The Morgesons | Page 4

high gateposts, which had a flat top, and take there the
position of the little girl in "The Shawl Dance." I had no sooner taken it
than Aunt Merce appeared at the door, and gave a shriek at the sight,
which tempted me to jump toward her with extended arms. I was seized
and carried into the house, where supper was administered, and I was
put to bed.
CHAPTER II.
At this time I was ten years old. We lived in a New England village,
Surrey, which was situated on an inlet of a large bay that opened into
the Atlantic. From the observatory of our house we could see how the
inlet was pinched by the long claws of the land, which nearly enclosed
it. Opposite the village, some ten miles across, a range of islands shut
out the main waters of the bay. For miles on the outer side of the
curving prongs of land stretched a rugged, desolate coast, indented with
coves and creeks, lined with bowlders of granite half sunken in the sea,

and edged by beaches overgrown with pale sedge, or covered with beds
of seaweed. Nothing alive, except the gulls, abode on these solitary
shores. No lighthouse stood on any point, to shake its long, warning
light across the mariners' wake. Now and then a drowned man floated
in among the sedge, or a small craft went to pieces on the rocks. When
an easterly wind prevailed, the coast resounded with the bellowing sea,
which brought us tidings from those inaccessible spots. We heard its
roar as it leaped over the rocks on Gloster Point, and its long, unbroken
wail when it rolled in on Whitefoot Beach. In mild weather, too, when
our harbor was quiet, we still heard its whimper. Behind the village, the
ground rose toward the north, where the horizon was bounded by
woods of oak and pine, intersected by crooked roads, which led to
towns and villages near us. The inland scenery was tame; no hill or dale
broke its dull uniformity. Cornfields and meadows of red grass walled
with gray stone, lay between the village and the border of the woods.
Seaward it was enchanting--beautiful under the sun and moon and
clouds. Our family had lived in Surrey for years. Probably some
Puritan of the name of Morgeson had moved from an earlier settlement,
and, appropriating a few acres in what was now its center, lived long
enough upon them to see his sons and daughters married to the sons
and daughters of similar settlers. So our name was in perpetuation,
though none of our race ever made a mark in his circle, or attained a
place among the great ones of his day. The family recipes for curing
herbs and hams, and making cordials, were in better preservation than
the memory of their makers. It is certain that they were not a
progressive or changeable family. No tradition of any individuality
remains concerning them. There was a confusion in the minds of the
survivors of the various generations about the degree of their
relationship to those who were buried, and whose names and ages
simply were cut in the stones which headed their graves. The meum and
tuum of blood were inextricably mixed; so they contented themselves
with giving their children the old Christian names which were carved
on the headstones, and which, in time, added a still more profound
darkness to the anti-heraldic memory of the Morgesons. They had no
knowledge of that treasure which so many of our New England families
are boastful of--the Ancestor who came over in the Mayflower, or by
himself, with a grant of land from Parliament. It was not known

whether two or three brothers sailed together from the Old World and
settled in the New. They had no portrait, nor curious chair, nor rusty
weapon--no old Bible, nor drinking cup, nor remnant of brocade.
Morgeson--Born--Lived--Died--were all their archives. But there is a
dignity in mere perpetuity, a strength in the narrowest affinities. This
dignity and strength were theirs. They are still vital in our rural
population. Occasionally something fine is their result; an aboriginal
reappears to prove the plastic powers of nature.
My great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, the old man whose head I saw
bound in a red handkerchief, was the first noticeable man of the name.
He was a scale of enthusiasms, ranging from the melancholy to the
sarcastic. When I heard him talked of, it seemed to me that he was born
under the influence of the sea, while the rest of the tribe inherited the
character of the landscape. Comprehension of life, and comprehension
of self, came too late for him to make either of value. The spirit of
progress, however, which prompted his schemes benefited others. The
most that