My Friends at Brook Farm | Page 9

Brook Farm call." It went to California with a young married
couple in the early fifties; to China with one of our boys who became
the Captain of a Pacific steamer; to Spain and to Russia with another in
the United States diplomatic service; to Italy with two girls whose
father was an artist; to the Philippines with students returning to their
home in Manila, and to all quarters where Brook Farmers found their
way, as they seem always to have remembered it.
A peculiarity which may have helped keep it in mind was that it
consisted of two parts, the summons, and the response; the first part
differing slightly from the second, to distinguish friend answering
friend from the stranger merely imitating sounds accidentally or
incidentally heard. Just what the difference was may be learned from
the notation here given.
Another peculiarity of the call was that it had the quality of taking
character from the person uttering it. For example, Annie Page was the
girl I most devotedly admired, and when "she gaed me her answer true"
in response to my signal, her musical little trill sounded to me like the
voice of the thrush that sang down in the pine woods. Per contra, there
was Frank Barlow, whom we used to call "Crazy Barlow" because of
his headlong rush at whatever object he had in view, and he could make
the call shrill and thrill like a fife.

[Music: The Brook Farm Call]
[Music: BOY'S ANSWERING CALL]
[Music: GIRL'S ANSWERING CALL]
I met Frank one morning in the later days of the Civil War when he
was striding along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington at his usual
breakneck pace. He was Major General Barlow, then, one of the great
generals of the Union Army, but he was, first, last and always, a Brook
Farmer, so I signaled to him with the same old call. He came to an
abrupt halt, answered my greeting and dashed across the Avenue with
both hands extended. Neither of us had more than a short allowance of
time, but we could do no less than adjourn to a convenient resort for a
good hearty talk about the old days in West Roxbury.
Other experiences with the call have come to me since then but none
that I remember with more pleasure. To-day there are few or none to
answer, no matter how earnestly I might sound the old appeal. As may
be seen above, the little succession of notes is very simple, but they
convey a world meaning to my old ear.
If two little Dutch boys in the Old Colonie composed this memorable
opus they surely did better than they knew, but my notion is they must
have heard something like it and repeated the sounds without being
aware that they were merely memories, not original inventions. The
boatmen on the Erie Canal announced their entry into the Albany basin
by blowing a horn, commonly a tin horn, harsh and discordant. The
passenger packets, however, having to "come into port grandly"
sounded a bugle flourish, sometimes really melodious. It may have
been these bugle notes, impressing their sweet succession on
sub-conscious young minds, that afforded the first suggestion of the
Brook Farm call.
* * * * *
As my readers may note with more or less patience, it takes time for
New Netherland folk to get started on a long journey. Ours was a long

journey, in truth, as it required two days and a night to accomplish it.
The express schedule on the Boston and Albany Railroad is four hours
between the two cities; but there was no express travel in the forties
except by passenger packets on the Erie Canal, above referred to. These
fast flyers raced along at the top speed of four miles an hour making
stops only at the locks or bridges or to change horses or to take
someone on board or to let someone step ashore. If my mother's visits
to her relatives extended as far as Schenectady, she made the journey in
one of these Swiftsure liners, perhaps the Swallow, or the Gleam or the
Alida, usually accompanied by one or two of us children; and a very
pleasant journey it was to be sure in fair weather. To glide smoothly
along through the country on the deck of a canal boat is a method of
locomotion affording opportunities to view the landscape o'er with
much comfort and constant though not too rapid changes of
entertainment. Necessarily running as near the shore as possible, a
slight shift of the tiller by an obliging helmsman would enable a small
boy to effect a landing and take a quick look into the canal blacksmith
shop, or to walk a stretch with the youth driving the horses, and