Philip Winwood | Page 9

a great commerce which
touched so distant shores, and so many countries, of the world. He used
to watch the vessels sail, on the few and far-between days when there
were departures, and wish, with inward sighs, that he might sail with
them. A longing to see the great world, the Europe of history, the
Britain of his ancestors, had been implanted in him by his reading,

before he had come to New York, and the desire was but intensified by
his daily contact with the one end of a trade whose other end lay
beyond the ocean.
Outside of the hours of business, Philip's place was that of a member of
the Faringfield household, where, save in the one respect that after his
first night it was indeed the garret room that fell to him, he was on
terms of equality with the children. Ned alone, of them all, affected
toward him the manner of a superior to a dependent. Whatever were
Philip's feelings regarding this attitude of the elder son, he kept them
locked within, and had no more to say to Master Ned than absolute
civility required. With the two girls and little Tom, and with me, he was,
evenings and Sundays, the pleasantest playfellow in the world.
Ungrudgingly he gave up to us, once we had made the overtures, the
time he would perhaps rather have spent over his books; for he had
brought a few of these from Philadelphia, a fact which accounted for
the exceeding heaviness of his travelling bag, and he had access, of
course, to those on Mr. Faringfield's shelves. His compliance with our
demands was the more kind, as I afterward began to see, for that his
day's work often left him quite tired out. Of this we never thought; we
were full of the spirits pent up all day at school, Madge and Fanny
being then learners at the feet of a Boston maiden lady in our street,
while I yawned and idled my hours away on the hard benches of a
Dutch schoolmaster near the Broadway, under whom Ned Faringfield
also was a student. But fresh as we were, and tired as Philip was, he
was always ready for a romp in our back yard, or a game of
hide-and-seek in the Faringfields' gardens, or a chase all the way over
to the Bowling Green, or all the way up to the Common where the town
ended and the Bowery lane began.
But it soon came out that Phil's books were not neglected, either. The
speed with which his candles burnt down, and required renewal, told of
nocturnal studies in his garret. As these did not perceptibly interfere
with his activity the next day, they were viewed by Mr. Faringfield
rather with commendation than otherwise, and so were allowed to
continue. My mother thought it a sin that no one interfered to prevent

the boy's injuring his health; but when she said this to Phil himself, he
only smiled and answered that if his reading did cost him anything of
health, 'twas only fair a man should pay something for his pleasures.
My mother's interest in the matter arose from a real liking. She saw
much of Philip, for he and the three younger Faringfields were as often
about our house as about their own. Ours was not nearly as fine; 'twas a
white-painted wooden house, like those in New England, but roomy
enough for its three only occupants, my mother and me and the maid.
We were not rich, but neither were we of the poorest. My father, the
predecessor of Mr. Aitken in the customs office, had left sufficient
money in the English funds at his death, to keep us in the decent
circumstances we enjoyed, and there was yet a special fund reserved
for my education. So we could be neighbourly with the Faringfields,
and were so; and so all of us children, including Philip, were as much at
home in the one house as in the other.
One day, in the Fall of that year of Philip's arrival, we young ones were
playing puss-in-a-corner in the large garden--half orchard, half
vegetable plantation--that formed the rear of the Faringfields' grounds.
It was after Phil's working hours, and a pleasant, cool, windy evening.
The maple leaves were yellowing, the oak leaves turning red. I
remember how the wind moved the apple-tree boughs, and the yellow
corn-stalks waiting to be cut and stacked as fodder. (When I speak of
corn, I do not use the word in the English sense, of grain in general, but
in the American sense, meaning maize, of which there are two kinds,
the sweet kind being most delicious to eat, as either kind is a beautiful
sight when standing in the field, the tall stalks