Taunton, Sept. 20th, 1878.
My Dear Sister:—I wrote you briefly of the dispatch announcing the death of my brother James, in a Nevada mine, and that his embalmed body was being brought home by two miners. Since then events have crowded upon me so swiftly that I have not had composure enough to think of writing.
The remains of my brother reached here on the 29th ultimo. Mr. Hartwell, Mr. Hill and Mr. Burroughs went out as far as Walpole on the railroad to meet the train on which the body was being brought.
The miners were taken home by Mr. Hartwell. On examination my poor brother's face was found to look quite natural, and it wore an expression so restful that I could not help but feel as though it was an indictation that after his hard physical toil and fierce mental troubles, he was at peace at last.
Mabel, you know, has been with me since she graduated in June. On receiving the dispatch we telegraphed to Mildred at Mt. Holyoke to come home at once, so both girls were with me when the remains arrived.
From the two miners who came with the body Mr. Hartwell received the Nevada papers giving an account of the accident in which James was killed; also a letter from the superintendent of the mine, stating that after all expenses were paid my poor brother left eight hundred and forty dollars to his children. This we all thought was most wonderful, considering the amount regularly sent the children. It shows that poor James lived a most economical life in the West and that the wages paid there are generous.
The letter of the superintendent stated that the two miners who were to accompany the remains home had risked their lives in trying to rescue James, and the published account showed that one of them had fainted in the dreadful chamber of the mine while the exhaustion of the other was so extreme that he was entirely prostrated and seized with chills and vomiting upon being brought out into the open air.
Of course myself and the girls were anxious to meet and thank these men, but I confess that at the same time we all dreaded the interview awfully. Good land! You know what we have been reading about Western miners for the last twenty-five years, and we could not help but feel that if they should prove to be quiet men it would only at best be a case of wild beast with a collar and chain on. And what to do with them at the funeral was something which had been troubling us ever since the receipt of the dispatch. It was to be in church and on Sunday and it was certain that there would be a church full of people. How to be polite, and at the same time how to get those men in and out of a church without their doing something dreadful was a question which I confess had worried me and I could see that it was worrying Mabel, too. Mildred did not seem to think much about it.
Mr. Hartwell called upon us and told us he was going to bring them over at once and we sat down in fear and trembling to wait their arrival.
You can never imagine our surprise when Mr. Hartwell showed them into our parlor and we saw them for the first time. Both were young men, one not more than thirty, and the other not more than twenty-four years of age; both were dressed with perfect taste, in dark business suits of fashionable clothes, and though slightly confused—I guess startled is a better word—both, with considerate gentleness, and with a grave courtesy, in low voices, addressed me first and then the children.
They expected to find school children, they met young ladies—I may say beautiful young ladies if I am their aunt—and I think the surprise for a moment threw them off their guard.
But they certainly were not more astonished than were we. Mabel well nigh broke down, but Mildred, with her more matter-of-fact nature, bore the ordeal nobly.
While the girls were talking I stole the opportunity to look more closely at the men. My surprise increased every moment. Instead of a pair of bronzed bruisers, they stood there with faces that were as free from tan as the face of a closely-housed woman. They were each of about medium height, but with broad shoulders, tremendous chests and powerful arms. The younger one had a firm foot and large hand and the frankest open face you ever looked into. The other had smaller hands, feet and features, but their heads were both superb, and the first words they spoke revealed that both were fairly educated. The younger one was light with auburn hair. He wore a heavy mustache; the rest of his face was clean shaven. The other was darker with gray eyes, brown hair, with full beard, but neatly trimmed, and the hair of both was of fashionable cut. I tell you, sister, as they stood there they would have borne inspection even in Boston.
After the first greetings were over and we had all gained a little composure, the men explained to us that James was possessed of more property than he himself was aware of, and one of them handed to Mabel a paper which he called "a bill of exchange" on a Boston bank for forty two thousand six hundred dollars. Since then they have explained that the money was made by a friend of my brother, and that it was accomplished by buying stocks when they were low and selling them when they were high, which seems to me to be a most profitable business. You see it makes the girls rich when they thought they were so poor, and were counting only on lives of hard work.
The visit of the young men was only a very brief one, not five minutes in duration it seemed to me, but they were moments of great excitement to our little household as you may well believe. When they were gone Mabel said: "Are they not perfectly splendid?" and I said: "Indeed, they are," but Mildred merely said: "They seem to be real gentlemen." That Mildred is the strangest girl.
The funeral was to be the next day, and in anticipation of it we had bought cheap mourning hats and plain bombazine mourning habits, such as I thought would be becoming to people in our circumstances. But when I learned that the girls were no longer poor, I thought it would be only proper that they should have more expensive dresses. So as soon as the young men had gone, I sent a message to Mrs. Buffets, the dressmaker, and Mrs. Tibbetts, the milliner, asking them to do me the favor to call upon me at once, if possible. They both called within a few minutes. Before they came, however, I explained to the girls what I had done, at which Mabel was very glad, but Mildred seemed perfectly indifferent. She hardly spoke after the young men went away for several minutes. I think their coming had turned her thoughts back more intently upon her father. Mrs. Tibbetts came first and from her Mabel ordered three expensive hats. I expostulated against her buying a hat for me but she would have it so. When we explained what was wanted to Mrs. Buffets, she declared at first that it was impossible without working after twelve o'clock on Saturday night which she did not like to do as she was a member in good standing in the First Baptist church, but she finally agreed that she would try, provided we would pay what would be extra for her sewing girls. This she estimated would amount on three dresses to at least seven dollars and a half. I have no idea that the girls got more than half a dollar apiece extra and there were but seven of them, and that the rest was clear gain to Mrs. Buffets, but that is the advantage which is always taken of people when there is a funeral.
We had a hard time with Mildred. She insisted that two dresses and hats were all that were required, one for Mabel and one for aunty; that as yet she was a school girl and the cheap raiment was good enough for her. I think she would have refused to yield had I not told her that unless she did I would not accept either hat or habit; then she consented.
Of course, it may seem like vanity to speak of such a thing in so sad a connection, but the dresses were most lovely. The girls' were of rich and soft cashmere, mine was of Henrietta cloth. I must say that in the new clothes the girls did look beautiful at the funeral, and I was as proud of them as I could be on so sad an occasion.
That Saturday evening after we talked the matter over, the girls sent an invitation over to Mr. Hartwell's house to the miners to attend the funeral with us. The invitation was answered by the younger miner, Harding. He accepted the invitation for himself and his friend, stating that Ashley (the other one) was temporarily absent in the city. The note was beautifully written and every word was spelled correctly.
Next morning, a few minutes before it was time to proceed to the church, the young men came in.
They were scrupulously dressed in black and their attire even to their hats and gloves was in perfect taste.
Mildred betrayed more agitation than on the first meeting. She is a strange girl and the loss of her father almost crushed her. Mabel, however, received them with a grace which was queenly and in her new robes she looked like a queen indeed.
When it came time to go to the church, I supposed, of course, the young men would offer to escort the girls. Besides Mildred, Mabel and myself, Aunt Abigail, James' wife's grandmother had come down to the funeral. You know she is old now—past 73; she never was very pretty and coming down from the country her dress and bonnet—good land, she was a sight.
Mabel could not conceal her mortification, and I must say I should have been glad if she had not come.
As we stood up to go, the younger miner said gently: "Ashley, will you not see to Mrs. Wolcott?" and then he went up to Aunt Abigail and with as much kindly politeness as I ever saw displayed, asked her to lean upon him in the walk to the church. The other one gave me his arm, at the same time saying: "The young ladies are the nearer relatives, they should walk in front." His face was fair, but the arm I took was as hard as iron.
I said: "No matter, Mildred take the other arm of Mr. Ashley and Mabel take that of Mr. Harding!" This was done except that somehow in the confusion Mildred took the arm of Harding and Mabel sought the disengaged arm of Ashley.
At the church we were seated in the front pew, of course. You never saw such a crowd at a funeral. I noticed as we worked our way up the aisle, men there that had not been in a church before for years.
There were, besides, the Brown, the Smith and the Jones families who were never before known to attend an ordinary funeral.
I mention this merely to show how much James was respected.
The services were most impressive. The organ was played as we entered the church. When we were seated there was a short prayer, then a chant with organ accompaniment was rendered. Professor Van Dyke, the music teacher at the seminary, presided at the organ and Jane Emerson led the sopranos. She sang her best and people do tell me that they have paid money to hear women sing in concerts that could not sing as well as Jane Emerson. If Jane was only a little better looking and knew how to dress in better style and if her father only belonged to a better family, there would not be a young woman in Taunton with brighter prospects than hers.
Mr. Ashman's main prayer was a most touching one and it moved many in the congregation to tears. He preached from John, the fourteenth chapter and eighteenth verse.
"I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you."
It was generally conceded that the sermon was one of the minister's best efforts since be preached in Taunton. Miss Hume who was present says she never heard a finer discourse in Boston.
The burden of the sermon was that the promise to send a comforter to the disciples was a promise made for all time, to those in sorrow, that if they would but ask, the comforter would come to them. When the sermon was over and the choir had sung again; the minister said, as many persons present would like to know the particulars of James' death he would read the account from the Territorial Enterprise, a paper published in Virginia City only a few miles from the Nevada mines. He said further that the report was written by a Mr. De Quille, who he presumed was a descendant of the distinguished family of France of that name, that the account showed that he was a very learned man and graphic writer, and such a man could only be retained by the receipt of an enormous salary.
He further explained that where the word shaft was used it meant a hole like a well which men sunk in order to get the rock out from underground that had silver in it, that drifts were places in the mines where the rock that had the silver in it lay in ridges like snow drifts; that stations were where men kept lunch stands for the miners, that tunnels were holes made in the shape of a funnel to get air down in the mine, that a winze was a corruption for windlass, and cages were simply elevators, like those in use in hotels, but made like cages so that men could not fall out, that run up and down in the well.
You never at a revival saw a congregation so excited as that one was during the reading of that account. They tell me that men were as pale as death all over the house while the sobbing of women could be heard above the reading.
But our two miners never showed a bit of emotion and never seemed conscious that every eye in the church was on them. The only things I noticed were that during the singing the older one was softly beating time on his hymn book, and both moved a little uneasily in their seats when the minister was explaining the mining terms.
After the children had looked for the last time on their father's face, the young men who had been standing at the foot of the coffin, walked up to the head, one on each side. After a long gaze at James' face they turned facing each other and stretching out their hands, clasped hands a moment over the coffin. I suppose that is a custom among miners in the west.
Brother's body was buried beside that of his wife.
The young men remained in Taunton two weeks after the funeral. We all went on a little excursion to Buzzards Bay and to Cape Cod. I never saw better behaved men, even those that come down from Boston, than those two miners. They received a great many attentions, too, here in Taunton and every day were obliged to decline invitations to dinner.
There is a story going around, but I do not believe it is true, that one morning early they went to a livery stable and asked for two wild horses, regular furies, that had thrown their riders the previous day, that they mounted them and the horses reared and plunged awfully but they rode rapidly out of town; that they were gone an hour and a half and when they returned the horses were covered with foam and seemed perfectly gentle.
Just before going away they came over one day to my house and telling the girls that they had received so many kindnesses from so many people that they wanted to make a little picnic festival in Mr. Hartwell's grounds, asked them to help suggest names for the invitations. The festival was to be the next afternoon. What do you think? That morning carpenters came and fixed benches and tables on the grounds, the three o'clock train brought the —— Cornet Band from Boston, and at five o'clock in the afternoon the waiters in the —— Hotel appeared, set the tables and waited on the guests. They had sent up to Boston for the dinner and I never saw anything like it in my life.
Mr. Hartwell says the expense must have been at least two hundred and twenty-five dollars. Those Western men are awfully extravagant.
Next morning they went away. The older one to Pennsylvania, where he will live hereafter, and the other one to California, where he has property. We have been real lonesome ever since they went away.
Mildred left us yesterday to return to school, and will graduate next June, she says on the day she is eighteen. Mabel, you know, was eighteen and a half when she graduated last June, but Mildred always was a little the most forward scholar of her age. Since the funeral the girls have purchased some beautiful clothing, and it would do your heart good to see them. My letter is pretty long but I could tell you as much more if I had time.
Your loving sister,
Martha Wolcott.
P. S.—I want to tell you a secret. I think that Ashley, the older miner, and Mabel have a liking for each other, though I don't know, except that I saw Ashley kiss Mabel as he was going away. All I can say is that if they should make a match, there would not be a handsomer couple in Massachusetts. It is only a surmise on my part that they are fond of each other. After the young men had been gone for several hours I asked Mabel if there were any serious relations between her and Ashley, and she answered: "Not the least serious auntie, our relations are altogether pleasant."
M. W.
