Читать книгу The Life, Travels, and Literary Career of Bayard Taylor - Russell H. Conwell - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Birth at Kennett Square.—Old Homestead.—The Quaker Church.—The Village.—His Father’s Store.—Life on the Farm.—Mischievous School-boy.—Inclination to write Poetry.—Practical Joker.—Studious Youth.—His Parents.—His Brothers and Sisters.

Bayard Taylor was born at Kennett Square, Penn., Jan. 11, 1825. His mother, whose maiden name was Rebecca Way, was then twenty-nine years of age, and his father was thirty-one. The house then occupied was a two-story stone-and-mortar structure, such as are yet very common in the farming regions of central Pennsylvania. The house was long and narrow, having a porch that extended along the whole front. The rooms were small and low, but it was considered by the farmers of that time as a very comfortable and respectable home. It was located at the junction of two highways, and near the centre of the little hamlet called the “Square,” and sometimes the “Village.” But few families resided there in 1825, and the people were all more or less engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The little rude Quaker meeting-house, so box-like and cold in its aspect, was doubtless the centre of attraction, and the desire to be near the house of God, led those devoted Quakers to build their dwellings on that portion of their lands which lay nearest the church.

The village has increased in growth, and now has a population of six or seven hundred, with several churches belonging to other denominations, and very flourishing schools. But the old homestead building, in which Bayard was born, was destroyed by fire in 1876.

At the time of his birth, his father kept a miscellaneous stock of merchandise in one room of his house, and supplied the necessities of the farmers, so far as the small capital of a country store could anticipate their wants. Situated thirty-five miles from Philadelphia, to which place he was compelled to send the produce he received, and in which place he purchased his simple stock of goods, the merchant had a task on his hands which cannot be appreciated or understood in these days of railways, telegraphs, and commercial travellers. One of his neighbors, living in 1872, used to relate how Mr. Taylor, having had a call for two hay-rakes, which he could not supply, drove all the way to West Chester, the distance of a dozen miles, to get those tools for his customer.

At the time of Bayard’s birth, his parents had been married seven years. Their life had already been subject to many trials, and was fated to meet many more. Of a family of ten children, only one-half the number survived to see mature years. The losses by mercantile ventures, by failing crops, by sickness and accidents, often swept away the hard earnings of many a month. Yet they struggled on, industrious and cheerful, keeping themselves and their children ever busy.

When Bayard was two or three years old, his father purchased a farm about a mile from the village, and giving up his mercantile avocations, turned his whole attention to farming. On that farm Bayard spent the opening years of his life, and on one section of it did he build his beautiful home of “Cedarcroft.”

“The beginning and the end is here—

The days of youth; the silvered years.”

How deeply he loved his home, how sincere his affection for the rolling fields, the chestnut and the walnut woodland, the old stone farm-house, the clumsy barn, the old highway, the acres of corn and wheat, the distant village and its quaint old church, can be seen in a thousand expressions finding place in his published works. His poetical nature opened to his view beautiful landscapes and charming associations which others would not detect. The birds sang in an intelligible language; the leaves on the corn entered into conversation; the lowing of the cows could be interpreted; and the rocks were romantic story-tellers. He loved them all. That farm was his Mecca in all his travels. When he left, he says he promised bird, beast, trees, and knolls, that he would return to them. To the writer, who went to Cedarcroft after the poet’s death, and who has so long loved and admired his poetry, it seemed as if the trees patiently awaited his return. All things in nature must have loved and trusted him, or they would not have confided to him so many of their secrets.

Of the pastoral life in Pennsylvania he speaks with pleasing directness in his volume entitled “Home Pastorals.” In one place the aged farmer says:—

“Well—well! this is comfort now—the air is mild as May,

And yet ’tis March the twentieth, or twenty-first, to-day;

And Reuben ploughs the hill for corn: I thought it would be tough;

But now I see the furrows turned, I guess it’s dry enough.

I’m glad I built this southern porch; my chair seems easier here:

I haven’t seen as fine a spring this five and twenty year.

And how the time goes round so quick: a week I would have sworn,

Since they were husking on the flat, and now they plough for corn!

Across the level Brown’s new place begins to make a show;

I thought he’d have to wait for trees, but, bless me, how they grow!

They say it’s fine—two acres filled with evergreens and things;

But so much land! it worries me, for not a cent it brings.

He has the right, I don’t deny, to please himself that way,

But ’tis a bad example set, and leads young folks astray:

Book-learning gets the upper hand, and work is slow and slack,

And they that come long after us will find things gone to wrack.

Well—I suppose I’m old, and yet it is not long ago

When Reuben spread the swath to dry, and Jesse learned to mow,

And William raked, and Israel hoed, and Joseph pitched with me,

But such a man as I was then my boys will never be!

I don’t mind William’s hankering for lectures and for books,

He never had a farming knack—you’d see it in his looks;

But handsome is that handsome does, and he is well to do:

’Twould ease my mind if I could say the same of Jesse, too.

’Tis like my time is nearly out; of that I’m not afraid;

I never cheated any man, and all my debts are paid.

They call it rest that we shall have, but work would do no harm;

There can’t be rivers there, and fields, without some sort o’ farm.”

No description in prose can as well describe his occupation as a boy, as his own lines, in the poem of the “Holly Tree.”