Cray Thornton’s Chestnuts
Introduction
Chellis, Mary Dwinell. "Cray Thronton's Chestnuts." Chatterbox (1876): 37. Print.
“Cray Thornton’s Chestnuts” appeared in the thirty-seventh issue of the 1876 Chatterbox Weekly. Chatterbox was a publication started and edited by J. Erskine Clarke, a reverend who stayed a year after graduating from Wedham College to study theology in Oxford. Clarke, previous to Chatterbox, started the first parish magazine, The Inset and then founded The Prize, a paper for young children. Clarke wanted to provide wholesome material for young people because he thought that the children of the day had too many “blood and thunder” stories.[1] This goal is evident while reading the publication. Almost every story has a moral or lesson.
The first Chatterbox went on sale in December of 1866 and gathered a wide readership. In 1886, in A Fortnightly Review of Current Literature, Volume XVII, Chatterbox was reported as having “phenomenal popularity and success.” The review further reports that:
“These books are made for the million, but they suit their market and they are good for their purpose. The paper is cheap, the pictures (English wood cuts) are coarse in their texture…they are not poor and never vulgar; their motive and manner are always excellent, and the accompanying reading matter, stories, instructions, and verses is well selected for purposes of mingled information and entertainment. Such books are the oaten-cakes of literature, plain but nourishing.”[2]
The story of Cray’s chestnuts also fits that description. Written by temperance novelist, Mary Dwinell Chellis, it nourishes the soul with a tale of courage in overcoming the evils of alcohol. The temperance movement was in full swing by the end of the nineteenth century and was led especially by women like Chellis, who were firm in their belief that drinking brought only danger and destruction and that men must be protected from such an enticing evil.
Born in Goshen, New Hampshire, on February 13, 1826, Mary was the daughter of Seth and Myra Chellis. She graduated from Lowell High School and went on to be a teacher. It seems that she didn’t write, or at least publish until a little later in her life, yet still produced forty volumes of Sunday school and temperance literature and a large number of articles for periodicals.[3] Publishers Weekly, No 248, reported thirty-seven articles and books recently published by Chellis ranging from 1866 to 1887.[4] As in the case of “Cray Thornton’s Chestnuts,” she often wrote temperance literature for a juvenile audience. Although she found success in publication and readership through the power of her convictions, she was also criticized because she didn’t understand the physical effects of alcohol—not ever having experienced them herself and so was weak in her descriptions. Chellis married Stephan Francis Lund in 1877 at the age of fifty-one. They were married in Newport where Chellis lived until her death on June 2, 1891.
Transcription
Cray Thornton's Chestnuts
Just at nightfall a rough-looking man was walking past ‘Chestnut Woods,’ when he fancied he saw some one gliding stealthily through the underbrush. He stopped and looked more closely; but now there was not so much as the rustle of a leaf to betray the presence of another. He turned into a narrow footpath, and at that moment a boy sprang up from behind a clump of bushes.
‘Is this you, Cray?’ he exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you here for at this time of day? and what have you got in your bag?’
‘I’m going home, and I’ve got chestnuts in my bag,’ was the reply.
‘But I thought the chestnuts were all gone.’
‘They were almost gone when I began to pick. But Mr. Oliver said I might have what was left; and so I’ve been in the woods every day this week. I’ve got every one there was.’
‘All right. But what made you skulk along so?’
‘Because—because—I was afraid someone would see me and tell father. If they did, he’d sell them for rum. Nobody knows, only mother. You won’t tell; will you Mr. Weston?’
‘Not a word, Cray. You needn’t be afraid of my getting you into trouble. What have you done with your chestnuts?’
‘Mother’s hid them somewhere, and when Mr. Waters comes along she’s going to buy me shoes with them. I haven’t got any shoes.’
‘So that’s it! Well, you need the shoes, and if you haven’t quite enough, tell Waters I’ll make it up. He’ll trust me if I do get drunk once in a while.’
‘Oh Mr. Weston! I wish you didn’t. You’d be so good if you didn’t; and perhaps father would be good, too, if he didn’t drink rum.’
‘He ought to, with such a boy as you. If my Jimmy and his mother had lived, I should have been different from what I am now.’ And as he said this, Mr. Weston brushed the tears from his eyes.
‘You won’t meet your father to-night. He’s got some money to spend before he’ll come home; so hurry along to your mother, and good luck to you both!’
The speaker was one of those men who are usually described as ‘good-hearted, kind, and generous.’ He had a true Yankee[5] genius for the Yankee trade of tinkering, and wherever he might go was pretty sure of being welcomed as the very person whose presence was most desired. He might have been rich, and yet he was poor, living in a bit of a house on the further edge of the wood.
After he parted from Cray Thornton he walked slowly on, sometimes stopping for a moment, as he thought sadly of his wasted life. He was never ill-natured or quarrelsome, but he was his own worst enemy, and this he knew so well that he needed not to be reminded of the fact.
A week had passed when he saw Cray Thornton’s father entering a grog-shop.[6] He quickened his steps, and rushed in just in time to see the bag of chestnuts carried by Mr. Thornton poured into a half-bushel measure.
‘Hold on there!’ he exclaimed. ‘Those chestnuts are stolen property, and I can prove it. I’ve done some mean things in the way of drinking, but I never got so bad as to steal chestnuts from a boy. Thornton stole them from Cray. I know he did, and if there’s not enough here to see fair play, it’s a pity. Cray hasn’t got a pair of shoes to his feet, and he picked those chestnuts one by one, after everybody else had given up. Thornton, you’re a brute if you sell them for liquor. I never abused my boy, and if he’d lived he shouldn’t have gone barefoot such weather as this. If you’ve got human feelings you’ll stop drinking, and take care of your family.’
‘You’re a fine fellow to preach!’ was the sneering answer. ‘I’ll quit drinking when you do.’
‘You promise that, will you?’
‘Yes; I’ll quit when you do.’
‘Then here goes—I’ve done with grog while I live. I swear it.’
With his right hand still uplifted, Mr. Weston gazed at his companion with a fixed look, until the latter, as if moved by a sudden impulse, raised his own hand, and repeated, ‘I swear it!’ reverently and solemnly.
‘I will take back Cray’s chestnuts,’ then said the father in a husky voice.
Without hesitation they were returned to him. The spectators were awe-struck by what had occurred, and the silence remained unbroken.
Mr. Thornton left the grog-shop, followed close by his friends. They, too, were silent. It was no time for talking; but from that day there was plenty in two homes where before there had been poverty, and happiness where there had been before fear and wretchedness.
Notes
- ↑ Ampney Crucis, "Children's Annuals—The Chatterbox," N.p., n.d., Web.
- ↑ S.R. Crocker, ed, The Literary World, Boston, 1886, 433, Google Book Search, Web.
- ↑ The Deadham Historical Register, Vol. 10, Dedham, Massachusetts, Dedham Historical Society, 1899, 54, Google Book Search, Web.
- ↑ The Publishers Weekly, Vol. 30, 1886, 122, Google Book Search, Web.
- ↑ Traditionally Yankee was most often used to refer to a New Englander, in which case it may suggest Puritanism and thrifty values, which were originally associated with that region (OED).
- ↑ The term grog refers to alcohol and so a grog shop would be a place to purchase liquor (OED).
Edited by: Lemon, Jessica: section 1, Fall 2007
