Our Father

IT EEMEMBEE when I was a little girl often wonder- -*- ing what sort of a boy my father had been, and thinking, as I watched the roguish twinkles in the corners of his clear grey eyes, and the curves of fun around his genial mouth, that he must have been a perfectly splendid boy, and just the kind I would have liked for a playmate. For middle-aged man as he was when we were young, he was the best playmate we children ever had, and no fun the world had to offer was half so attractive to us as a good game of romps with him.

One of my earliest recollections is of a certain kind of romp we used to have, when he would call out in his hearty voice: “Who wants to come and roll down hill?” and then making as long an inclined plane as possible out of his strong legs, he would roll us down one after another, off of his lap to the floor, like barrels down a hill, piling us all up at his feet, while each living barrel would extricate itself from the tangle as fast as possible, and clamber back into that dear lap, to be again rolled down on to the struggling heap. Of course such play would soon become rather uproarious, oar father getting into the spirit of it as much as any 62 of US, until our dear mother would appear on the scene, and tell us we must not make so much noise or we would “certainly disturb John Hoskins.” This John Hoskins was an old bachelor who boarded in a house next door to us in those days, and who no doubt often wondered where any enjoyment could be found in such noisy romps. And our dear mother, with her tender sympathizing nature, had hard times to keep our noise within bounds, between her enjoyment of our fun and her pity for our neighbor’s nerves. Her little speeches about John Hoskins got to be quite a joke with us at last, and whenever we were having any extra romp, if our noise became too uproarious, our father would say with such evident enjoyment of the joke, that it only made us laugh the louder: “Hush, children, hush! Mother will hear us, and then she will come and tell us about John Hoskins!”

We also had a dear old aunt livino; next door to us on the other side, and she was another of our mother’s instruments of warning. “Father, how can thee,” she would say, ‘’wdien thee knows aunt Ann Scattergood can hear every scream?” And he would answer by giving us little private nudges of fun, which would set us off into louder peals than ever. I do not believe myself that these noises of happy, merry childhood ever really disturbed our dear neighbors, for in that case our father himself, full of fun as he was, would have been the very first to stop them. I remember the intense delight this sympathy of his in our fun used to give me. It was not only the fun itself, but it was the fact that a grown up man thought children oicght to have fun, and helped them on with it, and even seemed himself to enjoy it, that was so unspeakably delightful; and it created a bond of sympathy between our father and all young life that no advancing age ever seemed to destroy. In fact he was one of those rare natures that never grow old, but seemed to have within himself the springs of youth as fresh when his weakened bodily frame had no power to respond, as in the days of his most vigorous and abounding health. He possessed that blessed characteristic of greatness which Georo-e MacDonald calls “childness” and which means having the guileless, impulsive, tender, trustful, self-forgetting heart of a child. This delivered him from the restraints of foolish conventionalities, and gave to the very atmosphere around him a hearty freedom and ease, that made every one feel happier and more comfortable because of his presence. His very hand-shake was a blessing, and seemed somehow to put you in a better humor with yourself than you had been before, and to make the world brighter. I remember perfectly sometimes, when my childhood’s sky would be all darkened by a heavy, childish affliction, how a cheery — “Well, Broadie,” from my father, or some little passing joke m his hearty tone of fun, would clear the sky in a moment, and make life full of sunshine again. Until at last it got to be quite a habit with me, whenever I found I was down in the depths, to put myself right in his way, with the full expectation that somehow he would lift me out.

The secret of this power to cheer and brighten lay in the fact that his heart was at “leisure from itself.” His Christian faith was so simple that his soul might truly be said to “dwell at ease,” in the presence of the Lord, and this inward ease spread outward, and made every one else at ease in his presence. He believed a Christian ought to be a happy man, and he himself was happy. I remember very well one evening he and I had been having some sweet religious talk, and had afterward begun to laugh heartily together over a piece of his fun, when the remark was made that we seemed very light for Christians, and he turned to me with such a look of joyous confidence, and said so cheerily: “Han, if a Christian who knows his sins are foigiven can’t laugh, I don’t think anybody in the world ought to!” And this spirit pervaded his whole Christian life, and was the secret, I am sure, of his contagious joyousness. So that while there was plenty of fun, and often most inconvenient jokes that would set us laughing at exactly the wrong times, there was always a most distinct and all-pervading sense of the Lord’s presence and of His will as being the spring of every word and thought, that made even his jokes an influence for good. Once I remember that he won my heart back to the Bible durina; a fit of rebellion from it, by a funny speech. He had handed the Bible to my brother James one First Day afternoon to read out at the “family sitting,” as we called it, wdiich we usually had on that afternoon. My brother was a long time turning over the leaves to find a suitable place to read, while I sat there inwardly fuming over the whole arrangement, when our father suddenly said in the gravest manner, ?is though asking for information: “Is there no reading at all anywhere in that book, Jim?” The question set us all off into a quiet little laugh for a few minutes, and my love for the Bible seemed somehow to come right back into my heart, and we all, I am sure, enjoyed that reading tenfold more afterwards because of the pleasantry.

It was his perfect naturalness, I think, that gave everything about him such a charm. Whatever was inside, came out; and it so often was just exactly what was inside of us, too, only we would have been afraid to express it, that it made our father seem just like one of the children, and gave us always a perfect assurance of his sympathy. We used to enjoy so at table seeing our dear mother compelled to nudge him under the table for his inopportune speeches, just as she did us, and then to see him look up with the utmost innocence, and say in such a comical, injured sort of tone, “Why, mother, what is thee nudging me for? “AVhat child would not have enjoyed such ‘’ childness” as that?

So, many of his dear familiar jokes come back to me as I write. How often I have heard him call up-stairs, with suppressed fun in every tone, “Who wants to see the bear dance?” which always meant, we well knew, a treat of some kind; either the visit of a dear friend, or a loving gift, or a happy plan for something pleasant; and we would tumble down stairs, pell-mell, sure of something to enjoy and laugh over.

He had pet names for every one of us, each containing a hidden joke; and no matter how cross we might feel, that hearty voice calling us by these names, was an almost certain sweetener. He called my sister Mary “Polly,” and my sister Sarah, “Liney,” and also “Sallydimple-eat-a-thimble,” because she was the only one of us who had a dimple, and he admired it very much, and because she was found one eveniner sittino; on the lowest back stair chewing a silver thimble. My names were, “Broadie,” because I was such a broad-faced little thing, and “Bowzer,” because I always dashed so into everything. The grandchildren also, as they came, each one received a pet name, generally suggested by some laughable incident in their childhood, or some odd peculiarity of character or looks, and always expressive of the individual and tender love of their darling grandpa for each one of them.

In hundreds of ways he made us children know his intense sympathy for us and with us; ways that could hardly be told, and yet that filled our hearts with a continual joy. My sister Sarah tells of one occasion when she was a young girl; and, in the course of home-training, it had become her duty to sweep the parlors. Our father, as he passed the door on his way out to business, looked in and said, “Hard at work, Liney?” “Yes, father,” she replied, “and do please send one of the men up from the store to sweep this parlor; I am so tired!” “All right,” was his hearty response; and sure enough, in about ten minutes, up the street came a great big Irishman, with the following note, which he delivered to my sister:

“Phila., 5mo., 26, 1850.

My DEAR Sara: Herewith I send Frank, who will, according to thy desire, sweep the parlors for thee. When he has finished sweeping, please give him my overcoat hanging in the closet. I want the cloth surtout. Thy affectionate father,

J. M. Whitall.
P. S. Love to mother particularly.’’

My sister says that the sympathetic response to the spirit, as well as the words of her request, produced at once a glow of exhilaration which made it easy for her to finish her task. He might have taken the occasion to administer reproof and advice, and perhaps have produced a cloudy atmosphere, but instead she says she can never think of the occasion without a vivid sense of the sunshine and brightness that invested it.

The truth was, the intense justice of our father’s nature, and his warm sympathy with us, inclined him always to take sides with his children whenever we thought ourselves oppressed by our teachers or any one who had authority over us. And this endeared him to us wonderfully. He never took it for granted that we were in the wrong because we were children, but always judged the case on its own merits; and if we were to blame, we had to suffer, but if not, he took our part and vindicated our rights. We were therefore always sure of fair treatment, and went through the world with a happy inner confidence that we had a champion whenever we should need one. My sister Sarah says she remembers to this day, with a sense of gratitude, a deliverance he gave her from an oppressively long lesson, before she was six years old. She was toiling over it with a hopeless sense of incapacity, and at last appealed to him. He at once said, with a reassuring tone of tender sympathy, “Yes, daughter, it is too hard; thee need not learn it, and I will settle it with thy teacher;” and she says she never felt any fear after that of being imposed upon, for she could rest in her father’s justice with perfect security. I am very sure that this characteristic of our father’s nature has helped us more than anything else could, to understand the blessed truth concerning our Heavenly Father, which is expressed in those beautiful lines of Faber:

“God’a justice is a bed, Avliere we
Our anxious hearts may lay,
And, weary with ourselves, may sleep
Our discontent away.”

For we saw that justice and love were not opposed to
each other, as so many wrongly think, but that they
were the necessary counterpart of each other, — true
justice being impossible without love, and pure love
containing within itself the sublimest justice.

Our father sympathized even with our especial likings in food, and would always try to remember and gratify them when marketing. Once I remember he sent home a quart of lima beans early in the season, when they were a little of a delicacy, with word that they “were to be cooked for Han alone, that she might for once have just as many as she wanted.” And I can remember my enjoyment in the proprietorship of that dish of lima beans to this day. At another time I recollect his sending home an egg-plant, and having it cooked especially for my sister Sarah and myself, with liberty for us to eat until we were entirely satisfied. Sometimes these lovina; orders would come home in the form of little poetical notes tied to the handle of the market-basket, and full of sly fun for the dear wife and children at home. A few lines of one of these notes has lingered in our memories, and has often been repeated over for the amusement of the grandchildren. It was sent home with some green currants, and was as follows:

“Now Han, and Sal, and Jim and I,
Will blow it out on currant pie;
And little Poll, if she could eat,
Should also share the pleasant treat.”

It was in such homely but loving ways as these that our lives were daily brightened and made happy. And when it came to the grandchildren’s turn to share this unfailing love and kindness, there was the same generous thought for their especial fancies as well. Often during the peach season grandpa would come home laden with a large basket of the delicious fruit, and as soon as he reached the broad piazza at the Cedars with his load, his dear voice would be heard calling out cheerily, “Gome children, here’s a chance to fall to,” and he would sit and laugh heartily at the intense enjoyment manifested by all the young flock as they crowded around the welcome treat. Sometimes in the morning at breakfast before he started for town, if they wanted to nudge up his memory a little, they would say, “Grandpa, we all think thee looks very peachy to-day,” which hint was sure to bring out the desired basket of fruit.

We all learned early, both children and grandchildren, that our fother was very vuhierable to fun, and that we could win almost any proper favor from him we wanted, if we would only ask for it with some little pleasantry. We always felt sure if we could just succeed in exciting the beginnings of a smile in the corners of that dear mouth, the desired favor was pretty certain to come. And I cannot remember his ever saying “No” to any petition that was prefaced with the coaxing words, “Father, don’t thee feel as if thee would like to ‘give a treat’ to-day?”

One of his ways which was very influential in our education was, his constant repeating of the proverbs or quaint sayings which he had learned at sea, and which, under homely language, contained many most valuable practical lessons. “Stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder,” was one very frequently quoted, and was very effectual in teaching us the lesson of a steady performance of duty, whether anything seemed to come of it or not. If ever we would say, as children so often do over an unpleasant duty, “What is the use after all?” his answer would generally come in these words, always with a merry note of fun in them, “Stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder,” and we would somehow at once feel ashamed of our €[uestioning. I remember once the dinner did not quite suit our tastes, and we children turned up our noses and made a great fuss; but our dear father, quoting this favorite proverb, “stood up to the rack” himself, and went straight through with his dinner without a word of complaint, and thus taught me, at least, a lesson I never forgot.

Another of his very favorite sayings was, “Fret not thyself,” and it seemed to contain an antidote against all unrest. Hundreds of times, when all has been turmoil and confusion and worry around him, I have seen him sitting in the midst of it, perfectly unmoved and calm, saying now and then, as his only comment, “Fret not thyself,” his dear face the while being lighted up with a quiet smile that told of an inward peace too deep to be touched by any outward ruffles. Anxiety or restlessness seemed always to calm themselves in my heart when I would hear these familiar words, because I felt sure if our father did not see any cause for fretting, there certainly could be none for any of the rest of us.

Many of these sayings were, as I have said, the result of his life at sea, and were, therefore, more remarkable for strong meanings than for elegant diction. But they had a great deal to do with our training, and were often better than a long sermon. Coming from his dear lips, in that hearty, cheer-giving voice, with always a little twinkle of humor in his gray eye, they seemed to act as a sort of tonic, infusing just the strength that was needed. If disappointments came, and we children were inclined to grumble, our father’s cheery voice saying, “There, there, children, you must take the thick as well as the thin,” would seem to inspire contentment at once. Or if we were discouraged at a difficult lesson, or a piece of hard work, his “Faint heart never won fair lady,” bursting in like sunshine on our discouragement, would always seem to inspire us with courage to make another and more energetic effort. Carefulness in the expenditure of money was taught us through the medium of the saying, “A fool and his money are soon parted;” and so often was this on his lips, and the caution it contained so fully acted out in his own careful expenditures, that we used to say sometimes our father’s escutcheon ought to have on it the letters “F. M. S. P.” But this saying seemed to be used only to limit and restrain the expenditure of money on himself, and to be entirely forgotten when it came to expending it on others. His generosity in giving, when he had money to give, was as marked as his economy in saving. In fact, it was no doubt because he was so economical that he could afford to give so liberally. And his gifts were given so ungrudgingly and with such a manifest sympathy for the needs and the feelings of ihose upon whom he bestowed them, that they were worth far more than even their actual value. He evidently delighted in giving; and all through his life, until he was too feeble to express it, we, his children, knew that one of his greatest enjoyments was to pour out of his means upon us to the extent of his ability.

Another saying that taught us most invaluable lessons was this: “What man has done, man may do.” Our father never would suffer us to say, “I can’t,” let the task before us be as difficult as it might. “What man has done, man may do,” he would repeat over and over, upon every symptom of discouragement, inspiring us at last with a firm conviction that there was no “can’t” in the case, — that we certainly could, if we only would, I cannot tell how often in life this saying has come to me in times of need, cheering me on to a determined perseverance in what have looked like almost hopeless undertakings. I remember very well my first ride on horseback, when this saying brought me invaluable aid. My father had, for the first time, felt able to keep a riding-horse for his daughters, and brought a new horse to the door one afternoon, with orders for me to mount and ride with him. I had never been on horseback before, except to ride an old cart-horse in the country to the pasture at night, and one cannot wonder that both my mother and I shrank at first. But father’s hearty “Ho, ho, Han; what man has done, man may do,” made me so ashamed of my fears that I mo anted without another word. As a natural consequence of my ignorance, however, I did not pull the right rein, and my horse started for a run on the pavements. Some one stopped him in a moment, and I wanted to get down, declaring I could not manage him. But my father would not hear it. “No, no,” he said, “what man has done, man may do; and we will have our ride.” I could not resist courage so infectious, and we had our ride in comfort, and my fears of attacking new and unknown difficulties received a lasting rebuke. When we would ask him how these new and difficult things were to be accomplished, he would generally say, with a smile full of meaning, “Oh, we can fall back on our undeveloped resources.” And we children soon learned to believe that in these “undeveloped resources” lay the supply for every need and the antidote to every “I can’t” which we felt tempted to utter; for our father taught us that they were to be found in a strength and wisdom not our own, derived from an infinite and Divine Source, which could not fail, let the emergency be as great as it might. And truly he himself was always a living proof to us of the truth of his own teaching, for he was always ready for every emergency, and always, as it seemed at least to our childish comprehension, proved equal to every occasion.

“Take it easy,” was, I remember, another of his most frequent sayings, and was as full of comfortable meaning perhaps as any. For while it never meant, we well knew, that any duty was to be neglected or any right effort left undone, it taught us the true scriptural lesson of freedom from all anxious care, because we had One behind the circumstances of life who always “cared for us.”

“I’m only a passenger” was a saying which revealed one strongly marked feature of his character, and one which, for a man of such decided judgments and such unbounded energy, was certainly very rare. It meant that where anything was the province or business of some one else, he had no rio’lit to interfere, no matter how much more fitted he might think himself for the place, nor how sure he might be that he could do the work better. As a passenger, he must leave the sailing of the ship to the captain, and must bear patiently whatever might come of it. He carried this principle into domestic life, rarely interfering in the household arrangements which lay within our mother’s province, and even recognized as well the independence of his children within certain limits, and made us a thousand times more ready to yield to his advice because he was

SO careful not to interfere unnecessarily in our plans and purposes. And after we were married, and had each one started out into independent careers of our own, I remember how perfectly lovely it always seemed to me that he could recognize our right to our own views and ways, and that even where he did not approve, he was so wise in expressing just enough and no more of his cautions or his fears. “She’s of affe,” he would say, “and she must judge for herself.”

“What’s the use of having a dog and barking yourself?” was the merry preface to any little demand for service he might make from us, and no child or grandchild ever felt it a hardship to do his “barking” for him, when thus asked for it.

“Lay an anchor to windwlard,” was another most significant saying that inculcated forethought and prudence, and helped us into many a careful habit.

“Then will never learn younger,” was his loving excuse for all awkwardness on our part in work or lessons, and was an unfailing encouragement to us to put forth every effort to conquer the difficulty that had baffled us.

Many other of his dear sayings crowd on my mind as I write. In fact there is never a day, I think, that something most appropriate and helpful does not come back to us out of this treasure-house of his, bringing with it always a sense of the old cheer and tonic that so brightened and strengthened all our life with him. For even when we ceased to be children, the power of his sayings continued, although we might have heard them perhaps thousands of times; for the strong man behind the words made himself felt every time he uttered them, and they always contained a fresh infusion of his vigorous life.

And all the wise fun and playful wisdom that cheered and helped his children’s childhood, were carried down to his grandchildren as well, and brightened the lives of those who were old enough to enjoy it, just as it had done ours. Some of them, I am sure, will remember how grandpa would try to keep them quiet at table by repeating the proverb about little folks being seen and not heard, only that he would reverse it, and say in the gravest and most innocent manner possible: “Little folks should be heard and not seen,” which sometimes would send them down under the table to scream there and make a noise to their heart’s content; when with a look of roguish surprise and a tone of pretended displeasure he would say: “Why, children, did you not hear me say that little folks should be heard, and not seen,” and would be perfectly obtuse to all their explanations that that was just what they had been doing.

A lovelier grandfather never lived, I am sure. The grandchildren never seemed to be in his way, and he would often devote himself to their entertainment with the same love and sympathy he had given their parents before them. The ‘’little Head Woman,” as he called my daugher Mary, was once staying with her grandparents at The Cedars, during a sickness I had while at Millville. In the course of this visit the little Mary was taken quite sick, and her grandpa and grandma were most devoted to her. She says she can never forgot how her grandpa would sit by her bed and.

to JOHN M. WHITALL.

tell her stories, and growl like a bear, and roar like a lion, and bark like a dog to amuse her; nor how submissively- he would obey her orders, and undress and go to bed at eight o’clock in the evening, for the sake of keeping her from being lonely.

He used to keep a stock of new paper “quarters” on hand in his porte-monnaie, and the grandchildren would very often enjoy the delightful surprise of being called to stand in a row before grandpa, and each receive a gift of one of these quarter dollars. “For tobacco money,” he used to tell them, but not because he approved of tobacco in any form, for it was his abhorrence, but it was a sailor’s way of expressing that the money was their very own, not to put away or to use for necessaries, but was to be spent just as they pleased, for anything that they wanted. Though he could not generally refrain from telling them, before they left his side, that they must remember that a “fool and his money were soon parted.”

At The Cedars, where there was generally every summer a re-union of children and grandchildren, grandpa was in his element with the little ones. If he went out to drive he would pile them into the carriage, one after another, the more the merrier, until he would sometimes have ten or a dozen piled on the top of himself and each other, hanging on behind, standing on the steps, and filling every inch of room. I have no doubt there has been many a hearty laugh from the spectators of these nondescript loads, as the carriage went back and forth to the railway station near the Cedars. But I am sure the pleasure given to many childish hearts would always weigh more in their dear grandpa’s eyes, than any care for the appearance he and his laughing load might present to the mere looker-on.

To make life happier for every one with whom he came in contact was always his aim and his mission, and rarely has any one succeeded so well. Some one said to me not long ago that “John M. Whitall was one of the best loved men in Philadelphia,” and in certain circles I am sure this was true. His own genial-hearted sympathy with the joys and sorrows of his friends, and his frank open manner won all hearts. And many of our friends have told us that they would rather shake hands with our father, than receive a handsome gift from another man, because his heart seemed somehow in that handshake to go right to their hearts, with a power to cheer and help. He was essentially one of those men who make the world brighter and better by being in it, and who fill their own home circles with an untold joy.