ldlewild, August 8, 1859
Dear Morris : There is one class of sights upon a new railroad which are very interesting while their freshness lasts—the places that have been taken by surprise. On the line of the streak of lightning that was thrown over the Alleghanies by the Baltimore thunder-cloud of thirty-one million dollars, is a succession of far-hidden remotenesses—wild valleys, cascades, solitary shanties and mountain fastnesses—many of which were thought by the hunter, or by the pioneer settler, wholly unreachable by common thoroughfares, and, in fact, inaccessible to all visitings but the eagle’s, but which have been laid open, almost with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, and are now daily looked at from crowded freight trains and expresses, as familiar to the man in the locomotive as the signs of a street!
I do not know whether it was by a chance stopping of the train, or by a kind intention of the selective good taste of our “Prescott the Smith,” that we found ourselves, in the middle of the forenoon of a delicious summer day, halting for a few moments directly in front of one of these remotenesses—a little bit of a log school house, right in the heart of North-western Virginia’s mountain wilderness.—The small low door, and the glimpse of a row of little hatless heads, as we saw them from the car, were very tempting, and there was an immediate jump of our party for a better look at the interior.
A modest and dignified courtesy from the school mistress gave us a welcome. There was a spare bench near the door which accommodated the most of us, and Judge Warren and poet Thompson occupied vacant spots on the short seat of the class “up for spelling.” Secretary Kennedy leaned on his stick near the shut-up stove in the centre, his kindliest of voices and faces encouraged the interrupted exercises to proceed, and “cloud-compelling Maury” stroked the head of the nice boy next him in the corner. Bayard Taylor sat, in his quiet, observing way, studying the surrounding rows of boys’ and girls’ faces—some thirty of them, altogether, and every one barefoot, and all seated against the rough hewn logs on the one bench of narrow plank which lined the room. Fancy what a picture for a photographer to have brought away—the celebrities, and the little ragged problems of humanity, all combined!
But oh, the tender Providence of God which has provided, for these cradles of the intelligence of our race, the willing devotion of womanhood, so patient, so self-sacrificing, so uncompromising, so affectionate! The “school-ma’am” before us was a delicately formed young woman of twenty or twenty-two years, perhaps, dressed with exceeding plainness, and of the most unconscious simplicity of demeanor, but her pale and thoughtfully refined features had an expression which seemed to me the perfection of what we recognise as the beauty of the soul. She looked as if she felt born only to be good and kind to others, while life should last, and that she was here in her place, somewhat overtasked, but doing good, she hoped, and willing to be forgotten. At the same time, in her subdued gentleness of tone, her exquisite propriety of replies, and her calm sweet manner to us, a party of strangers, there was a self-possessed dignity that it was impossible not to pay homage to—difficult (I may as well say) not to record for others, as admiringly as one remembers it for one’s self. As I sat in that humble school room and looked upon the unconscious beauty of its patiently presiding spirit, I could not but thank God for the angels still found distributed through the world!
We were to hear a class recite, however, and you are never supprised, I hope, to find that fun and pathos come very close together! A half dozen of the little shock-headed barefoot-lings were called up to spell; and my friend the Judge, who a moment before, had some trouble to keep his eyes dry with the sight of the picture I have described, burst into convulsions of laughter at the succession of intrepid little voices, each with its proud pronunciation ofthe mastered monosyllable. B—u—double z, buzz! E—double g, egg! P—i—g, pig! S—m,—a—double l, small! G—r—a—double s, grass! rang out from the low-roofed temple of learning into the neighboring woods, the sturdy little reciters as consequential with the dignity of their performance as if they were speakers for the first time on the floor of Congress. The fun was somewhat catching, but the unrestrainable laughter of one or two of our party had no effect on the scholars.—Bravely they spelt away, book in hand and eyes turning exclusively from the slow-spelt word to the approving face looking down upon them—our uncomprehended visit, and our interruptions of the lesson, being evidently taken, like the long words at the end of the spelling-book, to be mysteries which it was enough, for the present, that the school-ma’am should understand—to be treated respectfully till they should know more about them.
Among the bits of bare feet doubled up under the long bench was one very slight pair, belonging to a girl of perhaps ten years old, whose natural pride of form and feature struck me as something remarkable. She was in a ragged frock, which appeared to be her one single garment, but the head was set on her sunburnt shoulders like an infant Fairfax’s, and the brown lustre of those great dark eyes with the long eyelashes, looked as if it must have been filtered through a long race of court beauties. I called Bayard Taylor’s attention to her, as he sat next me, and I became so interested in studying the little princess of the woods, that I ventured to ask the schoolmistress, at last, if we could not hear her read or spell. But she was a new scholar and this was her third day—her court education, at present, toiling painfully over the A—B, AB. If there were any nursery garden for
the renewal of “old families,” such flowers as that
girl should be transplanted!
I must record for history, before leaving this interesting spot, a bit of Presidential foresight on the part of ex-Secretary Kennedy. A collection had been make, by Judge Warren, from our various pockets, to constitute a prize for the smartest boy; and the distinguished statesman having contributed his loose change like the rest, the fund was deposited on the top of the rusty stove in the centre of the school-room. Our party then took leave, and were mostly on their way to the cars; myself alone remaining on the log door-step, to bring up the rear when the ex-Secretary should pass out; but he lingered. I looked back once more, and thus chanced to see him steal up to the stove, and quietly deposit another popular dollar on the democratic fund! Future Presidents, you see, like to make sure of being the “him for infant minds !”
We regained the cars and pursued our path of astonishment to Wheeling, coming in sight of the broad Ohio early in the afternoon of our fourth day. Ah, the peeps into Paradises in passing, which I thus pass over undescribed—like the stars that we know we have lived whole lives in, but can tell nothing about!
Wheeling, as a town, confesses to the one little drawback of too coal’d an atmosphere for the lovers of clean linen—the idlest inhabitant being under the necessity of two clean shirts a day—(took much “coke upon little-town”) —but its surburban capabilities are unequalled. Close behind the town, divided from it only by the high hills which form the bank of the Ohio, is a deep-down, mountain girt, well-wooded valley, inlaid with a most beautiful tributary stream, and giving hundreds of such sites for gentlemen’s villas as no landscape artist could better contrive. It quite made my blood tingle to stand on the hill-top, overlooking the town on one side and this glorious vale on the other, and imagine what it would be when Wheeling shall be surburbanized like Boston—the original Wheeling a thousand times more picturesquely beautiful than the original Boston!
After two or three hours of the kindest hospitalities shown up by a courteous gentleman of Wheeling—seeing all we could, by the aid of his fast horses and good piloting—we re-took the cars for our return journey. The hundreds of miles we had come so leisurely, were now to be re-travelled at the express speed; and, in the allotted time, we were duly delivered, landing our friend Kennedy at his beautiful residence of Patapsco, and Maury at the Washington Junction, on the way. At Baltimore, Prescott Smith, the admired and beloved magician of our week of enchantment, loosed us from his spells, (the spell of good weather, particularly, which only lasted while he had us under his charge on the trip westward,) and with my northern companion, the Judge, I took the cars again for home.
So ended an excursion—one of the most delightful, I may well say, that it has ever been my happiness to share. In the many-threaded web of its tangled remembrances for my gifted companions may the memory of him who has thus imperfectly chronicled its befallings be woven into their hearts!
I should not close my letter without repeating here the most authentic testimony, (that of the one our party who was himself a Railroad President,) to the admirable system and completeness with which the whole route from Baltimore to Ohio is managed. It was thought by the brother-President, that it might well he called the “model Railway”, in its details and punctualities, while its large policy of far-sightedness and liberality showed such knowledge of mankind and of public interest. President Garret may well be honored for an administration of his office which is both so diligent and so liberally ample.
And now, my dear Morris, having given you and our readers a look at the Central West, through its big Baltimore door—down the Railway broad aisle from the Chesapeake to the Ohio—l will unlatch my sandals for awhile.
Yours, at Idlewild, N. P. W.
The Daily Exchange, Baltimore, MD, August 22, 1859