Memoir of Frances Cabot Putnam ; a Family Chronicle
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CHAUNCEY WETMORE WELLS 1872-1933 This book belonged to Chauncey Wetmore Wells. He taught in Yale College, of which he was a graduate, from 1897 to 1901, and from 1901 to 1933 at this University. Chauncey Wells was, essentially, a scholar. The range of his read ing was wide, the breadth of his literary sympathy as uncommon as the breadth of his human sympathy. He was less concerned with the collection of facts than with meditation upon their sig nificance. His distinctive power lay in his ability to give to his students a subtle perception of the inner implications of form, of manners, of taste, of the really disciplined and discriminating mind. And this perception appeared not only in his thinking and teaching but also in all his relations with books and with men. / Sl&fiiscz^c^ FRANCES CABOT PUTNAM Portrait of Frances by A. W. Cabot 1902 . MEMOIR OF FRANCES CABOT PUTNAM A Family Chronicle CAMBRIDGE Printed at The ^Riverside Tress 1916 c COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY MARIAN C. PUTNAM ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IN MEKORIAM TO ELIZABETH, JAMIE, MOLLY AND LOUISA FROM THEIR MOTHER 863781 FRANCES CABOT PUTNAM THE STARS SHINED IN THEIR WATCHES AND REJOICED; WHEN HE CALLETH THEM, THEY SAY, HERE WE BE; AND SO WITH CHEER FULNESS THEY SHEWED LIGHT UNTO HIM THAT MADE THEM. I FRANCES was born in Boston on October 20, 1897, a month after we came back from our first summer at Cotuit. As it was autumn, and she was a very tiny baby, weighing only six pounds, we decided to keep her in her sunny south room (which we borrowed, for the winter, of Lizzie and Elizabeth) instead of sending her outdoors. The windows were never shut, day or night, and a bright open fire burned all the time. Her crib was pushed up to the window, which was opened wide, and there in the sun she took her naps. It was a very successful plan. I think she did not go out until the end of February, but she gained weight rapidly, and was as rosy and serene as any baby could be. There, by the fire, the children gathered in the short after noons to play with the baby and see her put to bed, and I have many happy memories of that winter. On Christmas the children got up a little tree for her, as she was not allowed to go to the family tree. She cried very little, and was so out of the way that Dr. Joslin, who was assisting Jim that year, and whom I had seen daily before she was born, would hardly believe that we had a baby when Jim invited him to come upstairs to look at her. He sent her a [ i ] silver "lucky piece" on a blue ribbon, and if it did not bring her long Jife it certainly brought her good luck all her days. He sent it with this note, which I kept. For the littlest Miss Putnam MY DEAR LITTLE GIRL, You have been such a mysterious little body too seldom even a "Choir Invisible" that really I hardly knew what color ribbon to choose to match your eyes but I guess they are blue like your mam ma s. " " I must tell you what Waller bade his lovely Rose say to a retiring maiden. "Tell her that s young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have un- commended died." Please don t play angel all the time way up there. Your would-be admirer, ELLIOTT P. JOSLIN. When Molly was born, and Jamie heard her cry, he was distressed but important, and said "My ittle sitter is calling for me, I must go to her." When Louisa cried, as a little baby, Molly was dissolved in tears and wailed, "Why does my baby sister cry, oh heard Frances why does she cry?" But when Louisa cry, she clapped her hands and danced round the " cradle on the tips of her toes, saying, Dat little baby in can c y!" great delight. For some weeks after Baby was born, Louisa called her "little Louisa," evidently thinking Louisa a generic name for babies. Her name, however, was Baby to all who knew her, for many years, and we called her Baby at home throughout her life. When she was six years [ 2 ] old, some one said, "There are many infants in Cotuit, but only one Baby. Her Christian name was Frances Cabot, after my father, and he took an especial delight in her from the first, after he received Jim s note announcing her name. Louisa, on being asked her name a little later, replied, "Her name is Baby Gwan pa Puttum, and mine is Louisa Gwan ma Puttum." October 22, 97. DEAR MR. CABOT, Marian and I had always planned to name our next son Francis Cabot in your honor, or rather in token of our affection for yourself and our admiration of the virtues with which you have made the name associated. The nearest that we can come to fulfilling that wish is by naming our new little daughter Frances, and if you will sanction the choice we shall feel that we have given her a good start in life by committing a host of good traditions to her keeping. I am obliged to confess that she has not the traditional Cabot nose, and has the traditional Putnam crooked little finger, but it is for tunately too soon to assume that she will have no other virtues than those now at her fingers ends. Affectionately yours, JAMES J. PUTNAM. October 24, 97. DEAR JIM, That you and Marian should wish to name that lit tle " heap of infinite possibilities" Frances for my sake gives me the greatest pleasure. Surely I have been blessed with the love of my daughters and their hus bands and their children after them to a degree far be yond my deserts. I hope to be able soon to see the [ 3 1 " darling Frances and her beloved mother. The Cabot nose" is perhaps more suitable for a boy than a girl, and we will content ourselves with the crooked finger of the Putnams. Yours affectionately, FRANCIS CABOT. Papa came in to see her when she was a few weeks old, and held her in his arms in the strong light by the window, so that he might see her well. He never saw her again, for on Thanksgiving Day of that autumn he became totally blind. His sight had begun to fail years before, and he had lost the sight of one eye five or six years earlier, but he had been able to see objects directly in front of him, and even to read good print, until that Thanksgiving. He accepted his blindness just as he had accepted his failing sight, with perfect cheerfulness, and his spirits were so good, his interest in life so keen, that it was difficult to realize his great deprivations. Frances had the same unconquerable cheerfulness of disposition, and in this she was also like her aunt, Lizzie Putnam, whom I think she resembled very much in temperament. But if we sometimes forgot Papa s blindness, Baby never did. As soon as she was able to walk alone she was eager to lead him about, to show him his chair, to put things into his hands to feel. It was her delight to tell him things, and to describe everything to him. Perhaps it was because she was a great talker and found in him an unfailingly patient listener; but I think it was something deeper than that, a real sympathy with his lack of sight, and an under standing, when she was very young, that he liked to hear about things as he could not see them. She was [ 4 ] 1897 seven and a half when he died, and as she learned to read before she was five, she had for a long time been in the habit of climbing into his lap in his big easy chair and reading aloud to him. There is a picture of her reading to him, taken when she was six, that is very characteristic of both of them. In December Bessie Hamlen took a photograph of me with the five children. I was holding Baby in my lap. It was for a surprise for Jim on Christmas. When I gave it to him I wrote these lines to go with it. A Letter to Papa December 25, 1897. Here is a picture, dear Papa, Of four little girls and their Mama And Jamie their big brother tall, The proud protector of them all. When twenty years or so have passed And Jamie s with grave doctors classed, When Elizabeth second runs the state, And Molly-Polly s met her fate, And Louisa s studying art at Rome, / will take care of you at home. Your little FRANCES. On this same Christmas Jim wrote me the following lines, with a gold pen. Write, O Pen, Not of war, or war-proud men Who storm the breach, or hold the fort, Their arm and sword their best resort ; But of the peaceful prattle Of infants with their rattle; Of sweet-toned speeches mild, That fit the budding child; The wars, and woes, and joys Of growing girls and boys. [ 5 1 Yet do not let thy theme Unworthy seem; The world in miniature Can thrill, affright, attract, allure.