Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 20

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One day while I was working with an Irishman named Muldoon, the proprietor, Mr. Benjamin, came along, leading his little daughter, who, pointing to Muldoon, said, "Papa, what makes you hire paddies? I do not like them." Muldoon resented the innocent prattle, and turning to Benjamin, said: "Will ye allow that wee bit of a brat to spake that way of a gintleman?"

"You are no gentleman to call a child a brat, and if you answer back I'll discharge you at once."

Pat tugged away in silence and when Benjamin had gone he said: "I niver knew but one mon in me life as mane as ould Benjamin and that was Cotton Mather himself."

"What do you know about Cotton Mather?" I eagerly inquired.

"Nothing good, sir."

"Were you ever at Salem?"

"Do yees think that auld Ben aught to larn that wee bit of a snipe to insolt the loikes of me?"

"But, Pat, that does not answer my question."

"Thin why should a gintlemin aloix yee be axen meself quistions which I niver knew a-tal-tal?"

"Yes, you do know, and if I explain why I am so anxious you'll tell me all you can, won't you, Pat?"

"Yees moight be an officer."

"Nonsense, Pat, haven't you worked beside me for a long time?"

"Sure, but you moight be."

"No, I am not, and you should not be afraid, for you have never committed any crime."

"Oh, but it was the innocent that they murthered. But, Jim, if yees will lit me come to your room at the did o' night and yees will kiss the Holy Cross and hold the sacred Mary to your heart while ye swear niver to till, I might till yees the bit I know."

When Pat arrived at midnight he whispered in my ear, "Ye see, that if Cotton Mather hears that I till the truth he will git some one to swear I am posist with the devil and they will hang me sure."

After I had explained to him how large a dowery had been left for the Burroughs family, and that a child had been lost, he said: "Then it is not Giles Corey yees are after hearing, for I might tell yees more about him, for I lived with him both before and after he was dead."

"No, I want you to tell me all about George Burroughs. Did you ever hear about him?"

"Faith and indade, I did, I heard him make his last prayer when on the gallows, asking God to forgive his inimies and we all wipped loike babbies, we did."

"Did he have a family?"

"Yis, a son. A fair young mon. He looked so much loike yees that I think of him when yees walk along, but he is dead, poor bye. When he started home he lost his way and the wolves ate him. Some said he may not be ded, but shot up in prison to be hung, but I know he was dead, for I hilped to bury his bones."

"Did you see them?"

"No, they were in a box, but I knew he was ded, fer he did not smill like a live man, and his wife died, but they had a little one, who is alive now."

"Where is he?"

"He was first taken to Boston to his Aunt Hannah's and thin to his Aunt Abigail's in Salem, thin a man came on from Stafford, Conn., and took him to keep. His wife was Aunt Hannah's daughter and Aunt Agibail wint to Stafford hersilf."

The day I arrived at Stafford Street I walked from Hartford, and the nearer I came the faster I walked. When I arrived at the village some men were working on the road and in answer to my inquiry, said: "The widow Abigail Drake lives in that red house," which they pointed out. I called on her under the pretense of buying her home, and staid quite a while. She mentioned some of the best families, Deans, Converses, Richardsons, etc., but I could not find out who had the boy until I spoke of the church, when she mentioned that Deacon Felker had adopted a boy who was her nephew. Then I asked her who his parents were. She hesitated, and then said, "His father and mother are both dead."

"Were you acquainted with his father?"

"Yes, I was; he was a man about your build, only when I saw him last he was in trouble, and pale and thin."

"What trouble?"

"Trouble," she replied wiping the tears away with her apron. Then coming near me inquired quizzically, "What is your name?"

I saw she was on the point of detecting me, and looking straight in her eye I answered, "James Hall."

Again she hesitated and then said, "You do look so much like James Burroughs, who is dead, that I thought the dead had been raised." She then told me all about father's execution, Fanny's death and mine, after which I walked over to Deacon Felker's.

When I arrived, there was no one in but the deacon, so I struck him up for a job. Soon I saw a lady coming up the walk who I at once recognized as Cousin Phoebe, whom I had not seen for fifteen years. Beside her ran a little boy. The deacon introduced me, and in shaking hands I squeezed hers so hard that she looked up quickly, then presuming me to be very rough, she spoke pleasantly. Then I picked up my own little boy and as in some phantom mirror, Fanny seemed to look me right in the face.

While waiting for tea, Winnie Richardson came in and adroitly introduced herself by saying, "I presume our town looks tame to you, especially if you've been living in the city, but to us who have never traveled Stafford is the center of the world."

At the conclusion of Jim's story the sweet Winnie softly caressed the troubled man with her arm around his neck, and here we leave Winnie and Jim, to whirl and swirl in their frail barques of life, on the restless waves of time, until they mysteriously cross the bar out into the unknown ocean of Eternity, from whence, if they return to guide our thoughts, we do not comprehend it.

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OUR MOUNTAIN HOME NEAR WABBAQUASSETT LAKE, BUILT BY WARREN RICHARDSON, 1832.

PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN, 1870, EXCEPT MARIETTE. LEFT TO RIGHT. ELIZA, ADELIA, COLLINS, CAROLINE, MERRICK, GORDON, JANETTE.