July 17, 2025 • 15 mins
Dive into Warners engaging and humor-filled memoir as he shares his experiences growing up on a farm in Charlemont, Massachusetts. Narrated by Mark Penfold, this podcast will transport you back to a simpler time and place.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eighteen of Being a Boy by Charles Dudley Warner.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Mark Penfold, Chapter eighteen, Country Scenes. It is impossible to
say at what age a New England country boy becomes
conscious that his trouser legs are too short, and is
(00:23):
anxious about the part of his hair and the fit
of his woman made roundabout, these harrowing thoughts come to
him later than to the city lad, at least a
generation ago. He served a long apprenticeship with nature, only
for a master absolutely unconscious of the artificialities of life.
But I do not think his early education was neglected.
(00:45):
And yet it is easy to underestimate the influences that,
unconsciously to him were expanding his mind and nursing in
him heroic purposes. There was the lovely but narrow valley
with its rapid mountain stream. There were the great hills,
which he climbed only to see other hills stretching away
to a broken and tempting horizon. There were the rocky pastures,
(01:06):
and the wide sweeps of forest through which the winter
tempests howled, upon which hung the haze of summer heat
over which the great shadows of summer clouds traveled. There
were the clouds themselves, shouldering up above the peaks, hurrying
across the narrow sky, the clouds out of which the
wind came, and the lightning, and the sudden dashes of rain.
(01:27):
And there were days when the sky was ineffably blue
and distant, a fathomless vault of heaven, where the henhock
and the eagle poised on outstretched wings and watched for
their prey. Can you say how these things fed the
imagination of the boy who had few books and no
contact with a great world. Do you think any city
lad could have written Thanatopsis at eighteen? If you had
(01:51):
seen John in his short and roomy trousers and ill
used straw hat, picking his barefooted way over the rocks
along the river bank of a cool morning to see
if an eel had got on, you would not have
fancied that he lived in an ideal world, Nor did
he consciously so far as he knew, he had no
more sentiment than a jackknife. Although he loved Cynthia, Rudd
(02:14):
devotedly and blushed scarlet one day when his cousin found
a lock of Cynthia's flaming hair in the box where
John kept his fish hooks, spruce gum, flagroot, tickets of
standing at the head, gimlet, billet doux in blue ink,
a vile liquid in a bottle to make fish bite,
and other precious possessions. Yet Cynthia's society had no attractions
(02:37):
for him comparable to a day's trout fishing. She was,
after all, only a single and a very undefined item
in his general ideal world, and there was no harm
in letting his imagination play about her illumined head. Since
Cynthia had got religion and John had got nothing. His
love was tempered with a little awe and a feeling
(02:57):
of distance. He was not fickle, and yet I cannot
say that he was not ready to construct a new
romance in which Cynthia should be eliminated. Nothing was easier.
Perhaps it was a luxurious traveling carriage drawn by two
splendid horses in plated harness, driven along the sandy road.
There were a gentleman and a young lad on the
(03:17):
front seat, and on the back seat a handsome pale
lady with a little girl beside her. Behind on the
rack with a trunk was a colored boy an imp
out of a story book. John was told that the
black boy was a slave, and that the carriage was
from Baltimore. Here was a chance for a romance, slavery, beauty, wealth, haughtiness,
(03:38):
especially on the part of the slender boy on the
front seat. Here was an opening into a vast realm.
The high stepping horses and the shining harness were enough
to excite John's admiration, but these were nothing to the
little girl. His eyes had never before fallen upon that
kind of girl. He had hardly imagined that such a
lovely creature could exist. Was it the soft and ain't
(04:00):
he toilet? Was it the brown curls, or the large
laughing eyes, or the delicate, finely cut features, or the
charming little figure of this fairy like person. Was this
expression on her mobile face merely that of amusement at
seeing a country boy? Then John hated her. On the contrary,
Did she see in him what John felt himself to be,
(04:21):
then he would go the world over to serve her.
In a moment, he was self conscious, his trousers seemed
to creep higher up his legs, and he could fill
his very ankle's blush. He hoped that she had not
seen the other side of him, for in fact, the
patches were not of the exact shade of the rest
of the cloth. The vision flashed by him in a moment,
(04:42):
but it left him with a resentful feeling, perhaps that
proud little girl would be sorry some day when he
had become a general, or written a book, or kept
a store, to see him go away and marry another.
He almost made up his cruel mind on the instant
that he would never marry her, however bad she might feel.
And yet he couldn't get her out of his mind
for days and days, and when her image was present,
(05:05):
even Cynthia in the singer's seat on Sunday looked a
little cheap and common. Poor Cynthia. Long before John became
a general or had his revenge on the Baltimore girl,
she married a farmer and was the mother of children
red headed. And when John saw her years after, she
looked tired and discouraged, as one who has carried into womanhood,
(05:26):
none of the romance of her youth. Fishing and dreaming,
I think were the best amusements John had. The middle
pier of the long covered bridge over the river stood
upon a great rock, and this rock, which was known
as the swimming rock, whence the boys on summer evenings
dove into the deep pool by its side, was a
favorite spot with John when he could get an hour
(05:47):
or two from the everlasting chores, making his way out
to it over the rocks at low water with his
fish pole. There he was content to sit and observe
the world, and there he saw a great deal of life.
He always expected to catch the legendary trout, which weighed
two pounds and was believed to inhabit that pool. He
always did catch horned dace and shiners, which he despised,
(06:10):
and sometimes he snared a monstrous sucker a foot and
a half long. But in the summer the sucker is
a flabby fish, and John was not thanked for bringing
him home. He liked, however, to lie with his face
close to the water and watch the long fishes panting
in the clear depths, and occasionally he would drop a
pebble near one to see how gracefully he would scud
away with one wave of the tail into deeper water.
(06:34):
Nothing fears the little brown boy. The yellow bird slants
his wings almost touches the deep water before him, and
then escapes away under the bridge to the east, with
a glint of sunshine on his back. The fish hawk
comes down with a swoop, dips one wing, and his prey,
having darted under a stone, is away again over the
still hill, high soaring on even poised pinions, keeping an
(06:57):
eye perhaps upon the great eagle, which is sweeping the
sky in widening circles. But there is other life. A
wagon rumbles over the bridge, and the farmer and his
wife jogging along do not know that they have startled
a lazy boy into a momentary fancy that a thunder
shower is coming up. John can see, as he lies
there on a still summer day, with the fishes and
(07:19):
the birds for company. The road that comes down the
left bank of the river, a hot, sandy, well traveled road,
hidden from view here and there by trees and brushes.
The chief point of interest, however, is an enormous sycamore
tree by the roadside and in front of John's house.
The house is more than a century old, and its
timbers were hewed and squared by Captain Moses Rice, who
(07:41):
lies in his grave on the hillside above it. In
the presence of the Red Man who killed him with
arrow and tomahawks some time after his house was set
in order. The gigantic tree struck with a sort of leprosy.
Like all its species, appears much older, and of course
has its tradition. They say that it grew from a
green state which the first land surveyor planted there for
(08:02):
one of his points of sight. John was reminded of
it years after when he sat under the shade of
the decrepit lime tree in Freeburg, and was told that
it was originally a twig which the breathless and bloody
messenger carried in his hand when he dropped exhausted in
the square, with the word victory on his lips, announcing
thus the result of the glorious Battle of Morat, where
(08:24):
the Swiss in fourteen seventy six defeated Charles the Bold.
Under the broad but scanty shade of the great button
ball tree, as it was called, stood an old watering trough,
with its half decayed penstock and well worn spout, pouring
forever cold, sparkling water into the overflowing trough. It is
fed by a spring near by, and the water is
(08:45):
sweeter and colder than any in the known world. Unless
it be the well zem zem as. Generations of people
and horses which have drunk of it would testify if
they could come back, and if they could file along
this road again, What a procession there would be riding
down the valley. Antiquated vehicles, rusty wagons adorned with the
invariable buffalo robe even in the hottest days, lean and
(09:08):
long favored horses, frisky colts drawing generation after generation, the
sober and pious saints that passed this way to meeting
and to mill. What a refreshment is that water spout
all day long? There are pilgrims to it, and John
likes nothing better than to watch them. Here comes a
gray horse drawing a buggy with two men cattle buyers
(09:28):
probably out jumps a man down, goes the check rein.
What a good draft the nag takes. Here comes a
long stepping trotter in a sulky man in a brown
linen coat and wide awake hat, dissolute horsey looking man.
They turn up. Of course, Ah, there is an establishment,
he knows well. A sorrel horse and an old chase.
(09:50):
The sorrel horse sends the water afar off and begins
to turn up long before he reaches the trough, thrusting
out his nose in anticipation of the coote sensation. No
check to let down, he plunges his nose in nearly
to his eyes in his haste to get at it.
Two maiden ladies, unmistakably such though they appear neither anxious
(10:11):
nor aimless within the scoop top, smile benevolently on the
sorrel back. It is the Deacon's horse, a meeting going nag,
with a sedate, leisurely jog as he goes. And these
are two of the salt of the earth, the brevet
rank of the women who stand and wait. Going down
to the village store to dicker, there come two men
(10:32):
in a hurry horse, driven up smartly and pulled up short.
But as it is rising ground and the horse does
not easily reach the water with the wagon pulling back,
the nervous man in the buggy hitches forward on his seat,
as if that would carry the wagon a little ahead.
Next lumber wagon with load of boards. Horse wants to
turn up, and driver switches him and cries golong, and
(10:54):
the horse reluctantly goes by turning his head wistfully towards
the flowing spout. Ah, Here comes an equipage strange to
these parts, and John stands up to look. An elegant
carriage and two horses, trunks strapped on behind, gentlemen and
boy on front seat, and two ladies on back seat.
City people. Then gentleman descends, unchecks the horses, wipes his brow,
(11:18):
takes a drink at the spout, and looks around, evidently
remarking upon the lovely view as he swings his handkerchief
in an explanatory manner. Judicious travelers, John would like to
know who they are. Perhaps they are from Boston. Whence
come all the wonderfully painted peddler's wagons drawn by six
stalwart horses, which the driver, using no rein controls with
(11:39):
his long whip and cheery voice. If so great is
the condescension of Boston? And John follows them with an
undefined longing as they drive away toward the mountains of Zoar.
Here is a footman, dusty and tired, who comes with
wagging steps. He stops, removes his hat as he should
to such a tree, puts his mouth to the spout,
(11:59):
and takes a long pole at the Lively water, and
then he goes on, perhaps to Zoar, perhaps to a
worse place. So they come and go all the summer afternoon.
But the great event of the day is the passing
down the valley of the majestic stage coach, the vast,
yellow bodied, rattling vehicle. John can hear a mile off,
the shaking of chains, traces and whiffle trees, and the
(12:21):
creaking of its leathern braces as the great bolt swings along,
piled high with trunks. It represents to John somehow authority, government,
the right of way. The driver is an autocrat. Everybody
must make way for the stage coach. It almost satisfies
the imagination this royal vehicle. One can go in it
to the confines of the world, to Boston, and to Albany.
(12:45):
There were other influences that I dare say contributed to
the boy's education. I think his imagination was stimulated by
a band of gypsies who used to come every summer
and pitch a tent on a little roadside patch of
green turf by the river bank, not far from his house.
It was shaded by elms and butternut trees, and a
long spit of sand and pebbles ran out from it
(13:05):
into the brawling stream. Probably they were not a very
good kind of gypsy, Although the story was that the
men drank and beat the women. John didn't know much
about drinking. His experience of it was confined to sweet cider.
Yet he had already set himself up as a reformer
and joined the Cold Water Band. The object of this
band was to walk in a procession under a banner
(13:27):
that declared, so here we pledge perpetual hate to all
that can intoxicate, and wear a badge with this legend,
and above it the device of a well curb with
a long sweep. It kept John and all the little
boys and girls from being drunkards till they were ten
or eleven years of age, though perhaps a few of
them died meantime from eating loaf cake and pie and
(13:49):
drinking ice cold water at the celebrations of the band.
The gypsy camp had a strange fascination for John, mingled
of curiosity and fear. Nothing more alien could come into
the New England life than this tattered Damalian band. It
was hardly credible that there were actually people who lived outdoors,
who slept in their covered wagon or under their tent,
(14:10):
and cooked in the open air. It was a visible
romance transferred from foreign lands and the remote times of
the story books. And John took these city thieves who
were on their annual foray into the country, trading and
stealing horses and robbing hen roofts and cornfields, for the
mysterious race, who for thousands of years have done these
same things in all lands by right of their pure
(14:32):
blood and ancient lineage. John was afraid to approach the
camp when any of the scowling and villainous men were
lounging about pipes in mouth, but he took more courage
when only women and children were visible. The swarthy, black
haired women in dirty calico flocks were anything but attractive,
but they spoke softly to the boy and told his fortune,
and wheedled him into bringing them any amount of cucumbers
(14:55):
and green corn in the course of the season. In
front of the tent were planted in the ground three
poles that met together at the top. Whence depended a kettle.
This was the kitchen, and it was sufficient. The fuel
for the fire was the drift wood of the stream.
John noted that it did not require to be sawed
into stove lengths, and in short, that the chores about
(15:16):
this establishment were reduced to the minimum. And an older
person than John might envy the free life of these wanderers,
who paid neither rent nor taxes, and yet enjoyed all
the delights of nature. It seemed to the boy that
affairs would go more smoothly in the world if everybody
would live in this simple manner. Nor did he then know,
or ever after, find out why it is that the
(15:38):
world permits only wicked people to be bohemians. The end
of chapter eighteen, recording by Mark Penfold
Chapter eighteen of Being a Boy by Charles Dudley Warner.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Mark Penfold, Chapter eighteen, Country Scenes. It is impossible to
say at what age a New England country boy becomes
conscious that his trouser legs are too short, and is
(00:23):
anxious about the part of his hair and the fit
of his woman made roundabout, these harrowing thoughts come to
him later than to the city lad, at least a
generation ago. He served a long apprenticeship with nature, only
for a master absolutely unconscious of the artificialities of life.
But I do not think his early education was neglected.
(00:45):
And yet it is easy to underestimate the influences that,
unconsciously to him were expanding his mind and nursing in
him heroic purposes. There was the lovely but narrow valley
with its rapid mountain stream. There were the great hills,
which he climbed only to see other hills stretching away
to a broken and tempting horizon. There were the rocky pastures,
(01:06):
and the wide sweeps of forest through which the winter
tempests howled, upon which hung the haze of summer heat
over which the great shadows of summer clouds traveled. There
were the clouds themselves, shouldering up above the peaks, hurrying
across the narrow sky, the clouds out of which the
wind came, and the lightning, and the sudden dashes of rain.
(01:27):
And there were days when the sky was ineffably blue
and distant, a fathomless vault of heaven, where the henhock
and the eagle poised on outstretched wings and watched for
their prey. Can you say how these things fed the
imagination of the boy who had few books and no
contact with a great world. Do you think any city
lad could have written Thanatopsis at eighteen? If you had
(01:51):
seen John in his short and roomy trousers and ill
used straw hat, picking his barefooted way over the rocks
along the river bank of a cool morning to see
if an eel had got on, you would not have
fancied that he lived in an ideal world, Nor did
he consciously so far as he knew, he had no
more sentiment than a jackknife. Although he loved Cynthia, Rudd
(02:14):
devotedly and blushed scarlet one day when his cousin found
a lock of Cynthia's flaming hair in the box where
John kept his fish hooks, spruce gum, flagroot, tickets of
standing at the head, gimlet, billet doux in blue ink,
a vile liquid in a bottle to make fish bite,
and other precious possessions. Yet Cynthia's society had no attractions
(02:37):
for him comparable to a day's trout fishing. She was,
after all, only a single and a very undefined item
in his general ideal world, and there was no harm
in letting his imagination play about her illumined head. Since
Cynthia had got religion and John had got nothing. His
love was tempered with a little awe and a feeling
(02:57):
of distance. He was not fickle, and yet I cannot
say that he was not ready to construct a new
romance in which Cynthia should be eliminated. Nothing was easier.
Perhaps it was a luxurious traveling carriage drawn by two
splendid horses in plated harness, driven along the sandy road.
There were a gentleman and a young lad on the
(03:17):
front seat, and on the back seat a handsome pale
lady with a little girl beside her. Behind on the
rack with a trunk was a colored boy an imp
out of a story book. John was told that the
black boy was a slave, and that the carriage was
from Baltimore. Here was a chance for a romance, slavery, beauty, wealth, haughtiness,
(03:38):
especially on the part of the slender boy on the
front seat. Here was an opening into a vast realm.
The high stepping horses and the shining harness were enough
to excite John's admiration, but these were nothing to the
little girl. His eyes had never before fallen upon that
kind of girl. He had hardly imagined that such a
lovely creature could exist. Was it the soft and ain't
(04:00):
he toilet? Was it the brown curls, or the large
laughing eyes, or the delicate, finely cut features, or the
charming little figure of this fairy like person. Was this
expression on her mobile face merely that of amusement at
seeing a country boy? Then John hated her. On the contrary,
Did she see in him what John felt himself to be,
(04:21):
then he would go the world over to serve her.
In a moment, he was self conscious, his trousers seemed
to creep higher up his legs, and he could fill
his very ankle's blush. He hoped that she had not
seen the other side of him, for in fact, the
patches were not of the exact shade of the rest
of the cloth. The vision flashed by him in a moment,
(04:42):
but it left him with a resentful feeling, perhaps that
proud little girl would be sorry some day when he
had become a general, or written a book, or kept
a store, to see him go away and marry another.
He almost made up his cruel mind on the instant
that he would never marry her, however bad she might feel.
And yet he couldn't get her out of his mind
for days and days, and when her image was present,
(05:05):
even Cynthia in the singer's seat on Sunday looked a
little cheap and common. Poor Cynthia. Long before John became
a general or had his revenge on the Baltimore girl,
she married a farmer and was the mother of children
red headed. And when John saw her years after, she
looked tired and discouraged, as one who has carried into womanhood,
(05:26):
none of the romance of her youth. Fishing and dreaming,
I think were the best amusements John had. The middle
pier of the long covered bridge over the river stood
upon a great rock, and this rock, which was known
as the swimming rock, whence the boys on summer evenings
dove into the deep pool by its side, was a
favorite spot with John when he could get an hour
(05:47):
or two from the everlasting chores, making his way out
to it over the rocks at low water with his
fish pole. There he was content to sit and observe
the world, and there he saw a great deal of life.
He always expected to catch the legendary trout, which weighed
two pounds and was believed to inhabit that pool. He
always did catch horned dace and shiners, which he despised,
(06:10):
and sometimes he snared a monstrous sucker a foot and
a half long. But in the summer the sucker is
a flabby fish, and John was not thanked for bringing
him home. He liked, however, to lie with his face
close to the water and watch the long fishes panting
in the clear depths, and occasionally he would drop a
pebble near one to see how gracefully he would scud
away with one wave of the tail into deeper water.
(06:34):
Nothing fears the little brown boy. The yellow bird slants
his wings almost touches the deep water before him, and
then escapes away under the bridge to the east, with
a glint of sunshine on his back. The fish hawk
comes down with a swoop, dips one wing, and his prey,
having darted under a stone, is away again over the
still hill, high soaring on even poised pinions, keeping an
(06:57):
eye perhaps upon the great eagle, which is sweeping the
sky in widening circles. But there is other life. A
wagon rumbles over the bridge, and the farmer and his
wife jogging along do not know that they have startled
a lazy boy into a momentary fancy that a thunder
shower is coming up. John can see, as he lies
there on a still summer day, with the fishes and
(07:19):
the birds for company. The road that comes down the
left bank of the river, a hot, sandy, well traveled road,
hidden from view here and there by trees and brushes.
The chief point of interest, however, is an enormous sycamore
tree by the roadside and in front of John's house.
The house is more than a century old, and its
timbers were hewed and squared by Captain Moses Rice, who
(07:41):
lies in his grave on the hillside above it. In
the presence of the Red Man who killed him with
arrow and tomahawks some time after his house was set
in order. The gigantic tree struck with a sort of leprosy.
Like all its species, appears much older, and of course
has its tradition. They say that it grew from a
green state which the first land surveyor planted there for
(08:02):
one of his points of sight. John was reminded of
it years after when he sat under the shade of
the decrepit lime tree in Freeburg, and was told that
it was originally a twig which the breathless and bloody
messenger carried in his hand when he dropped exhausted in
the square, with the word victory on his lips, announcing
thus the result of the glorious Battle of Morat, where
(08:24):
the Swiss in fourteen seventy six defeated Charles the Bold.
Under the broad but scanty shade of the great button
ball tree, as it was called, stood an old watering trough,
with its half decayed penstock and well worn spout, pouring
forever cold, sparkling water into the overflowing trough. It is
fed by a spring near by, and the water is
(08:45):
sweeter and colder than any in the known world. Unless
it be the well zem zem as. Generations of people
and horses which have drunk of it would testify if
they could come back, and if they could file along
this road again, What a procession there would be riding
down the valley. Antiquated vehicles, rusty wagons adorned with the
invariable buffalo robe even in the hottest days, lean and
(09:08):
long favored horses, frisky colts drawing generation after generation, the
sober and pious saints that passed this way to meeting
and to mill. What a refreshment is that water spout
all day long? There are pilgrims to it, and John
likes nothing better than to watch them. Here comes a
gray horse drawing a buggy with two men cattle buyers
(09:28):
probably out jumps a man down, goes the check rein.
What a good draft the nag takes. Here comes a
long stepping trotter in a sulky man in a brown
linen coat and wide awake hat, dissolute horsey looking man.
They turn up. Of course, Ah, there is an establishment,
he knows well. A sorrel horse and an old chase.
(09:50):
The sorrel horse sends the water afar off and begins
to turn up long before he reaches the trough, thrusting
out his nose in anticipation of the coote sensation. No
check to let down, he plunges his nose in nearly
to his eyes in his haste to get at it.
Two maiden ladies, unmistakably such though they appear neither anxious
(10:11):
nor aimless within the scoop top, smile benevolently on the
sorrel back. It is the Deacon's horse, a meeting going nag,
with a sedate, leisurely jog as he goes. And these
are two of the salt of the earth, the brevet
rank of the women who stand and wait. Going down
to the village store to dicker, there come two men
(10:32):
in a hurry horse, driven up smartly and pulled up short.
But as it is rising ground and the horse does
not easily reach the water with the wagon pulling back,
the nervous man in the buggy hitches forward on his seat,
as if that would carry the wagon a little ahead.
Next lumber wagon with load of boards. Horse wants to
turn up, and driver switches him and cries golong, and
(10:54):
the horse reluctantly goes by turning his head wistfully towards
the flowing spout. Ah, Here comes an equipage strange to
these parts, and John stands up to look. An elegant
carriage and two horses, trunks strapped on behind, gentlemen and
boy on front seat, and two ladies on back seat.
City people. Then gentleman descends, unchecks the horses, wipes his brow,
(11:18):
takes a drink at the spout, and looks around, evidently
remarking upon the lovely view as he swings his handkerchief
in an explanatory manner. Judicious travelers, John would like to
know who they are. Perhaps they are from Boston. Whence
come all the wonderfully painted peddler's wagons drawn by six
stalwart horses, which the driver, using no rein controls with
(11:39):
his long whip and cheery voice. If so great is
the condescension of Boston? And John follows them with an
undefined longing as they drive away toward the mountains of Zoar.
Here is a footman, dusty and tired, who comes with
wagging steps. He stops, removes his hat as he should
to such a tree, puts his mouth to the spout,
(11:59):
and takes a long pole at the Lively water, and
then he goes on, perhaps to Zoar, perhaps to a
worse place. So they come and go all the summer afternoon.
But the great event of the day is the passing
down the valley of the majestic stage coach, the vast,
yellow bodied, rattling vehicle. John can hear a mile off,
the shaking of chains, traces and whiffle trees, and the
(12:21):
creaking of its leathern braces as the great bolt swings along,
piled high with trunks. It represents to John somehow authority, government,
the right of way. The driver is an autocrat. Everybody
must make way for the stage coach. It almost satisfies
the imagination this royal vehicle. One can go in it
to the confines of the world, to Boston, and to Albany.
(12:45):
There were other influences that I dare say contributed to
the boy's education. I think his imagination was stimulated by
a band of gypsies who used to come every summer
and pitch a tent on a little roadside patch of
green turf by the river bank, not far from his house.
It was shaded by elms and butternut trees, and a
long spit of sand and pebbles ran out from it
(13:05):
into the brawling stream. Probably they were not a very
good kind of gypsy, Although the story was that the
men drank and beat the women. John didn't know much
about drinking. His experience of it was confined to sweet cider.
Yet he had already set himself up as a reformer
and joined the Cold Water Band. The object of this
band was to walk in a procession under a banner
(13:27):
that declared, so here we pledge perpetual hate to all
that can intoxicate, and wear a badge with this legend,
and above it the device of a well curb with
a long sweep. It kept John and all the little
boys and girls from being drunkards till they were ten
or eleven years of age, though perhaps a few of
them died meantime from eating loaf cake and pie and
(13:49):
drinking ice cold water at the celebrations of the band.
The gypsy camp had a strange fascination for John, mingled
of curiosity and fear. Nothing more alien could come into
the New England life than this tattered Damalian band. It
was hardly credible that there were actually people who lived outdoors,
who slept in their covered wagon or under their tent,
(14:10):
and cooked in the open air. It was a visible
romance transferred from foreign lands and the remote times of
the story books. And John took these city thieves who
were on their annual foray into the country, trading and
stealing horses and robbing hen roofts and cornfields, for the
mysterious race, who for thousands of years have done these
same things in all lands by right of their pure
(14:32):
blood and ancient lineage. John was afraid to approach the
camp when any of the scowling and villainous men were
lounging about pipes in mouth, but he took more courage
when only women and children were visible. The swarthy, black
haired women in dirty calico flocks were anything but attractive,
but they spoke softly to the boy and told his fortune,
and wheedled him into bringing them any amount of cucumbers
(14:55):
and green corn in the course of the season. In
front of the tent were planted in the ground three
poles that met together at the top. Whence depended a kettle.
This was the kitchen, and it was sufficient. The fuel
for the fire was the drift wood of the stream.
John noted that it did not require to be sawed
into stove lengths, and in short, that the chores about
(15:16):
this establishment were reduced to the minimum. And an older
person than John might envy the free life of these wanderers,
who paid neither rent nor taxes, and yet enjoyed all
the delights of nature. It seemed to the boy that
affairs would go more smoothly in the world if everybody
would live in this simple manner. Nor did he then know,
or ever after, find out why it is that the
(15:38):
world permits only wicked people to be bohemians. The end
of chapter eighteen, recording by Mark Penfold
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