Chapter Five. The Nutter House and the Nutter Family

The Story of a Bad Boy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The Nutter House-all the more prominent dwellings in Rivermouth
are named after somebody; for instance, there is the Walford House,
the Venner House, the Trefethen House, etc., though it by no means
follows that they are inhabited by the people whose names they
bear-the Nutter House, to resume, has been in our family nearly a
hundred years, and is an honor to the builder (an ancestor of ours, I
believe), supposing durability to be a merit. If our ancestor was a
carpenter, he knew his trade. I wish I knew mine as well. Such timber
and such workmanship don't often come together in houses built
nowadays.

Imagine a low-studded structure, with a wide hall running
through the middle. At your right band, as you enter, stands a tall
black mahogany clock, looking like an Egyptian mummy set up on end.
On each side of the hall are doors (whose knobs, it must be
confessed, do not turn very easily), opening into large rooms
wainscoted and rich in wood-carvings about the mantel-pieces and
cornices. The walls are covered with pictured paper, representing
landscapes and sea-views. In the parlor, for example, this enlivening
figure is repeated all over the room. A group of English peasants,
wearing Italian hats, are dancing on a lawn that abruptly resolves
itself into a sea-beach, upon which stands a flabby fisherman
(nationality unknown), quietly hauling in what appears to be a small
whale, and totally regardless of the dreadful naval combat going on
just beyond the end of his fishing-rod. On the other side of the
ships is the main-land again, with the same peasants dancing. Our
ancestors were very worthy people, but their wall-papers were
abominable.

There are neither grates nor stoves in these quaint chambers,
but splendid open chimney-places, with room enough for the corpulent
back-log to turn over comfortably on the polished andirons. A wide
staircase leads from the hall to the second story, which is arranged
much like the first. Over this is the garret. I needn't tell a New
England boy what-a museum of curiosities is the garret of a
well-regulated New England house of fifty or sixty years' standing.
Here meet together, as if by some preconcerted arrangement, all the
broken-down chairs of the household, all the spavined tables, all the
seedy hats, all the intoxicated-looking boots, all the split
walking-sticks that have retired from business, "weary with the march
of life." The pots, the pans, the trunks, the bottles-who may hope to
make an inventory of the numberless odds and ends collected in this
bewildering lumber-room? But what a place it is to sit of an
afternoon with the rain pattering on the roof! 20What a place in
which to read Gulliver's Travels, or the famous adventures of Rinaldo
Rinaldini!

My grandfather's house stood a little back from the main street,
in the shadow of two handsome elms, whose overgrown boughs would dash
themselves against the gables whenever the wind blew hard. In the
rear was a pleasant garden, covering perhaps a quarter of an acre,
full of plum-trees and gooseberry bushes. These trees were old
settlers, and are all dead now, excepting one, which bears a purple
plum as big as an egg. This tree, as I remark, is still standing, and
a more beautiful tree to tumble out of never grew anywhere. In the
northwestern comer of the garden were the stables and carriage-house
opening upon a narrow lane. You may imagine that I made an early
visit to that locality to inspect Gypsy. Indeed, I paid her a visit
every half-hour during the first day of my arrival. At the
twenty-fourth visit she trod on my foot rather heavily, as a
reminder, probably, that I was wearing out my welcome. She was a
knowing little pony, that Gypsy, and I shall have much to say of her
in the course of these pages.

Gypsy's quarters were all that could be wished, but nothing
among my new surroundings gave me more satisfaction than the cosey
sleeping apartment that had been prepared for myself. It was the hall
room over the front door.

I had never had a chamber all to myself before, and this one,
about twice the size of our state-room on board the Typhoon, was a
marvel of neatness and comfort. Pretty chintz curtains hung at the
window, and a patch quilt of more colors than were in Joseph's coat
covered the little truckle-bed. The pattern of the wall-paper left
nothing to be desired in that line. On a gray background were small
bunches of leaves, unlike any that ever grew in this world; and on
every other bunch perched a yellow-bird, pitted with crimson spots,
as if it had just recovered from a severe attack of the small-pox.
That no such bird ever existed did not detract from my admiration of
each one. There were two hundred and sixty-eight of these birds in
all, not counting those split in two where the paper was badly
joined. I counted them once when I was laid up with a fine black eye,
and falling asleep immediately dreamed that the whole flock suddenly
took wing and flew out of the window. From that time I was never able
to regard them as merely inanimate objects.

A wash-stand in the corner, a chest of carved mahogany drawers,
a looking-glass in a filigreed frame, and a high-backed chair studded
with brass nails like a coffin, constituted the furniture. Over the
head of the bed were two oak shelves, holding perhaps a dozen
books-among which were Theodore, or The Peruvians; Robinson Crusoe;
an odd volume of Tristram Shandy; Baxter's Saints' Rest, and a fine
English edition of the Arabian Nights, with six hundred wood-cuts by
Harvey.

Shall I ever forget the hour when I first overhauled these
books? I do not allude especially to Baxter's Saints' Rest, which is
far from being a lively work for the young, but to the Arabian
Nights, and particularly Robinson Crusoe. The thrill that ran into my
fingers' ends then has not run out yet. Many a time did I steal up to
this nest of a room, and, taking the dog's-eared volume from its
shelf, glide off into an enchanted realm, where there were no lessons
to get and no boys to smash my kite. In a lidless trunk in the garret
I subsequently unearthed another motley collection of novels and
romances, embracing the adventures of Baron Trenck, Jack Sheppard,
Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Charlotte Temple-all of which I fed upon
like a bookworm.

I never come across a copy of any of those works without feeling
a certain tenderness for the yellow-haired little rascal who used to
lean above the magic pages hour after hour, religiously believing
every word he read, and no more doubting the reality of Sindbad the
Sailor, or the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, than he did the
existence of his own grandfather.

Against the wall at the foot of the bed hung a single-barrel
shot-gun-placed there by Grandfather Nutter, who knew what a boy
loved, if ever a grandfather did. As the trigger of the gun had been
accidentally twisted off, it was not, perhaps, the most dangerous
weapon that could be placed in the hands of youth. In this maimed
condition its "bump of destructiveness" was much less than that of my
small brass pocket-pistol, which I at once proceeded to suspend from
one of the nails supporting the fowling-piece, for my vagaries
concerning the red man had been entirely dispelled.

Having introduced the reader to the Nutter House, a presentation
to the Nutter family naturally follows. The family consisted of my
grandfather; his sister, Miss Abigail Nutter; and Kitty Collins, the
maid-of-all-work.

Grandfather Nutter was a hale, cheery old gentleman, as straight
and as bald as an arrow. He had been a sailor in early life; that is
to say, at the age of ten years he fled from the
multiplication-table, and ran away to sea. A single voyage satisfied
him. There never was but one of our family who didn't run away to
sea, and this one died at his birth. My grandfather had also been a
soldier-a captain of militia in 1812. If I owe the British nation
anything, I owe thanks to that particular British soldier who put a
musket-ball into the fleshy part of Captain Nutter's leg, causing
that noble warrior a slight permanent limp, but offsetting the injury
by furnishing him with the material for a story which the old
gentleman was never weary of telling and I never weary of listening
to. The story, in brief, was as follows.

At the breaking out of the war, an English frigate lay for
several days off the coast near Rivermouth. A strong fort defended
the harbor, and a regiment of minute-men, scattered at various points
along-shore, stood ready to repel the boats, should the enemy try to
effect a landing. Captain Nutter had charge of a slight earthwork
just outside the mouth of the river. Late one thick night the sound
of oars was heard; the sentinel tried to fire off his gun at
half-cock, and couldn't, when Captain Nutter sprung upon the parapet
in the pitch darkness, and shouted, "Boat ahoyl" A musket-shot
immediately embedded itself in the calf of his leg. The Captain
tumbled into the fort and the boat, which had probably come in search
of water, pulled back to the frigate.

This was my grandfather's only exploit during the war. That his
prompt and bold conduct was instrumental in teaching the enemy the
hopelessness of attempting to conquer such a people was among the
firm beliefs of my boyhood.

At the time I came to Rivermouth my grandfather had retired from
active pursuits, and was living at ease on his money, invested
principally in shipping. He bad been a widower many years; a maiden
sister, the aforesaid Miss Abigail, managing his household. Miss
Abigail also managed her brother, and her brother's servant, and the
visitor at her brother's gate-not in a tyrannical spirit, but from a
philanthropic desire to be useful to everybody. In person she was
tall and angular; she had a gray complexion, gray eyes, gray
eyebrows, and generally wore a gray dress. Her strongest weak point
was a belief in the efficacy of "hot-drops" as a cure for all known
diseases.

If there were ever two people who seemed to dislike each other,
Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins were those people. If ever two people
really loved each other, Miss Abigail and Kitty Collins were those
people also. They were always either skirmishing or having a cup of
tea lovingly together.

Miss Abigail was very fond of me, and so was Kitty; and in the
course of their disagreements each let me into the private history of
the other.

According to Kitty, it was not originally my grandfather's
intention to have Miss Abigail at the head of his domestic
establishment. She had swooped down on him (Kitty's own words), with
a band-box in one hand and a faded blue cotton umbrella, still in
existence, in the other. Clad in this singular garb-I do not remember
that Kitty alluded to-any additional peculiarity of dress-Miss
Abigail bad made her appearance at the door of the Nutter House on
the morning of my grandmother's funeral. The small amount of baggage
which the lady brought with her would have led the superficial
observer to infer that Miss Abigail's visit was limited to a few
days. I run ahead of my story in saying she remained seventeen years!
How much longer she would have remained can never be definitely known
now, as she died at the expiration of that period.

Whether or not my grandfather was quite pleased by this
unlooked-for addition to his family is a problem. He was very kind
always to Miss Abigail, and seldom opposed her; though I think she
must have tried his patience sometimes, especially when she
interfered with Kitty.

Kitty Collins, or Mrs. Catherine, as she preferred to be called,
was descended in a direct line from an extensive family of kings who
formerly ruled over Ireland. In consequence of various calamities,
among which the failure of the potato-crop may be mentioned, Miss
Kitty Collins, in company with several hundred of her countrymen and
countrywomen-also descended from kings-came over to America in an
emigrant ship, in the year eighteen hundred and something.

I don't know what freak of fortune caused the royal exile to
turn up at Rivermouth; but turn up she did, a few months after
arriving in this country, and was hired by my grandmother to do
"general housework" for the sum of four shillings and six-pence a
week.

Kitty had been living about seven years in my grandfather's
family when she unburdened her heart of a secret which had been
weighing upon it all that time. It may be said of people, as it is
said of nations, "Happy are they that have no history." Kitty had a
history, and a pathetic one, I think.

On board the emigrant ship that brought her to America, she
became acquainted with a sailor, who, being touched by Kitty's
forlorn condition, was very good to her. Long before the end of the
voyage, which had been tedious and perilous, she was heartbroken at
the thought of separating from her kindly protector; but they were
not to part just yet, for the sailor returned Kitty's affection, and
the two were married on their arrival at port. Kitty's husband-she
would never mention his name, but kept it locked in her bosom like
some precious relic-had a considerable sum of money when the crew
were paid off; and the young couple-for Kitty was young then-lived
very happily in a lodging-house on South Street, near the docks. This
was in New York.

The days flew by like hours, and the stocking in which the
little bride kept the funds shrunk and shrunk, until at last there
were only three or four dollars left in the toe of it. Then Kitty was
troubled; for she knew her sailor would have to go to sea again
unless he could get employment on shore. This he endeavored to do,
but not with much success. One morning as usual he kissed her good
day, and set out in search of work.

"Kissed me goodby, and called me his little Irish lass," sobbed
Kitty, telling the story, "kissed me goodby, and, Heaven help me, I
niver set oi on him nor on the likes of him again!"

He never came back. Day after day dragged on, night after night,
and then the weary weeks. What had become of him? Had be been
murdered? Had be fallen into the docks? Had he-deserted her? No! She
could not believe that; he was too brave and tender and true. She
couldn't believe that. He was dead, dead, or he'd come back to
her.

Meanwhile the landlord of the lodging-house turned Kitty into
the streets, now that "her man" was gone, and the payment of the rent
doubtful. She got a place as a servant. The family she lived with
shortly moved to Boston, and she accompanied them; then they went
abroad, but Kitty would not leave America. Somehow she drifted to
Rivermouth, and for seven long years never gave speech to her sorrow,
until the kindness of strangers, who had become friends to her,
unsealed the heroic lips.

Kitty's story, you may be sure, made my grandparents treat her
more kindly than ever. In time she grew to be regarded less as a
servant than as a friend in the home circle, sharing its joys and
sorrows-a faithful nurse, a willing slave, a happy spirit in spite of
all. I fancy I hear her singing over her work in the kitchen, pausing
from time to time to make some witty reply to Miss Abigail-for Kitty,
like all her race, had a vein of unconscious humor. Her bright honest
face comes to me out from the past, the light and life of the Nutter
House when I was a boy at Rivermouth.