The boy could not recall the family's removal to the Falconer house.
They were not there, and then they were there. It was a brick house, at
a corner of the principal street, and in the gable there were places for
mock-windows where there had never been blinds put, but where the
swallows had thickly built their nests. I dare say my boy might have
been willing to stone these nests, but he was not allowed, either he or
his mates, who must have panted with him to improve such an opportunity
of havoc. There was a real window in the gable from which he could look
out of the garret; such a garret as every boy should once have the use
of some time in his life. It was dim and low, though it seemed high, and
the naked brown rafters were studded with wasps' nests; and the rain
beat on the shingles overhead. The house had been occupied by a
physician, and under the eaves the children found heaps of phials full
of doctor's stuff; the garret abounded in their own family boxes and
barrels, but there was always room for a swing, which the boys used in
training for their circuses. Below the garret there were two unimportant
stories with chambers, dining-room, parlor, and so on; then you came to
the brick-paved kitchen in the basement, and a perfectly glorious
cellar, with rats in it. Outside there was a large yard, with five or
six huge old cherry-trees, and a garden plot, where every spring my boy
tried to make a garden, with never-failing failure.
The house gave even to him a sense of space unknown before, and he could
recall his mother's satisfaction in it. He has often been back there in
dreams, and found it on the old scale of grandeur; but no doubt it was a
very simple affair. The fortunes of a Whig editor in a place so
overwhelmingly democratic as the Boy's Town were not such as could have
warranted his living in a palace; and he must have been poor, as the
world goes now. But the family always lived in abundance, and in their
way they belonged to the employing class; that is, the father had men to
work for him. On the other hand, he worked with them; and the boys, as
they grew old enough, were taught to work with them, too. My boy grew
old enough very young; and was put to use in the printing-office before
he was ten years of age. This was not altogether because he was needed
there, I dare say, but because it was part of his father's Swedenborgian
philosophy that every one should fulfil a use; I do not know that when
the boy wanted to go swimming, or hunting, or skating, it consoled him
much to reflect that the angels in the highest heaven delighted in
uses; nevertheless, it was good for him to be of use, though maybe not
so much use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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