THE FRESHETS.

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"When you can't see any snow on Mount Holyoke,” their father used to say, "then you may leave your shoes off." The mountains, both Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom, were daily watched by the impatient boys, who fancied the snow was gone long before their parents did, and many little disputations took place whether that white appearance was snow

or not.

Arthur's mother contrived to rear her ten children without much aid from the physician, who once said, "If there were ten such mothers in town I would move away." With Buchan's "Domestic Medicine," and pills made of a decoction of the bark of the butternut-tree, she managed to be the physician of the family, so that a doctor was seldom employed. The pills, made from the bark the boys were sent into the woods to gather, were a panacea for all childhood complaints. The nauseous medicine was hid in preserved quince, and in the presence of the sick child, the good mother seeming to forget the proverb: "Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird."

One of the wondrous sights of Arthur's boyhood was to see from the belfry of the meetinghouse, the great freshets that occasionally occurred in the spring. At such times the Connecticut river would overflow its banks, and submerge the meadows, thousand of acres appearing like a vast lake. These overflows enriched the grounds Nile-like, and were the cause of great excitement to the inhabitants, and exhilaration to the children.

As the water subsided the shad and salmon fishing-place on the banks of the Connecticut, in the meadow, attracted the boys; and as the nets were drawn to the shore the action of the fish in their attempts to escape greatly excited and amused them. The proportion of salmon to shad was very small, and the value of a pound of the former was equal to a full-sized one of the latter. Those scenes are unknown probably at the present day, when dams and factories prevent the fish from ascending the river.

The first death in the family was on October 30, 1793, when the youngest child of the family, little George, a mere infant, was taken away. Arthur was seven years old. He never forgot the solemn scenes; the christening, the death, the funeral, the long procession, the grave, the lowering of the coffin, the heavy sound upon it, and the tolling of the dreadful bell, whose inscription was:

"I to the church the living call,

And to the grave do summon all."

But joys and sorrows are mingled, not only in the hearts of children, but of adults also.

ter

The same year was the first wedding he attended, that of a sisvery dear to him. The scenes attending it were also engraven upon his memory. After the ceremony, the singing, the congratulations, the entertainment, a procession was formed according to prevailing custom, that moved from the dwelling of the bride, to the house of the bridegroom. Little Arthur brought up the rear with some boy or girl of his

GOOD SCHOOLMASTER.

31

own age, while the two younger children could hardly be pacified to remain at home when all seemed to have gone away to enjoy themselves.

When a lad, his mother held up to him the example of his schoolmaster-one of the best he ever had-Mr. BANCROFT FOWLER, then in a law office, and subsequently a minister of the gospel in much estimation. Being somewhat intimate in the family, she had knowledge of a set of rules he had written down for his own guidance. One of them, "DARE TO BE SINGULAR," particularly pleased her, and she recommended it to her son as a valuable rule for him in the journey of life.

These items have an interest for young persons, at least, and especially for the descendants of him whose life is herein sketched. Wordsworth says:

"The child is father of the man."

And they may see, in the preceding narrative and what follows of the youth of Arthur Tappan, the germ of the man.

In after-life his native town was never forgotten. The scenes of his childhood were dear to him, and the companions of his youth were ever in his memory. He loved play, took a full share of the hilarities of his playmates, and cheerfully did his part of the small labors that devolved upon him. In his view there was never such a delightful place. Well might he say then:

"These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,

With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please."

He retained all his days a peculiar love of the

country, and praised its streams, its trees, its flowers, its woods, its roads, its hills, its mountains, with almost youthful delight; and he mourned that children reared in cities could not in their early years have the enjoyments and healthy pursuits of a country life. It seemed to him that Providence had so ordered it that his life was to be spent chiefly in the city, and he submitted to the necessity, endeavoring to make the best of it, while his choice would have been a rural residence.

HIS CLERKSHIP.

33

II.

ARTHUR'S brother John, five years older than himself, was a clerk in the wholesale importing store of Sewall & Salisbury in Boston, and had made arrangements by which he was admitted as an apprentice, as clerks were then called, in the same establishment. It was in the spring of 1801, when he was nearly fifteen years of age, that he left his father's house, and, mounted on a horse belonging to one of his employers, that had been kept during the winter in the country, proceeded to Boston. His parents had confidence in him, as they had trained him in the way he should go, and confided in a covenantkeeping God. His mother had said, "I never knew him tell a lie." With their small means to give him an outfit they might have said, "Silver and gold have we none, but such as we have give we theeour benediction and prayers." When he was presented to Mr. Sewall at No. 16 Merchants' Row, near Faneuil Hall, that gentleman, who was himself below the medium size, gave him a scrutinizing look, and said, "You are smaller than I expected." The fragile little fellow in aftertimes, on mentioning this reception to one of his children, said, “I straightened myself up and looked as tall as I could."

Boston was his mother's birthplace. At no great distance from the store where he was to be employed, was the shop where his father had served his