A DAUGHTER OF THE McGUFFEYS FRAGMENTS FROM THE EARLY LIFE OF ANNA MC GUFFEY MORRILL (1845-1924) EDITED BY HER DAUGHTER ALICE MORRILL RUGGLES |
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Copyrighted, 1933 By ALICE MORRILL RUGGLES All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this monograph or portions thereof in any form. |
FOREWORD
In 1921, when my mother was living in
Cambridge,
Massachusetts, I suggested that she
write out her recol-
lections of early life in the Middle
West.
She demurred, "But I have never
written anything
in my life, except letters. . . ."
"Then write letters," I said.
She consented, and in her impulsive way
sat down
that very evening to see what she could
do. To her sur-
prise and delight, memories flowed from
her pen as fast
as she could make it go.
Night after night she wrote, and page
after page
was quickly filled with her graceful,
eager handwriting.
At the end of a week she gave me the
manuscript,
saying, "Here are the fragments
you asked for. Do
what you like with them."
I found my mother's literary style bore
the strong
imprint of her personality--artless,
vivid and direct.
For that alone her children treasure
these "fragments."
But other readers have urged their
publication, as foot-
notes to the social history of Southern
Ohio. To round
out the picture, I have added a few
extracts from a jour-
nal kept by my mother during her early
married life,
and a few from some later letters.
Undoubtedly the life of Anna McGuffey
was typical
of that of many other women of her
period. Inheriting
the rushing energy and conquering faith
of their pioneer
(246)
Foreword 247
fathers, they found their activities
narrowed and limited
to the conventional domestic pattern of
their day.
My mother sensed the dawn of a wider
life for
women. But of her own life, retired and
often bur-
dened with petty cares, she somehow
made a brave and
gay adventure; and always her spirit
seemed reaching
out beyond the daily round.
To those about her, to whom she gave of
herself
unsparingly, her best gift was an
impression of buoyant
living, fresh, upspringing, dauntless.
ALICE MCGUFFEY MORRILL RUGGLES.
Boston, 1933.
A DAUGHTER OF THE McGUFFEYS
I
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
1921
MY DEAR DAUGHTER:
At your earnest request I am writing
down these
fragments of my early life, and I will
begin by telling
you what you already know--that I was
born in Cincin-
nati, Ohio, January 10, 1845, and my
father was Alex-
ander Hamilton McGuffey, of
"McGuffey Reader"
fame, and my mother, Elizabeth
Mansfield Drake,
daughter of Daniel Drake, M. D., who is
sometimes
called "The Father of Medicine in
the Mississippi Val-
ley."
Who wrote, or rather, who compiled the
McGuffey
Readers? ("Who killed Cock
Robin?") There has
arisen lately in our family a
discussion as to the true
answer to this question, and I would
like you to know
the facts as I learned them from my
father. He said he
was a young man of twenty-one, when his
brother, Wil-
liam Holmes McGuffey, who was sixteen
years his
senior, and a professor in the
Cincinnati College, re-
ceived an offer from the publishers,
Truman and Smith
to prepare a set of school-books, for
which the firm of-
fered to pay the sum of one thousand
dollars.
(249)
250
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
As Father was so young and not a busy
man, as yet
(he had just been admitted to the bar),
your great-uncle
William gave to him the burden of
preparation. But
Alexander did the work under the
supervision of his
brother, and he never claimed the
individual credit for
any of the first series, save the
spelling-book.
The Speller and the first four Readers
came out
about 1837. Two years later (1839, the
year my father
and mother were married), the publisher
wanted to add
a more advanced reader, and as William
McGuffey had
left Cincinnati, they asked your
grandfather to prepare
it. This was McGuffey's Rhetorical
Guide, which was
afterwards expanded into the Fifth and
Sixth Readers.
So there is glory enough (if glory it
be), for both
branches of the family. To William
belongs the initia-
tive, and the first four Readers; to
Alexander, the
Speller and the important Fifth and Sixth Readers.
I am astonished at the continued and
growing inter-
est in these old schoolbooks, and I am
sure my father
and Uncle William would be even more
amazed. They
must have builded better than they
knew. My father
always thought the original success of
the series was
owing more to the business acumen and
push of Win-
throp B. Smith, the publisher, than to
the inherent merits
of the books themselves. But posterity
will not agree to
this.
Mr. Smith and my father were close
friends and
dear, remaining so until Mr. Smith's
death. Of course
there was a great deal of money made
out of the
Readers, and in Uncle William's old age, the publishers
granted him a very tiny pension. Father
received five
hundred dollars for the Rhetorical
Guide.
252
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
He always spoke of his part in the Readers
as a bit
of youthful hack work, and in the later
editions asked
to have his name removed from the
title-page. Of course
his interests were not primarily
educational, as were
Uncle William's. Uncle William's aim
was to have the
Readers instill moral lessons as well as correct English,
and two of his favorite themes were the
value of tem-
perance and the wasteful wickedness of
war.
Father became a busy and very
successful lawyer
and man of affairs. But he was a born
pedagogue just
the same, and his fondness for
instructing has been in-
herited by several of his children and
grandchildren, as
you know. Your own father, with his dry
Yankee
humor, used to say we McGuffeys wanted
to straighten
out all the crooked sticks in the
world.
I can never cease to be grateful to my
father for
instilling into his children a love of
reading and a
pleasure in words, their exact meaning
and proper pro-
nunciation. He constantly corrected our
enunciation and
intonations, and would no more tolerate
a slovenly
speech than a slouchy posture. He often inveighed
against the influence of the
newspapers, and the careless
English of the reporters, which he felt
was demoralizing
our mother tongue. What would he
say nowadays,
when the power of the press and the
cheap magazines
have increased a hundredfold? Though I
do think the
general standard of popular writing has
been greatly
raised.
The slipshod speech of the average
Middle Wes-
terner of eighty years ago must have
afflicted my father
and Uncle William grievously, and they
labored with a
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 253
missionary zeal to amend it. If you
will turn to an
early edition of the Readers, you
will find affixed to the
lessons curious little corrective
exercises like this:
"UTTER EACH WORD DISTINCTLY. DO
NOT
SAY OLE FOR OLD, HEERD FOR
HEARD, TUR-
RIBLE FOR TERRIBLE, NARRER FOR NAR-
ROW, CANIDY FOR CANADA, MUSKIT FOR
MUSKET, CUS FOR CURSE, AT FOR HAT,
BUSTS FOR BURSTS . . . ."
I must say my father spoke the purest
English I
have ever heard. He did not
"burr" his R's, as Western-
ers often do, neither did he slur them,
after the manner
of the New Englanders and the
Southerners. The
choice and pronunciation of words was
an art to him,
but he practiced it quite unaffectedly.
I suppose one reason for the recent
revival of in-
terest in the McGuffey Readers, is
the current vogue for
American "antiques." But
comparing them with other
readers of those early days, the
"McGuffeys" really are
superior. Ruling out certain
namby-pamby pieces of a
sentimental or "preachy" type
(characteristic of that
period), there remains so much of the
Bible, Shake-
speare and the classic English prose
writers and poets,
that I believe you might safely teach
your little Eleanor
out of Great-grandfather's Fifth and
Sixth Readers,
even in Boston, in the year 1921.
Certainly the selections show a wide
range of read-
ing and a cultivated taste for a youth
of twenty-three,
brought up in rural Ohio by parents who
were unedu-
cated pioneers. It always thrills me to
remember that
while my parents lived in the midst of
comfort and cul-
254
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
ture, their parents were self-made men
and women, who
as my Grandfather Drake expressed it,
"in one genera-
tion changed the caste of the
family."
Perhaps it is because I come so lately
from pioneer
stock, that I feel so much sympathy and
interest for
those whom Mr. Lincoln called "the
plain people." I
enjoy talking with them, and their
lives, no matter how
humble and obscure, seem to me teeming
with interest.
They have always seemed to come to me
freely with
their problems, and to let me share in
their joys and
sorrows.
I wish that my children and
grandchildren might
always keep something of the pioneer
spirit, that never
fears to press on and up. Remember the
motto that your
father and I chose at the beginning of
our fifty years
together--"ANIMO ET FIDE,"
"WITH COURAGE
AND FAITH."
II
My parents told me little about their
childhood. My
father was born in Trumbull County,
Ohio, and brought
up there till his brother took him to Miami.
Of the
McGuffeys back in Scotland, I know
nothing. My
father was quite indifferent to
genealogy. He said his
forbears seemed to have been decent,
honest and God-
fearing people, and that was all he
cared to know.
In this country we began with William
and Anna
(McKittrick) McGuffey, who came over
from Scotland
in 1774, and landed at Philadelphia. I
never heard of a
McGuffey figuring in Scottish history,
so I fancy we
were humble folk over there. Certainly
the name is the
homeliest one imaginable. But at least
it is uncommon
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 255
in this country, and I much prefer it
to Smith, Jones,
Brown or Robinson.
Our first American ancestors made a
home in York
County, south-east Pennsylvania, and
tradition has it
that General Washington often stopped
there during the
Revolution. These were my
great-grandparents. From
York they migrated to south-western
Pennsylvania,
Washington County--a rich valley land.
They had a son, Alexander McGuffey, who
was a
famous Indian scout. Scouting was very
dangerous
and exciting work, and I've no doubt
young Alexander
loved it. He was only twenty-two when
he volunteered
for this service, and he and his
friend, Duncan Mc-
Arthur, afterwards Governor of Ohio,
were selected
from among other candidates as the
fastest runners,
best marksmen and the most unafraid of
Indians.
You know the western frontier of
Pennsylvania and
Virginia was overrun with Indians from
the Ohio coun-
try at that time, and small parties of
scouts were em-
ployed to hide in the woods and swamps
to spy on the
savages and report back to the officers
of the regular
troops.
The early settlers (except William
Penn) saw noth-
ing inconsistent with their religion in
the killing of
Indians, in fact they considered it a
virtue to kill them
whenever and wherever they could. Their
wives and
children lived in constant dread of
these savages. Of
course the Scotch-Irish were fighters
by nature, and by
centuries of experience in their old
countries.
Alexander McGuffey was in several
fights with the
Indians, and when General St. Clair
made his unlucky
march from Cincinnati in 1792--(you've
read about
256
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
that in your American history)--it was
your great-
grandfather's party of scouts who went
ahead to recon-
noitre. They traveled only at night,
and hid during the
day. One night they travelled forty
miles. They were
able to get back in time to make their
report to General
St. Clair, but three days later he was
defeated, for the
number of Indians who had collected
against him was
overwhelming.
The next year Alexander and two of his
young
friends were sent out by General Wayne
to spy on the
Indians. One evening in the gloaming,
as they were
stealing along a trail, Alexander, who
was leading, saw
in the path the bright-colored
head-dress of an Indian.
Had he stooped to pick it up, he would
have been in-
stantly shot from ambush. Then there
would not have
been any you or I! Luckily he realized
the trick and
that the head-dress had been placed
there by Indians
who were watching from the bushes,
ready to shoot the
first white man who tried to pick it
up. Without stop-
ping in his march, he gave the
head-dress a kick and
shouted, "Indians!" Several
shots flew after him from
the bushes and one of them smashed his
powder-horn
and passed through his clothing; but he
and his com-
panions all got away and the Indians
did not follow
them. I wish that shattered horn had
been preserved
for your children to see. But probably
the incident did
not seem remarkable to our
ancestors--so full of perils
and hairbreadth escapes, their lives
were.
Alexander remained in the scout service
three years.
The wars with the Indians ended in that
region in 1794,
and then Alexander, I think they called
him "Sandy"
(fancy my stately father being
nicknamed Sandy--
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 257
never, never--though his father-in-law
did refer to him
as "Alick"), Sandy married
and became a settler. This
does not mean that he settled down to a
quiet life and
fixed abode. When his first child
(William Holmes,
who was to compile the
"Readers"), was two years old,
the parents set out with him for the
Ohio frontier.
They belonged to that reckless, eager
type of fron-
tier settlers, (as did my maternal
ancestors, the
Drakes) who were always pushing further
and further
west, in the hope of bettering their
condition. The Mc-
Guffeys built a log cabin and brought
many more chil-
dren into the world. The boys helped
the father clear
the land, and plough and plant, and
build roads and
fences and bridges. The girls helped
the mother; you
can imagine how endless their tasks
were.
The mother's name before she married
was Holmes,
Anna Holmes, so the name Anna was on
both sides of
the family. I always understood I was
named for my
father's mother, but I like to think
that I bear the name
--(though I don't think it a pretty
one)--of two pio-
neer mothers, Anna McKittrick, who came
over from
Scotland with her young husband and a
little son six
years old--(afterwards Sandy the
Scout)--and Anna
Holmes, who migrated with her young
husband and a
little son of two--(who grew up to
write the Readers)
-- to the rude Ohio country. My own
life-work has
been to bring up a family and help my
husband through
cares and struggles, that often seemed
to me overwhelm-
ing. I am thankful that I had the
strength to sur-
mount them, as my grandmother and
great-grandmother
had surmounted their far greater
difficulties before me.
My people seem to have been the kind
who did not
Vol. XLII--17
258
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
count hardships, if they could better
their condition
and win an education for their
children. In the early
nineteenth century there was no chance
for a child to be
educated in Trumbull County, Ohio, and
Alexander and
Anna were too poor to send their
children away. But
William, the eldest, had a fine mind,
and his mother was
determined he should have a chance.
You already know the story of how she
was praying
loud and fervently in the garden one
day, when Thomas
Hughes, who had started a school for
the higher edu-
cation of young men in Pennsylvania,
was riding by on
horseback, and overheard her asking the
Lord to open
some way for the education of her son.
Of course,
(like one of the moral tales in the
McGuffey Readers),
he was so struck with her plea that he
dismounted, made
her acquaintance and invited her son
William to enter
his "Old Stone Academy." The
tuition at this school
was three dollars a year, and the board
was seventy-five
cents a week. But I never heard how
even that pit-
tance was procured. William used to
attend school for
a while and then come back to work on
the farm. So
he was twenty-six before he graduated
from college, but
he took highest honors. He was ordained
as a Pres-
byterian minister, but became a
professor of mental
philosophy--whatever that was--I
suppose the equiva-
lent of what the colleges now offer in
two subjects,
philosophy and psychology. Uncle William
was first
at Miami University, later at
Cincinnati College and
Ohio University. Finally he was called
to the Univers-
ity of Virginia, where he remained for
twenty-eight
years. At Miami and in Virginia his
memory is still
cherished and his work honored.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 259
My uncle William was born in 1800, and
lived till
1873, when I was twenty-eight years
old. But I did
not see much of him after I was grown.
He became
quite Southern in his sympathies after
living through
the Civil War in Charlottesville,
Virginia, and of course
my parents were ardent Unionists. Not Abolition-
ists, however. You must remember that
Abolitionists
were regarded by polite society much as
Bolshevists are
now.
My maternal grandfather, Daniel Drake,
had writ-
ten a series of articles for the
newspapers, showing the
folly of Abolition as illegal and
revolutionary. He was
in favor of the limitation of slavery,
and gradual eman-
cipation by purchase. These articles of
Grandfather's
were afterwards published in book form.
I used to have
a copy, but it has disappeared. You
children would
have found his attitude curious in the
light of later his-
tory.
But Grandfather Drake abhorred slavery,
as did his
father and mother before him. You may
read in his
Pioneer Life, his description of the hideous cruelty to
slaves he had seen in his childhood in
the backwoods of
Kentucky. At the date he was writing,
(1847), their
lot had been vastly ameliorated. Public sentiment
would no longer tolerate, at least in
the cities, such
brutality as he had witnessed in the
backwoods at the
end of the eighteenth century:
One of my great-grandfather's cabins
was rented
to a man named Hickman, who although
very poor,
owned two slaves, one a negro man in
middle life, the
other a woman at least twice the age of
her master. He
used to abuse them both most horribly.
Although the
woman had been his nurse in infancy, he
would tie her
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 261
up, strip her back naked, and whip her
with a cowhide
till the blood flowed to her feet, and
her screams reached
the ears of my grandfather's family at
a distance of
more than three hundred yards.
Great-grandfather's
blood used to boil but he had no
redress except angry
remonstrance and the whole neighborhood
were de-
lighted when Hickman moved away. All
the masters
were not as cruel as this man, but the
treatment gener-
ally of the negroes at that time was
severe, "barbarous,"
Grandfather calls it as compared with
that in 1847,
when he wrote. No wonder such
iniquities had to be
wiped out in blood.
Of all the Jersey immigrants in
Kentucky (my moth-
er's people came from New Jersey), my
great-grand-
father was the only one who did not
become a slave-
holder. And my grandfather Daniel Drake
purchased
only two negro children, a brother and
sister, Carlos
and Hannah, eleven and nine years of
age, in order to
emancipate them. He brought them to
Cincinnati in
1818 and had them bound over to the
overseers of the
poor, till they should come of age.
Hannah was then
taken into his household as the nurse
of my mother,
Elizabeth Drake (McGuffey), and her
sister, my Aunt
"Echo."
To go back to Uncle William McGuffey, I
do not
think that his Southern sympathies led
to any estrange-
ment in the family, but I do know that
my father told
him when he came north directly after
the Civil War,
that he must be very careful what he
said. Feeling ran
very high during that Reconstruction
Period. Uncle
William was sent by the publishers of
the Readers to
make a tour all through the South and
report on condi-
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 263
tions. When he returned he had a
shocking story to
tell of the "Carpet Baggers,"
but no Northern paper
would print it.
Uncle William was, in build, shorter
and more com-
pact than my father. He had sandy hair
and large, ir-
regular features. He showed all his
large teeth in his
warm smile. He had the same, keen,
kind, twinkling
eyes that my father had, but in repose
both the brothers'
faces wore an expression so serious that
you children
would have found it stern. I think
Uncle William, in
his genial moods, looked a little like
Hans Christian An-
dersen. He was like him, too, in his
love of children
and in his simplicity and
unpretentiousness. He had
not at all the "grand manner"
of my father; was more
approachable; in other words, more
democratic. Wil-
liam was noted for his love of
argument, whereas Alex-
ander never argued, and hated to be
questioned or con-
tradicted.
My father laid down the law, and that
was the end
of it. Once when he had given his
opinion on some
point in pronunciation, one of his
children ventured to
tell him that the dictionary held
otherwise. "Then the
dictionary is wrong!" he flared
back, and no one ar-
gued it any further. But we saw the
humor of it, and
among ourselves, when any of us was
loth to yield a
point, some one else would cry,
"Of course the dictionary
is wrong!"
Uncle William's theories on education
were radical
for those days. (It amuses me now to
hear many of his
ideas put forth by progressive
educators as new.) He
detested teaching by rote. When he was
asked to pre-
pare the Readers, he gathered a
group of children into
264
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
his house at Miami University, and
worked out the read-
ing lessons, by careful, personal
experiment. In his
college class room, after questioning
the pupils, he would
turn the class over to them and let
them quiz him. This
may not seem very radical to you today,
but seventy
years ago, it was an original system
for an American
teacher to adopt. Uncle William wanted
the students
to learn to think for themselves, and
nothing provoked
him so much as to have his own words,
or those of the
text-book repeated back to him. From
what my grand-
children tell me, I believe that even
now there is too much
of that rote teaching and learning.
Uncle William was more than once in
straits for
money, through no fault of his own, but
owing to the
financial difficulties of the
struggling colleges with which
he was connected. I know that my
father, who was
prospering at the law, was glad to help
his elder brother,
to whom he owed so much.
The two were always devoted and
congenial, in spite
of the great difference in age--sixteen
years. When
Uncle William was in Cincinnati, the
brothers had long
walks and talks together. In those
days, people still
walked for health and pleasure, and our
southern Ohio
country is so varied and beautiful for
rambles.
When my father's turn had come to be
educated,
William had been able and willing to
help him. So little
Alexander had an easy road compared to
his eldest
brother. When he was only ten, he was
placed in his
brother's charge at Miami (Oxford,
Ohio), and he
learned Hebrew grammar before he did
English. Uncle
William tried out all his theories on
his small brother
and let him advance as fast as he could
and would. The
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 265
result was that Alexander, who was a
brilliant student,
was graduated from college at sixteen.
Of course the college courses of those
days did not
compare with the modern standards. But
Alexander
was considered a highly educated lad
for his age, and
soon after graduation, he was appointed
professor of
belles lettres, at Woodward College,
Cincinnati (later
Woodward High School). He loved
literature, but de-
cided to become a lawyer, reserving the
classics for his
leisure hours.
He studied law while he was teaching,
and was ad-
mitted to the bar when he was
twenty-one. He prac-
ticed law for over fifty years, chiefly
as a counsellor. He
was too nervous to stand the strain of
court work. My
father's personality was a great asset
in his profession.
His courtly, commanding manner inspired
confidence in
his clients. Even if his business
judgment was not al-
ways good, they thought it was.
As a young man my father must have been
a dis-
tinguished figure anywhere, though not
strictly hand-
some. He was tall and straight, had
large features, blue
eyes and abundant brown hair and beard.
His eyes re-
mained keen, and his teeth perfect
until he died, at
eighty. His expression was somewhat
austere, until he
smiled. Then he was delightful; his
face lighted up, and
he became genial and humorous and
winning.
His nature was proud, sensitive and
independent. I
should say the most characteristic
trait of our family
is independence, and next to that,
extreme sensibility.
Apparently we get a strain of
sensibility from both the
McGuffeys and the Durakes, and what a
handicap it is!
My father, although the picture of
health, suffered from
266
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
a weak back all his life. He always had
a sofa in his
private office, where he could rest at
intervals. Un-
doubtedly his was a case of nerves,
before nerves were
understood.
He read Latin and Greek and Hebrew all
his life
for pleasure, and by the standards of
the Middle West
in those days, was a scholar. He was
interested in art,
especially painting and pottery, in a
day when such
things were regarded as frivolous
interests for a man of
his type, and he was a patron of the
Cincinnati Art Mu-
seum and the Rookwood Pottery at their
beginnings.
It must have been the aesthetic side of
the Episcopal
Church that influenced him to leave the
Presbyterian
Church in which he had been brought up.
Of course
he was influenced too, by his wife,
whose father, Daniel
Drake, had helped to start the first
Episcopal Church
in Cincinnati, my beloved Christ
Church. But the ritual
appealed to my father for its dignity and
formality,
though he had no use for High Church
practices. In
art and architecture his tastes were
unerringly simple
and sincere, and throughout the worst
period of Amer-
ican taste, he remained untouched by
the current fash-
ions for the ornate and elaborate. In fact he de-
nounced them as "hideous."
Whether he trained my taste, or whether
it was in-
nate in both of us, and part of our
Scotch love for the
plain and practical, I do not know, but
I shared my
father's dislike for
"gingerbread" architecture and
fussy Victorian furniture and
furnishings. During the
'seventies and 'eighties, when my
friends crammed their
houses with bric-a-brac on
"what-nots," and gilded rol-
ling-pins and cattails, mine was sparsely
furnished with
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 267
the few simple pieces of old furniture
I had inherited,
or had been able to buy in second-hand
shops. You
can't imagine how queer I was
considered because I
didn't have plush covers with tassels
on my parlor tables,
but left them bare! When I
purchased that old French
mahogany set now in my guest-room, from
a second-
hand dealer on Vine Street Hill, your
father, who was
more conventional in taste, said,
"Anna, people will
think that is some old junk that has
come out of the
family attic!" You see it was the
thing to have new
walnut bedroom sets with marble tops
and bunches of
carved fruit and flowers gummed on. I
had such a
set your father had bought me when we
went to house-
keeping, but although it was expensive
and fashionable
enough to delight the heart of an 1867
bride, I never
admired it.
Some years later your father's cousin,
Julia Morrill,
wrote from Vermont, asking if we would
care to have
the old grandfather's clock that had
stood in the kitchen
of the farm where she and your father
were brought up.
Your father remembered it as a plain
old pine clock, and
thought it would be most unsuitable in
our modern
house. But I persuaded him to have it
sent out to Cin-
cinnati. When it arrived and was set in
the hall and
wound up, and proceeded to strike the
hour, your father
was so happy; the clear silvery sound
brought back in a
rush all his boyhood life on his
grandmother's farm. He
could scarcely sleep that night for
listening to the old
clock's voice, and many a night in the
years to follow,
the loud, friendly ticking and silvery
striking cheered
him through sad and sleepless hours.
Those old clocks
have much individuality, and sounds,
like odors, have
268
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
a remarkable power of rousing old
memories. I must
admit that in those days, Grandfather
Morrill's clock
was cherished more for its associations
than for its looks.
Even I had not acquired a taste for
crude pine, and I
purchased a bamboo panel at the
Japanese store, cut it
in two and draped it over the shabby
top of the grand-
father clock's head, which could be
seen as one came
down the stairs.
I am losing the thread of my story, but
one thing
leads to another, and I must tell you
these little incidents
as they occur to me. My story will be
made up of little
things, as any woman's story must, who
has lived a
purely domestic life. The only big
things in my life
were inside me, my feelings. But I
think you and your
children will enjoy these simple little
things I tell, by
and by, when they have become a part of
"long ago."
You children remember your grandfather,
Alexander
McGuffey, as a stately old gentleman
with a snowy
beard, and as being very active and
sprightly. He would
run up the stairs to his office, just
to show the younger
men he could do it, and he hated to be
helped on with his
overcoat. He used to correct your p's
and q's, but de-
lighted your hearts by pressing gold
pieces into your
palms, on the sly, whispering,
"There, run along, and
don't tell anybody about it." He
never wanted to be
thanked for his favors, which he
dispensed with a free
and generous hand.
He had none of the proverbial Scotch
thriftiness;
indeed he detested economies. I was brought up to
think it ill-bred to speak of the price
of things. I recall
once when I went with Father to buy a
traveling-bag,
the clerk volunteered to mention the
price of one we
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 269
were examining. My father said in his
grand manner,
witheringly, "Young man, I have
not asked you the price.
The quality is all that
interests me."
His tastes were fastidious and lavish,
and I think
at heart his children shared them,
though some of us
have had to practice economy, whether
or no. George
Eliot says, somewhere, that there is a
pleasure in small
economies, if practiced as a fine art.
You children can
testify that your father and I practiced
that art for many
years, but there was nothing in my
early training to
help me. I believe I love to spend
money as freely as
my father did, but I had lived to see
the folly of it.
But although I have had to count the
cost of living
so carefully, I cannot bear the modern
fashion of es-
timating everything in terms of money.
You remember
when you children were growing up, I
would not allow
the cost of food to be mentioned at the
table, I said it
took away one's appetite. But nowadays
young people
consider their clothes, cars, gifts,
even their own abili-
ties from the standpoint of what they
are worth in
money.
Do you remember the quaint old offices
in the Cin-
cinnati College (or Mercantile Library)
Building, that
your father and grandfather occupied
for so many
years? One entered an enormous, murky
room, where the
younger partners and the clerks sat
with their desks
carefully arranged in the order of
their importance.
Your father's was next to the window,
then came
the smaller fry, tapering away into
insignificance and
almost total darkness. Your
grandfather, the senior
partner, was not visible to the vulgar
eye. In the far-
thest corner of the room was a glass
door, marked
270 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
ALEXANDER H. McGUFFEY . . . . PRIVATE
OFFICE. Those privileged to enter
found, in contrast
to the big, bare, musty outer office, a
bright, cosily fur-
nished room, where your grandfather
worked or rested.
In one of the drawers of his desk, he
kept a canvas bag
of bright pennies, into which his
grandchildren and other
youngsters were invited to dip their
hands and draw
out what they could. You were always
timid, and
would take a modest two or three. But
your little sister
Genevieve would plunge her hand in
boldly and draw
out an overflowing fist, with pennies
sticking between all
her tiny fingers. The first time she
did it, her grand-
father looked nonplussed, for she had
half emptied his
bag. I doubt whether any other child
had shown such
enterprise, but he only smiled
quizzically, instead of ut-
tering the reproof I had seen hovering
on his lips.
III
Now about my mother and her people. She
was
Elizabeth Mansfield Drake, daughter of
Daniel and
Harriet Sisson Drake of New Haven,
Connecticut. My
father married her soon after he was
admitted to the
bar. Her father was one of the most
distinguished men
in the Ohio Valley, and the connection
must have helped
young Alexander professionally and socially.
But more
fortunate for him was the fact that he
had won a beau-
tiful and gentle wife. Because of her
gentleness, her
pet name in the family was
"Dove." You can see from
her portrait, by Thomas Buchanan Read,
(it hangs be-
fore me as I write), how well she
deserved the name.
The artist has caught her shining,
brooding expression
to perfection. Buchanan Read, who was a
poet as well
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 271 as an artist, was a friend of my parents, and often visited us. He painted my brother Charley and me, as well as Mother. When I was growing up, I heard far more about |
|
my mother's family than my father's. This, I suppose, was because the Drakes were one generation ahead of the McGuffeys in culture. But both families were pio- neers and their stories are alike in many respects. |
272 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
During those years that Sandy and Anna
Holmes
McGuffey were toiling to bring up their
family in a log
cabin in Pennsylvania, and praying for
the means to
educate them, another brave pair, (and
there were hun-
dreds and hundreds of others all over
the frontier),
Isaac and Elizabeth Shotwell Drake,
were going through
just such struggles in a cabin in
Kentucky. They had
emigrated in 1788 from the
"Jersey" country, and their
first home in the West was an abandoned
sheep-pen.
The Drakes came originally from
Devonshire, as
every child knows from Charles
Kingsley's Westward
Ho.1 Tradition says that the first Drake got his name
from "Drago," a dragon,
because of his fiery disposition,
traces of which are still cropping up
in my family, just
as the love of argument crops up from
the McGuffey
side. Our branch of Drakes in America
settled first in
New Jersey, and from there my
great-grandparents
"pioneered" to the "Dark
and Bloody Ground" of Ken-
tucky.
My great-grandfather, my
great-great-grandfather
and my great-great-uncle had all been
soldiers in the
Revolution. No doubt they were sick of
war and the
hard post-war conditions. Their hearts
turned to the
frontier, where they might find wider
opportunities for
peace and plenty, for their children,
if not for them-
selves.
You can read all about that journey in
Daniel
Drake's Pioneer Life in Kentucky, written
in 1847 and
published by the Ohio Valley Historical
Society in 1870.
This book has become rare nowadays, but
I daresay it
1 Tradition in the family made Sir
Francis Drake an ancestor of the
New Jersey Drakes, but the descent has
never been traced. Ed.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 273
will be reprinted some time, for he
gives a vivid, first-
hand picture, and his style is simple
and readable, sur-
prisingly modern, in fact. Your
children can get the
feeling of frontier life from Grandfather's book more
truly than from a dozen histories.
There were five families who made that
journey of
four hundred miles across the
Alleghanies together, in
the spring of 1788. Isaac Drake was the
youngest, the
poorest and the most limited in
learning. Both he and
his wife could read and write and that
was all. The
Drake party consisted of Isaac and
Elizabeth, Eliza-
beth's sister, Lydia Shotwell, little
"Dannel," aged two
and a half and his baby sister Lizzy.
These five were
crowded with all their worldly goods
into one two-horse
Jersey wagon. (Lydia Shotwell preferred
to brave the
wilderness rather than be left behind
in the power of an
uncongenial stepmother. I'm glad to say
her courage was
rewarded, for she soon found a husband
in Kentucky
and had some happy years, though she
died later in child-
birth, poor thing, before the doctor
could be fetched from
Cincinnati.)
There were few taverns along the way,
and the
travelers were too poor to stop there,
so they slept in
the wagons and cooked their two meals
on the roadside,
at morning and night. They were in
constant danger
from Indians and when they embarked on
the Ohio
River in a flotilla of flatboats, one
of the crowded boats
upset, but no one was drowned. Small
Daniel had come
nearest to grief one day in the wagon,
when he clam-
bered over the front board and hung on
the outside by
his hands. He was discovered and yanked
in by his
Vol. XLII--18
274 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
harassed parents before he fell,
perhaps to be crushed
under the wheels.
They landed on the tenth of June near
what was
later Mayslick, Kentucky. My
great-grandfather had
sprained his ankle and had to be
carried out of the boat,
so "he could put but one foot on
the land of promise. He
was not very heavy to carry for he had
in his pockets
but one dollar and that was
asked for a bushel of corn!"
He found work as a wagoner, carrying
goods back
and forth to Lexington, dangerous work,
and he had
more than one narrow escape from the
Indians. Pres-
ently he bought land, thirty-eight
acres. He probably
paid for it with his horse and wagon.
The next task
was to build a house, and quite time,
too, for winter was
approaching. It was a log-cabin, one
story high, with-
out a window; with a door opening to
the south, a
wooden chimney and a roof on one side
only. Neither
chimney nor roof was finished before
the winter caught
the builder and stopped the work.
The floor was made of
"sleepers." Daniel's first rec-
ollection was of jumping happily from
one pole to an-
other, and making a sort of whooping,
guttural noise
for the amusement of his sister Lizzy.
The reason for
his remembering the scene was that his
father came in,
and ordered him sharply to "stop
that noise!" For all
their fortitude, the nerves of the
pioneers must have
been often on edge with all they had to
endure.
One warm day during that first summer,
while they
were still living in the sheep-pen, my
great-grandmother
Elizabeth made a call at a neighboring
cabin, where a
woman was churning. Elizabeth was tired
of a diet
of bread and meat, and fixed her heart
on a drink of
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 275
buttermilk, but said nothing. When the
butter was
ladled out and the churn set aside,
with the delicious
beverage, for which she was too proud
to ask (and
which the other perhaps did not think
of giving), she
hastily left the house, went home and
cried bitterly.
How I sympathize with her! She had gone
through
hardships almost intolerable without
complaint, but
missing that drink of buttermilk was
the last straw! But
how foolish she was not to ask for it.
In the following spring, the log-cabin
was finished,
with a clapboard roof above, a puncheon
floor below
and one small square window without
glass. On the
log wall over the fireplace hung
Isaac's rifle, and under
his bed at night he kept his axe and
scythe, ready to
hand in case of attack from the
Indians. In the morning
small Daniel's first duty was to ascend
the ladder to the
loft, and look through the cracks for
Indians who might
have planted themselves near the door,
ready to rush
in when the strong cross bar should be
removed.
Although the children in that region
were told when
put to bed "to lie still and go to
sleep, or the Shawnees
will catch you!" Daniel's own home
was never attacked.
But at Aunt Lydia's wedding, there was
an attack re-
ported up the road and all the men
guests, who had come
armed, mounted their horses and
galloped off in a style
so picturesque that the little boy
never forgot the pic-
ture.
At first Daniel's tasks were in the
cabin, helping
his mother. She had, beside the cooking
and cleaning,
brooms to make, also soap, butter,
cheese and sausages.
Daniel helped her with all these and
with her spinning,
carding, weaving and dyeing. As he grew
older, he
276 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
went out into the woods and fields with
his father,
cleared and ploughed the land, washed
and sheared the
sheep, killed and cured the hogs,
hunted and fished.
Through all Grandfather's account runs
an intense love
of this frontier life. He never tires
of describing the
trees and flowers and animals, and the
beauties of the
changing seasons. He never dwells on
the hardships,
only the delights of that outdoor life,
and the only re-
gret he expresses is that he was given
so little "book
learning." Aside from that, he
says no child could have
had a richer, happier life than his.
Now Dan Drake's parents, like that
other pair of
poor, backwoods settlers, Sandy and
Anna McGuffey,
were determined that at least one of
their children should
have an education. Little Daniel, the
eldest, was des-
tined, from the time he was five, to be
a doctor. He had
been promised as a student to a certain
Dr. Goforth,
who had been one of the party to cross
the Alleghanies
with the Drakes. He had attended them
in the fevers
and accidents that fell to their lot
during the first years
in Kentucky, and now he had settled in
Fort Washing-
ton (Cincinnati).
To study medicine was an unheard-of
ambition in
the backwoods of that day. But to
strike out new paths,
to begin things, was a passion
with Grandfather all his
life. The idea of being the first
student of medicine in
the Middle West attracted the lad by
its novelty and
difficulty. To "pioneer" in
the study of the diseases
peculiar to that new country became his
dream, which
he lived to realize in his monumental
work, Diseases of
the Mississippi Valley.
Daniel's family worked and saved, and
when the boy
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 277
was fifteen, (in 1800, the year William
Holmes Mc-
Guffey was born), they were able to
send him to Fort
Washington "to be made into a
doctor and a gentleman."
Fort Washington (Cincinnati, or Cin.,
as it was some-
times called then), was a village of
four hundred souls.
To the lad from the backwoods, it
seemed the centre of
learning and elegance. His mother had
fitted him out
grandly, with hand-knitted socks,
coarse India muslin
shirts (instead of the tow linen ones
he wore at home),
a couple of cotton
pocket-handkerchiefs, and as the
crowning glory, a boughten white
"roram" hat, which
to his great grief, was stolen less
than a month after he
reached Cincinnati.
In those days the doctor was
apothecary, too. Young
Drake slept under Dr. Goforth's
counter, swept out the
office, put up and distributed the
medicines. For the
patients' sake, let us hope the
prescriptions were simple.
Between times, the apprentice taught
himself enough
Latin to be able to understand the medical
text-books.
He had had no education beyond the
three R's of the dis-
trict school, and the reading of stray
books his good
father had picked up for him by hook or
by crook.
Among these Grandfather remembered Pilgrim's
Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, Franklin's
Life, Dickinson's Farmer's Letters, and the Letters
of
Lord Chesterfield. Not a bad
collection, but it is touch-
ing and amusing to me, to think of
Daniel's parents, poor
and ignorant and aspiring, counselling
their son to
model his manners on the maxims of
Chesterfield, as
Grandfather said they did. Truly
American.
After three and a half years of study,
Dan was taken
into partnership by Dr. Goforth, and
wrote to his father
278 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
that business was increasing rapidly,
and they charged
from three to six dollars a day, though
he doubted
whether one-fourth of it could ever be
collected!
The next year the lad decided to go to
Philadelphia
to study at the University of
Pennsylvania under the
famous Dr. Benjamin Rush. How he
managed it finan-
cially, I cannot imagine, but he had
saved something
and his father helped him a little. He
wrote home, "I
only sleep six hours in the
twenty-four, and when awake
try never to lose a single minute. I
had not money
enough to take a ticket at the Hospital
Library, and
therefore had to borrow books." He
saved on food to
buy candles for study at night, as many
another poor,
ambitious youth of that period had to
do.
In 1806 he returned to Cincinnati, and
having settled
down to practice medicine, he promptly
married. He
was twenty-two, and the bride, Harriet
Sisson, twenty,
and as poor as himself. To marry and to
marry young,
has been the custom of all my people.
This may not be
always wise from a worldly standpoint,
but the fact
remains that our homes, our mates and
our children are
the things we care about most.
Dan Drake and Harriet began the world,
as Grand-
father puts it, "in love and hope
and poverty." Harriet
was an orphan who had spent her
girlhood as a de-
pendant in an uncle's family.2 She was intellectual
rather than domestic. Her favorite
authors were Dr.
2 This
uncle was Colonel Jared Mansfield, professor of mathematics
at West Point, sent by Thomas Jefferson
to survey the Northwest Terri-
tory. Ed.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 279
Johnson, Bacon, Milton, Homer and Ovid!
"To Virgil
she was not partial in any palpable
degree." (!)
She and her husband were inseparable.
Grand-
father travelled all over the West and
South for con-
sultations and for research, and his
wife always went
with him. When she died at the age of
thirty-eight,
they had travelled more than five
thousand miles by land
and sea, and often under the roughest
conditions. I
have sometimes wondered if the
hardships of those jour-
neys were not responsible for my
grandmother's com-
paratively early death. At any rate
that was better than
to be worn out by incessant
child-bearing, as my own
mother and so many thousands of women
were in those
days.
Daniel and Harriet had only three
children, and while
my grandmother was a good mother, it is
evident that
she put the claims of her brilliant and
temperamental
husband first. He himself wrote after
her death, "After
her husband, all her solicitude, her ambition
and her
vanity were for her children. She loved
them as can-
didates for excellence, hence her
affections were chas-
tened with severity."
My mother, Elizabeth Drake, though only
a tiny girl,
was away at boarding-school when her
mother died. (I
have seen the letter she wrote home to
her father at the
time. It begins, "I greatly regret
to learn of the death
of my dear mother." I have always
wondered whether
those formal words covered deep
feeling, or whether my
grandmother was not a warm-hearted
woman, and so
the little daughter away at school had
only "deep regret"
and not an aching heart.)
When Daniel Drake was not travelling,
his wife
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 281
went with him on his professional
rounds, by day and
night, in all weathers. When asked
where she lived,
she would answer, "In the
gig." She often carried a
book, and read while her husband was in
the sick-room.
When he rejoined her, they would go on
to the next call,
admiring the scenery on their way, the
sunsets and the
stars, or discussing business, family
affairs, philosophy
and literature. It was indeed a
marriage of true minds,
and if the children took second place,
perhaps it was
none the worse for them.
After his wife's death, Daniel Drake
worshipped her
memory as that of a saint. He never
thought of re-
marrying, and always observed the
anniversary of Har-
riet's death, alone in his study,
fasting. Both of his par-
ents had had step-mothers and had been
unhappy with
them. Perhaps this influenced him
against re-marriage.
IV
At the time I first remember
Grandfather Drake, he
must have been about sixty-five years
old. He died at
the age of sixty-seven, when I was
seven. He had been
for many years the most eminent medical
man west of
the Alleghanies, and patients came from
all parts of the
western country to consult him. It was
to Dr. Drake
that the young Abraham Lincoln
travelled for advice
when he was sick in body and soul after
the death of
Ann Rutledge. But that I only learned a
few years ago
in reading an article about Mr.
Lincoln's early love-
affair. Grandfather died before Mr.
Lincoln became
famous, but I wonder if he did not feel
more than a pass-
ing professional interest in that
homely, melancholy,
young patient who had come all the way
from Illinois
282
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
for help. I hope he was able to help
him. Grandfather
had great charm and magnetism and a
genius for
diagnosis.
To get material for his great work, Diseases
of the
Mississippi Valley,3 Grandfather travelled as far south
as New Orleans, and north to what is
now Michigan,
Wisconsin and Minnesota. He went all
over the Great
Lakes region to study diseases of the
Indians. Travel
was slow and difficult. The work of
collecting and ar-
ranging material could not be done by
skilled secretaries,
as now, and there were no reference
books to draw
from. Daniel Drake gathered his
material first-hand,
and wrote his books in the moments he
could snatch
from active medical practice. It seems
a pity that the
material he so laboriously collected
should be useless
now, but no science changes its
conclusions as quickly
as medicine. Happily many of the
diseases Grandfather
described have disappeared, and the custom
of bleeding,
which he employed, in common with other
doctors of the
day, was long ago given up.
Grandfather was working on this book
when I re-
member him, and he loved to have us
children run in and
out of his study while he wrote. Our
homes adjoined and
the communicating door was never
closed. Mother was
afraid we would disturb him, but
Grandfather said he
could work better to the sound of our
young voices. He
had learned concentration at an early
age in the crowded,
noisy, one-room school which he
attended in the wil-
derness.
Grandfather had the opposite of the
"single track
3 The exact title of this book is A
Systematic Treatise on the Principal
Diseases of the Interior Valley of
North America. Ed.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 283
mind." His was rather a net-work
of tracks, with no
end of little side-tracks and
shuntings. He was always
writing, lecturing, travelling,
founding colleges and
"institutes" and
societies, some of which flourished and
some didn't, for his dreams always ran
beyond his
means. You can read all about his
activities in that un-
satisfactory life of him by his wife's
kinsman, Colonel
Edward Mansfield. But Daniel Drake's
biography has
never been properly written, and I'm
afraid never will
be now, for the people who knew him are
dead and
gone. My Uncle Edward's Life is
too eulogistic. Grand-
father's was a character rich in color,
and one would
need a brush that dashed and splashed
to paint him
truly.
An old resident of Cincinnati once told
your father
that he recalled seeing Dr. Drake
engage in a contro-
versy on the street, in which both
contestants came to
blows and blood trickled down their
faces. Whether
this be true I do not know. But I do
know that my
grandfather was wilful and
high-spirited, and was all
his life battling for some cause or
other. He never al-
lowed opposition to divert him from the
goal he set out
to reach, and while he was always calm
and self-con-
tained at home (as I remember him), I
can well believe
that if a hand was laid on him, he
would have struck
back. I doubt if he believed literally
in turning the
other cheek. And although well-bred
people were more
formal in their manners in those days,
they at times let
themselves "go" with a
freedom that would not be per-
mitted now. I am speaking of men in
their relations to
each other in politics and their
professions. Manners
have certainly improved there.
284
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
My mother kept house for her father
even after she
married, for he took all his meals with
us, though he
lived and worked in his own house,
adjoining. He was
very hospitable, and delighted to fill
the houses with in-
formal guests. Distinguished visitors
to Cincinnati al-
ways found their way to our doors, and
Grandfather had
a habit of rising early and going forth
to see whom he
could secure for breakfast guests.
Delightful for him,
but sometimes trying for my mother who
was his house-
keeper. When she would mildly
remonstrate, he would
reply, "Daughter, all we want is
coffee and a baked
apple." But it is not always
convenient to supply un-
expected guests with even coffee and
baked apples.
Audubon, the great naturalist, on his
journeyings
through the West, stopped for some
weeks at my grand-
father's house. (This was before my mother's mar-
riage.) He was a marvellously
interesting guest, and
he was so charmed with Dr. Drake's old
parents, who
were then living with him, that he drew
crayon portraits
of them both. These portraits of Isaac
and Elizabeth
Shotwell Drake are now in possession of
a remote branch
of the family, but excellent copies made
by Benjamin
Drake, Daniel's brother, are hanging in
my dining-
room. The frames of pine were carved by
hand by
Benjamin. I am very fond of these
portraits. Daniel
Drake said this crayon profile of his
mother was made
by Audubon when she was sixty years old,
and is correct
in its anatomy, but the expression is
too sad.
Cincinnati in those early days had a
very delightful
social atmosphere, and something of the
flavor reached
down even to little me. More knowledge
of it came to
me afterwards from my mother's tales.
The city, as I
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 285
remember it, in 1849-'50, was a
countrified small town,
with frame houses set behind shabby
picket fences, much
like those seen in parts of old
Cambridge, Massachu-
setts, where I am now living. Ashes and
garbage were
thrown into the streets, and pigs, yes,
droves of real,
live porkers roamed at will, rooting in
the refuse. I
well remember the day my mother came in
and an-
nounced to my father, in her emphatic
manner, "Alex-
ander, we are forbidden to throw
ashes or garbage into
the street. Now what shall we do
?"
My Grandfather Drake wrote a book
called The
Picture of Cincinnati. I have a copy of this quaint
little work, and there you can read
about the city in his
day. His brother Benjamin also wrote, Tales
of the
Queen City, but that book I have never seen. In 1837,
when my Uncle William McGuffey came to
Cincinnati,
it was the largest city in the West,
except New Orleans,
and had the best schools of any city
west of the Alle-
ghanies.
Mrs. Trollope published a very
unflattering descrip-
tion of Cincinnati about that time, and
I have heard my
parents say it was very ill-bred in
her, when she had
been most hospitably entertained there.
Much that she
said of our civilization was true, but
she failed to see
that beneath the crudities lay an
earnest love and aspira-
tion for the finer things of life.
My Grandfather's home was known as
"Buckeye
Hall," and he used to dispense a
mild punch from a
great bowl made of the smooth white
wood of the Ohio
Buckeye. It was from small bowls of
this same wood
that he and his brothers and sisters
had eaten their mush
and milk in the log cabin of their
childhood. The punch
286
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
must have been a temperance drink--at
least my par-
ents were strictly
"temperance."
More convenient for my mother than
Grandfather's
impromptu breakfast-parties were the
tea-parties at
which she and my father entertained
their friends.
These were not the kind of teas we
women have now-
adays. "Afternoon teas" were
unknown, and I was
amused when I went recently to the play
"Abraham
Lincoln," to see the English
author, Mr. Drinkwater,
making Mrs. Lincoln serve afternoon tea
in her Spring-
field home. Our teas resembled the
English "high teas,"
or our present day informal
supper-parties.
The guests were all seated at the
dining-room table,
which could be enlarged at short notice
for unexpected
arrivals. The food, though simple, was
abundant and
it caused no flurry when, at a whisper
from Mother, I
ran to Mary the waitress, or Anne the
cook, to say that
two, three or a larger number of extra guests
were to be
provided for. My mother had four maids,
who did the
work of six or seven modern servants. I
shall tell more
about them later. In my mother's
cook-book (Miss Les-
lie's Guide to Cookery), which I still have, but cannot
use, I am struck by the extravagant
quantities of eggs,
butter fruit and all ingredients that
the old recipes call
for.
The old gentlemen of my Grandfather
Drake's gen-
eration drank their tea from their
saucers. No tea-cups
then had handles, and it was good
manners to pour the
tea into the saucer and put the cup on
tiny plates pro-
vided. In my father's time, such a
custom was out-
lawed, but every once in a while an old
gentleman named
Mr. Symmes would come to our table and
pour out his
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 287
tea in the saucer. We young ones would
smile as if to
say, "How grotesque!" Mother
said to us once, "You
smile at Mr. Symmes because he carries
papers in his
high hat and pours his tea into his
saucer. Know well,
you youngsters, that when he was a
young man, these
habits you smile at were permitted, and
no one was
better-mannered for his time than Mr.
Symmes." A
sharp reproof for our youthful
arrogance!
Our first home was on Fourth Street,
between Race
and Elm. This was when Grandfather was
living. This
property has become the most crowded
business section
of the city, and had my father held it,
it would have
been a valuable heritage. Later we
lived at Third and
Pike Street, in the "East
End," which had become the
fashionable residential section. I was married from
that house. Our summer home was
"Oakwood," at
Morrow, on the Little Miami river, and
our cousins the
Mansfields, had a place there, too,
called, "Yamoyden."
What glorious times we had on that hot,
dusty, Ohio
farm! I learned to swim in the muddy
river, which we
thought a delicious stream, as we had
never seen any
other.
V
And now, my dear daughter, I think it
is time that
I began to tell you of my own first
recollection for that
is what people always tell, when they
write the story of
their life. My first memories are
concerned with a very
sad time, when I was about three years
old and the terri-
ble cholera broke out in this country,
coming to Cincin-
nati by way of the Atlantic seaboard.
Nearly every family lost at least one
member. In
my father's family the one taken was my
little sister
288
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Etta. She was about a year and a half
old and my
mother lifted me up to kiss her cold
little face as she
lay in her coffin. That kiss and that
baby face are the
first things I can remember.
There followed sorrowful days, when the
citizens, in
their ignorance, blundered in frantic
attempts to con-
trol the plague and to cure the
sufferers. Great coal
fires were kept burning in the streets
by day and by
night, to purify (?) the air. The
mistaken treatment
of the sick and dying was pitiable.
They cried for
water, water, and it was always
refused. All the medi-
cal men, including my grandfather, Dr.
Drake, were
agreed that no water should be given.
My mother, in
after years, said that no physician
should ever again
persuade her to refuse water to a sick
child, as it was
against her reason and common sense.
And happily when later (I think it must
have been
about 1866), we had a milder epidemic
of cholera, the
doctors changed their views; and my
younger brother
Edward who was thought to be dying of
cholera, was
allowed all the water he craved, and
was brought safely
to recovery by Dr. Dandridge, of
Cincinnati.
My parents had nine children, but
besides Etta, little
Daniel, the first-born, also died in
infancy. We who
grew up were seven. And except for my
darling sister
Alice, who died at the birth of her
baby, Agatha, we
have all lived to advanced age, and
have had wonderful
constitutions, like our father,
troubled only by our over-
sensitive nerves.
Charley, the eldest (named Charles
Drake, for my
mother's brother), was a dreamy,
romantic lad, preco-
cious at books, with a heart of gold,
and a mind full of
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 289
visions. He was quite unfitted to cope
with this practical
world. I think it was you, my daughter,
who called him
in later life a combination of Don
Quixote and Colonel
Newcome. He studied law and settled in
Chattanooga,
where his courtly manners and kind
heart made him a
favorite with the Southerners, except
for one thing. He
would insist on giving his seat in the
street-car to a
colored woman as readily as to a white
woman. In this
Brother Charley showed himself a true
Drake-Mc-
Guffey, for we always carry out our
convictions with
complete indifference to convention or
opposition.
Next after Charley, came myself, Anna.
I was un-
like my mother and my elder brother in
being naturally
practical, and I cannot remember the
time when I did not
help with the house and the children,
and enjoy doing it.
Then there were Edward Mansfield and
Fred, lively
mischievous boys; Alice, gentle and
lovely (like our
mother); Helen Byrd; and last, but not
least, dear little
William Holmes, your "Uncle
Billy." I was thirteen
years old when Helen was born and
fifteen when William
came. He has always been more like a
son than a
brother, and no one could have been
dearer to me as
either.
Helen grew up a perfectly beautiful
creature. She
was named for my mother's friend, Helen
Byrd, of the
famous Virginia family. Her future
husband, Robert
Parkinson, fell in love with her when
she was posing,
in a tableau vivant, as Hiram
Powers' statue of "Gala-
tea." William, of course, got his
name from Uncle
William of the Readers. My
mother told me before
their birth of their coming, and as is
usual in large fam-
ilies, we all were delighted at the
prospect of a new
Vol. XLII--19
290 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications
baby. In those days babies were passed
freely from
hand to hand, and rocked and jounced in
cradles and
laps.
My little brother was born in January
into a cold
house, oh, so cold! No furnace, only
open grate fires
in one or two rooms. I watched the
nurse dress him.
First she put on a flannel band over
his tiny abdomen,
then a very fine cambric shirt; over
this went a long flan-
nel shirt, and then a fine muslin gown;
the gown and
petticoat reached down to the floor as
he lay on the
nurse's lap. All the undergarments,
even the diaper,
were fastened by pins--not safety pins,
they were un-
known--but long common pins! It was
quite an art
to weave these pins in and out, leaving
the points (sharp
and cruel), as far as possible from
Baby's skin. Hence
you see why even nowadays mere man will
suggest, when
a baby cries, "Perhaps a pin is
pricking."
Did I say that the baby's dress was
always short-
sleeved and low-necked, no matter what
the season,
though as a great concession to the
little one's age, a
woolen shawl was wrapped round him. But
the neck
and arms were so blue, I can see them
yet. The babies
nursed at the breast continually. When
I lay in my
trundle-bed in the night I would be
awakened by the
baby's wailing, and Mother would say,
"Never mind, go
to sleep! Baby has only lost the
nipple." Regularity in
feeding was quite unknown. No wonder babies had
colic. And how the poor little things
suffered in our hot
Cincinnati summers!
In the matter of clothing, it seems to
me our dress
was scarcely more hygienic as we grew
older. We girls
wore our frocks off our shoulders in
all weathers, until
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 291
we reached our teens, and I never saw a
knitted or
woven undergarment until I was a grown
woman. There
were no overshoes or rubbers. I never
even heard of
them until I was quite a big girl. My
father said one
day, "Elizabeth, I have heard that
one may buy a new
kind of shoe made of rubber. I think I
will bring home
a pair for you to try. They are too
expensive for the
children, and moreover, they may not be
what is claimed
for them, waterproof."
When evening came, my father appeared
with a
beautiful pair of over-shoes, made of
pure elastic rub-
ber. There was no fabric in them, they
were as soft and
frail as the surgeon's rubber gloves
are nowadays. How
we children admired and wondered. Could
Mother now
go out in the rain and come home with
dry feet? Yes,
we were assured she could, and perhaps
we children
would some day have rubber shoes, too,
when people
had learned to make them stronger. The
new shoes were
placed on the closet shelf, and all
evening we continued
to discuss them.
But alas for my mother's dry-shod feet!
Next
morning when she looked at her new
shoes, the toe of
each had been neatly bitten off, and
there were marks
of childish teeth, whose I do not to
this day know. Soft,
gummy rubber is pleasant to chew, and
we had no
chewing gum in those days! But I never
knew which
one of my small brothers or sisters had
succumbed to
temptation. And my wise mother
lamented, but did not
ask who had done the damage. She never
asked the
younger children leading questions,
fearing it might
lead to falsehood or tale-bearing. She
used to say Saint
Peter should never have asked that
leading question of
292 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Ananias and Sapphira, which led to
their death. Had
Peter remembered his own history, he
would have been
more lenient.
I fancy that because I am a
grandmother, and even
a great-grandmother (to Johnny Edward's
little son,
Jean-Jacques) you may expect me to
praise "the good
old days," and to claim that the
ways of 1851 were bet-
ter than the ways of 1921. No indeed, I
shall do no
such thing. In 1851 we had cold houses,
insufficient
clothing, dirty streets, lack of inside
toilet facilities, no
inspection of drinking water or of
milk, very little
oversight of children's teeth; how
could I claim that
children were as well cared for as they
are today? We
little McGuffeys had the best that the
intelligence of
the day could suggest, but there were
many things that
might have been improved.
I remember one cold winter's day, when
we were all
house-bound with colds and were being
vigorously dosed
with ipecac. My Aunt Echo came into
Mother's room
where we children were sitting with
pasty faces and red
noses, trying to entertain ourselves
with breathing and
rubbing on the frosty window-panes as
so to see into the
street. She looked us over and then
said sharply, "Sis-
ter, do you know why your children have
so many
beastly colds and racking coughs? It is
that vile trundle-
bed!" My mother looked mildly
surprised. It was
heresy to arraign the trundle-bed. Everyone had
trundle-beds for children, and what
everyone does must
be right. But my aunt went on,
"Rolled under your bed
all day, with no ventilation to dry out
the bedding, then
at night it is brought out for the
children, and they sleep
so near the cold floor, where draughts
are sure to catch
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 293
them!" And so forth and so on! My
aunt ran on at
length. Mother disliked her sister's criticisms, but
whether the trundle-beds were banished
as a result I
cannot remember. I do think as I look
back now that
my Aunt was ahead of her time, and that
trundle-beds
were horrid.
VI
The same four maids were in the family
from my
babyhood till my mother's death. They
were dearly be-
loved by us children, and I shall
mention them here, be-
cause they were so much a part of our
home life. They
were four Marys (like Mary Queen of
Scots' four maids
of honor), but to prevent confusion we
called them
Mary Anne, Mary, Maria and Anne. They
all came
over from Ireland at the time of the
Great Famine, and
many a thrilling tale they told us.
Mary Anne is the
only one of whose history I will write.
She was an ardent Orangewoman. When she
spoke
of her troubles, she would drop her
voice and whisper,
as if she feared that even over here in
America, "Thim
Catholics" would hurt her. We
children loved Mary
Anne next to our mother. Patiently she
sat for over
twenty years by my mother's front
window, sewing,
always sewing--(she was the resident
seamstress and
ladies' maid)--and incidentally sharing
our childish joys
and sorrows. In those days there were
no ready-made
clothes and Mary Anne made most of
ours, and did our
large mending.
This was her story. Her mother, widowed
in Ire-
land, had taken ship for New York with
her nine chil-
dren, to join a prosperous brother in
Cincinnati. The
ship was wrecked in mid-ocean, and the
passengers with
294
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
difficulty rescued by another vessel in
the midst of a
terrible storm. Fancy Mary Anne's
satisfaction when
she told us, "All we saved was our
Bible!"
The ship which took them aboard was not
bound for
New York, but for Nova Scotia, and so
the poor mother
was landed among strangers with no
money, and all
those children, little and big, to care
for. It took quite
a long time before help came from the
brother--time
enough for a young man, Robert Glasgow
by name, to
fall in love with Mary Anne, who was
about sixteen
years old. Robert Glasgow was much
older than Mary
Anne, and was ready to marry her at
once, but as she
was the oldest child she would not
consent to leave her
mother yet. After weary months of waiting,
they all
arrived in Cincinnati. Robert Glasgow
was to come for
Mary Anne in a year. Alas, he never
came! It was
almost more than we McGuffey children
could bear, to
hear this part of the story without
tears.
A long, long time passed before Mary
Anne learned
why he did not come. You know
communication was
cruelly slow in those days. A time had
been set for the
marriage, a letter had been received
telling when they
might expect him, but he never came!
After a year
or so, it was found that he had started
in good faith,
after preparing a little home for Mary
Anne in Nova
Scotia, but had been seized by cholera
on the train. He
died and was buried in a nameless grave
in an obscure
grave-yard by the roadside.
Poor Mary Anne! She was a beautiful
woman, even
at the age that I remember her. She had
brown curls
which we children loved to twine about
our fingers, a
bright color and exquisite features. We
never heard
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 295
an impatient word from her beautifully
formed lips, and
to her we ran with all our childish
woes. She comforted
us in her gentle way, and charmed us
with her stories
of the Old Country days.
Even after fifty years and more, as I
write of Mary
Anne, I find tears filling my eyes,
tears of sympathy for
her sorrow, tears of joy for her
release into her longed-
for Heaven, and tears of thankfulness
that into the lives
of the McGuffey children entered the
influence of her
sweet nature.
VII
After my first recollection of my
sister Etta's death,
things seem to grow misty in my mind,
and the next in-
cidents I recall are connected with my
school-days, which
must have begun when I was about five.
The schools, both public and private,
were very in-
ferior, and because I was delicate, I
never completed a
whole year's work at any age. If it had
not been for my
parents' instruction at home, I should
say that I never
received any real education.
There was a little school almost next
door to our
house, kept by a Miss Bennett, and to
that school I was
sent in my little low-necked and
short-sleeved frock--a
timid child who wanted to be
"good," but was often
very "bad" indeed. This Miss
Bennett was proud of her
very long and sharp finger-nails. She
was ill-natured
with us tiny ones, and when we vexed
her, she would
seize us by our naked arms and
shoulders, cutting us
with her nails as she dragged us from
one place to an-
other.
I think it was while I was attending
Miss Bennett's
School, that I gave my first party. As
May Day fell on
296
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Saturday, I had proposed to my
schoolmates that they
come to our big garden on that
afternoon, and we would
have a celebration with a king and
queen and all. Very
happily they agreed, and I went home
and forgot all
about my hospitable thought. Not so the
others.
On Saturday, after our midday dinner, I
was play-
ing outdoors with my brothers and
sisters, all in our
"mud-lark" clothes, when
glancing over the fence, I
noticed a perfect procession of
children coming down
the street. As they drew nearer, I
recognized them as
all my friends from Miss Bennett's
School. They were
dressed in their best bibs and tucl
ers, and as they began
turning in at our gate, the recollection
of my invitation
flashed over me!
Mother was out, the maids were off duty
or busy,
there were no refreshments, no
preparations whatever
for a party, and we McGuffeys were hot
and dirty and
not fit to be seen. But after one
distracted moment, I
gathered myself together, and greeted
my guests. No
one seemed to notice that we were not
in party clothes.
If they did, I dare say they thought us
very sensible.
After a few minutes, I made an excuse
to run into
the house and thence, next door to my
aunt's, where I
knew Mother was likely to be found.
There she was,
sitting in the parlor, with Aunt Echo
and other forbid-
ding-looking ladies. I whispered my
trouble into Moth-
er's ever-sympathetic ear. She looked
at me thoughtfully
for a moment with her big, brown eyes.
I doubt if she
really took in the situation, her mind
was still on adult
subjects. But she said kindly,
"Never mind, this will
make it all right," and opening
her purse she gave me
a dime!
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 297
Now the strangest part of this story is
that the dime
did somehow make it all right. I ran to
the corner
candy-shop, bought the very most I
could for the money,
then returned to our garden and found
the king and
queen had been chosen and all was going
merrily. At
the proper moment, I dispensed the
"refreshments,"
which seemed to meet with complete
approval, and for a
long time after that, at school. Anna
McGuffey's May
party was spoken of as a great success.
So little do
children require for happiness, if left
to their own re-
sources!
As my father thought highly (in theory)
of the
democratic idea, as developed in the
public school system,
I was sent for a while to a public
school on Race Street,
between Fourth and Fifth, not far from
home. My
teacher there was a Miss Clancey, a
beautiful and ami-
able girl. I loved her and was happy at
this school,
though it did seem a bit odd to have
the little girl who
was my desk-mate, ask me, "How
many coats and vests
does your father make a week?" I
could not answer, of
course, nor understand, not discovering
till years after
that her father was a
"slopshop" worker. Nor could I
understand what the children meant at
recess when they
called me a "stuck-up thing."
I myself was not con-
scious of superior clothes or position.
Miss Clancey, though she was lovely,
had no dis-
cipline, and she devised as the highest
reward for good
behavior, the honor of scrubbing the
platform floor. It
was quite a number of weeks before I
attained this
honor, but at last there came a happy
day when I was
sent with another tiny girl, a big
bucket between us, to
the Fire Engine House next door to get
hot water. Just
298 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications as I was proceeding out of the Engine-House, radiant with my honors, whom should I run into but my digni- fied father, coming on a visit of inspection to his daugh- ter's school. Surprise and consternation were on his countenance. He questioned me, took the bucket from |
|
my hand, returned with me to the school-room, and I never went back after that day. VIII I cannot remember just when it was that I entered Miss Appleton's Private School for Young Ladies, on |
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 299
Fourth and Plum Streets. All the girls
in my set went
there at a certain age. Miss Appleton
was a New Eng-
land girl who had come to Cincinnati to
make her way
and her fortune, and she had made both.
When my mother and I returned from our
first in-
terview with Miss Appleton, father
asked, "What did
you think of Miss Appleton,
Elizabeth?" My mother
replied, "She is a very affable
lady." "Affable, affable,
what does that mean?" I wondered.
The word fitted
her perfectly. She never under any
circumstances lost
her pleasant manner. Her discipline was
remarkable,
her school a model of good behavior,
yet she had only
one rule, "Only one young lady
allowed in the dressing-
room at a time."
Otherwise we were allowed to move about
the school-
room when we pleased, and to talk to
each other in a
low tone, and only when Miss Appleton
thought we were
inclined to impose on her leniency,
would she call us to
order by a very gentle rap with her
pencil on the desk.
We were always called "young
ladies," never "girls,"
and always ceremoniously addressed,
even the young-
est, as "Miss So-and-so." I
think this custom is a good
one, as in school hours it impressed us
with a sense of
dignity and responsibility.
When the school grew larger an
assistant was
needed, and a Mr. Moses Hazen White, a
middle-aged
gentleman, appeared. It was not long
before the girls
found that he was excitable and easily
teased. I think
we were very crude and unkind in the
way we took ad-
vantage of his weakness. But we did not
reason about
it, or if we did, we thought that a man
old enough to be
our father ought to control his temper
better.
300
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
One day, during recess, a girl
scribbled on the black-
board in Mr. White's room that bit of
time-worn dog-
gerel,
"Walk up, gentlemen, take a glass
of grog,
D'ye ever see a tad-pole turn into a
frog?"
Why this should have thrown Mr. White
into a
passion I do not see. Any sensible
teacher would
ignore such silliness. But in those
days some members
of the teaching profession took
themselves very seri-
ously, and were absurdly touchy. As
soon as Mr.
White's eye rested on the blackboard,
he flew into a fury.
The blackboard was no blacker than his
face.
Pointing a sharp pencil at each girl in
turn, he de-
manded, "Do you know who did
this?" I was about in
the middle of the class, and until he
reached me, no one
knew. Unluckily I did know. A dear
friend had done
it, and true to my home training,
"Never tell tales," I
refused to give her away, though I
admitted I knew who
was the sinner.
"Go home," thundered Mr.
White, "Take your books
and go!" I cannot remember
any emotion as I took my
books, put on my Shaker bonnet and went
out the back
door to my home. I may have recalled
that a similar
experience had befallen my brother
Charley in the public
school not long before. He had been
expelled for re-
fusing to give away a school-mate, and
my father had
taken the matter to the trustees and
had Charley re-
instated.
This sort of thing seems to have been
always hap-
pening to the McGuffeys at school. We
always knew
everything that was going on in the way
of mischief,
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 301
even if we did not take part. But wild
horses wouldn't
have made us betray our school-mates.
Years afterwards my younger brother
William
stood up fearlessly against the
Principal of his public
school in a somewhat different matter.
The Principal
had called the pupils together and said
reports had
reached him that he was accused of
treating the pupils
from the Orphan Asylum unfairly. He
defied any
pupil who believed such charges to
stand up and prove
them.
The man was a bully and everyone in the
school
knew he vented his cruelty on the
orphans who had no
"influence" to protect them.
But only one child dared
to stand up. That was William McGuffey.
The Prin-
cipal was furious.
"You McGuffey," he thundered,
"do you say I treat
the orphans unfairly?"
"Yes, sir."
"Prove it!"
"Well, sir, on such and such a
day, you did so and
so to such and such a boy or
girl." William calmly gave
instances, which could not be
contradicted.
The Principal glared, stamped up and
down the plat-
form, and suddenly interrupting with,
"That'll do. Sit
down, McGuffey!" he marched out of
the room.
William had no need to seek support at
home, but
when I was sent home by Mr. Moses Hazen
White, of
course my first refuge was my mother.
She listened to
my story, made no comment, but put on
her bonnet, and
as school was closed by this time, we
went back to Miss
Appleton.
"Now, Anna," said my mother,
"tell Miss Appleton
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
what you have just told me." I
remembered I trembled
a little before Miss Appleton, of whom
I stood in whole-
some awe, but when my tale was told,
she merely said,
"Let Miss McGuffey return tomorrow
as usual. I will
arrange to hear her recite
myself."
And so I was quietly reinstated. Mr.
White's reign
came to an end (to the good of the
school), at the end
of the school year.
IX
Though my mother was so just and loving,
she was a
strict disciplinarian, and I am glad of
it. One of my
duties was to make my own bed and make
it well. Now
you must know that making a bed in 1850
was a much
more difficult affair than in 1920, for
the bedsteads were
high and the beds were all of feathers.
To reach up, to
beat, to smooth, so as to meet the
standards of a fas-
tidious house-keeper was no light
matter. The bed had
to decline gently from top to bottom,
there must be no
hollows nor wrinkles, and the last finishing
touch was
to put in place the long heavy bolster
and balance two
pillows upon it.
I knew how to do it, and generally did
it well, but
had been growing careless and had been
warned that
something unpleasant might befall, if I
did not mend my
ways. One morning, into the quiet of
the school-room
came a summons for Miss McGuffey's
immediate return
to her home. Thrill upon thrill! What
could it mean?
Never before had such a message been
sent me. Per-
haps Mother was going to take us to the
country. Per-
haps some exciting legacy had been
bestowed upon me,
perhaps a thousand other
things--certainly something
important and delightful. As I left my
seat my desk-
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 303
mate whispered. "I'd give my head
for a football to be
in your place, Anna."
A sad downfall of happy hopes awaited
me when I
reached my home. Mother's face was
stern as she
greeted me with, "Go up to your
room and make your
bed properly." The most mortifying
part of this exper-
ience was that I was sent back to
school as soon as the
bed was properly made. Of course I did
not tell my
schoolmates the reason for my
recall. This was a
wholesome lesson in doing thoroughly
whatever I had
to do, and I thank my mother most
heartily for the
trouble she took to teach me. It would
have been far
easier for her to send Mary the maid to
re-make the bed.
As I told you, it was from my father
and mother that
I received the only real education I
ever had. It is very
difficult to give you any adequate idea
of the flimsy, su-
perficial education that was provided
for the young "fe-
males" of 1850. If a girl wanted
very much to learn she
could pick up some knowledge, but no
one thought it
necessary that she should be thoroughly
taught. My
father had more than one serious talk
with Miss Apple-
ton on the subject. He urged her to
give the girls a more
thorough intellectual training. Her
reply was full of
worldly wisdom. "Mr.
McGuffey," she said, "I can only
offer to the parents what they desire,
and that is not
thorough training. Offer anything that
the market does
not desire and your goods remain on the
counter."
So my parents tried in every way to
supplement the
faulty teaching of the day. My mother
trained me by
having me read aloud to her, requiring
a proper accent
and definitions of unusual words. To
train my voice,
she would send me to a distant room and
I was obliged
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
to read slowly and distinctly so that
she could under-
stand without straining her ear.
My father dearly loved to teach us, but
he was a
busy lawyer, and we were active,
restless children, hard
to corral, so he bethought himself of
this method. He
had a blackboard fixed to the wall in
the dining room,
and every night he put an illustrated
lesson on this
board; at breakfast next morning he
charmingly ex-
pounded the lesson. I was never bored
by these lessons,
but I remember the boys squirmed and
wriggled and
made faces when Father was not looking.
In this way he taught us the rudiments
of "Natural
Philosophy," now called by the
simpler name "Physics,"
and told us of the structure of our
bodies, especially of
the eyes and the other delicate and
wonderful organs,
and impressed upon us the need of
caring for these.
Do you wonder how our busy mother could
bear
this lecturing at breakfast? But never
in my memory did
my mother appear at the breakfast
table, so you see even
in those early days, wise mothers with
large families
knew how to conserve their strength.
Every little girl was supposed to sew
beautifully,
that was a branch of her education that
was thoroughly
taught, and it was one that I found
very irksome. Memo-
ries of the misery I endured on long,
hot summer after-
noons, hemming napkins and
handkerchiefs, made me
very indulgent in later years to my own
little girls (you
and your sisters) in the matter of sewing.
The little girls in our neighborhood
used to gather
under the big catalpa trees in our
back-yard to sew.
When our work was finished we were
required to sub-
mit it for inspection, and if it were
not well done, out
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 305
it had to come, rip, rip, rip, stitch
by stitch. We Mc-
Guffeys were conscientious and did our
best, in spite
of pricked and perspiring fingers,
rusty needles and
aching backs. I remember how shocked we
were when
one small neighbor sneered at our
pains, and said, "Be-
fore I'd bother so! I hem one napkin
carefully and the
others I just gobble. Then I show the
well-done nap-
kin to my mother day after day and she
never knows
the difference!"
I do not think this drudgery of forced
sewing did
us any good. Few of us were good needle
women when
we grew up, and those of us who became
experts learned
of our own free will, by constant willing
application.
X
I should like to say something of my
religious train-
ing, since that phase of education
seems a perplexing
one to your generation of parents. My
mother's teach-
ings were very strict, very
old-fashioned and true to
Calvin's doctrines. But the residuum of
all she taught
me, as I now experience and cherish it,
is an abiding
faith in God and a deep, deep down
comfort in my spirit-
ual life.
Old historic Christ Church of
Cincinnati was or-
ganized in my Grandfather Drake's
house, and to the
Sunday services, morning and evening,
we all went with-
out question. I have been told by my
mother's friends
that it was an imposing sight to see
Mr. and Mrs. Mc-
Guffey, followed by their seven
children, march into
church. I fancy one reason we attracted
attention was
that we were always late. Mother was
constitutionally
unpunctual. My father would labor with
her and sug-
Vol. XLII--20
306
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
gest that she start her preparations
earlier. "Certainly,
Alexander," she would acquiesce
graciously. And she
would begin her preparations a half
hour earlier, but
it made no difference, we started for
church just as late
as ever. My youngest brother William
was so small
when he began to go with us, that we
older ones had to
hold him up, one on either side.
Sometimes the wisdom
of taking such a young child was questioned,
but Wil-
liam would set up such a howl at the
thought of our
leaving him, that he was never left
behind.
The Sunday-School of those days must
have been
excellently managed, for only pleasure
is associated
with it in my mind. My first teacher
was the charming
and beautiful Lily Lytle, afterward
Mrs. Broadwell.
She seemed an angel of beauty and light
to us little ones.
My second teacher was Miss Nain
Mcllvaine, daughter
of the Bishop of Ohio, and she prepared
me for con-
firmation when I was fifteen years old.
Historic old Christ Church in
Cincinnati is very dear
to me, for there I was baptised,
confirmed and married.
It is to me a great regret that zealous
souls conspired to
improve (?) the interior in about 1870,
or was it later?
They spoilt the quaint old pews and the
severe but beau-
tiful chancel.
Although I have no criticism of the
strict religious
training of my youth, I have not, of
course, retained the
doctrines of that day. Times change,
and with them
our interpretation of the Bible. I
think we are happier
and better men and women now, in that
our minds are
more fixed on God's love and
tenderness, than in those
days when so much stress was laid upon
His wrath, and
the power and presence of a personal devil.
I well re-
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 307
member after a very serious instruction
in which Satan
was powerfully described, I was afraid
that night to
stretch my little legs away down in the
trundle-bed, for
fear the devil would catch them!
XI
The incident I am going to relate now
is one which
you have heard so many times when you
were a child,
that it will be no wonder, my daughter,
if you skip this
page. But the tiny grandchildren have
never heard it,
and apart from the spilling of their
grandmother's blood,
the lesson I learned may interest them.
A custom of early Cincinnati on hot
summer days,
was for the neighborhood children to
gather in the after-
noons, all neatly dressed and curled,
and go to the corner
of Fourth and Race Streets, to a
"Confectionery," kept
by a most respectable Italian, a Mr.
Sciutte.
One never-to-be-forgotten afternoon, we
were all
waiting for the word to start to Mr.
Sciutte's for ice-
cream. One saucer with three spoons,
for each three
children, that was our allowance, and
good Mr. Sciutte
always gave us a generous saucer and
three spoons all
for five cents! There we stood, I and
my cousins, Nelly
and James Campbell, and our friend
Willy Ridgeley and
many others. My baby sister Alice was
in her nurse's
arms. Suddenly one of the small boys,
very small, not
more than six years old, enraged by
some order given
him by Jenny Gordon the nurse, flung an
open pen-knife
straight at her face, and she was
holding the precious
baby!
Such horror as we all felt! For a
moment no one
spoke, Then the cry arose, "But
where is the knife?"
308
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
For neither the baby nor nurse was
hurt. We were all
looking about for the knife, when one
child cried, "It
is in Anna's arm!" Surely it was,
but I had not felt it.
I now straightway pulled it out, not a
bit frightened,
until I saw spurting up a little
fountain of blood, like a
small geyser.
I cannot remember the next moment, I
must have
fainted. The first thing I can recall
is a voice in the
neighboring doctor's house, to which
they carried me,
"Don't bring her in here, the
blood will spoil the carpet.
Carry her to the kitchen sink." So
I was carried from
the parlor to the kitchen, and very
soon Dr. Ridgeley and
Dr. Mussey came and tied up the artery.
But I don't re-
member that either. The knife had gone
deep into my
wrist, severing the artery. My next
remembrance is of
waking up in my own bed, late that
evening, and Mother
saying, "Here is little Jack, he
wants to tell you how
sorry he is." I was so weak I
could not speak, but he
kissed me and all was forgotten.
But about the lesson I learned. My
mother and
father impressed on me and on all my
brothers and sis-
ters, that never, never as long as we
lived, must we tell
who threw the knife, nor in any way
visit upon the
little boy his iniquity. Such wise advice, and I can
truthfully say we obeyed it. I have
never told you chil-
dren who the little boy was, and I
never will.
Years and years afterwards, when I was
a grand-
mother, little Jack, then grown into a
middle-aged man
came from a far distant city to see me.
I was glad to
see him and hid my scarred wrist. He at
once said, "All
these many years no one of you
McGuffeys has ever re-
ferred to that horrid trick of my
childhood, but I have
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 309
never forgotten what I did nor your
kindness, and I
have come now after all these years to
thank you for
your silence and to beg you again that
you will forgive
me."
My troubles with this gash were not
ended when
Dr. Mussey tied up the artery, for
after it was appar-
ently all right, an aneurism developed,
and I carried my
poor little arm in a gutta-percha
splint for many weary
months. An argument was rife in the
family as to
whether this young Dr. Mussey was capable
and ex-
perienced enough to be trusted with
Anna's wrist. But
time proved he was, and he was the same
William Mus-
sey who shortly after became one of our
leading sur-
geons.
The blood-stain remained on our brick
sidewalk
for a long time resisting all
scrubbing. I can remember
how sick and faint it made me to see
this stain, after
I was well enough to go out again. And
now my dear
children, this ends the only bloody
episode of my child-
hood, quite a tragedy for a little girl
eight years old, who
was always afraid of the sight of
blood.
XII
When I began to write these fragments,
my dear
daughter, I thought only of your
request and of the
pleasure tiny Eleanor would have in
hearing them read.
But as I dig down into the far distant
past and force
open brain cells for events that I had
forgotten, the past
becomes so vivid, so full of life to my
consciousness,
that I find myself forgetting you and
Eleanor, and liv-
ing again only as little Anna McGuffey.
The very phy-
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
sical sensations I endured when I was
eight years old I
again experience.
When I was writing what I call my
"bloody chap-
ter," the nausea and faintness I
felt when my blood
flowed from the cut artery returned,
and I was compelled
to lay down my pen and go out into the
open air, in order
to regain the calm and poise which is
the proper atmos-
phere of a great-grandmother.
And when I try to write of the time
when I was, as
I thought, unjustly accused and was
locked up for pun-
ishment in my grandfather's study, when
my rage was so
great that I threw a heavy inkstand
across the room,
striking and bending double the key in
the lock, there
comes to me, even now, across the gap
of seventy years,
the same feeling of satisfaction and
peace that I had
then in that I had been able to
register a protest against
injustice. Maria Edgeworth would have
had me as a
very sad, sorry and repentant little girl
after this act,
but I was not of Miss Edgeworth's kind.
Now I will tell you of our country
home. I said it
was not the custom of even the
well-to-do to leave Cin-
cinnati in the summers. So Father was
something of a
pioneer when he provided his family
with a summer
place, and oh! what rich and rare days
he brought into
our lives thereby. It all came about by
my little brother
Fred's asking his father "to buy
him an egg-tree, so that
he might see where the eggs grow."
Father thought if
his little boy was as ignorant and
citified as that, it was
time to put us all in an environment
where we could
learn about trees, flowers, birds,
cows, horses and all
the many things which go with an
intimate country life.
He always believed in teaching by
object-lessons,
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 311
first-hand from Nature, if possible, so
he bought a farm
on the little Miami River, forty miles
from Cincinnati,
and there we had the delights of
riding, swimming, pic-
nicing in the virgin forests and deep
cool dells and val-
leys with our cousins and neighbors,
the young Mans-
fields who lived all the year round at
their near-by
country place, "Yamoyden." It
was heavenly for us
children, but a great increase of care
for Mother. Two
houses, instead of one, to manage, many
guests, young
and old, in the inconvenient little
cottage, but just here,
as I look back I realize again how
unselfish Mother was.
She did not like the country; she said
the only time she
enjoyed it was "driving through on
a summer's evening,
after a rain." But she never
murmured, never men-
tioned the additional care, the
distance from her friends
and her church, but applied herself
devotedly to make
it charming for us all.
The farm was called
"Oakwood," and dearly my
father loved it. Once he said,
"The love I have for this
farm resembles the love a man has for
his first sweet-
heart." Father taught us all to
ride and drive and swim.
His rule for swimming was, "wade
out as far as your
arm pits, turn, face the shore and
strike out." He stood
by, correcting our strokes. And he
wanted his daugh-
ters to be as good swimmers as his
sons, which was un-
usual in those days.
I will tell Eleanor a real true story
of Indians, which
happened out at Oakwood. On a hot
summer's day--
and it was hot on a farm in
Southern Ohio--Father and
Mother were away in the city, not to
return till evening.
Our noonday dinner was over, the maids
were in the
kitchen having theirs, and I had the
three younger chil-
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
dren to amuse. "Let us play
Indians," they suggested.
"Yes, we will," I assented,
but I had no idea of playing
Indians as the older boys did, racing,
scalping, shooting.
Instead I proposed that I dress up the
three little ones
as Indians and let them amuse our only
audience, the
four maids.
So I got out my paint-box and
paint-brush, and put
most beautiful colored stripes on their
faces and necks,
tied their hair up in knots on top of
their heads, and
then ran out to the barnyard and
brought in cock's
feathers to make them more
furious-looking. I was so
delighted with my efforts that I
thought I would go
farther, and so I stripped each little
one and pinned a
red blanket around their tiny, naked
bodies. How we
shouted with glee at the effect.
"Now, go round the house and into
the kitchen and
'scare' the maids," I said,
"Do not utter one word, make
no reply to whatever they may
say." Wonderfully the
children carried out their parts, for
in a few moments,
the maids, open-eyed with terror, came
running to me.
"Miss Anna, Miss Anna, there are
three little Indians
in the kitchen and they won't speak,
nor eat, even when
we offered them raw meat, and you may
be sure that
where there are little Indians, it
won't be long before
the big Indians will be here after
us!"
I saw my plan had been all too
successful and I was
afraid the maids would be angry when
they found out
my hoax. So I said, "Run to the
fields and bring in the
men !" Off the girls went, and I
also ran, into the kitchen,
chasing the poor little Indians back
into my room, where
I hurried off the paint and feathers
and blankets and hur-
ried on their own clothes. "Now
don't you ever dare to
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 313
tell the four maids that you were
the Indians," I said as
fiercely as I could. The maids were now
returning,
headed by the farmer and his helpers,
armed with crow-
bars, pickaxes and heavy spades. Of
course they found
no trace of the little Indians, but
they threw up all work
for the day and scoured the farm for
the big Indians.
And the matter did not stop there, for
the next day
many men from the village roamed the
woods and one
man reported to Father at night that he
was sure he had
found the remains of an Indian
camp--there were
traces of a recently abandoned and
smouldering camp-
fire. The secret was kept even by the
little children (of
course we had told Father and Mother)
and the tale
of the mysterious little Indians became
a tradition in
the country-side.
Why did we not tell of our trick? We
children
feared the injured feelings of the
maids and the wrath
of the men. Besides, Father said he
doubted if any one
would believe us and their belief in
the mysterious visit
of the Little Indians did no one any
harm.
XIII
I was nearly eighteen years old,
lacking only four
months of my birthday, when in October,
1862, I was
told that the medical men had ordered
Father to leave
his work and go abroad. His health,
never very robust,
had given way and rest he must have. It
was what is
now called a "nervous
breakdown." This meant a very
serious crisis in our family life.
Mother could not go
with him--she must remain with the
children. Charley
was ruled out, as not the best
traveling companion for a
314
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
sick man, and so the matter was finally
settled by my
being chosen to go. Of course I went
most joyfully.
Our destination was Switzerland. We
sailed from
New York for LeHavre via Southampton.
You can
imagine how wonderful it all was to my
mid-western
eyes. I had never been away from
Southern Ohio,
and now I had sea and mountains and
foreign shores all
at once. We went through fields of ice
in the North
Atlantic and had a rough passage in the
English Chan-
nel; then a glimpse of Paris, and at
last came to Switz-
erland, where we settled down at Vevey,
in a little pen-
sion kept by excellent M. et Madame
Combe. Here I
spent a quiet, happy winter, studying
French, (all I
ever knew of that language I learned
then), tramping
over the mountains and making
excursions on lovely
Lake Leman.
I could tell you about the state of
European travel
and the primitive steamers and boats
and inns, but that
has all been described by others. So I
will write only of
the thing that made the deepest
impression in my mind,
and that was the unfriendly attitude of
the English peo-
ple whom we met. I had wanted very much
to visit Eng-
land, but when we did not stop there
and I asked Father
the reason, he replied, "Wait and
see. Before you have
returned home, I think you will have
discovered the
reason!"
You remember that this trip was made
when we were
in the midst of the Civil War, and no
loyal citizen lightly
left the United States while we were in
the throes of
such anguish. Father's brother William
was caught
by the War in Virginia, and the whole
terrible situation
had preyed on my father's high-strung
mind. I have
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 315
lived through three of our wars, the
Civil War, the
Spanish War and the Great War, and I
can say without
fear of contradiction that none of
these wars touched
us as did the Civil War. Brothers,
cousins, dearest
friends would be suddenly called to
face slaughtering
each other, and such deep animosities
were aroused as
must always be, when the war is between
those who
formerly loved each other.
Nothing at home, however, had prepared
me for the
animosity of the well-to-do British
towards the North-
ern cause. We encountered it constantly
among the
tourists and learned to give them a
wide berth that
winter on the Continent. They frankly
admitted that
they believed it would be to their
advantage if two
American republics rather than one, existed
in North
America. I, who was ardently Northern
and had al-
ways admired "the freedom-loving
English people," was
appalled to find they did not support
the righteousness
of our position, and that they actually
showed hatred
to Americans who came from the North.
One incident made an unfading
impression on my
mind. At Hotel Monnet in Vevey, we met
a fine looking
Englishman with his three young
daughters, and I was
happy to find companions of my own age.
I was invited
to go to their rooms to see their
collections of gems,
cameos and intaglios, ancient and
modern. I was greatly
interested and was enjoying myself
until the courtly
gentleman began asking me questions
about life in Amer-
ica and about the state in which I
lived. "I was greatly
surprised," he remarked suavely,
"to meet such a gen-
tleman as your father appears to be,
coming from the
North. Of course we English know the
only real gen-
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Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
tlemen come from the South. The men
from the North
we know to be mudsills."
Oh, horror, what a passion that threw
me into! You
must know I had just come from home and
had lately
been singing, "John Brown's Body
Lies A-Mouldering
in the Ground," and "The
Union Forever" and "Hang
Jeff Davis to a Sour Apple-Tree."
To hear sympathy
expressed for the South in such a
tactless manner was
anathema.
I gave him one look, then flew out of
the room--I
hope I banged the door--ran down to
Father's room
and gave way to my emotion. I felt my
country had
been outraged by English people, whom I
had always
thought of as our friends. My father
said, "If you
cannot control yourself better, keep
away from the Eng-
lish, and in this visit to these
people, you have the an-
swer to your question, as to why we did
not travel
through England."
XIV
Little Eleanor will surely think her
grandmother a
Mrs. Methuselah when she learns that I
really saw and
talked with the great Abraham Lincoln.
It was in this
wise. Mr. Lincoln, our President-elect,
was on his jour-
ney from his home in Springfield,
Illinois, to Washing-
ton, to be inaugurated. The time was
thrilling, we
knew not whether we were to have war or
peace, or if
we were to be a country torn apart,
half slave, half free.
Our nerves were all quivering and every
face wore a
look of anxiety.
Mr. Lincoln's tour brought him through
Cincinnati,
and the day and hour was set for a
large public recep-
tion. It was to be held in the
drawing-room of the fash-
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 317
ionable Burnet House. My mother could
not induce
my father to go with her--he abhorred
public "func-
tions." So Mother asked me to go
with her. I was
fifteen years old, too young to go to
such places, my
father thought. But my mother was firm and far-
seeing, and she said I should go. How
much her de-
cision has meant to me in the years
that followed!
We started for the reception, joining a
large num-
ber of our friends in the line, and
before long we came
up before the tall, gaunt, sad-eyed Mr.
Lincoln. An
usher urged the crowd on, and when
Mother held Mr.
Lincoln's hand, she was told to pass
on. But she hesi-
tated and looking straight into Abraham
Lincoln's eyes,
she said, "Mr. President, we look
to you to save our
country." "Madam," he
replied, "with God's help we
will." And on we passed. I was
deeply thrilled, and I
must add, embarrassed by my mother's
action, for chil-
dren do not relish any action on the
part of their par-
ents which attracts attention. Foolish
children!
Once again I saw Abraham Lincoln. I saw
the body
but the spirit had fled. This was when,
after his as-
sassination, his body was brought home
to Springfield,
and the funeral train was stopped in
Cincinnati, so the
people could once more look on his
wonderful old face.
The coffin was placed in state in one
of our public halls.
I, now years older, went alone to look
on him. How
shall I tell you of it? There he lay
serene, all traces of
pain and sadness gone, only a look of
unutterable peace
on his face.
Strangely enough, dust, light gray dust
had sifted
in through what seemed an air-tight
coffin, and rested
on his face, his hair and his clothes.
This light film of
318
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
dust, so unexpected, so out of place,
gave me an unfor-
getable sensation. It seemed a thin
veil spread over
all, and to me fulfilled those
prophetic mysterious words,
"Now he belongs to the ages."
XV
Now, my dear daughter, I come to the
great sorrow
that clouded my young life--the death
of my mother
Elizabeth Drake. She had been married
when twenty-
one years old, and she had borne my
father nine chil-
dren, besides several that never
reached maturity. All
unwillingly she bore them, for she was
not absorbingly
fond of children; rather she longed for
study, for church
work and social life. The strain on her
health was
never-ending. She scarcely knew what it
was in all the
years of married life to be free and
active. But once
the children were there, she devoted
herself to them,
training, teaching and loving them
whole-heartedly.
Such a woman is described as
"Blessed" by her chil-
dren. And our mother was fairly
worshipped by us.
The summer after my father and I came
home from
Europe, my mother fell unconscious in
the garden. Fa-
ther picked her up and carried her
upstairs. She re-
gained consciousness, but never left
her bed again. She
lingered on for months, and then she left
us. During
her long illness, I was her nurse, and
had the care of
the house and children. Mother used to
say our roles
were reversed--I had become the mother
and she the
child.
If prayers could have saved her, she
would have
lived. It was a part of our religious
teaching that
prayers were answered. So everyone of
us seven chil-
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 319
dren prayed with all our souls for
mother's recovery.
She died, and I have never since prayed
for material
things--only for grace and strength to
bear what comes.
I learned that there are immutable laws
which must be
fulfilled, and cannot be altered by our
petty petitions.
I believe God shares our sorrows and
helps us with His
love.
We were all gathered round mother's bed
when she
died. Little Helen was only six and
Baby William four.
I held a mirror to mother's lips, and
when I saw there
was no breath upon it, I turned to the
poor children and
said, "Her spirit has flown."
You know, my daughter, to this day, old
as I am,
I cannot bear to talk of my mother's
illness and death,
so poignant, so pitiable, so
irreparably sad it was, and is
to me. We needed her so, and all our
lives we have
missed her, each and every one of her
loving, difficult
brood.
Her portrait continued to hang in my
father's parlor
after he remarried, and we children had
married, or left
home. We used to find excuses, when we
came back, to
sit alone in that room and drink in the
beauty of her gen-
tle, benign face.
In her last hours, mother had said to
me, "When I
am gone, I want you to think of me as
one who has done
what she could." I had that put on
her gravestone in
beautiful Spring Grove, "SHE HATH
DONE WHAT
SHE COULD."
The box-trees have grown so high over
her grave
that the birds nest there in the
spring. And the wild
flowers bloom all over the grass. But I
never think of
320
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
mother as there. She is always near me
in spirit and
will be until the last.
XVI
When my mother died, we all wore
mourning, down
to the youngest child. Oh, how I
suffered from this
advertisement of our grief! To the
depths of my soul
I resented it. Why, every time that we
walked abroad,
should the butcher, the baker, the
candle-stick maker,
know of our loss, a loss that was
terribly and sacredly
our concern and no one else's? And to see
my little
sisters so changed by their black
clothes intensified the
bitterness of my sorrow.
From that time I conceived a deep
prejudice against
mourning. I resolved never again to put
on the trap-
pings of woe for anyone. And I never
have. To a
large extent the world has come to
agree with me. Chil-
dren are rarely put into mourning
nowadays, and many
doctors and psychologists protest
against its harmful ef-
fects upon health and spirits. One
thing I have never
understood is why professing Christians
should be more
prone to put on mourning than those
whose faith is less
sure. If we believe our dead are safe
and happy, we
ought not to go about shedding gloom
and selfishly pa-
rading our loss.
I had already mothered the younger
children so long,
that after mother's death, they came
naturally to me, or
to Mary Anne, for everything. They were
lively, mis-
chievous young ones, but loving and
loyal, and never
gave me any serious trouble. No doubt I
made many
mistakes, but I think I understood
them, and I never
failed them in love. The proof is that
they have re-
mained tender and devoted to
"Sister" ever since.
322 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications
My life was not all care. My cousin
Nelly Campbell
was my chum, and we had many simple
good times to-
gether, no doubt you children would
think them too
simple. My parents disapproved of
dancing, cards and
the theatre, and were not greatly
interested in music.
I had a clear, powerful voice, which
people who knew,
told my father ought to be trained for
singing, but to my
regret it never was. We girls were
allowed to have men
callers and to walk and talk without a
chaperone. It
was a common custom, and considered a
compliment, for
a young man to invite a young lady to
accompany him
to church. This might, or might not,
lead to something
serious.
A rather forward girl of our
acquaintance, Sally X,
was much smitten with a handsome
officer who was vis-
iting in Cincinnati. When he called to
take her to
church, she asked him to come into the
back parlor for
a word with her alone. There she
demanded solemnly,
"Just what, Captain B., are
your intentions towards
me?" The young man was completely
taken back.
"Good God, Miss Sally," he
cried in an agitated tone,
"nothing in the world but to take
you to church!" And
he bowed himself hastily out of the
room, and left town
the very next day.
As a child I had been a beauty, as you
can see from
the portrait Buchanan Read made of me
at the age of
four. But as a grown girl I was not
beautiful. I was
tall and thin--too tall to be
fashionable--but my waist
was according to the fashion. When I
was married at
twenty-two, your father could clasp his
two hands
about me. You may find it hard to
believe that now.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 323
If so, you may get the basque of my
wedding-dress out
of the attic and measure it.
I was too frank and independent to be a
favorite in
general society. You know to speak
one's mind on all
subjects at all times is not an
accepted rule of social life.
But I was full of fun, and those who
did like me re-
mained my friends through thick and
thin. Cousin
Nelly was much fonder of formal society
than I ever
was, and was better suited to it. She
cared a great deal
about who her friends were,
preferred them to have
standing in the world. I, like all the
McGuffeys, cared
only for what my friends meant to
me. In later life
after we had both married, Cousin Nelly
and I drifted
apart, as these differences in taste
and point of view
became intensified.
Some of the best times we had were on
visits to the
family of my Uncle Charles Drake in St.
Louis. The
life there was freer and gayer than at
home, and "Uncle
Drake" was generous and
hospitable. He was my
mother's brother, the only son of
Daniel Drake, and a
most picturesque character. His father
had had a time
of it, bringing him up. He ran away
from boarding-
school; later entered the navy; finally
became a distin-
guished judge in St. Louis, and later
was Chief Justice
of the Court of Claims in Washington.
Uncle Drake
had a good bit of the original dragon
in him, and I was
secretly terrified of him, though I
loved and admired
him, too.
He could say the most scathing things,
always pre-
ceding a particularly cutting remark by
a preparatory
clearing of the throat. When we young
people, sitting
at his long, stately table, would hear
that warning,
324 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
"hu-u-um," our hearts would
sink into our boots, and
I remember trembling like a leaf when
his sarcasm fell
on me.4
On one of our visits to St. Louis, a
certain young
gentleman was attentive to both Cousin
Nelly and me.
We often discussed, but could never
decide, which one
of us it was he really came to see.
When we were leav-
ing for home, he came to the station
"to see us off," and
gave to each of us a small white box,
which he asked us
not to open till later. When he had
made his adieux and
the train had started, we opened our
boxes, and fancy!
In Cousin Nelly's was a fig, and in
mine a nugget of
pure gold! We were much amused. Cousin
Nelly said
she didn't care (but I think she did).
I was quite flat-
tered, but I never saw the gentleman
again, and can't
even remember his name!
XVII
One day my father called his children
together and
told us he was going to be married. He
said he knew
4 Charles Drake at the time of his death
left his autobiography, but
incomplete. The MS, written in a fine
clear hand on foolscap, was given
by his grandson, Horace Westcott, to the
St. Louis Historical Society and
is in their Museum.
Charles was sent at the age of ten to
Bishop Chase's boarding-school
for boys in Kentucky. He later described this place as a regular
"Dotheboys Hall." He was unjustly accused of the theft of a
comb, and
whipped for lying, when he denied it.
The little boy started to run away
home to Cincinnati, but was overtaken on
the road and taken back. Later
the comb was found to have slipped down
between the window and the
sill in a dressing-room.
Later his parents put Charles into the
Navy. There is a portrait of
him, by Thomas Buchanan Read, in his
midshipman's uniform, a handsome,
fair lad.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 325
it would come as a shock to us, since
our Grandfather
Drake's example had always been held up
to us and a
tradition had grown up in the family
against second
marriage. He was aware that in taking
this step, he
should stand uncrowned in the
eyes of his children.
Nevertheless he was going to do it. And
he believed
it would be an excellent thing for us
to have this New
England lady he had chosen, come among
us.
My father and his second wife had six
children. All
told, my father had fifteen children,
but only eleven
lived to grow up. As Uncle William
McGuffey had lost
his only son, my father's sons are the
only ones of the
name who represent the
"Reader" branch of the McGuf-
fey family.
The year after my father's remarriage,
I became
engaged to a young lawyer, who had come
to Cincinnati
from Vermont. This was your father,
Henry Albert
Morrill, the only lover I ever had, or
wanted to have.
My brothers brought him to the house,
and we all liked
him from the first.
The maternal instinct is strong in me,
but all the
mothering I ever gave your father for
over half a cen-
tury, could never make up for what he
had missed. My
heart aches when I think of his lonely,
neglected child-
hood. His mother died when he was four.
His first
recollection was of being lifted up to
the window of the
farm-house to see her funeral
procession. His father
was unlucky in business and little
"Hen" was left with
his grandmother to be brought up. She
was a good
grandmother, but already had her hands
more than full
with the demands of a large farm.
Henry had brothers, too, David and
Hiram and
326
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
Jerry, and a little crippled sister, I
think her name was
Sarah. She was ten when the mother
died, and she
was sent with Henry to the grandmother,
the other
brothers being distributed among other
relatives.
Your father could never bear to talk
about his sis-
ter, even to me; her sufferings had
been so great, and
he felt she might have been helped and
perhaps saved.
Henry and she clung to each other, and
were confidants
in their loneliness, but she died and
left him when she
was eighteen and he twelve.
Your father worked on the farm, but the
impression
left on his childish mind by that life
was less pleasant
than that of Grandfather Drake, in
Kentucky, at an
earlier and far rougher period. No
doubt the severe
climate made a difference, and being an
orphan. He
only saw his father three times after
his mother's death.
Henry cherished a love for Nature from
those early
days, but otherwise, he had no liking
for the farmer's
life, and planned to get away from it
as soon as ever
he could. By alternating work on the
farm with teach-
ing in the district school he put
himself through Thed-
ford Academy and Dartmouth College.
He was in business in St. Louis for a
while, but did
not like it, and finally settled in
Cincinnati and studied
law. My father and brothers and sisters
were devoted
to Henry. He was like New England
granite, so sted-
fast and solid and dependable among all
us tempera-
mental McGuffeys. Two years after our
marriage, my
father took him into partnership.
My father gave me a handsome wedding
outfit.
"Everything of the best," was
his motto. You children
have seen my wedding-dress, the heavy
corded silk is
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 327
still firm and sound after all these
years, though ivory
colored with age. The little silk boots
to match were
laced up on the inside of the ankle
(were my feet ever
so small as that?) and I wore a wreath
of tiny glass
orange-blossoms over my veil, and more
orange-blos-
soms cascading down the front of my
gown. Then I
had many other lovely silk dresses. One
I especially
remember was in two shades of violet.
And furs and
quantities of fine linen
under-garments. You have seen
some of the heavy, hand-embroidered
chemises, made in
a French convent. They, too, are yellow
with the years,
but show no sign of wear. My father
gave all his
daughters such an outfit, and beautiful
heavy table sil-
ver, a complete flat service. Those
were substantial
days, nothing flimsy.
We were married in beloved Christ
Church, which
I was leaving to join the Presbyterian
Church with my
husband. I could adapt myself to his
church, though I
never loved it, but he could never get
used to the Episco-
pal service. My brothers and sisters
enjoyed the wed-
ding immensely. They had clubbed
together to buy me
a present with their little savings--a
butter knife with a
mother-of-pearl handle. I still
treasure the presentation
note, in Edward's prim handwriting. He
became a
clergyman when he grew up. Then he was
just naughty
Ned.
Your father's gift was the Roman mosaic
brooch,
and in it he wrote, "With a
lover's love." He had
brought me when he came out to Oakwood,
during the
first months of our engagement, a copy
of Miss Mulock's
Poems. It lies beside me, now, a little
brown Ticknor
and Fields' edition. On the fly-leaf at the front is
328
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
inscribed in your father's firm, large
scrawl (like hiero-
glyphics),
ANNA McGUFFEY
OAKWOOD, 1867
and on the fly-leaf at the back, in my
handwriting,
AUGUST 12th, 1867
MOONLIGHT RIDE
Does anybody read Miss Mulock's poetry
now? Sen-
timental, you children would call it.
To us, it seemed
sincere and beautiful, though I can see
now it lacked
the quality to make it live.
Your father marked these verses:
"Come home! The old tales were not
false,
Yet the new faith is true;
Those saintly souls who made men knights
Were women such as you.
For the great love that teaches love
Deceived not, ne'er deceives;
And she who most believes in man
Makes him what she believes."
and I marked these:
"I was so happy I could make him
blest!
So happy that I was his first and best,
As he mine--when he took me to his
breast."
XVIII
Looking back it seems to me that I only
began really
to live when I married. Of course it
gave me a pang
to leave my younger brothers and
sisters. (My elder
brother, Charley, had left home for
Kenyon College be-
fore that date.) But since my father's
marriage, I could
not do for the children what I had
before, and now I
was going to have my own home, where they
could
come for refuge and love. And they
always did.
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 329
The first winter of our married life
your father and
I boarded in town. It was a carefree,
but rather lonely
time for me. Now I was alone many hours
of the day,
so I was beside myself with joy when I
found there was
a baby coming, and that your father was
going to buy
us a little house in the suburbs.
It was just a little wooden Gothic
cottage, a story
and a half, but so cheerful, and
beautifully situated on
a green hill overlooking the city.
There was plenty of
sky, and enough land for a garden, and
I loved it. (We
had always lived downtown. Later my
father moved to
Southern Avenue, Mt. Auburn, where he
remained till
his death. His wife persuaded him to
sell "Oakwood,"
and spend the summers in her native New
England. He
bought a native's house in the old town
of Nantucket,
and moved it high up on the ocean
bluff, where it stands,
with additions, today.)
We lived ten years in our little
cottage, and then
remodelled it to the large, comfortable
house that you
grew up in. The first years of married
life are the
golden ones, no question of that. My
first baby! There
is never any joy in life like the birth
of one's first child.
The later babies are nice--but there is
only one first.
I hope you children won't be hurt when
I say that I
never wanted any of you after the
first. There never
seemed to be the right time, when my
health and the
state of our finances made it quite
convenient. But once
you were in the world, I couldn't have
done without any
one of you.
My first-born was a girl. Of course I
named her
for my mother, Elizabeth Drake, just as
my sister Helen
330
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
did eleven years later, when her first
child was a daugh-
ter. In my little Mulock book, I marked
this passage:
"Mine! God, I thank Thee that Thou
has given
Something all mine on this side
heaven
Something as much myself to be
As this my soul which I lift to
Thee."
and I used to kneel beside my precious
baby and wor-
ship her by the hour.
My second child, another girl, came
thirteen months
after the first, too soon, I wasn't
rested nor ready. But
they did make a most charming pair and
were as in-
separable as twins. I named my second
little girl for my
cousin and chum, Ellen Campbell, but we
always called
the pair Bessy and Nelly. They were
quite famous
among our relatives and friends for
their looks and
precocity. I devoted my life to them
with a passionate
intensity.
Bessy had dark hair and regular
features and was
amiable, conscientious and docile. Her
sashes and rib-
bons were always red or pink. Nelly had
golden hair
and vivid cheeks, and was impulsive,
warm-hearted and
demonstrative. (Blue was her color.) Nelly adored
animals, loved her dollies to bits,
tore her frocks climb-
ing the picket fence, and threw herself
on the floor in
tantrums, if she could not have her
way.
On hot summer afternoons, I would bathe
and dress
the two and send them outdoors to wait
for me. When
I came out, Bessy would be sitting with
a book or her
sewing, while Nelly was chasing the
dog, or climbing
the porch railing, and would be
plastered with our
wretched Cincinnati coal-soot. I would
have to take
her in again and completely redress
her, before we could
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 331
start on our walk or drive. But she was
so cheerful and
loving, one couldn't be cross.
We had a large, "ornery" dog
named Beppo, who
added to my care. When I said,
"Oh, Beppo is so
troublesome, I think we'll have to get
rid of him,"
Nelly's heart was broken. She threw her
arms about
him, exclaiming passionately, "My
pet, my darling, my
sweet doggie . . . Nennie loves
you." Of course Beppo
had to stay.
When Bessy was ill, she was so saintly,
I used to
fear she would not live long. (How
foolish are our
fears! She has lived to be a
grandmother.) Bessy, at
that age, best suited her father's
tired mood when he
came home at night. He admired Nelly,
but her tem-
pestuous ways were too much for him.
For me, I adored
them both, but I understood Nelly's
nature, for I had
been a stormy child myself.
I think I must have forced the children
in some ways,
though I did not realize it then. Bessy
at three could
read nicely in her primer, count up to
twelve, and say
the days of the week and the Lord's
Prayer. And Nelly,
a year younger, could do almost as
well. Bessy was a
wonderful little needlewoman. When she
was four
years old, she made for her father's
Christmas present
a "green bag" to hold his law
papers. I had cut it out
for her, and for three months she had
sewed and sewed
on the long seams with amazing
patience.
My father was devoted to his first two
grandchildren
and they were very fond, if a little in
awe, of him. When
they were older, they went every Friday
evening to read
aloud with him, "Paradise
Lost" and other classics.
When Bessy was six and Nelly five,
their baby
332
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
brother arrived. We had been a cosy
family, we four.
I remember one Sunday as we sat at
dinner, we were
just near enough to clasp hands in a
circle round the
pleasant table, and your father,
looking in the shining,
rosy faces of our daughters, said he
did not think any
man in the State of Ohio had handsomer
or better chil-
dren than he. This from such a reserved
New Eng-
lander, was a great ebullition. But
proud as he was,
he longed for a son, and the day of
Albert's birth was
the happiest one of his life. He went
about town telling
everyone the news in a state of
ecstasy.
When I married, I had for my first
servant good
Ann Hagerty. The children called her
"Wah." She
had been one of the maids in my
father's house, and she
stayed with me till she married. For
Albert, I now had
a splendid young nurse, Caroline Bauer,
a placid, flaxen-
haired German. "Ca'line" was
admirable for my stren-
uous boy, patience personified. She has
remained our
lifelong friend, and still writes
quaint, affectionate let-
ters to me and to her boy.
After Albert was born, my cares
multiplied, so that
I never again could give myself up to
the pure enjoy-
ment of my children and domestic life.
Four years
after my boy, came another little girl,
(you, my daugh-
ter), and never was any baby less
trouble. Your Great-
uncle Charles Drake, when he visited
us, wanted to stick
a pin in you to see if you could cry.
Six years later, (to my mortification,
for I was
forty, and had thought my family long
complete) came
my last child, our little
"Benjamin," we called her,
though her real name was Genevieve. I
had let her
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 333
older sisters name her, and Bessy chose
the romantic
name of her best friend.
When I knew this last baby was coming,
I was so
depressed, it seemed to me I could not
bear it. I went
to my neighbour's (dear Sarah Gray's)
and sat alone in
her vine-covered arbor, struggling for
courage.
You know the confinement alone was a
terrible or-
deal in those days, no chloroform
given, as a rule. It
was always a crushing thought to me
that, once the
baby was on the way, there was no
escape, but through
that dreadful suffering. But how
short-sighted we are!
My last baby came so easily that we did
not even send
for the doctor--good old Nurse Fisher
officiated. And
from the day of her birth till now, my
little "Benjamin"
has been the joy of us all.
Your father and I found the greatest
happiness of
our lives in our children, so perhaps
that is why you
daughters have never converted me to
the Birth Control
Movement (as you did to Woman
Suffrage). I can feel
the force of your arguments, but it
seems to me there
is much to be said for the opposite
point of view.
My five children ranged in age from one
to sixteen,
so, though well spaced, they kept me
busy with their
varied interests. Bessy and Nelly were
being educated,
and well educated. I was determined my
daughters
should not have the flimsy foundation I
had had. Al-
bert, as the only boy, needed special
attention, and you
two younger ones had a right to my
care, though I was
never able to give you the time I had
devoted to your
sisters.
My hands and head were full. You know
all the
children's clothes were still
home-made. I could not
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A Daughter of the McGuffeys 335
afford a resident seamstress, as my
mother had, but my
husband gave me a Wilcox and Gibbs
sewing-machine,
which caused as much excitement in the
family as a
new motor-car would today.
Then the illnesses. Although you were
all very
healthy, (I never lost a child, or had
one dangerously
ill, a good record for those days), you
all of you had
the usual infectious diseases, and also
typhoid fever,
which it is considered rather a
disgrace to have nowa-
days. When I think of the state of the
milk and water
supply, I wonder any of us survived.
But I was always
a crank for fresh air and simple living
for children, and
must have given you a good resistance.
I nursed you, single-handed, through
all these dis-
eases, and never caught any of them
myself. I suppose
I must have developed an immunity in my
own child-
hood. Your father had typhoid along
with his children,
and was a most difficult patient. He
worried over his
neglected business, and insisted on
getting up too soon.
We all thought he would have a relapse
and die. What
anguish I suffered! I had hid his
clothes, but it was no
use, he would have them. He dressed and
went down-
town to his office and no harm came of
it after all.
As I look back on this middle period in
my life, it
seems to have been a breathless
struggle to keep you all
well and happy, and to save for a rainy
day. Neither
your father nor I ever inherited a
penny, so we had to
provide for ourselves by our own
industry and self-
denial. We tried to save a thousand
dollars a year, and
some years we saved more.
We spent very little on luxuries or
pleasures, but
those we had, we enjoyed keenly. Your
father bought
336
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
me a pony and phaeton. Such a pretty,
sorrel pony,
with cream-colored mane and tail, we
called her "Pussy."
We bought Nelly a side-saddle and
riding-habit and let
her ride. Nelly's idea of bliss was
horse-back riding,
and she chose the habit, in place of a
party dress, which
Bessy preferred.
Some summers we had delightful outings
on the
Great Lakes and in the Virginia
mountains, and once
your father took us all for a season to
the seashore.
One must have been born and bred inland
to appreciate
the thrill of the ocean as I do. The
sight and sound of
the surf are an endless joy.
When our youngest was two years old
your father
left us in the mountains for two
months, while he took
his first and only trip to Europe. He
enjoyed it hugely,
though he nearly died of cramp, alone
in a Swiss hotel,
and was badly scalded by boiling water
in the bath on
shipboard, the mistake of a careless
steward.
Your father did not care very much for
the theatre,
and we rarely went. I had seen Edwin
Booth with my
father. Such marvellous acting, so natural that it
ceased to be acting. In the scene
between Hamlet and
the queen, it struck me as strange that
the son should
look so much older than his mother.
Booth was old and
care-worn, but I had completely
forgotten that it was
Booth.
Every other year in Cincinnati, the May
Festival was
a great social as well as musical
event, and we went to
some of the concerts; and to
"Pinafore" and "The Mi-
kado," when those charming
operettas first came out.
Everybody was quoting and singing and
humming
A Daughter of the McGuffeys 337
snatches of Gilbert and Sullivan; never
have I known
such a craze.
Just when we were getting in sight of
Easy Street,
our older daughters grown and one of
them married,
your father's failing eye-sight brought
new and haras-
sing problems into our lives. I threw
myself with all
my energies into helping my husband,
and with the help
of our devoted daughter Nelly, we
conquered what had
at first seemed an unconquerable situation.
I read and worked with your father for
hours each
day, and he was able to turn from the
active practise
of law to teaching, and to provide for
us and be of use
to his profession and the community.
The success he
made of his life was not what he had
planned. But to
my mind, it was far greater, a victory
through sheer grit
and character. I am so glad I helped
him to it.
I often think of Phillips Brooks's
words, "Oh, do not
pray for easy lives." In easy
lives, married people may
drift apart, in the pursuit of pleasure
and what they call
freedom. I know, my dear daughter, you
children do
not consider me a fossil or a
reactionary. I realize that
the ideas of marriage and the home are
changing and
must change. I think in my heart I have
always been
a feminist. Women are now in the throes
of a transi-
tion. By the time my little
granddaughters, Anne and
Eleanor, are grandmothers, conditions
will have reached
a more just and settled stage for
women. Those who
have been in the past too often
"beloved slaves," will
have found their true position, and a
way to reconcile
their longings for both a career, and a
home and mate
and children. For me my duty lay ever
close at hand,
Vol. XLII--22
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A Daughter of the McGuffeys 339
there was no choice but to share my
husband's life, and
for over fifty years we worked as one.
After he retired from work, and we
moved East to
be near you daughters, how your father
did enjoy his
leisure and the years of peace and
plenty. When his
life was over and I found myself in
Christ Church for
the memorial services, lonely, but
calm, and rejoicing in
the memory of his heroic life, I
recalled the time I had
stood beside him for our marriage service.
I asked my-
self, had I then foreseen the cares and
sorrows my mar-
ried life would bring, would I have
undertaken them?
And my whole heart answered, "Yes,
Yes!" I would
freely have chosen to go through it
all.
"Fullness of bread is naught,
Fullness of love is veritable wealth,
Here and above."
Now that I am alone, I sit and
meditate, and wish
that I could express some of the ideas
that press so
keenly on my mind. My fingers are busy
many hours
each day with the fine sewing I love to
do for you chil-
dren and the grandchildren and my young
friends.
(How grateful I am for two good gifts
of God, skillful
fingers and keen eyes, the two I needed
most in my life.)
But my heart is full of many things.
Next to the freedom of women, the
matter that
touches me most is the inequality of
wealth and oppor-
tunity. Oh, how I throb when I read of
the extrava-
gances of the rich, their diamonds and
motors and
houses, and hear them prate of the
wastefulness of the
poor. I do not want to see waste
anywhere, but if the
wealthy fling about their money, who,
pray, can blame
the poor, if they indulge in the
pleasures of a free hand?
340 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications Not I. But I long to see a more even distribution and a juster social order, a home and health and work for all, in which each may have a fair chance of success and happiness. Now good-night. When I am gone, you must re- member, as your life advances and develops, that my interest will follow you, and that all the good you do will add to my joy in the other life. My idea of heaven is a life where we can keep on progressing and improv- ing with no let or hindrance. With great love, Mother. |
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A DAUGHTER OF THE McGUFFEYS FRAGMENTS FROM THE EARLY LIFE OF ANNA MC GUFFEY MORRILL (1845-1924) EDITED BY HER DAUGHTER ALICE MORRILL RUGGLES |
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Copyrighted, 1933 By ALICE MORRILL RUGGLES All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this monograph or portions thereof in any form. |