My Friends at Brook Farm | Page 9

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.
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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 then re-embark without attracting too much attention. In this leisurely progress through towns and villages and farming neighborhoods, something like a real acquaintance could be made with persons and with places not otherwise to be formed except perhaps on a tour afoot. Lasting friendships and even romances have resulted, before now, from the exchange of greetings and gossip between packet-passengers and people on the canal bank waiting for papers, packages, or messages, or merely interested in seeing the Swiftsure boat go by.
The last of the Swiftsure boats went by, long,