The Gallant Captain and the Little Girl

I

BACK in the year 1861, when the Civil War was demanding its place in our nation’s anxious thought, there stood in one of the lovely villages of Berkshire County, in Massachusetts, an old colonial house. It was of the Virginia type; it was built of red brick; its front porch had four heavy columns topped by Ionic capitals, supporting a pediment which carried a large fanlight — all constituting a facade of no mean aspect. On the columns grew in climbing circles woodbines, whose constantly curving trunks measured four inches in their diameter; with their verdant sprouts, like the graceful draping of a curtain, they gave the desired softening effect to the formal lines of the facade of the house.

Up the gently sloping lawn separating this house from the tree-lined village street, one afternoon in the late autumn of the year 1861, came a tall, spare, erect, manly boy of twenty; he bounded up the stone steps, rang the front-door bell. In those days no one ‘pushed a button’; a little brass knob at the right of the front door was pulled out, and, being connected by wire with a bell, the jerk occasioned a ringing response which resounded through the house, reminding the maid of a sudden duty—‘to answer the bell.’

When the front door was opened, a voice which made an indelible impression on the Little Girl of the house, as she was trying to satisfy a perhaps justifiable curiosity, asked if Mrs. Kellogg was at home. Mrs. Kellogg, the Little Girl’s mother, showed unfeigned pleasure as she entered her parlor — for it was a ‘parlor’ in those days — and recognized the young Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., as her visitor: the son of her friend of many years, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Inquiries for the boy’s father, for his mother, and as to the boy’s object in being again in the little village where he, with his parents, had spent seven years in his childhood, brought out the fact that he had just graduated from Harvard, and had now come to Western Massachusetts, in realization of the exigencies of war, to recruit a company for the 20th Massachusetts Regiment. It seemed to the Little Girl that the beauty of his voice, alone, would lure men into enlistment.

The young boy stayed on for many days with the Kelloggs, eliciting much interest from the older daughters of the house, but awakening in the Little Girl, a child of nine years, an affection which continued unquenched, even to the day in March 1931 when the Gallant Captain of 1861 celebrated his ninetieth birthday, having risen from Captain to Colonel, from Colonel to the ChiefJusticeship of the Supreme Bench of Massachusetts, whence he was called to a Justiceship on the Supreme Bench of the United States. On the memorable evening of that day in March 1931, people the country over honored themselves in honoring him, as they took in the charm of his voice adjusted so perfectly to the demands of the radio, and luxuriated in a transient intimacy with the hero of the hour.

The days of recruiting, in 1861, were busy days; the Gallant Captain was faithful to his military duties, though there were countless Berkshire belles in whom his soul delighted. But he always found time to be with the Little Girl; and when the 20th Massachusetts left for the front the Little Girl was kept in constant touch with him — he wrote to her from Southern camps, he sent his love to her, wrapped up in poems, he had special names for her: ‘Buster,’ ‘Bclovedest of Busters,’ ‘the little Adored One,’ ‘Small Un,’ ‘Carrie, carissima.’

Later, after the battle of Antietam had dealt its blow to the young soldier, and his father’s ‘Hunt after the Captain’ had been successful, the village in the Berkshire hills was chosen again as a recruiting ground, but this time to gain physical strength — not soldiers. Again the Kelloggs received the young officer with joy, and the sheltering elms offered a second welcome to him. As before, he found time to be with the Little Girl, driving with her in her phaeton, — one of those today outmoded vehicles! — going to see her as part of her school tableaux, and, best of all, giving her his companionship.

As the years went on, and the Civil War ended, the Gallant Captain became the serious lawyer, the effective lecturer, the Chief Justice, whose yearly visits when the Court ‘sat’ in the growing Berkshire town caused the Little Girl to count eagerly on the month of September, when he could be expected to arrive. Years after, among her private-box treasures, she found a tiny package marked: ‘The last cigar smoked by O. W. H., on the front piazza.’

In one of the poems sent her from the front, he pictures the house where the ‘little adored one’ lives, describing the tall columns ‘with the heavy creepers hugging them all — all, but one.’ Strange that a boy whose mind was intent on the possibilities of imminent war service should yet have noticed, and remembered, so insignificant a feature connected with an old house.

But that trait of observation was probably inherited from his father, who, when his attention was called to a clean break in the trunk of one of those same woodbines, recommended that the opposing armies be glued together. They were; and every spring thereafter the fresh shoots testified to the wisdom of Dr. Holmes’s prescription. In another letter the Gallant Captain speaks of the Berkshire village he so well knew as placed ‘in the amethystine chalice of the hills.’ Anyone who has lifted up his eyes unto the hills that encircle the lovely town — as we must now admit it to be — at the time of an autumn sunset can testify to the truth of the young boy’s poetic thought.

II

As time went on, letters came to the Little Girl at intervals. In September 1867, this, from Boston: —

MY DARLING CARRIE:
I have just seen your sister. She says you have not forgotten me. A week ago, curiously enough, I was on the point of writing to you, when I thought — what if she has not gotten home from Europe (for I was going to write on luck). What if she has grown up and got to be a young lady whom I can’t call my darling any more (she will be it, none the less). What if (this was the most terrible), what if she has forgotten me! I don’t know what I should have thought or done had this been so. But May says you have n’t. I saw this summer one little girl with long hair down over her neck, whom I loved — but, ah me, what is any little girl to me, by the side of my little girl! Many women have I loved; thee only — dost remember, Small Un? Will you write me and say you have not forgotten the wrinkled old party whom once you found room for in your heart!
I missed you in Europe, and sorry I was, for I must have been very near you once or twice. But now here I am at home studying and working — and getting older. Ah, my dear, you don’t know how that feels — getting older — seeing your friends, that were, getting other interests, business, marrying — what not — while you are not called — but wait. But I am moralizing like a parson, which I am not, by trade.
Give my love to all, and keep lots for yourself. From your constant adorer
and Ring-tailed Roarer,
O. W. HOLMES, JR.

In November 1867, from Boston: —

BELOVEDEST OF BUSTERS:
With what joy did I find that poor old Oliver is not forgotten. He, I swear it, has stuck to his little adored one closer than he has to his office — as close as he w ishes his clients would stick to him — closer still, as close as his heart has stuck within his ribs. What disgusting mention didst thou make of growing older? Shall I not have one little party who won’t grow older? With age will come matters more interesting to young women than I am — and short of that, what bridlings and fine airs and graces and proprieties — and I know not what! No, I will not have thee grow older. So you liked Europe? So did I. They have a sweet thing in mountains in Switzerland. Also some considerable towns here and there. The structers in which they lodge their public functionaries are in some cases worthy of note. And they do, undoubtedly, come out strong in spots, on picters, statooarv, rowings, field sports and cookery (though of the last, at your tender age, you doubtless took no notice). As to the men — hem — suffice it to say — they are not free-born Yankees.
I am living like an oyster, making shell for himself. If I wrnrk at all. I can do nothing else. So, after a demoralizing summer, I am walking into law and philosophy in a pretty tall fashion (this is a piece of private bragging, and elitre nous). What gallant young Pittsfieldian sits in my vacant chair? Trust him not, Carry; all men are deceivers except me! It is just striking 111111 six, What were you doing, Miss, at six o’clock on Sunday evening! Not thinking of me as much as I of you, I ’ll be bound. Alas, it is n’t only men who can’t be trusted.
Believe me now as ever,
Your adorer,
O. W. HOLMES, JR.

This letter was evidently written under the spell of the ‘funny writer5 of that day, Josh Billings.

On meeting the mother of the Little Girl one summer day in a later year at Beverly Farms, the Gallant Captain tore a bit of paper from an envelope in his pocket, and, laying it on the tire of one of the big back wheels of the victoria, — so charming, in the ‘gay nineties,5 — he impromptued the following lines, asking that they be sent in the next letter to the Little Girl: —

III

In 1891 a little white-winged messenger, a collection of his short addresses, was sent by Mr. Justice Holmes to some of his friends. The small book was bound in white and gold, and bore on its title-page the words: ‘These chance utterances of faith and doubt are printed for a few friends who will care to keep them.5 The first of the addresses was delivered on Memorial Day at Keene, New Hampshire, in 1884; the reading of it by the Little Girl, in its exquisite fitness, has served ever since as a sacred ushering in of Memorial Day. In this address he says: —

To the indifferent inquirer who asks why Memorial Day is still kept up we may answer, It celebrates and solemnly affirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith. It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might. So must you do to carry anything else to an end worth reaching. More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. All that is required of you is that you should go somewhither as hard as ever you can. The rest belongs to fate. . . . Desire cannot be imparted by argument, it can be by contagion. Feeling begets feeling, and great feeling begets great feeling. . . .

As surely as this day comes round we are in the presence of the dead. For one hour, twice a year at least — at the regimental dinner, where the ghosts sit at table more numerous than the living; and on this day when we decorate their graves — the dead come back and live with us. I see them now, more than I can number, as once I saw them on this earth. ... I see a fair-haired lad — a lieutenant — and a captain, sitting by the long mess-table in camp before the regiment left the State, and wondering how many of those who gathered in our tent could hope to see the end of what was then beginning. For neither of them was that destiny reserved. ... I see another youthful lieutenant as I saw him in the Seven Days, when I looked down the line at Glendale. The advance was beginning, we caught each other’s eye and saluted. When next I looked, he was gone. ... I see one — grandson of a hard rider of the Revolution and bearer of his aristocratic name — who was with us at Fair Oaks, and afterwards for five days and nights in front of the enemy the only sleep that he would take was what he could snatch sitting erect in his uniform and resting his back against a hut. He fell at Gettysburg.

There is one grave and commanding presence that you wall all recognize, for his life has become a part of our common history. Who does not remember the leader of the assault at the mine of Petersburg? The solitary horseman in front of Port Hudson, whom a foemau worthy of him bade his soldiers spare, from love and admiration of such gallant bearing? Who does not still hear the echo of those eloquent lips after the war, teaching reconciliation and peace? I may not do more than allude to his death, fit ending of his life. All that the world has a right to know has been told by a beloved friend in a book wherein friendship has found no need to exaggerate facts that speak for themselves. I knew him, and I may even say I knew him well; yet until that book appeared I had not known the governing motive of his soul — I had admired him as a hero — when I read, I learned to revere him as a saint — His strength was not in honor alone, but in religion; and those who do not share his creed must see that it was on the wings of religious faith that he mounted above even valiant deeds, into an empyrean of ideal life.

These words were an embodiment of his admiration for General William Francis Bartlett. In this same address he speaks of ‘those whose sex forbade them to offer their lives, but who instead gave their happiness — those lovely, lonely women, around whom the wand of sorrow has traced its excluding circle.’

In another of the addresses, called ‘Harvard College in the War,’ he speaks of ‘that little touch of the superfluous which is necessary.’

IV

The gentle relation between the Gallant Captain and the Little Girl lived on from year to year. A happy marriage came to the Gallant Captain; a happy marriage came to the Little Girl. The gentle relation changed only in that it came to embrace four instead of two.

When the Little Girl was once at the Holmes home, on Eye Street in Washington, Mrs. Holmes introduced her to some departing visitors as ‘my husband’s first love.’ At another time — a dinner occasion — the host took from his library shelf and placed in the Little Girl’s hand a book, bound in red leather, taken from a long row of books similarly bound, which proved to be the manuscript of Elsie Venner — in Dr. Holmes’s beautifully characteristic writing. Alas, that the holograph has given place to the typewritten draft — if one may ‘speak as a fool,’ and not as a publisher!

In 1908, the following letter came to the Little Girl from Washington: —

MY DEAR CAROLYN:
I read last night of your mother’s death and it brought up many memories — the old familiar, even intimate, acquaintance, the many kindnesses, the intelligent talk, the humor, the atmosphere of affectionate good will.
It brought up you, from little girl to wife, and I thought I might write a line without breaking into sacred places. She has died in the fullness of time and I suppose you were prepared for it — but with such strong personalities one never quite believes, or can believe, that they are gone.
But when she gradually becomes a memory, it will be a great one, one to be proud of, as even I, who saw her only so occasionally, shall remember her as one of the most striking figures of my past.

So did the Gallant Captain’s thought follow the experiences of the Little Girl.

In the summer of 1929 the Little Girl stopped at the vine-covered house in Beverly Farms, where with her mother in earlier years she had visited Justice and Mrs. Holmes; her hope of a glimpse of her Gallant Captain was realized. The little interview furnished the high light of that summer for her.

The spirit of the talk was unaltered, the affectionate interchange was still a living experience, and, as the Little Girl rose to leave, the still Gallant Captain, taking her hand, said, ‘Well, good-bye, my child.’ Surely the old ‘relativity’ had not worn itself out: twenty years old, nine years old.

In July 1929, from Beverly Farms: —

MY DEAR CAROLYN:
You brought back the time when you were an adorable child one inch high, and I an objectionable soldier of seven feet. You have outgrown your former stature, but not your adjectivity (do you get me?). It truly delighted me to see you, and I am sorry that I never shall revisit our old surroundings in Pittsfield — dear to me for many reasons — and see you there. But one must be philosophical, when one knows that the show must be pretty nearly over — and I think I am.
Ever your affectionate
old friend,
O. W. HOLMES

From Washington, dated May 31, 1930: —

It is a delight to get your letter, and to realize that you are unchanged from the adorable child of 9. At times I feel finished and often feel sad. A letter like yours revives one’s energies. You have the ardor of life, and you pass it on.
Affectionately yours,
O. W. HOLMES

In 1931 the Gallant Captain writes to the Little Girl: —

I am suspicious of industry as a trait that I fear is mine. One of my old sayings is that a man who makes the most of himself does n’t make much. Do you know the Wodehouse books? They vary, but few have given me so much life as he. Leave It to Psmith (the P is silent) and Very Good, Jeeves — every word is golden; such nice original slang — and so funny before you know it! I send you a kiss in memory of a little girl, and am ever
Your affectionate
O. W. HOLMES

In May 1933, the Little Girl was gratified to find that during the few days of a stay in Washington the Gallant Captain could arrange to see her. With what pleasurable trepidation she ascended to the second story of the familiar house on Eye Street, at the hour appointed! The Gallant Captain greeted her with affection, even with a kiss, beaming with the old smile; he apologized for not rising from his chair.

The talk was more of the present than of the past, but instinct with the old familiar friendly affection. With almost insulting merriment the Little Girl asked: ‘Are you improving your mind very heartily these days?’ With answering twinkle came the reply: ‘No, I’m reading Gibbon again, and renewing my acquaintance with Aristotle.’ As she left the big familiar room, its walls lined with bookcases, the Little Girl cast a quick glance at the shelf where she remembered the books in the red binding — the holographs — to have been. They were not there. ‘No,’ the Gallant Captain explained, ‘I’ve given them to the Library of Congress.’

Up to the Christmas of 1934, the good-wish card came with regularity, bearing always the distinguished signature, ‘O. W. Holmes.’ But in addition, what now proves to have been the last Christmas greeting was encased in an envelope addressed by the Gallant Captain himself, and his meticulous attention to the proprieties was indicated by the fact that the Old Bay State on the envelope was written, not as Mass., not even as Masssetts — it was given its full measure: Massachusetts.

One speaks almost with bated breath of a friendship that has glistened, and gleamed, and glowed, for more than seventy years: a friendship that has lived beyond the period of threescore years and ten, but without the association of either ‘labor’ or ‘sorrow.’

The closing words of his ninetiethbirthday address force themselves upon the memory: —

‘The work is never done while the power to work remains. And so I end with the line from a Latin poet, who littered the message more than 1500 years ago: Death plucks my car and says: “Live — I am coming.’”