Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Our Boarders
Our Boarders.
These sketches of “our boarders” have become much sought after. People who have no particular interest in the parties personally, read them as sketches of character, while those to whom they are known—the boarders themselves, and visitors at our house, whom we may hereafter describe—live in them once more the old boarding-house days, with their remembrances of bread pudding and fish balls. There is a rod in pickle for the writer hereof, which one of “our boarders” is preparing, and which the readers of the Gazette shall have as a graceful close to the series. The writer pledges the gold pen with which he indites the sketches that it shall be printed in full, though if it transcend the strict limit of propriety, the writer has a remedy in a gutta percha cane that he shall use to the extent that the outrage demands, or, if the writer is absent, some chivalrous relative will do it for him.
Poor Elias R.! He was the harmonious spirit of our circle, with a fancy that he possessed a musical ability as great as Handel and Haydn. He was our authority in all matters of song, and, on the long evenings, as we were seated about the round table where Aunt Sarah, and Hannah, and Lizzie, were engaged at their work, it was the invariable rule that Elias should sing, and even now the old song of “Sparkling and Bright” is borne back to us on the breezes of memory. Its execution was of the harrowing description, and listeners were frozen to hear it, as at times sensitive people are frozen by the strains of hand organs in summer. But his song was stilled, and “sparking and bright” became obsolete in our house. Elias died young, and “made no sign.” The song that yet echoes in our ears is all that, to us, remains of him, save a dim recollection of harmlessness of character and a name without reproach.
A room-mate of Elias was little Silas—little Silas T., the printer, funny, fussy and full of frolic. His voice was heard the loudest in the mirth that at times shook the house. He was one of the “hards.” His antecedents were mischiefs that bore his own endorsement. He was a merry spirit; an embodiment of “Puck” that never was equalled. He led the boarders “up and down” in a weary manner. He was the dispeller of the blues at table, and made the late hours vocal with his song. Kind hearted, and generous to a fault, he had no enemy but himself. To himself, that fearful enemy, he sacrificed health, reputation, life! In our house, if we mistake not, the first teetotal temperance pledge in the country was framed. This was more than twenty years ago. It was an odd freak of our boarders that they would forego their drops. It was a rash resolve; but the pledge was made and duly signed, binding nine thirsty individuals to six months abstinence from alcoholic stimulants. But all were confident that it could be done, and the pledge was paraded, with its nine immortal signatures, upon the mantel-piece to strengthen wavering resolution and remind its signers, daily, of their solemn promise. The first week passed very well. The second, the tempter was at work, and it was easy to see that the chain that bound the boarders was not a chain of flowers. It chafed them. But a month was endured, when one day Silas, with a roguish twinkle in his eye, drew the pledge gently towards the edge of the mantel shelf on which it reposed; it balanced a moment and then fell down into the flue draft and became ashes. Then arose a question of principle among the tuneful nine: was their pledge nothing? Had its force ceased with its external form, or was it still a spiritual entity and still binding upon them. The burnt pledge, it was contended, nullified the promise, and seven of the immortal nine sustained this position. The two who refused to back out of their pledge still live, and are temperate men. One of them is worth money and the other isn’t—entirely the result of their temperance. There is a painful memory here of a Thanksgiving pudding lost to those two unfortunates, through a consciousness of wine in the sauce, but let it pass now, as it did then.
Silas became a soldier, and served his country in Mexico, as a Massachusetts volunteer, and subsequently was lost in a vessel bound to Tampico. His memory is mainly pleasant, dashed by a regret for habits that degraded his excellent nature to the dust, and dimmed the manly attributes that would have made him superior. Peace to his manes!
