Home Life

/^UPu father’s home life with his family was to our
- recollection of it simply perfect. He seemed to
leave nothing to be desired either as a father or a
husband, and I cannot imagine how children could have
been happier than we were.

My sister Mary has supplied some reminiscences of our childhood, and she says one of her sweetest recollections is connected with our father’s tender care of us when we were sick. She can recall, she says, the very flowers on the old wrapper he used to wear when he nursed us, and against which we would lay our heads as he rocked us in his strong arms, the creaking rocking chair familiar to our childhood, keeping time to the sing song of the childish versos with which he used to console us. And she adds, “So thoroughly delightful was it to be taken up out of our beds at night, and soothed to sleep again l)y him, that it would have sometimes been almost a temptation to have feigned a little indisposition, if it had not been for our father’s utter and uncompromising contempt for all shams, which he impressed so strongly upon all around him, that we would not have dared to brave his unqualified displeasure. Although he was most indulgent and affectionate in every way, and carefal to put no restrictions upon our freedom that were unnecessary, yet we well understood that we must be truthful and honorable, -’open and above board,’ as he used to say, if we wanted to meet the approval of him whom we loved so well.”

One New Year’s day, after we were all married, we daughters presented our father with a new and handsome wrapper, each of us putting a little note in one of its pockets. The only one that has been preserved is from my sister Mary, and it so exactly expresses the feelings of all the rest of us that I cannot refrain from insertino; it.

My dear precious Father,

“As I sat down to write my note to go in the pocket of thy new wrapper — the tlioiight of thy first wrapper, that okl calico one that flourished in the days of ray babyhood — came over my mind, and I cannot restrain the tears as I thinic of the many times I was enfolded in thy dear arms, and rocked so tenderly to sleep, with my head resting against that old wrapper.

I shall not love this wrapper as well — but I shall love the dear darling wearer better and better, if that could be — he is the same dear father that he always was, his kindness, and tenderness and love only increase with years. May this wrapper too, grow old in thy service, and the next one be made by a bevy of loving granddaughters — is the New Year’s wish of thy Baby.”

This same sister also contributes the following:

“Our father’s return home from his counting-room in the evening, was a daily recurring joy to us, and was looked forward to as the brightest time of all. Our little heads were generally to be seen peeping out of the front door every few minutes about the usual time for his return, watching for the first sign of the well beloved face in the distance. Then when he finally arrived, came the shout of childish joy, and plenty of hugs and kisses, and after the first eager question ‘Where’s mother?’ had been answered, the next tiling was a game of romps, with all of us hanging around him and climbing over him, our cup of happiness full to the brim with his companionship. Then, when the suy)per bell rang, I can almost see him now, tottering down stairs to the dining-room, with our brother in one arm, and me in the other, and Hannah and Sally hanging on to his coat tails. After supper, came romps again, and then we were carried, and coaxed off’ to bed, and undressed and ‘tucked up’ by our lovely father-nurse, who thus relieved our dear mother for a little rest after the tender and watchful care she had taken of us all day in his absence. And lie would leave us at last to a happy sleep, made all the happier by the consciousness we had of his nightly unuttered but never omitted prayer beside our beds.”

Very few letters or records have been preserved of these happy years of our childhood. There is one however, dated 1840, which gives a little glimpse into our father’s hearty sympathy in all our interests, and which I therefore insert especially for the benefit of the grandchildren. It was when I was eight years old, and a cousin of ours in the country had sent us a rhyming rebus, to which my father wrote the following answer for me to copy, and I remember to this day what a grand triumph of genius it seemed to me then:

rhiladelphia, -ith month, 5(h, 1840.

Thy Franklin street cos guessed half of its name,

So she has but won only half of the fame;

Mother guessed the rest, but at home she must stay

And not run about to romp and to play,

James and I have many bright hopes

Of coming to the country to jump our ropes;

And there we can run and scream, without fear,

Of disturbing the folk who are listening here,
And mother can’t say, “Don’t laugh so loud!
You will rouse the neighbors, and draw a crowd.”
Although the “Tree-frog” we never have seen,
When we come to the country, dear cousin, I mean
To ask thee to tell me if it should happen to sing
Its “sweet little note which is heard in the spring.”
But I find 1 have exhausted ray poetical store.
So please to excuse me from writing much more.
When thee reads this letter most plainly thee’ 11 see
There is very little jingle in thy cousin.

Haxnah T.

P. s.

But one word more — a charade I will send,

Which last night by my good father was penned..

Mother says whoever guesses its name,

When they come to town shall be treated to some of the same..

Charade.

My first is a substance, in winter or summer is found On the fields, in the rivers, or placed under ground. I’m useful to Doctors, I’m used at the bar, And often to India I’m carried from far.

My second swims lightly twixt earth and the sky,
And though certainly floating, am not very high;
I spring from another, as Minerva was said
To have sprung from old Jupiter, direct from his head.

My whole has a body, but is without mind,
I’m pretty to look at, and a delicate viand,
The weary I comfort, the sick I restore.
And those who once taste me are apt to want more.
Farewell, thy affectionate cousin.

H. T. Whitall.

The only letter of our father’s written during these years that has been preserved is one sent to his three youngest children, when lie had gone on a journey to Boston, etc., with our mother and aunt Hannah, taking me with them.

“Boston, 8th month, 20th, 1847.

My dear Sally, James and Mary: Your very acceptable letters without date, but written last Third day, welcomed our arrival here yesterday, and we were truly glad to have them, and to know that

dear James got safely home from Bristol, and that you are all well.

********

Sister H. is so full of enjoyment that she has no time to write, and sees so much that she can hardly tell anything I reckon she will pour out when she gets home.

It seems long since we left the sweet, quiet cottage, which after all exceeds any place I have ever seen; and all that we need to fill our cup of satisfaction are hearts truly grateful to the bountiful Giver of these rich blessings. And may we all cultivate a more ardent desire and fuller determination to endeavor to seek the Lord more diligently than we heretofore have done, for truly His favor is better than life, and the knowledge of Him more to be desired than rich treasure. And if I could have one wish granted for my beloved children, it would be that they might be of the Lord’s flock of humble dependent ones, who look to Him alone for preservation and have all their expectation from Him. Farewell, dear ones. Love to cousin E. Tatum and all, from vour affectionate father.

J. M. Whitall.”

This single letter is all the record that has been preserved in writing of the happy years of our early childhood. But there is an indelible record of the long, sunshiny time left in the hearts of the children, whose young lives were brightened by a sympathy and love from Ijoth father and mother that seemed to leave us nothing to wish for. Our parents were not rich, and had to deny us many luxuries, but what they did give, was given so heartily and with such a genuine expression of desire that it could have been a great deal more, that we forgot the slim realities, and felt ourselves as rich as the wishes would have made us. On one occasion during his business difficulties, our father, whose sterling honesty would not allow him to use, in anyunnecessary thing, the money which he felt belonged to his creditors, gave us at Christmas each twenty-five cents, saying, as he handed it out, in his dear, hearty way, that he wished from the bottom of his heart it could have been five dollars; and that twenty-five cents immediately became to us as precious and valuable as a gold piece would have been, for it brought with it the untold wealth of a father’s love. And poor as we were, there were no happier children in Philadelphia I am sure. Our father used to say that he believed in everybody having a happy childhood “tucked under their jacket,” for he was convinced it made a better manhood and womanhood. And he and our dear mother took care that our lives should be blessed with this priceless boon. In looking back, it seems to me that there was absolutely no cloud over my childhood’s sky. Troubles dark enough clouded the skies of our parents, but they never touched us, and through all the cares and self-denials of their years of poverty, we children were as free from care as the birds or the lilies, and had our necessary crosses so sweetened to us by love, that we never were even conscious of their existence.

We had no grand country seat for our summer sojourn, and our parents could not afford to take us to waterinoplaces, but we had what was far better to us — a tiny little cottage situated in a beautiful piece of hilly woods, tlirougli which ran several clear streams, emptying into a creek of tide water at the foot of the hills. It was just the place to afford us endless resources for the sort of healthy, natural fun that our parents believed in, and that we enjoyed infinitely more than any more artificial pleasures. This was the “sweet, quiet cottage” of which our father’s letter, just quoted, speaks, as being so dear to him. It belonged to our mother, and was situated on what was then a country road near the main street of Woodbury, but is now a street lined with dwellino;s and called Delaware Avenue. The house, when we first went to it, contained only four rooms, and must, of course, have been very inconvenient and cramped. But our father turned all this into fun, and seemed never to get tired of the joke of being able to lie in bed and talk all over the house. We were wonderfully happy there, and he as much as any of us. After a while the house was enlarged a little, but the dear old woods were never touched. It was truly, as our mother would sometimes lament, ‘’ nature with her hair uncombed,” but this suited us children far better than any amount of culture could have done, for it left us free to frolic as we pleased. And our ‘’ country place,” I am sure, was more to us in the way of actual enjoyment, than any of the grand places to which some of our school-mates went.

A few extracts from a diary kept by myself during the years of my girlhood will give a little picture of our family life. One of the young people of the present day said to me not long ago, with rather an accent of pity, ‘’It seems to me you did not do anything much to amuse yourselves when you were young: “and I answered promptly, “We did not need to. We had our father and mother, and they made the sunshine of our lives.” I cannot imagine a happier child than I was, and yet as to amusements I cannot remember that I had any special ones.

On 12th month, 29th, 1849, I wrote:

“What a happy, happy home is ours! I could not but think of it to-day, as the merry jokes and tones of heart-felt pleasure echoed around our family table; and this evening, too, as we gathered together in our comfortable parlor, it came over me with a thrill of perfect joy. Father was sitting on one end of the sofa, leaning his head on one hand, with his other hand resting on mother’s lap; she sat next, and my head was in her lap, and I occupied the rest of the sofa, I have no doubt gracefully and well! Sallie was sitting in a chair at the end of the sofa, leaning her head on father’s shoulder, and ‘Lop-no-nose ’ was seated at all our feet, first leaning on one then on another, all of us talking as hard as we could, and feeling as if there was nothing wanting but our absent, dearly-loved Jim, to make our happiness complete.”

At another time during the same year, I made the
following entry:

“A glorious day, and I have had a glorious ride on our pony Eollo, with ray own dear, kind father, who is always giving us so much pleasure. We went around by the Wissahickon, and I felt almost overwhelmed by its exceeding beauty. I really believe I have for a fiither one of the, or rather the noblest, kindest-hearted man in the world; and his praises are in every one’s mouth. I do not believe any girl was ever happier than I am. A few of my father’s pleasant jests made in the morning, when I am brusliing his hat or coat for him to go out, will fill my heart with sunshine for the whole day. Oh, I do love my home better than any other place I know of, and I am home-sick if I leave it for a single night.’’

On lOth month, 12tli, 1850, I wrote:

“We have had such a pleasant time this evening; all of us at home- together the first time for months. It was lovely before tea when we were all sitting in the parlor, Jim leaning his head on father’s shoulder, Sallie resting on the arm of the sofa, Poll the other side of father, and mother in her rocking-chair, with me on a low bench at her side. Mother repeated ‘The Lord will provide,’ or rather chanted it, just as she used to do when she used to sing us to sleep with it. I do not think there is any poem that I love so well as this, for it is connected with my moments of greatest happiness during my childhood; and always when I hear it, it seems as if I can feel myself shuddering again, as I used to do over the line, ‘When Satan appears to block up our path,’ when I took every word literally, and pictured to myself an awful, great, black man, with arms outstretched, suddenly standing before us in a narrow path. I can just remember how we used to lay our heads in mother’s lap while she chanted this hymn, and it will always have something holy in it to me, because of her, so that I think I could hardly bear to hear any one else repeat it. After she had finished it tonight, father chanted ‘Mary Dow,’ in the same old tone of years ago, when all of us used to sit in his dear lap together and almost cry over poor Mary’s sorrows, and wonder when she would come to fulfil the promise of the last line, and ‘tell us the rest.’ He remembered, too, part of another dear old piece called ‘Phoebe and the Blackberries,’ beginning with —

‘Why, Phoebe, are you come so soon;
Where are your berries, child?
You surely have not sold them all — You had a basket piled.’

And I remember how I could never thoroughly enjoy this piece, because I thought that last line meant that she had a pie in her basket, and as pies in those days were very important matters to me, it distressed me very much that the piece did not tell whether Phoebe ate the pie or not. These two pieces I remember used to be printed on little handkerchiefs, which were our particular admiration ill those days, and which I would give anything to see again.

To-night almost seemed like one of those primitive times come back, and it was very happy. I do not think the thought of our age or responsibilities once intruded itself. But we cannot have such a time again for a great while, for next fourth day Jim, our darling Jim, returns to Haverford and leaves us brotherless. It makes me feel very sad, for we have so thoroughly enjoyed his being at home, and do love him so much. I am sure every one must think he is a fine fellow, and I believe they do, too. I could not help thinking to-night, as we sat there all together, what a happy family band we were, and what a blessing it was to us that we know it and feel it. I believe I do not know any children who have so many enjoyments clustered in their home as we have, though I know many whose parents are far richer. But, really, our parents could not do more to make us happy than they do.”

I find also copied into my diary a letter from my dear father, written to me during the year 18-19, on my seventeenth birthday:

“Steamer ‘State of Maine, at anchor off Long Island Sound in a Snou’-storm. 2d month, Gth, 1849.

‘’I remember, my dear eldest child, that if thou art favored to see the light of another day, to-morrow thou wilt be seventeen years old. I have noticed that those who have been most useful in their day, and whose memoirs have been given to posterity, were in the habit of annually reviewing their past lives on their birth-days, making resolves to live holier and more devoted lives in future; and if they found they had missed their course, endeavored to gather wisdom from their past experience, and to be particularly careful to avoid the same faults. One of the very best, and I may say the only effectual means of improvement is for the young and old to seek for Divine help, to look for and expect it in all contingencies and under all circumstances. We have many consoling promises in Holy Scripture that they that seek the Lord shall find Him. Our dear Saviour has said that he that cometh to Him He will in nowise cast out. Thou may say, ‘But how shall I come to the Saviour?’ That is indeed a very important and weighty question, and involves all that nearly concerns us. Our dear Lord has said of

Himself, ‘I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness; ’ and blessed forever be His Holy Name, I do believe that He manifests Himself to every sincerely seeking soul. In order that we may become acquainted with the inward appearance of Christ in the heart, it seems necessary that we should pass through certain refining processes; it is necessary that the glory of this world should be stained in our view. The poor soul is often introduced into great distress; doubts and fears perplex the mind; the evil spirit tempts us to doubt our Saviour’s power, and even His existence; and should this, my dear child, be thy experience, be not moved thereat. The knowledge of Christ as our Saviour, and a sensible feeling of His love and good presence is, I believe, the pearl of great price, and is fully worth seeking after with all ourliearts; and if we find it, we should be like the merchant seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found it, sold all that he had and bought that pearl. If it pleased our Heavenly Father to make us good at a word. He could do it, but then we would be in danger of soon losing it. If, however, we suffer much, are brought into deep mental conflicts, are, as it were, chased by our soul’s enemy, and feel as if we were in danger of falling into his hands, then it is that we are brought to look to the dear Saviour. And He allows these conflicts for the very purpose of making us acquainted with Himself. There is no danger that He will leave us in the power of the cruel adversary. He knows well all of our conflicts, and they are absolutely necessary. If we look up to Him in confidence, and ever so feebly implore His heavenly aid, He will, when He sees that we have suffered enough, and that we are brought to feel that we have no help but in Him, arise with healing in His wings. And then we shall know indeed that His countenance is lovely, that we have the pearl of great price, and we shall experience the fulfilling, as I verily believe, of that eternal life our Saviour speaks of when He says: ‘This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.’

“When I was about thy age, my dear daughter, it pleased my dear Heavenly Father to stand in my path, and to convince me of my great sinfulness and of the need I stood in of His aid and help. And I have earnestly desired that it might please Him to meet with my children and draw them to Himself. Oh! there is nothing would please me better than that my children should become the

Lord’s children indeed, take Him for their portion, and make it their first business to seek His face and favor. I believe it is the duty of every one daily to seek the Lord, to wait upon Him in their minds, oftener than the rising sun to endeavor to turn the mind towards Him, pray for the light of His Spirit, look to Him for help to keep us in His fear, and strive to watch over our thoughts and words, as if in His holy presence. The thought presses upon me whether we cannot watch over each other for good. Can we not pray for one another? I often pray for thee, dost thou for me? It is surely a duty, and I believe the Lord hears the prayers of those who fear Him.

Give love to dear mother, and sisters, and brother with a large portion to thyself from thy affectionate father.

J. M. Whitall.”