Free Genteel Pagan: The Double Life of Charles Warren Stoddard by Roger Austen Page B

kept himself busy decorating the attic with bric-a-brac from San Franciscoa Chinese kite adorned with a bird of paradise, little figurines in satin and silk with ivory faces, and other Oriental mementosall of which soon became a "scandal in a house that was famed for simplicity and prayer." 16 The clicking of chopsticks and the clangor of gongs created consternation downstairs, where the Freemans were muttering that these heathen trappings had turned their attic into a cross between a junk shop and a joss house.
When Ned returned alone to California, Charles was left with only the nearby frogs and cows for company. He soon read through the Freemans' few books, which were along the line of Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio. He killed some time by writing letters to his family on stationery that was most extraordinary for a little boy to use: "lavender or rose or orange or pea-green; gilt-edged of course, and perfumed"redolent of the wintergreen he always carried in a phial, "because I was a child of Nature." 17 When spring came, it was pleasant to sit outdoors beneath the lilacs. But in general Charles found the atmosphere "blighting," and he dreaded Sundays, when he often had to sit through a morning and an afternoon and an evening service. He soon ''took to sighinga habit that has become second natureand I must have been something of a burden to the old folks,a kind of mild reproach, as if they were somehow responsible for my want of interest in life." 18
Then, suddenly, Charles was sublimely happy. He had found a chum named Fred, a "mezzo-tinted" and "picturesque Spanish type that appealed to me," full of "quasi-Andulsian" [sic] charm. 19 Fred was to be his classmate and roommate when the fall term started at Randolph Academy, ten miles from Little Valley, where Grandpa Freeman had enrolled him.
For a fictional account of young Charles in those days, we can turn to "Hearts of Oak," a semiautobiographical novella that Stoddard wrote for the Overland Monthly some fifteen years later. In this work Stoddard

 

Page 11
casts himself as Paul Rookh, in his twelfth year and just on the verge of entering boarding school: "Some children are impressive at this period. Paul was not. He was too thin and too long for beauty; he was decidedly uninteresting, and remained so for two years or more. . . . His prospects were certainly dubious enough; so many things happened to him, and he himself was so spiritless and indifferent. . .  How he longed for someone to fly to in his loneliness and sorrow!" 20
In "Hearts of Oak," this role is filled by a boy named Rivers, who was probably modeled on Fred (and also Richard Waite and Edgar Montgomery, who were to become his chums the following year). Rivers embodies all the virtues to which, lacking them himself, Stoddard would be attracted for the rest of his life:
They were nearly of an age, but of very different temperaments. Paul's mind veered with the wind, and quartered with the moon: he was passive, joyous, and downcast in turn; usually longing for something out of reach, and wondering why he could not obtain it. Rivers was evenly cheerful; not easily persuaded nor dissuaded, but having a mind of his own that spoke for itself. He had, moreover, the great and almost godlike gift of self-control, and that is equal to the control of others. Paul felt the power of his will, and submitted to it as patiently as the lamb to the shepherd. In fact, he would rather obey Rivers than be his own master.(361)
Physically they were opposites as well, as may be seen in this description of Rivers, stripped for swimming with some other boys from the academy:
But there was one youngster in the group, whose poses were a study and a satisfaction to the observers. Modesty, without shame, was the characteristic that seemed to clothe him like a mantle. His chest was full and well cushioned with muscle; thighs, plump and sinewy: hips, not too broad nor too narrow; knees, small, and of that fine mechanism so