Thomas Allen

“ That boy is dretful deep; he is comin’ up awful well. He is a ornament to Jonesville, as Lawyer Snow—Maggy’s father—told me, last fall. (That haint come off yet; but we are perfectly willin’ and agreeable on both sides, and it will probable take place before long. Thomas J. fairly worships the ground she walks on, and so she does hisen.)
Says Thomas J. to me, says he, “I haint a word to say ag’inst your callin’ it Debatin’-school, only I know you are so kinder scientific and philosophical, that I hate to see you usin’ a word that haint got science to back it up. ”

“ But a manlier, good-hearteder, level-headeder boy never lived than Thomas Jefferson Allen. He is just right, and always wuz. And though I wouldn't have it get out for the world, I can't help seein' it, that he goes fur ahead of Tirzah Ann in intellect, and nobleness of nater; and though I love 'em both devotedly, I do, and I can't help it, like him jest a little mite the best. But this I wouldn't have get out for a thousand dollars. I tell it in strict confidence, and s'pose it will be kep' as such. Mebby I hadn't ort to tell it at all. Mebby it hain't quite orthodox in me to feel so. ”

“ Thomas J. talks about goin’ west to live, when he gets married, and if he does it will be a awful blow to me, but still I want him to do what is best for him, and I tell Josiah that we all ort to use reason if we have got any to use. Let the young birds build a nest for themselves, even if the old birds are lonesome. ”

“ I never seen a meachener lookin’ vest than hisen, as I went on:
“I’d talk Josiah Allen about men bein’ so pure-minded, and honest. I’d talk about wimmens bein’ whifflin’ and their minds not stabled. I’d talk about the purity of the pole. I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s wife buyin’ votes; bribin’ Miss Gowdey or sister Minkley away from the paths of honesty and virtue, with a petticoat or a bib apron. I’d love to see George Washington offerin’ his jack knife to Patrick Henry to get him to vote his ticket; or Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson sellin their votes for store clothes. ”

“ ALLEN, ANTHONY (d. 1754) , lawyer and antiquary, was born at Great Hadham, Hertfordshire, towards the close of the seventeenth century. He was educated at Eton, and went thence to King's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1707, and his M.A. in 1711. He was afterwards called to the bar, and by the influence of Arthur Onslow, speaker of the House of Commons, became a master in chancery. A few years later he was made an alderman of the corporation of Guildford, and a county magistrate. He died 11 April 1754, and was buried in the Temple church. ”

“ Afforded by Raymond & Whitcomb’s Excursion.”
“Hold on!” shouted Tom, who was privileged by his lameness. “That’s an ad. Herodotus Keats wants a free ticket next year. Who is he, I wonder?”
“Thomas,” remarked Fred, eying him severely through his glasses, “don’t display your ignorance of the great authors, nor interrupt with ribald comments. Go on, please, Mr. Selborne.”
“I know now, any way,” muttered the Irrepressible. The editor paid no further attention to him, but resumed the reading:
“The train was on hand in a place you all know well,
The Causeway Street depot marked “Boston & Lowell” ”

“ At noon, on the Fourth of July, 1826, while the Liberty Bell was again sounding its old message to the people of Philadelphia, the soul of Thomas Jefferson passed on; and a few hours later John Adams entered into rest, with the name of his old friend upon his lips. ”

“ Another thing that did seem strange to us wuz that we didn’t have any checks for our baggage to take care on. That seems dretful queer to Americans to have to go out and hunt round and find our own trunks. Though we had no trouble with ourn, for it wuz a very valuable one, and easy to be recognized with the naked eye. It wuz a trunk that belonged to Father Allen, and made on honor, and it lasted him through his life, and then descended onto Josiah—and will, we think, descend, as good [Pg 391] as new, onto Thomas Jefferson. ”

“ Grandparents ort not to have favorites, but I spoze they will as long as the world turns on its old axletrys.
He looks as Thomas J. did when he wuz his age and I married his pa and took the child to my heart, and got his image printed there so it won’t never rub off through time or eternity. Tommy is like his pa and he hain’t like him; he has his pa’s old ways of truthfulness and honesty, and deep––why good land! there hain’t no tellin’ how deep that child is. He has got big gray-blue eyes, with long dark lashes that kinder veil his eyes when he’s thinkin’ ”

“ As she spoke, she moved a little aside to make room for us on her mat, as if they were all playing Hunt-the-Slipper; and Frank, whose fault, I'm bound to admit, was never shyness, squatted down at once, nothing loth, tailor-fashion, on the deck by her side, and with many thanks accepted the courteous offer of a dip in the taro-bowl.
"Upon my word, Tom," he said, twirling a great dab of the queer-looking paste awkwardly into his mouth, "it's first-rate grub when you come to taste it. A little sour to be sure, but as good as pancakes. ”

“ Could that be Tom! A face, deadly white, but streaked with perspiration and dust, and bleeding from a bruise on the forehead; clothes, hands, every part of him, covered with dirt; eyes half-blinded by the sudden light, form trembling from head to foot; it was altogether a strange figure to come up through uncle Will’s floor—but Tom it was, beyond a doubt.
“O uncle Will,” he sobbed brokenly, the tears running over his mud-stained cheeks, “I’m so sorry. Here’s the watch!”
And to Mr. Percival’s utter bewilderment, the boy laid Pet’s little watch in his hands, safe and whole. ”

“ The purpose of the author of this work, who died, leaving it for his daughter to complete, was "to make a fuller life of Allen than has been written, and, singling him from that cluster of sturdy patriots in the New Hampshire Grants, to make plain the vivid personality of a Vermont hero to the younger generations." A picturesque hero he is made to appear. Had the records been less exact and romance been left to deal unrestrained with his career, he might in time have shone forth comparably with the most airy heroes of ancient myth and saga. ”

“ His spirit was essentially Western; and herein is his peculiar Americanism; for the Western spirit is, or will yet be (for no other is, or can be) , the true American one.
For the most part, Allen’s manner while in England was scornful and ferocious in the last degree; however, qualified by that wild, heroic sort of levity, which in the hour of oppression or peril seems inseparable from a nature like his; the mode whereby such a temper best evinces its barbaric disdain of adversity, and how cheaply and waggishly it holds the malice, even though triumphant, of its foes! ”

“ The decision of the court being adverse to New Hampshire, he was advised to go home and make the best terms he could for the settlers. His reply was: "The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the hills." He was offered land grants for himself, and office under the New York authority, which he spurned. New Hampshire practically abandoned the settlers, and Allen advocated armed resistance, and was chosen colonel of the regiment that became the historic "Green Mountain Boys," and of which Seth Warner, Remember Baker, Robert Cochrane and Gideon Olin were captains. ”

“ A more perfect story has not been written by a Kentuckian of Mr. Allen's years. The Maker of Joys (Kansas City, 1907) , was so slight that it attracted little attention, yet it is exceedingly well-done; and in his latest book, The Golden Road (New York, 1910) , he just failed to do what one or two other writers have recently done so admirably. His Nature-loving tinker falls a bit short, but some excellent [Pg 367] writing may be found in this book. Mr. Allen has recently completed another novel, The Lovers of Skye, which will be issued by the Bobbs-Merrill Company in the spring of 1913. ”

“ Allen was a man of gigantic stature, being nearly seven feet in height, and every way of relative proportions. He possessed undaunted courage, and blended bold enterprise with much sagacity. His early education was imperfect, but he was the master-spirit in the society among which he lived, and he exercised a powerful influence in laying the foundations of the state of Vermont. He was a sincere friend of his country, and did much in behalf of the revolution. ”

“ Then she rose up and faced us all again with burning cheeks and flashing eyes. 'If any other man says I have given him a promise, or anything amounting to a promise, he lies. To Tom Allen I have always been friendly, and have romped with him at our little parties; but to-night he grossly insulted me, and I will never speak to him again. As to Harry King, I was friendly with him, too, until about a fortnight ago he presumed to kiss me rudely, in spite of resistance, since which time I have barely recognized him. ”

“ When Alan reached the trysting-place, under a broad-armed oak, in a glade of the woodland, Herminia was there before him; a good woman always is, ’tis the prerogative of her affection. She was simply dressed in her dainty print gown, a single tea-rosebud peeped out from her bodice; she looked more lily-like, so Alan thought in his heart, than he had ever yet seen her. She held out her hand to him with parted lips and a conscious blush. Alan took it, but bent forward at the same time, and with a hasty glance around, just touched her rich mouth. Herminia allowed him without a struggle ”

“ There is haste in some things, still, in New York, but not the haste that we of the generation in middle age remember when we were young men. Mr. Allen, however, had never been hasty; and he found himself fashionable in his old age, as he had been in his youth, long before the civil war.
When his glasses were fairly pinching the lower part of his thin grey nose, he thrust one bony hand into his breast-pocket, leaning forward as he did so, and quietly scanning the faces of his audience, one after the other. He was so very slow that John and Katharine looked at one another and smiled. ”

“ The most notable triumph of 1893 was the selection of Judge William V. Allen, by the Democrats and Independents of Nebraska, to represent that State in the United States Senate. Born in Ohio, in a house which had been a station on the "underground railroad" to assist escaping negroes, Allen at ten years of age had gone with his family to Iowa. After one unsuccessful attempt, he enlisted in the Union Army at the age of fifteen and served from 1862 to the end of the War. When peace came, he resumed his schooling, attended college, studied law, and in 1869 was admitted to the bar. ”

“ During those years of prosperity he led a thoroughly active life, not only as an attorney with a large practice, but as an indefatigable public servant. In fact, through life he has given to the public the first and best of his efforts. He never became a finished advocate and speaker, but his enterprise and integrity secured him a large business, most of which was litigated in the counties of the Western Reserve.
Not long after Mr. Allen commenced practice in Ohio he married Miss Ann Maria Perkins of Warren, Trumbull county, an auspicious connection which was soon terminated by her death. ”

“ I lingered awkwardly, stripping upward the stalks of some weeds.
"Very few Kentucky birds are migratory," I replied at length, with desperate brilliancy and an overwhelming grimace.
"I shall go back some time—to say," she said, and turned away with a parting faintest smile.
I that West Point brother giving trouble? If so, the sooner a war breaks out and he gets killed, the better. One thing is certain: if, for the next month, fruit and flowers will give Georgiana any pleasure, she shall have a good deal of pleasure. She is so changed! ”

“ SOMETHING FURTHER OF ETHAN ALLEN; WITH ISRAEL’S FLIGHT TOWARDS THE WILDERNESS.
Among the episodes of the Revolutionary War, none is stranger than that of Ethan Allen in England; the event and the man being equally uncommon.
Allen seems to have been a curious combination of a Hercules, a Joe Miller, a Bayard, and a Tom Hyer; had a person like the Belgian giants; mountain music in him like a Swiss; a heart plump as Coeur de Lion’s. Though born in New England, he exhibited no trace of her character. He was frank, bluff, companionable as a Pagan, convivial, a Roman, hearty as a harvest. ”

“ He would sit on a table and lecture the saloon loungers in German, and at the end of a long debate made a point of paying the score. He was most temperate himself, sipping a glass of wine or beer in the deliberate German fashion.
Allen was a friendly soul and every one liked him. It was impossible not to like a lad whose ways were so gentle, whose smile was so appealing. He liked dancing and went to most of the parties—our capital has not outgrown its homely provincial habit of calling all social entertainments "parties." ”

“ The best nerves I ever saw in a man, bar none, that chap had. Will of iron and eyes for nothing but the thing he set out to do. There was a lot in common between him and the girl on that score. No wonder they were so strong for each other."
Allen fell silent again, stroking his cheroot between thumb and forefinger—the habit the correspondents had characterized as a sign of modesty. "I hope you won't insist on my telling any more about the voyage than I have to in connection with Bell's death," he said at last. ”