Carolina parrot. Late 18th-century colored engraving. Courtesy Getty Images.
There once lived, in a small village, a farmer who kept a parrot, which was in the habit of keeping bad company. One day, after the farmer had finished planting his corn, the crows, together with the parrot, soon occupied themselves with feasting upon it. The farmer, seeing this, resolved to punish the black robbers. Seizing his gun, he crept slyly along the fence until he came within a few yards of them, and then fired. Walking over to the corn to see what effect the shot produced, to his great surprise, he found that he had wounded his parrot. Poor Polly was taken home and kindly cared for. The children asked their father how the parrot came to be shot. “Bad company,” answered the father; “Bad company,” repeated Poll.
Afterwards, whenever the parrot would see the children quarreling and wrangling among themselves, Poll would cry out, “Bad company! Bad company!”
Thus, dear young readers, when you are tempted to associate with bad companions, remember the story of the parrot and its punishment.
American crow. Lithograph. Birds of Pennsylvania, 1897. Public domain.
Anonymous. “The Farmer and the Parrot.” The Youth’s Companion 5, no. 1 (October 1881): 112.
Contexts
Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the tribe’s website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”
Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.
Like many contributions to Native American newspapers, this sketch was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story typifies the didactic texts that students were expected to compose. Its humor, however, suggests the author may be resisting the “parroting” of conventional morality.
Marr, Carolyn J. “Assimilation Through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest,” University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection. This article includes historical contexts and features “A Typical Daily Schedule.”
———. “Between Two Worlds: Experiences at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, 1905-1932,” Hibulb Cultural Center & Natural History Preserve.
Contemporary Connections
“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.
This uncredited photograph appeared alongside “The Fairy Goodwilla” in The Crisis, Vol. 8, No. 6, p. 294.
In the good old days when the kind spirits knew that people trusted them, they allowed them selves to be seen, but now there are just a few human beings left who ever remember or believe that a fairy ever existed, or rather does exist. For, dear children, no matter how much the older folks tell you that there are no fairies, do not believe them. I am going to tell you now of a clear, good fairy, Goodwilla, who has been under the power of a wicked enchanter called Grafter, for many years.
Goodwilla was once a very happy and contented little fairy. She was a very beautiful fairy; she had a soft brown face and deep brown eyes and slim brown hands and the dearest brown hair that wouldn’t stay “put,” that you ever saw. She lived in a beautiful wood consisting of fir trees. Her house was made of the finest and whitest drifted snow and was furnished with kind thoughts of children, good words of older people and everything which is beautiful and pleasant. She was always dressed in a white robe with a crown of holly leaves on her head.[1] In her hand she carried a long magic icicle, and whatever she touched with this became very lovely to look upon. Snowdrops always sprang up wherever she stepped, and her dress sparkled with many small stars.
The children loved Goodwilla, and she always welcomed them to her beautiful home where she told them of Knights and Ladies, Kings and Queens, Witches and Ogres and Enchanters. She never told them anything to frighten them and the children were always glad to listen. You must not think that Goodwilla always remained at home and told the children stories, for she was a very busy little fairy. She visited sick rooms where little boys or girls were suffering and laid her cool brown hands on their heads, whispering beautiful words to them. She touched the different articles in the room with her magic icicle and caused them to become lovely. Wherever she stepped her beautiful snowdrops were scattered. At other times she went to homes where the father and mother were unhappy and cross. She was invisible to them, but she touched them without their knowing it and they instantly became kind and cheerful. Other days she spent at home separating the good deeds which she had piled before her, from the bad deeds. So you see with all of these things to do Goodwilla was very busy.
Now, there was an old enchanter who lived in a neighboring wood. He was very wealthy, but people feared him, although they visited him a great deal. His house was set in the midst of many trees, all of which bore golden and silver apples.[2] The house was made of precious metal and the inside was seemingly handsome. But looking closely one could see that the beautiful chairs were very tender and if not handled rightly they would easily break. Music was always being played softly by unseen musicians, but one who truly loved music could hear discords which spoiled the beauty of all. In fact, every thing in his palace, although seemingly beautiful, if examined closely, was very wrong. Grafter, which was the enchanter’s name, spent all of his time in instructing men how to be prosperous and receive all that they could for nothing. He did not pay much attention to the children, although once in a while a few listened to his evil words. He was always very busy, but somehow he did not at all times get the results he expected. He scratched his head and thought and thought. Finally, one day he cried, “Ah, I have it, there is an insignificant little fairy called Goodwilla who is meddling in my affairs, I’ll wager. Let me see how best I can overcome her.” The old fellow who could change his appearance at will, now became a handsome young enchanter and looked so fine that it would be almost impossible for the fairy herself to resist him. He made his way to her abode and asked for admittance to her house. She gladly bade him enter, for, although she knew him, she thought she could persuade him to forego his evil ways and win men by fair means.
Now something strange happened. Every chair that Grafter attempted to take became invisible when he started to seat himself and he found nothing but empty air. After this had happened for a long while, he became so angry that he forgot the part he was trying to play and acted very badly indeed. He stormed at poor Goodwilla as if she had been the cause of good deeds and kind words to vanish at his touch. “You, Madam,” said he, “are the cause of this, and I know now why I cannot be successful in my work. You fill the children’s heads full of nonsense and when I have almost persuaded the fathers to do something which will benefit them as well as their children, these brats come with their prattle and undo all that I have done. Now I have stood it long enough. I shall give you three trials, and if you do not conquer, you shall be under my power for seven hundred years.”
The Good Fairy listened and felt very grieved, but she knew that Grafter was stronger than she, as minds of men turned more to his commanding way than they did to hers. Nevertheless she determined to do her best and said, “Very well, Grafter, I shall do as you wish and if I do not succeed I am in your hands, but later everything will be all right and I shall rule over you.” Grafter, who had not expected this, now be came alarmed and thought by soft words he could perhaps coax her to do his way, but Goodwilla was strong and would not listen to his cajoling and flattering. “Then, Madam,” he said, “I shall force you to perform these tasks or be my slave:
“First, you must cause all of the people in the world to help and give to others for the sake of giving and not for what they shall receive in return.
“Secondly, you must cause all of the rich to help the poor instead of taking from them to swell their already fat pocketbooks, and thirdly, you must cause men and women to really love for love’s sake and not because of worldly reasons.”
The poor little fairy sighed deeply, for she knew that she could not perform these tasks in the three days that Grafter had allowed her. She talked to the children, but they were being dazzled by Grafter since he had become so handsome. Goodwilla continued to work though, and had just commenced to open men’s eyes to Grafter as he really was, when the three days expired.
She was immediately whisked off by the wicked old fellow, who chuckled with glee. He did not know that there were many people in whose hearts a seed had been planted (which would grow) by this good little fairy and that she herself had a plan for helping all when she was released. Grafter, after having locked her up, departed on his way rejoicing. He has been prosperous for a long, long time, but the seven hundred years are almost up now, and soon Goodwilla will come forth stronger and more beautiful than ever with the children as her soldiers.
Anne Brigman. The Breeze. Gelatin silver print, 1909 (printed in 1915), Wilson Centre for Photography, London, UK. Public Domain.
JONES, MINIBELLE. “THE FAIRY GOOD WILLA.” THE CRISIS, VOL. 8, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1914): 294-96.
[1] The symbolism of holly plants and holly leaves reaches back to antiquity. Druids thought the hollies were sacred and, according to some legends, these plants were a refuge for faeries and nature spirits during winter. In the Christian tradition, the holly is associated with Christ’s crown of thorns.
[2] Apples have had a long life in mythology. Greek and Teutonic myths feature golden apples.
Contexts
Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.
In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”
The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.
Resources for Further Study
A brief history of fairies, courtesy of the World History Encyclopedia collective.
An article onfairies‘ folklore scholarship, with copious references and suggestions for further reading.
John James Audubon. “White-Headed Eagle,” from Birds of America (1827-38), plate 31. Audubon.com.
In a distant field, stood a large tulip-tree, [1] apparently of a century’s growth, and one of the most gigantic. It looked like the father of the surrounding forest. [2] A single tree, of huge dimensions, standing all alone, is a sublime object.
On the top of this tree, an old eagle, commonly called the “Fishing-Eagle” had built her nest every year, for many years, and undisturbed had raised her young. What is remarkable, as she procured her food from the ocean, this tree stood full ten miles from the sea-shore. It had long been known as the “Old Eagle-Tree.”
On a warm, sunny day, the workmen were hoeing corn in an adjoining field. At a certain hour of the day, the old eagle was known to set off for the sea-side, to gather food for her young. As she this day returned with a large fish in her claws, the work-men surrounded the tree, and by yelling and hooting, and throwing stones, so scared the poor bird, that she dropped her fish, and they carried it off in triumph.
The men soon dispersed, but Joseph sat down under a bush near by, to watch and to bestow unavailing pity. The bird soon returned to her nest, without food. The eaglets at once set up a cry for food so shrill, so clear, and so clamorous, that the boy was greatly moved.
The parent-bird seemed to try to soothe them; but their appetites were too keen, and it was all in vain. She then perched herself on a limb near them and looked down into the nest with a look that seemed to say, “I know not what to do next.”
Her indecision was but momentary; again she poised herself, uttered one or two sharp notes, as if telling them to “lie still,” balanced her body, spread her wings, and was away again for the sea!
Joseph was determined to see the result. His eye followed her till she grew small, smaller, a mere speck in the sky, and then disappeared. What boy has not thus watched the flight of the bird of his country?
She was gone nearly two hours, about double her usual time for a voyage, when she again returned, on a slow, weary wing, flying uncommonly low, in order to have a heavier atmosphere to sustain her, with another fish in her talons.
On nearing the field, she made a circuit round it, to see if her enemies were again there. Finding the coast clear, she once more reached the tree, drooping, faint, and weary, and evidently nearly exhausted. Again the eaglets set up their cry, which was soon hushed by the distribution of a dinner, such as, save the cooking, a king might admire.
“Glorious bird!” cried the boy, “what a spirit! Other birds can fly more swiftly, others can sing more sweetly, others scream more loudly; but what other bird, when persecuted and robbed, when weary, when discouraged, when so far from the sea, would do this?
“Glorious bird! I will learn a lesson from thee to-day. I will never forget, hereafter, that when the spirit is determined, it can do almost any thing. Others would have drooped, and hung the head, and mourned over the cruelty of man, and sighed over the wants of the nestlings; but thou, by at once recovering the loss, hast forgotten all.
“I will learn of thee, noble bird! I will remember this. I will set my mark high. I will try to do something, and to be something in the world; I will never yield to discouragements.”
TODD, JOHN. “THE OLD EAGLE TREE.” IN MCGUFFEY’S NEW FOURTH ECLECTIC READER, ED. WILLIAM HOLMES MONTGOMERY, 86-88. NEW YORK: WILSON, HINKLE, & CO., 1857.
[1] Tulip trees, also called tulip poplars, are native to the Eastern United States. Their spring blooms are attractive to bees. They are fast growing, reaching up to 20 feet tall and almost as wide in less than 10 years, ultimately ending up around 70-80 feet tall and 50 feet wide.
School readers were an important tool in early America, especially in less settled regions where teachers were scarce. McGuffey published six readers, each advancing in level of difficulty, designed for students in kindergarten through high school. They provided a scripted tool to enable even untrained teachers to teach the basics in reading, writing, speaking and science, and to reinforce the predominant, mostly Christian values of American society. The pedagogical method was to have students memorize the materials and recite them in the classroom.
In his biography,John Todd: The Story of His Life Told Mainly by Himself, Todd relates an experience that led him to write the story of “The Old Eagle Tree.” He credits the lesson he learned from the eagle for his lifelong determination to do the right thing and to succeed.
“The Old Eagle Tree” is included in McGuffey’s Fourth Eclectic Reader, published in 1857. The McGuffey series of readers were used as instructional textbooks, primarily for reading, writing, articulation, and character building. The books include prose and poetry along with guidance for teachers. McGuffey’s Readers draw from a wide range of literary sources, including the Bible, and emphasize American writers and American values common between 1836 and 1920.
Resources for Further Study
Biography of W. H. McGuffey on the Miami University website, where he taught from 1826-36.
In The Old Eagle Tree a young boy learns the lesson of persistence and respect for nature. Today, many environmental educators emphasize that continuing exposure to nature, starting at an early age, is essential to raising environmentally responsible adults. Many schools now integrate environmental programs into their curriculums. The State of North Carolina has made a commitment to include environmental education in the curriculum for all K-12 students to capitalize on “children’s natural curiosity about animals, plants and other elements of nature.” The North Carolina Environmental Education Plan includes a quote from Dr. David Orr, who says, “We often forget that all education is environmental education — by what we include or exclude, we teach the young that they are part of or apart from the natural world. An economist, for example, who fails to connect our economic life with that of ecosystems and the biosphere has taught an environmental lesson all right, but one that is dead wrong. Our goal as educators ought to be to help students understand their implicatedness in the world and to honor mystery.”
Gerald H. Thayer. The Cotton-Tail Rabbit among Dry Grasses and Leaves. Opaque watercolor with touches of translucent watercolor and graphite on smooth-textured paper-surfaced pulp board, 1904, Brooklyn Museum, NY. Public domain.
There were many days when the animals did not think about the kingship. They thought of their games and their tricks, and would play them from the rising to the setting of the sun.
Now, at that time, the little rabbit was known as a very clever fellow. His tricks, his schemes, and his funny little ways caused much mischief and at times much anger among his woodland cousins.[1]
At last the wolf made up his mind to catch him and give him a severe punishment for the many tricks he had played upon him.[2]
Knowing that the rabbit could run faster than he, the wolf called at the home of the dog to seek his aid. “Brother dog, frisky little rabbit must be caught and punished. For a nice bone will you help me?” asked the wolf.
“Certainly, my good friend,” answered the dog, thinking of the promised bone.
“Be very careful, the rabbit is very clever,” said the wolf as he left.
A day or so later while passing through the woods the dog saw the rabbit frisking in the tall grass. Quick as a flash the dog started after him. The little fellow ran and, to save himself, jumped into the hollow of an oak tree. The opening was too small for the other to follow and as he looked in he heard only the merry laugh of the frisky rabbit, “Hee, hee! hello, Mr. Dog, you can’t see me.”
“Never mind, boy, I will get you yet,” barked the angry dog.
A short distance from the tree a goose was seen moving around looking for her dinner.
“Come, friend goose, watch the hollow of this tree while I go and get some moss and fire to smoke out this scamp of a rabbit,” spoke the dog, remembering the advice of the wolf.
“Of course I’ll watch, for he has played many of his schemes upon me,” returned the bird.
R. Metzeroth. Rabbit standing on hind legs. Lithograph, circa 1853-1856, Library of Congress.
When the dog left, the rabbit called out from his hiding place, “How can you watch, friend goose, when you can’t see me?”
“Well, I will see you then,” she replied. With these words she pushed her long neck into the hollow of the tree. As the neck of the goose went into the opening the rabbit threw the dust of some dry wood into her eyes.
“Oh, oh, you little scamp, you have made me blind,” cried out the bird in pain. Then while the goose was trying to get the dust from her eyes the rabbit jumped out and scampered away.
In a short while the dog returned with the moss and fire, filled the opening, and, as he watched the smoke arise, barked with glee, “Now I have you, my tricky friend, now I have you.” But as no rabbit ran out the dog turned to the goose and saw from her red, streaming eyes that something was wrong.
“Where is the rabbit, friend goose?” he quickly asked.
“Why, he threw wood dust into my eyes when I peeped into the opening.” At once the dog knew that the rabbit had escaped and became very angry.
“You silly goose, you foolish bird with web feet, I will kill you now for such folly.” With these words the dog sprang for the goose, but only a small feather was caught in his mouth as the frightened bird rose high in the air and flew away.
Stafford, A. O. “The Dog and the Clever Rabbit,” IN THE UPWARD PATH: A READER FOR COLORED CHILDREN, ED. MYRON T. PRITCHARD AND MARY WHITE OVINGTON, 109-12. HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, 1920.
A. B. Frost. Br’er Rabbit. Watercolor, ca. 1881-1928, Collection of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, MA. Public domain.
[1] Rabbits are usually trickster characters in African, African-American, and Native American Culture. Br’er Rabbit, for example, is a trickster that recurs in many stories from the oral traditions of enslaved communities from the Southern United States.
[2] There are three recognized species of American wolf: the gray wolf, the eastern wolf, and the American red wolf.
Contexts
This short story was included in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, published in 1920 and compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington. The volume’s foreword states that, “to the present time, there has been no collection of stories and poems by Negro writers, which colored children could read with interest and pleasure and in which they could find a mirror of the traditions and aspirations of their race.”
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
scamp: A good-for-nothing, worthless person, a ne’er-do-well, “waster”; a rascal. Also playfully as a mild term of reproof.
Resources for Further Study
Overview of tricksters in African American literature..
King Charles’s Vegetable Necktie. Original illustration by D.C. Beard from St. Nicholas Magazine, 13, no. 2 May – October 1886), 524.
About two hundred years ago the governor of the island of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Lynch, sent to King Charles II. of England a vegetable necktie, and a very good necktie it was, although it had grown on a tree and had not been altered since it was taken from the tree. It was as soft and white and delicate as lace, and it is not surprising that the King should have expressed his doubts when he was told that the beautiful fabric had grown on a tree in almost the exact condition in which he saw it. It had been stretched a little, and that was all.
But if King Charles was astonished to learn that neckties grew on trees in Jamaica, what must have been the feelings of a stranger traveling in Central America, on being told that mosquito-nets grew on trees in that country? He had complained to his host that the mosquitoes had nearly eaten him up the night before, and had been told in response that he should have a new netting put over his bed.
Satisfied with this statement, the traveler was turning away, but his attention was arrested by his host’s calmly continuing, “in fact, we are going to strip a tree anyhow, because there is to be a wedding on the estate, and we wish to have a dress ready for the bride.”
“You don’t mean,” said the traveler incredulously, “that mosquito-netting and bridal dresses grow on trees, do you?”
“That is just what I mean,” replied his host.
“All right,” said the stranger, who fancied a joke was being attempted at his expense, “let me see you gather the fruit and I will believe you.”
“Certainly,” was the answer; “follow the men, and you will see that I speak the exact truth.”
Still looking for some jest, the stranger followed the two men who were to pluck the singular fruit, and stood by when they stopped at a rather small tree, bearing thick, glossy-green leaves, but nothing else which the utmost effort of the imagination could convert into the netting or the wedding garments. The tree was about twenty feet high and six inches in diameter, and its bark looked much like that of a birch-tree.
“Is this the tree?” asked the stranger.
“Yes, señor,” answered one of the men, with a smile.
“I don’t see the mosquito-netting nor the wedding-dress,” said the stranger, “and I can’t see any joke either.”
“If the señor will wait a few minutes he will see all that was promised, and more too,” was the reply. “He will see that this tree can bear not only mosquito-netting and wedding-dresses, but fish-nets and neck-scarfs, mourning crape [1] or bridal veils.”
The tree was without more ado cut down. Three strips of bark, each about six inches wide and eight feet long, were taken from the trunk and thrown into a stream of water. Then each man took a strip while it was still in the water, and with the point of his knife separated a thin layer of the inner bark from one end of the strip. This layer was then taken in the fingers and gently pulled, whereupon it came away in an even sheet of the entire width and length of the strip of bark. Twelve sheets were thus taken from each strip of bark, and thrown into the water.
A light broke in upon the stranger’s mind. Without a doubt these strips were to be sewn together into one sheet. The plan seemed a good one and the fabric thus formed might do, he thought, if no better cloth could be had.
The men were not through yet, however, for when each strip of bark had yielded its twelve sheets, each sheet was taken from the water and gradually stretched sidewise. The spectator could hardly believe his eyes. The sheet broadened and broadened until from a close piece of material six inches wide, it became a filmy cloud of delicate lace, over three feet in width. The astonished gentleman was forced to confess that no human-made loom ever turned out lace which could surpass in snowy whiteness and gossamer-like delicacy that product of nature.
The natural lace is not so regular in formation as the material called illusion [2], so much worn by ladies in summer; but it is as soft and white, and will bear washing, which is not true of illusion. In Jamaica and Central America, this wonderful lace is put to all the uses mentioned by the native to our traveler, and to more uses besides. In fact, among the poorer people it supplies the place of manufactured cloth, which they can not afford to buy; and the wealthier classes do not by any means scorn it for ornamental use.
Long before the white man found his way to this part of the world, the Indians had known and used this vegetable cloth; so that what was so new and wonderful to King Charles and Governor Sir Thomas Lynch was an old story to the natives. Some time after King Charles received his vegetable necktie, Sir Hans Sloane, whose art-collection and library were the foundation of the British Museum, visited Jamaica. He described the tree fully, and was the first person who told the civilized world about it. The tree is commonly called the lace-bark tree. Its botanical name is Lagetto lintearia.
Wells, c.j. “vegetable clothing,” St. Nicholas Magazine 13, no. 2 (May – October 1886):524-25
[1] A veil worn by grieving women in Victorian times. Crape was a matte silk gauze that had been crimped with heated rollers; dyed black; and stiffened with gum, starch, or glue.
[2] Illusion, also known as tulle, is a fine netting fabric made of nylon. Appearing delicate and sheer, it has enough strength to be gathered and made into a bridal veil.
Contexts
This story represents an unusual example of respect for indigenous knowledge, all the more remarkable as it was written during the height of Western Imperialism. Antigua’s history and culture is complex. Inhabited first by indigenous Siboney and, later, Arawak and Carib Indians, the island’s colonization by whites began when a group of English settlers arrived in 1632, inaugurating its development as a valuable sugar colony and trading port. In the seventeenth century, sugar cane became the biggest source of income for the British overlords, who used slaves and indentured servants to cultivate, harvest, and process the plant. Uniquely among British Caribbean colonies, when Britain abolished slavery in the empire in 1834, Antigua immediately instituted full emancipation. The island became an associated state of the British Commonwealth in 1967, gaining full independence in 1981.
Read about the botanical economics of the lace-bark tree (password-protected).
The history of the Caribbean Islands is a fascinating, and troubling, story of conquest, piracy, slavery, and the devastation of indigenous people and culture at the hand of Western imperialism. For a deeper dive, read From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492-1969 by Eric Williams, who served as the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1962 until his death in 1981.
Contemporary Connections
The lace-bark tree has been identified as a source for eco-friendly fabrics. See “Eco-fibres old and new” from the Kew Gardens webpage.
Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place is a native Antiguan’s acerbic address to tourists which likens current tourism to a new form of colonization, enslaving the locals and featuring environmental racism. The narrated version, read by Robin Miles, is delightful. Here is a small sample.
Blue Jay, from the Birds of America Series (N4) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes Brands. Commercial color lithograph, 1888, The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick. Public Domain.
It was a hot, sultry day in May and the children in the little school in Virginia were wearily waiting for the gong to free them from lessons for the day. Furtive glances were directed towards the clock. The call of the birds and fields was becoming more and more insistent. Would the hour never strike!
“The Planting of the Apple-tree” had no interest for them. Little attention was given the boy as he read in a sing-song, spiritless manner:
"What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest."[1]
The teacher, who had long since stopped trying to make the lesson interesting, found herself saying mechanically, “What other birds have their nests in the apple-tree?”
The boy shifted lazily from one foot to the other as he began, “The sparrow, the robin, and wrens, and—the snow-birds and blue-jays—”
“No, they don’t, blue-jays don’t have nests,” came the excited outburst from some of the children, much to the surprise of the teacher.[2]
When order was restored some of these brown-skinned children, who came from the heart of the Virginian mountains, told this legend of the blue-jay.
Long, long years ago, the devil came to buy the blue-jay’s soul, for which he first offered a beautiful golden ear of corn. This the blue-jay liked and wanted badly, but said, “No, I cannot take it in exchange for my soul.” Then the devil came again, this time with a bright red ear of corn which was even more lovely than the golden one.
This, too, the blue-jay refused. At last the devil came to offer him a wonderful blue ear. This one the blue-jay liked best of all, but still was unwilling to part with his soul. Then the devil hung it up in the nest, and the blue-jay found that it exactly matched his own brilliant feathers, and knew at once that he must have it. The bargain was quickly made. And now in payment for that one blue ear of corn each Friday the blue-jay must carry one grain of sand to the devil, and sometimes he gets back on Sunday, but oftener not until Monday.[3]
Very seriously the children added, “And all the bad people are going to burn until the blue-jays have carried all the grains of sand in the ocean to the devil.”
The teacher must have smiled a little at the legend, for the children cried out again, “It is so. ’Deed it is, for doesn’t the black spot on the blue-jay come because he gets his wings scorched, and he doesn’t have a nest like other birds.”
Then, to dispel any further doubts the teacher might have, they asked triumphantly, “You never saw a blue-jay on Friday, did you?”
There was no need to answer, for just then the gong sounded and the children trooped happily out to play.
School Children Before a Log Schoolhouse. Photograph, circa 1895, Library of Virginia Special Collections.
Fisher, Ruth Anna. “A Legend of the Blue Jay,” IN THE UPWARD PATH: A READER FOR COLORED CHILDREN, ED. MYRON T. PRITCHARD AND MARY WHITE OVINGTON, 218-19. HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, 1920.
[1] American nature poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) wrote “The Planting of the Apple-Tree,” a poem included in school readers like The Rand-McNally List of Selections in School Readers (1896) and Constructive English for the Higher Grades of the Grammar School (1915).
[2] Blue jays do build nests. However, according to the Audubon Society‘s website, they are very quiet and inconspicuous when around them.
Job, Herbert Keightley. Blue Jay Nesting, Kent, Connecticut. Lantern Slide, 1900, Trinity College Watkinson Library: Ornithology Lantern Slides.
[3] According to folktales and fables that circulated within enslaved communities in the antebellum American South, the blue jay was never seen on Fridays because on those days he was carrying sticks to the devil to pay his debt. In other stories, the bird acted as the devil’s helper or messenger. Some of these accounts appear in Ernest Ingersoll’s Birds in Legend, Fable and Folklore (1923), Martha Young’s Plantation Legends (1902), and others.
Contexts
This short story was included in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, published in 1920 and compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington. The volume’s foreword states that, “[t]o the present time, there has been no collection of stories and poems by Negro writers, which colored children could read with interest and pleasure and in which they could find a mirror of the traditions and aspirations of their race.”
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
sing-song: To utter or express in a monotonous chant.
Resources for Further Study
Brief essay posted in The Conversation about the role of African American folklore in the preservation of history and cultural memory.
An overview of education in Virginia from 1869 to the present helps contextualize the school where Fisher’s story takes place. For example, under the Jim Crow system of education, “[o]ften transportation was provided to white schools but not to black ones. White teachers earned more money than black teachers, and male teachers were paid more than female teachers.”
A defense of the blue jay, a bird that “birders love to hate.”
George Catlin. Weapons and Physiognomy of the Grizzly Bear. Oil on canvas, c. 1846-48, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
My first adventure with a bear occurred when I was about eight years old. It was in summer, when our people lead their flocks to the upper pastures, which the melted snow leaves uncovered.
My parents had gone to a mountain chalet, leaving me in the valley under the charge of a servant. One day I made my escape, and set out to meet them. I walked on, eating the bread and cheese given me for breakfast, when, as I was passing through a wood, I saw lying asleep across my path an animal which I took for a huge brown dog.
I felt frightened; but the wish to rejoin my parents, who had been detained from home longer than they expected, prevailed, and on I went, gliding as silently as possible past the unknown beast. Despite, however, the little noise I made, the creature roused himself and came towards me.
Wishing to propitiate him, I threw down a bit of bread; he smelt it, swallowed it with apparent pleasure, and stretched out his head as if asking for more. I ventured to caress him, which he suffered me to do, although uttering a sort of protesting growl.
Throwing my breakfast behind me bit by bit, in order to occupy the attention of my strange companion, whose presence was any thing but agreeable, I reached at length the boundary of our farm. There he ceased to follow me.
I entered the chalet, where, to my great joy, I found my father, and told him my adventure. He immediately seized his gun, sallied forth, and returning at night after a fruitless chase, told me that my morning’s acquaintance was no other than a bear, from whom I had had an almost miraculous escape.
Twelve years passed on without my renewing my acquaintance with the ursine tribe. I assisted my father in managing his farm, and spent my leisure time in reading, taking particular pleasure in narratives of travel and adventure.
It happened one day that a neighbor named Raymond, a practised hunter of bears and chamois [1], asked me to accompany him on a mountain expedition. I gladly consented, and we set out, each carrying a carabine [2] on his shoulder, and a small, sharp hatchet fastened in his belt.
It was a beautiful autumn day. Towards five o’clock in the evening, having shot only a few birds, we began to think of returning. As we were passing through a thick wood, Raymond, who was grumbling at our want of success, recollected that there lay at a short distance a sort of little meadow where chamois often went to feed. At that hour there was not much chance of meeting them, but Raymond determined to make the trial. Placing me in ambush, he directed me to watch narrowly, and if he did not return at the end of half an hour, to descend the mountain. I saw him plunge into the wood, and then stoop down and creep warily along.
Edward Kemeys. Grizzly Bear at Bay. Painted plaster, c. 1871-85, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
When I found myself alone, my first movement was to inspect the post assigned to me, in order to guard against surprise. Twilight already darkened the tops of the fir-trees, although it was scarcely six o’clock. The fatigues of the day had abated not only my strength, but my courage. I instinctively sought for a fir-tree, less denuded of the lower branches than they commonly are, to serve as an asylum in case of necessity.
I then took up my position beneath it, slung my carabine and waited patiently. The shadows of evening were fast darkening, although the setting sun still gilded the western horizon. The appointed half-hour had expired without my seeing any thing, and I began to think of returning. Just as I was about to unsling my carabine and leave my solitary position, I heard a rustling noise, too loud to be caused by the passage of a chamois.
“It is probably Raymond,” I said to myself, and was going to meet him, when it struck me that the approaching tread, crashing through the withered branches, was too slow and heavy for that of my comrade. I retreated to my tree, and another moment revealed the newcomer.
It was an enormous bear, with fiery eyes, who came on with lowered head, not having yet perceived me. Almost mechanically, I took aim and fired at him. The shot, I believe, carried off one of his ears; and with a terrific roar he bounded towards me.
Throwing away my carabine, I climbed the tree, and when the infuriated creature raised his fore paws against the trunk, I was seated on a strong branch about ten feet above him. With the courage of despair I drew my hatchet and waited to see what he would do. For a few moments he continued standing on his hind-legs against the tree, devouring me with his fierce eyes, and snorting with a loud noise; then he began to climb.
When he came near, I raised my hatchet and struck. I did so with too much precipitation, for the blow merely cut one of his fore-paws without severing it. Down he dropped, but too slightly wounded to abandon the pursuit. For some time he remained, as it were, undecided, sending forth furious howlings, which resounded through the woods.
At length, having once more begun to climb, he stopped, seemed to change his mind, and redescended. Then I saw him snuffing the earth round the fir-tree, and finally he fell to work in good earnest.
Even to this moment I shudder at the recollection of what he undertook; it was nothing else than uprooting the tree with his snout and paws, in order to bring it down. For a bear the idea was not a bad one; and I presently learned that whenever this animal fails, it is not for want of perseverance. Happily, the tree I had chosen was thick, firmly rooted, and capable of resisting the animal’s efforts for a considerable time. The only hope I had left was, that Raymond might hear the roaring of the bear, and come to my succor.
Edward Kemeys. Grizzly Bear Sitting. Plaster, c. 1871-94, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Alas, every minute seemed an hour! Night came on, and with its approach my courage gave way. I could no longer see my terrible enemy; his snorting respiration and the dull noise of his indefatigable labor reached my ears, mingled with the last faint evening sounds from the valley, whose inhabitants, happy and tranquil, were going to repose in peace, while I felt myself given up to a horrible and inevitable death. In my extremity I sought help where it is never asked in vain, and I passed that awful night in fervent prayer.
Morning dawned, and the bear was still mining away.
Presently the tree began to totter. I closed my eyes. But all at once he ceased to dig, and threw up his snout towards the wind. I thought I heard a distant sound amongst the fir trees; the bear heard it too, and listened, lowering his head. The noise approached, and I distinguished my own name shouted by many voices. Apparently my ferocious adversary perceived that efficient help was coming; for after having once more snuffed the breeze he plunged into the forest.
Five minutes afterward Raymond was at the foot of the tree. It was quite time; it toppled over as I descended.
“Adventure with an alpine bear.” Youth’s companion 39, no. 52 (December 1866): 206.
[1] There are two species of chamois, which are similar to antelopes and goats. They typically live on mountains or at high elevations and are hunted for their meat and soft pelts, which are used for chamois leather. Their native habitat ranges from the Pyrenees Mountains through the Alps to the Carpathians and south into Turkey.
[2] Carabine is an alternate spelling of carbine, a type of rifle. It is typically shorter, more compact, lighter, and easier to handle than longer firearms.
Contexts
The Koniag (Kodiak is a Russian spelling of the Alutiiq word) bear is entwined with the history of the Alutiiq tribe. For indigenous Alaskans, the animal was a source of meat and hide that held cultural significance and has had a shifting relationship with the people, ongoing to this day on Kodiak Island. An article by Hannah Pembroke for the Alaska Wildlife Alliance highlights the critical connection between bears and humans.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary
denuded: To make naked or bare; to strip of clothing or covering.
indefatigable: Incapable of being wearied; that cannot be tired out; unwearied, untiring, unremitting in labor or effort.
propitiate: To make well-disposed or favorably inclined; to win or regain the favor of; to appease, conciliate.
ursine: Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, due to, a bear or bears.
Resources for Further Study
The Alpine bear (Ursus arctos) is also known as the brown, grizzly, or Kodiak bear, depending on the region it inhabits.
Bullard, William. Portrait of a Boy Sitting on the Grass. Photograph, c. 1904, courtesy of Frank Morrill, Clark University and the Worcester Art Museum. Public Domain.
Once upon a time a Mule, a Hog, a Snake, and a Boy met. Said the Mule: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the heels. It is fine to have heels so gifted. My heels make people cultivate distance.”
Said the Hog: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the snout. It is fine to have a fine snout. I keep people watching for my snout.”
“No exchanging heels for snouts,” broke in the Mule.
“No’” answered the Hog; “snouts are naturally above heels.”
Said the Snake: “I eat to live, and live and cultivate my sting. The way people shun me shows my greatness. Beget stings, comrades, and stings will beget glory.”
Said the Boy: “There is a star in my life like unto a star in the sky. I eat and labor that I may think aright and feel aright. These rounds will conduct me to my star. Oh, inviting star!”
“I am not so certain of that,” said the Mule. “I have noticed your kind and ever see some of myself in them. Your star is in the distance.”
The Boy answered by smelling a flower and listening to the song of a bird. The Mule looked at him and said: “He is all tenderness and care. The true and the beautiful have robbed me of a kinsman. His star is near.”
Said the Boy: “I approach my star.”
“I am not so certain of that,” interrupted the Hog. “I have noticed your kind and I ever see some of myself in them. Your star is a delusion.”
The Boy answered by painting the flower and setting the notes of the bird’s song to music.
The Hog looked at the boy and said: “His soul is attuned by nature. The meddler in him is slain.”
“I can all but touch my star,” cried the Boy.
“I am not so certain of that,” remarked the Snake. “I have watched your kind and ever see some of myself in them. Stings are nearer than stars.”
The Boy answered by meditating upon the picture and music. The Snake departed, saying that stings and stars cannot keep company.
The Boy journeyed on, ever led by the star. Some distance away the Mule was bemoaning the presence of his heels and trying to rid himself of them by kicking a tree. The Hog was dividing his time between looking into a brook and rubbing his snout on a rock to shorten it. The Snake lay dead of its own bite. The Boy journeyed on, led by an ever inviting star.
Bridges, Fidelia. Bird on a Stalk, Singing. Chromolitograph, 1883, Library of Congress.
cotter, joseph s, sr. “the boy and the ideal,” in negro tales, 141-43. the cosmopolitan press, new york, 1912.
Contexts
This short story was also included in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington, and published in 1920.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
beget: To get, obtain, acquire; to win, gain; to procure (something) for someone, furnish, provide. Also: to take hold of, seize.
kinsman: A man of one’s own kin.
meddler: A person who meddles or interferes in something; a nuisance, a troublemaker.
In the peer-reviewed article “Animals as People in Children’s Literature,” Carolyn L. Burke and Joby G. Copenhaver argue that using animals as people in children’s literature allows both children and supervising adults “to become reflective and critical concerning life problems and life choices” by creating a safe emotional distance. Other authors, however, alert about the risks of anthropocentric portrayals of animals in children’s books.
Mule Barometer. Color zinc engraving and fiber, 1906, Library of Congress.
Now if you wish to travel fast
I beg you not to fool
With locomotion that's procured
Behind a Georgia mule.[1]
When I was teaching school in the backwoods of Georgia I had, one day, to attend to some business in Mudville, an embryo city about eleven miles from my school. Now you must know that a country school teacher can do nothing without first consulting his Board of Trustees; so I notified that honorable body that there was some business of vast importance to be attended to, and asked them to meet me on Friday afternoon; they all promised to be on hand “two hours b’sun.”[2] Friday afternoon, after school was dismissed, they came in one by one until they had all gathered.
As the chairman called the meeting to order, he said: “Bredren, de objick ob dis meeting is to consider de ways ob pervidin de means ob transposing de ‘fessar to Mudville.”[3] Now, by the way, the chairman of the Board was undoubtedly intended by nature for a smart man. He had a very strong weakness for using big words in the wrong place, and thought it his special duty to impress the “’fessar” at all times with his knowledge of the dictionary. Well, after much debate it was finally decided that “Brudder” Whitesides would “furnish the mule” and “Brudder Jinks de buggy” and that I should start early the next morning.
The next morning I was up quite early, because I wished to start as soon as possible in order to avoid the heat of the day. I ate breakfast and waited—six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight o’clock—and still that promised beast had not put in appearance. Knowing the proclivity of the mule to meander along as his own sweet will dictates, especially when the sun shines hot, I began to despair of reaching Mudville at all that day; but “Brudder” Jinks, with whom I boarded, seeing my melancholy state of mind, offered to hitch up Gypsy, an antiquated specimen of the mule, whose general appearance was that of the skeleton of some prehistoric animal one sees in a museum.
I accepted this proposition with haste, and repented at leisure.
I could see a weary, long-suffering look in that mule’s eye, and I could imagine how his heart must have sought the vicinity of his tail, when they disturbed his dreams of green fields and pleasant pastures, and hitched him to an old buggy, to encounter the stern realities of a dusty road. “Verily, verily,” I soliloquized, “the way of the mule is hard.” But, putting aside all tender feelings, I jumped into the buggy and grasping a stick of quite ample proportions began to urge his muleship on his way.
Nothing of much consequence hampered our onward journey except the breaking down of three wheels and the excessive heat of the sun, which great luminary seemed not more than ninety-five miles away.
I arrived at Mudville sometime between 12 [P.?]M. and 6 P.M. After having finished my business and having bountifully fed my mule on water and what grass he could nibble from around his hitching post, I bought a large watermelon and started for home. Before I was out of sight of the town, I began to have serious misgivings about reaching home before a very late hour. In the morning by various admonitions and applications of the hickory, I had been able to get my mule into a jog trot, but on the homeward journey he would not even get up to a respectable walk. Well, we trudged on for two hours or more, when to my dismay he stopped,—stopped still. As the hour was getting late and it was growing dark, I began advising him—with the hickory—that it was best to proceed, but he seemed to have hardened his heart, and his back also, and paid me no heed. There I sat—all was as still as the grave, save for the dismal hoot of the screech-owl.[4] There I was, five and a half miles from home with no prospect of getting there.
I began to coax my mule with some words which perhaps are not in the Sabbath School books, and to emphasize them with the rising and falling inflection of the stick across his back; but still he moved not. Then all at once my conscience smote me. I thought perhaps the faithful beast might be sick. My mind reverted to Balaam, whose beast spoke to him when he had smitten him but three times and here I had smitten my beast about 3,333 times. I listened almost in expectation of hearing say, “Johnson, Johnson, why smites thou me 3,333 times?”[5]
I got out of the buggy and looked at the mule; he gazed at me with a sad far-away expression in his eye, which sent pangs of remorse to my heart. I thought of the cruel treatment I had given him, and on the impulse of the moment I went to the buggy, got out my large, luscious melon, burst it open and laid it on the ground before the poor animal; and I firmly resolved to be a friend of the mule ever after, and to join the Humane Society as soon as I reached Atlanta.[6]
As I watched that mule slowly munching away at my melon, I began to wonder if I had not acted a little too hastily in giving it to him, but I smothered that thought when I remembered the pledge I had just taken. When he had finished he looked around with a satisfied air which encouraged me; so I took hold of his bridle and after stroking him gently for a moment, attempted to lead him off. But he refused to be led. He looked at me from under his shabby eyebrows, but the sad, far-away expression had vanished and in its stead was a mischievous gleam, born of malice afore-thought.[7] I remonstrated with him, but it only seemed to confirm his convictions that it was right for him to stand there. I thought of my melon he had just devoured; then I grew wrathy, and right there and then renounce all my Humane Society resolutions, and began to shower down on that mule torrents of abuse and hickory also, but all to no effect. Instead of advancing he began to “revance.” I pulled on the bridle until my hands and arms were sore, but he only continued to back and pull me along with him. When I stopped pulling he stopped backing, and so things went on for the space of about half an hour.
I wondered what time was. Just then the moon began to rise, from which I knew it was about 9 o’clock. My physical exertion began to tell on me and I hungered. Oh, how I hungered for a piece of that watermelon! And I hit the mule an extra blow as a result of those longings.
I was now desperate. I sat down on the side of the road and groaned; that groan came from the depths of my soul, and I know that I presented a perfect picture of despair. However, I determined to gather all my remaining strength for one final effort; so I caressed him up and down the backbone two or three times as a sort of persuader, then grasping the bridle with both hands, I began to pull, pull as hard as I had never pulled before and as I never hope to pull again. And he began to back. I continued to pull and he continued to back.
How long this order of things might have gone on I do not know, but just then a brilliant idea struck me so forcibly as to come near knocking me down. I took the mule out, and by various tying, buckling and tangling, I hitched him up again, upside down, or wrong side out, or, well, I can’t exactly explain, but anyhow when I got through his tail pointed in the direction I wanted him to go. Then I got back in the buggy and taking hold of the bridle began to pull, and he began to back; and I continued to pull, and he continued to back; and will you believe me, that mule backed all the way home! It is true we did not travel very fast but every time he would slow down, I would put a little extra force into my pull and he would put a little extra speed into his back. Ever and anon he would glance at me with that mischievous, malicious twinkle, which seemed to say “I’ve got you tonight,” and I would smile back a quiet, self-satisfied smile and give an extra pull.
But when we got home, that mischievous, malicious twinkle changed, and he looked at me in a dazed sort of way and I smiled back quite audibly. And do you know, that mule has been in a dark brown study ever since.[8] He is trying to get through his slow brain how I managed to make him pull me home that night.
As I jumped out of the buggy the clock struck twelve. And there at that solemn hour of the night, as the pale moon shed her silvery beams all around and as the bright stars peeped down upon me from the ethereal blue, and the gentle zephyrs wafted to me the odor of a hog-pen in the near distance, I vowed a vow, an awful vow, that so long as I breathed the vital air, never, no, never again, would I attempt to drive a Georgia mule.
Muybridge, Eadweard. Animal Locomotion: Mule. Photograph, c1887, Library of Congress.
Johnson, James weldon. “behind A Georgia mule,” in the upward path: a reader for colored children, ed. myron t. pritchard and mary white ovington, 66-72. harcourt, brace and howe, 1920.
[1] Mules are the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. They are mostly infertile.
[2] Perhaps “before sundown.”
[3] ‘fessar: i.e. professor.
[4] The Eastern Screech Owl is Georgia’s most common owl. This strictly nocturnal bird is often more heard than seen.
[5] Balaam is a non-Israelite prophet featured in the Bible’s Old Testament’s Book of Numbers. While riding his donkey on his way to Moab (modern Jordan), an angel that only his donkey could see blocked their way. When the animal refused to continue, Balaam beat it three times with a staff until the donkey addressed him and asked him why.
Anderson, Alexander. Balaam. Wood Engraving, 19th century, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, CT. Public Domain.
[6] Probably a reference to the American Humane Society, founded in 1877 to promote the humane treatment of children and animals.
[7] Premeditated; deliberate.
[8] A state of deep reverie or intense thought. The term “brown study” seems to have appeared first in the sixteenth century and came into regular usage in the nineteenth century.
Contexts
Weldon Johnson wrote this autobiographical piece during the Jim Crow Era, when Southern schools were racially segregated and extremely unequal. In addition to being a writer and an educator, Weldon Johnson was a civil rights activist and a leader of the NAACP.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
coax: To influence or persuade by caresses, flattery, or blandishment.
ever and anon: Ever and again, every now and then; continually at intervals.
hamper: To obstruct the free movement of (a person or animal), by fastening something on, or by material obstacles or entanglements.
hickory: The wood of a North America hickory tree. Also, a stick or switch made of hickory (or sometimes another wood).
wrathy: Feeling, or inclined to, wrath; wrathful, very angry, incensed.
This is a story with a moral, but I will not keep you waiting to hear it until you come to the end. I will put my moral at the beginning. It is —
Mind your mother, — unless, of course, you are perfectly sure she is a foolish and unwise woman, and that you are always the more sensible of the two.
My friend, Miss Nelly Willis, was a little late at breakfast one morning, and as she took her chair she found the rest of the family talking over their plans for the day. Papa was going to his business, and Tom to his school in the city, as usual. Mamma was going to do some shopping, and lunch with a friend, and said that she should not be home until late in the afternoon. And Maggie, Nelly’s elder sister, was to spend the day with her aunt, who lived a few miles away, farther out in the country.
“So we shall leave the little girl all alone,” said Mrs. Willis to Nelly, “and what does she mean to do? I wish there was some one near who could come to play with you.”
“Mamma, dear,” said Nelly, “just this once can I have Jane Simmons for a little while? I won’t bring her into the house, and we won’t go out of sight, or carry out the best playthings, or do a bit of mischief. I don’t see why Mrs. Duncan stays away so long. I do miss Grace and Georgie so.”
“Nelly, dear,” said Mrs. Willis, “I am very sorry to hinder any pleasure of yours, but I don’t wish you to play with Jane. I wonder why you ask me, when I have told you so many times. She is a very naughty girl, and always teaches you bad words and bad manners, and tries to make you disobey me. I will tell you what I am going to do, though I meant it should be a surprise. I have asked Alice Russell to come out with me from town and make you a little visit.” (Alice was a very dear friend of Nelly’s.) “Now I think you had better put the play-room in order, because you will be there to-morrow, and you know Alice keeps her playthings looking very nice. I shall not be worried about you, for I am sure you will be good while I am gone.”
Just then the carriage was driven around to the door, and there was a great hurrying and running up and down stairs, and in a few minutes everybody had gone, and Nelly was left to her own devices. She went back to the breakfast room and had another saucerful of strawberries, with a great deal of sugar on them; then she watched Ann while she cleared away the table and washed the china and silver, shut the blinds, and pulled down the curtains, and hung the linnet’s cage and the parrot’s out on the west piazza, in the shade. Then our friend went up to the play-room, but unfortunately it was in better order than usual, so she did not find much to do. She had been dress-making the day before, and had left her work scattered on the floor, by one of the windows, but it does not take long to roll up pieces of cloth and put them into one of the doll’s trunks. Some she carried out to the rag-bag, and then went out to bring them back, thinking that she might wish some time to alter the over-skirt she had been making for Dora Mary. She dressed all the dolls in their best clothes, because some of Alice’s family would be sure to come, and they were dolls who thought a great deal of dress.
Nineteenth-century French fashion doll. Courtesy Mimi Matthews.
All this did not take long, and Nelly sat down in her rocking-chair in front of the doll-house, and wondered what she should do next. She thought of dressing herself in her mother’s or Maggie’s clothes, and parading about the house in great majesty with her long trains. She was very fond of this; but where would be the fun to-day, with nobody to see her? She had some worsted-work in which she had been interested, but she had used up all the worsted, and her mother was to buy more in town that day. She called to Susan, who was putting Maggie’s room in order, to ask if she wouldn’t tell her a story. Susan’s stories were always so interesting. But Susan said, “Bless you, dear! I can’t stop to talk in the middle of the forenoon. I promised to hurry with my work so as to help Nancy, — she’s dreadful busy; but I’m coming up by and by to sew, and perhaps I’ll think of a story then.”
Nelly was disappointed, and looked out of the window, and drummed with her feet against the chair. Anything was better than sitting there, so she went to the doll’s house and took dear Amelia, who had a very fair complexion and light hair, and looked so faded that Nelly always said she was ill. Poor thing! she had to take such quantities of medicine, and go without her dinner and stay in bed half her time. When she sat up it was only in an easy-chair, with pillows behind her and one of the largest doll’s blankets wrapped around her; and when she went out, she was made into such a bundle with shawls that I am afraid the fresh air did her no good.
“I think I will carry you out for a while, dear,” said Nelly, and poor Amelia was dressed warmer than usual, just to take up the time. She even had to wear a thick blue and white worsted scarf around her face and throat. They walked up and down the garden some time, but it was stupid, and when they went down by the carriage-gate to hunt for a bird’s nest which Tom had said was near there in the hedge, whom should they see coming up the street but the Simmons girl. Nelly was delighted, and thought, “I’ll call her in for just a few minutes, and then I can go into the house and leave her; she doesn’t dare to come near the house.” Then she remembered what her mother had said that morning, and with a great effort turned and walked away up the avenue. She had not gone far when she heard the little side-gate open, and looked back to see Jane coming in and bringing her brother with her. Jane looked unusually dirty that morning and very naughty. She was carrying her mother’s parasol, and the brother, who was never called anything but “The Baby,” was unbecomingly dressed in an old shawl, folded as small as possible; because he was so very short it trailed several inches upon the ground, and there were some little sticks and several burdock burrs tangled into the fringe. Jane had put a cast-off Shaker bonnet [1] of her own on his head; there was a great crack in the top of it, through which a tuft of hair showed itself, and fluttered in the wind. He had the dirtiest face you ever saw, and it always seemed to be the same dirt. Nelly hated The Baby. “What made her play with Jane?” Oh, I’m sure I don’t know. If Jane had not known any better, it would have been different; one would have pitied her; but she did know better than to be so naughty and so careless. There was certainly nothing to hinder her being good and kind and honest and clean, except that she would not take the trouble. In her heart, that day, Nelly was glad to see Jane, but she did not say much at first. “You’re p’lite, ain’t you?” said Jane. “See me coming and made believe you didn’t. I saw all the folks riding off to town a while ago, and mother said I might come over and play.”
Straw Shaker bonnet with silk neck covering. Public domain.
Nelly always tried to be polite, and this was not without effect. “What will she say if I tell her to go home?” she thought. “Mamma never tells her visitors to go home, even if she doesn’t like them,” and here there came a thought of how sorry she had been after the last time Jane came, and what sad mischances there had been. “But perhaps I had better keep her a little while and be pleasant to her, and then tell her I must go into the house, and that I am never going to play with her any more.” “I don’t see what made you bring The Baby, though,” said she, aloud.
“Oh, dear!” said Jane, “I have to lug him everywhere. Long as he couldn’t talk I wasn’t bothered with him, for if worst came to worst, I used to tie him to the lilac-bush and clear out, and only be sure to get back in time to unhitch him before mother came; now he goes and tells everything, but he is real good to-day, and you needn’t mind him. Going to play dolls, aren’t you?”
Botanical print, Syringa vulgaris (common purple lilac). W. Curtis, 1792. Public domain.
“No, I’d rather do something else,” said Nelly. “I have just finished clearing up the play-room, and I’m going to have company to-night.”
“Well, ain’t you got company now? You didn’t use to be so ‘fraid of your old dolls. I thought we would have a real nice party, and I’ve brought something splendid in my pocket that my aunt gave me last night. I’ve been saving it.”
“Poor thing!” thought Nelly. “It would be so cross in me not to let her have a good time. Mamma said I must always be kind to her. She’s very pleasant, and perhaps she is trying to be good, after all. [“]Here; you take care of Amelia and I’ll go in and get the tea-set and one or two dolls. Amelia is my sick doll, you know, and you must be very careful of her.”
“Yes’m,” said Jane, meekly, and as soon as Nelly was out of sight, she looked at poor Amelia’s clothes and robbed her of her flannel petticoat, which was prettily embroidered and new only the week before. When Nelly found out a few days later that it was gone, the doll was at once taken very ill, and did not sit up much for half the summer. One of the rooms in the baby-house was kept dark, and the dolls took turns in sitting up with her at night.
Nelly soon came back, carrying the tea-set box and the little tea-table, and a doll beside under each arm. “Here’s the table-cloth in my pocket,” said she, “and I brought a piece of pine-apple; there’s sugar in the sugar-bowl that we can put on after we have sliced it. It shall be your party, and you are Mrs. Simmons and must sit at the head of the table, and I am Mrs. Willis come to spend the day with you.”
This pleased Jane, and she was as good-natured as possible, and they set the table, while The Baby sat quietly on the ground and poked up ant-hills with a little stick.
“Now,” said Mrs. Simmons, when the table was ready, “let’s see what you have in your pocket.”
“I!” said Nelly, with surprise. “Why, I brought out nothing but the pineapple. It’s your party, you know, and I thought you had your pocket full of something that your aunt gave you.”
“So I have,” said Jane, “but I guess I’m not going to let you eat it all up.”
“I’m not a bit hungry,” answered Mrs. Willis, “I had a splendid breakfast. I don’t want any of your candy, or whatever it is. Mamma will bring me some from town.”
Mrs. Simmons was very angry. Her breakfast had not been “splendid,” though she had had enough of it, and she had counted on Nelly’s bringing out a quantity of good things, as she sometimes had before.
“Oh,” thought Nelly, “now she’s going to act, and be cross. I wish I had thought to hide when I saw her coming. I must bring out something to eat, or nobody knows what she will do.” And off she went to the house again, while Mrs. Simmons asked her to look for some cake with sugar on it.
She hunted in the china-closet and on the sideboard and could find no cake at all. Nancy told her there was not a bit in the house; Mrs. Willis was to bring some out from the city. “You’re not hungry again so quick as this?” said Ann, who came into the dining-room just then. Nelly did not dare to tell them that a tea-party was going on, or who the guests were, but after some search she carried out some macaroons and some plum-pudding, which she had not eaten at dinner the evening before, and was saving for her lunch that day. “It’s too bad to let her eat this all up,” thought Nelly. “Perhaps Nancy had some more put away. I’ve a great mind to tell Nancy to go out and send them home,” and all the time she was hurrying so Nancy would not call her back or follow her. Foolish child!
Mrs. Simmons was satisfied when Nelly showed the pudding, and while they finished arranging the table she told of a shop she was going to open in her wood-shed the next week, with wind-mills and darts and fly-boxes, and all sorts of delightful and useless things made of paper, besides molasses and water, at five pins for a drink in a toy tin dipper or one cent for a large mugful. Jane liked to get cents, and Nelly almost always had some in her pocket. “I’ll take down a whole paper of pins,” thought Nelly, “and buy ever so much.”[2] Jane was so friendly and quiet that her heart warmed toward her. “Poor thing!” she thought, “she doesn’t know any people but bad ones, and no wonder she swears, and throws stones, and does all sorts of things.” Just now Mrs. Simmons happened to come closer to her, and Nelly saw for the first time a most shocking and heathenish decoration. “Oh, Jane!” she cried, “what have you been doing to those poor flies, you horrid girl?”
“Want me to string you some?” said Mrs. Simmons, with a grin. “I did every bit of this this morning, before I came over. I’ll bring you one that will go round your neck twice, to-morrow, if you will give me two cents.”
It was a necklace of flies, on a long piece of white thread, to which the needle was still hanging. Oh! those dozens of poor flies. Some were dead, but others faintly buzzed.
Fly. Courtesy id-hub.com.
“Jane Simmons,” said Nelly, “you can eat the pudding, and then you go right straight home, and I never will play with you any more. How could you be so awful. Hurry up, or I will call Nancy.”
“I was going pretty soon, any way,” said Jane. “I guess there are flies enough left; you needn’t make such a fuss. They let them stick on papers and die, in your house. You’re an awful little ‘fraid cat. Who wants to play with you, any way?”
Nelly sat down on the grass, and would not say another word, and Jane ate the pudding as fast as she could. The Baby had not been satisfied with his share of the feast, and as she laid the best china saucer down he snatched it, and also the little cream-pitcher that belonged to the doll’s tea-set, and ran away with them.
“Oh, please stop him!” begged Nelly, and Jane tried to catch him, and (how can I tell it?) stepped on his trailing shawl. The Baby fell down and rolled over and over in the gravel, and the best china saucer and the cream-pitcher were both broken.
“What will mamma say?” said Nelly. “O Jane! it is one of the very best saucers that she likes so much, and I heard her tell Mrs. Duncan, the other day, that she couldn’t get any more, for she had tried a great many times.”
If Jane had been at all sorry, Nelly would have considered her only her companion in misfortune, but instead of that she seemed to think it was a great joke, and said something very provoking. Nelly shouted at the top of her voice for Thomas, forgetting that he had gone to get Maggie’s saddle horse a pair of new shoes at the blacksmith’s. But Jane, for a wonder, was a little frightened, and seizing The Baby’s hand, she hurried him home. She expected a messenger from Mrs. Willis for several days, and kept watch, whenever she was at home, so that if she saw anybody coming she could climb the fence behind the house and run.
Poor Nelly was very miserable. She gathered up the bits of china carefully, and put them in her pocket, and then sat down and cried a little, for it was such a dear cream-pitcher, with a blue and gold flower on each side, and a slender black handle.
There was nobody in the garden, and nobody saw her. It was very lonely. The dolls, in their best dresses, sat around the tea-table, and Nelly was almost provoked with them for looking just as they always did, and sitting up so straight and consequential when such a terrible thing had happened. Amelia, at least, ought to have been sympathizing, for was she not regretting the loss of her new petticoat? The corners of the table-cloth waved cheerfully in the wind, and some bright leaves from a red rose-bush near by came fluttering through the air, and a few lodged on the table among the tiny china dishes.
Just then Nelly happened to see The Baby’s Shaker bonnet lying on the grass at a little distance, and she jumped up, and taking it by the end of one string she ran to the gate and threw it as far as she could out into the street. When she came back she took the dolls and the tea-set box and the table in her arms, and went into the house. She hid the pieces of china down under some stockings at the back of one of her bureau drawers, and felt very guilty and sad. After a little while she had lunch alone and then she tried to play with the dolls; but it was no fun at all, even though two had scarlet-fever, and the black tea-poy was doctor, and usually had a good deal to say.[3] But Susan told a story after a while as she sat at her sewing, and Mrs Willis came home earlier than was expected, bringing Alice with her. It was very naughty of Nelly, but she did not tell her mother what had happened, and all through the evening she was miserable whenever any one went up-stairs, for fear they might go to her lower drawer and find the broken china. Still, she had a good time, for her sister Maggie had brought home a young lady to spend the night, who was very bright and funny, and she sang and played for the children to dance in the evening.
“Has Nelly been a good girl to-day?” Mrs. Willis asked Susan.
“Indeed, yes, ma’am,” said Susan. “As good as a kitten, playing with her little dolls in the garden, and I told her a story this afternoon while I was mending the ruffles on her blue dress.”
And Mrs. Willis smiled at Nelly in a way that made her feel like crying.
She and Alice had not seen each other for several weeks, and had a great deal to talk about and laugh about, so it was late before they were quiet. Alice went to sleep first, but Nelly was awake awhile, for she was so worried about what had happened. What would her mother say? and how sorry and grieved she would be to find that her little girl had done exactly what she asked her not to do, just before she went away. And Nelly wondered why she had played with Jane, and she remembered the fly-necklace with a shiver, and after a long time she went to sleep. Then she had a sad dream, and it was such an odd dream that I must tell you about it.
She thought that she heard a great rattling and clinking out in the hall, and she got up to look out and see what the matter was, and noticed, on the way, that the lowest bureau drawer was open. The moon was shining in brightly through the large hall windows, and Nelly dreamed that she saw the funeral procession of the best china saucer.
Antique flow blue china saucer. Public domain.
It was plain that he had been a favorite in the china-closet, for there was such a large attendance. Even the great punch-bowl had come from off the side-board, and that was a great honor. The silver was always locked up at night, but one tea-spoon was there, which had been overlooked. The dead saucer was in a little black Japanese tray, carried by the cruets from the castor, and next came the cup, the poor lonely widow. It is not the fashion for china to wear mourning, and she was dressed as usual in white with brilliant pictures of small Chinese houses and tall men and women. After her came the rest of the near relations, walking two and two, and after them the punch-bowl, looking large and grand, and as if he felt very sorry. It was a large elegant company, and reached from Nelly’s door far along the hall, to the head of the staircase, and how much farther than that she could not see.
“How will that clumsy punch-bowl go so far and get down the stairs again without cracking himself?” thought our friend, and wondered what they were waiting for.
But in a few moments the play-room door opened, and out came the poor, sad little doll’s tea-set. The tea-pots first, and then the sugar-bowl, and the cups and saucers, and the plates, all walking two by two, and then the little glass tumblers. It was remarkable that the cream-pitcher was the first of the family who had been broken, but Nelly had been very careful. There was one little plate badly cracked, and how dreadful if it should fall down the stairs and die on the way!
It worried her terribly, the thought of this, as foolish things do worry us in dreams. And next she thought, what if some of the other china should trip and fall, or if one of the heavy soup-tureens should go crashing down among the rest. She did not dare to watch any longer, and when the doll’s tea-set came up, and the great procession began to move, she rushed back to bed and opened her eyes to find that instead of moonlight it was morning, and Susan had come in to wake Alice and herself, and help them dress. Nelly did not wait until Alice had gone, to tell her mother, as she had meant to do the evening before. Mrs. Willis was very sorry indeed, you may be sure of that, when she heard Nelly’s story. “Poor Jane!” said she. “I am sorry for the naughty little girl. I wish I could have done something for her; I tried, but she always made you naughty, and I am afraid you cannot do her any good.”
This was the end of Nelly’s playing with Jane, at any rate, for the Simmonses moved away the very next week. The Duncans came back soon after, and they were Nelly’s best friends, so she was no longer solitary, but she always has wondered what it was that Jane had in her pocket for the party.
Jewett, Sarah Orne. “The Best China Saucer.” The Independent 24, no. 3 (June 1872): ***. Reprinted in Jewett’s play days: A Book of Stories for Children (boston: houghton, osgood, 1878), 71-84.
[1] A beautifully crafted bonnet made by the Shakers. See Contexts below.
[2] Straight pins for sewing were sold stuck in a paper for display.
[3] Scarlet fever is a serious bacterial infection affecting young children. It was often fatal in the nineteenth century. A teapoy is three-legged stand, often containing a tea set and used for serving tea.
Contexts
Founded in England in the eighteenth century and widespread in the U.S. during the nineteenth century, the Shakers were a utopian millennialist religious sect known for their ecstatic dancing. Believing in social, sexual, economic, and spiritual equality, they remained celibate and unmarried. When they joined a Shaker community they gave their property to the community. Valuing beautifully crafted objects for daily use—like the bonnet Jewett references—the Shakers were also successful entrepreneurs, selling items ranging from seeds and boxes to tables and other furniture. The Baby’s “cast-off” broken bonnet indicates that even though his mother was poor, she recognized its quality.
Dirt has long been associated with female sexuality as well as with working-class womanhood. While wealthy Nelly has servants and plays with expensive well-dressed dolls, Jane must tend her little brother because their mother has to work. “The Baby” is living proof of female sexuality, and Jane is frustrated at her prematurely maternal role. Jewett uses the language of flowers ironically as she speaks indirectly to an adult audience: lilacs signified “first love.” Jane’s necklace of live flies, which satirizes a rich woman’s jewelry, suggests her familiarity with the body—and with death.
Resources for Further Study
Formanek-Brunel, Miriam. Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood, 1830-1930. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.
Heller, Terry. The Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project. In addition to reprinting all of Jewett’s texts with annotations, this comprehensive site also has information on Jewett, links to reviews of the author’s writing, and some scholarly links.
“Playthings of the Past.” National Park Service. A brief overview of various toys and their history.
Sherman, Sarah Way. “Party out of Bounds: Gender and Class in Jewett’s ‘The Best China Saucer.’” In Jewett and Her Contemporaries: Reshaping the Canon, ed. Karen L. Kilcup and Thomas S. Edwards, 223-48. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1999.
Pedagogy
One activity for younger children might be inviting them to bring to school one of their favorite toys and asking them in class to explain why the toy is important to them.
For older students, teachers could ask them how possessions signify status—and how they feel about those associations.
For all readers: ask them to write about—or draw—what Jane has in her pocket.
Contemporary Connections
Although Jane knows the customs of girlhood, she’s clearly a tomboy, revolting against traditional motherhood and social niceties. Today she might claim a label like “nonbinary.” Pop singer Destiny Rogers explores fluid gender identity and class issues in her song “Tomboy.”
