Sketches from Concord and Appledore | Page 5

Though the eldest was not more than seventeen, the Bigelow girls, as they were called from the blacksmith's family name, took the lead in Concord social life for the time being, and gave a tone to it. Their influence helped to make the boys more manly and the other girls more respectful.
Such a trio could not long escape the notice of the Harvard students, a number of whom made their acquaintance through graduates of the school; and one of them, inspired with admiration, composed a song which was quite popular at the time, beginning thus:
"There was an old lady in Concord did dwell, Who had but three boarders, and each one a belle; Grace, Jennie and Maggie, more priceless than pearls; Then here's to the health of the Bigelow girls."
Truly the days of their youth were the days of their glory; but it is not so for everyone. In fact many of us never obtain any glory. And who is that plainly dressed girl with the meekly determined look who goes back and forth so quietly and regularly? If you speak to her she will smile, but her voice is not often heard. It is Miss Evans' Mary Garth, or the prototype of Louisa Alcott's "Old Fashioned Girl." She is the best scholar in school, and already has important plans in her mind for the future.
Mr. Alcott would sometimes come in on a Wednesday afternoon, listen to the declamations and afterwards give his young friends a conversation on the faculties of the human mind. He was an agreeable speaker, and knew how to hold the attention of his youthful audience. On one of these occasions while he was discoursing on the higher mental faculties which are not possessed by the lower animals, a small boy suddenly called out from his corner, "Dogs have a conscience; I've seen it." The whole school roared at this, and it nearly disconcerted Mr. Alcott; but he quickly recovered himself, and explained that the apprehension of punishment often supplies the place of a conscience in dogs, as well as in boys and men; and a highly interesting discussion ensued on this subject. Such a method of instruction was highly refreshing after the dry routine in Latin and mathematics.
There was a yearly nutting excursion in October to Esterbrook farm where there were tall chestnut trees, flying squirrels and plenty of wood for a bonfire. May-day was usually celebrated at Conantum,--a pine-clad hill on the south side of Fairhaven Bay, opposite the cliffs. As soon as winter came committees were chosen to provide dancing or theatricals for every Friday evening; but the climax of pleasure was a half-holiday for a skating carnival on Walden Pond,--where Thoreau was sure to be present, and also a Miss Caroline Moore, daughter of the deputy sheriff, and afterwards widely known in Europe and America as the skatorial queen.
"Three cheers for the Giver of this glorious afternoon," and then the caps would go up in the air, and the rocks and hills echo the hoarse shouts of the boys. I can hear now the jingling of the skates, the crackling of the snow and the merry laughter as we came from under the pine trees of Walden into the keen starlight, with the great comet streaming in front of us.
On the first of May, 1859, Emerson wrote in a letter to Carlyle: "My boy divides his time between Cicero and cricket,--and will go to college next year. Sam Ward and I tickled each other the other day, in looking over a very good company of young people, by finding in the newcomers a marked improvement on their parents."
There are those who still remember seeing the two distinguished men on the Concord playground, and wondering what they thought of it. Mr. Ward came to place his boy under Mr. Sanborn's care; and a remarkable boy he proved to be,--equally generous, fearless and high-minded. Twenty years later, that same boy, looking out of his New York office window, saw his former guide and preceptor striding through Wall Street. He rushed down the stairs, and out upon the sidewalk, but the friend of his youth had disappeared and was nowhere to be found.
With two or three exceptions, Mr. Sanborn's young men held him in high regard, and when, in 1860, the United States marshals tried to carry him off by force to testify at Washington in regard to the Harper's Ferry invasion, they all rushed to his rescue, and foremost among them a Baltimore boy, who had been cursing his teacher as an infernal abolitionist for the previous six months.
Mr. Sanborn is much better known for his connection with the Harper's Ferry invasion than for his Concord school, or later service on the board of State Charities. He was secretary of the Kansas Aid Committee