One morning;—it happened to be September 3rd of that year—Louis Henri Sullivan arose early and sallied forth in pomp and pride. On the Stoneham road he met a farmer friend:
“Hello! Do you know I am eight years old today?”
“No, wall, wall, that’s fine. Heow old did yeh say yeh be?”
“I am Eight! Don’t you think I’m a big boy now? Do you want to feel my muscle?”
“My sakes—but yeh aire strong!”
“Yes I am. I can lift a stone almost as big as my grandfather can; but of course he’s older.”
“How old did yeh say yeh be?”
“I say I am eight years old today and I want you to know it. Do you want to pound my chest?”
“Can’t say’s I do.”
“You may pound my chest as hard as you like and I won’t say a word. Have you noticed my new boots? It’s my first pair. My grandma gave them to me for my birthday.”
“No I hadn’t saw them.”
“Well, look at them now. See; they’re copper-toed and have red tops. Don’t you think they’re fine?”
“Yaas; how old did yeh say yeh be? I think yeh got a mighty fine granny t’give yeh them boots.”
And the Ancient doddered down the road dustily regurgitating the thoughts of his childhood now become decayed and senile; while bounding boyhood clattered on, from house to house, from field to field, wherever might be found man, woman, or child to whom he might sing his own saga in vainglory. For was he not right? Was he not Eight? Was he not heroically aware that that day he was crossing the invisible line between childhood and boyhood? Were not the gaudy boots his plain certificate of valor and of deeds done and to be done? Were they not for him symbols of that manhood toward which he so ardently yearned that his pride might come to the full? He said it was so. In this joyous mood was his saga sung, as of one with a growing faith.
Then came, as it were, a bugle call from the south. He answered the call in person. Boston City swallowed him up.
The effect was immediately disastrous. As one might move a flourishing plant from the open to a dark cellar, and imprison it there, so the miasma of the big city poisoned a small boy acutely sensitive to his surroundings. He mildewed; and the leaves and buds of ambition fell from him. In those about him, already city-poisoned, even in his own kin, he found no solace, and ceased openly to lament. Against the big city his heart swelled in impatient, impotent rebellion. Its many streets, its crooked streets, its filthy streets, lined with stupid houses crowded together shoulder to shoulder like selfish hogs upon these trough-like lanes, irritated him, suffocated him; the crowds of people, and wagons, hurrying here and there so aimlessly—as it appeared to him—confused and overwhelmed him, arousing amazement, nausea and dismay. As he thought of the color, the open beauty of his beloved South Reading, and the great grand doings of Newburyport, where men did things; where there was obvious, purposeful action; an exhibit of sublime power; the city of Boston seemed a thing already in decay. He was so saddened, so bewildered, so grieved, that his sorrow, his bitter disappointment, could find no adequate utterance and relief. Hence he kept it all within himself, and became drugged to the point of lassitude and despair. The prospect of a whole winter to be spent within these confines, shut out from the open world that had been growing so large and splendid for him, filled him at times with a sudden frantic desire to escape. Had not his father at once taken up again the rigorous training of cold baths and outdoor exercise, had he not taken him on long walks to Roxbury, to Dorchester, even to Brookline, where the boy might see a bit of green and an opening-up of things, the boy would surely have carried out his resolution to run away. To run where? Anywhere to liberty and freedom!
He had partly revived from the first shock, when his ruthless father placed him in the Brimmer School on Common Street. Louis found it vile; unspeakably gloomy; a filthy prison for children. He learned nothing. There was no one to teach him, and what he saw there shall not be recorded here. So passed the winter; Louis looking, ever aimlessly, yearning, for a teacher. As a rose springs upward from the muck and puts forth gracious blooming, even so out of the muck of this school a reaction sprang up, a fervent hungered yearning within, for a kindred spirit to arise that might illumine him and in whom he might rejoice; a spirit utterly human that would break down the dam made within him by sanctioned suppressions and routine, that there might pour out of him the gathered cesspool, and the waters of his life again flow on. Of such a nature was the hunger of a well-fed child.
As the Boston winter of ’64 was groaning on its way to the tomb of all winters, Mamma was again stricken with diphtheria; and again she recovered. The city winter passed, a city springtime passed. With vacation at hand, Louis returned to his grandparents, resumed his activities now enlarged in scope, and in the fall returned to the City, his wounds somewhat healed. He was immediately placed in the newly organized Rice School—temporarily housed in another gloomy structure, but not so foul—at that time situated on the west side of Washington Street and a short distance south of Dover Street. Here he learned nothing at first except in-so-far as there was a sort of mechanical infiltration going on. But, at a nearby book store, Beadle’s Dime Novels appeared in a whirlwind of popularity. Louis Sullivan pounced upon them. He devoured the raw melodramas and cried for more. Here at last was Romance! Here again were great men
