Ella and I

My plan is to follow Ella’s diary through the year, and to comment on the entry.  There is no entry for this date.  Until I looked through birth and death records for the Fisher family at the Vergennes City Clerk’s office, I was very worried about this.  Ella’s youngest son, Benjamin,  had been very ill, and there were no entries for several weeks.  She did not say that he had died, and I suspect she would have, since she was a very active church-goer (she was a pillar of the First Baptist Church in Vergennes–more on this someday!).  But he did not die, and I have no idea why she didn’t make entries.  Benjamin went on to become Mayor of St. Albans, Vermont, where I lived for five years of my childhood.

This may be a strange way to unfold Ella’s story, but it has been unfolding strangely for me. . .bits and pieces of her life coming to my attention, nothing in order.  So this is what it is.  

Here also is one of her poems, appropriate for this cold windy morning, 4 miles from Ella’s Vergennes home:

AUTUMN WINDS

The leaves are falling. . . falling,

Small quivering things at play,

And the wind in little flurries

Is whirling them away.

The crows are leaving. . . leaving

Along the mottled sky. . .

This morning at my window

I saw them southward fly.

My wilted flowers have drained

The summer’s brimming cup,

And the grass is frosted, waxen,

Ere the tardy sun comes up.

The winter is coming. . . coming,

It tingles in the air,

And the whispering winds of autumn

Are searching everywhere.

Mon., Feb 26 A bright day. Snow piled in drifts very cold. Mend a little. Send papers to Father, Carrie & Ruth. Grace Parker comes home with the children.

I think from earlier diaries that Father is Henry’s father. And here’s a poem from “Homeland in the North” that does a pretty good job of the end of February.

FEBRUARY

The winter was dull and lifeless,
Soon melted the fleeting snows,
Rains washed the unlovely ground
Patched with soiled snow
On the forgotten stubble
Of a dead autumn.

February was going out!
Dismally it rained!
Then softly the snow fell,
It coated the patched and ugly ground,
The dripping thorn bushes,
The brown roofs between the sodden trees,
The woods, rising in a feathery hedge
Above the whitened pasture slopes. . .

February, wrapped in a snowy mantle,
Passed out in a burst of sunshine
To make room for the month
Of the Spring!

(1927)

Reading Ella’s diary I got the impression that the family was financially comfortable, though not wealthy. Ella very rarely expressed feelings in her diary–but here is a poem expressing her strong feelings about money!

MONEY MAD

Jingle! Jingle!
Stamped pieces of metal
Cold to the touch,
Rich man and beggar
Hasten to clutch.
Illiterate and scholar
Flushed and enrapt,
Snared and entrapped
By the hard clinking dollar.

Jingle! Jingle!
To money mad man
Valleyward speeding,
Rushing to clutch
Signals unheeding. . .
“Fame is a bauble,
Love is a dream,
God’s on a journey,
Gold is agleam.”

Jingle! Jingle!
Cold is the valley,
Mists rolling near;
Stamped pieces of metal
Like wraiths disappear.
At the end of life’s span
Illiterate or scholar,
Poor is the man
Who chased the hard dollar.

I recently read an obituary in the newspaper of another of Ella’s descendants–and I now know that there are three great-great grandchildren for me to track down. I’m waiting to discover that somewhere back when I’m related to her. It wouldn’t surprise me; my great-grandparents had a farm in Ferrisburgh, after all.

Here is Ella’s November poem, from the book “Homeland in the North.” Tomorrow I will post a diary entry, at last!

NOVEMBER

Dark clouds are driven across the sky
As the mournful winds go fitfully by;
They whisper and wail thru the branches bare,
They fret and sting in the frosty air,
And secrets they tell as they searching pass
Where the leaves lie thick on the sodden grass.

In some vast amphitheatre, some awful height,
The forces of air have gathered in might;
Adown the wild November sky
In solid phalanx their horsemen fly,
They have blotted the sun in the murk of night;
I hear the carousal of mad delight,
Their hoofbeats against the window pane,
As they drench the earth with sheets of rain.

Sat, Nov 3 Work hard all day. Mother too sick to sit up. Ashton, Hattie, Lu, the dog & the Baby come to supper. Call Doctor Willard for Mother.

I don’t know who Lu and the baby are. Before I looked at the census records, I thought perhaps they were Ashton & Hattie’s children, but in the 1900 census, Hattie Fisher was “the mother of 0 children,” and in the 1910 census, their oldest child was 9.

This poem is from “Homeland in the North.”

TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

“A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.”

Ill and helpless, white and still,
A little child was lying,
While behind the western hills
The day was softly dying.
A mother bent above the bed,
An Angel questing there,
And watchers waiting for the end
Heard the voice of prayer . . .
She clasped the unresisting hands . . .
“I lay me down to sleep. . .
Say it for mother, dear,” she said,
“. . .This precious soul to keep.”
Slowly the closed eyes opened . . .
A flash of love and light . . .
Like curtain raised and dropped again . . .
Like closing down of night.
The Angel’s arms were empty
When she sought her place above . . .
She left the child to satisfy
A mother’s deathless love.

l’envoi

The Angel has taken from that room
Thru silent years bereft . . .
Of the group who waited in the gloom
Only the child is left!

[About 1858]

(I assume that the date refers to the event described.)

Mon, Nov 5 Hattie & Lu go to White River Junction on morning train. Ashton here to an early dinner. I drive him to the station at 10 o’clock. Call at Mrs. Pierce’s & get Hattie’s begonia. Tuttle goes to Middlebury.

In the “Accounts” section in the back of the diary, Ella listed “Board–$4.00,” as income every week. Recently I learned that the “Tuttle” mentioned here was the boarder, as well as a family friend and lawyer. Also in the back of the diary are addresses for Ashton. I don’t know where he was going, but maybe it was to one of these places:

Ashton
No 3 (blotted) View Terrace
Morris Heights
New York

N. S. Torpedo Station
Newport R.I.
c/o Bailey

and another address that I think might refer to Ashton, given his occupation as “boat engineer:”

D P MacQueen
Mohawk
(?) & Detroit: Mt
Clymers & New York
of the Skenectady Locomotion works
Kid Wilds, Pilot

Here’s a poem Ella wrote several years later that reminds me of Ashton’s leaving. It’s from “Homeland in the North:”

THE NIGHT EXPRESS

Like the sweep of the wind in the tree tops
With a lonely sobbing sound,
Rushing away in the distance
With a tremor that shakes the ground,
The night express at the crossing
Is sending a warning bray
Across the moonlit meadows
As it rolls on its mission away.

Tonight it carries a passenger,
One of my very own,
It leaves me a bit of a heartache
As I sit in the shadows alone . . .
The sweep of the wind grows fainter
As the wheels roll on and on,
“Til the train that has taken my loved one
Into the silence has gone.
(June 16, 1929)

Many of Ella’s poems were written about night. Could this be because she had eight children? Here’s one from “Green Mountain Echoes:”

NIGHT

Night’s silvered feet steal over the hill
And all the noisy world grows still,
Deep shadows trail in her somber gown,
A crescent moon lights her starry crown,
She lures me with compelling charm . . .
As my lost Mother’s gentle arm
Enfolded her child in measureless rest,
To fall asleep on her healing breast.

Since I spent most of the day at a meeting for Vermont library trustees, I thought I’d post this poem that Ella Fisher read at the laying of the corner stone for the Bixby Memorial Library in Vergennes on September 21, 1911. When I was high school, I attended a music festival in Vergennes, and during a break, wandered into town and went into the Bixby Library. I was especially excited when I discovered that it had been dedicated in 1912, the year in which the musical “The Music Man” was set. As I was in the cast of that show at Essex Junction High School (in 1966), I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a librarian in Vergennes in 1912. I also took notes about the dedication ceremonies, which I have, alas, lost somewhere. (Another reason to make another trip or so to the Bixby to do research.) Anyway, here’s the poem:

LAYING THE CORNER STONE

We have gathered in the sunshine
“Neath the blue September sky,
With yon cloud-capped mountain setting
And the river rolling by;
And perchance there are some in Heaven
Who once this place have known,
Who would like to bend and listen
As we lay this corner stone.

Fit spot for a temple of knowledge
On this beautiful sloping lawn,
With its great trees whispering overhead
And its entrance facing the dawn,
Where many feet may go in and out;
The weary, the sated and old,
And eager boys and girls who seek
For the aid its shelves will hold.

And when the hues of sunset
Entranced the senses hold,
And all its western windows
Shine out like burnished gold,
When evening shadows stealing
And stars in the heaven shine,
And man for a hand of guiding
Comes in touch with the Divine,

It is then we may remember
This pleasant place of rest,
And find the thoughts of other men
Whose feet the way have pressed;
Who have struggled with the problems
We are daily called to meet;
They have traced the opening chapters—
We may the book complete.

And shall we not gladly cherish
A memory true and fond,
Of one who has crossed the portal
To the unknown world beyond?
‘Tis a privilege and a duty
To honor his name to-day,
Whose generous gift enables us
This corner stone to lay.

His thought went out to benefit
The people he lived among,
And tho so few of them understood,
Warm in his heart it sung;
This quiet one of the blameless life
Who planned for others cheer,
Will continue to live in other lives
With every passing year.

And when the subtle changes come
That over towns will creep,
And when our children’s children
In quiet graves do sleep;
This beautiful hall will still be here
A blessing to mankind,
In whose treasures every passer-by
A helpfulness may find.

O, sons and daughters of old Vergennes
And part of a noble state,
Whose bracing air and grand blue hills
Lead up to Heaven’s gate;
You are sharers in this benefit–
For you this liberal plan;
May you rise to fill your privilege
And help your fellow man.

When all the wealth and pomp of earth
Like mists have passed away,
When fanes and domes and spires
In dust and ashes lay;
The deeds of love from man to man
On Eternity’s boundless shore,
In fadeless glory still will shine
As stars forever more.

To-day as we stand on the hillside
‘Neath the blue September sky,
Framed in by the western mountains
And the river rolling by;
May we come within the radiance
Around the Great White Throne,
For the faith, the hope and charity,
As we lay this corner stone.

Ground was broken for the new Town Office and Library in New Haven this past week–there was no ceremony, and no corner stone. Maybe we’ve lost something. . .

Fri, Nov. 9 Mother comes down stairs the first time.

How did she manage? All those kids, and housework, and church work, and sleeping on the floor near her sick mother. . . It’s easy to romanticize those days, but I’m glad we have antibiotics and washing machines.

And here’s a poem from “Homeland in the North:”

NOVEMBER SHADOWS

We were gathered ’round the table
With chrysanthemums abloom
And softly fell the candle light
On the objects in the room.
The cups came back to be refilled
At Grand-dame’s age-old tray,
Thru long and hidden years
In the attic stored away.

They were genial friendly faces,
To us grown near and dear,
They had filled the flying hours
With badinage and cheer.
They went their separate ways,
But a sense of something rare
That was not here before
Was left upon the air.

It could not be the rain
Against the shaded window pane.

But just beyond the circle
Where the light but dimly shone
I saw the flitting shadows
Of dear ones I have known
Who once were gathered with us,
Broke bread with us and smiled . . .
With badinage and laughter
The flying hours beguiled.

They have passed into the Silence,
But their presence lingers still
For I saw their flitting shadows
patiently awaiting
Our vacant chairs to fill.

It could not be the rain
Against the shaded window pane.

Note the link to Google Books– “Idylls of Champlain” appears there, if you’d like to read it all.

Sun, Nov, 11 Attend church & take my class. Church cold.

Here’s a poem from “Green Mountain Echoes.” This book was published in 1927, after WWI. This poem is a good one for Veteran’s Day:

THE TOLL OF WAR

The sunlight lies warm on the talking brook
Where it runs o’er its bed of stone,
The breeze still whispers among the trees
Where I sit and dream alone.

We strolled away on a moonlit path,
The brook was a silver thread;
It wound and wound thru the meadow grass,
We cared not where it led.

It talked and rippled and rushed away,
Away o’er its bed of stone;
The pain of parting was on our hearts,
Like nothing we had known.

A little breeze told our spoken plans
Where great trees listening stand,
They rustled and whispered above our heads
But we did not understand.

What they said to us that moonlit night
As we for the future planned;
The toll they knew that must be paid
Too well I understand.

Mon, Nov. 12 Iron A. M. Wash P.M.

There are no entries until the 17th.

I meant to include this poem on November 4th–it’s about the Great Flood of 1927, and is published in “Castles in Memory.”

AWAKENED VERMONT

We slept secure among the hills,
Our streams were fed by mountain rills,
To the safety of our sheltered vales
There often came most harrowing tales
Of flood and famine and sore distress,
And heart-throb calls of S. O. S.

To us came the glory of autumn days,
Our hills with beauty were all ablaze.
The breath of summer was lingering late
And vacation spirit hung over the State.
We scarcely heeded the lowering sky,
The mutter of storm clouds rolling high,
The lurid glare of the angry west,
The blood-red sun as it sank to rest.

We were not dismayed by a day of rain
As it clamored and beat at our window’s pane,
But muttering voices of little rills
Came warningly down among the hills,
They raced to the rivers, rising high,
And the rain still poured from a leaden sky.

The waters went mad as dams gave way,
They swept the valleys that fatal day,
Dark lowering clouds hung over the race
To hide the Spectre keeping the pace . . .
Fields and meadows were swept and then
Barns and bridges and homes of men.

None of these things their fury withstood . . .
The valleys are strewn with kindling wood!
The valleys are strewn with the toil of years
And sorrows are there too deep for tears,
The clouds still hang in a threatening sky
As tho to hide where the pale dead lie.

Above the waters and their trail of woe
The whelming waves of sympathy flow . . .
O, let us give praise to the Father above
For the hearts of gold and the hands of love!
For the aid and shelter that the homeless await
The length and breadth of our busy State!

Tues., Nov. 20 Mop, hang clothes, lamps; &ct. Not feeling extra well.

And here is a poem from “Green Mountain Echoes.”

MORE DESIRABLE THAN GOLD

To have and to hold
Do you know the power of gold?

Do you know it can embitter
Life’s beauty with its glitter?
Have you marked its alluring clink,
Seen a man walk . . .and think . . .
Wrapped and obsessed,
Possessed
By its lure?
Are you sure
That its glitter will not get you?
Like a loadstone beset you,
Will not subtly leave its trace
In the lines of your face . . .
The vision in your eyes,
And shrivel the fabric
Of life’s dearest ties?

II
To have and to hold
There are things in the world
More desirable than gold.

Love that is true,
Time’s web shining through,
Regardless of gain,
Nor flinching the pain
Of life.
Outlasting the strife,
The suffering and fears
Of the long changing years . . .
Earth-ways refining,
Steadily shining . . .
To have and to hold
More desirable than gold!

That Ella and Henry’s oldest son, Ashton, died of a gunshot wound in 1932 I knew early on, from the City Hall records. I learned later that the wound was self-inflicted. The information in the archives at the Sheldon Musuem indicates that Ashton Fisher committed suicide because he “lost everything in the stock market crash.” I wonder if this poem of his mother’s (the book was published in 1927) reflects some concern about her son’s money-making activities? Perhaps in a later diary, I’ll discover the answer.

Thurs., Nov. 22 Lie very still in bed all day. It never rains it pours. Sorrows never come singly. Doctor here twice to day. Henry comes at night & he is sick.

Poor Ella! Here’s a poem from “Homeland in the North.”

ILLNESS

Swaying drunkenly
In the top of a tree
That stands on the shore
Of a fretful sea,
While the waves
Are droning
Incessantly . . .

It is no far cry
To the waves below,
The ceaseless moaning,
The ebb and flow . . .
It would be so easy
To must let go . . .
When the tide goes out
To drift away
To some far port
At the shut of day,
Where all the broken
And helpless lie
Under the murk of a darkening sky,
Awaiting the day
When the Healer of men
Goes down that way.

Yesterday I saw Mrs. F–the widow of Ella’s grandson–and I borrowed from her a copy of “The New Sketch Book”–the one book of Ella’s that’s not available anywhere. I’m copying it so that I can post bits of it. It’s a kind of “Spoon River Anthology,” with sketches of people she knew as well as people she made up. Very different from her other books. Mrs. F. also told me that she has never seen a photograph of Ella, alas! Another project!

Sat, Nov. 24 Another fine day. Don’t feel very well, but get up & dress & get down into the sitting room.

There are no entries until December 2nd.

Here’s a poem from “The New Sketch Book,” about a small-town doctor.

NORMAN TOUSLEY

Some men fit the profession they choose,
Some men fit into other men’s shoes,
I prefer my own for they lead straight,
They keep me moving, early and late.

No one dreams that a doctor needs sleep,
That he’s not like other men but must keep
On the move all day and then all night,
With disease and death in a losing fight.
Riding in the darkness over some rough road,
Watching a life fade out in some sad abode
Where no earthly skill the patient can save.
Is it any wonder that I look grave?

My life has been a fight, many storms I braved,
I worked day and night, many lives I saved . . .
Some there are who are living still,
A tribute to my work and skill!

I just found this poem in “The New Sketch Book,” which was published in 1933. Remember that Ella’s son Ashton committed suicide in 1932, after the stock market crash. The odd line breaks are hers. (It’s actually just two stanzas, with ‘Truth is a stupendous thing. . .” beginning the second stanza. I couldn’t figure out how to indent the lines without making each indentation look like a new verse.)

BENAJAH FERRIS

I may not be heard because of my flowery language,
But I may be heard because I speak the truth!
Truth hurts no one but the guilty or the sly soul who col-

lects his Lord’s money and takes out a commission
for himself.

Why are positions of trust given to the greedy and ava-

ricious?

Why do women’s societies and churches make stewards

of the dishonest?

Why are incompetent persons chosen as leaders, and then

why need any one marvel when business firms go
bankrupt, clubs are disrupted and organizations go
out of existence?

Truth is a stupendous thing, hardly to be credited and it

hurts no one but the guilty!

Thurs., March 1 Storms all day. Children go to school in the morning but come home at noon through the storm and stay. No going to prayer meeting tonight.

And a poem for March, from “Homeland in the North.” Venus was so bright last night!

MARCH

Born of Winter, cradled in Spring,
March has had his wayward fling.
Gales of clouds athwart the sky,
Winds of passion riding high,
Falling snow and pelting rain,
Freezing temperature back again.

Venus throned, in glory dressed,
Brilliant star of evening’s west,
Moonlit heaven without a cloud,
Northern Lights in ghostly shroud,
Frosted world in feathers done
Glistening in the morning sun.

Days of gloom and days of gray,
Mist-hung hills shut far away. . .
March is weeping. . . moving slow. . .
We were hoping he would go!

Sun., Dec. 2 Attend church.

Pretty exciting, eh? But here’s a poem that I like very much. It’s from “Homeland in the North.”

GRAY DAYS

From November’s mist and fog
We rolled in the dark of night
To December’s fog and mist
And a day of dim gray light,
Black pointing fingers lifted high
Were searching vainly for the sky.

Wind-swept trees, whose foliage lies
A carpet for the snows,
Still held within the sullen clouds
That pause in drifting rows
Upon the mountain tops to rest
And whiten all their rugged crest.

Where once adown the valley’s length
Summer’s lavish beauty shone,
Denuded vines and empty nests
Whose builders long have flown . . .
In sunnier climes they now sojourn
And keep their songs for spring’s return.

And we in loneliness must wait
The nightfall of each day;
With hopeful hearts and busy hands
We’ll drive the gloom away . . .
The saddest days of all the year
When winter’s night is drawing near!

There are no diary entries until December 21st. Here’s a poem about snow, from “Homeland in the North.” I love the word “amethistine.”

THE SNOW IN VERMONT

Do you know
The beauty of Vermont
Beneath the snow?
How white it lies!
How deep!
Along the valleys
Where ice bound rivers sleep!
Have you seen it glisten in the sun,
Diamonds in its white web spun?

Have you seen
The sheen
Of sunrise
Painted on the morning skies?
Seen it touch the towering crest
Of the mountains in the west,
Seen them turn to molten gold,
Amethistine tints unfold. . .
All their craggy banners flaunt
To guard the vales of white Vermont?

Have you seen the Northern Lights
On clear cut winter nights,
When the stars like angels’ eyes
Watching from the midnight skies,
Ward to keep
While mortals sleep. . .

Watching o’er the little things
On wings
In the shelter of the pines,
Where the wind always stills
And the roadway winds
Between the hills?. . .
Where homesteads nestle warm
When the storm
Beats and drifts
In long white rifts?

Do you know
The beauty of Vermont
Beneath the snow?

Here’s a curious poem from “Green Mountain Echoes.” I imagine Mt. Mansfield, which Ella could see from her house, and the foothills around it, the “children at its feet.”

SPIRIT OF THE NORTH

Spirit of the rugged North,
Diamond crowned with snow,
Moving in the storm clouds
Singing as you go!

Snow clad heights eternal
Guard your dwelling place!
Shining vales and valleys
Mirror back your face!

You bestow upon the children
Sitting at your feet,
The mantle of your majesty
Where silences are sweet.

Their luring songs are ringing
In cadence down the world,
The rhythm of their beauty
In the Nation’s heart encurled!

Here Freedom plants her banners,
Her puissant bulwarks rise. . .
They catch the white etherial light
Of Heaven’s templed skies!

Spirit of the rugged North,
Diamond crowned with snow,
Moving in the storm clouds
Singing as you go!

This is my mother’s 87th birthday, so here is one of Ella’s poems–a rather sentimental one–in her honor. It’s from “Green Mountain Echoes.”

MOTHER

We can have but one mother,
Her love is like a halo,
All our days it follows us.
Her prayers weave about us
Threads of gossamer stronger than steel.
They protect us in illness
And shield us from danger,
While we, unconscious of their existence,
Forge through life and never understand.

Ministration, anxiety and pain
Take their toll from Mother’s life,
There comes a time when her steps falter,
Her loving hands drop their tasks,
She yields to peace and rest and stillness
And Mother passes out of our lives.

Memory waits to give us comfort,
In the folds of her somber robes
Are garlands of beautiful flowers,
She extends to us love and service
That we pass it on.
Her soft whisper is a reminder
That through the storms of life
A mother has woven for us
Threads of gossamer stronger than steel.

Fri., Dec. 21 School closes for two weeks.

Here’s a poem from the book “Castles in Memory,” published in 1931 by the Driftwind Press in North Montpelier, Vermont. Walter J. Coates wrote in the Introduction, “Mrs. Fisher has put together here some of her impressions concerning the relics and life values about her. Her interpretations are true Vermontiana, for she brings back to our eyes and minds not only the old landmarks, but makes olden institutions rise before us in their pristine color, endows them with real spirit, and peoples the mellow hills and vales of her Champlain country with folk pictures long since departed and forgotten.”

THE WEBSTER SCHOOL HOUSE

Close to the rutted road it stands,
Part of the rocks of Ferrisburg,
Built when the town was young
And homes of the pioneers
Stood closer together than now.
It must have been fine to see
When the old school house was new
With its desks of virgin pine,
Fragrant clean and white,
Its windows all alight
In the gold of the morning sun!

The platform and the desk
Where the teacher sat in state,
A presence and a power,
With an extra chair at her side,
Where the unlucky boy or girl
Could sit thru the study hour
And calm a restless spirit down
To the lessons for the day.

The day of the hard wood ruler,
Innocent when lying still
But a weapon of solemn import
To express the teacher’s will.
It rapped on the sash for school to convene,
It rapped on the desk for attention,
It called the children into line
From the blue Webster book
To spell and define,
It recalled the mischievous to study again . . .
Tho few there were to complain.

On a bench near the door
The water pail stood
Brought from a neighbor’s well.
“Please may I pass the water?”
A piping voice would say,
And the favored one passed down
The aisles with a brimming cup,
Face wreathed in smiles,
While each one drank and never knew
That germs might mingle in the brew
From the old tin drinking cup.

And so the generations passed
And children’s children went to school.
The old house stood, but beating years
Made seams in its walls
Of ferrisburg stone.
The winds have warped its wooden roof,
The rain drips in and loneliness.
No children pass thru its old scarred door.
No classes line up on its worn out floor.
Grassed over depressions where cellars have been,
A pile of stone or a lilac clump,
Line the rutted road that runs today
Past the old school house
Standing close to the way.

By the way, the snowfall in this blog isn’t nearly as hard as it should be today.

Tues., Dec. 25 Tuttle goes to Montpelier & takes dinner with his father, we have a plain dinner of baked beans & brown bread. Grace & Helen help at the church P.M. In the evening we all attend the tree, 7 of us. My class gives me a lovely birthday book.

And a Christmas poem, from “Homeland in the North”:

CHRISTMAS TREE
(As in December)

White the snows may be lying
In splendor upon the lea,
Sadly the winds may be sighing
Out on the lonely sea.

O, they may be rude and snappy
In the Northlands making free!
But we shall be warm and happy
At home with the Christmas tree.

Low the skies may be bending,
Lowering on you and me,
But we shall be busy attending
To lading the Christmas tree.

We’ll keep the house fires lighted,
Some wanderer there will be
Once more at home united
Around the Christmas tree.

In darkness the world was lying,
Fettered and never free,
Sadly the winds went sighing
On the waves of Galilee.

Brilliant the light came shining,
Even to you and me,
Threads of gold intertwining
To garland our Christmas tree.

Mon., Jan. 1, 1900 Once more the pages of the New Year are clean and white. Once more I’ll start in to keep a diary and hope it won’t be half blank. This is a cold, stormy day. We wash & mop and at night the clothes are piled in a big chair. Stark as so many ghosts. Vittum and Middlebrook children here. Mend in the evening.

This is the entry that started my adventure with Ella Warner Fisher. I remember well standing in the shop with the little diary in my hands, reading this page and thinking, “What wonderful, clear language this is! I think I’ll buy this.” And it was over a year later that I learned she was a poet.

Here’s a poem from “Homeland in the North.”

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE

Like diamonds thru a veil
The city lights gleamed pale.
Around me lay a silence deep,
All the household hushed in sleep;
At my window fell the storm
While I sat watching for a form
Slowly vanishing from sight
In the shadows of the night.

The story long ago was told
How a form but one year old,
Bent with age, was seen to leave
At twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve—

That one short year ago tonight
A happy infant crowned with light,
On wings of gossamer came down
While bells were ringing thru the town,
Churches echoed with praise and prayer
And music floated on the air,
While youth on eager tripping feet
The rythmic, lilting measure beat.

The bending skies the New Year kissed,
The storm so gentle, a fine white mist,
At my window a stillness deep,
The quiet household wrapped in sleep
And then the story I was told. . .
A vanishing form enfeebled and old,
Burdened and bent with the sins of men,
Bent with their woes, their blunders, and then
Bearing them all.. .I tried to see. . .
Into the vale of Eternity!

Happy New Year!

Thurs., Jan. 4 Attend prayer meeting, Helen & I.

In Alice Morse Earle’s book Customs and Fashions in Old New England, she writes of the “Thursday Lectures” which were very popular in Colonial times. I wonder if the Thursday prayer meeting was a remnant of that tradition?

Helen was the fourth Fisher child, born in 1883. She was married to Benjamin Franklin Smith, who died in 1918. After wondering whether he died in WWI or in the 1918 flu epidemic, I discovered a poem in “the New Sketch Book” which explains what happened to him. After becoming a widow, Helen lived with her mother and sister Grace in the family home, I think until her death in 1965.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SMITH

As one suddenly translated,
So I passed out.
The Sabbath stillness;
The blue and smiling skies;
The shimmering water,
All lured me on.
Wrapped in a mighty peace
And thrilled with the joy of living,
Nature’s enticing voices
And the All Pervading
Blended my surroundings
In one grand symphony,
Of which I seemed a fitting part.

I knew no pain,
No sorrow whelmed my soul.
But with a mind keyed to enjoy,
In one brief moment
Earth and Heaven met
And face to face with God
I found the glorious reality
Of the perfect life.

Drowned at Delaware Water Gap, June 16, 1918

Mon., Jan 8 Very cold north wind blowing. Carry Grace to her school & almost freeze. Go up to Woodmans P.M. Drive Jim. Try tallow, etc. Go to bed early, about sick.

According to information from the Sheldon Museum, Ruth was a teacher, and made some good investments that allowed her to travel extensively. She must have taken her mother along at least once because there are a number of poems in “Green Mountain Echoes” about Italy.

Here is one of them. It must have been a treat for the Ella who tried tallow and made sausages and headcheese in her younger days to be served beautifully:

SUNSET ON THE MEDITERRANEAN

The sunset flamed the western sky,
The waters lay fold on fold,
From the stern of the ship they fell away
Draped in cloth of gold.

Just thru the windows the tables stood
With spotless linen spread
And dinner waiting to be served . . .
With beauty we were fed.

Silent, we watched beside the rail
In the slowly fading light,
‘Til purpling shadows wrapt us round
In soft encircling night.

Jim is a horse, by the way.

Tues., Jan. 9 Wash, mop and iron. Squeeze out tallow, boil mincemeat.

And here, to celebrate the moon, is a poem from “Homeland in the North.” SO many of her poems are about night!

MOONLIT NIGHT
(As in January)

Earth holds no mystic beauty
To compare with moonlit night,
When the hills arrayed in ermine
Walk along the snow-ribbed height.
Battlemented, wrapped in splendor,
Panoplied with star-decked skies,
Guarding dark and hidden chambers
Portaled where some shadow lies.

Far below the snow-clad valley,
Sheened in waves of silver light,
With its sleeping homesteads cradled
In the arms of winter night.
Here and there the crash of falling
From some gnarled and aged tree,
And beyond the deathless rhythm
Of the surging, ceaseless sea.

O the beauty of the moonlight
On a world of fullered snow,
From the watcher on the hilltops
To the tides that ebb and flow!
On the steam cars waking echoes
From each frosted shrub and tree
To the frosted ships the nightly
Plow the waters of the sea.

There is no diary entry today, so here is a poem from “The New Sketch Book: an Anthology of Voices.” Remember that in the introduction to this book, Ella Fisher called the poems “samples of human nature, with no reference to, or reflection on any person, living or dead.”

ESTHER DUNN

Men look askance as I pass by,
Women whisper and children shy.
My eyes must ever carry a glint,
A barricade when steel meets flint . . .
Cool and aloof they pass me by . . .
If they are right, than (sic) what am I?

I know that God has forgiven me,
From the clutch of sin has set me free.

A mortal may sin and be forgiven
By all the hosts that sing in Heaven,
But there are those who walk the earth
Untarnished from the hour of birth,
To them a sinner must always stay
Just as they were some fatal day,
Some unguarded moments . . . . a step aside,
Imprudent and foolish. . . .a chasm wide
Has opened to guard the pure of earth,
Who walk untarnished from their birth
From contamination with one like me
Whom God has dared from sin to free!

O, I am glad He has forgiven
And made for me a place in Heaven!

Tues., Jan. 23 Wash and mop. Hud stays from school to help. Lay down in the evening. Make bread. Guess I am about sick.

And this, from “Homeland in the North.” Perhaps we’ve forgotten the pleasures of being “snowed in.”

A STORMY DAY

It is good to live
When the skies are blue
And the sunlight warm
Is filtering thru,
But I love the drift
Of the wintry storm,
Its rythmic beat
On my window pane,
Its sheath of white
On road and lane.
It blocks the traffic
For the day
And shuts the outside world
Away.

Among its pleasures
Are hoarded treasures,
Things stored away
In sunny weather
When work and play
Go on together.
Forgotten things of bygone years
That may bring smiles
Or may bring tears.
A day to browse
With memory keen,
A day of rest
From dull routine.

I welcome the eventide
When out of the north
The night creeps forth
On silent padded feet. . .
In my cosy ingle-nook,
With a shade light
And a worth-while book,
I list to the steady beat
Of the swirling storm outside.

Fri., Feb. 2 Do housework all P.M. Go to a missionary meeting at Mrs. Bartlett’s. Mrs. Davis there & is very entertaining. We talk over the pros and cons of the Home for Friendless Women in Burlington. A cold wind blowing. Henry carries me down to the street & goes after Grace.

And here’s a poem–from “Homeland in the North”– for these lovely nights:

WONDERLAND NIGHT

Could you have stood at the pane with me
And seen what I was permitted to see!

A star-lit heaven we were passing thru
With never a cloud to obstruct the view.

Abysmal depths in points of light
Spangled the dome of wonderland night!

No moon shining at twelve by the clock,
No spooks waiting to give one shock!

On the rim of the earth just down below
The city lights across the snow

Reached beckoning fingers toward me.
Could you have been at the pane to see

Their rays go forth to meet the stars. . .
Betwixt earth and Heaven there were no bars!

If Ella were in a poetry workshop with me, I would suggest that the fourth stanza isn’t necessary.