George Peabody

“ George Peabody was born in Danvers, Feb. 18, 1795. His parents were respectable, hard-working people, whose scanty income afforded little education for their children. George grew up an obedient, faithful son, called a "mother-boy" by his companions, from his devotion to her,—a title of which any boy may well be proud.
At eleven years of age he must go out into the world to earn his living. ”

“ After serving as a volunteer at Fort Warburton, Maryland, in the War of 1812, he became partner with Elisha Riggs in a dry goods store at Georgetown, Riggs furnishing the capital, while Peabody was manager. Through his energy and skill the business increased with astounding rapidity, and on the retirement of Riggs about 1830 Peabody found himself at the head of one of the largest mercantile concerns in the world. ”

“ For the first six years after Justin Peabody left home, he had drifted about from place to place, saving every possible dollar of his uncertain earnings in the conscious hope that he could go back to New England and ask Nancy Wentworth to marry him. The West was prosperous and progressive, but how he yearned, in idle moments, for the grimmer and more sterile soil that had given him birth! ”

“ He died in Vermont in 1797, seven years before the birth of the grand-daughter whose name heads the present sketch. After his death his wife and children resided in Watertown.
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, descended from this worthy, patriotic, and scholarly ancestry, was a precocious child, early displaying unusual mental abilities and a fondness for study. At the age of sixteen she began to teach school in Lancaster. She subsequently taught successively in Hallowell, Me., in Brookline, Mass., with her sister Mary, and in Boston. ”

“ Burbank with interest.
“Hasn’t he answered?” asked Maria Sharp.
Nancy Wentworth held her breath, turned her face to the wall, and silently wiped the paint of the wainscoting. The blood that had rushed into her cheeks at Mrs. Sargent’s jeering reference to Justin Peabody still lingered there for any one who ran to read, but fortunately nobody ran; they were too busy scrubbing.
“Not yet. Folks don’t hurry about answering when you ask them for a contribution,” replied the president, with a cynicism common to persons who collect funds for charitable purposes. ”

“ By sermon time Justin’s identity had dawned upon most of the congregation. A stranger to all but one or two at first, his presence in the Peabody pew brought his face and figure back, little by little, to the minds of the old parishioners.
When the contribution plate was passed, the sexton always began at the right-wing pews, as all the sextons before him had done for a hundred years. ”

“ His MS. is fully shown in the signature. It evinces the direct, unpretending strength and simplicity which characterize the man, not less than his general compositions.
The name of William B. O. Peabody, like that of Mr. Wetmore, is known chiefly to the readers of our light literature, and much more familiarly to Northern than to Southern readers. He is a resident of Springfield, Mass. His occasional poems have been much admired.
His chirography is what would be called beautiful by the ladies universally, and, perhaps, by a large majority of the bolder sex. ”

“ As an American citizen Ward is as much entitled to my help—officially—as Professor Peabody, whatever his standing."
"Ward's a forger," protested Garland, "a fugitive from justice; and Peabody is a scholar and a gentleman. I'm not keen about dead cities myself—this one we're in now is dead enough for me—but if civilization is demanding to know what Cobre was like eight hundred years ago, civilization is entitled to find out, and Peabody seems the man for the job. It's a shame to turn him down for a gang of grafters." ”

“ PIONEERS IN DISTANT SEAS
(1775-1817) The name of Joseph Peabody takes rank with that of Elias Hasket Derby as an American who did much to upbuild the commerce, wealth and prestige of his nation in its younger days. It may sound like an old-fashioned doctrine in this present age of concentration of wealth at the expense of a sturdy and independent citizenship, to assert that such men as Joseph Peabody deserve much more honor for the kind of manhood they helped to foster than for the riches they amassed for themselves. ”

“ He still has charge, as rector, of Star Prairie and Wagon Landing. Few men have led more laborious lives or been more useful in their calling. He has witnessed the erection [Pg 117] of eight churches on the field in which he labored, though concerned directly in the building of only four. Mr. Peabody's family consists of seven sons and seven daughters. One of the latter died in infancy.
V. M. Babcock settled at Wagon Landing, town of Alden, in 1856. He was born in Rensselaer county, New York; married his first wife in New York and his second wife at Somerset, St. Croix county, Wisconsin. ”

“ Mr. Jones [159] would never take any interest in it. He is so busy, you know. Dr. Peabody will be Lafayette."
"I see. Dr. Peabody will be Lafayette. I suppose, of course, that you wish to carry out the pageant with due regard for historical accuracy, correctness of costume, and all that sort of thing?"
"Oh, yes. Certainly! That is what will make it so charming, and interesting, and picturesque, and er—er—educational. Dr. Peabody has picked out his costume already. He has spent hours over it. It is all white satin, high-heeled shoes, a jeweled sword, and a powdered wig. ”

“ Not like the Peabodys, but really needy people. What is it Bobby calls 'em? 'P.G.s'—'paying guests.'
"I was a paying guest at Bramble Farm," ruminated Betty, still staring at the little shop and the houses that flanked it on either side. "And I certainly had a hard time there. Bobby says that these people in Georgetown are the remains of Southern aristocracy that were cast up on this beach as long ago as the Civil War. Unlike the castaways on cannibal islands that we read about, Bobby says these castaways live off the 'P.G.s'—and that's what Joseph Peabody tried to do! He tried to live off me. ”

“ To such as looked upon old Sylvester there seemed a glow and halo about his aged brow and whitened locks, for this was the very spirit of his life.
As though he knew the very secrets of their souls, and touched their very heart-strings with a gentle hand, the preacher glanced from one member of the Peabody household to another, as he proceeded, something in this manner. (For William Peabody:) do I find on this holy day that I love God in all his glorious universe, more than the image even of Liberty, which hath ensnared and enslaved the soul of many a man on the coin of this world? ”

“ He looks down at them. He looks up at the houses. Then he signs to them, with his finger on his lips; and begins, very softly, to pipe the Kinder-spell. The old CLAUS and URSULA in the windows seem to doze.
The children stop first, and look at him, fascinated; then they laugh, drowsily, and creep closer,—JAN always near. They crowd around him. He pipes louder, moving backwards, slowly, with magical gestures, towards the little by-streets and the closed doors. The doors open, everywhere. ”

“ Pee-wee declared. “She’s not a tomboy.”
Pepsy seemed comforted.
“You leave that feller to me,” Pee-wee said. “I can handle Roy Blakeley and all his patrol and they’re a lot of jolliers—they think they’re so smart.”
“I like you better than all of them,” Pepsy said. “Sometimes I’m kept after school too, you can ask Miss Bellison.”
“One thing sure, I like you well enough to be partners with you,” Pee-wee said. “Do you want me to tell you something? I thought of a way to make a lot of money, and if I do I’m going to buy three new tents for our troop. Do you want to go partners with me? ”

“ During her husband's life she shared in all his benevolent and educational work, and her familiarity with modern languages enabled her to assist him greatly in his studies of foreign reforms. Her writings, especially those on the kindergarten system, with her sister, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, are distinguished for vigor of thought and felicity of expression. She published “Flower People” (1838) ; “Christianity in the Kitchen, a Physiological Cook-Book” (Boston, 1857) ”

“ It was Wales, too, that furnished the scene of his first and far from worst novel Headlong Hall, which was published in 1816. From 1815 to 1819 Peacock lived at Marlow, where his intercourse with Shelley was resumed, and where he produced not merely Headlong Hall but Melincourt (the most unequal, notwithstanding many charming sketches, of his works) , the delightful Nightmare Abbey (with a caricature, as genius caricatures, of Shelley for the hero) , and the long and remarkable poem of "Rhododaphne." ”

“ But Pee-wee had gone.
Up the narrow, boxed-in stairs he went, never asking permission. He could see nothing but a big enclosed wagon, dark inside, with Pepsy inside it. He had no more idea what he was going to do that day than the man in the moon. But he knew what he was going to do that very minute. When a scout makes up his mind to do a thing....
Into the little room under the eaves he strode, his eyes glistening, but his heart staunch and his resolve indomitable. ”

“ She had seen how quickly Peabody folded up the telegram when he had read it.
"Isn't that a message from Mrs. Peabody?" she demanded crisply. "And doesn't she say she's found the deed? Where was it—in one of your coat pockets?" ”

“ Stevens gave a violent start at the last assurance, but his colleague hurriedly helped him into his coat.
"Go in a closed carriage," was Peabody's final warning. "Be sure to tell her to get hold of his two daughters on some pretext at once. She knows them well. Maybe we can influence the old man through his girls, don't you see?"
And while Senator Peabody and Jake Steinert recurred to a previous discussion concerning one J.D. Telfer, Mayor of Gulf City, Senator Stevens started on the most memorable drive of his career on this bright winter morning, to the house of the fascinating Mrs. ”

“ Pepys, there, and talked with him a good while about our country business, who is troubled at my uncle Thomas his folly, and so we parted; and then meeting Sir R. Slingsby in St. Martin's Lane, he and I in his coach through the Mewes, which is the way that now all coaches are forced to go, because of a stop at Charing Cross, by reason of a drain there to clear the streets. To Whitehall, and there to Mr. Coventry, and talked with him, and thence to my Lord Crew's and dined with him, where I was used with all imaginable kindness both from him and her. ”

“ Let’s start in and maybe later there’ll be some summer boarders in Berryville. We’ll have waffles—I can make those. And we’ll have lemonade and fruit and all kinds of things and when you’re doing your chores I’ll tend counter. We’ll make a lot of money, you see if we don’t.”
In her generous confidence, Pepsy was quite carried away by Pee-wee’s enthusiasm. She knew (who better than she?) that strangers never came along that lonely by-road. But she believed that somehow they would come when the scout waved his magic wand. ”

“ There is not a doubt but that old Sylvester Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two young men in livery began to dive in here and there about the table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive service on Mrs. Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he could remain silent no longer.
"Boys," he said, addressing himself to the two fine personages in question, "you will oblige me by going into the yard and chopping wood till we are done supper. We shall need all you can split in an hour to bake the pies with." ”

“ Although there are few novelists who observe plot less than Peacock, there are few also who are more regular in the particular fashion in which they disdain plot. Peacock is in fiction what the dramatists of the school of Ben Jonson down to Shadwell are in comedy—he works in "humours." ”

“ Pee-wee said, “and none of us will die. If the customers die that doesn’t count, does it?”
Pepsy did not hear this rather ominous prediction about those who would eat the waffles and the taffy. Her hate and her tears were her only arguments, but they won the day.
“He’s got a Ford,” Pee-wee said in scornful final plea, “and he can put up money enough for us to buy lots of sundries and pretty soon we’ll have money enough to start other refreshment places and he can be the one to ride around—he’ll be kind of field manager. It shows how much girls know about business,” he added disgustedly. ”

“ Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, educator and author, was born in Billerica, Mass., May 16, 1804, daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody and his wife, Elizabeth Palmer. She was the eldest of three notable sisters, of whom in her latest years she was the sole survivor. The one nearest her in age was Mary Tyler, born in Cambridge in 1806, who married Horace Mann; and the other was Sophia Amelia, who became the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. ”

“ Indulging these disconsolate spring musings, Pee-wee sank down in his chair again, a frowning, dreamy figure, and floated out of the library and away from all the sordid environments of Bridgeboro toward a desert island situated in the south-eastern part of the seventeenth century. It was a long, long way off and he had to cross the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to get to it. He was no longer a pioneer scout now, nor a scout at all, but a doughty explorer about to set foot for the first time on soil that white man had never trod before. ”

“ So it’s a teckinality that you don’t have to be loyal to an orphan home. You can ask any lawyer because that’s what you call logic.”
“Deadwood Gamely’s father is a lawyer,” Pepsy said, “and I hate Deadwood Gamely and I wouldn’t go to his house to ask his father. He’s a smarty and I hit him with a tomato. Have I got a right to do that—if he’s a smarty?”
Here was another legal technicality, but Pee-wee was equal to the occasion. “A—a scout has to be a—he has to have a good aim,” he said.
CHAPTER VII
A BIG IDEA They had been driving the cows home during this learned exposition on scouting. ”