CREEK ROAD GANG
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Autobiography of
Nathaniel Watson Ladd
(1848-1932)
Part 10
Editor's note:
This
is the tenth and final excerpt from the autobiographical manuscript left by
Nathaniel Watson Ladd. See Author Index
Prose L to Z for prior installments.
Born in 1848 in Derry, New Hampshire, the second child and first son of Daniel and Lucy Ladd, Nathaniel Watson Ladd went on to graduate from Dartmouth College and to study law at Boston University. He became a Boston lawyer and political figure, serving on the Boston Common Council, and later in the State Legislature. He was also a founder of the Boston Athletic Association. He died in 1932.
During my life in Derry, my cousin, Mirandus, was my bête noir. He led me into many scrapes and difficulties by getting me to stone a neighbor’s old barn, and one time, when we were attending a social function at the Church, he discovered a hole in the seat of my trousers and pulled out the corner of my shirt to make me an object of ridicule. But I think he was really of help to me, because when I was in a store in Kittery and heard that his father was sending him to Dartmouth College, it became one of the reasons why I wanted to go; because he was evidently getting ahead of me. My life at that time was less than a year and a half in Derry, and I was at the harum scarum age of thirteen and did not care much what happened; but I grieved over the incident, because I saw that it troubled my mother very much, as she was just moving into the town where her father lived.
Mirandus’ father bought him a new sled and he was dragging about on it a very pretty girl. I must confess that I envied him the privilege. That girl’s mother married the father of my red-headed flame at Tin Corner and bore him a daughter, born about the time I was going to school there. My cousin Mirandus, having previously been sent away from Dartmouth on account of an escapade there, married, and had one daughter. He taught school, but had trouble with the treatment of some of the larger girls. He failed to take care of his family, and was finally found on the floor in a room in a lodging house on Shawmut Avenue in Boston, dead with the gas turned on, and his thrifty brother had to bury him.
Years afterward, I happened to be in Tilton and saw that pretty girl whom he had been dragging on his sled. She was being taken care of by that baby, with the most devoted care. They were half sisters, and the baby was the only one left of all that family. The pretty girl was dying of cancer. We had a pleasant afternoon. She {ed.: the baby} had arranged it so that none of the clothing except the lightest possible material could touch her half sister. She herself took pains to show me that she had considerable wealth, being the only one left of that thrifty farmer and his family. But in spite of her evident devotion to her sister, I was not attracted, because my Aunt Mary had made a remark which showed me that there was scandalous talk about her and a boy with whom I had played baseball when I was living with my grandfather.
{ed.: When Ladd lived on a farm, working for the farmer, after the death of his father} The farm work was quite interesting. All the fences had to be up by the 20th of April because that was the beginning of the pasturage season. Sometimes in the dense woods, the ice would hardly be out of the ground, and it was often difficult to drive stakes. There was a lavish use of fire wood, because the natural growth of the wood on the farm provided amply for it, but some of the habits were remarkable. I learned there many lessons of economy, for example, there was an open fire going continuously, and although they used the cheapest kind of cord matches, it was the habit of the women folks to roll up square pieces of news paper into what they called tapers. Lighting them by the open fire, they used them to save matches.
Harriet the maid was supposed to be in poor health, but she worked consistently and they {ed.: Harriet and the farmer’s wife} both received pittances for braiding straw hats, because it was a job they could take home. One peculiarity of Harriet was that she had been told by the doctor that she must not raise her hands to her head any more than she could help.
The wife told me that her husband was thirteen years older than she and that he was not company enough for her, the difference in age was too great. As I have said, she was always talking to me about the girls and warned me against one girl in the neighborhood. One time, I remember, she described when she was going up the hill to see Aunt Tabby, her husband’s sister, who lived next door. A gentleman looked at her with considerable scorn and disgust in his face, and she discovered afterwards that her dress was turned up on the side.
But in spite of all these confidences, and in some respects, peculiar circumstances, the thought never entered my mind that there was anything improper about them. Therefore, I can well understand that the relations of Washington and Lady Fairfax were perfectly proper, as I believe they were, for I do not believe that any improper thought was in the farmer’s wife’s mind, for she was a Christian woman.
Years afterward, when I called on her, and told her that I had been engaged to marry a very handsome woman, whom I had taken to a reception of a United States President and his wife, and she was one of the handsomest women there. I was fortunate enough to discover before marrying that she had been criminally intimate with a married man for years before I had met her, and carried on the criminal intimacy all the time I was going with her, about a year. She {ed.: the farmer’s wife} said she did not believe in long engagements, that it was her opinion it would have been all right for me to have married that woman. I must confess I did not understand it then, and cannot now.
There are only two women in this world who have any just cause to complain of my treatment of them. The first was my washwoman the four years I was in college. She told me I ought to be married, and she told me again and again and repeatedly until it got to be very tiresome. I am not going to tell what I said to her because I am ashamed of it. It was like using a sledge hammer to crush a butterfly, but it stopped all talk of that kind between us as effectually as Calvin Coolidge’s declaration “I do not choose to run for President in 1928” stopped the then false slogan of the third term against him.
The other {ed.: woman} was a very dear friend of mine, a lady to whom I think it was my duty to have offered myself, for my own benefit and satisfaction, but not for hers, because, in my opinion, she married a better man, certainly a more wealthy man.
Born in 1848 in Derry, New Hampshire, the second child and first son of Daniel and Lucy Ladd, Nathaniel Watson Ladd went on to graduate from Dartmouth College and to study law at Boston University. He became a Boston lawyer and political figure, serving on the Boston Common Council, and later in the State Legislature. He was also a founder of the Boston Athletic Association. He died in 1932.
During my life in Derry, my cousin, Mirandus, was my bête noir. He led me into many scrapes and difficulties by getting me to stone a neighbor’s old barn, and one time, when we were attending a social function at the Church, he discovered a hole in the seat of my trousers and pulled out the corner of my shirt to make me an object of ridicule. But I think he was really of help to me, because when I was in a store in Kittery and heard that his father was sending him to Dartmouth College, it became one of the reasons why I wanted to go; because he was evidently getting ahead of me. My life at that time was less than a year and a half in Derry, and I was at the harum scarum age of thirteen and did not care much what happened; but I grieved over the incident, because I saw that it troubled my mother very much, as she was just moving into the town where her father lived.
Mirandus’ father bought him a new sled and he was dragging about on it a very pretty girl. I must confess that I envied him the privilege. That girl’s mother married the father of my red-headed flame at Tin Corner and bore him a daughter, born about the time I was going to school there. My cousin Mirandus, having previously been sent away from Dartmouth on account of an escapade there, married, and had one daughter. He taught school, but had trouble with the treatment of some of the larger girls. He failed to take care of his family, and was finally found on the floor in a room in a lodging house on Shawmut Avenue in Boston, dead with the gas turned on, and his thrifty brother had to bury him.
Years afterward, I happened to be in Tilton and saw that pretty girl whom he had been dragging on his sled. She was being taken care of by that baby, with the most devoted care. They were half sisters, and the baby was the only one left of all that family. The pretty girl was dying of cancer. We had a pleasant afternoon. She {ed.: the baby} had arranged it so that none of the clothing except the lightest possible material could touch her half sister. She herself took pains to show me that she had considerable wealth, being the only one left of that thrifty farmer and his family. But in spite of her evident devotion to her sister, I was not attracted, because my Aunt Mary had made a remark which showed me that there was scandalous talk about her and a boy with whom I had played baseball when I was living with my grandfather.
{ed.: When Ladd lived on a farm, working for the farmer, after the death of his father} The farm work was quite interesting. All the fences had to be up by the 20th of April because that was the beginning of the pasturage season. Sometimes in the dense woods, the ice would hardly be out of the ground, and it was often difficult to drive stakes. There was a lavish use of fire wood, because the natural growth of the wood on the farm provided amply for it, but some of the habits were remarkable. I learned there many lessons of economy, for example, there was an open fire going continuously, and although they used the cheapest kind of cord matches, it was the habit of the women folks to roll up square pieces of news paper into what they called tapers. Lighting them by the open fire, they used them to save matches.
Harriet the maid was supposed to be in poor health, but she worked consistently and they {ed.: Harriet and the farmer’s wife} both received pittances for braiding straw hats, because it was a job they could take home. One peculiarity of Harriet was that she had been told by the doctor that she must not raise her hands to her head any more than she could help.
The wife told me that her husband was thirteen years older than she and that he was not company enough for her, the difference in age was too great. As I have said, she was always talking to me about the girls and warned me against one girl in the neighborhood. One time, I remember, she described when she was going up the hill to see Aunt Tabby, her husband’s sister, who lived next door. A gentleman looked at her with considerable scorn and disgust in his face, and she discovered afterwards that her dress was turned up on the side.
But in spite of all these confidences, and in some respects, peculiar circumstances, the thought never entered my mind that there was anything improper about them. Therefore, I can well understand that the relations of Washington and Lady Fairfax were perfectly proper, as I believe they were, for I do not believe that any improper thought was in the farmer’s wife’s mind, for she was a Christian woman.
Years afterward, when I called on her, and told her that I had been engaged to marry a very handsome woman, whom I had taken to a reception of a United States President and his wife, and she was one of the handsomest women there. I was fortunate enough to discover before marrying that she had been criminally intimate with a married man for years before I had met her, and carried on the criminal intimacy all the time I was going with her, about a year. She {ed.: the farmer’s wife} said she did not believe in long engagements, that it was her opinion it would have been all right for me to have married that woman. I must confess I did not understand it then, and cannot now.
There are only two women in this world who have any just cause to complain of my treatment of them. The first was my washwoman the four years I was in college. She told me I ought to be married, and she told me again and again and repeatedly until it got to be very tiresome. I am not going to tell what I said to her because I am ashamed of it. It was like using a sledge hammer to crush a butterfly, but it stopped all talk of that kind between us as effectually as Calvin Coolidge’s declaration “I do not choose to run for President in 1928” stopped the then false slogan of the third term against him.
The other {ed.: woman} was a very dear friend of mine, a lady to whom I think it was my duty to have offered myself, for my own benefit and satisfaction, but not for hers, because, in my opinion, she married a better man, certainly a more wealthy man.
