XXIV. CHARLOTTE CUSHMAK " T~ WAS born a tomboy," wrote Miss Cushraan once. 1 By tomboy she meant that she was a girl who pre- ferred boys' plays, and had boy's faults. She did not care much to sew upon dolls' clothes, but could make dolls' furniture very nicely with tools. She was fond of climb- ing trees, and it was a custom with her in childhood to get out of the way of trouble by climbing to the top of a tall tree. In short, she was a vigorous, strong-limbed, courageous girl, who might have been the mother of heroes if it had not been her fortune to be a heroine herself. In 1816, when she was born, her father was a West India merchant, of the firm of Topliff & Cushman, who had a warehouse on Long Wharf in Boston. Her father, at the age of thirteen, was a poor orphan in Plymouth, Massachusetts, though a lineal descendant of Robert Cushman, one of the pilgrim fathers; a descendant; too, of other Cushmans, whose honored graves I have seen upon Burial Hill, in Plymouth. Her father walked to Boston (thirty miles distant) while he was still a boy, and there, by industry and good conduct, saved a capital upon which he entered into business upon his own account, which enabled him for many years to maintain his family in comfort. Many a time Charlotte played the tomboy on Long Wharf, in and out of her father's store, climbing about vessels, and getting up on heaps of merchandise. Once, in jumping on board a vessel, she fell into the water, and was only rescued from drowning by a passer-by, who (311)
