第65章 Personality Letters (5)

(sister to Charles and James Hoyt of Brooklyn) with a frame house in Lancaster, an income of $200 a year and eleven as hungry, rough, and uncouth children as ever existed on earth.But father had been kind, generous, manly with a big heart; and when it ceased to beat friends turned up--Our Uncle Stoddard took Charles, the oldest; W.I.married the next, Elisabeth (still living); Amelia was soon married to a merchant in Mansfield, McCorab; I, the third son, was adopted by Thomas Ewing, a neighbor, and John fell to his namesake in Mt.Vernon, a merchant.

"Surely 'Man proposes and God disposes.' I could fill a hundred pages, but will not bore you.A half century has passed and you, a Protestant minister, write me a kind, affectionate letter about my Catholic wife from Mansfield, one of my family homes, where my mother, Mary Hoyt, died, and where our Grandmother, Betsey Stoddard, lies buried.Oh, what a flood of memories come up at the name of Betsey Stoddard,--daughter of the Revd.Mr.Stoddard, who preached three times every Sunday, and as often in between as he could cajole a congregation at ancient Woodbury, Conn.,--who came down from Mansfield to Lancaster, three days' hard journey to regulate the family of her son Judge Sherman, whose gentle wife was as afraid of Grandma as any of us boys.She never spared the rod or broom, but she had more square solid sense to the yard than any woman I ever saw.From her Charles, John, and I inherit what little sense we possess.

"Lancaster, Fairfield County, was our paternal home, Mansfield that of Grandmother Stoddard and her daughter, Betsey Parker.There Charles and John settled, and when in 1846 I went to California Mother also went there, and there died in 1851.

"When a boy, once a year I had to drive my mother in an old 'dandy wagon' on her annual visit.The distance was 75 miles, further than Omaha is from San Francisco.We always took three days and stopped at every house to gossip with the woman folks, and dispense medicines and syrups to the sick, for in those days all had the chills or ague.If Icould I would not awaken Grandmother Betsey Stoddard because she would be horrified at the backsliding of the servants of Christ,--but oh! how I would like to take my mother, Mary Hoyt, in a railroad car out to California, to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, among the vineyards of grapes, the groves of oranges, lemons and pomegranates.How clearly recurs to me the memory of her exclamation when I told her I had been ordered around Cape Horn to California.Her idea was about as definite as mine or yours as to, Where is Stanley? but she saw me return with some nuggets to make her life more comfortable.

"She was a strong Presbyterian to the end, but she loved my Ellen, and the love was mutual.All my children have inherited their mother's faith, and she would have given anything if I would have simply said Amen; but it is simply impossible.

"But I am sure that you know that the God who created the minnow, and who has moulded the rose and carnation, given each its sweet fragrance, will provide for those mortal men who strive to do right in the world which he himself has stocked with birds, animals, and men;--at all events, I will trust Him with absolute confidence.

"With great respect and affection, "Yours truly, "W.T.Sherman."