312DbbDllflflltDS3 SMITH'S BARN WORCESTER PROFILES OF PERTINENT PEOPLE R. M. WASHBUBN DATE DUE 1 UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LIBRARY F W9W35 Ul: TO "US FELLERS" MONARCHS AND MANIKINS ^ r. J'<. S-? i Wl I / M&'^ Chdlie. Scene near Smith's barn. One of ''tis fellers. See page 1 '(■'>. SMITH'S BARN "A Child's History" of The West Side Worcester 1880-1923 By R. M. WASHBURN Former 9mle Representative Former State Senator Founder of The Roosevelt Club Biographer of Calvin Coolidge Author of The Mirrors of Hamilton Printed by The Commonwealth Psrss Worcester Exclusive Distributors Davis & Banisteb, Ihc. Slater BIdg., Worcester 1923 Copyrighted, 1923, by Robert M. Washburn, Boston (All rights reserved) In Justification? Long away from home and its records, some are not here who belong. There may be inaccuracies. Some are mishandled. All this is unavoidable. Further, to eliminate personalities is to become anemic. An attempt is made to sail between Scylla and Chary bdis and in the middle of the current. When any one is played with, always gently, his virtues at the same time are emphasized by way of antidote, so that he is perhaps a net gainer. Some are fortunate to be recognized. It has been wisely said: — "I don't care what you say about me if you say something." Pre-eminence is given to the picturesque on the West Side. An attempt is made to stir all the emotions, from the innocent amusement of the portraits upon the cover and in the frontispiece through interesting facts to the pathos of the finale. These are wide contrasts, the tonic of life. Since going to press, the crime of removing Smith's barn has finally been fixed on one Ewell. It is almost unnecessary to add that he is a Yale man. Some one once asked a Yale grad- uate why, of two boys, the crude material was sent to Yale and the other to Harvard. He replied: — '*I have a harder question. Why, when they have graduated, does the crude at Yale become refined and the other at Harvard hopeless?" Ewell is said to be a doctor, whether of philosophy, science, medicine or a veterinarian, it has been impossible — down here — to deter- mine. His tracks have been well covered. Why the son-in-law of a church deacon removed this sacred structure will forever remain an enigma. For stables stand high in the scriptures. This does not pretend to be a history in its usual interpreta- tion. Some are deliberately passed by who would belong in a history of the United States. With one exception, the house of Washburn is eliminated, for unavoidable reasons, except in its early close entwinement with the house of Smith. Inciden- tally, thus is eliminated a suspicion of bias, and assured an at- mosphere of modesty unlike the G. A. R. veteran, who, reciting his service in the 60's at a family gathering, provoked this question from one of the children: — "Gramper, couldn't you get any one to help yer?" The portrait on the cover is of the author by ColHer and endorsed and used by the first Repubhcan paper in Massachusetts. Perhaps it is too easily identified. There is but one other illustration because there is nothing extant fit to qualify with it, except possibly a portrait of the child Thayer in his peculiar pants, beyond the reach of the connoisseur. There is no chapter 13, out of respect to the un- reasonably timid. This is "a child's history" so that they who run may read. Some who read may run. Again, this is unavoidable. Unhappi- ly in its praise it is almost a slobber-fest. In this way it is personally disappointing but a psychological experiment. Because of its sweetness it might have been published anony- mously without a suspicion of the author. Intimately, its saccharine safety has been developed under the influence of a partner from the South, where women talk softly and musically and use their noses for purposes other than for conversation. Those who love and expect to see the great raked will find few oases and a liability for libel strangely reduced to a minimum. They will expect to be refunded the purchase price. They will forget that it might have been greater. Some with the grit which brought Peary to the Pole may push on to the end. Then perhaps is it justified. A large part of chapter one was printed in The Gazette in May last. This provoked a magnanimous interest which has led to this little book. This would have been impossible, because of its limited market, without the efficient, generous and appreciated co-operation of The Commonwealth Press, for the printing, and Davis and Banister, Inc., for its exclusive distribution. "Made in Worcester" is the spirit of Smith's barn. Readers, if any, are earnestly urged to freely send to the address below any comments, even abusive marked of course confidential, which they may be willing to make, including a notation of possible inaccuracies, omissions or amendments, for another edition or a volume two is a possibility. 236 Bay State Road, R. M. W. Boston, April, 1923. CONTENTS Chapter 1. The Capitol 9 Chapter 2. Her Right Arm 15 Chapter 3. Montagues and Capulets. The Champs Elysee 20 Chapter 4. Mr. Washburn 30 Chapter 5. The Last of the Mohicans 43 Chapter 6. Others of the Anointed 52 Chapter 7. Primers, Primaries and Polish 69 Chapter 8. Blue and Red Ribbons 75 Chapter 9. Out Doors and In Doors. "Cold Blast" and Champagne 86 Chapter 10. Two Schools, Merriman and Cristy .... 105 Chapter 11. Along the Potomac 120 Chapter 12. Stars, Gold and Silver 130 Chapter 14. The Weak Links of the Seven Immortals . 136 Chapter 15. The Smith Salon 137 CHAPTER I The Capitol Smith's barn which for more than fifty years has stood practically in the rear of what is now 36 Elm street is now gone and with it a mass of memories. To us fellers of the early Eighties it was the centre and Capitol of that part of Worcester then known as the West Side. In those illiterate days a barn held all kinds of live stock, but with the evolution of educa- tion it is now strictly construed to hold cattle only, while horses where they exist are reserved for stables. First for the setting. In those days running east from Linden to Chestnut streets were but four houses. On the corner of Linden street stood the Peter C. Bacon house. Then came the cottage of Clarendon Harris with a much talked of garden behind it where Washburn hens dug up Harris seeds. Then came the long narrow high Washburn house without an empty room. Here when a window was closed hastily a child's arm was in jeopardy. Then came a driveway to the Washburn barn where now is 36 Elm street. Then came the Smith driveway where now is 34 Elm street. Then on a large tract of land for those days stood the Smith homestead, now a temple of music as it was somewhat in those days. 9 SMITH'S BARN The population of the Smith and Washburn famihes stood at eleven boys and three girls. When a boy was born, it was a matter of such common interest as to provoke no comment, that is favorable. When a girl arrived, the news was generally good for a front page in the old Worcester Spy and the neighbors took hope. This paper was owned and edited by the Baldwins, one of whom had sat in Congress, and it is still remembered tenderly for it looked upon the old settlers with respect. A kinsman of this family who has attained distinction is Ralph Earle, a Rear-Admiral. Charles Worcester Smith and Josephine Caroline Smith, his wife, were essentially hospitable. Their philosophy in her words was: — "Keep on going.'' This they did. Their house was open at all times to the young. Generosity and patience were among their great qualities. The first two outdoor interests of Mr. Smith were his horses and his flowers. He was often seen in his garden along the Elm street fence. He stood for peace among the children of the neighborhood and once, when called upon to assume a mandate, philosophically observed : — " Why ring the bells and get out the towns-people f Mrs. Smith was a landmark. She was tireless. She always forgot herself and always remembered her children and their friends. As a mother, she was a symbol of love. Every Sunday their old Victoria 10 SMITH'S BARN with an additional inside seat for the children was filled, arms and legs protruding, and the whole family with luncheon baskets went out into the country for the day. This insured a day of rest and quiet for the neighbors, if not for them. The children were unique in that all of them excelled in some one specialty, some of them in business and some of them in sports, the latter of which concern more particular- ly this child's history. Smith's wooden barn, when it was built and for some years afterward, was the best barn in Worcester and held the best horses to be found in the town in those days. Among these will be remembered "Cub," essentially a family horse. Another was a high-strung chestnut, the best road horse in Worces- ter county, then owned by Charles Worcester Smith, Jr. Another particularly good road horse was a bay Kentucky mare, called *'The Maid." Harry Wor- cester Smith there kept a light weight brown horse of splendid show action, although his great achieve- ments in the show ring and on the race-track were made later from his estate at Lordvale. He deserves several pages of his own which he will get. Inciden- tally, Charles Martin Thayer, who was then an obscure citizen, he had not struck his stride, often parked in that barn a weird three wheel velocipede which he alone could ride on an even keel. It was a wise purchase for him, for it was seldom interfered with. 11 SMITH'S BARN The personnel of the Hve-stock in the barn could not have been more varied. Here lived Harry Smith's great greyhounds, notably, "Friday Night," "Moth- er Demdike" and "Honor Bright"; the first an American champion. On the second story were pigeons, an eagle, a family of rabbits, one or two goats, and a monkey, who once showed his affection for one of the small girls of the neighborhood by biting a piece out of her cheek. This had not been the only casualty of that vicinage, for in earlier years a dog of Peter C. Bacon, named Fido of course, had bitten little Link Kinnicutt on his back piazza. The dog may not have been mad. Little Link was. A great editor once instructed his men: — "When a dog bites a man, it is not news — When a man bites a dog, it is news." For which reason the Kinnicutt casualty, which ought to be perpetuated in a child's history, was deliberately eliminated from A History of the United States by George Bancroft. To go back, in the cellar of Smith's barn were a number of pigs which did not appeal for close communion to the ultra refined and somewhere on the premises a pony. The Smith family were ever considerate of the sen- sibilities of the neighbors and when one of these, immediately to the South and troubled by the goat, asked that he be disposed of, this was immediately done, that is, to the Washburns, when he was tethered on the westerly instead of the easterly side of the fence, a net gain for the neighbor of perhaps 12 SMITH'S BARN six feet, but which handicapped Httle the social procHvities of the goat. A cupola upon the top of the barn was a court of last resort, a sanctuary for those children in the whole block uncomfortably trailed by crippled parents. On this cupola was a weather-vane, general- ly indicating squalls not in the air but on the ground. It was a gilded horse, long riderless and riddled with buck shot from profane hands. Of the children, Chetwood Smith struck his best field gait later elsewhere with his well-known beagles. With these he showed himself to be a Smith. Enough. Having then appeared late upon the scene, he was proud in the possession of a bantam and quite content. It was his daily custom to approach the fence, which was wisely picketed and which separated the Washburn family, and deliver a daily bulletin : — "Going to hill bantam^ mawday,'' meaning, doubtless, tomorrow. Those were great days for those of us who are now walking into the evening of life but who still retain perhaps the faculty of memory in some degree. Smith's barn should never have been torn down. It should have been removed to the center of the Common and there restored as a reminder of the activities of a family, which, while it made its mark in business, was also a great outdoor family; and as a constant stimulation to future generations to 13 SMITH'S BARN continue the stiflf pace which was first set in Wor- cester by the Smiths. Smith's barn thus restored should have borne a simple plate and the laconic inscription, the spur of Josephine Caroline Smith: — "Keep on going,'' 14 CHAPTER 2 Her Right Arm These intimate memories were originally stirred when Smith's barn was razed to the ground in the spring of 1922. This was done without becoming ceremony thereby almost an act of vandalism. For Smith's barn had stood for more than fifty years approximately in the rear of what is now 36 Elm street. There was more inspiration in its shadow to those who truly live than in the now opened view to the hills of Holy Cross. It has however given way to an age where the material charms of the green grass which grows over its foundations, and space, supersede the spur of tradition. The memories provoked by this transition would stir the most le- thargic mind and pen. In the early Eighties, a wire from South x\merica from a business agent of the father of one of the boys who played about Smith's barn laconically read : — "Have shipped hvelve monkeys.'' This wire struck with terror their patient mothers. Childless and open-minded neighbors to whom crowing cocks had already brought insomnia were clear that there were already among them monkeys enough. They had read of shipping coals to New- castle. God is often good they agreed when later all 15 SMITH'S BARN these monkeys died en route. Further, one monkey already dwelt in Smith's barn. On Wednesday afternoons when school did not ''keep" in those days, the boys about Smith's barn were dragged under duress to a dancing class in Insurance Hall. Here Patrick H. Reilly, a Pro- fessor duly accredited pursuant to the custom of the times, presided, who later under the stress of threat- ened competition metamorphosed himself into P. Harvard Reilly, in the same manner in which he might have advantageously become in the state of Connecticut P. Yale Reilly. In high recognition of spasmodic virtue, the boys were at times allowed to dance with the daughter of P. Harvard Reilly, known always simply as "Julia." She was looked upon by us as the traveller over the sands of the desert hungers for an oasis. It was however with less difficulty that a small boy rested his hand upon the waist of Julia than for him to attempt to circumlocute it with his arm. Thus was danced "the heel and toe polka," a puritan predecessor of the profane jazz waltz, before a gallery of matrons quick to note our slightest lapse. Even then the demon love had fastened his cruel finger-nails into the epidermes of these little innocents. A young woman of seven, pursued by two admirers and having a distinct preference for one, showed her mature business sense by prevailing upon the other to retire from the field upon the payment by her to him of twenty-eight 16 SMITH'S BARN cents, strong evidence of her affection for the survivor and the noble nature of his predecessor who retired. To go back, it must be confessed at this late day with some shame by the boys that on Wednesday after- noons the monkey who dwelt in Smith's barn was happily for him left to his own resources. He did not attend the dancing class of P. Harvard Reilly, this, perhaps, because he was less in need of a training in deportment than some of the boys who were led there. This is strong praise of the monkey, if not of the boys, who were then uncomfortably encased in tight black "pants" and patent leather slippers. For no one then wore trousers, not even our fathers. The memories of Smith's barn itself can not be properly shaped to a climax without mention of James Hall. He lives now in a peace which he has richly earned, a landscape gardener on Piedmont street. In 1883, James Hall became the Duke of the Domain at Smith's barn. It was then replete in full operation, twenty-four hours a day, at the peak of its pride. James Hall immediately became a true and cheerful symbol of the policy of the self -forgetting mother of the Smiths: — "Keep on going." Her feet never tired in some unselfish cause. If James Hall rested or slept no one knew when or where. He was the right arm of Josephine Caroline Smith, There was a myth however that he ever indulged in a determined, if unsuccessful fancy, to reserve to himself 17 SMITH'S BARN for rest the fifth Monday of the month, when, if it appeared. For James Hall looked upon Monday, the clergyman's Sunday, as properly his own with much reason, for it must be admitted that the fourth commandment was not a law of the Medes and Persians, at Smith's barn. Incidentally among the duties of James Hall daily he rolled back the doors of the barn at five in the morning when Charles Worcester Smith, Junior, headed his great chestnut road horse for the Smith Mills at Stoneville, five miles distant, where he tied up invariably at five-twenty. This is burned deep into the memory of a small boy nearby who then, tossing with typhoid through the long winter nights, listened with the impatience of an invalid for these opening doors as the forerunner of a breaking day. Gentle Reader, could you respond as did James Hall to such a test as this.^ Of all the horses we boys then knew this great chestnut alone, and unlike our own ponies, was easier to start than to stop. For this quality we remember him. Activity and versatility were the great characteris- tics of James Hall. He turned with equal facility from the planting of a tree on some natal day of the Smiths, and almost each day was some one's birth- day, to presiding in a silk hat on the box of the old Victoria at a family function or manicuring the finger nails of the monkey. James Hall was a vital part of the outdoor history of Worcester of that day. No 18 SMITH'S BARN review of those days is complete without recognition of him. Peace and happiness to him is the great wish of those boys whose hves meant so much of spiritual development to James Hall, to whom Josephine Caroline Smith had wisely looked for the truth of those weather-worn words: — "GoHireaHalir 19 CHAPTER 3 Montagues and Capulets — The Champs Elysee To the materially wise, a house in those days on Elm street led one to await death with a superb patience, unexcelled, and to look even upon Paradise as a losing transition. Such could not sing with sincere spirit the words of that great hymn : — ''Weary of earth, I gaze at heaven and long to enter in.'' By a then boy in his early teens, along in the early Eighties, these memories of the West Side continue on, memories of the dead but largely of the living; and also of those too many dead but not buried, but of these without distressing identification. Again, enough for the necessary scenery for the stage. For more than forty years on that corner the little Smiths and the little Washburns lived close, some- times too close for their physical safety. The little Smiths put much faith "in horses and chariots," while the little Washburns were taught to believe that the pen was mightier than the sword. This encouraged the little Smiths who had a profound respect for the sword into many an invasion of the territory of their neighbors with motives, unhappily, purely of conquest. At times, the fondest hopes of the little Washburns were for an armed neutrality, 20 SMITH'S BARN for these little neighbors had not then learned to com- pletely and continuously love one another. While the little Washburns always yearned for peace, with the little Smiths it was too often for a piece of meat from a Washburn cut. At times these little Smiths momentarily became human beings and like other children. This must be reluctantly admitted at this late day. This they did not at all times deny. It may be reasonably wondered whether any of these little Washburns dreamed of standing before the altar with the fair and only daughter of this great house of Smith. Hence, this homely and intimate anecdote may with propriety be introduced here. At a great dinner which Josephine Caroline Smith gave in honor of her daughter, now Josephine Lord Smith Ranlet, then aged seven, one of these little Washburns was magnanimously placed beside the child. He then cannily saw and seized his opportuni- ty and was making some progress with the lady, if this may be gallantly asserted. Then this cold and determined order from the hostess rang clear through the banquet hall : — ''Julia, take Robert into the kitchen and blow his nose."" Julia, stimulated by the supernatural authorization to blow a nose other than her own, then sprang forthwith at Robert who was lifted up out of the function by his Welch and Margetson and hurried cuisineward in the middle of a sentence and of his 21 SMITH'S BARN siege. A cold in the nose or a snufBng up of soup is fatal to romance. Hence, this romance then withered and died and history abruptly reshaped its course. And yet little literature touches the generosity of these memories, where a Washburn sings the praises of the Smiths. Strangely, these two houses of Montague and Capulet were brought together, not by marriage but in 1889 through participation by their professional members in the settlement of a large estate. Peace and paens of praise, each of all, then succeeded trib- ulations and truces. The testator then became a great peace-maker. To him the West Side then assumed a great obligation. Mean are the bickerings of youth when set off in outline sharp against the bonds which maturity weaves against the withering hand of time. Elm street, the Champs Elysee of Worcester and the West Side, has changed materially. A macadam surface has succeeded a rutted, country road. It has become a motor thoroughfare to the West, where horns honk hoarsely. Its inhabitants have been driven into the rear of their houses, where they now live and find quiet. Strangely, assessed values stand practically where they then did, because the solvent in material number have set up their penates in the suburbs. In those days there was but one estate in Worcester which could be called an estate, 22 SMITHS BARN Mariemonte of the Cromptons on Providence Hill. Now there are many. The Slater building stands where in Elm street near Main street Dr. John F. Adams and Dr. Edward E. Frost practiced dentistry. They led their professions, though Dr. Pevey had quite a pull in the town at the corner of Pleasant Street, known as "Pevey's Dental Rooms." Dr. Adams was a man of marked refinement and contributed a number of boys to Elm street. He later became a patron of Dr. Walter Herbert Richardson, who owes materially his present splendid practice to him. Frost was a man of great versatility. He could turn with facility and success from the inside of a mouth to the Speedway with the maiden Mercury, "Annie Paige," and then direct the comprehensive activities of the Lincoln House opposite where now stands a movie mecca. He was also the boniface of the old Exchange Hotel. Here Washington is said to have started to consume a mince pie. Its later patrons lament that he could not have finished it. "Annie Paige" was rivalled then only by "Careless Boy," owned by Clinton M. Dyer. It was said of Mr. Dyer, who loved that horse like a son, that when Mr. Dyer died Careless would be found written on his heart, like unto Queen Mary and Calais. A son, Charles Joseph Dyer, was for years the vocal oasis of Princeton where in the village church each Sabbath the portieres were drawn, the choir uncovered and 23 SMITH'S BARN it was his wont to express the first, third and four- teenth verses of "The Holy City," Miss Sadie Brooks, the belle of the town or of any town, now Goddard, leading the chorus. In those days, dental patients unhappily looked upon dentistry as a refined type of vivisection. Signs reading: — "Teeth extracted with- out pain," drew the timid. Now, with the advance of the surgical profession, sufferers are tempted to lay up their treasure and indulge in operations, which, in contrast to the fears of old days, have become with some a unique and neurotic form of entertainment. A now mature woman who then a girl lived close to Elm street is never quite happy without an ether cone fastened over her proboscis. One old lady, a survivor of innumerable surgical operations, once wisely said : — " How strange, what a small part of the human body one really needs to live on." In the block immediately west of the old Lincoln House lived the four Morse boys; William, Arthur, John and Charles. No mother was respected more highly than theirs, for she drilled into her sons the qualities of high honor and industry. Where the Salvation Army now beats the tocsin with: — "On- ward Christian Soldiers," and thrives in a martial work, encouraging some of the sensitive to leave Elm street, was The Church of the Unity. Here the Smiths worshipped, when they worshipped. Here, simulating the late John Wanamaker, Charles ^4 S'MITH'S BARN Martin Thayer taught Sunday school, where there was standing room only. An epitaph: — "Here lies a lawyer and a good man" once stimulated the question: — *'Why did they bury two men in one grave?" The epitaph of Charles Martin Thayer will provoke no such query. On the pulpit supply committee was Judge Adin Thayer, his father. An aspirant for this pulpit, with the Judge sitting before him, is said to have preached from the text : — ''And there ivas in a certain city a Judge who feared neither God nor man,'" He was not "hired," the commercial term which some of the crude unhappily apply to the calling of a clergyman in the same inaccurate way in which he is often described as "performing" at a funeral. The Church of the Unity was then built forward towards the street and its windows fitted, if it may be properly said, with a type of stained glass. This splendor provoked comment even from the small boys. Chetwood Smith, always active, versatile and cheery, then six, a Little Sunshine, simulating a stranger upon the street, in an hour of needed avoca- tion from his intellectual pursuits, asked a passer: — "What ith that building.?" He replied :—" The Church of the Unity." "Oh," said Chettie, who then labored somewhat from a childish lisp : — "7 thought it wath a billiard parlor.'' 25 SMITH'S BARN Another day a neighbor, deluded with the dehght that she had found a Smith falhble, hurried in to Josephine Carohne Smith with the strong charge that Chettie had used profane language in her back yard, leading astray her own little innocents. Chet- tie was immediately summoned before the maternal tribunal and indicted for the use of these offensive words: — "Darn it." Nothing has touched the power of outraged virtue with which he then replied : — "Mother I never uthed thuch language." Each Sunday to The Church of the Unity George Sumner Barton, grandfather of the present of the same name, drove a pair of chestnuts, no more striking pair of coach horses in the city of Worcester. Then every one knew personally each horse in Worcester. Men showed their skill, taste and money in the horses they bought and the townspeople came out to sit in judgment thereupon. Now all ride in motors of such plethora and quality that their owners have ceased to show the art of the connoisseur but money only, and their cars are looked upon simply as quali- fications for Bradstreet. Where George Stevens now lives at the corner of Chestnut street, for years lived "The two Burnside girls." Girls they were born and girls they died. Youth sat heavily upon them and the finger of age was never caught in their garden gate. They too kept on going. Here Walter Kennedy, faithful unto death, completed an unbroken trio, sat with them 26 SMITH'S BARN when they drove around Goes Pond, the circuit in those days, one Johnson, the father of a tall, red- haired boy, on the box, or, at eventide, sang to them an Aria from L. Borgia. Their lawn was never tramped by our young feet for there romped a dog who barked even in his sleep. More feared was their kinsman, D wight Foster Dunn, who was very fond of small boys. Even now we can see his head, hydra like it seemed to us, rear itself above the garden fence, and our nurses frightened us to sleep with the name of Dwight. Where now Jesse Burkett sits among the Elks, borne on by the traditions and momentum of Jonas G. Glark and Scofield, the wooden house of George W. Richardson stood in a large tract of land. George W. Richardson was the president of the old City National Bank, where the genteel protected their overdrafts and sought at times to negotiate loans on collateral, which was suspiciously scrutinized by Nathaniel Paine. No one walked the streets with more of a martial stride than Nathaniel Paine. He was known by his contemporaries as *'Nat," which the small boys heard as '"Nap" and believed to be a contraction for Napkin. They always spoke of him as "Napkin Paine." George W. Richardson had an awe-inspiring presence to these small boys. His watch chain touched his body only at the waistcoat button hole at which it anchored and from which it then hung out free. Once, calling upon one of the 27 SMITH'S BARN neighbors, where a wife with ill concealed pride asserted that her husband was at a prayer-meeting, he said: — *' What, at a prayer meeting on Wednesday evening? A man's whole life should be a prayer". He had set himself too stiff a spiritual pace. The walk before the Richardson house along the street was known as "the plank-walk" long after it became a side-walk. The brick houses now opposite have all succeeded open tracts of land and modest wooden structures. Rip Van Winkle in this neigh- borhood today at a home-coming would call for a sedative for his own peace of mind. In those days it was a foreign country beyond the slope at Fruit street where civilization then stopped. It was a common sight to see cows driven through Elm street to pasture on Newton Hill in the vicinity of the Wetherell farm, where us fellers sometimes ventured with the spirit with which Grenfell started for Labrador. At the head of the driveway leading down to Smith's barn stood two white wooden posts which looked large to the small boys of those days. Be- tween them lay a large brown slab stone. A game then known as "Relievo" made this stone its centre as it was played all over the block. In that square in its centre then stood the old wooden Chapin house, and behind it Kinnicutt's barn, and then another barn. Kinnicutt's house was later removed and set up at "Lordvale" by Harry Worcester SMITHS BARN Smith. Few houses have experienced such a revul- sion in atmosphere. This territory to us in our tender, timid youth was Hke unto the jungles of Africa. The hand of civilization had not then touched it and made it the garden that it has since become. To us those great white posts were a centre of life on the West Side. Of such small boys as played there, as of the Gracchi, it may be said : — They were our jewels. 29 CHAPTER 4 Mr. Washburn Once upon a time, long before Smith's barn was thought of, which is going back some way as the man said when he ordered ox-tail soup, Ichabod Washburn, the first of the name, lived at Kingston. The house, a small wooden cottage, stands on the main street precisely as it then did except for a tablet thereon, at which the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock nearby look with interest. Near this spot, Edgar Reed who has become a leading manufacturer in Worcester, was once an helpless infant to whom rivets and screws were then of less interest than dairies. He undoubtedly found his aspiration in this atmosphere. Hence, said tablet ought to be so amended. Abroad, Ichabod W^ashburn was the captain of a packet which plied between Plymouth and Boston, and at home his consort rocked the cradle as faithfully as the sea rocked his boat in Massachusetts Bay. He became the father of twins, Ichabod and Charles, succeeded by Halleck Bartlett and George Spring Taft in later years, there being no letters patent on this distinction. x\s the boys grew to maturity, Ichabod Washburn . Junior, being sound physically, was put to work in Cherry Valley by his ambitious and wise parents. He later began to draw wire, first under his own name and then 30 SMITH'S BARN with his son-in-law, Phihp Louis Moen, as partners, and the firm's wagons bore the confident words, "I. Washburn and Moen." He then became the founder of the Washburn-Moen Company and died rich, justifying the judgment of his ancestors. His brother, Charles Washburn, having a withered arm, was thought fit for nothing more than an education, pursuant to the practice of the times, and he was graduated at Brown. To be a graduate of a college in those days was a marked distinction, like the presidency of Harvard University today. Charles Washburn then migrated to Harrison, Maine, where Charles Francis Washburn, his son, Mr. Washburn, was born in 1827. Maine has a soil rich and productive of strong men. Near Harrison, at Livermore, originated another Washburn family of another stock, so that it may properly and accurately be said that it was the greatest family in quantity and quality, together, that the country has produced. There were eleven children, one son dying in infancy. Of the seven sons who grew up, there were two great millers, two foreign ministers, four congressmen at one time, two governors and one United States senator, and from five different states. The mother of those seven sons should have a monument on the Esplanade at Portland, where stands a statue of the unique Thomas Brackett Read. The Gage family also sprang from that same neighborhood, and The 31 SMITH'S BARN Bridgton News came for years regularly to two Worcester families, enabling them to be en passant with the society happenings at Naples, Pinhook, and the hamlets adjacent thereto. There Thomas Hovey Gage, Junior, the Duke of York of the house of Gage, has restored the old homestead, and modestly named his estate, "The Fleur-de-Least," where he lolls supine in patrician duck during the dog days on his generous verandas, breaks his fast daily near noon with marmalade and mufBns, an army of minions led by his whims, and then sinks into slumber to the lullaby of the electric mowers as they grind the grass on his great grounds, dreaming of his triumphs in Worcester. Those who have been led to look with awe upon Ardnaclachan, Knowleswood and Iris- thorpe should look upon these acres, that is through the iron fences which secure to their laird his privacy. Here, he has allowed to leak out at the village store that he is the legal adviser of the Worcester Bank and Trust Company which in its corporate name is an epitome of the banking history of Worcester, that he has been accepted as an aesthetic at the Museum to whom objets d'art need not be tagged, so that the yeoman fall down and worship him. To them as to us he has become a great Gage, and his mind is neither one track nor narrow-guage. A fine mind well trained, a fine sense of professional ethics and a fine knowledge of the law, these qualities, together, have assured his pre-eminence at the bar. 32 SMITH'S BARN Mothers of the West Side, soaking in your own triumphs more or less fanciful, a solitary son, or two or three; a bank president, often a genteel pawn- broker who seeks to hold our property as collateral and at same time our affections; a shrunken Rufus Choate hoping to keep us out of Charlestown ; or a modest emulator of Carnegie in commerce, content with a profit of twenty per cent. ; contemplate Maine and her great sons and particularly Martha Ben- jamin Washburn and her great Livermore family of Washburns. Can you then continue to compla- cently inventory your own broods which you have developed? Charles Francis Washburn, Mr. Washburn, then moved to Worcester into the West-Side, first at the corner of West street, where now stands an apart- ment house, and then to where his family now lives. With the house of Smith, he became a quorum. The twins, Ichabod and Charles Washburn, had also come to Worcester and had located on Summer street on adjoining estates at Arch street; on one of which later George Ichabod Rockwood, a kinsman, soaked in its traditions and found inspiration; and on the other appeared later the soothing legend, "Dr. Hero's Cough Syrup." Here the twins found themselves, when fashion centered on Elm street, of the world but not in it. Here at the family gather- ings, Ichabod, the uncle, prayed aloud, so that they who listened looked askance, that Charles, the 33 SMITH'SBARN nephew, might not be led out of the Kingdom by his worldly associates in the western part of the town, where in later years the Worcester Club found a site. Even then the spectres of dinner-jackets, the dance and the decollete stalked before him, for he was of the old school, and had he anticipated his nephew, an Episcopalian, he might have lost the power and the hope to pray. Charles Washburn and his son, Mr. Washburn, then established a wire mill which became the Quinsigamond plant of the American Steel and' Wire Company, then known as Charles Washburn and Son. Mr. Washburn took up his domicile across the tracks in the small house which is now main- tained as a luncheon club by the company. Then about 1868, upon the birth of the child's historian, as in honor of the day, the business was wiped out by fire, before the mind of Ichabod Rockwood could have averted it. Mr. Washburn then became an officer of the Washburn-Moen Company and moved to Grove street. Then Ichabod Washburn died. He was a large contributor to the building of Mechan- ics Hall, hence Washburn Hall, and of his benefac- tions were also The Washburn Shops of The Wor- cester Polytechnic Institute and The Memorial Hospital. His name and that of Moen, Crompton and Knowles for years were the great manufacturing names of Worcester. The business for most of twen- ty-five years was then conducted by his favorite 34 SMITH'S BARN nephew, Mr. Washburn, and PhiHp Louis Moen. Hence, they were looked upon by many as partners and equal owners, although Mr. Washburn had in- herited nothing but the name. Someone has said that it is unfortunate to be poor. An unjustified suspicion of wealth is an imputation from which Mr. Washburn, and his, have always suffered. This is worse. So much for an epitome. Mr. Washburn for years was vice-president of the Washburn-Moen Company. He was not elected president. He did not question this decision. Some did however question the way in which it was made. He was always content with his place for he thought first of the company and last of himself. He loved his business. He opened the office in the morning and he closed it at night. Without his coat, with his own hands he distributed the morning mail to the office force. He was one of them. This they recog- nized. He had indomitable optimism and indomita- ble cheer, his two great unique qualities. These spread through the factory, they were contagious, and his men loved him and speak of him to this day. He was essentially a born salesman. He had an attractive presence. He could talk and men believed what he said. He could sell anything. He could have made a fortune selling even Bibles on the Bowery. An army of drummers found inspiration at his desk. The letters he dictated went out unedited by his secretary straight as they came from his 35 SMITH'S BARN mouth, for he had the instincts of a scholar which he sought to develop. When he was in doubt and hesitated, he had a curious way of throwing his booted leg, many wore high boots in those days, over the slide of his roll top desk and drawing through his mouth his side whiskers. As much as any one man he made the Washburn - Moen Company what it was and its name a symbol of success, and its product known in Timbuctoo. This is a temperate statement, spread after thirty years for the first time upon a Worcester page though long a common place fact in the offices of the com- pany and in distant cities. In 1875 when the com- pany was paying no dividends, he went west and located on a farm the original underlying Glidden barbed-wire patent. The price was $6000. He begged his company to buy it. They called him a visionary. He may have been a visionary in that he looked forward, as when in the early Nineties as a pioneer he applied for letters patent on a device for aerial navigation. His associates yielded but they bought only a half interest in this patent. In one year the company had made one million dollars and for more than twenty years paid twenty per cent, dividends. Curiously, the company mailed its last quarterly dividends as high as three per cent, on July 1, 1893, his last day in the office. Then they paid eight and then four percent., annually. He spent four years in Chicago fighting infringers on the 36 SMITH'S BARN greatest patent ever brought into New England. He spent much time in Europe Hcensing its manufac- turers. He was the head of all its manufacturing pools, legal in those days. He was at the head of the barb-fence business of the world. He also found the bale-tie patents. He much made his associates rich. He was happy although he had a small salary for these days and a comparatively small stock inter- est for any days, for his creed was the day's work. He was enabled to give his family every reasonable com- fort and every advantage of education and travel and a good name, but beyond this to leave them only a competence Mr. Washburn was one of those too few men of business with resources outside of his own office, that is at home and in his church. Unable to go to college for which he had prepared, because of ill health, he always gratified a taste for reading the best books. There are few men tired from the day's work who are found reading regularly in the evening such books as Carlyle's French Revolution. He always read with a pillow in his lap to hold the book up. He had a sociability, not forced, because he naturally liked people. He was gracious, not a common trait among us, for when a man is gallant to a woman it is talked all over town, and he might reasonably aspire to a profitable contract as a curio. His speech was sharp at times on provocation. When approached on the broad aisle in going out of All 37 SMITHES BARN Saints' Church in criticism of an assistant minister, which at one time was a popular pastime, he said : — ''I have been here one hour and a half. My mind is fairly sweet. Don't poison it at least until we get into Irving street." He had a keen sense of humor which clung to him to the end, and he was one of those too few men who could make laughter and in his own turn listen and laugh. When once asked on a trip with his small boys, and he was not only a father to them but a brother and good company, for some champagne, he replied: — "I will give you boys some real pain." There were other complications from drink. He had a habit at one time of taking these small boys to Boston, which he discontinued, for he was able only to reach a fountain and liquidate their accounts as they were starting for the next. He travelled much, and when at home he asked the maid at the table for anything, he often jocosely added, '* Charge it to the manufacturing account." When all his sons voted against his candidate in a Presi- dential campaign, he said he never would have dared to grow up had he known that he was to be disen- franchised to the tune of six to one. He wrote a customer in Connecticut, who had complained of the wire which was sent him, ''It may not be what you thought you wanted and ordered, but you are a farmer and will undoubtedly find it useful to string dried apples on." He did business as though the company was his own individual property. He 38 SMITHS BARN hated tobacco and contemplated screwing to the floor, with screws to be bought of Edgar Reed, a fellow immigrant, the seat in which those who came to see him on business sat, so that he could draw back from those who used tobacco and they could not follow him. He was almost as faithful to a silk hat as deacon Estabrook of Union Church. They had long sat on the same broad aisle. In days when even the President of the United States autographed all his letters, Mr. Washburn wrote his own, in a fine hand. He recognized his political obligations and was a speaker at great rallies. He was president of The Old Women's Home. Naturally it appealed to him. The mature are often illogical in their attitude towards the young. A father resents an ingrate son, forgetting that he too in his young days was an in- grate to a father now dead. Fate is not an unfair evenizer. ''As ye reap so shall ye sow," was found among the papers of a father on the West Side who had died in disappointment. There is nothing so touching as the sight of an old woman whom age has made a child again, some one's mother, too often forgotten and deserted by those for whom she has lived and worked, who should have built a wall of love and comfort and protection about her. This he sought to do. His great avocation was hills and mountains and driving, often to Drury Hill and Asnebumskit where he went with a field-glass, and if he did not talk long with all the farmers along the 39 SMITH'S BARN road it was because there were none in sight. He was fond of horses and in his eariiest days often brushed back from Quinsigamond driving ''Old Marlborough," who was then much respected, while his business associate at the time, William E. Rice, tried ineffectually to get out of his dust. This he never was able to do, that is on the highway. All his qualities Mr. Washburn gave to his sons but divided among them, equitably, to some humor, to others business acumen, and by their inheritance were three carried into the ministry. There have been very, very few abler or more successful business men in Worcester than William Ellis Rice. He was a great president of the Wash- burn-Moen Company. In the crisis of 1893 he jeopardized all that he had and saved it and its credit. He was always a loyal friend to, and a constant worshipper at All Saints' Church and long a vestryman. An organ of the best type is now being built into the church in his name. This is a generous, wise and fitting gift by his widow, Lucy Draper Rice and family, for more souls are saved by music than by preachers and prayers. Mr. Washburn was a Christian. Here he showed himself greatest. In those days there were more of his particular kind. In his early life a playing-card was never seen in his house, and reading of a different sort was expected on Sunday. Throughout his life, his horses rested on the seventh day, his man-servant 40 SMITH'S BARN and his maid-servant and the stranger within his gates, although his small boys sometimes allowed the goat to escape, suspiciously, to relieve the tension of the day. He was always in his pew at church whenever there was a service. He always taught a Bible class, when every chair was occupied. He was always at prayer-meeting, before he left Union Church and often afterwards, where he was always ready to talk. He was at first a Congregationalist and then an Episcopalian. His religion was an honest one. He looked upon the Bible as a text book, as the Worcester lawyer looks upon the Massa- chusetts Reports, and more than this. He often said : — *'/ am as ready to lie in my grave as in my bed,^^ When the great test came, he lived out his faith. He was struck down on July 1st in the midst of splendid health and busy business, when men think first of life and last of death. He stood before the King of Terrors as he had lived, and he laughed. While he recognized the revolution, he was unshaken. He was himself. With characteristic humor he said to his physician, "We now have something on our hands more important than the fourth of July." and again, "We ought to be thankful that apoplexy is a genteel malady." Then calling to his bed the only one of his sons who was in Worcester, he said, as naturally as though starting for Grove Street: — 41 SMITH'S BARN ''Robert, I know that this is the end of me and while I can talk I have but to say : I am not afraid to die. Stand by your Mother.'' He was then out of his head for twenty days until he died, but what he said, uncensored by the repressive- ness of civilization, could have been listened to by a child. These are strong tests. Of such was Mr. Washburn, his record attempted in his own way by one of his own blood, a privilege. "Honour thy father and mother; which is the jBrst commandment with promise." On his stone in Rural Cemetery are the words: — "/n the midst of a busy and a useful life, God's finger touched him and he slept." 42 CHAPTER 5 The Last of the Mohicans Of those days on the West Side, of the women, a term of scriptural dignity, but four remain. They are the last of the Mohicans. One of these women, Louisa Southgate Bowen Blake, widow of James Blake, now lives where the family has always lived at the corner of West and Cedar streets, around which the trollies now grind their way, because President Dewey declines to pay further tribute to the Marble-Nye Company. His armor is immune against the respectful deportment and blandishments of the head of that great oil mart. It is very, very hard to do a Dewey. The Blake family has always been a talented family. The daughters have shown a marked artistic sense. James Barnard Blake was the Agent and Superin- tendent of the Worcester Gas Light Company long before Dana D. Barnum, who became great in Wor- cester, was born. James Blake was efficient in business. He was a democrat in its best interpreta- tion, and made comfortable all who sat with him, whether they were clad in overalls or in evening dress, which in those days was largely leased. Then when families ''had company" the toilet of the men was largely confined to turning down their "pants" 43 SMITH'S BARN and reversing their collars and cuffs. No one has been mayor of Worcester a longer time than James Blake. He had been elected to a sixth term when he died. This is easily the record. In those days it was an honor to be mayor of a city. His political efficiency was recognized by all. He was essentially liked by all. Capacity, success and popularity sel- dom walk hand in hand. In him they did. As an evidence of his political instinct, his wife saw him one day talking on the corner before the house with one of the plain people while dinner waited, which in those days was eaten at the vulgar hour of one, post meridian. When she asked him why he kept dinner waiting, he replied : — ''Louisa, we may need him, some day.'' Once, in walking by Park street corner in Boston, James Blake was handed a tract with the words: — "How James Blake threw away his cigar and found Christ." Their son, Lowell Blake, was the only boy of his kind seen on Elm street in those days. He was a genius. He was always busy. He did not play as boys played, but at the tender age of seven was happiest when working in a ditch, an empty clay pipe in his mouth, beside the Irish municipal em- ployees of his father, the mayor. At times he would remove his cap and mop his brow with a red ban- danna handkerchief which he kept therein. He 44 SMITH'S BARN was very fond of tools, and as a small boy often put a hammer or chisel under his pillow when going to sleep. His father gave him a shovel and he started in the back yard to dig his way to China. Once he unfortunately hit in the head a son of one of the neighbors with a pick-axe, whose mother generously said her boy should never have got his head in the way of Lowell's axe. He was always at work. He later made his mark in the railroad business in the West and Mexico, for which he was peculiarly fitted. No memories of the West Side can properly omit mention of this family. Another Mohican, Peter C. Bacon walked daily on Elm street to his house at the corner of Linden street. More than any one man he was looked upon with reverence by us. We had read at school of the Civil War. We had been told by our mothers that two of the sons of Mrs. and Mr. Bacon, Frank and Billie, had been killed in that war. One of them lies in Rural Cemetery, and there is a monument to the other whose body lies unidentified on a Southern battlefield. Hence, Mr. Bacon's silk hat, the only hat he wore, almost alone was immune from such profane missiles as snow balls. Further, our hands were stayed by the thought of the big brothers of some of us who walked home from church with his daughter, then known as Lizzie Bacon, now Bartlett, the mother of "the twins." She was never left alone, not because of any timidity on her part but, 45 SMITH'S BARN because of her personal charm, she was helpless. She knew not solitude. Mrs. Bacon was a motherly woman. She walked with a cane. This impressed us because our own mothers did not. She lead us to look upon her house as another home of our own. We did not know that she saw in us her soldier sons who had gone on. She taught us our first lessons, and we remember her for her round Os and crooked Ss. Mr. Bacon was the leader of the bar. His clients were the great manufacturers of Worcester and the county. He was of that type of counsellor now too much extinct. His first thought was of the comfort and welfare of his clients and not of their pocket books. He was a lover of the law and not of a bank balance. Col. William S win ton Bennett Hopkins was his partner. He was an accomplished gentleman. He always saw us boys and called us by name. Every Sunday morning when we were at church he was in his law library. This concentration, because of his brilliant mind, carried him successfully through the courts for the next five days. Charles Dickens would have endorsed the changing nomenclature of his law firm. First it was Bacon and Hopkins; then Bacon, Hopkins and Bacon; then Hopkins, Bacon and Hopkins; and then Hopkins, Bacon and Smith ; and then Smith, Gage and Dresser. His ver- satility was great. One day he argued a case in the Supreme Court of the United States. The 46 SMITH'S BARN next evening he played a winning game of billiards at The Worcester Club. A soldier in the Civil War, as the late Chief Justice Marcus Knowlton said of him: — ''One had but to see him in his uniform to be stirred with admiration,'' With Hopkins, the other leader of the Worcester Bar of that day was Frank Palmer Goulding. Each was the antithesis of the other. Each was president of The Worcester Club, from which office a timid political aspirant might shrink as a liability on the East Side. And yet each was often urged to run for Congress. Some young law students spoke of Goulding as "the tenant", for they had read in Blackstone of an ancestor, one Michael Golding, "'tenant to the precipe." Hard work made Goulding what he was. His power drew men towards him. Born in Grafton before it was leavened and toned by Lordvale, industry and a mind which could be cultivated were the only gifts which God gave him. He was a dynamo. He made his five talents ten. While Hopkins vivisected the most rebellious witness with a plethora of ether, Goulding had small con- sideration for the mental comfort of the patient. Goulding forgot form but remembered substance. He had a rugged, strong eloquence. For which reasons Goulding was stronger in an argument before the full bench on a question of law, while 47 SMITH'S BARN Hopkins reached a greater success with the jury. In his zeal for his cHent Goulding forgot everything except his ethics, which were never questioned. He was lawyer and client. He once observed, across the table to an apparently respectable gentleman of mature years from New York, trying a case against him: — ''We'll cut your eye teeth, old man.'' He would not have gone far as an attendant in a day nursery. And yet, when he was not prodded, he had a heart as tender as a woman. A glass of water, which most men hope to empty into their mouths, Goulding, preoccupied in a great cause, sometimes poured inside his collar. This is a photo- graph of Frank Palmer Goulding and not a painting. These two men, together not separately, had all the professional qualities to which the young prac- titioner aspired, and he sought to emulate them, and there was much clearing of the throats at the bar like Hopkins, and some deficiencies in deportment like Goulding. The young practitioner often got no nearer. John Davis Washburn lived in Linden street. He had come down from Lancaster and did the largest fire insurance business in Worcester, now conducted by H. Ward Bates. He had much per- sonal charm and was courteous to all, the great and the small. He was a man of literary tastes 48 SMITHS BARN and considerable attainment. These qualities gave him a marked individuality in a town, preeminently a manufacturing city. He was a handsome man, so our mothers had told us. When he walked up Elm street it was a progress and we boys were much impressed. He became later Minister to Switzerland. This accentuated his position in Worcester. It was said of him by some irreverent wag, that when he drew himself up before the Alps to the full of his stature, the chamoix were so trans- fixed by his pulchritude that the peasants were enabled to slip up from behind, place salt upon their tails, and for the first time to reduce them to cap- tivity. John Davis W^ashburn established the firm of Washburn, Willis, Greene and Bates in a formal ukase which made a strong impression on the town: — "Mr. Willis will have charge of the inside business, ably assisted by Mr. Bates. Mr. Greene will conduct the outside business. Col. Washburn will give himself up to intricate questions of law." Mr. Willis was a Yankee from Oxford of the best type. Mr. Bates set his compass by the words: — '' Seest thou a man diligent in his business. He shall stand before Kings, '^ His was the office key of the firm which moth and rust did least corrupt. No one preceded him into the office in the morning or followed him out at 49 SMITH'S BARN night. He approached it with the same speed with which he walked home. Their offices were in the old Brinley Block on Pearl street where were also the law offices of Sullivan and O'Connell. No one walked the streets more slowly than John Sullivan. He never passed any one, that is on the street. He had a brilliant mind. He did not do his best work with his legs. Underneath these offices was Belcher's meat market, where the great bought their meat, which in those days was seen on the table. Philip Louis Moen, called the barbed-wire King, was the first manufacturer of Worcester. No one has been more strongly entrenched in the business, banking and philanthropic life of the city, from the day he came into town to the day his body was carried into Rural Cemetery through a line of his working men. Although he had always stood in the public light, there never was a woman not proud to be seen with him. Gentle Reader, can this be said of any one you know. With erect figure, white hair and gold spectacles, his was a commanding figure. He was of French descent and had all the charm and gallantry of that race, with a kindliness of thought and expression which made him beloved. Charles Henry Morgan, for years with the Wash- burn-Moen Company, stepped out and established the Morgan Construction Company. This was a wise move on his part. The business has been eminently successful. He was a thoroughbred. 50 SMITH'S BARN An invalid in his last years, he did not slow down. He was essentially a manufacturer in its technical sense and an inventor. He was always in his pew at Plymouth Church. There is no habit like this to command the respect of the community which even the irreligious must admit, down deep in their hearts, wiggle as they may. There may be some bad men in the church, but there are more bad men outside. A son of Charles Henry Morgan, Paul Beagary Morgan, is substantial and Ralph Landers Morgan, another son, is brilliant, inheriting the inventive turn of his father. His wife, Alice Sawyer Morgan, is one of the few women in history who has made safely a morganatic marriage. Of such as Charles Henry Morgan and these were some Mohicans, of a great tribe, of which great chiefs were Uncas and Chingachgook. 51 CHAPTER 6 Others of the Anointed Pearl street in those days ran well up with Elm street because of the quality of the Huntington, Woodward and Gage families. Its homes were comparatively childless, three or four children only in each. Elm street was known for its sportsmen, Pearl street for its scholars. One of the Pearl street boys was given the name "Loafer" by Elm street, satirically, because of his high stand in school, until his mother said that unless this name was discontinued her yard privileges would be with- drawn. The name was withdrawn. Pearl street had not that lofty type of virtue in which Elm street abounded, for when one of the little Washburn boys was heard to observe, confidently, that he would not tell a lie for a million dollars, little Lem. W^ood- ward unhappily commented: — " Well, I dont know, ihafs a good deal of money, '^ William Reed Huntington was rector of All Saints' Church, Episcopalian. Another great leader, but of the Catholic church, was Father Power who was highly respected on the West Side, though of another faith. He was essentially a man of God. His gravestone may be seen on the south side of SMITH'S BARN the Boston road, east of the Causeway. In his later years he was a great physical sufferer, which disabilities he bore with heroism. One of us once went to ask Father Power to act as a judge at a declamation contest and returned reporting to the Club that he was not at home, adding, with childlike ignorance of the tenets of his church, that no one was in, not even his wife for whom he had asked. Two more priests who came into the West-Side at times deserve mention. Fathers Conaty and McCoy, both efficient public speakers. It has been said: — "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," save the West-Side which belongs to the old families. The Irish immigrant has in recent years wisely amended this proposition, to his advantage and that of his adopted ward. Into All Saints' Sunday-school all wanted to go because of the plants at Easter. The rectory, next to Plymouth Church, has now become a leechery. The Church stood next to it, where the Grand Army of the Republic now is, running through to Pleasant Street. It was burned to the ground. Church outdoor gatherings were held there on the rectory grounds. One of the boys brought a goat to add to the festivities of the day. His mother suggested that the goat be curried and made more presentable. The boy began this work but stopped, for the supply of raw material seemed inexhaustible, like the scriptural widow's cruse, 53 SMITH'S BARN William Reed Huntington had but one thought, the success of All Saints' Church, and in those days Worcester was a stoney field for Episcopacy. Un- like most clergymen, when he conducted the service his eyes were always on the book and he never saw the quality or quantity of his congregation. He remembered his work. He forgot himself. It was his aspiration that All Saints should be surrounded in Worcester by four other parishes, named after the Evangelists. This he lived to see, in St. Matthews,' the first, and Matthew John Whittall, a warden; St. John's, the second, and Edmund Barton; St. Mark's, the third, and Orlando Whitney Norcross and Charles A. Allen, wardens; and St. Luke's, the fourth. His liberality of thought brought him the sympathy of all, whether they went into his church or not. He received and declined many a prosperous call. When urged to accept one of these calls, and that he had earned comfort, he replied, without malevolence : — ''Get thee behind me, Satan.'' When he was called to Grace Church, New York, he went. He had well earned that recognition. No one suspected his family of packing their trunks at the same time as they prayed for divine guidance on the question of this call. His son, Frank, became a New York lawyer. Madge Huntington has shown much skill as a portrait painter. Theresa married 54 SMITH'S BARN Royal Robbins of the great watch makers of Waltham and Hves in Brookhne; and Mary married a brilHant Boston lawyer, William G. Thompson. We boys had a high respect for Rufus Stanley Woodward because he had caught for Amherst. His son, Stanley, carries on as a talented corre- spondent of The Boston Herald. Dr. Lemuel Fox Woodward for years took a class in rowing and swimming to the lake before he gave himself up exclusively to sounding successfully abdomens for an appendix. Few physicians more than he have the confidence of their patients. Ralph Woodward was very skilful in making the most exquisite toy wagons which he sold to the boys in the neighbor- hood. The Gage family, each and all, never fell below ninety per cent, at school. Both sons became mem- bers of the Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard, It is significant that both Homer Gage and his father, Thomas Hovey Gage, Senior, have been leaders of the medical profession in Worcester. It has not been genteel to die except under their care, if this may be safely said. Of this school, later came Frederick Herbert Baker. He is a loyal son of Yale. He was quite an artist at the pivotal bag in his college days. Had achievement, with him, kept step with his splendid sporting spirit, he would have been a McConkey or a Calhoun upon the dia- mond. At sunset his nether limbs turned with relief 55 SMITH'S BARN to the showers and the friendly seclusion of civilian clothes. Man is not always what he appears to be. He dreams of his Alma Mater, but the crescendo of Harvard in recent years has led him into more careful speech when outside his own domain. Thomas Hovey Gage, Junior, is a leader of the bar and a successful trustee. When men can not have their money in their own pockets they are content to have it in his. He declined an appointment to the Superior Bench by Eben Sumner Draper in 1909. The Woodward house stands as it did. The Gage house and stable are razed. Mabel Knowles Gage, the wife of Homer Gage, has established herself close to the foot-lights by her tact and ceaseless energy. Where fashion flourishes or the needy walk, there has she been seen. She was a power in the war in Worcester and over seas. As a child, she planted the fleur de lis in W^orcester. It has taken vigorous root. It has not been shadowed and withered in fast company, by the thistle of the Moens and James Logan, or, in a rapidly becoming cosmopolitan city, by the composite crest of the Cromptons, Saint George and the Dragon and the Shamrock. Going back to Elm street, Isaac Davis was an old time country squire who developed a country law practice into a fortune by wise investments in real estate and business. He built as a residence the present Worcester Club. He was a man of high 56 SMITH'S BARN principle. He headed a family, one of those few which could rival in quantity the houses of Montague and Capulet. In later life he remained at home in the afternoon and his white head over his window screen was a common sight to the boys. The same window there now is differently decorated, more quantity but not more quality. The Davis family was inventoried with the aid of a counting machine at something like six daughters and three sons, like the Crompton family. Florence, who later became the Countess de Brosse, now lies in Pere la Chaise. She drove a high-lifed bay pony, the only pony we knew who drove on the curb. A whip, which with us was a vital part of the furniture of a carriage, with that pony was a superfluity. We still remember the f ringed-top pony carriage. The Davis family was a family essentially of bril- liant raconteurs. The torch they laid down William Bacon Scofield took up. They shone more in romance perhaps than in history. They were not hobbled by facts. Joseph E. Davis was the father of Lincoln Davis who rowed on the Harvard Varsity Crew. Joseph E. Davis might stand on this distinction alone. Lincoln Davis is now an interior decorator, one of the best surgeons in Boston. His mother was a Lincoln, of the house of Waldo. To be a Lincoln in Worcester was and is enough. Edward Livingston Davis, having materially augmented in the Washburn Iron Company what he had inherited, 57 SMITH'S BARN gave his life largely to good works. He did much to make All Saints' Church what it is. Incidentally, he was president of the Rural Cemetery Corporation and leavened the meetings of the board, a strong background for humor, with the family wit. It is said, undoubtedly without foundation, that he asked a workingman on his grounds whether he would like a glass of beer. He replied, as Mr. Davis tells the story: — *'Did I hear the voice of an angel.f^" None of these Da vises were more brilliant than Sarah, who later married a Judge, William Sewell Gardner. One of us fellers asked her the name of her husband. When she replied, "William," he said: — "Why, the same name as our goat." She was an intimate of Frances Helen Ranlet Rice, a woman of great personal charm, the first wife of William Ellis Rice. Christine Rice Gillett, the wife of Speaker Gillett, is her daughter. Those who know her can understand this strong praise of her mother. Charles Davis, another son, built the house where George Anthony Gaskill now lives. None of the Davises could tell a story better than he. He was once asked, so he said, to examine a genuine Satsuma vase, two feet high, owned by one of his sisters and alleged by her to be two thousand years old. He was a connoisseur. He was somewhat incredulous, for such an objet d'art in his opinion was beyond the price of Worcester. However, he made the trip. On his return, he rushed through the hall into the 58 SMITH'S BARN kitchen, tore off his coat and plunged his arm to the elbow into a flour barrel. When a sympathetic wife curiously interrogated him, he replied: — "I took Mary's two thousand year old genuine Satsuma vase in my arms, carelessly, and I am badly burned. ''It's hot from the kiln.'' He had his moments of low spirits which showed at times in the expression of his face. When a photo- grapher once asked him to look pleasant, he ob- served: — "Have you the instantaneous process.^" He could not carry a smile long, even when the photographer jingled a bunch of keys, as he did with us fellers. Of the generation of us boys, a word of Eliza and Theresa, the daughters of Edward Livingston Davis. Eliza later married and died in France. When she walked with any one of us boys it was because she liked him, for she could outrun any one of us. There- sa was the prettiest girl in Worcester. This statement will not be challenged by any one fit to express an opinion. Hence, she naturally married outside of Worcester, in Boston, which carried a larger stock of desirable husbands. Her daughter may properly be said to have cut much ice, being the international woman champion fancy ice-skater. In the house where George Tufts Dewey now lives was the [Child family, a family of some size. One of the boys married a daughter of Mr. Justice Harlan 59 SMITH'S BARN of the Supreme Court. H. Walter Child married Suzanne Messenger and became the father of Richard Washburn Child, who is a notable writer. His rise was rapid and sure when he began to write his name in full. He is now Ambassador to Italy. Enough for H. Walter Child. Anna Child married Charles Sumner Bird, a large manufacturer at East Walpole. She might easily have rested on this distinction. He is the first political layman of Massachusetts, in- dependent, fearless, sound and of high ideals. She has now become the first political lay woman. Poli- tical aspirants, including one Henry C. Lodge, moderator of the town of Nahant, seek first the support of the Birds. Anna Child Bird is the mother by marriage of Robert Bass, former Governor of New Hampshire. She is the aunt of the American Am- bassador. She was the first chairman of the Woman's Division of the Republican State Committee, and was made by President Harding a member of the Advisory Council to the Disarmament Conference. She was the organizer and is the first president of the Women's Republican Club of Massachusetts. She is efficient and tactful with a strong civic interest. It was unfortunate for Worcester when she was tempted out of the town. She has lived out the words: — ''And a little child shall lead them.'' The Crompton family has maintained its promi- nence in Worcester in every way. Few families have 60 SMITH'S BARN done this over a period of fifty years. George Crompton, ably aided by Horace Wyman, built up the old Crompton loom works. Mrs. Crompton, a motherly woman with a forceful personality, has made of her children the most adhesive family in Worcester. She was the leader of the laity of her church in Worcester, to whom all turned with their joys and sorrows. To the head of this family, her daughter, Isabelle Crompton, succeeded. Of the living sons, George Crompton has administered faithfully a number of business trusts, Randolph Crompton has the inventive talents of his father. Both have co-operated in the outdoor life of the city and county. The Bullock family has long been strongly en- trenched in the town. They have administered great trusts with intelligence and .fidelity. The founder of this house, Alexander Hamilton Bullock, the first, was a scholarly gentleman. He was Gover- nor in 1866, 1867 and 1868. Curiously, no Worcester city name has been on the State ticket since his, fifty-five years ago. We well remember when he was stricken on Elm street, carried into the house of Josephine Caroline Smith and died. His son, Augus- tus George Bullock, and Rockwood Hoar, were great pedestrians, holding the Worcester — Princeton record, three hours and twenty minutes down to Worcester. Mr. Bullock walked to Brooks Station each morning from Princeton in the summer. Mary Chandler 61 SMITH'S BARN Bullock, his wife, is known for that great quality, a loyal friend. Chandler Bullock, the Prince of Wales of the family, is now the president of the Five Cents Savings Bank, known by some as "The Nickleodeon Bank," where he protects the pennies of the poor. It is significant that he has been the first boy to call that board to order, his preceding presidents having been at least seventy years old each. He married Mabel Ellen Richardson, born on Harvard street, the easiest street in Worcester from which to shop, that is when the sidewalks are iced. She became a large part of the partnership. She has not wavered for Welsh rare-bits or flippant fashion, for no one has done more than she to keep the Bullock family on the high plane where she found it. Chandler and his brothers, Alexander Hamilton Bullock and Rockwood Hoar Bullock, were brought up amid the simple pleasures of Princeton. There Alexander Bullock played with Salem Charles, when they were looked upon with suspicion by trout, fox and partridge, while Rock- wood, with children crying for bread in W^orcester, snared almost every business risk there was in the town. And now the story of ** Fedra ". In Princeton, the Bullock boys are remembered by the sporting world as the joint possessors of a small black goat, named Fedra. Providence early decreed that these out-door affiliations of theirs should be short-lived and that they should retire to other worlds for con- 62 SMITH'S BARN quest. Fedra died a violent death "at the hands," may it be said, of a dog of composite breeds, *'Pax," strangely named, the property of Phineas A. Beaman, the Herman Ricker of the town. Pax mistook Fedra for a piece of gum, "Wrigley's P-K-Chew- ing Sweet," and acted accordingly. It might be added that Chandler Bullock is also counsel for the State Mutual Company. From the top of the building is a glimpse of Wachusett, and when one looks down onto Main street his uncle looks like an ant. One whole paragraph is here cheerfully conceded exclusively to Florence Armsby, wife of Alexander Hamilton Bullock, for she has established her- self as a mother-in-law who is looked upon with affection. This is to do much. It was as a school girl that she touched the peak, where she was never rated below 95 per cent., that is, outside the class room. Walking down Walnut street or up Harring- ton avenue, with a locket about her neck and carry- ing a few, a very few books for form, she was very, very nice. When mothers missed their sons they called up Harrington avenue where the hat tree was like unto a retail store in that line. Some time at the Hotel Kirby in Grafton she made of it a Ponce-de-Leon. She has now finally anchored with rare propriety on a street named Fruit. Henry M. Witter was also an officer of the State Mutual Company. He was a kindly man. He had many friends. They make life worth while. He 63 SMITH'S BARN was at one time superintendent of the road to Peter- borough, known as the Boston, Barre and Gardner Railroad. It did not begin at Boston, go through Barre or stop at Gardner. Hence the name. Harry Worcester Smith was formerly Henry Witter Smith, but later took his father's middle name. In the summer the Witter family lived in a passenger car at Brooks' Station. Mr. Witter and his son of the same name were like brothers. The son was sometimes called "Bunny." When he died, his father was much overcome and he said," Hal, I will be with you before long." He was, and hearts were touched beyond the circle of his kin. Hats off, all standing, in the presence of Jerome Rowley George and George Spring Taft. In the old days William Ellis Rice was looked at most when dressed for parade. These two prospects, Taft and George, in the hands of the right trainer could easily be made in appearance the two most striking men in Worcester. Affection is not always blind, when this proposition their kinsmen discriminatingly endorse. Silk hats, which suffer from nostalgia on some heads, could be made to grow out of theirs. These two men, born on farms if not in log cabins, so might with some reason have entertained aspirations for the White House. Taft came into Worcester in 1876 under the patronage of a kinsman, Judge Henry Chapin. Because of his social pliability, Worcester lavished its hospitality upon him. He was a stranger to a 64 SMITHS BARN board bill and was known at times to sit up close to fruit cocktails in shirts of others, but temporarily his own. Preeminently, he is the father of twins, having succeeded to a distinction which Halleck Bartlett alone long enjoyed. Jerome Rowley George, born in Ohio, went into the cellar of the Illinois Steel Company and came out as its chief engineer, thereby qualifying for the fastest kind of manufacturing competition in Wor- cester. He lives on the Champs Elysee and has bought the Smith place adjoining, for a playground for his children, which has become another Jerome Park. Strangely, like the chameleon, when at his business he is all head, elsewhere all heart. He has been generous with his money, and more than this, with his time and thought. Of another school is Charles Lucius Allen, whose edges are all bevelled, who steps staccato, and whose feet, like those of the thoroughbred, touch lightly upon the highway. He, too, is known for his good works, notably with La Croix Rouge. Three children lived in the old Bacon house at the corner of Linden street, William Stearns, Harold Stearns and Fanny Stearns Davis. It is apparent from the names that their mother had forgiven her father, who was president Stearns of Amherst College. They were the most brilliant children ever seen on Elm street or any street. William wrote "A Friend of Caesar", at 22, which age is 65 SMITH'S BARN legal evidence; there is no better read lawyer than Harold, who is also a deacon under George Gordon and a passer of the plate but trusted financially however in a side-aisle only; and Fanny, now married and living in Pittsfield, is a writer recognized by that great arbiter, the Atlantic Monthly. Imagina- tion is strong in children and the essence and life of their play. They ride a kitchen mop with all the realistic charm of the English thoroughbred to the mature. These children instituted a Kingdom of Motland and carried safely imaginations which would have retired others to retreats. Asleep in their cradles, they prattled the classics with as much facility as the native born papooses struggled with slang. There has been but one Benjamin Thomas Hill. He is a pronounced individualist. Isaiah Thomas was a great name in the old days after the first Curtis fearfully watched the fires of the Indians from his farm on Lincoln street. The Curtis stock has always been a sturdy stock, now well upheld by the three brothers, Edwin P., John D. and William R. Curtis. When Ben Hill strolls upon the street, his pedometer shows easily five miles each and every hour. He generally reaches his terminus shortly before he starts. His law office is the ideal lair of an antiquary, where fancy de- termines the arrangement of its treasures and not order. The only open spot to rest a hat or coat is 66 SMITH'S BARN the ceiling, which is always kept neat. Strong praise. The sire of Benjamin Thomas Hill was a conveyancer of the old school, writing like copy- plate with an abundance of red-inked lines. No physician despaired of a patient whose will J. Henry Hill had not drawn. He was the Charles Martin Thayer of those days. The son has shown his inheritance in the illumination of books, in a manner which would have led the monks of old to jeopardize the tenth commandment. Dr. Willard Scott and Dr. Frank Crane were at one time each at the head of a great Worcester church. Strangely, not until they turned from the prophets to the profits did they reach the top of their influence, or find more than one savings bank necessary. Scott has established himself over the country, for substance and humor, on the lecture platform; and Crane is now read from Boston to San Francisco. Their histories ought to stimulate recruits for the ministry, from which port they set sail. There was a sensation in Worcester when Waldo Sessions sold to Philip L. Moen a pair of black coach horses for $3000. In these days, your blanchis- seuse works only where she can park her car, and Harry Doe in the old days wrote of a dance where those who came were so poor they came, not in the horse-cars, but on their wheels. These horses were suffering from melancholia, were losing their 67 SMITH'S BARN knee action, and sought a rest from business and a change of atmosphere. The Sessions family is an institution through three generations; first George; then Waldo and Frank; and now Waldo Eugene Sessions, Jr. In the conduct of their business they have shown throughout an eflSciency, sympathy and delicacy, which has stirred the admiration of all. None of them has been more of an artist in his business than Waldo Eugene. Waldo Sessions, Senior, was a mason of high standing and of wide popularity. He was at his best around the stove at Kendrick's stable on Trumbull street. W^hen the motor came in, Kendrick went out. Waldo Sessions and Ned Kendrick were raconteurs of high order. When some one once asked Waldo how his father was, he naturally replied: — ^^ Father dorit climb up on to a hearse quite as cheerful as he used to,'' Physicians like Henry Clarke, Thomas Gage and George Francis, saw us first, and Sessions and Sons last. They were our Alpha and Omega CHAPTER 7 Primers, Primaries and Polish In the promise of the scriptural words, "Cast thy net on the right side," the catch ought to con- tinue to be a great one, as these memories proceed cautiously along their path in the perhaps impossible hope that none of the interesting shall be forgotten or mishandled. In those old days the small boys sought to develop what by courtesy might have been called their minds at Oxford street or in the old school house on Walnut street. One of them, entered at the early age of three by ambitious parents, laid in the first grade for three years, suffering from an intel- lectual hot-box. Later he showed much success in reaching terminals as did the tortoise of fabled days. In those years at Oxford street were held the old Ward 8 primaries called then caucuses. Those were good days. Then the candidates came with their own ballots and could become candidates any time before the polls closed. Every one knew how his neighbor voted. These caucuses had a charm of their own, now emasculated by the elaborate machinery of our present election laws. Then the virile, fighting Ernest H. Vaughan would place in nomination some hopeful political colt and stir the 69 SMITH'S BARN electorate as he best could. His speech nominating Charles M. Rogers, a candidate for the common council and a baker on Pleasant street, was written by Rogers in the Rogers family Bible. The yeast Rogers put into his bread, Vaughan put into Rogers' politics. Vaughan in his punchant qualities is a replica of Frank P. Goulding. Here Eben Francis Thompson was consecrated for the legislature with becoming ceremony. This honor he digested modestly. For two consecutive years, in a speech tattooed into our memories, this was his preamble: — ^'Gentlemen, I should indeed be a churl were I not overcome by this expression of your confidences^ stimulating among the people a sale of lexicons and the study of Shakespeare of which he has become a master. When in after years Eben Thompson touched his peak with his Rubaiyat, then William Bacon Scofield, always his loyal champion, opened his house to him for a reading, and then said to him in the colloquial: — "Eben, you have arrived,'' adding, in substance, that he should now suggest to the aborigines, who had long sat in judgment on him, that they hurry to a place where clothes are bought last and ice first. Bacon, vous avez raison, for the great then made a high place for Eben who had 70 SMITH'S BARN found constant kindliness and courtesy strong auxi- liary weapons for recognition. At the Walnut street school Miss Rounds was a strict disciplinarian feared by the boys while Miss Thomas would have been voted the most popular teacher. With Miss Thomas, even in those early days, Charles Martin Thayer had preempted the pole and came close, as he only safely could, to holding the delicate position of "Teacher's Petr This he did with a large, red, rosey apple, plucked daily from the Thayer orchard. Three of the boys organized a club known as "The L. M. C." or "Last Minute Club," the purpose of which was to leave the yard of Charles Douglas Wheeler at 8.59 A. M. and reach their seats, if possible, when the bell rang at 9.00 a. m. This Club became demoralized, and dissipated itself when one of the members happened to fall upon a banana peel when turning the corner at the entrance to the school premises. This later led Dr. Wheeler to specialize as a pro- fessional adept with a fractured ankle. In the attic of this building was born and long lived The Eucleia Debating Society where Michael Doran was one of its ablest members. He was a great Irishman and when he spoke the members all came in from the fire escapes. For the first grade in this school, the mothers attempted to interest their boys in their 71 SMITH'S BARN dress. Brushing his hair, a mother said one morning to her son: — "Do you remember how when I visited your school I was very careful with my clothes and white gloves, for I wanted you to be proud of me?" "Well," the boy replied: — "you did not succeed very well, for when you went out of the room one of the scholars," and every one then who went to school was not a pupil but a scholar, "said to me: — 'What, is that old fatty, your mother?' " On the other side of the street we went later to the High School. Here Miss Parkhurst was of the best. She addressed her charges often in the Latin lan- guage, "Discipuli, sedite ad perpendiculum," who sat as unresponsive as when at Harvard the graduat- ing class was invited by President Eliot to come forward for their degrees, but in lingua latina, when no one moved. Here A, Carey Field, of blessed memory, a scholar and as faithful a teacher as ever lived, taught us in his peculiar way of "the Geeks and Barbayuns and vayous kinds of chayut yaces." A brilliant pupil of his was a young woman named Upham who later graduated from college with high credit. In her library an interlinear was unknown. We knew little else. It was a custom of Mr. Field when he was conducting a recitation to hurry rapidly and formally over the names of all the West Side boys, never stopping until he reached the name of Upham, having learned that none of the others 72 SMITH'S BARN would or could respond. Asking one of us, one day, as to which accent hung over a Greek word and re- ceiving the groping reply, "A zugma," Mr. Field cried, "Zugma, you might as well say, saw-horse, iota subscript." George Bosworth Churchill, now a professor at Amherst College and a former leader of the State senate, was the most brilliant pupil in that school or any school. He might be properly described as a scholar and not a pupil. When us fellers faltered, which was often, then was called in Mrs. Sarah Brigham, an accomplished public and private teach- er. We needed her. She kneaded us. William F. Abbott survived Mr. Field and got many of us into Harvard which was enough to say of any man, considering his raw material. One of these boys once opened a speech before The Sumner Club with these words, "Tonight, I am a member of the Worcester High School. In one month, I shall be an alumni." His name is not recorded here because he is now the father of grown children whose respect he is attemping with some success to hold. It is an unhappy fact that one of us fellers languished in the freshman class at Harvard for three long years. It is an old custom to lift up on to the platform at Commencement the oldest living graduate, and the story is told that this wretched freshman, as an amendment to this beautiful custom, was asked to sit with the oldest living graduate as the oldest living undergraduate. 73 SMITHES BARN In this manner were us fellers polished as by an emery wheel made of alundum, a product which has made a household word of the names of George Ira Alden, Charles Lucius Allen, the Jepsons, father and son, and Aldus ChapinHiggins, from Greendale's icy mountains to the savages upon India's coral strand. 74 CHAPTER 8 Blue and Red Ribbons The Honorable Frank Palmer Goulding once said : — "// it were not for the sunshine of life. We could not survive its shadows." This doctrine will be read with small sympathy by those surprisingly many who believe rather in its inverse, that if it were not for the shadows of life we could not survive its sunshine, and who exist only by the excitement of misery. The neurolo- gist will say, if the credit of the patient is good, that this is an insidious type to cure. A tragedy, overdone by a mediocre stock company, seen from the front seats of the pit, is a comedy. At one of these, where the Queen of Scots was saying farewell to her attendants, a young man sat convulsed with laughter. A woman beside him, with the tears running down her face, said, "Young man, if you can not enjoy this play yourself, there is no reason why you should destroy all my pleasure." Some women particularly find a strong, unconscious satisfaction in writing a sixteen-page letter of con- dolence. At the breakfast table on a clear bracing morning, when life looks good to the young, the girls wondering whether they can get a gown out 75 SMITHS BARN of Father, and the boys a white waistcoat out of Mother, she contributes this cheer: — "Forty years ago, today, your Aunt Hattie was killed in an elevator well at Sherer's;" or again: — "This is the twentieth anniversary of the death of your Uncle Elmer, who was struck by a falling sign in a high gale." This jars the young and they fail to respond. Such mothers as these revel in gloom, and others who are not mothers. To some facing shredded wheat in the early hours of the day, the news of illness among the neighbors is an appetizer like a cock-tail. When some child of a house is drawn by the hands towards such with the words, " Are you sure you're quite well, my little fellow?" the temptation is great for the host to hospitably reply. Yes, he is in an alarming condition. These philosophical observations are as true as the Bible. To such as these who find cheer only in trouble, the impending determination of the first citizen in Worcester by the child's history will not strike a responsive chord. Society is an ingrate to the man who shows imagi- nation in wit. Few with this gift have been in other ways properly recognized. Abraham Lincoln was an exception, handicapped for years because of this quality. Mr. Justice Walter Perley Hall, a product of Worcester and of The Sumner Club, established by Charles M. Thayer and him, has a strong sense of humor but succeeded only after he had stifled it. The same may be said of Clifford Anderson. It 76 SMITHS BARN was a cruel blow that Alundum struck the banquet table when his scintillations were smothered. Many find in humor their only oasis and salvation from the routine of life. Naturally, they exercise it. Unnaturally, they are looked upon with suspicion. And yet we are under a lasting obligation to them, too seldom met and paid. When Worcester institutes a Hall of Fame, no one should stand therein before William Bacon Scofield. He is a man of imagination, wit and ver- satility. These talents he has shown lavishly. The city of Worcester should look upon him as her first citizen, most to be missed and last to be lost. He turns from conversation to prose, and then to verse, and then to chiselling an heroic bust of George Baker Long so that he resembles a Roman senator. As a monologist he stands alone. The loss of George Grossmith is no longer an acute but has become a dull pain. Qualities which Scofield could have subordinated to selfish sordid financial gain, he has freely spread before those who have crossed his path. By the discriminating he will be the first to be remembered and the last to be forgotten. He has done much for others and more than for himself. The gifts with which William Bacon Scofield was born and which he developed, he first showed when as a boy of tender years he rendered: — " The hoy stood on the burning deck,'' with such vivid effect that he was forced by his 77 SMITH'S BARN father to desist, on a threat from Charles Lemuel Nichols, Junior, then a very young insurance agent, to raise the fire risk on the simple home in which they then dwelt. This was before the days when Edward Davis Thayer, Junior, led his own immediate family and its aflSliated branches into affluence. In The Eucleia Debating Society, where Scofield stood out preeminent, we could almost see "Horatius at the bridge," and when he passed on to a higher life at Cambridge he was long tenderly spoken of by us as : — ''Our late bereaved,'' He showed his individuality by riding into the West Side in August in an ancestral Goddard buggy which needed nothing to complete its consistency but awnings. Harry Worcester Smith would not have sat in such a vehicle. At Harvard college, he showed a fine contempt for high academic distinction as a sure guarantee of future success, and intimated with much grim humor that the faculty had con- spired against him. The best of Boston looked upon him, coming out of the democracy of the Worcester High School, as raw material, though optimistic in the hope of developing him because of his brilliant qualities. They set to work. They sought to teach him, for they had come from Beacon street where to walk without a cane was to risk arrest as in- sufficiently clothed. They sought to discourage his always cheer and recognition of those he knew. 78 SMITH'S BARN They urged him to walk the Yard and yet know no one. They dwelt upon the dangers of democracy and emphasized the proposition, that those who do not pursue are themselves pursued. But Scofield taught them. He had learned to live out the words of John Boyle O'Reilly, his legacy to his children: — ''Be Yourself r At the reunions of the Class of '87, when he rises to speak, all are ready to exchange mouths for addi- tional ears and the whole pit rises up at him. And he is ours alone. William Bacon Scofield, we owe you much. What you could have seized yourself, you have given us. The keys of the City of Worcester should be yours and any other honor which is ours to give and yours to fancy. Long may your brilliancy continue to light up the valleys in which we seek to struggle on. The laurel, be-ribboned with blue, is yours. Saturday, September 10th, 1888, was a significant day for the West Side. It should be marked by a tablet in appropriate form and placed in some prominent square in the city, which he has done so much to mark with his unique personality. Then Frank Farnum Dresser, a youth of sixteen, walked into Worcester from his native hamlet, Southbridge. He had exhausted its educational resources. He had turned to larger fields. He then rested at the Ware- Pratt Company where he sought to fortify himself 79 SMITH'S BARN with fresh Hnen for the impending Sabbath, one shirt, also one collar and one pair of cuffs, all reversible. This debt it is a fact he did not then liquidate, but succeeded in opening an account upon the books of the company. This entry the company looked upon with varied emotions. William Walker John- son has since assumed the responsibility for this credit. He has retired from the firm. He has moved out of Worcester. He is the grand-father of the son of Eben Francis Thompson. At the democratic hour of high noon, Frank Dresser then partook of the hospitality of Edward E. Frost at the old Lincoln House, drawn there, undoubtedly, instinctively by the name. He then proceeded to Oak avenue where forthwith he unpacked his carpet bag in the most attractive room he could find in a house where it might be observed, incidentally, George Frisbie Hoar also resided. The chimes on Plymouth Church rang out to Frank Dresser, as he walked the streets of Worcester, another Dick Whittington: — " You shall be Lord Mayor of the Worcester Clubr These historical facts cannot be recorded with too great particularity. Like wine, their value will augment with age. Frank Dresser then set out with marked success to develop his mind which then was but the raw product of the town of Southbridge. He set an intellectual pace for the boys who played 80 SMITHS BARN on Elm street which they found to be a stiff and embarrassing one. This he kept at, and later at Cambridge. He has now become a leader of the bar, and the best read legal mind on industrial problems in Massachusetts. His path has led from the farm to the white house. One of two red ribbons is his. On December 4th, 1867, among the ancient records at the City Hall, may be found an entry: — ^'Born, a man-child^ Charles Martin Thayer,'' This entry did not close banks or tie up business for those who read it were not seers. The first words lisped by his little lips were: — "Do two or three witnesses qualify a testamentary devise under the law of the Commonwealth .f^" He had then deter- mined to become a great trustee. Only an artist of the Royal Academy could hope to portray properly that little stranger. "Paint me as I am," said Crom- well. In that spirit is this estimate made, fine lines and scars. December 4, 1867, is a day which should be noted and, perhaps, recognized annually in Worcester. The day might be marked by a simple gift to our hero, which he might consent to look upon as a charge against our property, most of which is now held in trust by him. Charles Martin Thayer was the only boy of his kind on the West Side. There never will be another. The mould is broken. His father, 81 SMITH'S BARN Adin Thayer, was a wise counselor to the boy. No father and son were more symathetic. In ap- pearance Adin Thayer was a short, plain man. With Senator Hoar and Congressmen Rice and Walker, they made interesting the Saturday afternoon meet- ings of The Massachusetts Club in Boston, our oldest party club, when it was at its peak, and his portrait hangs on its walls at Young's Hotel. He was general- ly to be found on his back piazza in the early after- noon smoking a cigar. He was always ready to talk to us boys and more than this to listen to us. He always came to the High School debates. In him we lost a good friend. His interest in people made him a respected, political force. In those days no one went to the legislature from old Ward 8 with- out his approval from his law office up one flight close to Pearl street. His benevolent dictatorship in later years Colonel Theodore Silas Johnson as- sumed. Under the influence of Adin Thayer the boy was early taught to throw out over the slats of his cradle the baubles, with which the prosaic young are content, and to find his only pleasure in thought. He then knew what he would be at 55 and he now knows what he will be at 110. Wisely, he has no impatience for Paradise for he recognizes that he will be no greater in Heaven than he now is on Court Hill. No one then wore trousers. Hence, it can be properly said that Charles M. Thayer, when he laid 82 SMITH'S BARN aside his kilts, assumed "pants." The architectural uniqueness of these garments of his nitched him in history when he first rode that weird velocipede into our midst. A boy in years he was then a man in stature. These pants, which had apparently been originally designed to reach his shoes, because of his rapid growth, had become discouraged and were content to anchor at a point midway beteeen his knees and his feet. They were neither long nor short pants. No one dared to say what they were. These peculiar little pants were hewn with a fine defiance of the common place, and yawned at their sides for the child, with the cutest little buttons you ever saw. History will never forget their loss as a crime. To the stranger within our gates, Charles Martin Thayer was a cause for wonder, that a man, apparently, could be happy with playmates of such tender age. Some feared arrested mental develop- ment. Barnum then brought to Worcester the great elephant, *' Jumbo." The boys then gave to Charlie Thayer the alias of Jumbo. This name, stuck long. Smith's barn and a small bantam house which has stood in the rear of 15 Cedar street for more than 40 years are the last links between Charles M. Thayer and outdoor life. For which reasons the American Antiquarian Association by Waldo Lincoln, presi- dent, Clarence Saunders Brigham, secretary, and all its councillors, should absorb this bantam house into its treasures, immediately, by process of law or 83 SMITH'S BARN under cover of night. Some of his defenders con- tend that Charles Thayer has since been seen on the links at Duxbury. When Timothy D wight was elected president of Yale, a western paper said that he was a man of erudition but that he was entirely unknown in sporting circles. This can be said of Charles M. Thayer. When Calvin Coolidge was elected Governor, he was found at The Adams House in an inside room by an open window looking into an air shaft. When Harvard played Yale and Charles M. Thayer was at college, he could have been found in an attic room on Prescott street reading Roman history. While most of his contemporaries sat upon the bleachers at Holmes' Field applauding the triumphs of others, Charles Martin Thayer con- tinued to plan his own. While they slept he worked. He assumed risks as he only safely could. He in- vited as many as six young women to choose the color of his Harvard class of '89. With us, their selections would have covered the whole gamut of the rainbow, with ensuing complications. With him, they all determined upon magenta and each was touched with the delusion of exclusive responsibility. With qualities like these, our hero could not turn away from Fate when she pointed direct at the law as a profitable profession for him. While we played, Charles Martin Thayer was often seen driving with some wealthy dowager concerned over the disposi- tion of her testamentary assets. Purpose, deter- 84 SMITH'S BARN mination, mystery, adulation and a personal charm which draws have put him where he is, a leader of the bar. He has tied up at the dock for which for years he has sailed. He has become a great director of financial funerals, the Sessions of the Orphans' Court. He has made heaven care-free. When Charles Martin Thayer rests his fore-finger upon an electric push-button, he marks that spot as the habitat of solvency or impending dissolution and perhaps both. Then the timid become hypochondriacs. The remaining red ribbon is his. He has come into a high place in the community. He has the assurance of our distinguished consideration, unalloyed by those mean emotions which too often cloud an esti- mate of success by those who have fallen by the way. "Render under Caesar the things which are Caesars." Again, hats off, all standing. His guiding star has been those words: — ''Where there's a Will, there's a Way.'' 85 CHAPTER 9 Out Doors and In Doors. "Cold Blast" and Champagne. The pioneer social Club of the West Side was The Quinsigamond Boat Club originally located on the north side of the Causeway. We boys still remember the impression made by the tragic death while sculling there of one of its members, Harry Williams, who lived on Cedar street. He was an only son. This dented our memories as do all the experiences of childhood, more than any. In its early days the Club was seen much on the water both as a club and as individuals. Rockwood Hoar rowed a shell there. If the Club has had any two patriarchs they were James P. Hamilton and John Heywood, its first and staunchest friends. No voices went further in its councils. Charles Hamilton, a son, now sits at one of the feet of Frank F. Dresser. Later the Club moved to its present site and changed its temper until few, if any of its members, could be in- duced off the banks of the lake onto the water. They were content simply to look at it. The Club was sought simply for convivial intercourse. It never had a more constant member than George Stearns, now moved to Waltham. It was hard to approach the premises without seeing George in negligee 86 SMITH'S BARN engaged in some loyal service in the house or on the grounds. Dr. Lemuel Fox Woodward ran him a close second. At one time, the Club was largely his own country seat, which the Club recognized as reasonable because of his devotion and value to it. Some of its members were not particularly nice at the table, for when they took their soup they relied much on the power of suction, suggesting defective plumb- ing. The great feature of the Club has been its monthly meetings and of these the reading of the censor's reports. In these reviews of the periods between the meetings scant attention was paid even to the laws of slander and libel. These reports became epics, to hear which all the members invariably came from afar, some hoping to be recognized, but the sensitive to be ignored. Great among these censors have been Thomas Hovey Gage, William Bacon Scofield, Henry Harmon Chamberlin, Charles Martin Thayer, Ernest L. Thayer, and Harry W. Doe. Gage once painted a raid and rape by the Grafton Country Club of certain so-called doubledeckers, which were invaluable furniture in our bed rooms and the title to which was in question, in an epoch-marker: — '* They had no place to lay their heads y And so they came and took our beds,'' This touched the Grafton Club so deeply that some of its members, themselves fluent critics, discon- 87 SMITH'S BARN tinued diplomatic relations with Gage. Strangely, those who initiate acrimony are the first to resent reciprocity. Strangely the caustic are the first to ask for caution. Scofield was Scofield, Strong praise. Enough. Perhaps the peak of these meetings was turned into a Commencement day and an honorary degree was conferred by the censor upon Henry Alexander Marsh, F. S. H., Friend of Senator Hoar. Chamberlin, now a high priest of bridge, had more literary finish than any of the censors. He could not only write but talk the English language. Beautiful are his legs upon the sidewalk. C. M. Thayer's shafts were excellent but he was somewhat hobbled by a growing law practice. Characteristically, he hesitated to spear the great. Ernest L. Thayer, the immortal author of ''Casey at the bat,'' was a genius who excelled both in substance and form. Harry W. Doe was the most versatile of all of them. He was strong both in prose and in verse and was an amateur actor of considerable accomplish- ment. Everybody liked him. Everybody remem- bers him. There have been few such. The Quinsiga- mond Boat Club has had a creditable history, made great preeminently by its censors. The Grafton Country Club was incubated under the leadership of Harry Worcester Smith. It had a motto: — "Each to his pleasure^'' 88 SMITH'S BARN It recognized a desire to bring within the reach of the West Side, wholesome Enghsh out-door hfe, riding, shooting and hunting, and it set out to gratify this wish with no small success. Here could be found Chester Whitin Lasell, who headed an inspiring delegation from the Blackstone Valley, also Frank Luther Hale, Randolph Crompton, Samuel H. Colton and Joseph L. Keith. Its small but attractive club house in North Grafton near the Millbury line had all the seclusive quiet charm of a private residence and the country about it was fortunately quite depopulated. The site was well chosen. With- out the resources of H. W. Smith, person and stables, the Club, however, would have been a somewhat one- legged affair. He always stood ready to mount anyone from the paddocks at Lord vale nearby, some of them most inappropriately, and it was no unusual sight to see a novitiate, wretched but simulating contentment, thrown from the back of a bucker into the arms of an hospitable snow drift. Four leading and great members of The Grafton Country Club deserve particular treatment. No men and few women are more modest than Chester Whitin Lasell, unreasonably so because of his triumphs on the track. Incidentally, here, it is an interesting philosophical question for debate: — Whether there is more happiness in being a small man with a large ego or a large man with a small ego.^ The mother of Chester Whitin Lasell was a 89 SMITH'S BARN Whitin, with the Drapers and the Wells family, the three great manufacturing families of Worcester county. For The American Optical Company, the Wells family might advantageously adopt as its trade-mark the scriptural words: — "Having eyes, ye see not," for which suggestion no charge is made these Croesi of the South. Miss Whitin went as a girl to Lasell Seminary at Auburndale for a degree and came back with a husband, who, with Edward Lasell, was its founder. The father of Chester Whit- in Lasell sat close up to Virgil, Ovid and Herodotus. The son, in an avocation which he wisely made a part of his business, religiously cut the leaves of his American Horse Register, while he temporarily mislaid his paternal inheritance, his classical library. A portrait of his patron saint, Ed. Geers, always hangs true on his walls. Chester Whitin Lasell became one of the pic- turesque figures of Worcester county, thereby qualifying for the child's history. He early deter- mined to raise his own horses and drive them him- self on the track, almost the only so-called gentle- man driver in that field. He made his debut with Terrill S., 2.083^, who was found by Dr. Kendrick and Edward Moulton, who also found Moccasin Boy, later owned by Charles A. Williams. This horse was eminently successful. For years he was known as the New England Half-Mile Track Champ- ion Pacer. When that horse struck his stride, the 90 SMITH'S BARN mile posts suggested a cemetery. Lasell then grad- uated from the half-mile track to The Grand Circuit. Here it was a sight to stir, to see him come into the home stretch behind the chestnut stallion, Mac- Dougal, skipping a bit behind in his zeal, who never faltered fighting for the colors of Oakhurst Farm. His two greatest home-brews were Henry Todd, 2113^, who holds the two year gelding record; and Nowaday Girl, who took the two-year record over a half-mile track, 2.163^. This was much to do against such professional drivers as Lon MacDonald and Walter Cox, to whom are turned over innumerable entries bought by the capital of the country. It is a great handicap where even a great farm is confined to its own product. In the winter he moved a string of horses to Hildreth's stable on Sever street in Worcester and appeared on the Speedway. Here Gene D. was never headed, as sound and fast a brush horse as he ever owned. When the America won the ocean yacht race, some one cabled to England asking: — "Who was second," and the reply came back : — " There was no second,'^ So it was with Gene D. when Lasell gave her her head. There was no second. Lasell drove almost as easily as a young woman accepts an attractive offer of marriage. He speaks of "a well mannered filly." When one carries etiquette into the stall 91 SMITH'S BARN of a stable, he is a horseman to the nth degree. Easter, a handsome, fast black mare of his, was also seen on the Speedway where she won races with the ease of a buggy ride. It is popular for the Spartanesque and those who live only to work for money to look with fine con- tempt upon the sportsman as a butterfly. The great lesson of the life of Chester Whitin Lasell is that he followed an avocation with all the skill and perseverance of a business and not as a passing fad. This is a strong test of character. Gentle Reader, have you the spirit to rise daily at Saugus, through- out the trotting season, year in and year out at five, and work out a prospect 'till ten on the track, where there is small stimulation from changing panorama though the way is clear if not straight. This Chester Whitin Lasell did. Few men drove more miles and saw less country. He shone where the judge's bell and the beat of the hoofs of the horses upon the soft surface of the back stretch are music to the ears of the sportsman. At the same time he did not forget the manufacturing company of which he is the head. In the early Eighties, a Spaniard, christened ** Manuel," a horsebreaker, rode daily a chestnut horse with a rope in his mouth up Elm street to his home on John street. This sight undoubtedly was the early inspiration of Harry Worcester Smith, sometime known as Bits Smith, alias Biddy Smith. In his turn, on a horse he never knew fear. With his 92 SMITH'S BARN greyhounds, he early led the country. He went into the show-ring with high school actors, like "Sky- high," against the Vanderbilts. With limited capi- tal, with his brains, he beat them with their money. He bought "The Cad" for $150. and won a steeple- chase, a sport which calls for skill and courage, at Morris Park and $10,000. against a field of pro- fessional jockies, white and black. He rode at the old indoor shows in the Mechanics Building at Boston, "Sure-Pop," a brown mare, who cleared the fence at the record. That mare would have made a splendid trademark for the Morgan company, for which suggestion, also, no charge is made. She was all springs but head-strong. When Smith, bare- headed, with hair curling after the aristocratic manner of such locks as remain of Henry Cabot Lodge, headed that mare for those bars, the whole gallery stood. He rode at The Country Club at Brookline. He was the central figure there for years, when even the Bostonese thrilled and thawed at his exploits, and the Cabots and the Lowells saw that some good could come out of Nazareth and in a Smith. Once, thrown at an obstacle and dazed, one of his adherents and admirers hurried up with words of encouragement, "Harry, you will ride again." Josephine Caroline Smith, who stood nearby and who for years had anxiously wondered daily whether her son was on the turf or under it, looked upon this friend and said: — 93 SMITH'S BARN " *, if you are the sportsman you say you are, mount the horse, who stands there eating grass and finish the race. You have no wife or children.'^ Harry Worcester Smith was as successful in his way as any one who has ever hved in Worcester county. But these accompHshments were not his high tide. Threatened with physical disability and meeting Waldo Sessions, Senior, one day, and each understood the other and they were good friends, Smith said to him: — " Don't fix your measuring eye on me,'' and then rebuilt himself. Further, then strapped financially, he made and deposited in the bank one half million dollars. This is much money, that is in a country town. He thus showed the determination which had made him what he was. Gentle Reader and Spartan, have you taken hurdles like these or any one of them.^^ They are the lessons of his life. How art the mighty fallen, with all the spur of these traditions. Today, the only inhabitant of the West Side known beyond Boston is Homer Gage, Junior, for what he is now doing with such wire- haired fox terriers as Miss Springtime and Wellwire Welsh Scout, international champions. Here is the fleur-de-lis far flung. This proposition excepts only those who chase the golf ball, which most men •Author will identify in confidence. 94 SMITH'S BARN pursue when they have approached so close to the grave as to be unable to pursue anything else. They can not be inventoried in such fast company as the heroes of these pages. The third sportsman of The Grafton Country Club to be honored with recognition in this child's history is Samuel Ellsworth Winslow, who has shown that a man may be a graduate of Harvard and still eligible for public office. He was the greatest ball player who ever came out of the West Side. He played not only with his hands and feet but with his head. Versatile, he was a pitcher and an out-fielder. He was a hard- hitter. He led a nine at Harvard through an entire season without a defeat. In those days, Yale won over Harvard, often at baseball and generally at football, when the Harvard band played : — ''Ifs a way we have at old Harvard.'' Winslow was first a disciplinarian. He had the nine McGrawed. He was the nine. His wisest act as captain was when he fired an outfielder on the eve of a Yale game looked upon as vital to victory, for insubordination. This player suffered from a delusion and banked upon it, that he was greater than Winslow. He thought he could safely indulge in a skate other than the Winslow. And Harvard won the game. William Lord Smith, another member of the Club, made himself known throughout the country as a 95 SMITH'S BARN hunter of big game in Africa. He faced an oncoming lion in that jungle as calmly as he poured maple- syrup on a buckwheat cake on Elm street. Enough to say of him that he has but one quality more marked than his courage, which is his modesty of bearing. An innocent, intimate legend of the Club may not here be out of place. At one time, Matthew Percival Whittall was elected to membership. For four weeks the Club was without an acknowledgment of his attitude. It then invaded South Worcester curious to determine the situation. The delegation was met by his father, Matthew J. Whittall. "Gen- tlemen," he said, "Percy is very busy, so that, perhaps, you will be good enough to tell me what you want." "No," he added, "Percy has never seen your letter. It is in my pocket where it has always been since I first saw it. I recognized your motto: — 'Each to his pleasure.' You are all very nice gentlemen but Percy will not join your club jar we are all just as fast as we need to be." By which he meant, simply, that he wanted Percy at home, to continue to read aloud: — "Swiss Family Robinson." Anyone who remembers the clean sportsmanship of the Club and the sweet nature of M. J. Whittall will recognize the legitimacy of this anecdote as a harmless pleasantry of high order. The Grafton Country Club has now for some years belonged to the ages, but it filled well a vital nitch, 96 SMITH'S BARN and did much to add to the health and happiness of its members and their friends. The Worcester Club began its existence as a social fortress. George Frisbie Hoar was its first president. To be admitted in those days was a high social honor and a successful response to every exhaustive test, intellectual, and particularly financial. It soon learned, however, that there was not money enough among the old Indian families of Worcester to main- tain the Club on the plane where it belonged. It looked longingly on the boys of The Winter Club. The strict guard on the premises was then relaxed and it became, from a gathering of one element, a peaceful and successful juxtaposition of factions. It widened its scope so that its personnel appealed to all tastes whether intellectual, artistic, food or game loving, or merely human beings. Here it was a new ordeal to the West Side, which had known only the faithful hand of some Irish maid as she placed oatmeal and milk upon the breakfast table, to be called upon to face composedly one Biggs, an English- man and steward, ever ready with obeisance and: — "Quite right. Sir;" or "Very good indeed. Sir." Still comparatively young, the Club is rich in memories to the old inhabitants. It was a brave or handsome young woman, or both, who strolled unnecessarily on Sunday noon by its windows, where were concealed behind protecting screens a battery of optics and cheerful critics, and some old fashioned people on 97 SMITH'S BARN their way home from church in the early days looked at the Club as at a place to be shunned. When the arid wave first struck the Club and the members turned to private fountains, it became the private residence of Charles Francis Aldrich, who was living there, to maintain which the members glad- ly paid dues. There in the old days on many an evening, Henry Bacon, George Spring Taft, Horace Verry and Col. Hopkins hung over a game of bil- liards. In the reception room, William Ellis Rice and Josiah H. Clarke discussed the troubles of the New Haven railroad. At a table in the restaurant, Charles A. Chase, Joseph Russell Marble, William Hamilton Coe and Edward Brodie Glasgow often sat at late supper in quiet cheer. And there were young red-blooded members who are neither for- gotten nor named for they can make themselves heard. In later days the Club house was materially enlarged so that it has become a great, successful city club. It had however in those early days a charm which it has never passed. La Societe de I'Hiver, or for our little readers, The Winter Club, had rooms on Pleasant street at the corner of what was known as Post Office alley. It was a Wayfarer's Lodge for men in the twenties, who, after a summer at The Quinsigamond Boat Club, found themselves obliged in the winter to spend their evenings with their families because of the high dues at The Worcester Club. Its most picturesue 98 SMITH'S BARN figure was its steward, an Ethiopian, Harry W. Tol- son. He deserves a place among the picturesque. Tliere was nothing seclusive about Tolson and he mingled freely with the members. He could make a rare-bit or fill up a card table. He had come into this easy communion with the best through a series of social summers at Princeton. There he was a wakeful agent for his mother who presided over a laundr}^ and he did not hesitate to touch upon the shoulder even a Bullock at a dance with some un- friendly and suggestive comment on the quality of his linen. Each Monday evening he was seen dragging into the outskirts a small wagon with its whited cargo, the fruit of his week's diplomacy. Two more men of this race, colored leaders, William Storms and Joseph Small, have been good souls about the gardens and lawns of the West Side, where they have fearlessly sought to ensnare lions of the dandy type and where they have been spoken of by master matrons as, "Very nice men." James Storms, a son, is in business in Boston where he has seen many great ups and downs as an elevator operator in the Custom House Tower. Strange, how many of the colored turn to laundering and kalsomining and are seldom seen on the perches of coal- wagons. When The Worcester Club called for new blood and a bank balance, it absorbed The Winter Club on terms satisfactory to each of the parties, some of the older members of the former, however, stipulating 99 SMITH'S BARN that the boys should not bring with them all of their toys. The plan has worked out well. Nevertheless, the club question will not be ultimately solved until we have a large, bi-sex club with a wing for the men, and a wing for the women if they can be gal- lantly spoken of as needing wings, and a centre house where all sexes can mingle at fancy and at will. Then will our homes belong exclusively to the children, with no lights in the evening below the second floor, and we shall have attained the social and domestic ideal. The Bohemian Club was unique above all others in that all the members were conversant with books other than mileage books, telephone directories and social registers. There met artists like Joseph Green- wood; surgeons like Homer Gage; gentlemen like Charles Seabury Hale; clergymen like the brilliant Langdon Stewardson; scientists like Arthur Gordon Webster; musicians like Arthur Joseph Bassett; and scholars like Edmund Sanford. Their pleasures were Bohemian and simple. Beverages like beer from the bung but oftener cold blast ginger-ale at five cents a mug, and cigars of such a popular brand as the "Blackstone" were enough to stimulate and content them in their Thursday evening conferences. A citizen of the town might invent a rat-trap or make a million in pop-corn and fail to stir them and be as far from qualifying for membership as when he began his business career, penniless. The^^ nested in an attic suite, opposite the foot of Elm street. 100 SMITH'S BARN The walls were not frescoed but hung with fish-nets, suggesting the retreat of a great painter, a Greenwood or a Hale. Give a great aesthetic a fish-net and a glass of cold blast and he is content. The hearts of its members were not set on deer parks, kennels and racing stables. They worshipped only the triumphs of the mind. The Bohemian Club had its Christmas Revels. At one of these, verses were read on Leonard Kinni- cutt and his dog ** Kelpie." Dr. Kinnicutt was a Professor at The Worcester Polytechnic Institute where Dr. Edmund A. Engler was president, and the chorus began: — "Vll tell Dr, Engler r The man who wrote that verse ought to go into history with the discoverer of the wireless. Car- toons of each member by the exquisite hand of Charles Seabury Hale were published in a book, that of Colonel Edward Brodie Glasgow, whose ankles were always protected by carpet, being entitled: — " Can the leopard change his spats?' \ When William T. Brown, a literateur, read a paper at one of its formal functions and a pin drop- ped, men jumped as when a bomb explodes. He had a gentle, delicious, efficient humor which made even Scofield covetous. During the working hours of the day William Brown made clothes. W^e boys looked 101 SMITH'S BARN upon his handiwork as the jeunesse dor^e of Boston look upon John Mitchell. In those days thirty dollars commanded his talents. Those were halcyon days. Glasgow was invariably to be found at The Bohemian Club. He was a well read man of refinement and a good deal of a philosopher. He had a type of charming pessimism which made, rather than jeopardized friendships and which was restful and soothing as against the boisterous and trying cheer in which club houses abound. Once, when told of the happiness of a mother with twins, he said: — '' Some folks are very easily "pleased, ^^ The Bohemian Club never rivalled its social brethren because it had a menu of its own. It was content with its own place which was a high one. The first president of The Harvard Club of Wor- cester was Stephen Salisbury and the vice-president, George F. Hoar. One of the little Washburns once ventured up to the ancestral estate of George Frisbie Hoar to ask him to preside at a Republican rally. The maid cautiously asked him to remain outside, which did not dispel his native diffidence, while she carried his card into an inner chamber and the august presence. When this little Washburn had finally secured an audience and sought to identify himself with name and ancestry, with perhaps pardonable childish pride, the senator, who seemed 102 SMITH'S BARN somewhat in mental conflict, observed: — "Ah, Ro- bert Washburn, Washburn, I think I place the fami- ly, quite respectable people." Taking the chair at one of the meetings of The Harvard Club, Mr. Hoar once said, that it was an unhappy instance where: — " Vice takes precedence over virtue.'* The strength of this Club has been materially in men who have never taken their degrees. Strangely, college reunions are always under a deep obligation to those who have been repudiated by their Alma Maters but who always appear at such times with virile loyalty, in the same way in which the Ca- bridge "mucker" is a mighty ally at a foot-ball bon fire. The Club had relaxed in its qualifications for membership until any one who had blown up a motor tire while passing through Cambridge might present his name with hope of success. This review now drives on into the exigencies and delicacies of the impending chapter with a courage almost heedless, spurred by those great lines of Longfellow : — '' A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner, with the strange device, 'Excelsior' " A young woman, asked why she had been demoted from a Pierce car to a Ford, replied: — "Father has written a book." In literature as in aeronautics it is 103 SMITH'S BARN harder to stop and to land than to start, and did discretion dictate the scope of these memories, with some reason, there might be imprinted here upon this page at this point a cut of a cub bear, sitting upon a cake of ice, to carry the thought:— My tale is told. 104 CHAPTER 10 Two Schools, Merriman and Cristy These two schools, Daniel Merriman the leader of one and Austin Cristy of the other, with the founding of Clark University began to stand out in sharp contrast. That was the struggle of the Eighties. Austin Cristy had but one thought and one ambition, to put a daily newspaper on its feet and thereby to establish himself in a suburban villa. This he did. With him, it was The Paper, first; and all else, last, if at all. Daniel Merriman sought to emphasize religion, education, music and art in a plain, practi- cal manufacturing city. These two, diverse ambi- tions may not be sympathetic. They are not dis- creditable. Nevertheless, The Paper, The Festival, Clark and The Museum were not kinsmen in the old days. Daniel Merriman and Austin Cristy were not disciples of the same school. This is a temperate and perhaps sound statement, non-actionable. When Daniel Merriman cried; Forward, then it was not Onward, Cristian Soldiers under Austin Pulitzer, Field Mar^chal Cristy. He wavered. Like Achilles of old, at times he even sulked in his tent. Daniel Merriman came to Worcester into the pulpit of the Central Church, where Charles Baker, in his turn, collected tithes. He was a graduate of 105 SMITH'S BARN Williams College. In those days a college degree was a unique distinction, and those who went to Europe, on their return were surrounded upon the street corners as though from the top of Mount Everest. Daniel Merriman was one of the first citizens of Worcester to actually own his own evening clothes. When he retired, for only the vulgar go to bed, he divorced himself from his shirt, collar and cuffs in one operation, and they could not, as with us fellers, rest on three separate chairs. He never allowed a plural subject to become unduly intimate with a singular verb. His library was adorned with a bronze head of Caesar Augustus and not a Rogers Group. On his walls hung Corots and not a large colored photograph of Grace Darling. Naturally the old settlers were under high pressure in his presence, for he was of a race of his own. Logically, he later became president of The Art Museum. This was not only proper but unavoidable. He was one of the scholarly preachers of the city. His wife was a woman of property and, unlike many of the clergy, to him a growing grocer's account had small terror. He was a man of learning, refinement and aesthetic tastes. He had control of his time and he was determined to use it for a better Worcester. He became a right arm of Stephen Salisbury at The Worcester Polytechnic Institute and at The Art Museum. Stephen Salisbury was rich and generous. He was a very modest, unassuming man. He was 106 SMITH'S J5 A R N forced to confine his intimacies to those who he knew would ask him for nothing. Most men asked him for everything. He did not dare to answer his own door bell. A missionary was the only man who in his zeal ever ventured to slap him on the back. This was almost sacrilegious. He got no money. Most men handled him as tenderly as a bit of bric-a-brac, particularly when their interest in him was sordid. Daniel Merriman came into Worcester strong in his way and complemented the town where it was weak in its way. It was a happy day for Worcester when he came in, and a sad day for it when he went out. Its people are under a strong obligation to the Merrimans. They were respected as a force in the community for the best. They were alone of their kind. There were too few such. In some non-es- sentials, however, they were of some innocent amusement to the townspeople. Three anecdotes of the Merrimans. One evening, Dr. Merriman was emphasizing to a friend his hopes for his son, now Dr. Roger B. Merriman, then at Cambridge. "Roger," said he, "I hope will live life to the full, in its best, broadest and highest sense, with a fine regard and respect for its traditions." The bell then rang and the following wire was read by Dr. Merriman, who in his emotion had quite forgotten himself: — "Have swallowed a billiard ball on a wager at Leavitt and Pierce's. Can not extri- cate it. Come at once. Roger." This was a strong 107 SMITHES BARN contrast between idealism and realism, hopes and facts. Again, Stephen Salisbury had given $200,000 to the Polytechnic Institute in a letter to Daniel Mer- riman, secretary, which seemed like almost a daily habit of Mr. Salisbury. A reporter of The Gazette, seeking "a scoop," went to Mechanics' Hall where "The Tech." was holding its graduating exercises in a crowded hall. Writing on a piece of paper that he would like a copy of Mr. Salisbury's note, he succeeded in handing this on a cane up to Colonel Elijah Brigham Stoddard, who sat on the platform close to Daniel Merriman. In those days no one was recognized with academic distinction in Wor- cester except at the hands of Colonel Stoddard, who was chairman of the State Board of Education. He was a native of Mendon and a graduate of its High School. When Daniel Merriman read this paper, he was overcome with mirth. It had no other effect upon him. When a curious reporter reached Dr. Merriman, after the exercises and after The Gazette had gone to press, and the news belonged to The Paper, Dr. Merriman addressed him thus: — "Young man, your request was not only amusing but absolutely unintelligible to me. Mr. Salisbury has written no note. A note can be but one of three things," counting them on his fingers, "either an interchange between two great powers; a sordid evidence of indebtedness; or a communication be- 108 SMITHS BARN tween •two little ones at school, in the nature of a love missive. Mr. Salisbury's communication re- sponds to none of these tests. He wrote a letter and nothing else. My dear young man, when you want anything of me, do talk the English language, if you can." Not disheartened, a reporter never can be, on another day, he asked Helen Bigelow Merriman, wife of Daniel Merriman, for a paper she had written on art, who replied, "Young man, I can not have my paper edited by you, or marked by your blue pencil, or cut by your vulgar shears. I have thrown my whole being into that paper. Do you know for what you have asked .^^ You have asked for my child." Led to look upon the paper from this angle, the reporter did not push his claim further. Daniel Merriman was a strong friend of The Music Festival, Clark University and The Art Museum. He was not a regular contributor to The Paper. The Music Festival has been established and maintained largely by our own townspeople, much to its honor. It has become an institution. A people which had hitherto unrestrainedly found delight in such vulgar productions as: "The Old Oaken Bucket," began loyally to similate pleasure, with some effort and success, at a seventy -two page fugue in B minor by Bach. A tune had been cut out of their diet except, strangely and inconsistently, in encores, when they gave way to common joy without restraint. How- 109 SMITH'S BARN ever miserable at heart, they were bound to Hve on a high plane and the sale of hurdy-gurdys fell off, although some of the colored population continued to play a cornet on the side streets in August on a Sunday afternoon. However, the inhabitants did not rebel, for they had learned to choose between crudity and happiness on the one hand, and trial and pro- gress on the other. They recognized with no small pride that Worcester had become a shrine at which pilgrims from all over the country came to worship and they were happy. Of such is The Music Festival. Then for their further development came Clark University and College. Then the Cristians sneezed, openly and vigorously. Yet there they went, under some pressure it is true. They had carefully folded their copies of The Paper, which yet peaked out of their pockets at Commencement exercises. There, when even the June bugs were giddy with the heat, they saw conferred upon some savant an honorary degree in a classical tongue when some obscure citizen nodded his approval largely because he sought to control his knowledge of profane language because of his ignorance of any other. It is said that a clergyman was once called to a pulpit because he was wise enough to preach on the invert opaqueness of Providence, and the pew-holders assumed that he was a wise man because they were not wise enough to know otherwise. The Cristians read in The Paper of the approach of Docents and they gathered 110 SMITH'S BARN about the old Union Depot as curious and expectant as upon a circus, wondering whether it was to be a mastodon or something preserved in a bottle. They began to read of the knee-jerk, although they were more vitally interested in the accurate interpretation of a gas meter. They recognized, however, that what they did not understand yet might be good. And all the people recognized that in Jonas Oilman Clark the city had found a great benefactor, essen- tially because he had brought the highest education within the reach of the boys of the city and county. Of such was Clark University and College. Then came The Art Musem through the wise generosity of Stephen Salisbury, in its turn finding the people not wholly prepared. It took courage to plant water colors, canvas and oils in a field where the great crop had been overalls, and some of the crass, note the word, Oentle Reader, wondered why Burkett's Ball Field might not better have been endowed. Such concerns fell away when they walked among its art treasures on a Sunday afternoon and into fields which had been to them strange lands. There they saw a painting, curiously labeled accord- ing to the custom of museums, "A Young Oirl," under an abnormal fear, perhaps, that it might other- wise be construed as a portrait of a discharged steward of the Worcester Club, which might have been marked. Serf on the Rocks. Here Benjamin Heywood Stone, affectionately known as "Bennie," 111 SMITH'S BARN covers the whole gamut of his duties. He sits in judgment on a masterpiece, files a cheery letter from Gentner, or diligently and delicately aids the Venus de Milo in her toilet for a Sunday reception. Muse- ums and Ku-Klux Klans have their hanging com- mittees, each bringing distress in almost equal measure. While the talented artist welcomed the museum as a stimulus and a goal, he chafed at times when the work of his genius was looked upon askance by some man whose success in business, in the manufacture of gum or some other commodity, exceeded his qualifications as a connoisseur of art. This philosophy may be brutal but it is somewhat sound. Again the people saw that what they might not understand yet might be good. They recog- nized in Stephen Salisbury a generous and wise donor, for he had given Worcester a new name throughout the country where she had been known for her looms, carpets and metal products only. Of such is The Art Museum. It is an easy transition from Daniel Merriman to the Church. They are synonomous. In those days there was a delicious hush, Sunday morning. The world seemed to slow up. There was peace. It was before the era of gasolene and then men on Sunday, when they carried tennis racquets, carried them furtively under their coats. Then boys were washed every Saturday night, if they needed it, which was looked upon as an evening sacred for that purpose. 1112 SMITH'S BARN Now people bathe unnecessarily and even for fun. On the following Sabbath, the boys were unacclimat- ed to fresh underwear, which came once a week. Perhaps this gave special emphasis to the day. Then some of us were taken to Union Church which then stood on Front street beyond the Providence tracks, which then intersected the Common, close to where then stood the Crystal Palace and where Joseph Forest Sherer now emulates F. W. Wool worth. Then we walked past the old City Hall and looked fearfully into its basement windows at the prisoners who were to be taken before Judge Warren Williams to be tried on the following day. Here our nurses had told us we were sure to land. Hence, we were interested, as some politicians are in the building of a new State Prison. This was before Mr. Justice George Russell Stobbs wore the ermine on Waldo street, where what he said was law, that is after he said it. The minister of Union Church was Ebenezer Cutler. Strangely, he was as good a judge of a horse as there was in Worcester. This is a scarce virtue with the cloth. The Washburn and Moen Manu- facturing Company was controlled from the broad aisle of Union Church. Hence, there was always a plenty of candidates to teach in the Sunday school which was looked upon as a transition to a job on Grove street. Here was prominent Philip Louis Moen. When he sang the hymns, he raised and lowered his eye-brows in a peculiar way of his own. 113 SMITH'S BARN This clinched the attention of us boys and did much to carry us through the service. When the text was announced, our elders crowded into the ends of the pews and then we prostrated ourselves in sleep for fortification, physically, against the drains of the coming week. Deacon George Kendall also sat on the broad aisle. He bought those big iron grays which drew the wire wagons over which for years teamster Bigelow presided. He was a land mark. A small boy there then never outgrew the name of "Ramie'' because at Sabbath School Concert on the fourth Sunday of the month, when Dr. Cutler said, "Here come our little lambs," Ramie led the flock into the church. Benjamin D. Allen, a spiritual aristocrat and a fine exponent of the old school, sat at the organ. He gave us boj^s music lessons. When asked by him to repeat for the fourth time, we impatiently said, "Darn it," he calmly suggested, "No profane language here." In its later years, Arthur Estabrook was a devoted deacon of the church. He was much troubled when a stable was built on the adjoining premises until reminded of the manger birth. Those were the days when Episcopacy and Ca- tholicism were tender plants in the town and the field was preempted with virile Congregational, Baptist and Methodist shrubs. There were revivals 114 SMITH'S BARN at Piedmont and Grace churches when spiritual sharp-shooters fastened their fire on the fringes of the congregation, and concluded that because the timid young drew back that they were averse to salvation. There, the revivalist would ask those who wished to be saved to stand, and by a continued process of elimination by like questions left the modest still sitting, as having a distinct and deter- mined desire for hell. On Sunday mornings during divine service, dea- cons chatted with the "pastor" before the sermon, who then asked the sexton to drop the window six inches from the top. When some long absent wor- shipper walked to his pew on the broad aisle, then the minister formally bowed to him, much to his discomfort, and called for the hymn: — " While the lamp holds out to burn. The vilest sinner may return.''' Then there came what was known as ''the long prayer." After a longer sermon, the service was closed with that great hymn, "In the cross of Christ I glory," the minister begging the congrega- tion not to flat their high Cs, which hymn the young men associated with feverishly locating their hats and seeking to reach the prettiest of the girls as she walked out. Those were the days when the young were put into uncomfortable clothes, given Bibles with gilt-edged leaves and long leather flaps of the 115 SMITH'S BARN old school, sent to church three times and taught to sing of, and to yearn for heaven as a place "Where congregations ne'er break up and Sabbaths have no end." Those were the days of the Wednesday evening prayer meetings when the local representa- tive of an over busy Lord, who had taken Worcester off his hands, advised him in detail of its seven day happenings, business and social, not forgetting even a small boy who had jammed his finger in a preserve closet door. Then, when the proceedings dragged, the minister would seek to encourage some hesitating lamb, sheep or perhaps goat "to lead us in prayer" with an identification which grew in particularity, such as, "Our handsome brother in the rear seat, with a red beard," while the girls tittered. These considerations naturally introduce Langdon Stewardson who once audaciously said in All Saints' pulpit : — " The Episcopal church is so decent it has no life. The Methodists so lively they have no decency'' a sharp, concise epigram which ruffled both Metho- dists, and loyal Episcopalians and their husbands. He was the greatest preacher in Worcester of his day. His sermons were rich in substance and in their ironical finish. Into these he threw not only his whole head but also his whole body. Then he took a bath, like a race horse from the track. He drew to his church even men. He read a paper before a 116 SMITH'S BARN clerical club on "Tolerance," which split it in two. He was a magnet of a high power. He drew John Bowler to church, once, a money -getter and a virile, well read man, who said that when he had made a fortune he was going home to England to live, where a man might be a brewer and yet be looked upon as a gentleman. Pending which, strangely, the genteel continue to absorb malted drinks and at the same time, strangely, frown upon those who fabricate them. And now a word on the leader of the Cristian school. Austin P. Cristy is a son of Dartmouth. He is of the class of '73. The P stands for Phelps. Two distinct contributions to history. He has walked up the ladder of hard work. He has parked himself on his own gasolene. Fear if not love has been his only ally. The old families, he knew, did not yearn to be disembowelled. This he set out to do. He dreamed of a bank balance. He was never an op- timist. His editorial columns never included such constructive cheer as this. All honor to John Graham of Whitinsville whose hen, "Polly," has laid 365 eggs in one year. He was a destructionist. When he saw a head, he hit it, for a circulation was his goal and he got it. Cynicism romped on his pages. He knew where human nature was weak and here he built his success. He knew that the elite would deprecate the tone of his paper but that every one of them would buy it daily, when it spread out 117 SMITH'S BARN in its columns the weaknesses of their neighbors. This he did. His only test of the standing of a paper was its gate-receipts and measured by this test it was a great success. When a leader on the West Side married, then Austin P. Cristy wrote a great satire thereon. Then the leaders rose early and in their not-pajamas, in those days, impatiently reached out over snow-covered door mats early in the morning for their papers. These they read before they dressed, on cold mornings. They frowned but they continued to paste The Paper into their scrap-books and Cristy smiled, which was an effort. Stimulated, A. P. Cristy then sneezed at Clark and brought much grief to Jonas G., but his circulation grew. The front pages of The Paper might have forgotten to record some new development in the relations between foreign countries, but when a strawberry was found in a short cake in a Central street spa then the same was good for the whole front page. Whenever a dance was held, either in Colonial Hall or at Dun- garven Hill, then each participant was clearly and carefully named, and all bought the paper, for Cristy knew John Jones loves to see his name dignified by type. While some may seek to spatter the standards by which Austin P. Cristy sailed into port, this they are estopped to do, for he simply gave them what they wanted. As a legislature is as bad as the people which elects it, for it is representative, so a success- 118 SMITHES BARN ful paper is as bad as the people of the town where it is sold. The responsibility for this record is not with A. P. Cristy alone. It is also with the natives, not only on the East Side but also on the West Side. In fact he was often heard to deprecate the high tone of his sheet. He has done much for himself. His good works he has scrupulously, successfully, con- cealed. His right hand has small knowledge of the habits of his left. This is an honest estimate of Austin P. Cristy which could not have been made safely when The Paper was his. His fangs are now gone. It would have been a fine aspiration of Austin Pulitzer Cristy had he shot at the stars in his hope for The Paper by paraphrasing the Harvard motto : — Veritas, Cristy et Ecdesia. 119 CHAPTER 11 Along the Potomac In those days John Davis Long of Hingham was Governor of Massachusetts. He was, with his keen wit touched a bit with cynicism, the best after dinner speaker in the state. He summered in Princeton and the coach he used stood long in Beaman's stable as the town's great possession. The office and the man made a strong impression upon us boys. It would be a splendid thing for the government if such respect on our part for our public officers could have survived into later years of maturity. Public officers, in an ill-advised simulation of democracy and in their search for the strawberry mark which locates the long lost brother, do much to jeopardize a respect for authority. The mayor of Worcester should never be without a silk hat, a symbol of his office and its high place. The late Mayor Reed once ordered a ward politician to remove his hat in his presence, in these words, '*No one stands covered in the presence of the mayor of Worcester." This was a strong contribution to the efficiency of his office. The new member in the Massachusetts legislature looks with high respect upon the Speaker, amid his splendid surroundings, as a superman, to learn later that he is a human being who sometimes 120 SMITH'S BARN sits at home without a coat, sometimes even in un- protected hose. The pomp of monarchies is not without its effect in maintaining respect for authority and law and order. There should be more and not less of such. Theodore C. Bates was in his prime in the Eighties. He was the power behind the throne. His was the only colored coachman in Worcester. The political colloquy this man heard in driving his chief over Worcester county would furnish well a shelf in the Antiquarian Association, which Clarence Saunders Brigham, secretary, should here note, and the child's history should stand beside it. Bates had made a competence in business and gave himself up to his favorite avocation, politics. It was his one great aspiration to go to Congress where he would normally have gone had not he and William Whitney Rice, the incumbent, a close ally, fallen apart. This resulted in Rice coming out of Congress and Bates never going in. The old tenth congressional district became a bitter battle field and for years political participants were assigned to one of these two fac- tions. Whether Bates or Rice was wrong on the merits of their controversy, is a question which will never be determined, and is still debated by the old inhabitants. It was a calamity. Tryphosa Duncan Bates, later Batcheller, the daughter of Theodore C. Bates, inherited the talents of her father. She was as brilliant a child as the 121 SMITH'S BARN Stearns-Davis children, but of another school which does not turn away from a Club sandwich. This praise of her is a perilous proposition. Female readers may here lay down Smith's Barn. Men will turn up their student lamps and clinch it closer. She was once brought to call at the age of five upon an Elm street hostess by her father's then intimate, William Whitney Rice. When she was asked whether she would remain to luncheon, she turned to Mr. Rice and said: — ''It is for you, and not for me to say. Sir.'' Even then she thus showed much balance. The children formed a little club of their own. She was naturally made its chairman. She there ruled upon points of order with such native ease as to cloud even Speaker Reed as a parliamentarian so that none of her tender associates dared appeal from the rulings of the Chair. She was then known as "Phosa," a name which she has carried to this day. She has passed from Worcester to European fields as a colt graduates from a half-mile track to the Grand Circuit and has become the playmate of kings and queens. She has not however forgotten the humble companions of her childhood days whom she remem- bers annually at Christmas. Congressman William Whitney Rice was good company. He did a large law practice. He was for years the legal adviser of George Crompton, and had 122 SMITH'S BARN an office in the old Post Office building on Pearl street. He was essentially successful before a jury and was known as the thirteenth juryman. He was connected by marriage with Philip Louis Moen and Senator George Frisbie Hoar. He was a loyal son of his aged mother, who lived in Winchendon and whom he visited weekly. He had a strong sense of wit, gloomy at times. He would say to his office asso- ciates, "Tomorrow, not God willing, but if he do not interpose, I shall go to see my Mother," and again, "Tomorrow, unless I am thrown into jail, I shall go and see my Mother." He naturally knew all the great in Washington : — Blaine, McKinley and others, and when he talked of them, familiarly, at his home-comings, the natives hung on his lips and lost the power of speech. It was a great cross to W. W. Rice, who was known as "W. W.," when the Bates war retired him to the resources of Bowdoin street. Rice was succeeded in Congress by a Democrat, Hon. John E. Russell, a brilliant man known as " The Shepherd of Leicester,'' It ought to be admitted here that there have been some brilliant men in the Democratic party. Russell was one. He owned two sheep. Had it not been for delicate health, Russell would have stopped no- where in politics. Cleveland offered him a place in his Cabinet. He was at all times an entertaining conversationalist. It was an intellectual debauch to 123 SMITH'SBARN sit on a settee in his back yard and hear him talk. He did not always, it must be admitted, turn away wrath with a soft word. He used to tell that when he first walked Main street in riding breeches and spurs, in this way the Harry Worcester Smith of those days, that the leading bankers and business men nudged each other, pityingly, as they looked at him, and tapped their heads, and then Russell added : — " Now, their sons are the leading members of the Grafton Country Club." When he heard of the appointment of an official in the Probate Court, he said, **Now death has new terrors." In two short years, when the sore in the Republican party had somewhat healed, Russell was succeeded in Congress by Joseph H. Walker, again a Republican. Russell then retired to Leicester, but, because of his fine spirit, his many admirers beat a path there to his door. In the early Nineties came the Young Men's Republican Club and its accoucheurs, Frank Roe Batchelder, Charles Taylor Tatman and Charles H. Wood. It was born in the Day Building. The members were gathered together in an outer chamber while the leaders labored on a slate in a small back room. To alleviate the impatience of the herd, the anointed from the sanctuary relayed each other in speeches which were eloquent on such themes as democracy, and that the ticket to be elected was to 124 SMITHS BARN be the unhobbled, spontaneous will of the most ane- mic member. William A. Gile dubbed this little band, "The Purifiers." This gave them much mental distress for every one heard what he said. Joseph H. Walker was a self-made man. His critics sometimes intimated that he was somewhat self-impaled, that he worshipped his creator. It is as hard to find a perfect man as a perfect horse. Walker sat in Congress for ten years. He was originally a manufacturer of shoes, so that he was not away from home with the heelers, political. He largely educated himself. He later did a large business in tanning hides, centred in Chicago, and made a fortune. He was fond of horses and cattle which he bred at his stock farm in New Hampshire and which took many prizes. He was an indefatigable worker and student, and became a very creditable member of Congress. He was a splendid individualist. He was a fighter through and through. The word fear was not in his dictionary. He became chairman of the Committee on Banks and Banking and wrote a banking bill. He was a forceful platform debater, and once opened a great debate with George Fred Williams in Me- chanics Hall in these words: — " Workmen of Worcester, do you want rhetoric or do you want bread f He had the high respect of the people, for he had a great and generous heart and was given to good 125 SMITH'S BARN works. His profile, his eye, his trenchant qualities earned for him the soubriquet: — " The Gray Eagle of Quinsigamond,'' In these days when men seek obscurity and safety in majorities, cluttered up like sheep, individualism, where one steers his course by his own head and conscience, dead to the praise of friends and satire of critics, is a splendid virtue. This was the in- heritance of Joseph Walker, the son, from his father. Joseph Walker outgrew Worcester as have some others and migrated to Brookline from which he became the Speaker of the Massachusetts House, after a long service on the floor of the legislature. He then became the Republican candidate for Governor and is now a prominent figure in state politics, known fancifully as, "The Eaglet of Norfolk." He is one of the too few political laymen of Massachusetts who has definite political opinions of his own. His sister, Agnes Walker, is the wife of Adams Davenport Claflin of Newton Centre. He has established himself there as a public benefactor for he has given the people trollies from which the returns are not usurious. She is thus the daughter of a former Congressman, the sister of a former Speaker and the daughter-in-law of a former Governor. In family trees she thus symbolizes horticulture as a fine art. Frank Roe Batchelder was an ideal secretary to 126 SMITH'S BARN Joseph H. Walker. He was Vice-Congressman. He was efficient, politically, and particularly as a stump speaker. He was versatile and a frequent contributor to "Life." Withered by a political frost, he then made a fortune in business. "God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform J" His son, Roger Batchelder, is now on the New York Evening World, his business to interview prominent people. Few men at his age have shown greater newspaper ability. Even Robert Lincoln O'Brien has given him the entrfe to the Herald, outside The Mail-Bag, where Arthur Gordon Webster is generally confined. John R. Thayer, known only as "John R.," and on "the island" as "John Air," a Democrat and a democrat, large D and small d, was elected to Con- gress because he not only could hold his party but because he had also strong social qualities which made him many personal friends. These friends were drawn towards him because his law office was not only a law office but a club-house. In one front room in the Walker Building, John R. Thayer and Arthur Prentice Rugg practiced law as partners. One inside, dark cavern adjoined this room where John Thayer was reluctantly led at times by those of his clients who looked for a suggestion of secrecy. There was no better criminal lawyer in the town* 127 SMITHES BARN No one told a better story. He gave a State senator, aptly, the name, ''The Walrus,'' because of the manner in which he wiggled his way down street with his arms. When a client did not sit by his desk, a playmate sat there and repartee romped. Close by sat Arthur Rugg, always working. Here Rugg developed a power of concentration which nothing could shake, amid distractions unexcelled. This later put him on the Supreme Bench. Con- centration is defined by Webster to be the ability to work while John R. Thayer talked. He was a very facile stump speaker. In one of his campaigns for Congress, George F. Hoar, who stumped against him, asked the voters of South- bridge, "Do you want for your congressman a statesman or a fox-hunter .f^" The next evening on the same platform, John Thayer asserted that he had come out to answer that question of the Honorable Senator, which he did in this way: — " When the people of this district can get it, they'll take both rather than neither.'' No cleverer turn was ever made upon the stump. It made him many votes and did much to win him the election. John Thayer was fonder of nothing more than of fox-hunting. He thus became known intimately all over the district. It added much to his political strength. He hunted with all the old time sportsmen, among whom were Elisha Knowles, 1^8 SMITH'S BARN and Salem D. Charles whose house at Princeton was much sought by those who loved a good story and the sport. John Mowry Thayer is much like his father except that when he has counted some of his election returns he has missed that gun and dog of his father. This is no small endorsement of John Mowry Thayer. Hence, he should thus make this child's history a text-book in his coming cam- paigns. These are but some of the men who have rep- resented, first the tenth and now the fourth con- gressional district. It is praise, literally safe how- ever, that none of them has filled more completely this chair than the present incumbent, Samuel Ellsworth Winslow, one of the five leaders of the House, of whom other pages sing. In him the District may well say: — "La Follette we are here'' 129 CHAPTER 12 Stars, Gold and Silver The same boys of those days now sit in communion in the Worcester Club, a clearing house for their joys and sorrows. There, one evening, one of its most assertive members laid down the proposition, that General Custer was killed by the Indians by his own negligence. An old gentleman who had sat unnoticed in the corner behind his newspaper then ventured modestly to say, "I think you are wrong. Sir." **No," continued the assertive one, "I have made a study of his campaign and of the newspapers and histories of the day and what I say stands." "You may be right, you may be wrong," replied the old gentleman, "but I was in that fight myself. My name is Mills." It appeared that the speaker was General Mills, an associate of Custer's and the founder of the Mills Cartridge Belt Company, which William Lindsey and Frank Roe Batchelder brought to its greatest success. William Lindsey, who lived in Boston, made a fortune in cartridge belts and lost a daughter on the Lusitania. Strangely, the war brought him business success and family sorrow. He also made his mark in the world of letters. Few men have shown his versatility. 130 SMITH'S BARN It has been said: — '^ Death loves a shining mark.'' The Worcester Club has learned that this was wisely said. On its walls hang the gold starred "photographs of Howard Wal- ter Beal, Brayton Nichols, Willard Smith and Horace Wyman, four men lost in the ser- vice and its best, Howard Beal was a skilful surgeon. Handsome and of fine physique, with a smile which drew, no one held the great war more close to his heart than he. Brayton Nichols and Horace Wyman, with the whole of their lives before them, with every ad- vantage to make success, gave all they had. Of Willard Smith, elsewhere. It is written of the woman who swept the house for the piece of silver which was lost. In the Wor- cester Club, which should be further swept, are other pieces of silver. Here is George Massa Bassett, of versatile excellence in business and avocations. When he puts his hand to the plough, he does not look back, although many are behind him. An artist with the piano, he does not forget a tune and even the crude are happy. Then there is Luke Cant well Doyle with a personality unexcelled which has brought him much. Again, there was Leonard P. Kinnicutt, an accomplished chemist who tramped the roads and woods about Worcester, a disciple of Thoreau, who was the intimate, intelligent and loyal friend of every caterpillar and grasshopper upon the 131 SMITH'S BARN slopes of Asnebumskit; and a brother, Lincoln New- ton Kinnicutt, who having acquired a competency, gave himself up with great fidelity to The Art Muse- um, his farm, The Bohemian Club and the study of Indian names. There is William S. B. Hopkins, the second of a good name, faithful to each of his trusts; Charles Lemuel Nichols, for years a great and loyal physician, who has earned the right to gratify a taste for books in a well equipped library, with binds of high order; Charles H. Banister, efficient in business, always friendly, who shows a fine literary discrimina- tion in his distribution of this child's history; John Calvin Stewart, one of four brothers who have built up a successful business on an honest name, he has a mouth and ear keenly tuned for humor; Francis Henshaw Dewey, tireless, who has evolved trans- portation out of the horse-car into traction and who might with much propriety have named a son, 'Oscar, and daughter, Caroline ; Herbert Parker of the county of Worcester, who talks a language of his own, a constellation, great enough to lead the electorate of the State to forget that he came out of Worcester and make him Attorney- General of the Common- wealth; George Sumner Barton, known as "Jig," and Rockwood Hoar Bullock, late leaders of the J-Doree, retired voluntarily, busy blenders, no one has topped them at Cambridge and Boston in social distinctions; William Goodwin Ludlow, en- dearingly termed "Luddie," a bon-vivant, who has 132 SMITH'S BARN but to meet men to make them friends, in integrity an impeccable fortress, who holds the plate on a rich broad aisle, inviolate, though the boy choir suggestively sings the anthem: — "The Lord Is Mindful of His Own"; George Ichabod Rockwood, who invented a fire-sprinkler and so graduated into a Rolls-Royce runabout and thus, because of his fire- sprinkler, has made the thought of life after death more endurable for some of the inhabitants of the town; William Hamilton Coe, a philosopher, widely read; Alfred E. P. Rockwell, an individualist, who belongs among the picturesque, who has laid his skill and patience at the feet of the neurotic, the aristo- crat among invalids; and Philip Jacob Gentner, who wisely laments materialism and strives for a civiliza- tion where rewards are commensurate with the best service for humanity and against the supremacy of an autocracy of merely money. It may be said with much reason that had the Pilgrims not landed on Plymouth Rock but Pilgrim Rock landed on the Pilgrims, this child's history would not have been written. But Pilgrim Rock did not land on the Pilgrims, hence these memories. This responsibility assumed, the cup must be drunk to the dregs. Hence, no men within the scope of this child's history, saving William Scofield, and not measured by the material test of money in an age cluttered up with the rich, have done more than these three, in order; first, Arthur Rugg in his 133 SMITH'S BARN appointment as Chief Justice; Alfred Aiken in his election to the head of the Shawmut Bank; and George Hoar in his election to the United States senate, Hence, further, Worcester should institute a Gallery of the Immortals. Whatever controversy, excerpts or amendments these nominations may provoke among the people of the burg, this work should now be assumed in Smith's Barn. The path is blazed here with seven names, dis- creetly in alphabetical order. Alfred Lawrence Aiken, whom long, hard, in- telligent work made the president of the second largest bank in New England. George Bancroft, historian, who wrote in Worcester the first great history, as this is, perhaps, the last. Strong praise. George Frisbie Hoar, a senator of the United States and its greatest scholar, who came out of a long political service as emaciated financially as when he went in. Daniel Merriman, a great preacher, who sought to develop religion and art among a race of manufacturers. Arthur Prentice Rugg, made Chief Justice of the Commonwealth when a young man, who ever seeks to impress upon the people a fine respect for the dignity of his court as vital to true liberty. William Bacon Scofield, who lights up dark places with the sunlight of his wit and leads the people out of the valleys onto high mountains. Matthew John Whittall, who showed that one could lead his country with his product and make himself 134 SMITHS BARN materially rich, and more than this, hold fast to reli- gion, ideals and friends. Other names, including that of Austin P. Cristy have been presented for consideration for this Gallery of the Immortals, not having qualified — as yet. On the base of the Charles Martin Thayer statue of George Frisbie Hoar upon the Common are written words of optimism. Hoar was a pioneer before even Emil Coue. For it was George Frisbie Hoar who first said of his country, in substance: — ''Day by day, in every way. It is getting better and better ^ Under the leadership of these Seven Immortals and the stimulus of this creed, Worcester ought to sail on into the high seas of the future with every hope of making port with God. 135 CHAPTER 14 The Weak Links of the Seven Immortals 136 CHAPTER 15 The Smith Salon In its atmosphere, the Smith salon was an oasis as a society centre. There should be more such. It has been reasonably said that among the politicians ignoble passions stalk; envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. Not there alone however ambition sits in disappointment among the rocks and brambles. In society, where dinner jackets are the working uniform and lapis lazuli dangles, there also is found a high rival in these disturbing emotions. Here, while individuality may be a mighty factor for success; face, figure, family, fashion, form and fortune, six big Fs, are auxiliaries not to be forgotten. In social distinctions few suffer like the sensitive young. The debutante of eighteen, whose feet are not firm fixed and forgetful of her manner and speech, is often rude not through malevolence, but, diffident and fearful, she thus seeks to stand off easiest confusion. She who sits out dance after dance alone is often successfully worked upon by an affec- tionate and sympathetic mother, told that only the flippant appeal to the men of today, hence she is hurt and feels that she is slipping when at times called out of seclusion into the centre of the floor. She who is long on family and short on fortune, to whom a 137 SMITH'S BARN plumber's kit and bankruptcy are synonymous, who sits on haircloth, when asked if she knows the Graham girls, who languish solvent in seals in a soft purring aristocratic Packard motor, hesitates and then says: — No, not well. Mother thinks they're rather flashy. These are but some of the mental conflicts. Talk not of politics. The path towards the United State Senate is a macadam road, shaded by over- hanging oaks, when set off against the rough way walked by those in fine slippers who shape their course for the head of the Cotillion. These are mere philosophical observations. Enough. This child's history of the West Side stops where it began, at what is now eloquently named Willard Smith Square. Change back these forty years to what they were, thou powerful enchanter Time, and these chariots, magnificent motors, were then tum- brils, buggies drawn by horses; these fortunes were then simple competences; men now rich then stood in bread lines; these now many great were then few; these now great landed estates were then plain wooden houses on land measured by square feet; now ambition and elaboration have become dicta- tors; then there was modesty and simplicity; man now lives intensely then quietly; men and women now in the touching helplessness of age were then in virile childhood; and progress has not brought more of peace and happiness. Willard Smith was the grandson of Josephine 138 SMITH'S BARN Caroline Smith, the head figure of these memories. He was the son of Frank Bulkeley Smith. Frank Bulkeley Smith was another dynamo Hke Goulding. His capacity was recognized by WiUiam Swinton Bennett Hopkins when he made him a law partner; by Horatio Nelson Slater when he made him a trustee under his will; and by Robert Winsor when he made him treasurer of the New England Cotton Yarn Company. He drove straight at his mark and had small respect for the gentle art of diplomacy. It was his greatest virtue, and a scarce virtue, that he recognized the right of others to emulate his same style. He in his turn could listen to straight speech. But in his own house, he was as gentle and affection- ate as a woman. Willard Smith, in the few short years in Boston which were his, showed that he had inherited the business acumen of his father. In a winning personality, he had a great business and social asset. His mother was Nancy Earle Smith, the descendant of a long line of Quakers, the Earle Family. In the heart of Willard Smith there was no guile, the inheritance which he took from his mother. He went into the Great War. He gave all that he had. He never came home. He lies in France. A fine type in substance and form, sound of head, heart and body, handsome, wholesome, modest and lovable, there never 139 SMITH'S BARN was a better Smith or a better boy. The tree lies where it has fallen but his spirit is over the city where he was born and lived, an in- spiration. Josephine Caroline Smith was true to the end to her code: — '*Keep on going." In her last days she was never happier than when motoring, and then never happier than when all the cylinders were thrown in and the speedometer threatened with a hot box. In the Eighties and Nineties, with which these memories are more particularly concerned, when the mercury dropped and the monkey and goat and other in- habitants of Smith's barn congealed with the cold and the barn door rolled back, hard, her spirits never drooped and she threw her splendid energies into her rink and her salon. The Smith rink lay around a little summer house, on what by courtesy might be called a lawn, which in the summer was well cut up with foot prints, just east of what is now 34 Elm street, where Arthur Woolsey Ewell now smokes a pipe after sunset in contemplation of the ancient greatness of the Greeks and of Yale. This rink was a thick mass of diverse humanity when the ice was good. Here, small boys struggled in their first attempts, or laid involuntarily on their backs; young girls were gently led about by their timid admirers; and then there was hockey by the big boys when stick and puck jeopardized the safety of the small. On the piazza nearby, molasses 140 SMITH'S BARN candy steamed hot for the inside body, while the adjoining kitchen was filled with those who set out to thaw out hands and feet. At the close of the day, the rink was swept off by the boys as a part of their trade, when James Hall again went on duty with hose to perfect the surface. The salon of Josephine Caroline Smith was the centre of the social activity of the town. Those were the days when civilization was in process on the West Side, when a gentleman in the metal line, having been invited to a great reception, regretted his inability to appear: — "For having to take stock." Then came a needed antidote, Richard Ward Greene, known as "Dick Greene." He was another who dropped in from time to time to the Smith salon. He married the daughter of John Davis Washburn. He liked people. People liked him. Hence, no one wrote any richer insurance policies than he. He had other distinctions. He was the first man in Worcester to seize the tone of a name written in full; and wore what in those days was properly described as "tight pants," the first seen on our streets. They were actually made for him only. When our mothers bought us clothes, a salesman at Ware and Pratt's went up on a high ladder for them. When he first walked up Elm street, the boys gathered and asked : — ''Who is her 141 SMITH'S BARN The answer hushed all: — "Richard Ward Greene." He did not ruffle the refined with the words, "Let me make you acquainted," or again, "Pleased to meet you." In a country town, where memories were short, when functions were scarce and one impended, when others were feverishly telephoning about: — ''What shall we wear,'^ Richard Ward Greene, with peace of mind and confidence, clothed himself in the right attire without consulting a book on etiquette. Charles Francis Aldrich was often in the Smith salon, no one more so. He had been secretary to George Frisbie Hoar. He was long the clerk of the Bastile Bank at the corner of Foster street. Here was originally planted an Aiken bank seed which grew with the quality of a rose but with the splendid vigor of a weed. Aldrich was unique in two respects in Worcester. He was a Yale man, a responsibility which was later shared by Alfred Lawrence Aiken, Fred Baker and Arthur Ewell. What the delegation lacked in quantity, it showed in quality. Second, he had been coxswain of Bob Cook's great Yale crew. Thus the small boys looked at him hard. No one was more kindly or considerate of others than Charles F. Aldrich. In later years, crippled with rheumatism, he was patient and cheerful to the end. His disabilities, he fought hard, but many 142 SMITH'S BARN forget, that some who lose fight harder than many who fight and win. It is enough to say of him that he was a gentleman. George Spring Taft was also secretary to Mr. Hoar. He graduated from the Worcester High School in 1878 and then from Brown in 1882. He was a student of the highest order. He has a brilliant mind, one of the few lawyers who delight to discuss their cases after the day's work is done. His great Achilles tendon is that he is more prone to rest his feet upon his office desk, when he thinks best, than upon the floor. Ernest L. Thayer was a classmate of William Randolph Hearst at Harvard. Mrs. Hearst once asked a clergyman, Dr. William R. Huntington, how her boy could be most useful to civilization and he replied : — "Buy him a newspaper.'' This she did. Civilization still patiently waits. Hearst recognized Thayer's genius and put him to work on The Chicago Examiner. When Ernest Thayer wrote ''Casey at the bat," Worcester be- came known west of Springfield. Charles Ranlet, above all others, the girls sought, so far as they modestly could. He kept his head however and found a wife on the Smith premises, the only living daugh- ter, Josephine Lord Smith. No young woman in the town received more attention than she. A sister, Caroline, had died in 1873 at the age of six. Ranlet was a good student at Harvard and had a good 143 SMITH'S BARN business position in the town. He lived at the Club and the girls lost the power of speech. He had a quiet charm of manner which made him welcome everywhere. Others were George Bentley Witter, a kinsman, and Charles Sumner Barton. In the 1896 political gold parade, Witter and Barton led the men from the Rice, Barton and Fales Company. With canes, boutonieres and what was then known as Prince Albert coats, they were superb as they strutted at the head of their men, a tonic for the neuresthenic. As set off against their toilets, even the lilies of the valley looked like street gamins. No one who saw them as they marched up Elm street will forget that spectacle. Witter for years was known for his horses and his stable. In conformation and in action in them there was nothing to disturb the eye, and when a horse came to need a boot it was to Witter a cross like a crippled child and there was an empty stall and a successor, for the legs of his horses were leatherless. Each horse had his own private tooth brush, box and bath and even the most fastid- ious epicure would not shrink from breakfast on that stable floor. George Witter has as fine a com- panionability and sense of wit as can be found in the town, that is when he cares to exercise it, and once an arbiter in a labor strike, he was heard to observe with liberality: — ''Anyone can agree with me who makes an honest effort,'' 144 SMITH'S BARN Of one young man who was seeking to qualify for her salon, simply by the power of adulation, Josephine Caroline Smith said : — ''He wont get far, purring around me,'' There was one work of art, then in the salon of Josephine Caroline Smith and now at 9 Linden street, which should ultimately go to The Art Museum under the testamentary devise of Chet- wood or Mary Chapin Smith, his wife, in whom the title now is. She has shown much literary skill al- though our mothers expected us to read rather the books from the Sunday school library. This photo- graph is of Chetwood, in 1876 at the tender age of three, holding a small bag and about to take a journey to meet his father who was returning from Europe. It was taken by Claflin, the Schervee of those days, in his studio where now The Bohemian Club is. Note, Gentle Reader, from the stand behind those little feet, that the childish head is held in chancery from behind by metal prongs pursuant to the custom of the times and it is apparent from the visage that Chettie is far from his toys. It is as irrisistible a picture of a child as ever perpetuated itself upon the plate of a photographer. Mother, holding that fair-haired infant of yours, if you question this strong statement, push the button by the door a short walk down Linden street on the right from Elm street, and look upon that picture, though at the risk of throwing 145 SMITH'S BARN away that little innocent of your own whom you now ignorantly worship. In holding the last words of these memories up to a climax, mention is now reserved here for Charles Sumner Barton. He inherited a business but he remained a democrat. He had the same smile for the small as the great and his workingmen looked upon him as one of their own. He never said an unkind word of anyone, nor was he a willing listener to such words by others. He was made of sheet iron. For years at the Club until midnight, he was out on the road selling the product of his factories at day break. A stranger to anything but virile health the storm of wretched invalidism struck him with all its power. In him there was neither waver nor whimper. The same old Charlie Barton, so far as lay in his power, he walked the streets of Worcester with head erect, although he knew there walked behind him a grim conquerer who within a year would lay him in the dust. Ask me what a man is and I ask you what he is at home. That is the great test. Most men wilt inside their own thresh- olds. Here they lay aside their armor and are themselves. Here neither his physician nor his nurse knew whether he was in pain. This is a strong test. It has been well said that not men and women walk the streets but heroes and heroines. The heroes of life are not those only of the steeplechase and 146 SMITH'S BARN battlefield but first they who make their fight alone without the spur of comrade sufferers, without recog- nition and without the stimulation of crowds and cheers, khaki and martial music. To such should stand a monument, to that great army of the heroic, too often forgotten by their fellow men but ever to be remembered by their God. Of such was Charles Barton. When the news came to him in his dark days that one of his own friends had taken his life, he said, quietly, with eyes fixed into the future: — *'/ never go where I am not asked.'' Charles Sumner Barton worked hard, he played hard. Above all, he knew how to die. And no one loved life more. It was a tragedy, for in him death and splendid vitaHty were set off in outline never more sharp. He died as he lived, lion-hearted, a man. ''My lifted eye, without a tear. The gathering storms shall see; My steadfast heart shall know no fear; That heart will rest on Thee,'' The End. 147