Part 23

"There you are mistaken," said one of his comrades, quietly; then added, "there certainly was one thing that far surpassed this in the way of drinking, as you, too, will readily acknowledge."

"Indeed; and, pray, what was that?" Woodworth asked, with apparent incredulity that anything could surpass the liquor then before him.

"The draught of pure and sparkling spring water that we used to get from the old oaken bucket that hung in the well, after our return from the labours of the field on a sultry summer's day."

No one spoke; all were busy with their own thoughts.

Woodworth's eyes became dimmed. "True, true," he exclaimed; and soon after quitted the place. With his heart overflowing with the recollections that this chance allusion in a barroom had inspired, the scene of his happier childhood life rushed upon him in a flood of feeling. He hastened back to the office in which he then worked, seized a pen, and in half an hour had written his popular ballad:

"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view! The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew,-- The wide-spreading pond and the mill which stood by it, The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell; The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well,-- The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.

"The moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure; For often at noon when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing! And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness it rose from the well,-- The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well.

"How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, As, poised from the curb, it inclined to my lips! Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from the loved situation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well,-- The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well."

Woodworth's reputation rests upon this one stroke of genius. He died in 1842 at the age of fifty-seven. But after almost fifty years his memory is still green, and we still delight to pay tender homage to the spot which inspired one of the most beautiful songs America has yet produced.

WHITTIER'S LOST LOVE

In the life of the Quaker poet there is an unwritten chapter of personal history full to the brim of romance. It will be remembered that Whittier in his will left ten thousand dollars for an Amesbury Home for Aged Women. One room in this home Mrs. Elizabeth W. Pickard (the niece to whom the poet bequeathed his Amesbury homestead, and who passed away in the early spring of this year , in an illness contracted while decorating her beloved uncle's grave on the anniversary of his birth), caused to be furnished with a massive black walnut set formerly used in the "spare-room" of her uncle's house--the room where Lucy Larcom, Gail Hamilton, the Cary sisters, and George Macdonald were in former times entertained. A stipulation of this gift was that the particular room in the Home thus to be furnished was to be known as the Whittier room.

In connection with this Home and this room comes the story of romantic interest. Two years after the death of Mr. Whittier an old lady made application for admission to the Home on the ground that in her youth she was a schoolmate and friend of the poet. And although she was not entitled to admission by being a resident of the town, she would no doubt have been received if she had not died soon after making the application.

This aged woman was Mrs. Evelina Bray Downey, concerning whose schoolgirl friendship for Whittier many inaccurate newspaper articles were current at the time of her death, in the spring of 1895. The story as here told is, however, authentic.

Evelina Bray was born at Marblehead, October 10, 1810. She was the youngest of ten children of a ship master, who made many voyages to the East Indies and to European ports. In a letter written in 1884, Mrs Downey said of herself: "My father, an East India sea captain, made frequent and long voyages. For safekeeping and improvement he sent me to Haverhill, bearing a letter of introduction from Captain William Story to the family of Judge Bartley. They passed me over to Mr. Jonathan K. Smith, and Mrs. Smith gave me as a roommate her only daughter, Mary. This was the opening season of the New Haverhill Academy, a sort of rival to the Bradford Academy. Subsequently I graduated from the Ipswich Female Seminary, in the old Mary Lyon days."

Mary Smith, Miss Bray's roommate at Haverhill, and her lifelong friend--though for fifty years they were lost to each other--was afterward the wife of Reverend Doctor S. F. Smith, the author of "America."

Evelina is described as a tall and strikingly beautiful brunette, with remarkable richness of colouring, and she took high rank in scholarship. The house on Water Street at which she boarded was directly opposite that of Abijah W. Thayer, editor of the Haverhill Gazette, with whom Whittier boarded while at the academy. Whittier was then nineteen years old, and Evelina was seventeen. Naturally, they walked to and from the school together, and their interest in each other was noticeable.

If the Quaker lad harboured thoughts of marriage, and even gave expression to them, it would not be strange. But the traditions of Whittier's sect included disapproval of music, and Evelina's father had given her a piano, and she was fascinated with the study of the art proscribed by the Quakers. Then, too, Whittier was poor, and his gift of versification, which had already given him quite a reputation, was not considered in those days of much consequence as a means of livelihood. If they did not at first realise, both of them, the hopelessness of their love, they found it out after Miss Bray's return to her home.

About this time Mr. Whittier accompanied his mother to a quarterly meeting of the Society of Friends at Salem, and one morning before breakfast took a walk of a few miles to the quaint old town of Marblehead, where he paid a visit to the home of his schoolmate. She could not invite him in, but instead suggested a stroll along the picturesque, rocky shore of the bay.

This was in the spring or early summer of 1828, and the poet was twenty years old, a farmer's boy, with high ambitions, but with no outlook as yet toward any profession. It may be imagined that the young couple, after a discussion of the situation, saw the hopelessness of securing the needed consent of their parents, and returned from their morning's walk with saddened hearts. Whatever dreams they may have cherished were from that hour abandoned, and they parted with this understanding.

In the next fifty years they met but once again, four or five years after the morning walk, and this once was at Marblehead, along the shore. Miss Bray had in the meantime been teaching in a seminary in Mississippi, and Whittier had been editing papers in Boston and Hartford, and had published his first book, a copy of which he had sent her. There was no renewal at this time of their lover-like relations, and they parted in friendship.

I have said that they met but once in the half-century after that morning's walk; the truth is they were once again close together, but Whittier was not conscious of it. This was while he was editing the Pennsylvania Freeman, at Philadelphia. Miss Bray was then associated with a Miss Catherine Beecher, in an educational movement of considerable importance, and was visiting Philadelphia. Just at this time a noted Massachusetts divine, Reverend Doctor Todd, was announced to preach in the Presbyterian church, and both these Haverhill schoolmates were moved to hear him. By a singular chance they occupied the same pew, and sat close together, but Miss Bray was the only one who was conscious of this, and she was too shy to reveal herself. It must have been her bonnet hid her face, for otherwise Whittier's remarkably keen eyes could not have failed to recognise the dear friend of his school-days.

Their next meeting was at the reunion of the Haverhill Academy class of 1827, which was held in 1885, half a century after their second interview at Marblehead. It was said by some that it was this schoolboy love which Whittier commemorated in his poem, "Memories." But Mr. Pickard, the poet's biographer, affirms that, so far as known, the only direct reference made by Whittier to the affair under consideration occurred in the fine poem, "A Sea Dream," written in 1874.

In the poet, now an old man, the sight of Marblehead awakens the memory of that morning walk, and he writes:

"Is this the wind, the soft sea wind That stirred thy locks of brown? Are these the rocks whose mosses knew The trail of thy light gown, Where boy and girl sat down?

"I see the gray fort's broken wall, The boats that rock below; And, out at sea, the passing sails We saw so long ago, Rose-red in morning's glow.

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"Thou art not here, thou art not there, Thy place I cannot see; I only know that where thou art The blessed angels be, And heaven is glad for thee.

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