. I was a great deal on horseback, often carrying messages to the neighboring towns of Reading, Wilton, Weston, and Lower Salem, for then the post routes were few, and the mails, which were weekly, crept like snails over hill and valley. I became a bold rider at an early age: before I was eight years old I frequently ventured to put a horse to his speed, and that, too, without a saddle. A person who has never tried it, can hardly conceive the wild delight of riding a swift horse, when he lays down his ears, tosses his tail in air, and stretches himself out in a full race. The intense energy of the beast's movements, the rush of the air, the swimming backward of lands, houses, and trees, with the clattering thunder of the hoofs – all convey to the rider a fierce ecstasy, which, perhaps, nothing else can give. About this period, however, I received a lesson, which lasted me a lifetime.
You must know that Deacon Benedict, one of our neighbors, had a fellow living with him named Abijah. He was an adventurous youth, and more than once led me into tribulation. I remember that on one occasion I went with him to shoot a dog that was said to worry the deacon's sheep. It was night, and dark as Egypt, but Bige said he could see the creature close to the cow-house, behind the barn. He banged away, and then jumped over the fence, to pick up the game. After a time he came back, but said not a word. Next morning it was found that he had shot the brindled cow; mistaking a white spot in her forehead for the dog, he had taken a deadly aim, and put the whole charge into her pate. Fortunately her skull was thick and the shot small, so the honest creature was only a little cracked. Bige, however, was terribly scolded by the deacon, who was a justice of the peace, and had a deep sense of the importance of his duties. I came in for a share of blame, though I was only a looker-on. Bige said the deacon called me a "parsnip scrimmage," but more probably it was a particeps criminis.
But to proceed. One day I was taking home from the pasture a horse that belonged to some clergyman – I believe Dr. Ripley, of Greensfarms. Just as I came upon the level ground in front of Jerry Mead's old house, Bige came up behind me on the deacon's mare – an ambling brute with a bushy tail and shaggy mane. As he approached he gave a chirrup, and my horse, half in fright and half in fun, bounded away, like Tam O'Shanter's mare. Away we went, I holding on as well as I could, for the animal was round as a barrel. He was no doubt used to a frolic of this sort, although he belonged to a doctor of divinity, and looked as if he believed in total depravity. When he finally broke into a gallop he flew like the wind, at the same time bounding up and down with a tearing energy, quite frightful to think of. After a short race he went from under me, and I came with a terrible shock to the ground.
The breath was knocked out of me for some seconds, and as I recovered it with a gasping effort, my sensations were indescribably agonizing. Greatly humbled and sorely bruised, I managed to get home, where the story of my adventure had preceded me. I was severely lectured by my parents, which, however, I might have forgotten, had not the concussion made an indelible impression on my memory, thus perpetuating the wholesome counsel.
When I was about twelve years old, a man by the name of Sackett was employed to keep a high-school, or, as it was then called, an academy. Here I went irregularly for a few weeks, and at a public exhibition I remember to have spoken a piece, upon a stage fitted up in the meeting-house, entitled "Charles Chatterbox." This was the substance of my achievements at Sackett's seminary.
The narrowness of my father's income, and the needs of a large family, induced him to take half-a-dozen pupils to be fitted for college. This he continued for a series of years. It might seem natural