Otherworldly Maine

by Noreen Doyle

“Think of the reviewers,” said I!

  “What reviewers,” said she, “would ever think our Down East book worthy of notice?”

  “That’s true again,” said I. “Then write your article, not having the fear of the reviewers before your eyes.”

  I went home, feeling like one spellbound. “Seven women shall take hold of one man,” was the text of scripture for this night’s meditation. Must I write! And if so, what shall I write? I was in a fix, and as a last resort I went to bed.

  I did not search for witch hazel or magnetized implements, as I before said, but I soon fell asleep, and my last thoughts were of steel pens, paper manufactories and printers’ ink. I have an indistinct remembrance of a half-sleeping and half-waking vision of a ragged and suffering orphan, which held up to me a ream of foolscap, and he asked me, in plaintive tones, to write, and then he strangely vanished, repeating the lines of the children’s play, “He can do little that can’t do this.” I turned, but my destiny was before me. Methought I arose, determined to escape in the open air, from the sight of objects calculated to remind me of the unperformed task, and with the lurking thought that perchance I might gather materials or suggestions to be brain-woven into the fatal “article.”

  In a moment I was in “the square,” but it was strangely altered. I could not recognize a single tenement. I gazed upward and saw on one granite front the letters “Erected 1938.” There was an appearance of age about the building. It looked discolored and gray. As far as the eye could reach were ranges of high and splendid stores. What does this all mean? I involuntarily asked; and as I spoke, I saw a man the exact image of T—————, and felt relieved. He was a tall, lank, long-sided Yankee, six feet and two inches in height. I addressed him familiarly.

  He gave me a keen and independent look, as such a Yankee only can give, and replied, “You have the advantage of me.”

  “How so?”

  “You seem to know me, but I do not know you.”

  In the sauciness of a dream I thought, I am not sure that it is for the advantage of anyone to know you. But I was polite and said nothing of the kind. “Why, certainly, your name is T—————.”

  “O yes.”

  “You know me, A—————?”

  “Never heard the name in these parts.”

  “Why, did we not board together at the old Hatch house, in the times of Thomas?”

  “Never heard of such a house.”

  “Pray,” said I, utterly confounded, “who was your great grandfather?”

  “I don’t know,” but like an American, always looking ahead, he added, “I know who my son is, and there he stands.”

  “Who are your relations?”

  “I don’t know as I ever had any relations nearer than uncles.”

  “Do you live in Bangor?”

  “Yes, I was born and grew up here, man and boy, sixty odd years.”

  “Where is Taylor’s corner?”

  “There,” he said, pointing to a splendid block, covered with signs of banks, insurance offices and brokers. “It has been so named for more than a hundred years—and is still owned by descendents of the original possessor.”

  “I am glad of it,” said I, “if the successors are as honest men as he was. Can you show me the mark of high water in the great freshet of 1846?”

  “No,” said he, “I have heard of that great rise, and there have been a great many attempts to find some stone or mark to show the height, but strange to say, the antiquarians of that day were so busy in hunting up antediluvian relics, and taking the measure of the Buskahegian giant, that they forgot that they, and their days, would ever become antiquity.”

  “But where,” said I, “is the Kenduskeag Stream?”

  “Under those buildings and bridges,” said he; “if you will go up above the ‘Lovers Leap,’ you can see it—and you can get a glimpse of it near the market.” As we passed along, I saw Jerome’s X press office in large letters, and then I at once felt at home. “And there,” said he, “is the man himself—a little stiff in the joints, for he is our oldest inhabitant, and nobody knows how old he is. But he is as good as new, and ready always expressly for the occasion. He says he hopes to live until he discovers something a little quicker than lightning, and then he shall be ready to be gathered in.”

  A familiar nod and ready smile from my old friend assured me that in him there was “no mistake.”

  The market, a long and commodious building, extending up the middle of the stream, reminded me of the plan I saw in 1836. It was well filled up with fat carcasses, and fatter men. “Oleaginous” was written on every side—man and beast.

  “How many people have you in this city?”

  “About one hundred thousand,” said he, “according to the last census in 1970.”

  I began to be wearied, and stept into an office to rest. I took up the paper of the day, Sept. 10, 1978, and called “the Bangor Daily News.” It was one of twelve dailies and numerous able weeklies, as I was told. I read, as I could, the news column, but I found many new words, and many old ones strangely altered. I gathered from the paragraphs, that the southern portion of the South American continent, including Cape Horn, had yielded to the inevitable destiny of the Saxon race, and had been conquered and annexed, because they would not give up without fighting. “Later news from the State of Peru,” a paragraph headed, “Presidential election,” attracted my attention. It contained a column of states, fifty-six in number, and at the bottom, “We have partial returns by telegraph, of the voting yesterday at Oregon City. One of the candidates residing in that region, gives great interest to the votes of the Pacific states.” The editor, who was evidently a little of an antiquarian, had hunted up an old file of newspapers, and had copied as curiosities some of the notices of the year 1848, of the “Whig, Democratic and Liberty” parties, and their stirring appeals—and the editor adds, “Can it be believed, that in 1848, men were actually held as chattels, and sold at auction like oxen? We yesterday saw a shipmaster, who told us that he had seen and talked with black men in the south, who were once slaves, and they and their children had been sold by an auctioneer. Thank heaven, we have seen the last of that horrid system.” I took up another paper, in phonographic words. The editor complained, that, although the reformers had worked diligently more than a century, yet the mass of men would persist in rejecting their improvements. As far as I could judge, the parties in politics were divided mainly on the question of the union of the States.

  In an adjoining building was the telegraph office. I looked and saw that instead of wires, they had, near the ground, rails of a small size. I asked why this change, and was told that they sent passengers on them, driven by electricity, to Boston in four minutes.

  “But how can the human system stand such velocity?”

  “O, we ‘stun’ them,” the fellow said, “with the Letheon, and then tie them in boxes on little wheels, and they go safely, and come out bright. There are rival lines,” he continued, “and great efforts are being made to bring the passage within three minutes. We have to put on rather a large dose of Letheon when we attempt this, but the passengers all say they will run the risk of never waking again, rather than be beat. We have had to bury a few, but what is that to saving a minute, and beating the rascally opposition line? The people all say ‘go ahead.’”

  By a sudden transition, I remember not how, I found myself at Mount Hope, the final resting place of the dead. The avenue was shaded delightfully. At the base of the conical hill were two beautiful ponds, surrounded by the weeping willow—that long cherished emblem of sadness and mourning. The garden in front was full of beautiful and fragrant plants. And the grounds sacred to sepulture were filled with all the varied monuments which affectionate love could devise, from the uprising shaft and costly sculpture, to the single rose tree, or the modest violet. I gazed around on the forest, natural and transplanted, which covered all the public and private grounds, and the solid masonry of the stone wall which enclosed the wh
ole area. I sought for familiar names, but long in vain. I found old tombstones at last, some lying on the ground, and others all but illegible. I traced names once familiar and dear, and many, that, had it not been the confusion of a dream, I should have known were now young and full of life and promise. On the tombstone of one who was daily in my sight, the beautiful, the admired in the midst of the years of young existence, I read—”Sacred to the memory of————— —————, who died aged 85 years: bowed down with the weight of years, she was ready to depart.” I saw a funeral procession enter the grounds, and the tears of heartfelt anguish which fell fast and freely from those parents’ eyes as they saw the child of their affections consigned to the silent tomb, testified to me, that as of yore “man was made to mourn,” and that the same hearts yet beat in human bosoms. I saw my own name on a marble headstone, but the tall rank grass hid the date from my vision; but I read such a long list of un-remembered virtues, that a smile which covered my face was very near being turned into a hearty laugh at this to me, tangible evidence of the value of monumental epitaphs.

  Anon the scene changed, and I was on the shore of the Kenduskeag, looking upward to that firm pile of the everlasting rocks, rising perpendicularly from the shore. Man had not changed this, and here I was on my own ground. I saw two lovers in their quiet, slow, and absorbed walk—as they talked in low and touching tones—and watched the eyes, which spoke more effective language than the tongue, and heard them utter vows and build airy castles of future happiness, and I felt that, although art had wrought such mighty revolutions all around me, there was the same interchange of the soft affections of the heart as in my own youthful days, the same undoubting trust and unclouded hopes for the future, which no experience of others could ever calm or conquer.

  Again I was in the busy haunts of men. I heard them conversing at the corners—“Dollars,—thousands!—great bargain!—worth his hundred thousand,” were the emphatic words. This sounded as familiar talk to my ears. The dollar still remained the representative of value, and the idol of men.

  And now I seemed to feel and know that I was in the midst of the twentieth century, and that I was but a spectator, looking at posterity. I was not awed, but curious. The man I had seen before was at my side.

  “My friend!” said I, “do boards sell readily at 21—14—8.”

  He opened wide his eyes, but said nothing.

  “What is the price of stumpage? Does the lumber hold out of a good quality, or is it shaky and concosy? Is Veazie’s boom large enough to hold all that comes down? How does the wood scale hold out?” I poured these questions upon him, but he shook his head in despair.

  “I don’t know what you mean—your terms are all Greek or Indian to me.”

  “You can at least tell me how many million feet of boards are sawed and shipped yearly on the rivers?

  “Million feet!” said he, “I have never heard of such a quantity!”

  “Is not lumber your great staple for export?”

  “Lumber! . . . why, we have not shipped a cargo for fifty years. We have to search closely to get hemlock enough to use here, and as to good pine, we have to depend on Oregon.”

  “And how do you get it?”

  “O,” said he, “by the Oregon railroad, and the lakes, and the St. Lawrence railroad. You see the depot over there.”

  “And what is your business here?”

  “All kinds of trading, and great manufacturing establishments of cotton, woolen and mixed goods, to supply the markets of the world. Do you think we could have built up such a city as this, by chipping up logs with a saw? That might have helped our great-grandfathers, when they lived along side of the Indians. But the vast factories at Treat’s Falls, on the costly dam, and these long rows of warehouses—these extended streets—were never built by the lumber trade. See, yonder, the cathedral, and near to it the spire of the stone church, and all around you the evidences of thrift, and industry, and improvement. See that splendid granite front; within those walls is the Bangor Public Library, open to all, and free to the poor and rich alike, containing seventy thousand volumes, founded in 1848—and ever honored by the name of Vat tern are, who first started the plan—and thanks to those, our predecessors, who followed his suggestions.”

  “Permit me,” said I, “to inquire as to the social arrangements; do men and women yet live in families, or did the reformers of my day succeed in introducing the community system.”

  “O,” said he, “that nonsense died a natural death, and with it the kindred absurdities of women’s rights to participate in government and to direct affairs outdoors as well as in—all this was given up long ago, except, that now and then some old, cross-grained or disappointed maid, sets up a sort of snarl, but nobody minds her, our women bake and darn stockings and tend the babies, and mend their husbands’ clothes, teach their children the way they should go, and walk with them in it, and read their Bibles and as many books as they can find time to. They tried those schemes to which you allude, a great while ago—but nature was too strong for abstract theories, and after a considerable struggle between the sexes, they both became satisfied that it was best to compromise, and let the women rule indoors and the men out.”

  “Not much of a compromise,” said I, “for women always did that.”

  “Well,” said he, “they were satisfied to give up the new schemes (the man somehow seemed now to be aware of my actual condition), for they tried their hands at a little government.”

  “Pray, tell me about it.”

  “Why, they fretted and teased until in several of the states the people, for the sake of quiet, admitted them to a participation on equal footing with men. The first difficulty was in voting at the polls. It was impossible to keep the women within party lines. They would vote for the youngest and handsomest and most agreeable man; and they would see and hear all the candidates, and insisted upon good looks and genteel clothes; and when their own sex were candidates, it was almost impossible to make one woman vote for another. They all liked the men best. But when the legislature met it was impossible to get along at all. One lady had her hair to dress, and could not be in that day. Another was shopping—there were such dear beauties of silks just imported. Another must have leave of absence, for her baby must be looked after. Another would not attend because there was no looking glasses in committee rooms. And yet another because her milliner had made a horrid fit. And those that were there would not observe any rules, but each insisted on talking without stint or limit. And then on committees, the reports were not forthcoming, for the bachelors had been making love to the maids.

  “The members of both sexes were all good looking, but the public business needed some rougher outsides and some better heads than those that belonged to the Adonises of the halls.

  “They once held a private session on matters which required the most profound secrecy. The doors were closed, windows barred; but the next day, before the morning papers were out, the whole matter was the town talk. Upon investigation, it was found that each of the female members had told it, but in strict confidence, as they all declared, to a female friend.”

  I found myself strolling on Broadway, and stood beneath the shade of aged and venerable and wide-spreading elms, “still wearing proudly their panoply of green,” extending as far as the eye could reach on each side of the spacious central walk. I saw the children at their sports beneath the arching canopy, and heard the same animated cries and joyous shouts, and earnest vociferations, which had always been the characteristics of childhood. I saw the marbles and the hoops, and the bat and ball—all familiar and unaltered. A bevy of girls and boys were engaged in reading books. I looked over their shoulders and saw “Mother Goose’s Melodies,” with the old pictures, “Robinson Crusoe,” in his hairy skin suit, and one sober miss intent on the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It seemed there were some books that would never been consigned to oblivion.

  I passed into a bookstore, but I remember only that I saw the old Saxon Bible
in King James’s translation, Shakespeare, and Milton, and Robert Burns, and Don Quixote. I asked if they had a copy of the Bangor Book?

  “O yes,” said the shopman, and handed me a thick octavo. It was the Bangor Directory for 1978.

  “I mean,” said I, “the work published in 1847; surely that must have survived, for it was preserved by attic salt in blue covers, and contained the best efforts of the Penobscot mind in prose and verse; we all looked to posterity for our reward.”

  “Never heard of it,” said the man.

  A little dried-up specimen of a man who was poring over a book in a corner, addressing me, said, “I have seen that book, I am quite sure, at least the outside of it, in one of the alcoves of the rooms of the Antiquarian Society, labeled ‘the day of small things,’ where are kept the relics and curiosities of the first settlements on the river, and also Indian gouges, axes and hatchets, miniature birch canoes, and the portrait of the Buskahegian Giant, so called.”

  “Is there not also one of the striped pig?”

  “I never saw any,” quoth he.

  “Speaking of the striped pig,” said I, “have you any licensed grog-shops?”

  “O no, we have conquered King Alcohol, and are all temperance men now; and the ladies of the present time look with wonder and dismay in their countenances, when they are informed that their sex did once even here by their example countenance the use of wine as a beverage in their evening levees!”

  Once more in the street I moved toward my home as I remembered it. As I passed onward, I was attracted by a beautiful arch at the entrance of a substantial, elegant, and commodious building, bearing this inscription: “The Bangor Female Orphan Asylum, founded in 1839, and sustained by the benevolence of its citizens.” I looked with interest on the groups of healthy, happy, and well conditioned children, but alas! I was reminded of the dreaded “article,” and the faces before so pleasant seemed to change into looks of reproach and regret. I involuntarily exclaimed—“Where shall I find a subject, and finish the task appointed me?” I looked up and recognized the same orphan face that appeared at my bedside, tranquil and satisfied; and the little urchin with a triumphant smile replied,—“It is completed.”