SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS. I. YOUTH. 1810 - 1831. JAMES HANDASYD PERKINS was the youngest child of Samuel G. Perkins and Barbara Higginson, both of Boston, Massachusetts, and was born on the 31st of July, 1810. The first image that rises is of a bright-eyed boy, with dark, curling hair, olive skin, and slight figure, hovering about an aged nurse, who seemed to have sole charge of him. "Aunt Esther," as he used to call her, with form bent by age and crippled by rheumatism, with face brown as parchment, seamed by wrinkles, and utterly ugly but for the love that illumined it, so deaf that only shouting directly in her ear could carry meaning to the brain, slow-moving, slow-thoughted, but patient and inexhaustibly kind Aunt Esther, how she reappears from the past, with that half playful, half plain tive, gypsy-looking boy hanging round her in the lonely nursery! Lonely, I say, for the impression left of those earliest days is of a very isolated childhood. The elder brother was away from home at a boarding-school, and soon went to Europe to complete his training in Germany and France. Of the sisters, two had already entered society, and were engaged amidst the constantly recurring interests of cultivated life, while two younger were absorbed in perfecting their education and accomplishments. The mother appears in memory, as from secluded distance, a person of stately beauty, seated beneath curtains on a sofa, in turban and elegant attire, entertaining an admiring circle with eloquence and wit; while the father, seemingly a giant in figure as he towered above us, alternately cheerful and stern, but to children invariably considerate and kind, comes in only at intervals, when released from cares of commerce or the engrossing pleasures of horticulture. So that "Aunt Esther" and I seem to have been James's constant companions. Dwelling in the same block in Boston during the winter, and within a short half-mile of one another at Brookline in summer, related by close family ties, as our mothers were sisters, separated in age by but two months, James being the junior, both guarded from promiscuous intercourse with children, kept much at home, and with just enough of likeness and unlikeness in disposition to make us congenial, we were from the cradle almost like twin-brothers. Together we watched the falling flakes, measured with delight the swelling banks, shovelled away the snow, piled it up into monsters, and battered them with balls; together we wandered in the woods, gathering flowers or watching the birds and squirrels at their frolics, chasing our boats along the rippling brook, strolling under the barberry-hedges, with their yellow blossoms and scarlet fruit, or eying the gardener wistfully as he plucked luscious grapes and nectarines in the hot-house; together we conned our Latin grammar, or worked out our sums on the slate, interweaving a border of grotesque figures, at Mr. Greeley's school, and in play-hours picked up stray darts of the older boys, who, with paper helmets and shields covered with Gorgon-heads, fought over the battles of the Iliad; together we pored over volumes of cavalry exercise, illustrated by drawings of horses in every conceivable attitude, of costumes and trappings used in the French armies, and by pictures of Napoleon's battles, or staggered under the heavy cap and sabre worn by his father as commander of the huzzars; together we communed with Robinson Crusoe on his lone island, sailed with Sinbad on his perilous voyages, wandered with Gulliver at Lilliputias and Brobdignags, revelled in the piquant wonders of the Arabian Nights, felt our hearts glow with heroic ardor as Mentor encouraged Telemachus, followed Christian and Christiana through the perils and pains of their pilgrimage, or enjoyed more home-like pleasures while we read aloud Sanford and Merton, the Children of the Abbey, Evenings at Home, the Parent's Assistant, Popular Tales, and Berquin's Children's Friend; together, rarest joy of all, we peopled the world of fancy round us with Olympic Deities, Genii, and Fairies, built airy castles for our future lives, looked abroad over the wide prairies of romance, and, in a word, exchanged in unstinted measure a boy's full life of hope and enterprise. One incident so prominently recurs to mind, as illustrative of my cousin's character, that, though it may appear trifling, I am impelled to record it. One afternoon, before school-time, we were tilting upon a heavy piece of timber, quite unequally balanced, James and I being together on one end and several boys on the other, when, by way of trick, they at a signal sprang off as we rose in the air, — meaning merely to toss us into the dust when we struck the ground. Unfortunately, James's ankle came beneath the beam, and while I bounded up he lay prostrate. His leg was broken. Never shall 1 forget the sad smile and soft gaze of his brilliant yet melancholy eyes, as, without a tear or a word of complaining or reproach, that little boy was borne upon men's shoulders home. In the fortitude, stern yet sweet, with which he met that injury, wrought not of purpose, but by his fellows' thoughtlessness, I seem to see an omen of his earthly course. Some two years now passed, during which we were separated, James having spent the intervening period in Boston and Waltham, and I at Lancaster, Massachusetts, to which picturesque town he, too, was afterward sent, that he might have the advantages of excellent instruction and the sympathizing oversight of relatives. Brightly comes up again the summer afternoon of his arrival. I took him to a hill, commanding a wide prospect across meadows tufted with elm-trees which skirted the Nashua, and beyond, a rolling country with Wachusett's rounded summit swelling blue against the western sky; and there, amid the sunset, he repeated the opening stanzas of Marmion. He had found this stirring tale of border warfare on his mother's table before leaving home, and it had so enchanted him, that long passages were imprinted on his memory. The ringing tones, the mu sical cadences, the kindling eye and animated gesture of that boy, then ten years old, as, with head bathed in the "yellow lustre," he stood upon the hill-top, chanting almost those verses, present to me an ever-vivid image of his poetic enthusiasm. The next afternoon, being holiday, was spent by us alone among the pine-woods in boyish gossip, he pouring out the pent-up memories of boarding-school oppressions and miseries, of boarding-school stratagems and tricks, and I listening with the tender sympathy of a child who had never left the guarded circuits of a happy home. Well I remember that, while tickled beyond measure with the little fellow's spirit, drollery, shrewdness, and endless inventiveness, I was pained to feel though then incapable of shaping the feeling into thought that neglect and wrong had spotted with rust the once wholly bright links of his affectionateness. A slight infusion of sarcasm in his narratives and sketches, spicy at first taste, but afterwards bitter, marked the sense of half-pardoned injustice. Most contagious, however, was his fun, as, with almost Indian gravity on his expressive features, the chiselled chin, fine-cut lips, high, thin nose, and black eyes glancing under straight brows, he overflowed in a stream of pithy anecdotes, quaint fancies, and, as must be candidly owned, of most Munchausenlike exaggerations. But far more exciting in interest was his fresh vigor of thought. He had read much and remembered vividly; he had observed the natural world, and was full of facts; above all, ever-wakeful imagination threw around words and actions the charm of suggestiveness and beauty. Since our parting, among many companions I had met with no one who could compare in attractiveness with this brilliant boy. Once more we |