Children's Stories in American Literature, 1660-1860. Henrietta Christian Wright

and on whose walls hung deer antlers and innumerable Dutch pipes. They passed into the parlor, whose chief ornament was the carved bedstead upon which reposed two great feather-beds covered with a patch-work quilt. They sat in the fireplace and drank from the huge silver tankard while listening to stories of Indian warfare. In the streets they saw groups of Indians standing before the shop windows, and passed by the walls of the old fort wherein cows, pigs, and horses were feeding. They noticed the queerly rigged ships in the bay, the windmills scattered everywhere, and the canal passing right through the town and filled with Dutch canal boats. They saw the Dutch maidens standing around the ponds washing the family linen, and visited the bowerie or country house of some honest burgher, and sat with him in his little garden where cabbages and roses flourished side by side.

      Such were the scenes that the strange advertisement called up, and more than one New Yorker dreamed that night that he was a child again, living over those long past days.

      For some time nothing was heard of Diedrich Knickerbocker, and then another advertisement appeared in the Post saying he had been seen twice on the road to Albany. Some time again elapsed, and finally the paper stated that the landlord of the inn at which he stopped gave up hope of ever seeing his guest again, and declared that he should sell the manuscript of a book that Mr. Knickerbocker had left behind and take the proceeds in payment of his bill. People were really excited about the fate of the old gentleman, and one of the city officials was upon the point of offering a reward for his discovery when a curious thing happened. It was found that there was no old gentleman by the name of Knickerbocker who had wandered away from his lodging; that there was no inn at which he had lived, and no manuscript he had left behind, and that in fact, Mr. Knickerbocker was simply the hero of a book which the author had taken this clever means of advertising. The book claimed to be the true history of the discovery and settlement of New York, and began with an account of the creation of the world, passing on to the manners, customs, and historical achievements of the old Hollanders from their first voyage in the celebrated ark the Good Vrow, to the shores of New Jersey. Here we read how, as the Indians were given to long talks and the Dutch to long silences, they had no trouble about the settlement of the land, but all lived peacefully together. How Oloffe Van Kortlandt took his perilous journey from New Jersey as far north as Harlem and decided to build a city on Manhattan Island. Then we read of the golden reign of the first Dutch governor, Wouter Van Twiller, who was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference, and who ate four hours a day, smoked eight, and slept twelve, and so administered the affairs of the colony that it was a marvel of prosperity. Next we hear of Governor Keift, of lofty descent, since his father was an inspector of windmills—how his nose turned up and his mouth turned down, how his legs were the size of spindles, and how he grew tougher and tougher with age so that before his death he looked a veritable mummy. And then we see the redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant stumping around on his wooden leg adorned with silver reliefs and follow him in his expedition against the neighboring Swedish colonies, when the entire population of the city thronged the streets and balconies to wave farewell to him as he left, and to welcome his return as a victorious conqueror. Lastly we see him, furious with rage, menacing the British fleet which has come to take possession of the town, threatening vengeance dire upon the English king, and still cherishing his wrath with fiery bravery when the enemy finally occupy the old Dutch town and proceed to transform it into an English city. The book was read with interest, admiration, or amazement as the case might be. Some said it appeared too light and amusing for real history, others claimed that it held stores of wisdom that only the wise could understand; others still complained that the author was no doubt making fun of their respectable ancestors and had written the book merely to hold them up to ridicule. Only a few saw that it was the brightest, cleverest piece of humor that had yet appeared in America, and that its writer had probably a career of fame before him.

      The author was Washington Irving, then a young man in his twenty-seventh year and already known as the writer of some clever newspaper letters, and of a series of humorous essays published in a semi-monthly periodical called Salmagundi.

      Irving was born in New York on April 3, 1783, and was named after George Washington. The Revolution was over, but the treaty of peace had not yet been signed, and the British army still remained in the city, which had been half burned down during the war.

      New York was then a small town, with a population of about one seven-hundredth of what it now has; beyond the town limits were orchards, farms, country houses, and the high road leading to Albany, along which the stage coach passed at regular times. There were no railroads, and Irving was fourteen years old before the first steam-boat puffed its way up the Hudson River, frightening the country people into the belief that it was an evil monster come to devour them. All travelling was done by means of sailing vessels, stage coaches, or private conveyances; all letters were carried by the stage-coach, and every one cost the sender or receiver twenty-five cents for postage. The telegraph was undreamed of, and if any one had hinted the possibility of talking to some one else a thousand miles away over a telephone wire he would have been considered a lunatic, or possibly a witch. In fact New York was a quiet, unpretentious little town, whose inhabitants were still divided into English or Dutch families according to their descent, and in whose households were found the customs of England and Holland in full force. In Irving's family, however, there was doubtless greater severity practised in daily life than in the neighboring households. The father was a Scotch Presbyterian who considered life a discipline, who thought all amusement a waste of precious time, and who made the children devote one out of the two half weekly holidays to the study of the catechism. They were also obliged to attend church three times every Sunday, and to spend any spare moments left in reading some religious book, a discipline which had such an effect upon Irving that, to avoid becoming a Presbyterian, he went secretly to Trinity Church and was confirmed. Naturally Irving's love of fun was sedulously hid from such a father, and, as fun he must have, he sought amusement outside his own home. Forbidden to attend the theatre, he would risk his neck nightly by climbing out of his window to visit the play for an hour or so, and then rush home in terror lest his absence had been discovered and his future fun imperilled. Many a night when sent early to bed he would steal away across the adjacent roofs to send a handful of stones clattering down the wide, old-fashioned chimney of some innocent neighbor, who would start from his dreams to imagine robbers, spooks, or other unpleasant visitors in his bed-chamber; and often when Irving was supposed to be fast asleep he was far away in the midst of a group of truant boys concocting some scheme of mischief which was meant to startle the neighborhood and bring no end of fun to the daring perpetrators.

      Irving went to school kept by an old Revolutionary soldier, with whom he was a great favorite and who always called him General. He was not particularly brilliant in his studies, but he distinguished himself as an actor in the tragedies which the boys gave at times in the school-room; at ten years of age he was the star of the company, which did not even lose respect for him when once, being called suddenly upon the stage through a mistake, he appeared with his mouth full of honey-cake, which he was obliged to swallow painfully while the audience roared at the situation. Afterward, when he rushed around the stage flourishing a wooden sabre, he was not a tragedian to be trifled with. The glory of it even paid him for the cruelty of having to run away to see a real play.

      It was a favorite amusement with him after school to wander down to the wharves, where he would spend hours in watching the ships load and unload, and dream of the day when he, too, should visit those beautiful regions that lay only in reach of their white sails; for, fond as he was of boyish sports, he was much given to day-dreams, and the romantic past of the old world held a great charm for him. His favorite books were "Robinson Crusoe," "The Arabian Nights," "Gulliver's Travels," and all stories of adventure and travel. The world beyond the sea seemed a fairyland to him; a little print of London Bridge and another of Kensington Gardens, that hung up in his bed-room, stirred his heart wistfully, and he fairly envied the odd-looking old gentlemen and ladies who appeared to be loitering around the arches of St. John's Gate, as shown in a cut on the cover of an old magazine.

      Later his imagination was also kindled by short excursions to the then wild regions of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. Drifting up the Hudson in a little sloop, day after day the picturesque beauty of the Highlands and Catskills impressed itself more deeply upon him, while his mind dwelt fondly upon the