第63章

A JERSEY CENTENARIAN

I have seen her at last.She is a hundred and seven years old, and remembers George Washington quite distinctly.It is somewhat confusing, however, that she also remembers a contemporaneous Josiah W.Perkins of Basking Ridge, N.J., and, I think, has the impression that Perkins was the better man.Perkins, at the close of the last century, paid her some little attention.There are a few things that a really noble woman of a hundred and seven never forgets.

It was Perkins, who said to her in 1795, in the streets of Philadelphia, "Shall I show thee Gen.Washington?" Then she said careless-like (for you know, child, at that time it wasn't what it is now to see Gen.Washington), she said, "So do, Josiah, so do!"Then he pointed to a tall man who got out of a carriage, and went into a large house.He was larger than you be.He wore his own hair--not powdered; had a flowered chintz vest, with yellow breeches and blue stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat.In summer he wore a white straw hat, and at his farm at Basking Ridge he always wore it.At this point, it became too evident that she was describing the clothes of the all-fascinating Perkins: so I gently but firmly led her back to Washington.Then it appeared that she did not remember exactly what he wore.To assist her, I sketched the general historic dress of that period.She said she thought he was dressed like that.Emboldened by my success, I added a hat of Charles II., and pointed shoes of the eleventh century.She indorsed these with such cheerful alacrity, that I dropped the subject.

The house upon which I had stumbled, or, rather, to which my horse--a Jersey hack, accustomed to historic research--had brought me, was low and quaint.Like most old houses, it had the appearance of being encroached upon by the surrounding glebe, as if it were already half in the grave, with a sod or two, in the shape of moss thrown on it, like ashes on ashes, and dust on dust.A wooden house, instead of acquiring dignity with age, is apt to lose its youth and respectability together.A porch, with scant, sloping seats, from which even the winter's snow must have slid uncomfortably, projected from a doorway that opened most unjustifiably into a small sitting-room.There was no vestibule, or locus poenitentiae, for the embarrassed or bashful visitor: he passed at once from the security of the public road into shameful privacy.And here, in the mellow autumnal sunlight, that, streaming through the maples and sumach on the opposite bank, flickered and danced upon the floor, she sat and discoursed of George Washington, and thought of Perkins.She was quite in keeping with the house and the season, albeit a little in advance of both; her skin being of a faded russet, and her hands so like dead November leaves, that I fancied they even rustled when she moved them.

For all that, she was quite bright and cheery; her faculties still quite vigorous, although performing irregularly and spasmodically.

It was somewhat discomposing, I confess, to observe, that at times her lower jaw would drop, leaving her speechless, until one of the family would notice it, and raise it smartly into place with a slight snap,--an operation always performed in such an habitual, perfunctory manner, generally in passing to and fro in their household duties, that it was very trying to the spectator.It was still more embarrassing to observe that the dear old lady had evidently no knowledge of this, but believed she was still talking, and that, on resuming her actual vocal utterance, she was often abrupt and incoherent, beginning always in the middle of a sentence, and often in the middle of a word."Sometimes," said her daughter, a giddy, thoughtless young thing of eighty-five,--"sometimes just moving her head sort of unhitches her jaw; and, if we don't happen to see it, she'll go on talking for hours without ever making a sound." Although I was convinced, after this, that during my interview I had lost several important revelations regarding George Washington through these peculiar lapses, I could not help reflecting how beneficent were these provisions of the Creator,--how, if properly studied and applied, they might be fraught with happiness to mankind,--how a slight jostle or jar at a dinner-party might make the post-prandial eloquence of garrulous senility satisfactory to itself, yet harmless to others,--how a more intimate knowledge of anatomy, introduced into the domestic circle, might make a home tolerable at least, if not happy,--how a long-suffering husband, under the pretence of a conjugal caress, might so unhook his wife's condyloid process as to allow the flow of expostulation, criticism, or denunciation, to go on with gratification to her, and perfect immunity to himself.

But this was not getting back to George Washington and the early struggles of the Republic.So I returned to the commander-in-chief, but found, after one or two leading questions, that she was rather inclined to resent his re-appearance on the stage.Her reminiscences here were chiefly social and local, and more or less flavored with Perkins.We got back as far as the Revolutionary epoch, or, rather, her impressions of that epoch, when it was still fresh in the public mind.And here I came upon an incident, purely personal and local, but, withal, so novel, weird, and uncanny, that for a while I fear it quite displaced George Washington in my mind, and tinged the autumnal fields beyond with a red that was not of the sumach.I do not remember to have read of it in the books.Ido not know that it is entirely authentic.It was attested to me by mother and daughter, as an uncontradicted tradition.