The Father in the Home

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 7, 1903

The Father in the Home

“I HAVE no theories of fatherhood to present, only a radiant memory,” Henry Turner Baily declares in the Kindergarten Review, and then describes the memory.

“I remember a tall man with a full black beard, clear, light-blue eyes, a high, white forehead with a flourish of dark hair above it. He wore a tight-fitting suit of overall cloth, and Russian imperial boots of grain leather which came above the knees. I can see him now, walking to his mill with a quick, long stride, or standing before a turning lathe with a snow-storm of shavings powdering him from head to foot.

“This was the man whom mother was always glad to see. This was the man who never came into the house without stopping to put his arm about her and kiss her and whisper something in her ear. This was the man who drew me between his knees before breakfast, and called me ‘Little Sonny.’ He rode me upon his shoulder, set me upon his knee, and practiced me on the sounds of the alphabet until I never mispronounced, and took me upon the front seat by his side whenever he drove anywhere. This was the man who sang bass in church, and who sat in the twilight Sunday evening, and played a mellow-toned flute of ebony with machinery of German silver.

“I was afraid of him, just a little; because he was so tall and strong, and because everybody and all the animals I knew, minded whatever he said. I used to think mother was afraid of him, too, because she used to blush when he came near her. And then once when I was busy playing, and said, ‘Wait a minute’ twice, when mother asked me to put away my things and go to bed, he looked at me and said ‘Henry!’ in such a way that I never forgot it. I imagine it was

the memory of such a look that made my brother Fred once ask mother to punish him for some disobedience rather than tell father about it; or perhaps it might have been Fred’s recollection of a punishment which I received for lying. ‘Is it possible that my first boy will tell a lie to his mother?’ my father had asked, with a piercing look straight through me. He talked with me calmly, kindly, but to his sorrow I persisted in my lies, defying him and everybody else to make me say anything I did not please to say. ‘Then I shall have to punish you,’ he said, and reached for a maple shoot which I had been using upon my wooden horse. I have never forgotten that whipping,—the thrill of it which took my breath away, the pain of it which surprised me beyond measure, the wonder that father’s face could be so calm through it all. He shut himself into his bedroom afterward, and prayed to God with tears that his boy might never tell a lie again. I discovered that day the heinousness of sin.

“Not long after, when father was away, I was throwing stones near a shoe shop in the village, and broke a pane of glass. Somebody told mother. She called me in and said, ‘You know what your father told you about throwing stones in the street?’ Yes, I knew. ‘When he comes home, tell him at once what you have done, that you are sorry, and that you will never do so again.’ O, the agony of that afternoon! What would father say? What wouldn’t he do! He would kill me. Ah, how little I knew him! When at last he came, and I had managed to sob out my poor story, his keen eyes softened with tears, he wrapped his strong arms about my shrinking little body, and lifted me tenderly into his lap. He told me that he would forgive me, that he was happy to know that I had told the truth, that he would pay a man to set the glass; and then his voice failed him, and he kissed me upon the forehead. The memory of that kiss will go with me as a benediction forever. I knew that day the joy of a pardoned sinner.

“How I admired that man! When I awoke of a spring morning, I could hear him whistling while he spaded the garden. He hived bees, and managed horses; he could mow and milk, and run the machinery in the mill. He could make the most wonderful things with a jack-knife—toads that could hop, jumping-jacks, willow whistles, darts, bows and arrows, windmills. When the new church was built in the village, he sawed the shingles, turned the rosettes, carved the ornaments with his own hand, made the great clock dials, and set up the clock.

“Then came illness. The dust of the mill was too much for his lungs. The puffing engine, the humming planer, the great crying and singing saw which ate its way through oak logs, the buzzing lathe, and the clucking shingle jointer were all sold and carried away. Father built a shoe shop, and set up new machinery. He was often away, and had wondrous stories to tell of locomotives and steamboats and elevators, of which we boys never tired.

“When I was about seven years old, father took me to Boston. It was just after the great fire. I remember the heaps of red-hot ashes, the queer, distorted shapes of iron, the weird ruins of granite walls, and the soldiers with tall hats and glittering regalia standing guard. It was a gala day for me, but a day of thick darkness for him. The fire had ruined his business. The creditors came to the factory in the country, examined the machinery, looked through our house, walked over the little homestead, and went away.

“Again everything was sold. With hired money, father built a little cottage from plans which he drew himself, and into it we went. There were four of us boys then, all as vigorous and as hungry as healthy country boys alone can be. We must be fed. He opened a repair shop in the village. It was our delight. There were a buzz saw, a jig saw, a carpenter’s bench, a hand forge with rotary blower, a turning lathe, together with all sorts of big tools for repairing machinery, and all sorts of little tools for repairing clocks and watches.

“But business was slack. It was a hard winter. Day after day no work came to the shop. But what good times we had at home! Father played horse with us. We rode upon his back as he crawled about the floor on his hands and knees. He told funny stories. He taught us how to make little trellises for house plants, and how to saw wall brackets from thin wood, which, later, we sold from door to door in a neighboring village, and so earned our first money. We had enough to eat, such as it was,—the simplest and often coarsest of fare,—but mealtimes were always jolly. Father was the light and joy of the house.

“But every day there was a time when we missed him. I wondered about it at first; but once or twice I found him in a room alone with a Bible before him, and once I found him upon his knees. I have that Bible now; and when I turn to the twenty-third psalm, and find the pages soiled and worn, or to the last chapters in John’s Gospel and his Epistles, and find the leaves loose and brown and spotted as with tears, I know the secret of those silent hours, and I know also the secret of that perpetual joy which like a fountain of living water overflowed upon us all in prosperity or adversity, morning, noon, and night, every day of his life.

“He never made us boys a promise which he did not keep; never deceived us; when he wished us to obey him, never spoke more than once; and never required the formation of an intellectual

or moral habit which he did not himself exemplify. And yet he was not harsh or unkind, or even inconsiderate in dealing with us. We were taught by example a reverence for sacred things, a respect for age, and a thoughtful courtesy toward women.

“On Sunday afternoons he read aloud the Bible stories until we knew the old book almost by heart. When we began to read for ourselves, he knew what we read. Because of his thoughtfulness in those days I have never read a useless or vicious book.

“Another invaluable lesson taught by example was industry. We were to do with our might whatever our hands could find to do, simply because it was right to work that way. Moreover we were to be generous in our living. We were to help—to help one another, and to help God save the world. Therefore we must give of our time, our talents, our money, to assist in every good work. In the darkest days, one tenth of the scanty earnings was set aside as consecrated money, and given away as occasion served. No one ever pleaded a worthy cause in vain.

“From my earliest recollection of him to the sad day of his death I never heard a cross or unkind word or saw an angry or impatient look pass between him and the woman he loved, the sweet mother of the seven children who now rise up and call him blessed.

“With beams December planets dart, His cold eye truth and conduct scanned; July was in his sunny heart, October in his liberal hand.”