University of California Berkeley
MRS. STOWE'S NOVELS.
UNIFORM EDITIONS.
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.
NINA GORDON.
AGNES OF SORRENTO.
THE MINISTERS WOOING.
^
THE MAYFLOWER.
THE PEARL OF ORRS ISLAND.
OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Eacli in one vol'u.m.e 12mo.
IPrice, $ 3.OO.
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., Publishers.
OLDTOWN FOLKS
BY
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,
AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," ETC
BOSTON:
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.,
SUCCESSORS TO TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
1869.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Connecticut.
UNIVERSITY PRESS : WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co.,
CAMBRIDGE.
J
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PREFACE.
READER, It is customary to omit pre-
faces. I beg you to make an exception in my par-
ticular case ; I have something I really want to say. I
have an object in this book, more than the mere telling
of a story, and you can always judge of a book better
if you compare it with the author's object. My object
is to interpret to the world the New England life and
character in that particular time of its history which
may be called the seminal period. I would endeavor
to show you New England in its seed-bed, before the
hot suns of modern progress had developed its sprout-
ing germs into the great trees of to-day.
New England has been to these United States what
the Dorian hive was to Greece. It has always been a
pital country to emigrate from, and North, South,
st, and West have been populated largely from New
England, so that the seed-bed of New England was
the seed-bed of this great American Republic, and of
all that is likely to come of it.
New England people cannot be thus interpreted with-
out calling into view many grave considerations and
necessitating some serious thinking.
In doing this work, I have tried to make my mind
as still and passive as a looking-glass, or a mountain
lake, and then to give you merely the images reflected
there. I desire that you should see the characteristic
IV PREFACE.
persons of those times, and hear them talk ; and some-
times I have taken an author's liberty of explaining their
characters to you, and telling you why they talked and
lived as they did.
My studies for this object have been Pre-Kaphaelite,
taken from real characters, real scenes, and real incidents.
And some of those things in the story which may appear
most romantic and like fiction are simple renderings and
applications of facts.
Any one who may be curious enough to consult Rev.
Elias Nason's book, called " Sir Charles Henry Frankland,
or Boston in the Colonial Times," will there see a full
description of the old manor-house which in this story is
called the Dench House. It was by that name I always
heard it spoken of in my boyhood.
In portraying the various characters which I have in-
troduced, I have tried to maintain the part simply of a
sympathetic spectator. I propose neither to teach nor
preach through them, any farther than any spectator of
life is preached to by what he sees of the workings of
human nature around him.
Though Calvinist, Arminian, High-Church Episcopa-
lian, sceptic, and simple believer all speak in their turn,
I merely listen, and endeavor to understand and faith-
fully represent the inner life of each. I myself am but
the observer and reporter, seeing much, doubting much,
questioning much, and believing with all my heart in
only a very few things.
And so I take my leave of you.
HORACE HOLYOKE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGB
OLDTOWN AND THE MINISTER 1
CHAPTER II.
MY FATHER 11
CHAPTER III.
Mr GRANDMOTHER 18
CHAPTER IV.
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING 28
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE 39
CHAPTER VI.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY G-RANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN ... 61
CHAPTER VII.
OLD CRAB SMITH 85
CHAPTER VIII.
Miss ASPHYXIA 97
CHAPTER IX.
HARRY'S FIRST DAY'S WORK 109
CHAPTER X.
Miss ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM . 115
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTEE XI.
THE CRISIS 128
CHAPTER XII.
THE LION'S MOUTH SHUT ........ 134
CHAPTER XIII.
THE EMPTY BIRD'S-NEST . . . . . . . . 141
CHAPTER XIY.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND 146
CHAPTER XV.
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE 159
CHAPTER XVI.
SAM LAWSON'S DISCOVERIES ....... 169
CHAPTER XVII.
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE 179
CHAPTER XVIII.
TINA'S ADOPTION 198
CHAPTER XIX.
Miss MEHITABLE'S LETTER, AND THE REPLY, GIVING FURTHER
HINTS OF THE STORY 212
CHAPTER XX.
Miss ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT, AND MY GRANDMOTHER GIVES
HER VIEWS ON EDUCATION ....... 234
CHAPTER XXI.
WHAT is TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY? 249
CHAPTER XXII.
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN 261
CHAPTER XXIII.
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD , 274
CONTENTS. Vll
CHAPTER XXIV.
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR 290
CHAPTER XXV.
EASTER SUNDAY 305
CHAPTER XXYI.
WHAT "OuR FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN 325
CHAPTER XXVII.
How WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN .... 336
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE RAID ON OLDTOWN, AND UNCLE FLIAKLM'S BRAVERY. . 354
CHAPTER XXIX.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK 367
CHAPTER XXX.
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE 391
CHAPTER XXXI.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA? ...... 405
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE JOURNEY TO CLOUDLAND 414
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND 421
CHAPTER XXXIV.
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND 441
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE REVIVAL OP RELIGION 457
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AFTER THE REVIVAL 468
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE MINISTER'S WOOD-SPELL . , 478
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ELLERY DAVENPORT 487
CHAPTER XXXIX.
LAST DAYS IN CLOUDLAND. 498
CHAPTER XL.
WE ENTER COLLEGE . . . 508
CHAPTER XLI.
NIGHT TALKS 519
CHAPTER XLII.
SPRING VACATION AT OLDTOWN 525
CHAPTER XLIII.
WHAT OUR FOLKS THOUGHT ABOUT IT .... 535
CHAPTER XLIV.
MARRIAGE PREPARATIONS 548
CHAPTER XLV.
WEDDING BELLS . . . 558
CHAPTER XLVI.
WEDDING AFTER-TALKS AT OLDTOWN 570
CHAPTER XLVII.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN 576
CHAPTER XLVIII.
TINA'S SOLUTION 584
CHAPTER XLIX.
WHAT CAME OF IT 592
CHAPTER L.
THE LAST CHAPTER . ... 602
OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER I.
OLDTOWN AND THE MINISTER.
IT has always been a favorite idea of mine, that there is so much
of the human in every man, that the life of any one individual,
however obscure, if really and vividly perceived in all its aspi-
rations, struggles, failures, and successes, would command the
interest of all others. This is my only apology for offering my
life as an open page to the reading of the public.
Besides this, however, every individual is part and parcel of a
great picture of the society in which he lives and acts, and his life
cannot be painted without reproducing the picture of the world
he lived in ; and it has appeared to me that my life might recall
the image and body of a period in New England most peculiar
and most interesting, the impress of which is now rapidly fading
away. I mean the ante-railroad times, the period when our
own hard, rocky, sterile New England was a sort of half Hebrew
theocracy, half ultra-democratic republic of little villages, sep-
arated by a pathless ocean from all the civilization and refinement
of the Old World, forgotten and unnoticed, and yet burning like
live coals under this obscurity with all the fervid activity of an
intense, newly kindled, peculiar, and individual life.
My early life lies in one of these quiet little villages, that of
Oldtown, in Massachusetts. It was as pretty a village as ever
laid itself down to rest on the banks of a tranquil river. The
stream was one of those limpid children of the mountains, whose
brown, clear waters ripple with a soft yellow light over many-
colored pebbles, now brawling and babbling on rocky bottoms,
1 A
2 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
dashing hither and thither in tiny cascades, throwing white spray
over green mossed rocks, and then again sweeping silently, with
many a winding curve, through soft green meadows, nursing on
its bosom troops of water-lilies, and bordering its banks with
blue and white violets, snow-flaked meadow-sweet, and wild iris.
Hither and thither, in the fertile tracts of meadow or upland
through which this little stream wound, were some two dozen
farm-houses, hid in green hollows, or perched on breezy hill-tops ;
while close alongside of the river, at its widest and deepest part,
ran one rustic street, thickly carpeted with short velvet green
grass, where stood the presiding buildings of the village.
First among these was the motherly meeting-house, with its
tall white spire, its ample court of sheds and stalls for the shelter
of the horses and the various farm-wagons which came in to Sun-
day services. There was also the school-house, the Academy, and
Israel Scran's store, where everything was sold, from hoe-handles
up to cambric needles, where the post-office was kept, and
where was a general exchange of news, as the different farm-
wagons stood hitched around the door, and their owners spent a
leisure moment in discussing politics or theology from .the top of
codfish or mackerel barrels, while their wives and daughters were
shopping among the dress goods and ribbons, on the other side
of the store. Next to the store was the tavern, with a tall sign-
post which used to creak and flap in the summer winds, with a
leisurely, rich, easy sort of note of invitation, a broad veranda
in front, with benches, an open tap-room, where great barrels
of beer were kept on draft, and a bar where the various articles
proscribed by the temperance society were in those days allowed
an open and respectable standing. This tavern veranda and tap-
room was another general exchange, not in those days held in the
ill repute of such resorts now. The minister himself, in all the
magnificence of his cocked hat and ample clerical \vig, with his
gold-headed cane in his hand, would sometimes step into the tap-
room of a cold winter morning, and order a mug of flip from ob-
sequious Amaziah the host, and, while he sipped it, would lecture
with a severe gravity a few idle, ragged fellows who were spend-
ing too much time in those seductive precincts. The clergy in
OLDTOWN AND THE MINISTER. 3
those days felt that they never preached temperance with so
warm a fervor as between the comfortable sips of a beverage of
whose temperate use they intended to be shining examples. The
most vivid image of respectability and majesty which a little boy
bora in a Massachusetts village in those early days could form
was the minister. In the little theocracy which the Pilgrims
established in the wilderness, the ministry was the only order of
nobility. They were the only privileged class, and their voice
it was that decided ex cathedra on all questions both in Church
and State, from the choice of a Governor to that of the district-
school teacher.
Our minister, as I remember him, was one of the cleanest,
most gentlemanly, most well bred of men, never appearing
without all the decorums of silk stockings, shining knee and shoe
buckles, well-brushed shoes, immaculately powdered wig, out of
which shone his clear, calm, serious face, like the moon out of a
fleecy cloud.
Oldtown was originally an Indian town, and one of the most
numerous and powerful of the Indian tribes had possessed the
beautiful tracts of meadow and upland farms that bordered the
Sepaug River. Here the great apostle of the Indians had es-
tablished the first missionary enterprise among them, under the
patronage of a society in England for the propagation of the Gos-
pel in foreign parts ; here he had labored and taught and prayed
with a fervor which bowed all hearts to his sway, and gathered
from the sons of the forest a church of devoted Christians. The
harsh guttural Indian language, in the fervent alembic of his lov-
ing study, was melted into a written dialect ; a Bible and hymn-
book and spelling-book seemed to open a path to an Indian lit-
erature. He taught them agriculture, and many of the arts and
trades of civilized life. But he could not avert the doom which
seems to foreordain that those races shall dry up and pass away
with their native forests, as the brook dries up when the pines
and hemlocks which shaded its source are torn away.
In my boyhood, three generations had passed since the apostle
died. The elms which two grateful Indian catechumens had set
out as little saplings on either side of his gateway were now
4 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
two beautiful pillars, supporting each its firmament of leafy
boughs, and giving a grand air of scholarly retirement to the
plain, old-fashioned parsonage ; but the powerful Indian tribe
had dwindled to a few scattered families, living an uncertain and
wandering life on the outskirts of the thrift and civilization of
the whites.
Our minister was one of those cold, clear-cut, polished crys-
tals that are formed in the cooling-down of society, after it has
been melted and purified by a great enthusiasm. Nobody can
read Dr. Cotton Mather's biography of the first ministers of
Massachusetts, without feeling that they were men whose whole
souls were in a state of fusion, by their conceptions of an endless
life; that the ruling forces which impelled them were the sublim-
ities of a world to come ; and that, if there be such a thing pos-
sible as perfect faith in the eternal and invisible, and perfect loy-
alty to God and to conscience, these men were pervaded by it.
More than this, many of them were men of a softened and ten-
der spirit, bowed by past afflictions, who had passed through the
refining fires of martyrdom, and come to this country, counting
not home or kindred dear to them, that they might found a com-
monwealth for the beloved name and honor of One who died for
them. Christo et Ecclesice, was the seal with which they conse-
crated all their life-work, from the founding of Harvard Col-
lege down to the district school in every village. These men
lived in the full spirit of him who said, " I am crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me";
and the power of this invisible and mighty love shed a softening
charm over the austere grandeur of their lives. They formed a
commonwealth where vice was wellnigh impossible ; where such
landmarks and boundaries and buttresses and breastworks hedged
in and defended the morality of a community, that to go very far
out of the way would require some considerable ingenuity and
enterprise.
The young men grew up grave and decorous through the nurs-
ing of church, catechism, and college, all acting in one line ; and
in due time many studious and quiet youths stepped, in regular
succession, from the college to the theological course, and thence
OLDTOWN AND THE MINISTER. 6
to the ministry, as their natural and appointed work. They re-
ceived the articles of faith as taught in their catechism without
dispute, and took their places calmly and without opposition to
assist in carrying on a society where everything had been ar-
ranged to go under their direction, and they were the recog-
nized and appointed leaders and governors.
The Rev. Mr. Lothrop had come of good ministerial blood
for generations back. His destination had always been for the
pulpit. He was possessed of one of those calm, quiet, sedate
natures, to whom the temptations of turbulent nerves or vehe-
ment passions are things utterly incomprehensible.
Now, however stringent and pronounced may be the forms in
which one's traditional faith may have been expressed, it is cer-
tain that temperament gradually, and with irresistible power,
modifies one's creed. Those features of a man's professed belief
which are unsympathetic with his nature become to his mind in-
volved in a perpetual haze and cloud of disuse ; while certain
others, which are congenial, become vivid and pronounced ; and
thus, practically, the whole faith of the man changes without his
ever being aware of the fact himself.
Parson Lothrop belonged to a numerous class in the third gen-
eration of Massachusetts clergy, commonly called Arminian,
men in whom this insensible change had been wrought from the
sharply defined and pronounced Calvinism of the early fathers.
They were mostly scholarly, quiet men, of calm and philo-
sophic temperament, who, having from infancy walked in all the
traditions of a virtuous and pious education, and passed from
grade to grade of their progress with irreproachable quiet and
decorum, came to regard the spiritual struggles and conflicts, the
wrestlings and tears, the fastings and temptations of their ances-
tors with a secret scepticism, to dwell on moralities, virtues,
and decorums, rather than on those soul-stirring spiritual mys-
teries which still stood forth unquestioned and uncontradicted in
their confessions of faith.
Parson Lothrop fulfilled with immaculate precision all the
proprieties exacted in his station. Oldtown having been origi-
nally an Indian missionary station, an annual stipend was paid
6 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the pastor of this town from a fund originally invested in England
for the conversion of the Indians ; and so Parson Lothrop had
the sounding-board of Eliot's pulpit put up over the great arm-
chair in his study, and used to call thither weekly the wandering
remnants of Indian tribes to be catechised. He did not, like his
great predecessor, lecture them on the original depravity of the
heart, the need of a radical and thorough regeneration by the
Holy Spirit of God, or the power of Jesus as a Saviour from
sin, but he talked to them of the evil of drunkenness and lying
and idleness, and exhorted them to be temperate and industri-
ous ; and when they, notwithstanding his exhortations, continued
to lead an unthrifty, wandering life, he calmly expressed his
conviction that they were children of the forest, a race destined
to extinction with the progress of civilization, but continued his
labors for them with automatic precision.
His Sunday sermons were well-written specimens of the pur-
est and most elegant Addisonian English, and no mortal could find
fault with a word that was in them, as they were sensible, ration-
al, and religious, as far as they went. Indeed, Mr. Lothrop was
quite an elegant scholar and student in literature, and more than
once surprise had been expressed to him that he should be will-
ing to employ his abilities in so obscure a town and for so incon-
siderable a salary. His reply was characteristic. " My salary is
indeed small, but it is as certain as the Bank of England, and
retirement and quiet give me leisure for study."
He, however, mended his worldly prospects by a matrimonial
union with a widow lady of large property, from one of the most
aristocratic families of Boston. Mrs. Dorothea Lucretia Dix-
well was the widow of a Tory merchant, who, by rare skill in
trimming his boat to suit the times, had come through the Rev-
olutionary war with a handsome property unimpaired, which,
dying shortly after, he left to his widow. Mrs. Dixwell was in
heart and soul an Englishwoman, an adorer of church and king,
a worshipper of aristocracy and all the powers that be. She
owned a pew in King's Chapel, and clung more punctiliously
than ever to her prayer-book, when all other memorials of our
connection with the mother country had departed.
OLDTOWN AND THE MINISTER. 7
Could it be thought that the elegant and rich widow would
smile on the suit of an obscure country Congregational clergy-
man ? Yet she did ; and for it there were many good reasons.
Parson Lothrop was a stately, handsome, well-proportioned man,
and had the formal and ceremonious politeness of a gentleman
of the old school, and by family descent Mrs. Dorothea's remem-
brance could trace back his blood to that of some very solid fam-
ilies among the English gentry, and as there were no more
noblemen to be had in America, marrying a minister in those
days was the next best thing to it ; and so Mrs. Dixwell became
Mrs. Parson Lothrop, and made a processional entrance into
Oldtown in her own coach, and came therein to church the
first Sunday after her marriage, in all ' the pomp of a white
brocade, with silver flowers on it of life-size, and white-satin
slippers with heels two inches high. This was a great grace to
show to a Congregational church, but Mrs. Lothrop knew the
duty of a wife, and conformed to it heroically. Nor was Parson
Lothrop unmindful of the courtesies of a husband in this mat-
rimonial treaty, for it was stipulated and agreed that Madam
Lothrop should have full liberty to observe in her own proper
person all the festivals and fasts of the Church of England,
should be excused from all company and allowed 'to keep the
seclusion of her own apartment on Good Friday, and should
proceed immediately thereafter in her own coach to Boston, to
be present at the Easter services in King's Chapel. The same
procession to Boston in her own coach took place also on Whit-
sunday and Christmas. Moreover she decked her house with
green boughs and made mince-pies at Christmas time, and in
short conducted her housekeeping in all respects as a zealous
member of the Church of England ought.
In those days of New England, the minister and his wife were
considered the temporal and spiritual superiors of everybody in
the parish. The idea which has since gained ground, of regard-
ing the minister and his family as a sort of stipendiary attach-
ment and hired officials of the parish, to be overlooked, schooled,
advised, rebuked, and chastened by every deacon and deacon's
wife or rich and influential parishioner, had not then arisen.
8 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Parson Lothrop was so calmly awful in his sense of his own
position and authority, that it would have been a sight worth
seeing to witness any of his parish coming to him, as deacons
and influential parishioners now-a-days feel at liberty to come
to their minister, with suggestions and admonitions. His man-
ner was ever gracious and affable, as of a man who habitually
surveys every one from above, and is disposed to listen with in-
dulgent courtesy, and has advice in reserve for all seekers ; but.
there was not the slightest shadow of anything which encouraged
the most presuming to offer counsel in return. And so the mar-
riage with the rich Episcopal widow, her processional entry
into Oldtown, the coach and outriders, the brocade and satin slip-
pers, were all submitted to on the part of the Oldtown people
without a murmur.
The fact is, that the parson himself felt within his veins the
traditional promptings of a far-off church and king ancestry, and
relished with a calm delight a solemn trot to the meeting-
house behind a pair of fat, decorous old family horses, with a black
coachman in livery on the box. It struck him as sensible and
becoming. So also he liked a sideboard loaded with massive
family plate, warmed up with the ruby hues of old wines of fifty
years' ripening, gleaming through crystal decanters, and well-
trained man-servants and maid-servants, through whom his wig,
his shoes,, and all his mortal belongings, received daily and suita-
ble care. He was to Mrs. Dorothea the most deferential of
husbands, always rising with stately courtesy to offer her a chair
when she entered an apartment, and hastening to open the door
for her if she wished to pass out, and passing every morning
and evening the formal gallantries and inquiries in regard to
her health and well-being which he felt that her state and con-
dition required.
Fancy if you can the magnificent distance at which this sub-
lime couple stood above a little ten-year-old boy, who wore a
blue checked apron, and every day pattered barefoot after the
cows, and who, at the time this story of myself begins, had just,
by reaching up on his little bare tiptoes, struck the great black
knocker on their front door.
OLDTOWN AND THE MINISTER. 9
The door was opened by a stately black servant, who had about
him an indistinct and yet perceptible atmosphere of ministerial
gravity and dignity, looking like a black doctor of divinity.
" Is Mr. Lothrop at home," I said, blushing to the roots of my
hair.
" Yes, sonny," said the black condescendingly.
" Won't you please tell him father 's dying, and mother wants
him to come quick ? " and with that, what with awe, and what with
grief, I burst into tears.
The kind-hearted black relaxed from his majesty at once, and
said : " Lord bress yer soul ! why, don't cry now, honey, and
I'll jes' call missis"; and in fact, before I knew it, he had
opened the parlor door, and ushered me into the august pres-
ence of Lady Lothrop, as she used to be familiarly called in our
village.
She was a tall, thin, sallow woman, looking very much like
those portraits by Copley that still adorn some old houses in
Boston ; but she had a gentle voice, and a compassionate, wo-
manly way with her. She comforted me with a cake, which she
drew from the closet in the sideboard ; decanted some very
choice old wine into a bottle, which she said I was to carry to
my mother, and be sure and tell her to take a little of it herself.
She also desired me to give her a small book which she had
found of use in times of affliction, called " The Mourner's Com-
panion," consisting mainly of choice selections from the English
Book of Common Prayer.
When the minister came into the room I saw that she gave a
conjugal touch to the snowy plaited frill of his ruffled shirt, and
a thoughtful inspection to the wide linen cambric frills which set
off his well-formed hand, and which were a little discomposed by
rubbing over his writing-table, nay, even upon one of them a
small stain of ink was visible, as the minister, unknown to him-
self, had drawn his ruffles over an undried portion of his next
Sunday's sermon.
" Dinah must attend to this," she said ; " here 's a spot requir-
ing salts of lemon ; and, my dear," she said, in an insinuating
tone, holding out a richly bound velvet prayer-book, " would you
1*
10 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
not like to read our service for the Visitation of the Sick, it is
so excellent."
" I am well aware of that, my love," said the minister, repel-
ling her prayer-book with a gentle stateliness, " but I assure you,
Dorothea, it would not do, no, it would not do."
I thought the good lady sighed as her husband left the house,
and looked longingly after him 'through the window as he walked
down the yard. She probably consoled herself with the reflec-
tion that one could not have everything, and that her spouse, if
not in the Established Church of England, was every way fitted
to adorn it had he only been there.
MY FATHER. 11
CHAPTER II.
MY FATHER.
MY good reader, it must sometimes have fallen under your
observation that there is a class of men who go through
life under a cloud, for no other reason than that, being born with
the nature of gentlemen, they are nevertheless poor. Such men
generally live under a sense of the dissatisfaction and rebuke
of our good mother world ; and yet it is easy to see all the
while that even a moderate competence would at any moment
turn their faults into virtues, and make them in everybody's
opinion model characters.
Now you know there are plants to whom poor soil or rich soil
seems to make no manner of difference. Your mullein and your
burdock do admirably on a gravelly hillside, and admirably in
rich garden soil. Nothing comes amiss with them. But take a
saffVano rose or a hyacinth and turn it out to shift for itself by
the roadside, and it soon dwindles and pines, and loses its color
and shape, till everybody thinks such a wretched, ragged speci-
men of vegetation had better be out of the world than in it.
From all I remember of my poor father, he had the organiza-
tion and tastes of a scholar and a gentleman ; but he was born the
son of a poor widow, who hardly knew from week to week where
the few hard-earned dollars were to come from which kept her
and her boy in the very plainest food and clothing. So she
thought herself happy when she apprenticed him to a paper-
maker. Thence he had fought his way up with his little boy
hands towards what to him was light and life, an education.
Harvard College, to his eyes, was like the distant vision of the
New Jerusalem to the Christian. Thither he aspired, thither he
meant to go. Through many a self-denial, many an hour of
toil, studying his Latin grammar by night in the paper-mill,
saving his odd pennies, and buying book after book, and treasur-
OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
12 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
ing each one as a mine of wealth, he went on, till finally he
gained enough of a standing to teach, first the common school,
and then the Academy.
While he was teacher of the Academy he made his first false
step, which was a false step only because he was poor, he fell
in love with my mother. If he had been well to do in the world,
everybody would have said that it was the most natural and
praiseworthy thing possible. It was some extenuation of his
fault that my poor mother was very pretty and attractive,
she was, in fact, one of my father's prettiest scholars. He saw
her daily, and so the folly grew upon him, till he was ready to
sacrifice his life's object, and consent to be all his days a poor
academy teacher in Oldtown, that he might marry her.
One must be very much of a woman for whom a man can
sacrifice the deepest purpose of his life without awaking to re-
gret it. I do not say that my father did so ; and yet I could
see, from the earliest of my recollection, that ours was a house-
hold clouded by suppressed regrets, as well as embarrassed by
real wants.
My mother was one of those bright, fair, delicate New Eng-
land girls who remind us of the shell-pink of the wood-anem-
one, or the fragile wind-flower ; and every 6ne must remember
how jauntily they toss their gay little heads as they grow in their
own mossy dells, at the root of old oaks or beeches, but how
quickly they become withered and bedraggled when we gather
them.
My mother's gayety of animal spirits, her sparkle and vivacity,
all went with the first year of marriage. The cares of house-
keeping, the sicknesses of maternity and nursing, drained her
dry of all that was bright and attractive ; and my only recollec-
tions of her are of a little quiet, faded, mournful woman, who
looked on my birth and that of my brother Bill as the greatest
of possible misfortunes, and took care of us with a discouraged
patience, more as if she pitied us for being born than as if she
loved us.
My father seemed to regard her with a half-remorseful tender-
ness, as he strove by extra reading and study to make up for the
MY FATHER. 13
loss of that education the prospect of which he had sacrificed
in his marriage. In common with a great many scholars
of that day and of this, he ignored his body altogether, and
tasked and strained his brain with night studies till his health
sank under it ; and Consumption, which in New England stands
ever waiting for victims, took his cold hand in hers, and led him
quietly but irresistibly downward.
Such, to this moment, was my father's history ; and you will
see the truth of what I have been saying, that a modest little
property would have changed all his faults and mistakes into pro-
prieties and virtues.
He had been sick so long, so very long, it seemed to my child-
mind ! and now there was approaching him that dark shadow so
terrible to flesh and heart, in whose dimness every one feels an
instinctive longing for aid. That something must be done for
the dying to prepare them for their last lonesome journey is a
strong instinct of every soul ; and I had heard my mother pa-
thetically urging my father that morning to send for the minister.
" What good will it do, Susy ? " had been his answer, given
with a sort of weary despondence ; but still he had assented, and
I had gone eagerly to bring him.
I was, for my part, strong in faith. I wanted to do something
for my father, and I felt certain that the minister would know
what was the right thing ; and when I set forth with him, in his
full panoply, wig and ruffles and gold-headed cane, I felt
somehow as if the ark of the covenant was moving down the
street to our house.
My mother met the minister at the door, with tears yet undried
in her eyes, and responded in the fullest manner to the somewhat
stately, but yet gracious, inquiries which he made as to my father's
health and condition, and thanked him for the kindly messages
and gifts of Lady Lothrop, which I had brought.
Then he was shown into the sick-room. My father was lying
propped up by pillows, and with the bright flush of his afternoon
fever on his cheeks. He was always a handsome man, fastidious
about his person and belongings ; and as he lay with his long
thin hands folded together over the bed-clothes, his hair clinging
14 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
in damp curls round his high white forehead, and his large, clear
hazel eyes kindled with an unnatural brightness, he formed on
my childish memory a picture that will never fade. There was
in his eyes at this moment that peculiar look of deep suffering
which I have sometimes seen in the eyes of wounded birds or
dying animals, something that spoke of a quiet, unutterable
anguish.
My father had been not only a scholar, but a thinker, one of
those silent, peculiar natures whose thoughts and reasonings too
often wander up and down the track of commonly received opin-
ion, as Noah's dove of old, without finding rest for the sole of
their foot. When a mind like this is approaching the confines
of the eternal unknown, there is often a conflict of thought and
emotion, the utterance of which to a receptive and sympathizing
soul might bring relief. Something there was of intense yearn-
ing and inquiry in the first glance he threw on the minister, and
then it changed to one of weary languor. With the quick spirit-
ual instincts of that last dying hour, he had seen into the soul of
the man, that there was nothing there for him. Even the
gold-headed cane was not the rod and staff for him in the dark
valley.
There was, in fact, something in the tranquil, calm, unpathetic
nature of that good man, which rendered him peculiarly inapt to
enter into the secret chamber of souls that struggle and suffer
and doubt. He had a nature so evenly balanced, his course in
life had been so quiet and unruffled, his speculations and doubts
had been of so philosophical and tranquil a kind, that he was
not in the least fitted to become father confessor to a sick and
wounded spirit.
His nature was one that inclined to certain stately formalities
and proprieties ; and although he had, in accordance with his sta-
tion in the Congregational church, put from him the forms of the
Church of England, and was supposed to rely on the extempora-
neous movements of the hour, his devotional exercises, never-
theless, had as much a stereotype form as if they had been printed
in a book. We boys always knew when the time for certain
familiar phrases and expressions would occur in his Sunday
MY FATHER. 15
morning prayer, and exactly the welcome words which heralded
the close of the afternoon exercise.
I remember now, as he knelt by my father's bedside, how far
off and distant the usual opening formula of his prayer made the
Great Helper to appear. " Supremely great, infinitely glorious,
and ever-blessed God," it said, " grant that we may suitably
realize the infinite distance between us, worms of the dust, and
thy divine majesty."
I was gazing earnestly at my father, as he lay with his bright,
yearning, troubled eyes looking out into the misty shadows of the
eternal world, and I saw him close them wearily, and open them
again, with an expression of quiet endurance. The infinite dis-
tance was a thing that he realized only too well ; but who should
tell him of an infinite nearness by which those who are far off
are made nigh?
After the prayer, the minister expressed the hope that my
father would be resigned to the decrees of infinite wisdom, and
my father languidly assented ; and then, with a ministerial bene-
diction, the whole stately apparition of ghostly aid and comfort
departed from our house.
One thing, at all events, had been gained, my father had
had the minister and been prayed with, and nobody in Oldtown
could say that everything had not been properly done, accord-
ing to the code of spiritual etiquette generally established.
For our town, like other little places, always kept a wide-awake
eye on the goings and doings of her children. Oldtown had had
its own opinion of my father for a great while, and expressed
it freely in tea-drinkings, quiltings, at the store, and at the tav-
ern. If Oldtown's advice had been asked, there were a hundred
things that he did which would have been left undone, and a
hundred things done which he did not do. Oldtown knew just
whom he ought to have married instead of marrying my mother,
and was certain he could have had her too. Oldtown knew just
how and when he might have made himself a rich man, and
did n't. Oldtown knew exactly when, how, and why he caught
the cold that set him into a consumption, and what he ought to
have taken to cure it, and did n't. And now he was, so to speak,
16 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
dying under a cloud, just as Oldtown always knew he would.
But one thing was certain, and Oldtown was glad to hear of it,
he was n't an infidel, as had been at different times insinuated,
for he had had the minister and been prayed with ; and so, though
he never had joined the church, Oldtown indulged some hope for
his hereafter.
When the minister was gone, my father said, with a weary
smile : " There, Susy dear, I hope you are satisfied now. My
poor child," he added, gently drawing her to sit down by him,
and looking at her with the strange, solemn dispassionateness
of dying people, who already begin to feel that they are of an-
other sphere, " my poor dear little girl ! You were so pretty
and so gay ! I did you a great wrong in marrying you."
" O, don't say that Horace," said my mother.
" It 's true, though," said my father. " With a richer and more
prosperous man, you might have been blooming and happy yet.
And this poor little man," said my father, stroking my head,
" perhaps fate may have something better in store for him. If I
had had but the ghost of a chance, such as some men have,
some who do not value it, who only throw it away, I might
have been something. I had it in me ; but no one will ever
know it now. My life is a miserable, disgusting failure. Burn
all my papers, Susy. Promise me that."
" I will do just what you say, Horace."
" And, Susy, when I am gone, don't let all the old gossips of
Oldtown come to croak and croon over me, and make their stupid
remarks on my helpless body. I hate country funerals. Don't
make a vulgar show of me for their staring curiosity. Death is
dreary enough at best, but I never could see any sense in aggra-
vating its horrors by stupid funeral customs. Instead of dressing
me in those ghostly, unnatural grave-clothes that people seem to
delight in, just let me be buried in my clothes and let the last
look my poor children have of me be as natural and familiar as
possible. The last look of the dead ought to be sacred to one's
friends alone. Promise, now, Susy," he said earnestly, " promise
to do as I say."
" O Horace, I do promise, I promise to do all you say. You
know I always have."
MY FATHER. 17
" Yes, poor dear child, you have ; you have been only too
good for me."
" Horace, how can you say so ! " and my poor mother fell on
my father's neck in a paroxysm of weeping.
But his great, bright eyes gathered no tears ; they were fixed
in an awful stillness. "My darling, you must not," he said
tenderly, but with no answering emotion. " Calm yourself.
And now, dear, as I am sure that to-morrow I shall not be with
you, you must send for your mother to be with you to-night.
You know she will come."
" Father," said I earnestly, " where are you going ? "
" Where ? " said he, looking at me with his clear, mournful
eyes. " God knows, my son. I do not. It ought to be enough
for me that God does know."
18 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTEE III.
MY GRAND MOTHEK.
Horace," said my mother, " you must run right
up to your grandfather's, and tell your grandmother to
come down and stay with us to-night ; and you and Bill must
stay there."
Bill, my brother, was a year or two older than I was ; far
more healthy, and consequently, perhaps, far more noisy. At
any rate, my mother was generally only too glad to give her con-
sent to his going anywhere of a leisure afternoon which would
keep him out of the house, while I was always retained as her
own special waiter and messenger.
My father had a partiality for me, because I was early an apt
reader, and was fond of the quiet of his study and his books.
He used to take pride and pleasure in hearing me read, which I
did with more fluency and understanding than many children of
twice my age; and thus it happened that, while Bill was off
roaming in the woods this sunny autumn afternoon, I was the
attendant and waiter in the sick-room. My little soul was op-
pressed and sorrowful, and so the message that sent me to my
grandmother was a very welcome one, for my grandmother was,
in my view, a tower of strength and deliverance. My mother
was, as I have said, a frail, mournful, little, discouraged woman ;
but my grandmother belonged to that tribe of strong-backed,
energetic, martial mothers in Israel, who brought to our life in
America the vigorous bone and muscle and hearty blood of the
yeomanry of Old England. She was a valiant old soul, who
fearlessly took any bull in life by the horns, and was ready to
shake him into decorum.
My grandfather, a well-to-do farmer, was one of the chief
magnates of the village, and carried on a large farm and certain
mills at the other end of it. The great old-fashioned farm-
MY GRANDMOTHER. 19
house where they lived was at some distance fiom my father's
cottage, right on the banks of that brown, sparkling, clear stream
I have spoken of.
My grandfather was a serene, moderate, quiet man, upward of
sixty, with an affable word and a smile for everybody, a man
of easy habits, never discomposed, and never in a hurry, who
had a comfortable faith that somehow or other the affairs of this
world in general, and his own in particular, would turn out all
right, without much seeing to on his part.
My grandmother, on the contrary, was one of those wide-
awake, earnest, active natures, whose days were hardly ever long
enough for all that she felt needed to be done and attended to.
She had very positive opinions on every subject, and was not at
all backward in the forcible and vigorous expression of them;
and evidently considering the apostolic gift of exhortation as
having come straight down to her, she failed not to use it for the
benefit of all whom it might concern.
Oldtown had in many respects a peculiar sort of society. The
Indian tribe that once had been settled in its vicinity had left
upon the place the tradition of a sort of wandering, gypsy, tramp-
ing life, so that there was in the town an unusual number of that
roving, uncertain class of people, who are always falling into
want, and needing to be helped, hanging like a tattered fringe on
the thrifty and well-kept petticoat of New England society.
The traditions of tenderness, pity, and indulgence which the
apostle Eliot had inwrought into the people of his day in regard
to the Indians, had descended through all the families, and given
to that roving people certain established rights in every house-
hold, which in those days no one ever thought of disowning. The
wandering Indian was never denied a good meal, a seat by the
kitchen fire, a mug of cider, and a bed in the barn. My grand-
father, out of his ample apple-orchard, always made one hogshead
of cider which was called the Indian hogshead, and which was
known to be always on tap for them ; and my grandmother not
only gave them food, but more than once would provide them with
blankets, and allow them to lie down and sleep by her great
kitchen fire. In those days New England was such a well-watched,
20 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and schooled and catechised community, and so innocent in the
general tone of its society, that in the rural villages no one ever
locked the house doors of a night. I have lain awake many a
night hearing the notes of the whippoorwills and the frogs, and
listening to the sighing of the breeze, as it came through the great
wide-open front-door of the house, and swept up the staircase.
Nobody ever thought of being afraid that the tramper whom he
left asleep on the kitchen floor would rouse up in the night and
rob the house. In fact, the poor vagrants were themselves tol-
erably innocent, not being guilty of very many sins darker than
occasional drunkenness and habitual unthrift. They were a
simple, silly, jolly set of rovers, partly Indian and partly whites
who had fallen into Indian habits, who told stories, made baskets,
drank cider, and raised puppies, of which they generally carried
a supply in their wanderings, and from which came forth in due
time an ample supply of those yellow dogs of old, one of whom
was a standing member of every well-regulated New England
family. Your yellow dog had an important part to act in life, as
much as any of his masters. He lay in the kitchen door and
barked properly at everything that went by. He went out with
the children when they went roving in the woods Saturday after-
noon, and was always on hand with a sober face to patter on his
four solemn paws behind the farm-wagon as it went to meeting
of a Sunday morning. And in meeting, who can say what an
infinite fund of consolation their yellow, honest faces and great,
soft eyes were to the children tired of the sermon, but greatly
consoled by getting a sly opportunity to stroke Bose's yellow
back? How many little eyes twinkled sympathetically through
the slats of the high-backed pews, as the tick of their paws up
and down the broad aisle announced that they were treating
themselves to that meditative locomotion allowed to good dogs
in sermon- time !
Surrounded by just such a community as I have described, my
grandmother's gifts never became rusty for want of exercise.
Somebody always needed straightening up and attending to.
Somebody was to be exhorted, rebuked, or admonished, with all
long-suffering and doctrine ; and it was cheering to behold, after
MY GRANDMOTHER. 21
years of labors that had appeared to produce no very brilliant
results on her disciples, how hale and vigorous her faith yet re-
mained ih the power of talking to people. She seemed to con-
sider that evil-doers fell into sins and evils of all sorts merely
for want of somebody to talk to them, and would fly at some
poor, idle, loafing, shiftless object who staggered past her house
from the tavern, with the same earnestness and zeal for the
fortieth time as if she had not exhorted him vainly for the
thirty-nine before.
In fact, on this very Saturday afternoon, as I was coming down
the hill, whence I could see the mill and farm-house, I caught
sight of her standing in the door, with cap-border erect, and vig-
orous gesticulation, upbraiding a poor miserable dog commonly
called Uncle Eph, who stood swaying on the bridge, holding
himself up by the rails with drunken gravity, only answering her
expostulations by shaking his trembling fist at her, irreverently
replying in every pause of her expostulation, " You darned
old sheep you ! "
" I do wonder now, mother, that you can't let Uncle Eph alone,"
said my Aunt Lois, who was washing up the kitchen floor behind
her. " What earthly good does it do to be talking to him ? He
always has drank, and always will."
" I can't help it," quoth my grandmother ; " it 's a shame to
him, and his wife lying there down with rheumatism. I don't
see how folks can do so."
" And I don't see as it *s any of our business," said Aunt Lois.
u What is it to us ? We are not our brother's keeper."
" Well, it was Cain that said that to begin with," said my
grandmother ; " and I think it 's the spirit of Cain not to care
w r hat becomes of our neighbors ! "
" I can't help it if it is. I don't see the use of fussing and
caring about what you can't help. But there comes Horace
Holyoke, to be sure. I suppose, mother, you 're sent for ; I 've
been expecting it all along. Stand still there ! " she called to
me as I approached the door, " and don't come in to track my
floor."
I stood without the door, therefore, and delivered my message ;
22 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and my grandmother promptly turned into her own bedroom,
adjoining the kitchen, to make herself ready to go. I stood
without the door, humbly waiting Aunt Lois's permission to en-
ter the house.
" Well," said Aunt Lois, " I suppose we 've got to have both
boys down here to-night. They 've got to come here, I suppose,
and we may as well have 'em first as last. It 's just what I told
Susy, when she would marry Horace Holyoke. I saw it just as
plain as I see it now, that we should have to take care of 'era.
It 's aggravating, because Susy neglected her opportunities. She
might have been Mrs. Captain Shawmut, and had her carriage
and horses, if she M only been a mind to."
" But," said my Aunt Keziah, who sat by the chimney, knit-
ting, "but if she could n't love Captain Shawmut, and did love
Horace Holyoke "
" Fiddlestick about that. Susy would 'a' loved him well enough
if she 'd 'a' married him. She 'd 'a' loved anybody that she mar-
ried well enough, she 's one of the kind ; and he 's turned out a
very rich man, just as I told her. Susy was the only handsome
one in our family, and she might have done something with her-
self if she 'd had sense."
" For my part," said Aunt Keziah, " I can't blame people for
following their hearts. I never saw the money yet that would 'a'
tempted me to marry the man I did n't love."
Poor Aunt Keziah had the reputation of being, on the whole,
about the homeliest woman in Oldtown. She was fat and ill-
shapen and clumsy, with a pale, greenish tinge to her complex-
ion, watery, whitish-blue eyes, very rough thin hair, and ragged,
scrubby eyebrows. Nature had been peculiarly unkind to her ;
but far within her ill-favored body she had the most exalted and
romantic conceptions. She was fond of reading Young's Night
Thoughts, Mrs. Howe's Meditations, and Sir Charles Grandison,
and always came out strong on the immaterial and sentimental
side of every question. She had the most exalted ideas of a
lofty, disinterested devotion, which she, poor soul ! kept always
simmering on a secret altar, ready to bestow on some ideal hero,
if ever he should call for it. But, alas ! her want of external
MY GRANDMOTHER. 23
graces preveDted any such application. The princess was en-
chanted behind a hedge of ragged and unsightly thorns.
She had been my mother's aid and confidante in her love
affair, and was therefore regarded with a suppressed displeasure
by Aunt Lois, who rejoined, smartly : " I don't think, Kezzy,
that you are likely to be tempted with offers of any sort ; but
Susy did have 'em, plenty of 'em, and took Horace Holy-
oke when she might V done better. Consequence is, we 've
got to take her and her children home and take care of 'em.
It's just our luck. Your poor folks are the ones that are
sure to have children, the less they have to give 'em, the
more they have. I think, for my part, that people that can't
provide for children ought not to have 'em. Susy 's no more
fit to bring up those boys than a white kitten. There never
was a great deal to Susy," added Aunt Lois, reflectively, as,
having finished the ablution of the floor, she took the dish of
white sand to sand it.
" Well, for my part," said Aunt Kezzy, " I don't blame Susy a
mite. Horace Holyoke was a handsome man, and the Holyokes
are a good family. Why, his grandfather was a minister, and
Horace certainly was a man of talents. Parson Lothrop said, if
he 'd V had early advantages, there were few men would have
surpassed him. If he 'd only been able to go to college."
" And why was n't he able to go to college ? Because he must
needs get married. Now, when people set out to do a thing, I
like to see 'em do it. If he 'd a let Susy alone and gone to col-
lege, I dare say he might have been distinguished, and all that.
I would n't have had the least objection. But no, nothing would
do but he must get married, and have two boys,, and then study
himself into his grave, and leave 'em to us to take care of."
" Well now, Lois," said my grandmother, coming out with her
bonnet on, and her gold-headed cane in her hand, " if I were you,
I would n't talk so. What do you always want to fight Provi-
dence for ? "
" Providence ! " said my Aunt Lois, with a sniff. " I don't
call it Providence. I guess, if folks would behave themselves,
Providence would let them alone."
24 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
"Why, everything is ordered and foreordained," said Aunt
Keziah.
" Besides that," said my grandmother, setting down her stick
hard on the floor, " there 's no use in such talk, Lois. What 's
done 's done ; and if the Lord let it be done, we may. We can't
always make people do as we would. There 's no use in being
dragged through the world like a dog under a cart, hanging back
and yelping. What we must do, we may as well do willingly,
as well walk as be dragged. Now we 've got Susy and her
children to take care of, and let 's do it. They 've got to come
here, and they shall come, should come if fchere were forty-
eleven more of 'em than there be, so now you just shut up/'
" Who said they should n't come ? " said Aunt Lois. " I want
to know now if I have n't moved out of the front room and gone
into the little back chamber, and scoured up every inch of that
front-room chamber on my hands and knees, and brought down
the old trundle-bed out of the garret and cleaned it up, on pur-
pose to be all ready for Susy and those children. If I have n't
worked hard for them, I 'd like to have any one tell me ; and I
don't see, for my part, why I should be scolded."
" She was n't scolding you, Lois," said Aunt Keziah, pacif-
ically.
" She was, too ; and I never open my mouth," said Lois, in an
aggrieved tone, " that you all don't come down on me. I 'm sure
I don't see the harm of wishing Susy had married a man that
could V provided for her ; but some folks feel so rich, nothing
comes amiss with 'em. I suppose we are able to send both boys
to college, and keep 'em like gentlemen, are n't we ? "
My grandmother had not had the benefit of this last volley, as
she prudently left the house the moment she had delivered her-
self of her reproof to Aunt Lois.
I was listening at the door with a troubled spirit. Gathering
from the conversation that my father and mother, somehow, had
been improperly conducted people, and that I and my brother
Bill had no business to have been born, and that our presence on
the earth was, somehow or other, of the nature of an imperti-
nence, making everybody a vast deal of trouble. I could not bear
MY GRANDMOTHER. 25
to go in ; and as I saw my grandmother's stately stoppings in the
distance, I ran after her as fast as my little bare feet could patter,
and seized fast hold of her gown with the same feeling that
makes a chicken run under a hen.
" Why, Horace," said my grandmother, " why did n't you stay
down at the house ? "
" I did n't want to, grandma ; please let me go with you."
" You must n't mind Aunt Lois's talk, she means well."
I snuffled and persisted, and so had my own way, for my grand-
mother was as soft-hearted to children as any of the meekest of
the tribe who bear that revered name ; and so she did n't mind
it that I slid back into the shadows of my father's room, under
cover of her ample skirts, and sat down disconsolate in a dark
corner.
My grandmother brought to the sick-room a heavier respon-
sibility than any mere earthly interest could have laid on her.
With all her soul, which was a very large one, she was an ear-
nest Puritan Calvinist. She had been nourished in the sayings
and traditions of the Mathers and the Eliots, and all the first
generation of the saints who had possessed Massachusetts. To
these she had added the earnest study of the writings of Edwards
and Bellamy, and others of those brave old thinkers who had
broken up the crust of formalism and mechanical piety that was
rapidly forming over the New England mind.
My remembrances of her are always as a reader. In her
private chamber was always a table covered with books; and
though performing personally the greater share of the labors of a
large family, she never failed to have her quiet hour every after-
noon for reading, History and biography she delighted in, but
she followed with a keen relish the mazes of theology.
During the days of my father's health and vigor, he had one
of those erratic, combative minds that delight in running logical
tilts against received opinions, and was skilled in finding the
weak point in all assertions. My grandmother, who believed
with heart and soul and life-blood everything that she believed
at all, had more than once been worsted by him in arguments
where her inconsiderate heat outran her logic. These remem-
2
26 OLDTOWH FOLKS.
brances had pressed heavily on her soul during the time of his
sickness, and she had more than once earnestly sought to bring
him to her ways of thinking, ways which to her view were
the only possible or safe ones ; but during his illness he had put
such conversation from him with the quick, irritable impatience
of a sore and wounded spirit.
On some natures theology operates as a subtle poison ; and the
New England theology in particular, with its intense clearness, its
sharp-cut crystalline edges and needles of thought, has had in a
peculiar degree the power of lacerating the nerves of the soul,
and producing strange states of morbid horror and repulsion. The
great unanswerable questions which must perplex every thinking
soul that awakes to consciousness in this life are there posed with
the severest and most appalling distinctness. These awful ques-
tions underlie all religions, they belong as much to Deism as
to the strictest orthodoxy, in fact, they are a part of human
perception and consciousness, since it cannot be denied that
Nature in her teaching is a more tremendous and inexorable
Calvinist than the Cambridge Platform or any other platform
that ever was invented.
But in New England society, where all poetic forms, all the
draperies and accessories of religious ritual, have been rigidly and
unsparingly retrenched, there was nothing between the soul and
these austere and terrible problems ; it was constantly and
severely brought face to face with their infinite mystery. When
my grandmother came into the room, it was with an evident and
deep emotion working in her strong but plain features. She
came up to the bed and grasped my father's hand earnestly.
" Well, mother," he said, " my time is come, and I have sent
for you to put Susy and the children into your hands."
" I '11 take 'em and welcome, you know that," said my
grandmother heartily.
" God bless you, mother, I do know it," he said ; " but do
liave a special eye on poor little Horace. He has just my pas-
sion for books and study ; and if he could be helped to get an
education, he might do what I have failed to do. I leave him
my books, you will try and help him, mother?"
MY GRANDMOTHER. 27
" Yes, my son, I will ; but O nay sou, my sou ! " she added
with trembling eagerness, " how is it with you now ? Are you
prepared for this great change ? "
" Mother," he said in a solemn voice, yet speaking with a great
effort, " no sane man ever comes to my age, and to this place
where I lie, without thinking a great deal on all these things. I
have thought, God knows how earnestly, but I cannot talk
of it. We see through a glass darkly here. There perhaps we
shall see clearly. You must be content to leave me where I
leave myself, in the hands of my Creator. He can do no
wrong "
28 OLDTOWK FOLKS.
CHAPTER IV.
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING.
" "VTTAL naow, Horace, don't ye cry so. Why, I 'm railly
concerned for ye. Why, don't you s'pose your daddy 's
better off ? Why, sartin / do. Don't cry, there 's a good boy,
now. I '11 give ye my jack-knife now."
This was addressed to me the day after my father's death,
while the preparations for the funeral hung like a pall over the
house, and the terror of the last cold mystery, the tears of my
mother, and a sort of bustling dreariness on the part of my aunts
and grandmother, all conspired to bear down on my childish
nerves with fearful power. It was a doctrine of those good old
times, no less than of many in our present days, that a house
invaded by death should be made as forlorn as hands could make
it. It should be rendered as cold and stiff, as unnatural, as dead
and corpse-like as possible, by closed shutters, looking-glasses
pinned up in white sheets, and the locking up and hiding out
of sight of any pleasant little familiar object which would be
thought out of place in a sepulchre. This work had been driven
through with unsparing vigor by Aunt Lois, who looked like one
of the Fates as she remorselessly cleared away every little fa-
miliar object belonging to my father, and reduced every room
to the shrouded stillness of a well-kept tomb.
Of course no one thought of looking after me. It was not the
fashion of those days to think of children, if only they would
take themselves off out of the way of the movements of the
grown people ; and so I had run out into the orchard back of the
house, and, throwing myself down on my face under an apple-
tree in the tall clover, I gave myself up to despair, and was sob-
bing aloud in a nervous paroxysm of agony, when these words
were addressed to me. The speaker \vas a tall, shambling,
loose-jointed man, with a long, thin visage, prominent watery
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 29
blue eyes, very fluttering and seedy habiliments, who occupied
the responsible position of first do-nothing-in-ordinary in our
village of Oldtown, and as such I must introduce him to my
readers' notice.
Every New England village, if you only think of it, must have
its do-nothing as regularly as it has its school-house or meeting-
house. Nature is always wide awake in the matter of compen-
sation. Work, thrift, and industry are such an incessant steam-
power in Yankee life, that society would burn itself out with
intense friction were there not interposed here and there the
lubricating power of a decided do-nothing, a man who won't
be hurried, and won't work, and will take his ease in his own
way, in spite of the whole protest of his neighborhood to the con-
trary. And there is on the face of the whole earth no do-nothing
whose softness, idleness, general inaptitude to labor, and ever-
lasting, universal shif'tlessness can compare with that of this
worthy, as found in a brisk Yankee village.
Sam Lawson filled this post with ample honor in Oldtown.
He was a fellow dear to the souls of all " us boys " in the vil-
lage, because, from the special nature of his position, he never
had anything more pressing to do than croon and gossip with us.
He was ready to spend hours in tinkering a boy's jack-knife, or
mending his skate, or start at the smallest notice to watch at a
woodchuck's hole, or give incessant service in tending a dog's
sprained paw. He was always on hand to go fishing with us on
Saturday afternoons ; and I have known him to sit hour after
hour on the bank, surrounded by a troop of boys, baiting our
hooks and taking off our fish. He was a soft-hearted old body,
and the wrigglings and contortions of our prey used to disturb
his repose so that it was a regular part of his work to kill the fish
by breaking their necks when he took them from the hook.
" Why, lordy massy, boys," he would say, " I can't bear to see
no kind o' critter in torment. These 'ere pouts ain't to blame for
bein' fish, and ye ought to put 'em out of their misery. Fish hes
their rights as well as any on us."
Nobody but Sam would have thought of poking through the
high grass and clover on our back lot to look me up, as I lay sob-
30 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
bing under the old apple-tree, the most insignificant little atom
of misery that ever bewailed the inevitable.
Sam was of respectable family, and not destitute of education.
He was an expert in at least five or six different kinds of handi-
craft, in all of which he had been pronounced by the knowing
ones to be a capable workman, " if only he would stick to it."
He had a blacksmith's shop, where, when the fit was on him, he
would shoe a horse better than any man in the county. No one
could supply a missing screw, or apply a timely brace, with more
adroitness. He could mend cracked china so as to be almost as
good as new ; he could use carpenter's tools as well as a born
carpenter, and would doctor a rheumatic door or a shaky window
-better than half the professional artisans in wood. No man
could put a refractory clock to rights with more ingenuity than
Sam, that is, if you would give him his time to be about it.
I shall never forget the wrath and dismay which he roused in
my Aunt Lois's mind by the leisurely way in which, after having
taken our own venerable kitchen clock to pieces, and strewn the
fragments all over the kitchen, he would roost over it in endless
incubation, telling stories, entering into long-winded theological
discussions, smoking pipes, and giving histories of all the other
clocks in Oldtown, with occasional memoirs of those in Need-
more, the North Parish, and Podunk, as placidly indifferent to
all her volleys of sarcasm and contempt, her stinging expostula-
tions and philippics, as the sailing old moon is to the frisky, ani-
mated barking of some puppy dog of earth.
" Why, ye see, Miss Lois," he would say, " clocks can't be
druv ; that 's jest what they can't. Some things can be druv,
and then agin some things can't, and clocks is that kind. They 's
jest got to be humored. Now this 'ere 's a 'mazin' good clock ;
give me my time on it, and I'll have it so 'twill keep straight on
to the Millennium."
"Millennium ! " says Aunt Lois, with a snort of infinite con-
tempt.
" Yes, the Millennium," says Sam, letting fall his work in a
contemplative manner. " That 'ere 's an interestin' topic now.
Parson Lothrop, he don't think the Millennium will last a thou-
sand years. What 's your 'pinion on that pint, Miss Lois ? "
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 31
" My opinion is," said Aunt Lois, in her most nipping tones,
" that if folks don't mind their own business, and do with their
might what their hand finds to do, the Millennium won't come
at all."
"Wai, you see, Miss Lois, it 's just here, one day is with
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
" I should think you thought a day was a thousand years, the
way you work," said Aunt Lois.
" Wai," says Sam, sitting down with his back to his desperate
litter of wheels, weights, and pendulums, and meditatively caress-
ing his knee as he watched the sailing clouds in abstract medita-
tion, " ye see, ef a thing 's ordained, why it 's got to be, ef you
don't lift a finger. That 'ere 's so now, ain't it ? "
" Sam Lawson, you are about the most aggravating creature I
ever had to do with. Here you 've got our clock all to pieces,
and have been keeping up a perfect hurrah's nest in our kitchen
for three days, and there you sit maundering and talking with
your back to your work, fussin' about the Millennium, which
is none of your business, or mine, as I know of ! Do either put
that clock together or let it alone ! "
"Don't you be a grain uneasy, Miss Lois. Why, I '11 have
your clock all right in the end, but I can't be druv. Wai, I
guess I '11 take another spell on 't to-morrow or Friday/'
Poor Aunt Lois, horror-stricken, but seeing herself actually
in the hands of the imperturbable enemy, now essayed the tack
of conciliation. " Now do, Lawson, just finish up this job, and
I '11 pay you down, right on the spot ; and you need the money."
" I 'd like to 'blige ye, Miss Lois ; but ye see money ain't
everything in this world. Ef I work tew long on one thing, my
mind kind o' gives out, ye see ; and besides, I 've got some 'spon-
sibilities to 'tend to. There 's Mrs. Captain Brown, she made
me promise to come to-day and look at the nose o' that 'ere silver
teapot o' hern ; it 's kind o' sprung a leak. And then I 'greed
to split a little oven-wood for the Widdah Pedee, that lives up
on the Shelburn road. Must visit the widdahs in their affliction,
Scriptur' says. And then there 's Hepsy : she 's allers a castin*
it up at me that I don't do nothing for her and the chil'en ; but
32 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
then, lordy massy, Hepsy hain't no sort o' patience. Why jest
this niornin' I was a tellin' her to count up her marcies, and I
'clare for 't if I did n't think she 'd a throwed the tongs at me.
That 'ere woman's temper railly makes rne consarned. Wai,
good day, Miss Lois. I '11 be along again to-morrow or Friday,
or the first o' next week." And away he went with long, loose
strides down the village street, while the leisurely wail of an old
fuguing tune floated back after him,
" Thy years are an
Etarnal day,
Thy years are an
Etarnal day."
" An eternal torment," said Aunt Lois, with a snap. " I 'm
su-re, if there 's a mortal creature on this earth that I pity, it 'a
Hepsy Lawson. Folks talk about her scolding, that Sam
Lawson is enough to make the saints in Heaven fall from grace.
And you can't do anything with him : it 's like charging bayonet
into a woolsack."
Now, the Hepsy thus spoken of was the luckless woman whom
Sam's easy temper, and a certain youthful reputation for being a
capable fellow, had led years before into the snares of matrimony
with him, in consequence of which she was encumbered with the
bringing up of six children on very short rations. She was a
gnarly, compact, efficient little pepper-box of a woman, with snap-
ping black eyes, pale cheeks, and a mouth always at half-cock,
ready to go off with some sharp crack of reproof at the shoreless,
bottomless, and tideless inefficiency of her husband. It seemed to
be one of those facts of existence that she could not get used to,
nor find anywhere in her brisk, fiery little body a grain of cool
resignation for. Day after day she fought it with as bitter and
intense a vigor, and with as much freshness of objurgation, as if it
had come upon her for the first time, just as a sharp, wiry little
terrier will bark and bark from day to day, with never-ceasing
pertinacity, into an empty squirrel-hole. She seemed to have
no power within her to receive and assimilate the great truth
that her husband was essentially, and was to be and always
would be, only a do-nothing.
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 33
Poor Hepsy was herself quite as essentially a do-something,
an early-rising, bustling, driving, neat, efficient, capable little body,
who contrived, by going out to day's works, washing, scrub-
bing, cleaning, by making vests for the tailor, or closing and
binding shoes for the shoemaker, by hoeing corn and potatoes in
the garden at most unseasonable hours, actually to find bread
to put into the mouths of the six young ravens aforesaid, and to
clothe them decently. This might all do very well ; but when
Sam who believed with all his heart in the modern doctrines
of woman's rights so far as to have no sort of objection to Hepsy's
sawing wood or hoeing potatoes if she chose would make the
small degree of decency and prosperity the family had attained by
these means a text on which to preach resignation, cheerfulness,
and submission, then Hepsy's last cobweb of patience gave out,
and she often became, for the moment, really dangerous, so that
Sam would be obliged to plunge hastily out of doors to avoid a
strictly personal encounter.
It was not to be denied that poor Hepsy really was a scold, in
the strong old Saxon acceptation of the word. She had fought
life single-handed, tooth and nail, with all the ferocity of outraged
sensibilities, and had come out of the fight scratched and dishev-
elled, with few womanly graces. The good wives of the vil-
lage, versed in the outs and ins of their neighbors' affairs, while
they admitted that Sam was not all he should be, would some-
times roll up the whites of their eyes mysteriously, and say, " But
then, poor man, what could you expect when he has n't a happy
home, ? Hepsy's temper is, you know," etc., etc.
The fact is, that Sam's softly easy temper and habits of mis-
cellaneous handiness caused him to have a warm corner in most
of the households. No mothers ever are very hard on a man
who always pleases the children ; and every one knows the
welcome of a universal gossip, who carries round a district a
wallet of choice bits of neighborhood information.
Now Sam knew everything about everybody. He could tell
Mrs. Major Broad just what Lady Lothrop gave for her best
parlor carpet, that was brought over from England, and just on
what occasions she used the big silver tankard, and on what they
2* c
34 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
were content with the little one, and how many pairs of long
silk stockings the minister had, and how many rows of stitching
there were on the shoulders of his Sunday shirts. He knew just
all that was in Deacon Badger's best room, and how many silver
table-spoons arid teaspoons graced the beaufet in the corner ; and
when each of his daughters was born, and just how Miss Susy
came to marry as she did, and who wanted to marry her and
could n't. He knew just the cost of Major Broad's scarlet cloak
and shoe-buckles, and how Mrs. Major had a real Ingy shawl up
in her " camphire " trunk, that cost nigh as much as Lady Lo-
tbrop's. Nobody had made love, or married, or had children
born, or been buried, since Sam was able to perambulate the
country, without his informing himself minutely of every availa-
ble particular; and his unfathomable knowledge on these sub-
jects was an unfailing source of popularity.
Besides this, Sam was endowed with no end of idle accom-
plishments. His indolence was precisely of a turn that enjoyed
the excitement of an occasional odd bit of work with which he
had clearly no concern, and which had no sort of tendency to-
ward his own support or that of his family. Something so far
out of the line of practical utility as to be in a manner an artistic
labor would awaken all the energies of his soul. His shop was
a perfect infirmary for decayed articles of virtu from all the
houses for miles around. Cracked china, lame tea-pots, broken
fhoe-buckles, rickety tongs, and decrepit fire-irons, all stood in
melancholy proximity, awaiting Sam's happy hours of inspiration ;
and he was always happy to sit down and have .a long, strictly
confidential conversation concerning any of these with the owner,
especially if Hepsy were gone out washing, or on any other work
which kept her at a safe distance.
Sam could shave and cut hair as neatly as any barber, and was
always in demand up and down the country to render these
offices to the sick. He was ready to go for miles to watch with
invalids, and a very acceptable watcher he made, beguiling the
night hours with endless stories and legends. He was also an
expert in psalmody, having in his youth been the pride of the
village singing-school. In those days he could perform reputa-
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 35
bly on the bass-viol in the choir of a Sunday with a dolefulness
and solemnity of demeanor in the highest degree edifying,
though he was equally ready of a week-evening in scraping on
a brisk little fiddle, if any of the thoughtless ones wanted a per-
former at a husking or a quilting frolic. Sam's obligingness was
many-sided, and he was equally prepared at any moment to raise
a funeral psalm or whistle the time of a double-shuffle.
But the more particular delight of Sam's heart was in funerals.
He would walk miles on hearing the news of a dangerous illness,
and sit roosting on the fence of the premises, delighted to gossip
over the particulars, but ready to come down at any moment to
do any of the odd turns which sickness in a family makes neces-
sary ;. and when the last earthly scene was over, Sam was more
than ready to render those final offices from which the more ner-
vous and fastidious shrink, but in which he took almost a pro-
fessional pride.
The business of an undertaker is a refinement of modern civ-
ilization. In simple old days neighbors fell into one another's
hands for all the last wants of our poor mortality ; and there
were men and women of note who took a particular and solemn
pride in these mournful offices. Sam had in fact been up all
night in our house, and having set me up in the clover, and
comforted me with a jack-knife, he proceeded to inform me of the
particulars.
" Why, ye see, Horace, I ben up with 'em pretty much all
night ; and I laid yer father out myself, and I never see a better-
lookin' corpse. It 's a 'rnazin' pity your daddy hed such feelin's
'bout havin' people come to look at him, 'cause he does look
beautiful, and it 's been a long time since we Ve hed a funeral, any-
way, and everybody was expectin' to come Jo his 'n, and they '11
all be dissipinted if the corpse ain't show'd ; but then, lordy
massy, folks ought n't to think hard on 't ef folks lies their own
way 'bout their own funeral. That 'ere's what I Ve been a tellin'
on 'em all, over to the tavern and round to the store. Why, you
never see such a talk as there was about it. There was Aunt
Sally Morse, and Betsey and Patsy Sawin, and Mis' Zeruiah Ba-
con, come over early to look at the corpse, and when they was n't
36 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
let in, you never heerd sich a jawin'. Betsey and Patsy Sawin
said that they allers suspected your father was an infidel, or
some sich, and now they was clear ; and Aunt Sally, she asked
who made his shroud, and when she heerd there was n't to be
none, he was laid out in his clothes, she said she never heerd suet
unchristian doin's, that she always had heerd he had strange
opinions, but she never thought it would come to that."
" My father is n't an infidel, and I wish I could kill 'em for
talking so," said I, clenching my jack-knife in my small fist, and
feeling myself shake with passion.
" Wai, wal, I kind o' spoke up to 'em about it. I was n't
a-goin' to hear no sich jaw ; and says I, ' I think ef there is any
body that knows what 's what about funerals I 'm the man, fur I
don't s'pose there's a man in the county that's laid out more
folks, and set up with more corpses, and ben sent for fur and
near, than I have, and my opinion is that mourners must always
follow the last directions gi'n to 'em by the person. Ef a man
has n't a right to have the say about his own body, what hes he
a right to ? ' Wal, they said that it was putty well of me to talk
so, when I had the privilege of sittin' up with him, and seein' all
that was to be seen. ' Lordy massy,' says I, l I don't see why
ye need envi me ; 't ain't my fault that folks thinks it 's agree-
able to have me round. As to bein' buried in his clothes, why,
lordy massy, 't ain't nothin' so extraordinary. In the old country
great folks is very often laid out in their clothes. 'Member,
when I was a boy, old Mr. Sanger, the minister in Deerbrook,
was laid out in his gown and bands, with a Bible in his hands,
and he looked as nateral as a pictur. I was at Parson Rider's
funeral, down to Wrentham. He was laid out in white flannel.
But then there was old Captain Bigelow, down to the Pint
there, he was laid out regular in his rigimentals, jest as he wore
? em in the war, epaulets and all.' Wal now, Horace, your
daddy looks jest as peaceful as a psalm-tune. Now, you don't
know, jest as nateral as if he'd only jest gone to sleep. So
ye may set your heart at rest 'bout him."
It was one of those beautiful serene days of October, when
the earth lies as bright and still as anything one can dream of in
THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 37
the New Jerusalem, and Sam's homely expressions of sympathy
had quieted me somewhat. Sam, tired of his discourse, lay back
in the clover, with his hands under his head, and went on with
his moralizing.
" Lordy massy, Horace, to think on 't, it 's so kind o' sol-
emnizin'! It's one's turn to-day, and another's to-morrow. We
never know when our turn '11 come." And Sam raised a favorite
stave,
" And must these active limbs of mine
Lie moulderin' in the clay? "
" Active limbs ! I guess so ! " said a sharp voice, which came
through the clover-heads like the crack of a rifle. " Well, I 've
found you at last. Here you be, Sam Lawson, lyin' flat on
your back at eleven o'clock in the morning, and not a potato
dug, and not a stick of wood cut to get dinner with ; and I won't
cut no more if we never have dinner. It 's no use a humorin'
you, doin' your work for you. The more I do, the more I
may do ; so come home, won't you ? "
" Lordy massy, Hepsy," said Sam, slowly erecting himself out
of the grass, and staring at her with white eyes, "you don't
ought to talk so. I ain't to blame. I bed to sit up with Mr.
Holyoke all night, and help 'em lay him out at four o'clock this
niornin'."
"You're always everywhere but where you've business to
be," said Hepsy ; " and helpin' and doin' for everybody but your
own. For my part, I think charity ought to begin at home.
You 're everywhere, up and down and round, over to Shel-
bun, down to Podunk, up to North Parish; and here Abram
and Kiah Stebbins have been waitin' all the morning with a horse
they brought all the way from Boston to get you to shoe."
' Wai now, that 'ere shows they know what 's what. I told
Kiah that ef they 'd bring that 'ere hoss to me I 'd 'tend to his
huffs."
" And be off lying in the mowing, like a patridge, when they
come after ye. That 's one way to do business," said Hepsy.
i " Hepsy, I was just a miditatin'. Ef we don't miditate some-
times on all these 'ere things, it '11 be wus for us by and by."
38 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Meditate ! I '11 help your meditations in a way you won't
like, if you don't look out. So now you come home, and stop
your meditatin', and go to doin' somethin'. I told 'em to come
back this afternoon, and I 'd have you on the spot if 't was a pos-
sible thing," said the very practical Hepsy, laying firm hold of
Sam's unresisting arm, and leading him away captive.
I stole into the darkened, silent room where my father had
lain so long. Its desolate neatness struck a chill to my heart.
Not even a bottle remained of the many familiar ones that used to
cover the stand and the mantel-piece ; but he, lying in his thread-
bare Sunday coat, looked to me as I had often seen him in later
days, when be had come from school exhausted, and fallen asleep
on the bed. I crept to his side and nestled down on the floor
as quietly as a dog lies down by the side of his master.
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 39
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE.
THE next day was the funeral, and I have little remembrance
in it of anything but what was dreary. Our Puritan ances-
tors, in the decision of their reaction from a dead formalism, had
swept away from the solemn crises of life every symbolic ex-
pression ; and this severe bareness and rigid restriction were
nowhere more striking than in funeral services, as conducted in
these early times in Massachusetts.
There was at the house of mourning simply a prayer, nothing
more ; and then the procession of relatives, friends, and towns-
people walked silently to the grave, where, without text, prayer,
or hymn, the dust was forever given to its fellow-dust. The
heavy thud of the clods on the coffin, the rattling of spades, and
the fall of the earth, were the only voices that spoke in that final
scene. Yet that austere stillness was not without its majesty,
since it might be interpreted, not as the silence of indifference,
but as the stillness of those whose thoughts are too mighty for
words. It was the silence of the unutterable. From the grave
my mother and her two boys were conducted to my grandfathers
house, the asylum ever ready for the widowed daughter.
The next day after was Sunday, and a Sunday full of impor-
tance in the view of Aunt Lois, Aunt Keziah, and, in fact, of
every one in the family. It was the custom, on the first Sabbath
after a bereavement, for the whole family circle to be present to-
gether in church, to request, in a formal note, the prayers of the
congregation that the recent death might be sanctified to them.
It was a point of honor for all family connections to be present
at this service, even though they should not attend the funeral ;
and my Uncle Bill, a young Sophomore in Cambridge College,
had come down duly to be with us on the occasion. He was a
joyous, spirited, jolly, rollicking young fellow, not in the slightest
40 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
degree given to funereal reflections, and his presence in the
house always brought a certain busy cheerfulness which I felt to
lighten my darkness.
One thing certainly had a tendency in that direction, which
was that Aunt Lois was always perceptibly ameliorated by Uncle
Bill's presence. Her sharp, spare features wore a relaxed and
smiling aspect, her eyes had a softer light, and she belied her own
frequent disclaimer, that she never had any beauty, by looking
almost handsome.
Poor Aunt Lois ! I am afraid my reader will not do justice
to her worth by the specimens of her ways and words which I
have given. Any one that has ever pricked his fingers in
trying to force open a chestnut-burr may perhaps have moral-
ized at the satin lining, so smooth and soft, that lies inside of
that sharpness. It is an emblem of a kind of nature very fre-
quent in New England, where the best and kindest and most
desirable of traits are .enveloped in an outside wrapping of sharp
austerity.
No person rendered more deeds of kindness in the family and
neighborhood than Aunt Lois. She indeed bore the cares of the
whole family on her heart ; she watched and prayed and fretted
and scolded for all. Had she cared less, she might perhaps have
appeared more amiable. She invested herself, so to speak, in
others ; and it was vital to her happiness, not only that they
should be happy, but that they should be happy precisely on her
pattern and in her way. She had drawn out the whole family
chart, and if she had only had power to make each one walk
tractably in the path she foreordained, her sharp, thin face might
have had a few less wrinkles. It seemed to her so perfectly
evident that the ways she fixed upon for each one were ways of
pleasantness and paths of peace, that she scarcely could have
patience with Providence for allowing things to fall out in a way
so entirely different from her designs.
Aunt Lois was a good Christian, but she made that particular
mistake in repeating the Lord's Prayer which so many of us quite
unconsciously do, she always said, My will be done, instead of
Thy will. Not in so many words, of course, it was the secret
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 41
inner voice of her essential nature that spoke and said one thing,
while her tongue said another. But then who can be sure enough
of himself in this matter, to cast the first stone at Aunt Lois ?
It was the fashion of the Calvinistic preaching of that time to
put the doctrine of absolute and unconditional submission to God
in the most appalling forms, and to exercise the conscience with
most severe supposititious tests. After many struggles and real
agonies, Aunt Lois had brought herself to believe that she would
be willing to resign her eternal salvation to the Divine glory;
that she could consent to the eternal perdition of those on whom
her heart was most particularly set, were it God's will ; and thus
her self-will, as she supposed, had been entirely annihilated,
whereas it was only doubled back on itself, and ready to come
out with tenfold intensity in the unsuspected little things of this
life, where she looked less at Divine agency than human instru-
mentality. No law, as she supposed, required her to submit to
people's acting foolishly in their worldly matters, particularly
when she was able and willing to show them precisely how they
ought to act.
Failing of a prosperous marriage for my mother, Aunt Lois's
heart was next set upon a college education for my Uncle Bill,
the youngest and brightest of the family. For this she toiled
and economized in family labor, and eked it out by vest-making
at the tailor's, and by shoe-binding at the shoemaker's, all that
she might have something to give to Bill for spending-money, to
keep up his standing respectably in college. Her antagonistic
attitude toward my brother and myself proceeded less from hard-
ness of heart than from an anxious, worrying fear that we should
trench on the funds that at present were so heavily taxed to
bring Uncle Bill through college. Especially did she fear that
my father had left me the legacy of his own ungratified desire
for an education, and that my grandmother's indulgence and
bountifulness might lead her to encourage me ^n some such ex-
pectations, and then where was the money to come from ? Aunt
Lois foresaw contingencies afar off. Not content with the cares
of the present day and hour, she dived far into the future, a'nd
carried all sorts of imaginary loads that would come in supposi-
42 OLDTOWN FOLKS,
titious cases. As the Christian by the eye of faith sees all sorts
of possible good along the path of future duty, so she by the eye
of cautiousness saw every possible future evil that could arise
in every supposable contingency. Aunt Lois's friends often had
particular reason to wish that she cared less for them, for then,
perhaps, she might give them some peace. But nothing is so
hopeless as your worthy domestic house-dog, every hair of whose
fur bristles with watchfulness, and who barks at you incessantly
from behind a most terrible intrenchment of faithful labors and
loving-kindnesses heaped up on your behalf.
These dear good souls who wear their life out for you, have
they not a right to scold you, and dictate to you, and tie up your
liberty, and make your life a burden to you ? If they have not,
who has ? If you complain, you break their worthy old hearts.
They insist on the privilege of seeking your happiness by thwart-
ing you in everything you want to do, and putting their will in-
stead of yours in every step of your life.
Between Aunt Lois and my father there had been that con-
stant antagonism which is often perceptible between two human
beings, each good enough in himself, but of a quality to act de-
structively upon the other. A satin vest and a nutmeg-grater
are both perfectly harmless, and even worthy existences, but
their close proximity on a jolting journey is not to be recom-
mended.
My father never could bear my Aunt Lois in his house ; and
her presence had such an instant effect in developing all the
combative element in him, that really the poor woman never saw
him long enough under an agreeable aspect to enable her even
to understand why my mother should regard him with affection ;
and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she was not a deep
mourner at his death. She regarded her sister's love for my
father as an unfortunate infatuation, ac.d was more satisfied with
the ways of Providence than she usually was, when its object
was withdrawn.
It was according to all the laws of moral gravitation that, as
soon as my father died, my mother became an obedient satellite
in Aunt Lois's orbit. She was one of those dear, helpless little
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 43
women, who, like flowers by the wayside, seem to be at the dis-
posal of the first strong hand that wants to gather them. She was
made to be ruled over ; and so we all felt this first Sunday morn-
in that we had come home to be under the dominion of Aunt
O
Lois. She put on my mother's mourning-bonnet and tied it
under her meek, unresisting chin, turning her round and round
to get views of her from different points, and arranging her rib-
bons and veil and pins as if she had been a lay figure going to ex-
hibition ; and then she tied our collars, and gave a final twitch to
our jackets, and warned us not to pull out the pins from the crape
bands on our new hats, nor to talk and look round in meeting,
strengthening the caution with, " Just so sure as you do, there 's
Mr. Israel Scran, the tithing-man, will come and ta,ke you and
set you on the pulpit stairs."
Now Mr. Israel Scran on week-days was a rather jolly, sec-
ular-looking individual, who sat on the top of a barrel in his
store, and told good stories ; but Israel Scran on Sundays was a
tithing-man, whose eyes were supposed to be as a flame of fire
to search out little boys that played in meeting, and bring them
to awful retribution. And I must say that I shook in my shoes
at the very idea of his entering into judgment with me for any
misdemeanor.
Going to church on the present occasion was rather a severe
and awful ceremony to my childish mind, second only to the
dreary horror of the time when we stood so dreadfully still
around the grave, and heard those heavy clods thud upon the
coffin. I ventured a timid inquiry of my mother as to what
was going to be done there.
Aunt Lois took the word out of her mouth. " Now, Horace,
hush your talk, and don't worry your mother. She 's going to put
up a note to be prayed for to-day, and we are all going to join ; so
you be a good boy, and don't talk."
Being good was so frequently in those days represented to me
as synonymous with keeping silence, that I screwed my little
mouth up firmly as I walked along to the meeting-house, behind
my mother, holding my brother Bill's hand, and spoke not a
word, though he made several overtures towards conversation by
44 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
informing me that he saw a chipmunk, and that if it was only
Monday he 'd hit him smack ; and also telling me that Sam Law-
son had promised to go pout-fishing with us on Tuesday, with
other boy temporalities of a nature equally worldly.
The meeting-house to which our steps were tending was one
of those huge, shapeless, barn-like structures, which our fathers
erected apparently as a part of that well-arranged system by
which they avoided all resemblance to those fair, poetic ecclesias-
tical forms of the Old World, which seemed in their view as " gar-
ments spotted by the flesh."
The interior of it was revealed by the light of two staring rows
of windows, which let in the glare of the summer sun, and which
were so loosely framed, that, in wintry and windy weather, they
rattled and shook, and poured in a perfect whirlwind of cold air,
which disported itself over the shivering audience.
It was a part of the theory of the times never to warm these
buildings by a fire ; and the legend runs that once in our meet-
ing-house the communion was administered under a tempera-
ture which actually froze the sacred elements while they were
being distributed. Many a remembrance of winter sessions in
that old meeting-house rose to my mind, in which I sat with my
poor dangling feet perfectly numb and paralyzed with cold, and
blew my finger-ends to keep a little warmth in them, and yet I
never thought of complaining ; for everybody was there, mother,
aunts, grandmother, and all the town. We all sat and took our
hardships in common, as a plain, necessary fact of existence.
Going to meeting, in that state of society into which I was
born, was as necessary and inevitable a consequence of waking up
on Sunday morning as eating one's breakfast. Nobody thought
of staying away, and, for that matter, nobpdy wanted to stay
away. Our weekly life was simple, monotonous, and laborious ;
and the chance of seeing the whole neighborhood together in
their best clothes on Sunday was a thing which, in the dearth of
all other sources of amusement, appealed to the idlest and most
unspiritual of loafers. They who did not care for the sermon or
the prayers wanted to see Major Broad's scarlet coat and laced
ruffles, and his wife's brocade dress, and the new bonnet which
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 45
Lady Lothrop had just had sent up from Boston. "Whoever had
not seen these would be out of society for a week to come, and
not be able to converse understandingly on the topics of the
day.
The meeting on Sunday united in those days, as nearly as pos-
sible, the whole population of a town, men, women, and chil-
dren. There was then in a village but one fold and one shep-
herd, and long habit had made the tendency to this one central
point so much a necessity to every one, that to stay away from
" meetin' " for any reason whatever was always a secret source
of uneasiness. I remember in my early days, sometimes when I
had been left at home by reason of some of the transient ailments
of childhood, how ghostly and supernatural the stillness of the
whole house and village outside the meeting-house used to appear
to me, how loudly the clock ticked and the flies buzzed down the
window-pane, and how I listened in the breathless stillness to
the distant psalm-singing, the solemn tones of the long prayer,
and then to the monotone of the sermon, and then again to the
closing echoes of the last hymn, and thought sadly, what if some
day I should be left out, when all my relations and friends had
gone to meeting in the New Jerusalem, and hear afar the music
from the crystal walls.
As our Sunday gathering at meeting was a complete picture
of the population of our village, I shall, as near as possible,
daguerreotype our Sunday audience, as the best means of placing
my readers in sympathy with the scene and actors of this history.
The arrangement of our house of worship in Oldtown was
somewhat peculiar, owing to the fact of its having originally been
built as a mission church for the Indians. The central portion
of the house, usually appropriated to the best pews, was in ours
devoted to ,them ; and here were arranged benches of the sim-
plest and most primitive form, on which were collected every
Sunday the thin and wasted remnants of what once was a nu-
merous and powerful tribe. There were four or five respectable
Indian families, who owned comfortable farms in the neighbor-
hood, and came to meeting in their farm-wagons, like any of their
white neighbors.
46 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Conspicuous among these, on the front bench, facing the pulpit,
sat the Indian head-magistrate, Justice Waban, tall and erect
as an old pine-tree, and of a grave and reverend aspect. Next
to him was seated the ecclesiastical superior of that portion of the
congregation, Deacon Ephraim. Mild, intelligent, and devout, he
was the perfect model of the praying Indian formed in the apos-
tolic traditions of the good Eliot. By his side sat his wife, Ke-
turah, who, though she had received Christian baptism, still re-
tained in most respects the wild instincts and untamed passions
of the savage. Though she attended church and allowed her
children to be baptized, yet, in spite of minister, elder, and tithing-
man, she obstinately held on to the practice of many of her old
heathen superstitions.
Old Keturah was one of the wonders of my childhood. She
was spoken of among the gossips with a degree of awe, as one
who possessed more knowledge than was good for her j and in
thunder-storms and other convulsions of nature she would sit in
her chimney-corner and chant her old Indian incantations, to my
mingled terror and delight. I remember distinctly three sylla-
bles that occurred very often, " ah-mah-ga, ah-mah-ga," some-
times pronounced in wild, plaintive tones, and sometimes in tones
of menace and denunciation. In fact, a century before, Keturah
must have had a hard time of it with her Christian neighbors ;
but our minister was a gentleman and a scholar, and only smiled
benignly when certain elderly ladies brought him terrible stories
of Keturah's proceedings.
Next to Keturah was seated Deborah Kummacher, an Indian
woman, who had wisely forsaken the unprofitable gods of the wild
forest, and taken to the Christian occupation of fruit-growing,
and kept in nice order a fruit farm near my grandfather's, where
we children delighted to resort in the season, receiving from her
presents of cherries, pears, peaches, or sweet apples, which she
informed us she was always ready to give to good children who
baid their prayers and made their manners when they came into
her house. Next behind her tame Betty Poganut, Patty Pe-
gan, and old Sarah Wonsamug, hard-visaged, high-cheek-boned
females, with snaky-black eyes, principally remarkable, in my
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 47
mind, for the quantity of cider they could drink. I had special
reason to remember this, as my grandmother's house was their
favorite resort, and drawing cider was always the work of the
youngest boy.
Then there was Lem Sudock, a great, coarse, heavy-moulded
Indian, with gigantic limbs and a savage 'iace, but much in re-
quest for laying stone walls, digging wells, and other tasks for
which mere physical strength was the chief requisite. Beside
him was Dick Obscue, a dull, leering, lazy, drinking old fellow,
always as dry as an empty sponge, but with an endless capacity
for imbibing. Dick was of a class which our modern civilization
would never see inside of a church, though he was in his seat in
our meeting-house as regularly as any of the deacons; but on
week-days his principal employment seemed to be to perambulate
the country, making stations of all the kitchen firesides, where
he would tell stories, drink cider, and moralize, till the patience
or cider-pitchers of his hosts ran dry, when he would rise up
slowly, adjust his old straw hat, hitch up his dangling nether gar-
ments a little tighter, and, with a patronizing nod, say, " Wai,
naow, 'f you can spare me I '11 go."
Besides our Indian population, we had also a few negroes, and
a side gallery was appropriated to them. Prominent there was
the stately form of old Boston Foodah, an African prince, who
had been stolen from the coast of Guinea in early youth, and
sold in Boston at some period of antiquity whereto the memory
of man runneth not. All the Oldtown people, and their fathers
and grandfathers, remembered old Boston just as he then ex-
isted, neither older nor younger. He was of a majestic stature,
slender and proudly erect, and perfectly graceful in every move-
ment, his woolly hair as white as the driven snow. He was
servant to General Hull in the Revolutionary war, and at its
close was presented by his master with a full suit of his military
equipments, including three-cornered hat, with plume, epaulets,
and sword. Three times a year, at the spring training,
the fall muster, and on Thanksgiving day, Boston arrayed
himself in full panoply, and walked forth a really striking and
magnificent object. In the eyes of us boys, on these days, he
48 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
was a hero, and he patronized us with a condescension which
went to our hearts. His wife, Jinny, was a fat, roly-poly little
body, delighting in red and yellow bonnets, who duly mustered
into meeting a troop of black-eyed, fat, woolly-headed little
negroes, whom she cuffed and disciplined during sermon-time
with a matronly ferocity designed to show white folks that she
was in earnest in their religious training.
Near by was old Primus King, a gigantic, retired whaleman,
black as a coal, with enormous hands and feet, universally in de-
mand in all the region about as assistant in butchering opera-
tions.
Besides these, let me not forget dear, jolly old Caesar, my
grandfather's own negro, the most joyous creature on two feet.
What could not Caesar do ? He could gobble like a turkey so
perfectly as to deceive the most experienced old gobbler on the
farm ; he could crow so like a cock that all the cocks in the
neighborhood would reply to him ; he could mew like a eat, and
bark like a dog ; he could sing and fiddle, and dance the double-
shuffle, and was aufait in all manner of jigs and hornpipes ; and
one need not wonder, therefore, that old Caesar was hugged and
caressed and lauded by me in my childhood as the most wonder-
ful of men.
There were several other colored families, of less repute, who
also found seats in the negro gallery. One of them was that of
Aunt Nancy Prime, famous for making election-cake and ginger-
pop, and who was sent for at all the great houses on occasions of
high festivity, as learned in all mysteries relating to the confection
of cakes and pies. A tight, trig, bustling body she, black and pol-
ished as ebony, smooth-spoken and respectful, and quite a favor-
ite with everybody. Nancy had treated herself to an expensive
luxury in the shape of a husband, an idle, worthless mulatto
man, who was owned as a slave in Boston. Nancy bought him
by intense labors in spinning flax, but found him an undesirable
acquisition, and was* often heard to declare, in the bitterness of
her soul, when he returned from his drinking bouts, that she
should never buy another nigger, she knew.
The only thing she gained by this matrimonial speculation was
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 49
an abundant crop of noisy children, who, as she often declared,
nearly wore the life out of her. I remember once, when I was
on a visit to her cottage, while I sat regaling myself with a slice
of cake, Nancy lifted the trap-door which went down into the
cellar below. Forthwith the whole skirmishing tribe of little
darkies, who had been rolling about the floor, seemed suddenly to
unite in one coil, and, with a final flop, disappeared in the hole.
Nancy gave a kick to the door, and down it went ; when she
exclaimed, with a sigh of exhausted patience, " Well, now then,
I hope you '11 be still a minute, anyway ! "
The houses of the colored people formed a little settlement by
themselves in the north part of the village, where they lived on
most amicable terms with all the inhabitants.
In the front gallery of the meeting-house, opposite the pulpit,
was seated the choir of the church. The leader of our music
was old Mump Morse, a giant of a man, in form not unlike a
cider-hogshead, with a great round yellow head, and a voice like
the rush of mighty winds, who was wont to boast that he could
chord with thunder and lightning better than any man in the
parish. Next to him came our friend Sam Lawson, whose dis-
tinguishing peculiarity it was, that he could strike into any part
where his voice seemed most needed ; and he often showed the
miscellaneous nature of his accomplishments by appearing as
tenor, treble, or counter, successively, during the rendering of
one psalm. If we consider that he also pitched the tunes with
his pitch-pipe, and played on his bass-viol, we shall see increas-
ing evidence of that versatility of genius for which he was distin-
guished.
Another principal bass-singer was old Joe Stedman, who as-
serted his democratic right to do just as he had a mind to by
always appearing every Sunday in a clean leather apron of pre-
cisely the form he wore about his weekly work. Of course all
the well-conducted upper classes were scandalized, and Joe was
privately admonished of the impropriety, which greatly increased
his satisfaction, and caused him to regard himself as a person of
vast importance. It was reported that the minister had told him
that there was more pride in his leather apron than in Captain
3 D
50 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Browne's scarlet cloak ; but Joe settled the matter by declaring
that the apron was a matter of conscience with him, and of
course after that there was no more to be said.
These leading characters, with a train of young men and
maidens who practised in the weekly singing-school, used to con-
duct the musical devout exercises much to their own satisfaction,
if not always to that of our higher circle.
And now, having taken my readers through the lower classes
in our meeting-house, I must, in order of climax, represent to
them our higher orders.
Social position was a thing in those days marked by lines
whose precision and distinctness had not been blurred by the
rough handling of democracy. Massachusetts was, in regard to
the aroma and atmosphere of her early days, an aristocratic
community. The seeds of democratic social equality lay as yet
ungerminated in her soil. The State was a garden laid out with
the old formal parallelograms and clipped hedges of princely
courts and titled ranks, but sown with seeds of a new and ram-
pant quality, which were destined to overgrow them all.
Even our little town had its court circle, its House of Lords
and House of Commons, with all the etiquette and solemn obser-
vances thereto appertaining. At the head stood the minister and
his wife, whose rank was expressed by the pew next the pulpit.
Then came Captain Browne, a retired English merchant and
ship-owner, who was reported to have ballasted himself with a
substantial weight of worldly substance. Captain Browne was a
tall, upright, florid man, a little on the shady side of life, but
carrying his age with a cheerful greenness. His long, powdered
locks hung in a well-tended queue down his back, and he wore
a scarlet coat, with a white vest and stock, and small-clothes,
while long silk stockings with knee and shoe buckles of the best
paste, sparkling like real diamonds, completed his attire. His
wife rustled by his side in brocade which might almost stand
alone for stiffness, propped upon heels that gave a majestic alti-
tude to her tall, thin figure.
Next came the pew of Miss Mehitable Rossiter, who, in right
of being the only surviving member of the family of the former
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 61
minister, was looked upon with reverence in Oldtown, and took
rank decidedly in the Upper House, although a very restricted
and limited income was expressed in the quality of her attire.
Her Sunday suit in every article .spoke of ages past, rather than
of the present hour. Her laces were darned, though still they
were laces ; her satin gown had been turned and made over, till
every possible capability of it was exhausted ; and her one Sun-
day bonnet exhibited a power of coming out in fresh forms, with
each revolving season, that was quite remarkable, particularly
as each change was somewhat odder than the last. But still, as
everybody knew that it was Miss Mehitable Rossi ter, and no
meaner person, her queer bonnets and dyed gowns were accepted
as a part of those inexplicable dispensations of the Providence
that watches over the higher classes, which are to be received by
faith alone.
In the same pew with Miss Mehitable sat Squire Jones, once,
in days of colonial rule, rejoicing in the dignity of Sheriff of the
County. During the years of the Revolutionary war, he had mys-
teriously vanished from view, as many good Tories did ; but now
that the new social status was well established, he suddenly re-
appeared in the neighborhood, and took his place as an orderly
citizen, unchallenged and unquestioned. It was enough that the
Upper House received him. The minister gave him his hand,
and Lady Lothrop courtesied to him, and called on his wife, and
that, of course, settled the manner in which the parish were to
behave ; and, like an obedient flock, they all jumped the fence
after their shepherd. Squire Jones, besides, was a well-formed,
well-dressed man, who lived in a handsome style, and came to
meeting in his own carriage ; and these are social virtues not to
be disregarded in any well-regulated community.
There were certain well-established ranks and orders in social
position in Oldtown, which it is important that I should distinctly
define. People who wore ruffles round their hands, and rode
in their own coaches, and never performed any manual labor,
might be said to constitute in Oldtown our House of Lords,
and they might all have been counted on two or three of my
fingers. It was, in fact, confined to the personages already
52 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
enumerated. There were the minister, Captain Browne, and
Sheriff Jones.
But below these, yet associating with them on terms of strict
equality, were a more numerous body of Commons, men of
substance and influence, but who tilled the earth with their own
hands, or pursued some other active industrial calling.
Distinguished among these, sitting in the next pew to the
Sheriff, was Major Broad, a practical farmer, who owned a large
and thriving farm of the best New England type, and presented
that true blending of the laboring man and the gentleman which
is nowhere else found. Pie had received his military rank for
meritorious services in the late Revolutionary war, and he came
back to his native village with that indefinable improvement in
air and manner which is given by the habits of military life.
With us he owed great prestige to a certain personal resem-
blance to General Washington which he was asserted to have by
one of our townsfolk, who had often seen him and the General on
the same field, and who sent the word abroad in the town that
whoever wanted to know how General Washington looked had
only to look upon Major Broad. The Major was too much of a
real man to betray the slightest consciousness of this advantage,
but it invested him with an air of indefinable dignity in the eyes
of all his neighbors, especially those of the lower ranks.
Next came my grandfather's family pew ; and in our Oldtown
House of Commons I should say that none stood higher than he.
In his Sunday suit my grandfather was quite a well-made, hand-
some man. His face was marked by grave, shrewd reflection, and
a certain gentle cast of humor, which rarely revealed itself even
in a positive smile, and yet often made me feel as if he were
quietly and interiorly smiling at his own thoughts. His well-
brushed Sunday coat and small-clothes, his bright knee and shoe
buckles, his long silk stockings, were all arranged with a trim
neatness refreshing to behold. His hair, instead of being con-
cealed by a wig, or powdered and tied in a queue, after the manner
of the aristocracy, fell in long curls on his shoulders, and was a
not unbecoming silvery frame to the placid picture of his face.
He was a man by nature silent and retiring, indisposed to any-
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 53
thing like hurry or tumult, rather easy and generously free in his
business habits, and quietly sanguine in his expectations. In
point of material possessions he was reputed well to do, as he
owned a large farm and two mills, and conducted the business
thereof with a quiet easiness which was often exceedingly pro-
voking to my grandmother and Aunt Lois. No man was more
popular in the neighborhood, and the confidence of his fellow-
townsmen was yearly expressed in town-meeting by his reappoint-
ment to every office of trust which he could be induced to accept.
He was justice of the peace, deacon of the church, selectman,
in short, enjoyed every spiritual and temporal office by the be-
stowal of which his fellow-men could express confidence in him.
This present year, indeed, he bore the office of tithing-man,
in association with Mr. Israel Scran. It had been thought that
it would be a good thing, in order to check the increasing
thoughtlessness of the rising generation in regard to Sunday-
keeping, to enlist in this office an authority so much respected
as Deacon Badger ; but the manner in which he performed its
duties was not edifying to the minds of strictly disposed people.
The Deacon in his official capacity was expected to stalk forth
at once as a terror to evil-doers, whereas he seemed to have
no capacity for terrifying anybody. When a busy individual
informed him that this or that young person was to be seen
walking out in the fields, or picking flowers in their gardens of a
Sabbath afternoon, the Deacon always placidly answered that he
had n't seen them ; from which the ill-disposed would infer that
he looked another way, of set purpose, and the quiet internal
smile that always illuminated the Deacon's face gave but too
much color to this idea.
In those days the great war of theology which has always
divided New England was rife, and every man was marked and
ruled as to his opinions, and the thcologic lines passed even
through the conjugal relation, which often, like everything else,
had its Calvinistic and its Arminian side.
My grandfather was an Arminian, while my grandmother was,
as I have said, an earnest, ardent Calvinist. Many were the
controversies I have overheard between them, in which the texts
54 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
of Scripture flew thick and fast, until my grandfather at last
would shut himself up in that final fortress of calm and smiling
silence which is so provoking to feminine ardor. There in-
trenched, he would look out upon his assailants with a quiet,
imperturbable good-humor which quite drove them to despair.
It was a mystery to my grandmother how a good man, as she
knew my grandfather to be, could remain years unmoved in the
very hearing of such unanswerable arguments as she had a
thousand times brought up, and still, in the very evening of his
days, go on laying his serene old head on an Armmian pillow !
My grandfather was a specimen of that class of men who can
walk amid the opinions of their day, encircled by a halo of serene
and smiling individuality which quarrels with nobody, and, with-
out shocking any one's prejudices, preserves intact the liberty
of individual dissent. He silently went on thinking and doing
exactly as he pleased, and yet was always spoken of as the
good Deacon. His calm, serene, benignant figure was a sort
of benediction as he sat in his pew of a Sunday ; and if he
did not see the little boys that played, or, seeing them, only smil-
ingly brought them to a sense of duty by passing them a head of
fennel through the slats of the pews, still Deacon Badger was
reckoned about the best man in the world.
By the side of my grandfather sat his eldest born, Uncle Jacob,
a hale, thrifty young farmer, who, with his equally hale and thrifty
wife, was settled on a well-kept farm at some distance from ours.
Uncle Jacob was a genuine son of the soil, whose cheeks were
ruddy as clover, and teeth as white as new milk. He had grown
up on a farm, as quietly as a tree grows, and had never been ten
miles from his birthplace. He was silent, contented, and indus-
trious. He was in his place to be prayed for as one of a be-
reaved family, of course, this morning ; but there was scarcely
more capability of mourning in his plump, healthy body than
there is in that of a well-fed, tranquil steer. But he took his
weekly portion of religion kindly. It was the thing to do on Sun-
day, as much as making hay or digging potatoes on Monday.
His wife by his side displayed no less the aspect of calm, re-
spectable, well-to-do content. Her Sunday bonnet was without
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 55
spot, her Sunday gown without wrinkle; and she had a great
bunch of fennel in her pocket-handkerchief, which, from time to
time, she imparted to us youngsters with a benevolent smile.
Far otherwise was the outward aspect of my grandmother's
brother, Eliakirn Sheril. He was a nervous, wiry, thin, dry
little old man, every part of whose body appeared to be hung
together by springs that were in constant vibration. He had
small, keen black eyes, a thin, sharp hooked nose, which he was
constantly buffeting, and blowing, and otherwise maltreating, in
the fussy uneasiness which was the habit of the man.
Uncle 'Liakini was a man known as Uncle to all the village,
the kindest-souled, most untiringly benevolent, single-hearted old
body that could be imagined ; but his nervous activity was such
as to have procured among the boys a slight change in the ren-
dering of his name, which was always popularly given as Uncle
Fliakim, and, still more abbreviated, Uncle Fly.
" Can you tell me where Mr. Sheril is," says an inquirer at
the door of my grandfather's mill.
" If you want to find 'Liakim," says my grandfather, with liis
usual smile, " never go after him, you '11 never catch him ; but
stand long enough on any one spot on earth, and he 's sure to go
by-"
Uncle 'Liakim had his own particular business, the oversee-
ing of a soap and candle factory ; but, besides that, he had on his
mind the business of everybody else in town, the sorrows of
every widow, the lonely fears of every spinster, the conversion
of every reprobate, the orthodoxy of every minister, the manners
and morals of all the parish, all of which caused him to be up
early and down late, and flying about confusedly at all hours, full
of zeal, full of kindness, abounding in .suggestions, asking ques-
tions the answers to which he could not stop to hear, making
promises which he did not remember, and which got him into no
end of trouble with people who did, telling secrets, and letting
innumerable cats out of countless bags, to the dismay and affright
of all reserved and well-conducted people. Uncle Fliakim, in
fact, might be regarded in our village of Oldtown as a little
brown pudding-stick that kept us in a perpetual stir. To be
56 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
sure, it was a general stir of loving-kindness and good inten-
tions, yet it did not always give unlimited satisfaction.
For instance, some of the more strictly disposed members of the
congregation were scandalized that Uncle Fliakim, every stormy
Sunday, nearly destroyed the solemnity of the long prayer by
the officious zeal which he bestowed in getting sundry forlorn old
maids, widows, and other desolate women to church. He had a
horse of that immortal species well known in country villages,
made of whalebone and india-rubber, with a long neck, a ham-
mer-head, and one blind eye, and a wagon which rattled and
tilted and clattered in every part, as if infected with a double
portion of its owner's spirits ; and, mounting in this, he would
drive miles in the rain or the snow, all for the pleasure of im-
porting into the congregation those dry, forlorn, tremulous speci-
mens of female mortality which abound in every village congre
gation.
Uncle Fliakim had been talked to on this subject, and duly
admonished. The benevolence of his motives was allowed ; but
why, it was asked, must he always drive his wagon with a bang
against the doorstep just as the congregation rose to the first
prayer? It was a fact that the stillness which followed the
words, " Let us pray," was too often broken by the thump of the
wagon and the sound, "Whoa, whoa! take care, there!" from
without, as Uncle Fly's blind steed rushed headlong against the
meeting-house door, as if he were going straight in, wagon and
all; and then there would be a further most uneclifying giggle and
titter of light-minded young men and damsels when Aunt Bath-
sheba Sawin and Aunt Jerusha Pettibone, in their rusty black-
crape bonnets, with their big black fans in their hands, slowly
rustled and creaked into their seats, while the wagon and Uncle
'Liakim were heard giggiting away. Then the boys, if the tith-
ing-man was not looking at them, would bet marbles whether
the next load would be old Mother Chris and Phoebe Drury, or
Hetty Walker and old Mother Hopestill Loker.
It was a great offence to all the stricter classes that Uncle
Fly should demean his wagon by such an unedifying character
as Mother Hopestill Loker ; for, though her name intimated that
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 57
she ought to have charity, still she was held no better than a
publican and sinner; and good people in those days saw the
same impropriety in such people having too much to do with
reputable Christians that they used to years ago in a country
called Palestine.
For all these reasons Uncle Fliakiin was often dealt with as
one of go'od intentions, but wanting the wisdom which is profit-
able to direct. One year his neighbors thought to employ his
superfluous activity by appointing him tithing-man ; and great
indeed in this department were his zeal and activity ; but it was
soon found that the dear man's innocent sincerity of heart made
him the prey of every village good-for-naught who chose to take
him in. All the naughty boys in town were agog with expec-
tancy when Joe Valentine declared, with a wink, that he 'd drive
a team Sunday right by Uncle Fly's house, over to Hopkinton,
with his full consent. Accordingly, the next Sunday he drove
leisurely by, with a solemn face and a broad weed on his hat.
Uncle Fly ran panting, half dressed, and threw himself distract-
edly on the neck of the horse. " My young friend, I cannot per-
mit it. You must turn right back."
" My dear sir," said Joe, " have n't you heard that my mother
is lying dead in Hopkinton at this very moment ? "
" Is it possible ? " said my uncle, with tears in his eyes. " I
beg your pardon. I had n't heard it. Proceed, by all means.
I 'm sorry I interrupted you."
The next morning wicked Joe careered by again. " Good
morning, Mr. Sheril. I s'pose you know my mother 's been
lying dead these five years ; but I *m equally obliged for your
politeness."
Vain was Uncle Fly's indignation. Greater men than be
have had to give up before the sovereign power of a laugh, and
erelong he resigned the office of tithing-man as one requiring
a sterner metal than he possessed. In fact, an unsavory char-
acter, who haunted the tavern and was called by the boys Old
Mopshear, gave a resume of his opinions of tithing-men as seen
from the camp of the enemy.
" Old Deacon Badger," he said, " was always lookin' 't other
3*
58 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
way, and never saw nothin' Vwas goin' on. But there was
Uncle Fliakim, wal, to be sure the gals could n't tie up their
shoes without he was a lookin' ; but then, come to railly doin'
anythin', it was only a snap, and he was off agin. He wa' n't
much more 'n a niiddlin'-sized grasshopper, arter all. Tell you
what," said Mopshear, " it takes a fellow like Israel Scran, that
knows what he 's about, and 's got some body to do with. When
old Jerusalem Ben swore he 'd drive the stage through the town
a Sunday, I tell you it was fun to see Israel Scran. He jest
stood out by the road and met the hosses smack, and turned 'em
so quick that the stage flopped over like a wink, and Ben was
off rolling over and over in the sand. Ben got the wust on 't
that time. I tell you, it takes Israel Scran to be tithing-nian ! "
Good Uncle Fliakim had made himself extremely busy in my
father's last sickness, dodging out of one door and in at another,
at all hours ; giving all manner of prescriptions for his tempo-
ral and spiritual state, but always in too much of a hurry to stop
a minute, a consideration which, I heard my father say, was
the only one which made him tolerable. But, after all, I liked
him, though he invariably tumbled over me, either in coming
into or going out of the house, and then picked me up and gave
me a cent, and went on rejoicing. The number of cents I ac-
quired in this way became at last quite a little fortune.
But time would fail me to go on and describe all the quiddities
and oddities of our Sunday congregation. Suffice it to say, that
we all grew in those days like the apple-trees in our back lot.
Every man had his own quirks and twists, and threw himself
out freely in the line of his own individuality ; and so a rather
jerky, curious, original set of us there was. But such as we
were, high and low, good and bad, refined and illiterate, barba-
rian and civilized, negro and white, the old meeting-house united
us all on one day of the week, and its solemn services formed an
insensible but strong bond of neighborhood charity.
"VVe may rail at Blue Laws and Puritan strictness as much as
we please, but certainly those communities where our fathers
carried out their ideas fully had their strong points ; and, rude
and primitive as our meeting-houses were, this weekly union of
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 59
all classes in them was a most powerful and efficient means
of civilization. The man or woman cannot utterly sink who
on every seventh day is obliged to appear in decent apparel, and
to join with all the standing and respectability of the community
in a united act of worship.
Nor were our Sunday services, though simple, devoid of their
solemn forms. The mixed and motley congregation came in
with due decorum during the ringing of the first bell, and waited
in their seats the advent 9f the minister. The tolling of the bell
was the signal for him that his audience were ready to receive
him, and he started from his house. The clerical dress of the
day, the black silk gown, the spotless bands, the wig and three-
cornered hat and black gloves, were items of professional fitness
which, in our minister's case, never failed of a due attention.
When, with his wife leaning on his arm, he entered at the door
of the meeting-house, the whole congregation rose and remained
reverently standing until he had taken his seat in the pulpit.
The same reverential decorum was maintained after service was
over, when all remained standing and uncovered while the min-
ister and his family passed down the broad aisle and left the
house. Our fathers were no man-worshippers, but they regarded
the minister as an ambassador from the great Sovereign of the
universe, and paid reverence to Him whose word he bore in
their treatment of him.
On the Sunday following the funeral of any one in the parish,
it was customary to preach a sermon having immediate reference
to the event which had occurred, in the course of which the
nearest friends and relatives were directly addressed, and stood
up in their seats to receive the pastoral admonition and consola-
tion. I remember how wan and faded, like a, shimmering flower,
my poor mother rose in her place, while I was forcibly held down
by Aunt Lois's grasp on my jacket till the " orphan children "
were mentioned, when I was sent up on my feet with an impetus
like a Jack in a box ; and afterward the whole family circle
arose and stood, as the stream of admonition and condolence
became more general. We were reminded that the God of the
widow and orphan never dies, that this life is the shadow, and
60 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the life to come the substance, that there is but one thing need-
ful, that as our departed friend is to-day, so we may all be to-
morrow ; and then the choir sung, to the tune of old Darwen,
" Shall man, God of life and light,
Forever moulder in the grave ?
Hast thou forgot thy glorious work,
Thy promise and thy power to save? "
I cannot say much for our country psalmody. Its execution
was certainly open to severe criticism ; and Uncle Fliakim, on
every occasion of especial solemnity, aggravated its peculiarities
by tuning up in a high, cracked voice a weird part, in those
days called " counter," but which would in our days insure his
being taken out of the house as a possessed person. But, in
spite of all this, those old minor-keyed funeral hymns in which
our fathers delighted always had a quality in them that affected
me powerfully. The music of all barbarous nations is said to
be in the minor key, and there is in its dark combinations
something that gives piercing utterance to that undertone of
doubt, mystery, and sorrow by which a sensitive spirit always is
encompassed in this life.
I was of a peculiarly sensitive organization ; my nerves shiv-
ered to every touch, like harp-strings. What might have come
over me had I heard the solemn chants of cathedrals, and the
deep pulsations of the old organ-hearts that beat there, I cannot
say, but certain it is that the rude and primitive singing in our
old meeting-house always excited me powerfully. It brought
over me, like a presence, the sense of the infinite and eternal,
the yearning and the fear and the desire of the poor finite being,
so ignorant and so helpless. I left the church lifted up as if
walking on air, with the final words of the psalm floating like an
illuminated cloud around me,
" Faith sees the bright eternal doors
Unfold to make His children way;
They shall be crowned with endless life,
And shine in everlasting day."
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 61
CHAPTER VI.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN.
MY grandmother's kitchen was a great, wide, roomy apart-
ment, whose white-sanded floor was always as clean as
hands could make it. It was resplendent with the sheen of a set
of scoured pewter plates and platters, which stood arranged on a
dresser on one side. The great fireplace swept quite across an-
other side. There we burned cord-wood, and the fire was built
up on architectural principles known to those days. First came
an enormous back-log, rolled in with the strength of two men, on
the top of which was piled a smaller log ; and then a fore-stick, of
a size which would entitle it to rank as a log in our times, went
to make the front foundation of the fire. The rearing of the
ample pile thereupon was a matter of no small architectural
skill, and all the ruling members of our family circle had their
own opinions about its erection, which they maintained with
the zeal and pertinacity which become earnest people. My
grandfather, with his grave smile, insisted that he was the only
reasonable fire-builder of the establishment; but when he had
arranged his sticks in the most methodical order, my grand-
mother would be sure to rush out with a thump here and a
twitch there, and divers incoherent exclamations tending to imply
that men never knew how to build a fire. Frequently her intense
zeal for immediate effect would end in a general rout and roll of
the sticks in all directions, with puffs of smoke down the chimney,
requiring the setting open of the outside door ; and then Aunt Lois
would come to the rescue, and, with a face severe with determina-
tion, tear down the whole structure and rebuild from the founda-
tion with exactest precision, but with an air that cast volumes of
contempt on all that had gone before. The fact is, that there is
no little nook of domestic life which gives snug harbor to so
much self-will and self-righteousness as the family hearth ; and
62 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
this is particularly the case with wood fires, because, from the
miscellaneous nature of the material, and the sprightly activity
of the combustion, there is a constant occasion for tending and
alteration, and so a vast field for individual opinion.
We had come home from our second Sunday service. Our
evening meal of smoking brown bread and baked beans had been
discussed, and the supper-things washed and put out ' of sight.
There was an uneasy, chill moaning and groaning out of doors,
showing the coming up of an autumn storm, just enough chill
and wind to make the brightness of a social hearth desirable,
and my grandfather had built one of his most methodical and
splendid fires.
The wide, ample depth of the chimney was aglow in all its
cavernous length with the warm leaping light that burst out in
lively jets and spirts from every rift and chasm. The great black
crane that swung over it, with its multiplicity of pot-hooks and
trammels, seemed to have a sort of dusky illumination, like that
of old CaBsar's black, shining face, as he sat on his block of wood
in the deep recess of the farther corner, with his hands on the
knees of his Sunday pantaloons, gazing lovingly into the blaze with
all the devotion of a fire-worshipper. On week-day evenings old
Ca3sar used to have his jack-knife in active play in this corner, and
whistles and pop-guns and squirrel-traps for us youngsters grew
under his plastic hand ; but on Sunday evening he was too good
a Christian even to think of a jack-knife, and if his hand casually
encountered it in his pocket, he resisted it as a temptation of the
Devil, and sat peacefully winking and blinking, and occasionally
breaking out into a ripple of private giggles which appeared to
spring purely from the overflow of bodily contentment. My Uncle
Bill was in that condition which is peculiarly apt to manifest itself
in the youth of well-conducted families on Sunday evenings, a
kind of friskiness of spirits which appears to be a reactionary state
from the spiritual tension of the day, inclining him to skirmish
round on all the borders and outskirts of permitted pleasantry,
and threatening every minute to burst out into most unbecoming
uproariousness. This state among the youngsters of a family
on Sunday evening is a familiar trial of all elders who have had
the task of keeping them steady during the sacred hours.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 63
My Uncle Bill, in his week-day frame, was the wit and buffoon
of the family, an adept in every art that could shake the sides,
and bring a laugh out on the gravest face. His features were
flexible, his powers of grimace and story-telling at times irresist-
ible. On the present occasion it was only my poor mother's
pale, sorrowful face that kept him in any decent bounds. He
did not wish to hurt his sister's feelings, but he was boiling over
with wild and elfish impulses, which he vented now by a sly
tweak at the cat's tail, then by a surreptitious dig at black Cesar's
sides, which made the poor black a helpless, quivering mass of
giggle, and then he would slyly make eyes and mouths at Bill
and me behind Aunt Lois's chair, which almost slew us with
laughter, though all the while he appeared with painful effort to
keep on a face of portentous gravity.
On the part of Aunt Lois, however, there began to be mani-
fested unequivocal symptoms that it was her will and pleasure to
have us all leave our warm fireside and establish ourselves in
the best room, for we had a best room, else wherefore were we
on tea-drinking terms with the high aristocracy of Oldtown ?
We had our best room, and kept it as cold, as uninviting and
stately, as devoid of human light or warmth, as the most fashion-
able shut-up parlor of modern days. It had the tallest and
brightest pair of brass andirons conceivable, and a shovel and
tongs to match, that were so heavy that the mere lifting them was
work enough, without doing anything with them. It had also a
bright-varnished mahogany tea-table, over which was a looking-
glass in a gilt frame, with a row of little architectural balls on it ;
which looking-glass was always kept shrouded in white muslin at
all seasons of the year, on account of a tradition that flies might
be expected to attack it for one or two weeks in summer. But
truth compels me to state, that I never saw or heard of a fly
whose heart could endure Aunt Lois's parlor. It was so dark,
so cold, so still, that all that frisky, buzzing race, who delight in
air and sunshine, universally deserted and seceded from it ; yet
the looking-glass, and occasionally the fire-irons, were rigorously
shrouded, as if desperate attacks might any moment be expected.
Now the kitchen was my grandmother's own room. In one
64 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
corner of it stood a round table with her favorite books, her great
work-basket, and by it a rickety rocking-chair, the bottom of
which was of ingenious domestic manufacture, being in fact made
by interwoven strips of former coats and pantaloons of the home
circle ; but a most comfortable and easy seat it made. My grand-
father had also a large splint-bottomed arm-chair, with rockers to
it, in which he swung luxuriously in the corner of the great fire-
place. By the side of its ample blaze we sat down to our family
meals, and afterwards, while grandmother and Aunt Lois washed
up the tea-things, we all sat and chatted by the firelight. Now
it was a fact that nobody liked to sit in the best room. In the
kitchen each member of the family had established unto him or
her self some little pet private snuggery, some chair or stool, some
individual nook, forbidden to gentility, but dear to the ungenteel
natural heart, that we looked back to regretfully when we were
banished to the colder regions of the best room.
There the sitting provisions were exactly one dozen stuffed-
seated cherry chairs, with upright backs and griffin feet, each
foot terminating in a bony claw, which resolutely grasped a ball.
These chairs were high and slippery, and preached decorum in
the very attitudes which they necessitated, as no mortal could
ever occupy them except in the exercise of a constant and col-
lected habit of mind.
Things being thus, when my Uncle Bill saw Aunt Lois take
up some coals on a shovel, and look towards the best-room door,
he came and laid his hand on hers directly, with, " Now, Lois,
what are you going to do ? "
" Going to make up a fire in the best room."
"Now, Lois, I protest. You 're not going to do any such thing.
Hang grandeur and all that.
' 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home,'
you know ; and home means right here by mother's kitchen-fire,
where she and father sit, and want to sit. You know nobody
ever wants to go into that terrible best room of yours."
" Now, Bill, how you talk ! " said Aunt Lois, smiling, and put-
ting down her shovel.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 65
" But then, you see," she said, the anxious cloud again settling
down on her brow, " you see, we 're exposed to calls, and who
knows who may come in ? I should n't wonder if Major Broad,
or Miss Mehitable, might drop in. as they saw you down from
College."
" Let 'em come ; never fear. They all know we 've got a best
room, and that 's enough. Or, if you M rather, I '11 pin a card to
that effect upon the door ; and then we '11 take our ease. Or,
better than that, I '11 take 'em all in and show 'em our best
chairs, andirons, and mahogany table, and then we can come out
and be comfortable."
" Bill, you 're a saucy boy," said Aunt Lois, looking at him
indulgently as she subsided into her chair.
" Yes, that he always was," said my grandfather, with a smile
of the kind that fathers give to frisky sophomores in college.
" Well, come sit down, anyway," said my grandmother, " and
let 's have a little Sunday-night talk."
" Sunday-night talk, with all my heart," said Bill, as he seat-
ed himself comfortably right in front of the cheerful blaze.
" Well, it must be about * the meetin'/ of course. Our old
meeting-house looks as elegant as ever. Of all the buildings I
ever saw to worship any kind of a being in, that meeting-house
certainly is the most extraordinary. It really grows on me
every time I come home ! "
" Come, now, Bill," said Aunt Lois.
" Come, now ! Ain't I coming ? Have n't said anything but
what you all know. Said our meeting-house was extraordinary,
and you all know it is ; and there 's extraordinary folks in it^
I don't believe so queer a tribe could be mustered in all the land
of Israel as we congregate. I hope some of our oddities will be
in this evening after cider. I need to study a little, so that I
can give representations of nature in our club at Cambridge.
Nothing like going back to nature, you know. Old Obscue,
seems to me, was got up in fine fancy this morning; and
Sam Lawson had an extra touch of the hearse about him.
Hepsy must have been disciplining him this morning, before
church. I always know when Sam is fresh from a matrimonial
66 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
visitation : he 's peculiarly pathetic about the gills at those times.
Why don't Sam come in here ? "
" I 'm sure I hope he won't," said Aunt Lois. " One reason
why I wanted to sit in the best room to-night was that every old
tramper and queer object sees the light of our kitchen fire,
and comes in for a lounge and a drink ; and then, when one has
genteel persons calling, it makes it unpleasant."
" O, we all know you 're aristocratic, Lois ; but, you see, you
can't be indulged. You must have your purple and fine linen
and your Lazarus at the gate come together some time, just as
they do in the meeting-house and the graveyard. Good for you
all, if not agreeable."
Just at this moment the conversation was interrupted by a
commotion in the back sink-room, which sounded much like a
rush of a flight of scared fowl. It ended with a tumble of a
row of milk-pans toward chaos, and the door flew open and
Uncle Fly appeared.
" What on earth ! " said my grandmother, starting up. " That
you, 'Liakim ? Why on earth must you come in the back way
and knock down all my milk-pans ? "
" Why, I came 'cross lots from Aunt Bathsheba Sawin's," said
Uncle Fly, dancing in, " and I got caught in those pesky black-
berry-bushes in the graveyard, and I do believe I 've torn my
breeches all to pieces," he added, pirouetting and frisking with
very airy gyrations, and trying vainly to get a view of himself
behind, in which operation he went round and round as a cat
does after her tail.
" Laws a-massy, 'Liakim ! " said my grandmother, whose ears
were startled by a peculiar hissing sound in the sink-room, which
caused her to spring actively in that direction. " Well, now, you
have been and done it ! You 've gone and fidgeted the tap out
of my beer-barrel, and here 's the beer all over the floor. I hope
you 're satisfied now."
"Sorry for it. Didn't mean to. I'll wipe it right up.
Where 's a towel, or floor-cloth, or something ? " cried Uncle Fly,
whirling in more active circles round and round, till he seemed
to me to have a dozen pairs of legs.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 67
" Do sit down, 'Liakim," said ray grandmother. " Of course
you did n't mean to ; but next time don't come bustling and
whirligigging through my back sink-room after dark. I do be-
lieve you never will be quiet till you 're in your grave."
"Sit down, uncle," said Bill. "Never mind mother, she'll
come all right by and by. And never mind your breeches, all
things earthly are transitory, as Parson Lothrop told us to-day.
Now let 's come back to our Sunday talk. Did ever anybody
see such an astonishing providence as Miss Mehitable Rossiter's
bonnet to-day ? Does it belong to the old or the new dispensa-
tion, do you think ? "
" Bill, I 'm astonished at you ! " said Aunt Lois.
"Miss Mehitable is of a most respectable family," said Aunt
Keziah, reprovingly. "Her father and grandfather and great-
grandfather were all ministers ; and two of her mother's
brothers, Jeduthun and Amariah."
" Now, take care, youngster," said Uncle Fly. " You see you
young colts must n't be too airy. When a fellow begins to speak
evil of bonnets, nobody knows where he may end."
" Bless me, one and all of you," said Bill, " I have the greatest
respect for Miss Mehitable. Furthermore, I like her. She 's a
real spicy old concern. I 'd rather talk with her than any dozen
of modern girls. But I do wish she 'd give me that bonnet to
put in our Cambridge cabinet. I'd tell 'em it was the wing of a
Madagascar bat. Blessed old soul, how innocent she sat under
it ! never knowing to what wandering thoughts it was giving
rise. Such bonnets interfere with my spiritual progress."
At this moment, by the luck that always brings in the person
people are talking of, Miss Mehitable came in, with the identi-
cal old wonder on her head. Now, outside of our own blood-
relations, no one that came within our doors ever received a
warmer welcome than Miss Mehitable. Even the children
loved her, with that instinctive sense by which children and
dogs learn the discerning of spirits. To be sure she was as
gaunt and brown as the Ancient Mariner, but hers was a style
of ugliness that was neither repulsive nor vulgar. Personal un-
comeliness has its differing characters, and there are some very
68 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
homely women who have a style that amounts to something
like beauty. I know that this is not the common view of the
matter; but I am firm in the faith that some very homely
women have a certain attraction about them which is increased
by their homeliness. It is like the quaintness of Japanese
china, not beautiful, but having a strong, pronounced charac-
ter, as far remote as possible from the ordinary and vulgar, and
which, in union with vigorous and agreeable traits of mind, is
more stimulating than any mere insipid beauty.
In short, Miss Mehitable was a specimen of what I should call
the good-goblin style of beauty. And people liked her so much
that they came to like the singularities which individualized
her from all other people. Her features were prominent and
harsh; her eyebrows were shaggy, and finished abruptly half
across her brow, leaving but half an eyebrow on each side. She
had, however, clear, trustworthy, steady eyes, of a greenish gray,
which impressed one with much of that idea of steadfast faithful-
ness that one sees in the eyes of some good, homely dogs.
" Faithful and true," was written in her face as legibly as eyes
could write it.
For the rest, Miss Mehitable had a strong mind, was an om-
nivorous reader, apt, ready in conversation, and with a droll,
original way of viewing things, which made her society ever
stimulating. To me her house was always full of delightful
images, a great, calm, cool, shady, old-fashioned house, full of
books and of quaint old furniture, with a garden on one side
where were no end of lilies, hollyhocks, pinks, and peonies, to
say nothing of currants, raspberries, apples, and pears, and other
carnal delights, all of which good Miss Mehitable was free to
dispense to her child-visitors. It was my image of heaven to be
allowed to go to spend an afternoon with Miss Mehitable, and
establish myself, in a shady corner of the old study which con-
tained her father's library, over an edition of .^Esop's Fables
illustrated with plates, which, opened, was an endless field of en-
chantment to me.
Miss Mehitable lived under the watch and charge of an ancient
female domestic named Polly Shubel. Polly was a representa-
HUE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 69
tive specimen of the now extinct species of Yankee serving-
maids. She had been bred up from a child in the Rosseter fam-
ily of some generations back. She was of that peculiar kind of
constitution, known in New England, which merely becomes drier
and tougher with the advance of time, without giving any other
indications of old age. The exact number of her years was a
point unsettled even among the most skilful genealogists of Old-
town. Polly was a driving, thrifty, doctrinal and practical
female, with strong bones and muscles, and strong opinions, be-
lieving most potently in early rising, soap and sand, and the As-
sembly's Catechism, and knowing certainly all that she did know.
Polly considered Miss Mehitable as a sort of child under her
wardship, and conducted the whole business of life for her with
a sovereign and unanswerable authority. As Miss Mehitable's
tastes were in the world of books and ideas, rather than of physi-
cal matters, she resigned herself to Polly's sway with as good a
grace as possible, though sometimes she felt that it rather abridged
her freedom of action.
Luckily for my own individual self, Polly patronized me, and
gave me many a piece of good advice, sweetened with ginger-
bread, when I went to visit Miss Rossiter. I counted Miss Me-
hitable among my personal friends ; so to-night, when she came in,
I came quickly and laid hold of the skirt of her gown, and looked
admiringly upon her dusky face, under the portentous shadow of
a great bonnet shaded by nodding bows of that preternatural
color which people used to call olive-green. She had a word for
us all, a cordial grasp of the hand for my mother, who sat silent
and thoughtful in her corner, and a warm hand-shake all round.
" You see," she said, drawing out an old-fashioned snuff-box,
and tapping upon it, " my house grew so stupid that I must come
and share my pinch of snuff with you. It 's windy out to-night,
and I should think a storm was brewing; and the rattling of
one's own window-blinds, as one sits alone, is n't half so amus-
ing as some other things."
" You know, Miss Rossiter, we 're always delighted to have
you come in," said my grandmother, and my Aunt Lois, and my
Aunt Keziah, all at once. This, by the way, was a little domestic
70 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
trick that the females of our family had ; and, as their voices were
upon very different keys, the effect was somewhat peculiar. My
Aunt Lois's voice was high and sharp, my grandmother's a hearty
chest-tone, while Aunt Keziah's had an uncertain buzz between
the two, like the vibrations of a loose string ; but as they all had
corresponding looks and smiles of welcome, Miss Mehitable was
pleased.
" I always indulge myself in thinking I am welcome," she said.
" And now pray how is our young scholar, Master William Badg-
er ? What news do you bring us from old Harvard ? "
"Almost anything you want to hear, Miss Mehitable. You
know that I am your most devoted slave."
" Not so sure of that, sir," she said, with a whimsical twinkle of
her eye. " Don't you know that your sex are always treacherous ?
How do I know that you don't serve up old Miss Rossiter when
you give representations of the Oldtown curiosities there at Cam-
bridge ? We are a set here that might make a boy's fortune in
that line, now are n't we ? "
" How do you know that I do serve up Oldtown curiosities ? "
said Bill, somewhat confused, and blushing to the roots of his
hair.
" How do I know ? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the
leopard his spots? and can you help being a mimic, as you
were born, always were and always will be ? "
" O, but I 'm sure, Miss Mehitable, Bill never would, he
has too much respect," said Aunt Keziah and Aunt Lois, simul-
taneously again.
" Perhaps not ; but if he wants to, he 's welcome. What are
queer old women for, if young folks may not have a good laugh
out of them now and then ? If it 's only a friendly laugh, it 's just
as good as crying, and better too. I 'd like to be made to laugh
at myself. I think generally we take ourselves altogether too
seriously. What now, bright eyes?" she added, as I nestled
nearer to her. " Do you want to come up into an old woman's
lap ? Well, here you come. Bless me, what a tangle of curls we
have here ! Don't your thoughts get caught in these curls some-
times ? "
FIRE-LI$fiT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 71
I looked bashful and wistful at this address, and Miss Habit-
able went on twining my curls around her fingers, and trotting me
on her knee, lulling me into a delicious dreaminess, in which she
seemed to me to be one of those nice, odd-looking old fairy
women that figure to such effect in stories.
The circle all rose again as Hajor Broad came in. Aunt Lois
thought, with evident anguish, of the best room. Here was the
Major, sure enough, and we all sitting round the kitchen fire !
But my grandfather and grandmother welcomed him cheerfully
to their corner, and enthroned him in my grandfather's splint-
bottomed rocking-chair, where he sat far more comfortably than
if he had been perched on a genteel, slippery-bottomed stuffed
chair with claw feet.
The Major performed the neighborly kindnesses of the occa-
sion in an easy way. He spoke a few words to my mother of the
esteem and kindness he had felt for my father, in a manner that
called up the blood into her thin cheeks, and made her eyes
dewy with tears. Then he turned to the young collegian, recog-
nizing him as one of the rising lights of Oldtown.
" Our only nobility now," he said to my grandfather. " We've
cut off everything else : no distinction now, sir, but educated and
uneducated."
" It is a hard struggle for our human nature to give up titles
and ranks, though," said Miss Mehitable. " For my part, I have
a ridiculous kindness for them yet. I know it 's all nonsense ;
but I can't help looking back to the court we used to have at the
Government House in Boston. You know it was something to
hear of the goings and doings of my Lord this and my Lady that,
and of Sir Thomas and Sir Peter and Sir Charles, and all the
rest of 'em."
" Yes," said Bill ; " the Oldtown folks call their minister's wife
Lady yet."
" Well, that 's a little comfort," said Miss Mehitable ; " one
don't want life an entire dead level. Do let us have one titled
lady among us."
" And a fine lady she is," said the Major. " Our parson did a
good thing in that alliance."
72 OLDTOWN FOLKvS.
While the conversa/ion was thus taking a turn of the most ap-
proved genteel style, Aunt Keziah's ears heard alarming premon-
itory sounds outside the door. " Who 's that at the scraper ? "
said she.
" O, it 's Sam Lawson," said Aunt Lois, with a sort of groan.
" You may be sure of that."
" Come in, Sam, my boy," said Uncle Bill, opening the door.
" Glad .to see you."
" Wai now, Mr. Badger," said Sam, with white eyes of vener-
ation, " I 'm real glad to see ye. I telled Hepsy you 'd want to
see me. You 're the fust one of my Saturday arternoon fishin'
boys that 's got into college, and I 'm 'mazing proud on 't. I tell
you I walk tall, ask 'em if I don't, round to the store."
" You always were gifted in that line," said Bill. " But come,
sit down in the corner and tell us what you 've been about."
"Wai, you see, I thought I'd jest go over to North Parish
this arternoon, jest for a change, like, and I wanted to hear one
of them Hopkintinsians they tell so much about; and Parson
Simpson, he 's one on 'em."
" You ought not to be roving off on Sunday, leaving your own
meeting," said my grandfather.
" Wai, you see, Deacon Badger, I 'm interested in these 'ere
new doctrines. I met your Polly a goin' over, too," he said to
Miss Mehitable.
" O yes," said Miss Mehitable, " Polly is a great Hopkinsian.
She can hardly have patience to sit under our Parson Lothrop's
preaching. It 's rather hard on me, because Polly makes it a
point of conscience to fight every one of his discourses over to
me in my parlor. Somebody gave Polly an Arminian tract last
Sunday, entitled, 'The Apostle Paul an Arminian.' It would
have done you good to hear Polly's comments. ' 'Postle Paul an
Arminian ! He 's the biggest 'lectioner of 'em all.' "
" That he is," said ' my grandmother, warmly. " Polly 's read
her Bible to some purpose."
" Well, Sam, what did you think of the sermon ? " said Uncle
Bill.
" Wai," said Sam, leaning over the fire, with his long, bony
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GKAISDMOTHKK'S K1TC1ILX. 73
hands alternately raised to catch the warmth, and then dropped
with an utter laxness, when the warmth became too pronounced,
" Parson Simpson 's a smart man ; but, I tell ye, it 's kind o' dis-
couragin'. Why, he said our state and condition by natur was
just like this. We was clear down in a well fifty feet deep, and
the sides all round nothin' but glare ice ; but we was under imme-
diate obligations to get out, 'cause we was free, voluntary agents.
But nobody ever had got out, and nobody would, unless the Lord
reached down and took 'em. And whether he would or not no-
body could tell ; it was all sovereignty. He said there wa' n't one
in a hundred, not one in a thousand, not one in ten thou-
sand, that would be saved. Lordy massy, says I to myself, ef
that 's so they 're any of 'em welcome to my chance. And so I
kind o' ris up and come out, 'cause I 'd got a pretty long walk
home, and I wanted to go round by South Pond, and inquire
about Aunt Sally Morse's toothache."
" I heard the whole sermon over from Polly," said Miss Mehit-
able, " and as it was not a particularly cheerful subject to think
of, I came over here." These words were said with a sort of
chilly, dreary sigh, that made me turn and look up in Miss Me-
hitable's face. It looked haggard and weary, as of one tired of
struggling with painful thought.-?.
"Wai," said Sam Lawson, "I stopped a minute round to
your back door, Miss Rossiter, to talk with Polly about the ser-
nion. I was a tellin' Polly that that 'ere was puttin' inability a
leetle too strong."
" Not a bit, not a bit," said Uncle Fly, " so long as it 's moral
inability. There 's the point, ye see, moral, that 's the
word. That makes it all right."
" Wai," said Sam, " I was a puttin' it to Polly this way.
Ef a man 's cut off his hands, it ain't right to require him to
chop wood. Wai, Polly, she says he 'd no business to cut his
hands off; and so he ought to be required to chop the wood all
the same. Wai, I telled her it was Adam chopped our hands off.
But she said, no; it was we did it m'Adam, and she brought
up the catechise plain enough, We sinned in him, and fell with
him.'"
4
74 OLDTOWX FOLKS.
" She had you there, Sam," said Uncle Fly, with great con-
tent. " You won't catch Polly tripping on the catechism."
" Well, for my part," said Major Broad, " I. don't like these
doctrinal subtil ties, Deacon Badger. Now I 've got a volume
of Mr. Addison's religious writings that seem to me about the
right thing. They 're very pleasing reading. Mr. Addison is
my favorite author of a Sunday."
" I 'ru afraid Mr. Addison had nothing but just mere morality
and natural religion," said my grandmother, who could not be
withheld from bearing her testimony. " You don't find any of
the discriminating doctrines in Mr. Addison. Major Broad, did
you ever read Mr. Bellamy's 'True Religion Delineated and
Distinguished from all Counterfeits ' ? "
" No, madam, I never did," said Major Broad.
"Well, I earnestly hope you will read that book," said my
grandmother.
" My wife is always at me about one good book or another,"
said my grandfather ; " but I manage to do with my old Bible.
I have n't used that up yet."
" I should know about Dr. Bellamy's book by this time," said
Miss Mehitable, "for Polly intrenches herself in that, and
preaches out of it daily. Polly certainly missed her vocation
when she was trained for a servant. She is a born professor of
theology. She is so circumstantial about all that took place at
the time the angels fell, and when the covenant was made with
Adam in the Garden of Eden, that I sometimes question whether
she really might not have been there personally. Polly is par-
ticularly strong on Divine sovereignty. She thinks it applies to
everything under the sun except my affairs. Those she chooses
to look after herself."
" Well," said Major Broad, " I am not much of a theologian.
I want to be taught my duty. Parson Lothrop's discourses are
generally very clear and practical, and they suit me."
" They are good as far as they go," said my grandmother ;
"but I like good, strong, old-fashioned doctrine. I like such
writers as Mr. Edwards and Dr. Bellamy and Dr. Hopkins,
It 's all very well, your essays on cheerfulness and resignation,
URE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 75
and all that ; but I want something that takes strong hold of
you, so that you feel something has got you that can hold."
" The Cambridge Platform, for instance," said Uncle Bill.
"Yes, iny son, the Cambridge Platform. I ain't ashamed
of it. It was made by men whose shoe-latchet we are n't worthy
to unloose. I believe it, every word on 't. I believe it, and
I 'm going to believe it."
"And would if there was twice as much of it," said Uncle
Bill. " That 's right, mother, stand up for your colors. I ad-
mire your spirit. But, Sam, what does Hepsy think of all this ?
I suppose you enlighten her when you return from your investi-
gations."
" Wai, I try to. But lordy massy, Mr. Badger, Hepsy don't
take no kind o' interest in the doctrines, no more 'n nothin' at
all. She's so kind o' worldly, Hepsy is. It's allers meat and
drink, meat and drink, with her. That 's all she 's thinkin' of."
" And if you would think more of such things, she would n't
have to think so much," said Aunt Lois, sharply. " Don't you
know the Bible says, that the man that provideth not for his own
household hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel ? "
" I don't see," said Sam, slowly flopping his great hands up
and down over the blaze, "I railly don't see why folks are
allers a throwin' up that 'ere text at me. I 'm sure I work as hard
as a man ken. Why, I was a workin' last night till nigh twelve
o'clock, doin' up odd jobs o' blacksmithin'. They kind o' 'cumu-
late, ye know."
" Mr. Lawson," said my grandmother, with a look of long-suf-
fering patience, " how often and often must I tell you, that if
you 'd be 'steadier round your home, and work in regular hours,
Hepsy would be more comfortable, and things would go on
better ? "
" Lordy massy, Mis' Badger, bless your soul and body, ye don't
know nothin' about it ; - ye don't know nothin' what I undergo.
Hepsy, she 's at me from morning till night. First it 's one thing,
and then another. One day it rains, and her clothes-line breaks.
She 's at me 'bout that. Now I tell her, ' Hepsy, I ain't to blame,
I don't make the rain.' And then another day she 's at me agin
76 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
'cause the wind ; s east, and fetches the smoke down chimbley.
I tell her, ' Hepsy, now look here, do I make the wind blow ? '
But it 's no use talkin' to Hepsy."
" Well, Sam, I take your part," said Bill. " I always knew
you was a regular martyr. Come, boys, go down cellar and
draw a pitcher of cider. We '11 stay him with flagons, and com-
fort him with apples. Won't we, Sam ? "
As Sam was prime favorite with all boys, my brother Bill and
I started willingly enough on this errand, one carrying the candle
and the other a great stone pitcher of bountiful proportions,
which always did hospitable duty on similar occasions.
Just as we returned, bearing our pitcher, there came another
rap at the outside door of the kitchen, and Old Betty Poganut
and Sally Wonsamug stood at the door.
''Well, now, Mis' Badger," said Betty, "Sally and me, we
thought we must jest run in, we got so scar't. We was coming
through that Bill Morse's woods, and there come such a flash o'
lightnin' it most blinded us, and the wind blew enough to blow
a body over ; and we thought there was a storm right down on
us, and we run jest as fast as we could. We did n't know what
to do, we was so scar't. I 'm mortal 'fraid of lightning."
"Why, Betty, you forgot the sermon to-day. You should
have said your prayers, as Parson Lothrop tells you," said my
grandfather.
" Well, I did kind o' put up a sort o' silent 'jaculation, as a
body may sa}\ That is, I jest said, ' Lord,' and kind o' gin
him a wink, you know."
" O, you did ? " said my grandfather.
" Yes, I kind o' thought He 'd know what I meant."
My grandfather turned with a smile to Miss Mehitable.
" These Indians have their own wild ways of looking at things,
after all."
" Well, now, I s'pose you have n't had a bit of supper, either
of you," said my grandmother, getting up. " It 's commonly the
way of it."
" Well, to tell the truth, I was sayin' to Sarah that if we come
down to Mis' Deacon Badger's I shouldn't wonder if We got
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 77
something good," said Betty, her broad, coarse face and baggy
cheeks beginning to be illuminated with a smile.
" Here, Horace, you come and hold the candle while I go into
the buttery and get 'cm some cold pork and beans," said my
grandmother, cheerily. " The poor creturs don't get a good meal
of victuals very often ; and I baked a good lot on purpose."
If John Bunyan had known my grandmother, he certainly
would have introduced her in some of his histories as "the house-
keeper whose name was Bountiful"; and under her care an
ample meal of brown bread and pork and beans was soon set
forth on the table in the corner of the kitchen, to which the two
hungry Indian women sat down with the appetite of wolves. A
large mug was placed between them, which Uncle Bill filled to
the brim with cider.
" I s'pose you 'd like twice a mug better than once a mug,
Sally," he said, punning on her name.
" O, if the mug 's only big enough," said Sally, her snaky
eyes gleaming with appetite; "and it's always a good big mug
one gets here."
Sam Lawson's great white eyes began irresistibly to wander
in the direction of the plentiful cheer which was being so liber-
ally dispensed at the other side of the room.
" Want some, Sam, my boy ? " said Uncle Bill, with a patroniz-
ing freedom.
" Why, bless your soul, Master Bill, I would n't care a bit if I
took a plate o' them beans and some o' that ? ere pork. Hepsy
didn't save no beans for me; and, walkin' all the way from
North Parish, I felt kind o' empty and windy, as a body may
say. You know Scriptur' tells about bein' filled with the east
wind; but I never found it noways satisfying it sets sort o'
cold on the stomach."
" Draw up, Sam, and help yourself," said Uncle Bill, putting
plate and knife and fork before him ; and Sam soon showed that
he had a vast internal capacity for the stowing away of beans
and brown bread.
Meanwhile Major Broad and my grandfather drew their
chairs together, and began a warm discussion of the Constitu-
78 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
tion of the United States, which had been recently presented for
acceptance in a Convention of the State of Massachusetts.
"I have n't seen you, Major Broad," said my grandfather, "since
you came back from the Convention. I 'm very anxious to have
our State of Massachusetts accept that Constitution. We 're in
an unsettled condition now; we don't know fairly where we are.
If we accept this Constitution, we shall be a nation, we shall
have something to go to work on."
" Well, Deacon Badger, to say the truth, I could not vote for
this Constitution in Convention. They have adopted it by a
small majority ; but I shall be bound to record my dissent from
it."
" Pray, Major, what are your objections ? " said Miss Mehita-
ble.
" I have two. One is, it gives too much power to the Presi-
dent. There's an appointing power and a power of patronage
that will play the mischief some day in the hands of an ambitious
man. That 's one objection. The other is the recognizing and
encouraging of slavery in the Constitution. That is such a dread-
ful wrong, such a shameful inconsistency, when we have just
come through a battle for the doctrine that all men are free and
equal, to turn round and found our national government on a
recognition of African slavery. It cannot and will not come to
good."
" O, well," said my grandfather, " slavery will gradually die
out. You see how it is going in the New England States."
" I cannot think so," said the Major. "I have a sort of feeling
about this that I cannot resist. If we join those States that still
mean to import and use slaves, our nation will meet some dread-
ful punishment. I am certain of it." *
" Well, really," said my grandfather, I 'm concerned to hear
you speak so. I have felt such anxiety to have something settled.
Y r ou see, without a union we are all afloat, we are separate logs,
but no raft."
* The dissent of Major Broad of Natick, and several others, on the grounds
above stated, may still be read in the report of the proceedings of the Con-
vention that ratified the Constitution.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 79
" Yes," said Miss Mehitable, " but nothing can be settled that
is n't founded on right. We ought to dig deep, and lay our foun-
dations on a rock, when we build for posterity."
" Were there many of your way of thinking in the Convention,
Major ? " said my grandfather.
" Well, we had a pretty warm discussion, and we came very
near to carrying it. Now, in Middlesex County, for instance,
where we are, there were only seventeen in favor of the Consti-
tution, and twenty-five against ; and in Worcester County there
were only seven in favor and forty-three against. Well, they
carried it at last by a majority of nineteen ; but the minority
recorded their protest. Judge Widgery of Portland, General
Thompson of Topsham, and Dr. Taylor of Worcester, rather
headed the opposition. Then the town of Andover instructed
its representative, Mr. Symmes, to vote against it, but he did n't,
he voted on the other side, and I understand they are dreadfully
indignant about it. I saw a man from Andover last week who
said that he actually thought Symmes would be obliged to leave
the town, lie was so dreadfully unpopular."
" Well, Major Broad, I agree with you," said my grandmother,
heartily, "and I honor you for the stand you -took. Slavery is a
sin and a shame ; and I say, with Jacob, * O my soul, come not thou
into their secret^ unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou
united.' I wish we may keep clear on 't. I don't want anything
that we can't ask God's blessing on heartily, and we certainly
can't on this. Why, anybody that sees that great scar on Caesar's
forehead sees what slavery comes to."
My grandmother always pointed her anti-slavery arguments
with an 1 appeal to this mark of ill-usage which old Caesar had re-
ceived at the hands of a brutal master years before, and the ap-
peal never failed to convince the domestic circle.
" Well," said my grandfather, after some moments of silence,
in which he sat gazing fixedly at the great red coals of a hickory
log, " you see, Major, it 's done, and can't be helped."
" It 's done," said the Major, " but in my opinion mischief will
come of it as sure as there is a God in heaven."
" Let 's hope not," said my grandfather, placidly.
80 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Outside the weather was windy and foul, the wind rattling doors,
shaking and rumbling down the chimney, and causing the great
glowing circle lighted by the fire to seem warmer and brighter.
The Indian women and Sam Lawson, having finished their meal
and thoroughly cleaned out the dishes, grouped themselves about
the end of the ingle already occupied by black Caesar, and began
a little private gossip among themselves.
" I say," says Sam, raising his voice to call my grandfather's
attention, "do you know, Deacon Badger, whether anybody is
living in the Dench house now ? "
" There was n't, the last I knew about it," said my grandfather.
" Wai, you won't make some folks believe but what that 'ere
house is haunted."
"Haunted!" said Miss Mehitable ; "nothing more likely. What
old house is n't ? if one only knew it ; and that certainly ought
to be if ever a house was."
" But this 'ere 's a regular haunt" said Sam. " I was a talk-
in' the other night with Bill Payne and Jake Marshall, and they
both on 'em said that they 'd seen strange things in them grounds,
they 'd seen a figger of a man
" With his head under his arm," suggested Uncle Bill.
" No, a man in a long red cloak," said Sam Lawson, " such as
Sir Harry Frankland used to wear."
" Poor Sir Harry ! " said Miss Mehitable, " has he come to
that?"
" Did you know Sir Harry ? " said Aunt Lois.
"I have met him once or twice at the Governor's house,"
said Miss Mehitable. " Lady Lothrop knew Lady Frankland
very well."
" Well, Sam," said Uncle Bill, do let 's hear the end of this
haunting."
" Nothin', only the other night I was a goin' over to watch
with Lem Moss, and I passed pretty nigh the Dench place, and
I thought I 'd jest look round it a spell. And as sure as you 're
alive I see smoke a comin' out of the chimbley."
" I did n't know as ghosts ever used the fireplaces," said Uncle
Bill. " Well, Sam, did you go in ? "
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 81
"No, I was pretty much in a hurry; but I telled Jake and Bill,
and then they each on 'em had something to match that they 'd
seen. As nigh as I can make it out, there 's that 'ere boy that
they say was murdered and thrown down that 'ere old well walks
sometimes. And then there "s a woman appears to some, and
this 'ere "man in a red cloak; and they think it's Sir Harry in
his red cloak."
" For my part," said Aunt Lois, " I never had much opinion
of Sir Harry Frankland, or Lady Frankland either. I don't
think such goings on ever ought to be countenanced in society."
"They both repented bitterly, repented in sackcloth and
ashes," said Miss Mehitable. " And if God forgives such sins,
why should n't we ? "
" What was the story ? " said Major Broad.
" Why," said Aunt Lois, " have n't you heard of Agnes Sur-
ridge, of Marblehead ? She was housemaid in a tavern there,
and Sir Harry fell in love with her, and took her and educated
her. That was well enough ; but when she 'd done going to
school he took her home to his house in Boston, and called her
his daughter ; although people became pretty sure that the con-
nection was not what it should be, and they refused to have
anything to do with her. So he bought this splendid place out in
the woods, and built a great palace of a house, and took Miss
Agnes out there. People that wanted to be splendidly enter-
tained, and that were not particular as to morals, used to go
out to visit them."
" I used to hear great stories of their wealth and pomp and
luxury," said my grandmother, " but I mourned over it, that it
should come to this in New England, that people could openly
set such an example and be tolerated. . It would n't have been
borne a generation before, I can tell you. No, indeed, the
magistrates would have put a stop to it. But these noblemen,
when they came over to America, seemed to think themselves
lords of God's heritage, and free to do just as they pleased."
" But," said Miss Mehitable, " they repented, as I said. He
took her to England, and there his friends refused to receive
her ; and then he was appointed Ambassador to Lisbon, and he
4* p
82 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
took her there. ' On the day of the great earthquake Sir Harry
was riding with a lady of the court when the shock came, and in
a moment, without warning, they found themselves buried under
the ruins of a building they were passing. Pie wore a scarlet .
cloak, as was the fashion ; and they say that in her dying agonies
the poor creature bit through this cloak and sleeve into the flesh
of his arm, and made a mark that he carried to his dying day.
Sir Harry was saved by Agnes Surridge. She came over the
ruins, calling and looking for him, and he heard her voice and
answered, and she got men to come and dig him out. When he
was in that dreadful situation, he made a vow to God, if he would
save his life, that he would be a different man. And he was a
changed man from that day. He was married to Agnes Surridge
as soon as they could get a priest to perform the ceremony ; and
when he took her back to England all his relations received her,
and she was presented in court and moved in society with perfect
acceptance."
" I don't think it ever ought to have been," said Aunt Lois.
" Such women never ought to be received."
" What ! is there no place of repentance for a woman ? " said
Miss Mehitable. " Christ said, i Neither do I condemn thee ; go
and sin no more.' "
I noticed again that sort of shiver of feeling in Miss Mehit-
able ; and there was a peculiar thrill in her voice, as she said
these words, that made me sensible that she was speaking from
some inward depth of feeling.
" Don't you be so hard and sharp, Lois," said my grandmother ;
" sinners must have patience with sinners."
" Especially with sinners of quality, Lois," said Uncle Bill.
"By all accounts Sir Harry and Lady Frankland swept all
before them when they came back to Boston."
" Of course," said Miss Mehitable ; " what was done in court
would be done in Boston, and whom Queen Charlotte received
would be received in our upper circles. Lady Lothrop never
called on her till she was Lady Frankland, but after that I believe
she has visited out at their place."
" Wai, I Ve heerd 'em say," said Sam Lawson, " that it would
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN. 83
take a woman two days jest to get through cleaning the silver
that there was in that 'ere house, to say nothing about the carpets
and the curtains and the tapestry. But then, when the war broke
out, Lady Frankland, she took most of it back to England, I guess,
and the house has been back and forward to one and another. I
never could rightly know jest who did live in it. I heard about
some French folks that lived there one time. I thought some
day, when I had n't nothin' else to do, I 'd jest walk over to old
Granny Walker's, that lives over the other side of Hopkinton.
81 ie used to be a housekeeper to Lady Frankland, and I could
get particulars out o' her."
" Well," said Miss Mehitable, " I know one woman that must
go back to a haunted house, and that is this present one." So
saying, she rose and put me off her knee.
" Send this little man over to see me to-morrow," she said to
my mother. " Polly has a cake for him, and I shall find some-
thing to amuse him."
Major Broad, with old-fashioned gallantry, insisted on waiting
on Miss Mehitable home ; and Sam Lawson reluctantly tore
himself from the warm corner to encounter the asperities of his
own fireside.
" Here, Sam," said good-natured Bill, " here 's a great red
apple for Hepsy."
" Ef I dares to go nigh enough to give it to her," said Sam,
with a grimace. " She 's allers a castin' it up at me that I don't
want to set with her at home. But lordy massy, she don't con-
sider that a fellow don't want to set and be hectored and lectured
when he can do better elsewhere."
" True enough, Sam ; but give my regards to her."
As to the two Indian women, they gave it as their intention
to pass the night by the kitchen fire; and my grandmother, to
whom such proceedings were not at all strange, assented, pro-
ducing for each a blanket, which had often seen similar service.
My grandfather closed the evening by bringing out his great
Bible and reading a chapter. Then we all knelt down in
prayer.
So passed an evening in my grandmother's kitchen, whero
84 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
religion, theology, polities, the gossip of the day, and the legends
of the supernatural all conspired to weave a fabric of thought
quaint and various. Intense earnestness, a solemn undertone of
deep mournful awe, was overlaid with quaint traceries of humor,
strange and weird in their effect. I was one of those children
who are all ear, dreamy listeners, who brood over all that
they hear, without daring to speak of it ; and in this evening's
conversation I had heard enough to keep my eyes broad open
long after my mother had laid me in bed. The haunted house
and its vague wonders filled my mind, and I determined to ques-
tion Sam Lawson yet more about it.
But now that I have fairly introduced myself, the scene of my
story, and many of the actors in it, I must take my reader off
for a while, and relate a history that must at last blend with
mine in one story.
OLD CRAB SMITH. 85
CHAPTER VII
OLD CRAB SMITH.
ON the brow of yonder hill you see that old, red farm-house,
with its slanting back roof relieved against the golden sky
of the autumn afternoon. The house lifts itself up dark and
clear under the shadow of two great elm-trees that droop over it,
and is the first of a straggling, irregular cluster of farm-houses
that form the village of Needmore. A group of travellers, sit-
ting on a bit of rock in the road below the hill on which the
farm-house stands, are looking up to it, in earnest conversation.
" Mother, if you can only get up there, we '11 ask them to let
you go in and rest," said a little boy of nine years to a weary,
pale, sick-looking woman who sat as in utter exhaustion and dis-
couragement on the rock. A little girl two years younger than
the boy sat picking at the moss at her feet, and earnestly listen-
ing to her older brother with the air of one who is attending
to the words of a leader.
" I don't feel as if I could get a step farther," said the woman ;
and the increasing deadly paleness of her face confirmed her
words. - ,/,,
" O mother, don't give up," said the boy ; "just rest here a
little and then lean on me, and we '11 get you up the hill ; and
then I 'm sure they '11 take you in. Come, now ; I '11 run and
get you some water in our tin cup, and you '11 feel better soon."
And the boy ran to a neighboring brook and filled a small tin
cup, and brought the cool water to his mother.
She drank it, and then, fixing a pair of dark, pathetic eyes on
the face of her boy, she said : " My dear child, you have always
been such a blessing to me ! What should I do without you ? "
" Well, mother, now, if you feel able, just rest on my shoulder,
and Tina will take the bundle. You take it, Tina, and we '11
find a place to rest."
86 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
And so, slowly and with difficulty, the three wound their way
up to the grassy top of the hill where stood the red house. This
house belonged to a man named Caleb Smith, whose character
had caused the name he bore to degenerate into another which
was held to be descriptive of his nature, namely, " Crab " ; and the
boys of the vicinity commonly expressed the popular idea of the
man by calling him " Old Crab Smith." His was one of those
sour, cross, gnarly natures that now and then are to be met with
in New England, which, like knotty cider-apples, present a com-
pound of hardness, sourness, and bitterness. It was affirmed
that a continual free indulgence in very hard cider as a daily
beverage was one great cause of this churlishness of temper; but
be that as it may, there was not a boy in the village that did not
know and take account of it in all his estimates and calculations,
as much as of northeast storms and rainy weather. No child
ever willingly carried a message to him ; no neighbor but
dreaded to ask a favor of him ; nobody hoped to borrow or beg
of him ; nobody willingly hired themselves out to him, or did
him cheerful service. In short, he was a petrified man, walled
out from all neighborhood sympathies, and standing alone in his
crabbedness. And it was to this man's house that the wandering
orphan boy w r as leading his poor sick mother.
The three travellers approached a neat back porch on the
shady side of the house, where an old woman sat knitting. This
was Old Crab Smith's wife, or, more properly speaking, his life-long
bond-slave, the only human being whom he could so secure to
himself that she should be always at hand for him to vent that
residue of ill-humor upon which the rest of the world declined
to receive. Why half the women in the world marry the men
they do, is a problem that might puzzle any philosopher ; how
any woman could marry Crab Smith, was the standing wonder
of all the neighborhood. And yet Crab's wife was a modest,
industrious, kindly creature, who uncomplainingly toiled from
morning till night to serve and please him, and received her
daily allowance of grumbling and fault-finding with quiet submis-
sion. She tried all she could to mediate between him and the
many whom his ill-temper was constantly provoking. She did
OLD CRAB SMITH. 87
surreptitious acts of kindness here and there, to do away the
effects of his hardness, and shrunk and quivered for fear of being
detected in goodness, as much as many another might for fear of
being discovered in sin. She had been many times a mother,
had passed through all the trials and weaknesses of maternity
without one tender act of consideration, one encouraging word.
Her children had grown up and gone from her, always eager to
leave the bleak, ungenial home, and go out to shift for themselves
in the world, and now, in old age, she was still working. Worn
to a shadow, little, old, wrinkled, bowed, she was still about
the daily round of toil, and still the patient recipient of the mur-
murs and chidings of her tyrant.
" My mother is so sick she can't get any farther," said a little
voice from under the veranda ; " won't you let her come in and
lie down awhile ? "
" Massy, child," said the little old woman, coming forward with
a trembling, uncertain step. " Well, she does look beat eout, to
be sure. Come up and rest ye a bit."
" If you '11 only let me lie down awhile and rest me," said a
faint, sweet voice.
" Come up here," said the old woman, standing quivering like
a gray shadow on the top doorstep ; and, shading her wrinkled
forehead with her hand, she looked with a glance of habitual ap-
prehension along the road where the familiar cart and oxen of her
tyrant might be expected soon to appear on their homeward way,
and rejoiced in her little old heart that he was safe out of sight.
" Yes, come in," she said, opening the door of a small ground-
floor bedroom that adjoined the apartment known in New Eng-
land houses as the sink-room, and showing them a plain bed.
The worn and wasted stranger sunk down on it, and, as she
sunk, her whole remaining strength seemed to collapse, and some-
thing white and deathly fell, as if it had been a shadow, over her
ikce.
" Massy to us ! she 's fainted clean away," said the poor old
woman, quiveringly. " I must jest run for the camphire."
The little boy seemed to have that unchildlike judgment and
presence of mind that are the precocious development of want
88 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and sorrow. He ran to a water-pail, and, dipping his small tin
cup, he dashed the water in his mother's face, and fanned her with
his little torn straw hat. When the old woman returned, the
invalid was breathing again, and able to take a few swallows of
camphor and water which had been mixed for her.
" Sonny," said the old woman, " you are a nice little nurse,
a good boy. You jest take care now ; and here's a turkey-feather
fan to fan her with ; and I '11 get on the kettle to make her a cup
of tea. We '11 bring her round with a little nursing. Been
walking a long way, I calculate ? "
" Yes," said the boy, " she was trying to get to Boston."
" What, going afoot ? "
" We did n't mind walking, the weather is so pleasant," said the
boy ; " and Tina and I like walking ; but mother got sick a day
or two ago, and ever since she has been so tired ! "
" Jes' so," said the old woman, looking compassionately on the
bed. " Well, I '11 make up the fire and get her some tea."
The fire was soon smoking in the great, old-fashioned kitchen
chimney, for the neat, labor-saving cook-stove had as yet no being;
and the thin, blue smoke, curling up in the rosy sunset air, re-
ceived prismatic coloring which a painter would have seized with
enthusiasm.
Far otherwise, however, was its effect on the eye of Old Crab
Smith, as, coming up the hill, his eye detected the luminous vapor
going up from his own particular chimney.
" So, burning out wood, always burning out wood. I told
her that I would n't have tea got at night. These old women
are crazy and bewitched after tea, and they don't care if they
burn up your tables and chairs to help their messes. Why a
plague can't she eat cold pork and potatoes as well as I, and
drink her mug of cider? but must go to getting up her fire and
biling her kettle. I '11 see to that. Halloa there," he said, as
he stamped up on to the porch, "what the devil you up to
now ? I s'pose you think I hain't got nothing else to do but split
up wood for you to burn out."
" Father, it 's nothing but a little brush and a few chips, jest to
bile the kettle."
OLD CRAB SMITH. 89
" Bile the kettle, bile the kettle ! Jest like yer lazy, shif 'less
ways. What must you be a bilin' the kettle for? "
" Father, I jest want to make a little tea for a sick woman."
" A sick woman ! What sick woman ? "
" There was a poor sick woman came along this afternoon with
two little children."
" Wai, I s'pose you took 'em in. I s'pose you think we keep
the poor-house, and that all the trampers belong to us. We shall
have to go to the poor-house ourselves before long, I tell ye.
But you never believe anything I say. Why could n't you V
sent her to the selectmen ? I don't know why I must keep beg-
gars' tavern."
" Father, father, don't speak so loud. The poor critter wa' n't
able to stir another step, and fainted dead away, and we had to
get her on to a bed."
" And we shall have her and her two brats through a fit o
sickness. That 's just like you. Wai, we shall all go to the
poor-house together before long, and then you '11 believe what I
say, won't ye ? But I won't have it so. She may stay to-night,
but to-morrow morning I '11 cart her over to Joe Scran's, bright
and early, brats and all."
There was within hearing of this conversation a listener whose
heart was dying within her, sinking deeper and deeper at
every syllable, a few words will explain why.
A younger son of a family belonging to the English gentry had
come over to America as a commissioned officer near the close
of the Revolutionary war. lie had persuaded to a private mar-
riage the daughter of a poor country curate, a beautiful young
girl, whom he induced to elope with him, and share the for-
tunes of an officer's life in America. Her parents died soon
after ; her husband proved a worthless, drunken, dissipated fel-
low ; and this poor woman had been through all the nameless
humiliations and agonies which beset helpless womanhood in the
sole power of such a man. Submissive, gentle, trusting, pray-
ing, entreating, hoping against hope, she had borne with him
many vicissitudes and reverses, always believing that at last
the love of his children, if not of her, would awaken a better
90 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
nature within him. But the man steadily went downward in-
stead of upward, and the better part of him by slow degrees
died away, till he came' to regard his wife and children only as so
many clogs on his life, and to meditate night and day on a scheme
to abandon them, and return, without their encumbrance, to his
own country. It was with a distant outlook to some such result
that he had from the first kept their marriage an entire secret
from his own friends. When the English army, at the close of the
war, re-embarked for England, he carried his cowardly scheme
into execution. He had boarded his wife and children for a sea-
son in a country farm-house in the vicinity of Boston, with the
excuse of cheapness of lodgings. Then one day his wife re-
ceived a letter enclosing a sum of money, and saying, in such
terms as bad men can find to veil devilish deeds, that all was
over between them, and that ere she got this he should be on the
ocean. The sorest hurt of all was that the letter denied the
validity of their marriage ; and the poor child found, to her con-
sternation, that the marriage certificate, which she had always
kept among her papers, was gone with her husband.
The first result of this letter had been a fit of sickness, where-
in her little stock of money had melted almost away, and then
she had risen from her bed determined to find her way to Bos-
ton, and learn, if possible, from certain persons with whom he
had lodged before his departure, his address in England, that
she might make one more appeal to him. But before she had
walked far the sickness returned upon her, till, dizzy and faint,
she had lain down, as we have described, on the bed of charity.
She had thought, ever since she received that letter, that she
had reached the bottom of desolation, that nothing could be
added to her misery; but the withering, harsh sounds which
reached her ear revealed a lower deep in the lowest depths.
Hitherto on her short travels she had met only that kindly coun-
try hospitality which New England, from one end to the other,
always has shown to the stranger. No one had refused a good
meal of brown bread alid rich.rnilk to her and her children, and
more often the friendly housewife, moved by her delicate ap-
pearance, had unlocked the sanctum where was deposited her
OLD CRAB SMITH, 91
precious tea-caddy, and brewed an amber cup of tea to sustain
the sickly-looking wanderer. She and her children had been
carried here and there, as occasion offered, a friendly mile or
two, when Noah or Job or Sol " hitched up the critter " to go
to mill or country store, The voice of harsh, pitiless rejection
smote on her ear for the first time, and it seemed to her the
drop too much in her cup. She turned her face to the wall and
said, " my God, I cannot bear this ! I cannot,' I cannot ! "
She would have said, "Let me die," but that she was tied to life
by the two helpless, innocent ones who shared her misery. The
poorest and most desolate mother feels that her little children
are poorer and more desolate than she ; and, however much her
broken spirit may long for the rest of Paradise, she is held back
by the thought that to abide in the flesh is needful to them. Even
in her uttermost destitution the approaching shadow of the dark
valley was a terror to the poor soul, not for her own sake, but
for theirs. The idea of a harsh, unpitiful world arose before
her for the first time, and the thought of leaving her little ones
in it unprotected was an anguish which rent her heart.
The little girl, over-weary, had eaten her supper and fallen
asleep beside her, with the trusting, ignorant rest of early child-
hood ; but her boy sat by her bedside with that look of preco-
cious responsibility, that air of anxious thought, which seems
unnatural in early childhood, and contrasted painfully with the
slight childish figure, the little hands, and little voice. He was,
as we have said, but nine years of age, well grown for his years,
but with that style of growth which indicates delicacy of fibre
rather than strength of organization. His finely formed head,
with its clustering curls of yellow hair, his large, clear blue eyes,
his exquisitely delicate skin, and the sensitiveness betrayed by
his quivering lip?, spoke of a lineage of gentle blood, and an
organization fitted rather to aesthetic and intellectual develop-
ment than to sturdy material toil. The little girl, as she lay
sleeping, was a beautiful picture. Her head was a wilderness of
curls of a golden auburn, and th^ defined pencilling of the eye-
brows, and the long silken veil of the lashes that fell over the
sleeping eyes, the delicate polished skin, and the finely moulded
92 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
limbs, all indicated that she was one who ought to have been
among the jewels, rather than among the potsherds of this mor-
tal life. And these were the children that she was going to leave
alone, without a single friend and protector in this world. For
there are intuitions that come to the sick and dying which tell
them when the end is near; and as this wanderer sunk down
upon her bed this night, there had fallen upon her mind a perfect
certainty that she should never be carried thence till carried to
the grave ; and it was this which had given her soul so deadly a
wrench, and caused her to cry out in such utter agony.
What happens to desolate souls, who, thus forsaken by all the
world, cry out to God, is a mystery, good brother and sister, which
you can never fathom until you have been exactly where they
are. But certain it is that there is a very near way to God's
heart, and so to the great heart of all comfort, that sometimes
opens like a shaft of light between heaven and the soul, in hours
when everything earthly falls away from us. A quaint old
writer has said, " God keeps his choicest cordials for the time
of our deepest faintings." And so it came to pass that, as this
poor woman closed her eyes and prayed earnestly, there fell a
strange clearness into her soul, which calmed every fear, and
hushed the voice of every passion, and she lay for a season as
if entranced. Words of holy writ, heard years ago in church-
readings, in the hours of unconscious girlhood, now seemed to
come back, borne in with a living power on her soul. It seemed
almost as if a voice within was saying to her : " The Lord hath
called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a
wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a
small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will
I gather thee. .In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a
moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on
thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. O thou afflicted, tossed
with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones
with fair colors, and thy foundations with sapphires. And all
thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the
peace of thy children."
It is fashionable now to speak of words like these as fragments
OLD CKAB SMITH. 9o
of ancient Hebrew literature, interesting and curious indeed, but
relating to scenes, events, and states of society long gone by.
But it is a most remarkable property of this old Hebrew litera-
ture, that it seems to be enchanted with a divine and living
power, which strikes the nerve of individual consciousness in
every desolate and suffering soul. It may have been Judah or
Jerusalem ages ago to whom these words first came, but as they
have travelled down for thousands of years, they have seemed
to tens of thousands of sinking and desolate souls as the voice
of God to them individually. They have raised the burden
from thousands of crushed spirits ; they have been as the day-
spring to thousands of perplexed wanderers. Ah ! let us treas-
ure these old words, for as of old Jehovah chose to dwell in a
tabernacle in the wilderness, and between the cherubim in the
temple, so now he dwells in them ; and to the simple soul that
seeks for him here he will look forth as of old from the pillar of
cloud and of fire.
The poor, ill-used, forsaken, forgotten creature who lay there
trembling on the verge of life felt the presence of that mighty
and generous, that godlike spirit that inspired these words.
And surely if Jehovah ever did speak to man, no words were
ever more worthy of Him. She lay as in a blessed trance, as
passage after passage from the Scriptures rolled over her mind,
like bright waves from the ocean of eternal peace.
" Fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am
thy God. When thou passest through the waters I will.be with
thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When
thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee ; for I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour."
The little boy, who had heard his mother's first distressful cry,
sat by her anxiously watching the changes of her face as she
lay there. He saw her brow gradually grow clear and calm, and
every line of trouble fade from her face, as shadows and clouds
roll up from the landscape at day -dawn, till at last there was a
rapt, peaceful expression, an evenness of breathing, as if she
slept, and were dreaming some heavenly dream. It lasted for
94 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
more than an hour, and the child sat watching her with the old,
grave, tender look which had come to be the fashion of his little
face when he looked upon his mother.
This boy had come to this mother as a second harvest of heart,
hope, and joy, after the first great love and hope of womanhood
had vanished. She felt herself broken-hearted, lonely, and un-
loved, when her first-born son was put into her arms, and she
received him as did the first mother, saying, " I have gotten a
man from the Lord." To him her desolate heart had unfolded
its burden of confidence from the first dawning hours of intelli-
gence. His tiny faculties had been widened to make room for
her sorrows, and his childish strength increased by her leaning.
There had been hours when this boy had stood between the
maniac rage of a drunken father and the cowering form of his
mother, with an unchildlike courage and steadiness that seemed
almost like an inspiration. In days of desertion and poverty he
had gone out with their slender stock of money and made bar-
gains such as it is pitiful to think that a little child should know
how to make ; and often, in moments when his mother's heart
was overwhelmed, he would come to her side with the little pray-
ers and hymns which she had taught him, and revive her faith
and courage when it seemed entirely gone.
Now, as he thought her sleeping, he began with anxious care
to draw the coverlet over her, and to move his little sister back
upon the bed. She opened her eyes, large, clear blue eyes,
the very mirror of his own, and, smiling with a strange sweet-
ness, stretched out her hand and drew him towards her. " Harry,
my dear good boy, my dear, dear child, nobody knows what a
comfort you have been to me."
Then holding him from her, and looking intently in his eyes,
she seemed to hesitate for words to tell him something that lay
on her mind. At last she said, " Harry, say your prayers and
psalms."
The child knelt by the bed, with his hands clasped in his
mother's, and said the Lord's Prayer, and then, standing up, re-
peated the beautiful psalm beginning, " The Lord is my shep-
herd." Then followed a hymn, which the Methodists had made
familiar in those times :
OLD G1JA15 SMITH. 95
" One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of Friend ;
His is love beyond a brother's,
Costly, free, and knows no end.
" Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed his blood ?
But this Saviour died to have us
Reconciled in him to God.
" When he lived on earth abased,
' Friend of Sinners was his name ;
Now, above all glory raised,
He rejoiceth in the same.
" for grace our hearts to soften !
Teach us, Lord, at length to love;
We, alas ! forget too often
What a friend we have above."
" Harry," said his mother, looking at him with an intense
earnestness, " I want to tell you something. God, our Father, has
called me to come home to him ; and I am going. In a little
while perhaps to-morrow I shall be gone, and you cannot
find me. My soul will go to God, and they will put my body in
the ground ; and then you will have no friend but Jesus, and no
father but the Father in heaven."
The child looked at her with solemn, dilated gaze, not really
comprehending the full mystery of that which she was trying
to explain ; yet the tears starting in his eyes, and the twitching
of the muscles of his mouth, showed that he partly understood.
" Mother," he said, " will papa never come back ? "
" No, Harry, never. Pie has left us and gone away. He does
not love us, nobody loves us but our Father in heaven; but
He does. You must always believe this. Now, Harry, I am
going to leave your little sister to your care. You must always
keep with her and take care of her, for she is a very little girl."
" Yes, mother."
" This is a great charge for a little boy like you ; but you will
live and grow, up to be a man. and I want you never, as long as
you live, to forget what I say to you now. Promise me, Harry,
all your life to say these prayers and hymns that you have just
96 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
been Baying, every morning and every night. They are all I
have to leave you ; but if you only believe them, you will never
be without comfort, no matter what happens to you. Promise
me, dear."
" Yes, mother, I will."
" And, Harry, no matter what happens, never doubt that God
loves you, never forget that you have a Friend in heaven.
Whenever you have a trouble, just pray to Him, and He will
help you. Promise this."
" Yes, mother."
" Now lie down by me ; I am very, very tired."
The little boy lay down by his mother ; she threw her arms
around him, and both sunk to sleep.
MISS ASPHYXIA. 97
CHAPTER VIII.
MISS ASPHYXIA.
' fTHHERE won't be no great profit in this 'ere these ten
J- year."
The object denominated "this 'ere" was the golden-haired
child whom we have spoken of before, the little girl whose
mother lay dying. That mother is dead now ; and the thing to
be settled is, What is to be done with the children ? The morn-
ing after the scene we have described looked in at the window
and saw the woman, with a pale, placid face, sleeping as one who
has found eternal rest, and the two weeping children striving in
vain to make her hear.
Old Crab had been up early in his design of " carting the 'hull
lot over to the poor-house," but made a solemn pause when his
wife drew him into the little* chamber. Death has a strange dig-
nity, and whatsoever child of Adam he lays his hand on is for the
time ennobled, removed from the region of the earthly and
commonplace to that of the spiritual and mysterious. And
when Crab found, by searching the little bundle of the deceased,
that there was actually money enough in it to buy a coffin and
pay 'Zekiel Stebbins for digging the grave, he began to look
on the woman as having made a respectable and edifying end,
and the whole affair as coming to a better issue than he had
feared.
And so the event was considered in the neighborhood, in a
melancholy way, rather an interesting and auspicious one. It
gave something to talk about in a region where exciting topics
were remarkably scarce. The Reverend Jabez Periwinkle
found in it a moving Providence which started him favorably on
a sermon, and the funeral had been quite a windfall to all the
gossips aboi*t ; and now remained the question, "What was to b$
done with the children ?
5 o
98 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Now that we 'are diggin' the 'taters," said old Crab, " that 'ere
chap might be good for suthin', pickin' on 'em out o' the hills.
Poor folks like us can't afford to keep nobody jest to look at, and
so he '11 have to step spry and work smart to aim his keep." And
so at early dawn, the day after the funeral, the little boy was
roused up and carried into the fields with the men.
But "this 'ere" that is to say, a beautiful little girl of seven
years had greatly puzzled the heads of the worthy gossips of
the neighborhood. Miss Asphyxia Smith, the elder sister of old
Crab, was at this moment turning the child round, and examining
her through a pair of large horn spectacles, with a view to " tak-
ing her to raise," as she phrased it.
Now all Miss Asphyxia's ideas of the purpose and aim of hu-
man existence were comprised in one word, work. She was
herself a working machine, always wound up and going, up at
early cock-crowing, and busy till bedtime, with a rampant and
fatiguing industry that never paused for a moment. She con-
ducted a large farm by the aid of a hired man, and drove a flour-
ishing dairy, and was universally respected in the neighborhood
as a smart woman.
Latterly, as her young cousin, who had shared the toils of the
house with her, had married and left her, Miss Asphyxia had
talked of " takin' a child from the poor-house, and so raisin' her
own help " ; and it was with the view of this " raisin' 'her help,"
that she was thus turning over and inspecting the little article
which we have spoken of.
Apparently she was somewhat puzzled, and rather scandalized,
that Nature should evidently have expended so much in a merely
ornamental way on an article which ought to have been made
simply for service. She brushed up a handful of the clustering
curls in her large, bony hand, and said, with a sniff, " These '11
have to come right off to begin with ; gracious me, what a tan-
gle!"
" Mother always brushed them out every day," said the child.
" And who do you suppose is going to spend an hour every day
Brushing your hair, Miss Pert?" said Miss Asphyxia, "That
ain't what I take ye for, I tell you. You 've got to learn to work
MISS ASPHYXIA 99
for your living ; and you ought to be thankful if I 'in willing to
show you how."
The little girl did not appear particularly thankful. She bent
her soft, pencilled eyebrows in a dark frown, and her great hazel
eyes had gathering in them a cloud of sullen gloom. Miss As-
phyxia did not mind her frowning, perhaps did not notice it.
She had it settled in her mind, as a first principle, that children
never liked anything that was good for them, and that, of course,
if she took a child, it would have to be made to come to her by
forcible proceedings promptly instituted. So she set her little
subject before her by seizing her by her two shoulders and squar-
ing her round and looking in her face, and opened direct con-
versation with her in the following succinct manner.
" What 's your name ? "
Then followed a resolved and gloomy silence, as the large
bright eyes surveyed, with a sort of defiant glance, the inquisitor.
" Don't you hear ? " said Miss Asphyxia, giving her a shake.
" Don't be so ha'sh with her," said the little old woman. " Say,
my little dear, tell Miss Asphyxia your name," she added, taking
the child's hand.
" Eglantine Percival," said the little girl, turning towards the
old woman, as if she disdained to answer the other party in the
conversation.
" Wh a t ? " said Miss Asphyxia. " If there ain't the beat-
in'est name ever I heard. Well, I tell you / ain't got time to
fix my mouth to say all that 'ere every time I want ye, now I
tell ye."
" Mother and Harry called me Tina," said the child.
"Teny! Well, I should think so," said Miss Asphyxia.
" That showed she 'd got a grain o' sense left, anyhow. She 's
tol'able strong and well-limbed for her age," added that lady,
feeling of the child's arms and limbs ; " her flesh is solid. I
think she '11 make a strong woman, only put her to work early
and keep her at it. I could rub out clothes at the wash-tub afore
I was at her age."
" 0, she can do considerable many little chores," said Old Crab's
wife.
100 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Yes," said Miss Asphyxia ; " there can a good deal be got out
of a child if you keep at 'em, hold 'em in tight, and never let 'em
have their head a minute ; push right hard on behind 'em, and
you get considerable. That 's the way I was raised."
"But I want to play," said the little girl, bursting out in a sob-
bing storm of mingled fear and grief.
" Want to play, do you ? Well, you must get over that. Don't
you know that that 's as bad as stealing ? You have n't got any
money, and if you eat folks's bread and butter, you 've got to work
to pay for it ; and if folks buy your clothes, you 've got to work to
pay for them." .
" But I 've got some clothes of my own," persisted the child,
determined not to give up her case entirely.
" Well, so you have ; but there ain't no sort of wear in 'em/'
said Miss Asphyxia, turning to Mrs. Smith. " Them two dresses
o' hern might answer for Sundays and sich, but I '11 have to make
her up a regular linsey working dress this fall, and check aprons ;
and she must set right about knitting every minute she is n't do-
ing anything else. Did you ever learn how to knit ? "
" No," said the child.
" Or to sew ? " said Miss Asphyxia.
" Yes ; mother taught me to sew," said the child.
" No ! Yes ! Hain't you learned manners ? Do you say yes
and no to people ? "
The child stood a moment, swelling with suppressed feelmg,
and, at last she opened her great eyes full on Miss Asphyxia, and
said, " I don't like you. You ain't pretty, and I won't go with
you."
" O now," said Mrs. Smith, " little girls must n't talk so ;
that 's naughty."
" Don't like me ? ain't I pretty ? " said Miss Asphyxia, with
a short, grim laugh. " May be I ain't ; but I know what I 'm
about, and you 'd as goods know it first as last. I 'm going to
take ye right out with me in the waggin, and you 'd best not have
none of your cuttin's up. I keep a stick at home for naughty
girls. Why, where do you suppose you 're going to get your
livin' if I don't take you ? "
MISS ASPHYXIA. 101
" I want to live with Harry," said the child, sobbing. " Where
is Harry?"
" Harry 's to work, and there 's where he 's got to be," said
Miss Asphyxia. " He 's got to work with the men in the fields,
and you 've got to come home and work with me."
" I want to stay with Harry, Harry takes care of me," said
the child, in a piteous tone.
Old Mother Smith now toddled to her milk-room, and, with a
melting heart, brought out a doughnut. " There now, eat that,"
she said ; " and mcbbe, if you 're good, Miss Asphyxia will bring
you down here some time."
" laws, Polly, you allers was a fool ! " said Miss Asphyxia.
" It 's all for the child's good, and what 's the use of fussin' on her
up ? She '11 come to it when she knows she 's got to. 'T ain't
no more than I was put to at her age, only the child *s been
fooled with and babied."
The little one refused the doughnut, and seemed to gather her-
self up in silent gloom.
" Come, now, don't stand sulking ; let me put your bonnet on,"
said Miss Asphyxia, in a brisk, metallic voice. " I can't be losin'
the best part of my day with this nonsense ! " And forthwith
she clawed up the child, in her bony grasp, as easily as an eagle
might truss a chick-sparrow.
."Be a good little girl, now," said the little gray woman, who
felt a strange swelling and throbbing in her poor old breast. To
be sure, she knew she was a fool ; her husband had told her so at
least three times every day for years ; and Miss Asphyxia only
confirmed what she accepted familiarly as the truth. But yet
she could not help these unprofitable longings to coddle and com-
fort something, to do some of those little motherly tender-
nesses for children which go to no particular result, only to make
them happy ; so she ran out after the wagon with a tempting
seed-cake, and forced it into the child's hand.
" Take it, do take it," she said ; " eat it, and be a good girl, and
do just as she tells you to."
" I '11 see to that," said Miss Asphyxia, as she gathered up the
reins and gave a cut to her horse, which started that quadruped
102 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
from a dream of green grass into a most animated pace. Every
creature in her service horse, cow, and pig knew at once
the touch of Miss Asphyxia, and the necessity of being up and
doing when she was behind them ; and the horse, who under
other hands would have been the slowest and most reflective of
beasts, now made the little wagon spin and bounce over the
rough, stony road, so that the child's short legs flew up in the air
every few moments.
" You must hold on tight," was Miss Asphyxia's only comment
on this circumstance. "If you fall out, you '11 break your neck ! "
It was a glorious day of early autumn, the sun shining as only
an autumn sun knows how to shine. The blue fields of heaven
were full of fleecy flocks of clouds, drifting hither and thither
at their lazy will. The golden-rod and the aster hung their
plumage over the rough, rocky road ; and now and then it wound
through a sombre piece of woods, where scarlet sumachs and
maples flashed out among the gloomy green hemlocks with a
solemn and gorgeous light. So very fair was the day, and so full
of life and beauty was the landscape, that the child, who came of
a beauty-loving lineage, felt her little heart drawn out from under
its burden of troubles, and springing and bounding with that
elastic habit of happiness which seems hard to kill in children.
Once she laughed out as a squirrel, with his little chops swelled
with a nut on each side, sat upon the fence and looked after
them, and then whisked away behind the stone wall ; and once
she called out, " 0, how pretty ! " at a splendid clump of blue
fringed gentian, which stood holding up its hundred azure vases
by the wayside. " O, I do wish I could get some of that ! " she
cried out, impulsively.
" Some of what ? " said Miss Asphyxia.
" O, those beautiful flowers ! " said the child, leaning far out
to look back.
" 0, that 's nothing but gentian," said Miss Asphyxia ; " can't
stop for that. Them blows is good to dry for weakness," she
added. " By and by, if you 're good, mebbe I '11 let you get
some on 'em."
Miss Asphyxia had one word for all flowers. She called them
MISS ASPHYXIA. 103
all " blows," and they were divided in her mind, in a manner
far more simple than any botanical system, into two classes ;
namely, blows that were good' to dry, and blows that were not.
Elder-blow, catnip, hoarhound, hardback, gentian, ginseng, and
various other vegetable tribes, she knew well and had a great
respect for; but all the other little weeds that put on obtrusive
colors and flaunted in the summer breeze, without any pre-
tensions to further usefulness, Miss Asphyxia completely ignored.
It would not be describing her state to say she had a contempt
for them : she simply never saw or thought of them at all. The
idea of beauty as connected with any of them never entered her
mind, it did not exist there.
The young cousin who shared her housework had, to be sure,
planted a few flowers in a corner of the garden ; there were some
peonies and pinks and a rose-bush, which often occupied a spare
hour of the girl's morning or evening ; but Miss Asphyxia
watched these operations with a sublime contempt, and only cal-
culated the loss of potatoes and carrots caused by this unproduc-
tive beauty. Since the marriage of this girl, Miss Asphyxia had
often spoken to her man about " clearing out them things " ; but
somehow he always managed to forget it, and the thriftless beau-
ties still remained.
It wanted but about an hour of noon when Miss Asphyxia set
down the little girl on the clean-scrubbed floor of a great kitchen,
where everything was even desolately orderly and neat. She f
swung her at once into a chair. " Sit there," she said, " till I 'm
ready to see to ye." And then, marching up to her own room,
she laid aside her bonnet, and, coming down, plunged into active
preparations for the dinner.
An irrepressible feeling of desolation came over the child.
The elation produced by the ride died away; and, as she sat
dangling her heels from the chair, and watching the dry, grim form
of Miss Asphyxia, a sort of terror of her began slowly to usurp
the place of that courage which had at first inspired the child to
rise up against the assertion of so uncongenial a power.
All the strange, dreadful events of the last few days mingled
themselves, in her childish mind, in a weird mass of uncompre-
104 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
hended gloom and mystery. Her mother, so changed, cold,
stiff, lifeless, neither smiling nor speaking nor looking at her ; the
people coming to the house, and talking and singing and pray-
ing, and then putting her in a box in the ground, and saying
that she was dead ; and then, right upon that, to be torn from
her brother, to whom she had always looked for protection and
counsel, all this seemed a weird, inexplicable cloud coming
over her heart and darkening all her little life. Where was
Harry ? Why did he let them take her ? Or perhaps equally
dreadful people had taken him, and would never bring him back
again.
There was a tall black clock in a corner of the kitchen, that
kept its invariable monotone of tick-tack, tick-tack, with a per-
sistence that made her head swim ; and she watched the quick,
decisive movements of Miss Asphyxia with somewhat of the
same respectful awe with which one watches the course of a loco-
motive engine.
It was late for Miss Asphyxia's dinner preparations, but she
instituted prompt measures to make up for lost time. She flew
about the kitchen with such long-armed activity and fearful ce-
lerity, that the child began instinctively to duck and bob her little
head when she went by, -lest she should hit her and knock her off
her chair.
Miss Asphyxia raked open the fire in the great kitchen chim-
ney, and built it up with a liberal supply of wood ; then she rat-
tled into the back room, and a sound was heard of a bucket
descending into a well with such frantic haste as only an oaken
bucket under Miss Asphyxia's hands could be frightened into.
Back she came with a stout black iron tea-kettle, which she
hung over the fire ; and then, flopping down a ham on the table,
she cut off slices with a martial and determined air, as if she
would like to see the ham try to help itself ; and, before the child
could fairly see what she was doing, the slices of ham were in
the frying-pan over the coals, the ham hung up in its place, the
knife wiped and put out of sight, and the table drawn out into
the middle of the floor, and invested with a cloth for dinner.
During these operations the child followed every movement
MISS ASPHYXIA. 105
with awe-struck eyes, and studied with trembling attention every
feature of this wonderful woman.
Miss Asphyxia was tall and spare. Nature had made her, as
she often remarked of herself, entirely for use. She had allowed
for her muscles no cushioned repose of fat, no redundant smooth-
ness of outline. There was nothing to her but good, strong, solid
bone, and tough, wiry, well-strung muscle. She was past fifty,
and her hair was already well streaked with gray, and so thin
that, when tightly combed and tied, it still showed bald cracks,
not very sightly to the eye. The only thought that Miss As-
phyxia ever had had in relation to the coiffure of her hair was
that it was to be got out of her way. Hair she considered prin-
cipally as something that might get into people's eyes, if not
properly attended to ; and accordingly, at a very early hour every
morning, she tied all hers in a very tight knot, and then secured
it by a horn comb on the top of her head. To tie this knot so
tightly that, once done, it should last all day, was Miss Asphyxia's
only art of the toilet,' and she tried her work every morning by
giving her head a shake, before she left her looking-glass, not un-
like that of an unruly cow. If this process did not start the
horn comb from its moorings, Miss Asphyxia was well pleased.
For the rest, her face was dusky and wilted, guarded by gaunt,
high cheek-bones, and watched over by a pair of small gray eyes
of unsleeping vigilance. The shaggy eyebrows that overhung
them were grizzled, like her hair.
It would., not be proper to say that Miss Asphyxia looked ill-
tempered ; but her features could never, by any stretch of imagi-
nation, be supposed td wear an expression of tenderness. They
were set in an austere, grim gravity, whose lines had become more
deeply channelled by every year of her life. As related to her
fellow-creatures, she was neither passionate nor cruel. We have
before described her as a working machine, forever wound up to
high-pressure working-point; and this being her nature, she trod
down and crushed whatever stood in the way of her work, with
as little compunction as if she had been a steam-engine or a
power-loom.
Miss Asphyxia had a full conviction of what a^ecent pleasant
5*
106 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
writer has denominated the total depravity of matter. She was
not given to many words, but* it might often be gathered from
her brief discourses that she had always felt herself, so to speak,
sword in hand against a universe where everything was running
to disorder, everything was tending to slackness, shiftlessness,
unthrift, and she alone was left on the earth to keep things in
their places. Her hired men were always too late up in the
morning, always shirking, - always taking too long a nap at
noon ; everybody was watching to cheat her in every bargain ;
her horse, cow, pigs, all her possessions, were ready at the
slightest winking of her eye, or relaxing of her watch, to fall
into all sorts of untoward ways and gyrations; and therefore
she slept, as it were, in her armor, and spent her life as a senti-
nel on duty.
In taking a child, she had had her eyes open only to one pat-
ent fact, that a child was an animal who would always be
wanting to play, and that she must make all her plans and cal-
culations to keep her from playing. To this end she had before-
hand given out word to her brother, that, if she took the- girl, the
boy must be kept away. " Got enough on my hands now, with-
out bavin' a boy trainin' round my house, and upsettin' all crea-
tion," said the grim virgin.
" Wai, wal," said Old Crab, 't ain't best ; they '11 be a con-
sultin' together, and cuttin' up didos. I '11 keep the boy tight
enough, I tell you."
Little enough was the dinner that the child ate that day.
There were two hulking, square-shouldered men at the table,
who stared at her with great round eye's like oxen ; and so,
though Miss Asphyxia dumped down Indian pudding, ham, and
fried potatoes before her, the child's eating was scarcely that of
a blackbird.
Marvellous to the little girl was the celerity with which Miss
Asphyxia washed and cleared up the dinner-dishes. How the
dishes rattled, the knives and forks clinked, as she scraped and
piled and washed and wiped and put everything in a trice back
into such perfect place, that it looked as if nothing -had ever been
done on the premises !
MISS ASPHYXIA. 107
After this Miss Asphyxia produced thimble, thread, needle,
and scissors, and, drawing out of a closet a bale of coarse blue
home-made cloth, proceeded to measure the little girl for a petti-
coat and short gown of the same. This being done to her mind,
she dumped her into a chair beside her, and, putting a brown
towel into her hands to be hemmed, she briefly said, " There,
keep to work"; while she, with great despatch and resolution,
set to work on the little garments aforesaid.
The child once or twice laid down her work to watch the
chickens who came up round the door, or to note a bird which
flew by with a little ripple of song. The first time, Miss As-
phyxia only frowned, and said, U 9 Tut, tut." The second time,
there came three thumps of Miss Asphyxia's thimble down on
the little head, with the admonition, " Mind your work." The
child now began to cry, but Miss Asphyxia soon put an end to
that by displaying a long birch rod, with a threatening move-
ment, and saying succinctly, " Stop that, this minute, or I '11 whip
you." And the child was so certain of this that she swallowed
her grief and stitched away as fast as her little fingers could go.
As soon as supper was over that night, Miss Asphyxia seized
upon the child, and, taking her to a tub in the sink-room, pro-
ceeded to divest her of her garments and subject her to a most
thorough ablution.
" I 'm goin' to give you .one good scrubbin' to start with," said
Miss Asphyxia ; and, truth to say, no word could more thoroughly
express the character of the ablution than the term " scrubbing."
The poor child was deluged with soap and water, in mouth, nose,
ears, and eyes, while the great bony hands rubbed and splashed,
twisted her arms, turned her ears wrong side out, and dashed on
the water with unsparing vigor. Nobody can tell the torture
which can be inflicted on a child in one of these vigorous old
New England washings, which used to make Saturday night a
terror in good families. But whatever they were, the little mar-
tyr was by this time so thoroughly impressed with the awful
reality of Miss Asphyxia's power over her, that she endured all
with only a few long-drawn and convulsed sighs, and an inaudi-
ble O dear ! "
108 OLDTOW:N T FOLKS.
When well scrubbed and wiped, Miss Asphyxia put on a coarse
homespun nightgown, and, pinning a cloth round the child's neck,
began with her scissors the work of cutting off her hair. Snip,
snip, went the fatal shears, and down into the towel fell bright
curls, once the pride of a mother's heart, till finally the small
head was despoiled completely. Then Miss Asphyxia, shaking
up a bottle of camphor, proceeded to rub some vigorously upon
the child's head. "There," she said, "that's to keep ye from
catchin' cold."
She then proceeded to the kitchen, raked open the fire, and
shook the golden curls into the bed of embers, and stood grimly
over them while they seethed and twisted and writhed, as if they
had been living things suffering a fiery torture, meanwhile pick-
ing diligently at the cloth that had contained them, that no stray
hair might escape.
" I wonder now," she said to herself, " if any of this will rise
and get into the next pudding?" She spoke with a spice of
bitterness, poor woman, as if it would be just the way things
usually went on, if it did.
She buried the fire carefully, and then, opening the door of a
small bedroom adjoining, which displayed a single bed, she said,
" Now get into bed."
The child immediately obeyed, thankful to hide herself under
the protecting folds of a blue checked coverlet, and feeling that
at last the dreadful Miss Asphyxia would leave her to herself.
Miss Asphyxia clapped to the door, and the child drew a
long breath. In a moment, however, the door flew open. Miss
Asphyxia had forgotten something. " Can you say your prayers ? "
she demanded.
" Yes, ma'am," said the child.
" Say 'em, then," said Miss Asphyxia ; and bang went the
door again.
" There, now, if I hain't done up my duty to that child, then
I don't know," said Miss Asphyxia.
HARRY'S FIRST DAY'S WORK. 109
CHAPTER IX.
HARRY'S FIRST DAY'S WORK.
IT was the fashion of olden times to consider children only as
children pure and simple ; not as having any special and
individual nature which required special and individual adapta-
tion, but as being simply so many little creatures to be washed,
dressed, schooled, fed, and whipped, according to certain general
and well-understood rules.
The philosophy of modern society is showing to parents and
educators how delicate and how varied is their task ; but in the
days we speak of nobody had thought of these shadings and
variations. It is perhaps true, that in that very primitive and
simple state of society there were fewer of those individual pecu-
liarities which are the result of the stimulated brains and nervous
systems of modern society.
Be that as it may, the little parish of Needmore saw nothing
in the fact that two orphan children had fallen into the hands of
Crab Smith and his sister, Miss Asphyxia, which appeared to its
moral sense as at all unsuitable. To be sure, there was a sup-
pressed shrug of the shoulders at the idea of the little fair-
haired, pleasant-mannered boy being given up to Old Crab.
People said to each other, with a knowing grin : " That 'ere
boy 'd have to toe the mark pretty handsome ; but then, he
might do wus. He 'd have enough to eat and drink anyhow, and
old Ma'am Smith, she 'd mother him. As to Miss Asphyxia
and the girl, why, 't was jest the thing.- She was jest the hand
to raise a smart girl."
In fact, we are not certain that Miss Asphyxia, with a few
modifications and fashionable shadings suitable for our modern
society, is not, after all, the ideal personage who would get all
votes as just the proper person to take charge of an orphan asy-
lum, would be recommended to widowers with large families
as just the woman to bring up their children.
110 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Efficiency has always been, in our New England, the golden
calf before which we have fallen down and worshipped. The
great granite formation of physical needs and wants that underlie
life in a country with a hard soil and a severe climate gives an
intensity to our valuation of what pertains to the working of
the direct and positive force that controls the physical ; and
that which can keep in constant order the eating, drinking, and
wearing of this mortal body is always asserting itself in every
department of life as the true wisdom.
But what, in fact, were the two little children who had been
thus seized on and appropriated ?
The boy was, as we have described, of a delicate and highly
nervous organization, sensitive, resthetic, evidently fitted by
nature more for the poet or scholar than for the rough grind of
physical toil. There had been superinduced on this temperament
a precocious development from the circumstance of his having
been made, during the earliest years of his consciousness, the com-
panion of his mother. Nothing unfolds a child faster than being
thus taken into the companionship of older minds in the first
years of life. He was naturally one of those manly, good-natured,
even-tempered children that are the delight of nurses and the
staff and stay of mothers. Early responsibility and sorrow, and
the religious teachings of his mother, had awakened the spiritual
part of his nature to a higher consciousness than usually exists in
childhood. There was about him a steady, uncorrnpted good-
ness and faithfulness of nature, a simple, direct truthfulness, and
a loyal habit of prompt obedience to elders, which made him one
of those children likely, in every position of child-life, to be favor-
ites, and to run a smooth course.
The girl, on the contrary, had in her all the elements of a little
bundle of womanhood, born to rule and command in a pure wo-
manly way. She was affectionate, gay, pleasure-loving, self-
willed, imperious, intensely fond of approbation, with great stores
of fancy, imagination, and an under-heat of undeveloped passion
that would, in future life, give warmth and color to all her
thoughts, as a volcanic soil is said to brighten the hues of flowers
and warm the flavor of grapes. She had, too, that capacity of;
HARRY'S FIRST DAY'S WORK. Ill
secretiveness which enabled her to carry out the dictates of a
strong will, and an intuitive sense of where to throw a tendril or
strike a little fibre of persuasion or coaixing, which comes early to
those fair parasites who are to live by climbing upon others, and
to draw their hues and sweetness from the warmth of other
hearts. The moral and religious faculties were as undeveloped
in her as in a squirrel or a robin. She had lived, in fact, be-
tween her sorrowing mother and her thoughtful little brother, as
a beautiful pet, whose little gladsome ways and gay pranks were
the only solace of their poverty. Even the father, in good-
natured hours, had caressed her, played with her, told her stories,
and allowed all her little audacities and liberties with an indul-
gence that her brother could not dare to hope for. No service
or self-denial had ever been required of her. She had been
served, with a delicate and exact care, by both mother and
brother.
Such were the two little specimens of mortality which the town
of Needmore thought well provided for when they were con-
signed to Crab Smith and Miss Asphyxia.
The first day after the funeral of his mother, the boy had been
called up before light in the morning, 'and been off at sunrise to
the fields with the men ; but he had gone with a heart of manly
enterprise, feeling as if he were beginning life on his own account,
and meaning, with straightforward simplicity, to do his best.
He assented to Old Crab's harsh orders with such obedient sub-
mission, and set about the work given him with such a steady,
manly patience and good-will, as to win for himself, at the outset,
golden opinions from the hired men, and to excite in Old Crab
that discontented satisfaction which he felt in an employee in whom
he could find nothing to scold. The work of merely picking up
the potatoes from the hills which the men opened was so very
simple as to give no chance for mistake or failure, and the boy
was so cheerful and unintermitting in his work that no fault could
be found under that head. He was tired enough, it is true, at
night ; but, as he rode home in the cart, he solaced himself with
the idea that he was beginning to be a man, and that he should
work and support his sister, and he had many things to tell
112 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
her of the result of his first day's labor. He wondered that she
did not come to meet him as the cart drove up to the house,
and his first inquiry, when he saw the friendly old woman, w.is,
" Where is Tina ? "
" She 's gone to live with /MS sister," said Mrs. Smith, in an
undertone, pointing to her husband in the back yard. " Asphyxia
's took her to raise."
" To what ? " said the boy, timidly.
" Why, to fetch her up, -r teach her to work," said the little
old woman. " But come, sonny, go wash your hands to the sink.
Dear me ! why, you 've fairly took the skin off your fingers."
" I 'm not much used to work," said the boy, " but I don't
mind it." And he washed carefully the little hands, which, sure
enough, had the skin somewhat abraded on the finger-ends.
" Do ye good," said Old Crab. " Must n't mind that. Can't
have no lily-fingered boys workin' for me."
The child had not thought of complaining ; but as soon as he
was alone with Mrs. Smith, he came to her confidentially and
said, " How far is it to where Tina lives ?"
" Well, it 's the best part of two miles, I calculate."
" Can't I go over there to-night and see her ? "
" Dear heart ! no, you can't. Why, your little back must ache
now, and he '11 have you routed up by four o'clock in the morn-
ing."
" I 'm not so very tired," said the boy ; " but I want to see
Tina. If you '11 show me the way, I '11 go."
" O, well, you see, they won't let you," said the old woman,
confidentially. " They are a ha'sh pair of 'em, him and Sphyxy
are ; and they 've settled it that you ain't to see each other no
more, for fear you 'd get to playin' and idlin'."
The blood flushed into the boy's face, and he breathed short.
Something stirred within him, such as makes slavery bitter, as he
said, " But that is n't right. She 's my only sister, and my mother
told me to take care of her ; and I ought to see her sometimes."
" Lordy massy ! " said Goody Smith ; " when you 're with some
folks, it don't make no difference what 's right and what ain't.
You 've jest got to do as ye ken. It won't do to rile him, I tell
HARRY'S FIEST DAY'S WORK. 113
you. He 's awful, once git his back up." And Goody Smith
shook her little old head mysteriously, and hushed the boy, as she
heard her husband's heavy tread coming in from the barn.
The supper of cold beef and pork, potatoes, turnips, and hard
cider, which was now dispensed at the farm-house, was ample for
all purposes of satisfying hunger; and the little Harry, tired as
he was, ate with a vigorous relish. But his mind was still dwell-
ing on his sister.
After supper was over he followed Goody Smith into her
milk-room. "Please do ask him to let me go and see Tina,"
he said, persuasively.
" Laws a massy, ye poor dear ! ye don't know the critter. If
/ask him to do a thing, he 's all the more set agin it. I found
out that 'ere years ago. He never does nothin' / ask him to.
But never mind ; some of these days, we '11 try and contrive it.
When he 's gone to mill, I '11 speak to the men, and tell 'em to
let ye slip off. But then the pester on 't is, there 's Sphyxy ;
she 's allers wide awake, and would n't let a boy come near her
house no more than ef he was a bulldog."
" Why, what harm do boys do ? " said the child, to whom this
view presented an entirely new idea.
" O, well, she 's an old maid, and kind o' set in her ways ; and
it ain't easy gettin' round Sphyxy ; but I '11 try and contrive it.
Sometimes I can get round 'em, arid get something done, when
they don't know nothin' about it; but it's drefful hard gettin'
things done."
The view thus presented to the child's mind of the cowering,
deceptive policy in which the poor old woman's whole married
life had been spent gave him much to think of after he had gone
to his bedroom.
He sat down on his little, lonely bed, and began trying to com-
prehend in his own mind the events of the last few days. He
recalled his mother's last conversation with him. All had hap-
pened just as she had said. She was gone, just as she had told
him, and left him and little Tina alone in the world. Then he
remembered his promise, and, kneeling down by his bedside,
repeated the simple litany psalm, prayer, and hymn which
114 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
his mother had left him as her only parting gift. The words
soothed his little lonesome heart; and he thought what his mother
said, he recalled the look of her dying eyes as she said it,
" Never doubt that God loves you, whatever happens ; and, if
you have any trouble, pray to him." Upon this thought, he
added to his prayer these words : " O dear Father ! they have
taken away Tina ; and she 's a very little girl, and cannot work,
as I can. Please do take cara of Tina, and make them let me
go and see her."
MISS ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 115
CHAPTER X.
ittiss ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM.
WHEN Miss Asphyxia shut the door finally on little Tina,
the child began slowly to gather up her faculties from
the stunning, benumbing influence of the change which had come
over her life.
In former days her father had told her stories of little girls
that were carried off to giants' houses, and there maltreated and
dominated over in very dreadful ways; and Miss Asphyxia
presented herself to her as one of these giants. She was so
terribly strong, the child felt instinctively, in every limb, that
there was no getting away from her. Her eyes were so keen
and searching, her voice so sharp, all her movements so full of a
vigor that might be felt, that any chance of getting the better of
her by indirect ways seemed hopelessly small. If she should try
to run away to find Harry, she was quite sure that Miss Asphyxia
could make a long arm that would reach her before she had gone
far ; and then what she would do to her was a matter that she
dared not think of. Even when she was not meaning to be cross
to her, but merely seized and swung her into a chair, she had
such a grip that it almost gave pain ; and what would it be if she
seized her in wrath ? No ; there was evidently no escape ; and,
as the thought came over the child, she began to cry, first sob-
bing, and then, as her agitation increased, screaming audibly.
Miss Asphyxia opened the door. " Stop that ! " she said.
" What under the canopy ails ye ? "
"I want Harry ! " said the child.
" Well, you can't have Harry ; and I won't have ye bawling.
Now shut up and go to sleep, or I '11 whip you ! " And, with that,
Miss Asphyxia turned down the bedclothes with a resolute hand.
" I will be good, I will stop," said the child, in mortal terror,
compressing the sobs that seemed to tear her little frame.
116 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Miss Asphyxia waited a moment, and then, going out, shut the
door, and went on making up the child's stuff gown outside.
" That 'ere 's goin' to be a regular limb," she said ; " but I
must begin as I 'm goiii' to go on with her, and mebbe she '11
amount to suthin' by and by. A child 's pretty much dead loss
the first three or four years ; but after that they more 'n pay, if
they 're fetched up right."
" Mebbe that 'ere child 's lonesome," said Sol Peters, Miss
Asphyxia's hired man, who sat in the kitchen corner, putting in
a new hoe-handle.
" Lonesome ! " said Miss Asphyxia, with a sniff of contempt.
" All sorts of young critters is," said Sol, undismayed by this
sniff. " Puppies is. 'Member how our Spot yelped when I fust
got him ? Kept me 'wake the biggest part of one night. And
kittens mews when ye take 'em from the cats. Ye see they 's
used to other critters ; and it 's sort o' cold like, bein' alone is."
" Well, she '11 have to get used to it, anyhow," said Miss
Asphyxia. " I guess 't won't kill her. Ef a child has enough to
eat and drink, and plenty of clothes, and somebody to take care
of 'em, they ain't very bad off, if they be lonesome."
Sol, though a big-fisted, hard-handed fellow, had still rather
a soft spot under his jacket in favor of all young, defenceless
animals, and the sound of the little girl's cry had gone right to
this spot. So he still revolved the subject, as he leisurely
turned and scraped with a bit of broken glass the hoe-handle that
he was elaborating. After a considerable pause, he shut up one
eye, looked along his hoe-handle at Miss Asphyxia, as if he
were taking aim, and remarked, " That 'ere boy 's a nice, stiddy
little chap ; and mebbe, if he could come down here once and a
while after work-hours, 't would kind o' reconcile her."
" I tell you what, Solomon Peters," said Miss Asphyxia, " I 'd
jest as soon have the great red dragon in the Revelations a
comin' down on my house as a boy ! Ef I don't work hard
enough now, I 'd like to know, without havin' a boy raound raisin'
gineral Cain. Don't tell me! I'll find work enough to keep
that 'ere child from bein' lonesome. Lonesome ! .there did n't
nobody think of no such things when I was little. I was jest put
MISS ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 117
right along, and no remarks made ; and was made to mind
when I was spoken to, and to take things as they come. O,
I '11 find her work enough to keep her mind occupied, I promise
je."
Sol did not in the least doubt that, for Miss Asphyxia's reputa-
tion in the region was perfectly established. She was spoken of
with applause under such titles as u a staver," "a pealer," "a
roarer to work " ; and Sol himself had an awful sense of respon-
sibility to her in this regard. He had arrived at something of a
late era in single life, and had sometimes been sportively jogged
by his associates, at the village store, as Jo his opportunity of
becoming master of Miss Asphyxia's person and property by
matrimonial overtures ; to all which he summarily responded
by declaring that " a hoss might as soon go a courtin' to the hoss-
whip as he court Miss Sphyxy." As to Miss Asphyxia, when
rallied on the same subject, she expressed her views of the mat-
rimonial estate in a sentence more terse and vigorous than ele-
gant, that " she knew t' much to put her nose into hot swill."
Queen Elizabeth might have expressed her mind in a more
courtly way, but certainly with no more decision.
The little head and heart in the next room were full of the
rudiments of thoughts, desires, feelings, imaginations, and pas-
sions which either had never lived in Miss Asphyxia's nature, or
had died so long ago that not a trace or memory of them was
left. If she had had even the dawnings of certain traits and
properties, she might have doubted of her ability to bring up a
child ; but she had not,
Yet Miss Asphyxia's faults in this respect were not so widely
different from the practice of the hard, rustic inhabitants of Need-
more as to have prevented her getting employment as a district-
school teacher for several terms, when she was about twenty
years of age. She was held to be a " smart," economical teacher,
inasmuch as she was able to hold the winter term, and thrash the
very biggest' boys, and, while she did tfce duty of a man, received
only the wages of a woman, a recommendation in female quali-
fication which has not ceased to be available in our modern days.
Gradually, by incredible industries, by a faculty of pinching,
118 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
saving, and accumulating hard to conceive of, Miss Asphyxia had
laid up money till she had actually come to be the possessor of a
small but neat house, and a farm and dairy in excellent condition ;
and she regarded herself, therefore, and was regarded by others,
as a model for imitation. Did she have the least doubt that she
was eminently fitted to bring up a girl ? I trow not.
Miss Asphyxia, in her early childhood, had been taken to raise
in the same manner that she had taken this child. She had been
trained to early rising, and constant, hard, unintermitted work,
without thought of respite or amusement. During certain sea-
sons of the year she had been sent to the district school, where,
always energetic in whatever she took in hand, she always stood
at the head of the school in the few arts of scholarship in those
days taught. She could write a good, round hand; she could
cipher with quickness and adroitness ; she had learned by heart
all the rules of Murray's Grammar, notwithstanding the fact
that, from the habits of early childhood, she habitually set at
naught every one of them in her daily conversation, always
strengthening all her denials with those good, hearty double
negatives which help out French and Italian sentences, and are
unjustly denied to the purists in genteel English. How much
of the droll quaintness of Yankee dialect comes from the stum-
bling of human nature into these racy mistakes will never be
known.
Perhaps my readers may have turned over a great, flat stone
some time in their rural rambles, and found under it little clovers
and tufts of grass pressed to earth, flat, white, and bloodless, but
still growing, stretching, creeping towards the edges, where their
plant instinct tells them there is light and deliverance. The
kind of life that the little Tina led, under the care of Miss As
phyxia, resembled that of these poor clovers. It was all shut
down and repressed, but growing still. She was roused at the
first glimmer of early dawn, dressing herself in the dark, and,
coming out, set the table fl* breakfast. From that time through
the day, one task followed another in immediate succession, with
the sense of the ever-driving Miss Asphyxia behind her.
Once, in the course of her labors, she let fall a saucer, while
MISS ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 119
Miss Asphyxia, by good fortune, was out of the room. To tell
of her mischance, and expose herself to the awful consequences
of her anger, was more than her childish courage was eqnal to ;
and, with a quick adroitness, she slipped the broken fragments in
a crevice between the kitchen doorstep and the house, and en-
deavored to look as if nothing had occurred. Alas ! she had not
counted on Miss Asphyxia's unsleeping vigilance of hearing.
She was down stairs in a trice.
" What have you been breaking ? "
" Nothing, ma'am," was the trembling response.
" Don't tell me ! I heard something fall."
"I think it must have been the tongs," said the little girl,
not over-wise or ingenious in her subterfuge.
" Tongs ! likely story," said Miss Asphyxia, keenly running
her eye over the cups and saucers.
" One, two, here 's one of the saucers gone. What have
you done with it ? "
The child, now desperate with fear, saw no refuge but in per-
sistent denial, till Miss Asphyxia, seizing her, threatened imme-
diate whipping if she did not at once jconfess.
" I dropped a saucer," at last said the frightened child.
" You did, you little slut ? " said Miss Asphyxia, administering
a box on her ear. " Where is it ? what have you done with the
pieces ? "
"I dropped them down by the doorstep," said the sobbing
culprit.
Miss Asphyxia soon fished them up, and held them up in awful
judgment. " You 've been telling me a lie, a naughty, wicked
lie," she said. " I '11 soon cure you of lying. I '11 scour your
mouth out for you." And forthwith, taking a rag with some soap
and sand, she grasped the child's head under her arm, and rubbed
the harsh mixture through her mouth with a vengeful energy.
" There, now, see if you '11 tell me another lie," said she, push-
ing her from her. "Don't you know .where liars go to, you
naughty, wicked girl ? ' All liars .shall have their part in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone,' that 's what the Bible
says ; and you may thank me for keeping you from going there.
120 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Now go and get up the potatoes and wash 'em, and don't let me
get another lie out of your mouth as long as you live."
There was a burning sense of shame a smothered fury of
resentment in the child's breast, and, as she took the basket,
she felt as if she would have liked to do some mischief to Miss
Asphyxia. " I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," she said to
herself when she got into the cellar, and fairly out of hearing. " I
hate you, and when I get to be a woman, I '11 pay you for all this."
Miss Asphyxia, however, went on her way, in the testimony
of a good conscience. She felt that she had been equal to the
emergency, and had met a crisis in the most thorough and effect-
ual manner.
The teachers of district schools in those days often displayed
a singular ingenuity in the invention of punishments by which
the different vices of childhood should be repressed ; and Miss
Asphyxia's housewifely confidence in soap and sand as a means
of purification had suggested to her this expedient in her school-
teaching days. "You can break any child o' lying, right off
short," she was wont to say. " Jest scour their mouths out with
soap and sand. They never want to try it more 'n once or twice,
I tell you."
The intervals which the child had for play were, in Miss As-
phyxia's calendar, few and far between. Sometimes, when she
had some domestic responsibility on her mind which made the
watching of the child a burden to her, she would say to her,
" You may go and play till I call you," or, " You may play for
half an hour ; but you must n't go out of the yard."
Then the child, alone, companionless, without playthings,
sought to appropriate to herself some little treasures and posses-
sions for the instituting of that fairy world of imagination which
belongs to childhood. She sighed for a doll that had once be-
longed to her in the days when she had a mother, but which
Miss Asphyxia had contemptuously tossed aside in making up
her bundle.
Left thus to her own resources, the child yet showed the un-
quenchable love, of beauty, and the power of creating and gilding
an imaginary little world, which is the birthright of childhood.
MISS ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 121
She had her small store of what she had been wont to call pretty
things, a broken teapot handle, a fragment of colored glass,
part of a goblet that had once belonged to Miss Asphyxia's treas-
ures, one or two smooth pebbles, and some red berries from a
wild rose-bush. These were the darlings, the dear delights of
her heart, hoarded in secret places, gazed on by stealth, taken
out and arranged and re-arranged, during the brief half-hours,
or hours, when Miss Asphyxia allowed her to play. To these
treasures the kindly Sol added another ; for one day, when Miss
Asphyxia was not looking, he drew from his vest-pocket a couple
of milkweed pods, and said, " Them 's putty, mebbe ye 'd like
'em ; hide 'em up, though, or she '11 sweep 'em into the fire."
No gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls ever made bright eyes
open wider than did the exploring the contents of these pods.
It was silk and silver, fairy-spun glass, something so bright
and soft that it really seemed dear to her; and she took the
shining silk fringes out and caressed them against her cheek,
and wrapped them in a little bit of paper, and put them in her
bosom. They felt so soft and downy, they were so shining
and bright, and they were her own, Sol had given them to
her. She meditated upon them as possessions of mysterious
beauty and unknown value. Unfortunately, one day Miss As-
phyxia discovered her gazing upon this treasure by stealth dur-
ing her working hours.
" What have you got there ? " she said. " Bring it to me."
The child reluctantly placed her treasure in the great bony
claw.
" Why, that 's milkweed silk," said Miss Asphyxia. " T ain't
good for nothin'. What you doing with that ? "
" I like it because it 's pretty."
" Fiddlestick ! " said Miss Asphyxia, giving it a contemptuous
toss. " I can't have you making litter with such stuff round the
house. Throw it in the fire."
To do Miss Asphyxia justice, she would never have issued
this order if she had had the remotest conception how dear this
apparent trash was to the hopeless little heart.
The child hesitated, and held her treasure firmly. Her breast
122 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
heaved, and there was a desperate glare in her soft hazel
eyes.
" Throw it in the fire," said Miss Asphyxia, stamping her foot,
as she thought she saw risings of insubordination.
The child threw it in, and saw her dear, beautiful treasure
slowly consumed, with a swelling and indignant heart. She was
now sure that Miss Asphyxia hated her, and only sought occa-
sion to torment her.
Miss Asphyxia did not hate the child, nor did she love her.
She regarded her exactly as she $id her broom and her rolling-
pin and her spinning-wheel, as an implement or instrument
which she was to fashion to her uses. She had a general idea,
too, of certain duties to her as a human being, which she ex-
pressed by the phrase, " doing right by her," that is, to feed
and clothe and teach her. In fact, Miss Asphyxia believed fully
in the golden rule of doing as she would be done by ; but if a
lioness should do to a young lamb exactly as she would be
done by, it might be all the worse for the lamb.
The little mind and heart were awakened to a perfect burning
conflict of fear, shame, anger, and a desire for revenge, which
now overflowed with strange, bitter waters that hitherto igno-
rantly happy valley of child-life. She had never had any sense
of moral or religious obligation, any more than a butterfly or a
canary-bird. She had, it is true, said her little prayers every
night ; but, as she said to herself, she had always said them to
mother or Harry, and now there was nobody to say them to.
Every night she thought of this when she lay down in her joy-
less, lonesome bed; but the kindly fatigue which hard work
brings soon weighed down her eyes, and she slept soundly all
night, and found herself hungry at breakfast-time the next morn-
ing.
On Sunday Miss Asphyxia rested from her labors, a strange
rest for a soul that had nothing to do in the spiritual world.
Miss Asphyxia was past middle life, and, as she said, had
never experienced religion, a point which she regarded with
some bitterness, since, as she was wont to say, she had always
been as honest in her dealings and kept Sunday as strict as most
MISS ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 123
church-members. Still, she would do her best at giving religious
instruction to the child ; and accordingly the first Sunday she was
dressed in her best frock, and set up in a chair to be kept still
while the wagon was getting ready to "go to rneetin'," and
Miss Asphyxia tried to put into her head the catechism made by
that dear, friendly old lover of children, Dr. Watts.
But somehow the first question, benignly as it is worded, had
a grim and threatening sound as it came from the jaws of Miss
Asphyxia, somewhat thus : " Stop playing with your frock, and
look right at me, now. ' Can you tell me, dear child, who made
you?'"
Now the little one had often heard this point explained, but
she felt small disposition to give up her knowledge at this de-
mand ; so she only looked at Miss Asphyxia in sulky silence.
" Say, now, after me/' said Miss Asphyxia, " ' The great God
that made heaven and earth.' "
The child repeated the words, in that mumbling, sulky man-
ner which children use when they are saying what does not
please them.
" Tina Percival," said Miss Asphyxia, in warlike tones, " do
you speak out plain, or I '11 box yer ears."
Thus warned, the child uttered her confession of faith audibly
enough.
Miss Asphyxia was peculiarly harsh and emphatic on the an-
swer which described the omnipresence of the Supreme Being,
and her harsh voice, croaking, " If I tell a lie, He sees me, If I
speak an idle or wicked word, He hears me," seemed to the child
to have a ghastly triumph in it to confirm the idea that Miss As-
phyxia's awful tyranny was thoroughly backed up by that of a
Being far more mighty, and from whom there was no possible
escape. Miss Asphyxia enforced this truth with a coarse and
homely eloquence, that there was no getting away from God,
that He could see in the night just as plain as in the daytime,
see her in the yard, see her in the barn, eee her under the bed,
see her down cellar ; and that whenever she did anything wrong
He would write it down in a dreadful book, and on the Day of
Judgment she would have it all brought out upon her, all which
124 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the child heard with a stony, sullen despair. Miss Asphyxia
illustrated what became of naughty children by such legends as
the story of the two she-bears which came out of a wood and
tare forty -and-two children who mocked at old Elisha, till the re-
bellious auditor quaked in her little shoes, and wondered if the
bears would get Harry, and if Harry, after all, would not find
some way to get round the bears and come to her help.
At meeting she at last saw Harry, seated, however, in a distant
part of the house ; but her heart was ready to jump out of her
breast to go to him ; and when the services were over she con-
trived to elude Miss Asphyxia, and, passing through the throng,
seized his hand just as he was going out, and whispered, "
Harry, Harry, I do want to see you so much ! Why don't you
come to see me ? "
" They would n't let me, Tina," said Harry, drawing his sister
into a little recess made between the church and the horse-block,
an old-fashioned structure that used to exist for the accommo-
dation of those who came to church on horseback. " They won't
let me come. I wanted to come, I wanted to see you so much ! "
" O Harry, I don't like her, she is cross to me. Do take
me away, do, Harry ! Let 's run away together."
" Where could we go, Tina ? "
" O, somewhere, no matter where. I hate her. I won't stay
with her. Say, Harry, I sleep in a little room by the kitchen ;
come to my window some night and take me away."
"Well, perhaps I will."
" Here you are, you little minx," said Miss Asphyxia. " What
you up to now ? Come, the waggin 's waiting," and, with a look
of severe suspicion directed to Harry, she seized the child and
conveyed her to the wagon, and was soon driving off with all
speed homeward.
That evening the boy pondered long and soberly. He had
worked well and steadily during the week, and felt no dis-
position to complain of his lot on that account, being, as we
have said, of a faithful and patient nature, and accepting what
the friendly hired men told him, that work was good for little
boys, that it would make him grow strong, and that by and by
MISS ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 125
he would be grown up and able to choose his own work and mas-
ter. But this separation from his little sister, and her evident
nnhappiness, distressed him ; he felt that she belonged to him,
and that he must care for her, and so, when he came home, he
again followed Goody Smith to the retirement of her milk-room.
The poor woman had found a perfect summer of delight in her
old age in having around her the gentle-mannered, sweet-spoken,
good boy, who had thus marvellously fallen to her lot ; and bound-
less was the loving-kindness with which she treated him. Sweet-
cakes were slipped into his hands at all odd intervals, choice mor-
sels set away for his consumption in secret places of the buttery,
and many an adroit lie told to Old Crab to secure for him extra
indulgences, or prevent the imposition of extra tasks ; and many
a little lie did she recommend to him, at which the boy's honest
nature and Christian education inclined him greatly to wonder.
That a grown-up, good old woman should tell lies, and advise
little boys to tell them, was one of those facts of human experi-
ence which he turned over in his mind with wonder, thinking
it over with that quiet questioning which children practise who
have nobody of whom they dare make many inquiries. But to-
day he was determined to have something done about Tina, and
so he began, " Please, won't you ask him to let me go and see
Tina to-night ? It 's Sunday, and there is n't any work to do."
" Lordy massy, child, he 's crabbeder Sundays than any other
day, he has so much time to graowl round. He drinks more
cider ; and Sunday night it 's always as much as a body's life 's
worth to go near him. I don't want you to get him sot agin ye.
He got sot agin Obed ; and no critter knows why, except mebbe
'cause he was some comfort to me. And ye oughter seen how
he used that 'ere boy. Why, I 've stood here in the milk-room
and heerd that 'ere boy's screeches clear from the stun pastur'.
Finally the men, they said they could n't stan' it, nor they
would n't."
" Who was Obed ? " said Harry, fearfully.
" Lordy massy ! wal, I forgot ye did n't know Obed. He was
the baby, ye see. He was born the eighteenth of April, just
about nine o'clock in the evening, and Aunt Jerusha Periwinkle
126 OLDTOWK FOLKS.
and Granny Watkins, they said they had n't seen no sich child
in all their missing. Held up his head jest as lively, and sucked
his thumb, he did, jest the patientest, best baby ye ever did see,
and growed beautiful. And he was gettin' to be a real beau-
tiful young man when he went off."
"Went off?" said Harry.
" Yes, he went off to sea, jest for nothin' but 'cause his father
aggravated him so."
" What was the matter ? what did he do it for ? "
" Wai, Obed, he was allers round helpin' me, he 'd turn the
cheeses for me, and draw the water, and was always on hand
when I wanted a turn. And he took up agin him, and said we
was both lazy, and that I. kept him round waitin' on me ; and he
was allers a throwin' it up at me that I thought more of Obed
than I did of him ; and one day flesh and blood could n't stan'
it no longer. I got clear beat out, and says I, ' Well, father, why
should n't I ? Obed 's allers a tryin' to help me and make my
work easy to me, and thinkin' what he can do for me ; and he 's
the greatest comfort of my life, and it ain't no sin if I do think
more on him than I do of other folks.' Wai, that very day he
went and picked a quarrel with him, and told him he was going
to give him a stand-up thrashing. And Obed, says he, ' No,
father, that you sha' n't. I 'm sixteen year old, and I 've made
up my mind you sha' n't thrash me no more.' And with that he
says to him, ' Gfet along out of my house, you lazy dog,' says he ;
' you 've been eatin' of my bread too long,' says he. ' Well, father,
I will,' says Obed. And he walks up to me and kisses me, and
says he, ' Never mind, mother, I 'ni going to come home one of
these days and bring money enough to take care of you in your
old age ; and you shall have a house of your own, and sha' n't
have to work ; and you shall sit in your satin gown and drink
your tea with white sugar every day, and you sha' n't be no man's
slave. You see if I don't.' With that he turned and was off,
and I hain't never seen him since."
" How long 's he been gone ? "
" Wai, it 's four years come next April. I 've hed one or
two letters from him, and he's ris' to be mate. And he sent
ASPHYXIA'S SYSTEM. 127
me his wages, biggest part on 'em, but lie lied to git 'em to
me round by sendin on em to Ebal Parker ; else he 'd a took
'em, ye see. I could n't have nothin' decent to wear to meetin',
nor my little caddy o' green tea, if' it had n't been for Obed. He
won't read Obed's letters, nor hear a word about him, and keeps
a castin' it up at me that I think so much of Obed that I don't
love him none."
" I should n't think yon would," said the boy, innocently.
<; Wai, folks seems to think that you must love 'ein through
thick and thin, and I try ter. I 've allers kep' his clothes
mended, and his stockings darned up, and two or three good pair
ahead, and done for him jest the best I know how ; but as to
lovin' folks when they 's so kind o' as he is, I don't redly know
how ter. Expect, ef he was to be killed, I should feel putty
bad, too, kind o' used to havin' on him round."
This conversation was interrupted by the voice of Crab, in the
following pleasing style jof remark : " What the devil be you a
doin' with that boy, keepin' him from his work there ? It 's
time to be to the barn seein' to the critters. Here, you young
sdamp, go out and cut some feed for the old mare. Suppose I
keep you round jest to eat up the victuals and be round under
folks' feet ? "
128 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CRISIS.
MATTERS between Miss Asphyxia and her little subject
began to show evident signs of approaching some crisis,
for which that valiant virgin was preparing herself with mind
resolved. It was one of her educational tactics that children, at
greater or less intervals, would require what she was wont to
speak of as good whippings, as a sort of constitutional stimulus
to start them in the ways of well-doing. As a school-teacher,
she was often fond of rehearsing her experiences, how she had
her eye on Jim or Bob through weeks of growing carelessness
or obstinacy or rebellion, suffering the measure of iniquity gradu-
ally to become full, until, in an awful hour, she pounced down on
the culprit in the very blossom of his sin, and gave him such a
lesson as he would remember, as she would assure him, the long-
est day he had to live.
The burning of rebellious thoughts in the little breast, of inter-
nal hatred and opposition, could not long go on without slight
whiffs of external smoke, such as mark the course of subterra-
nean fire. As the child grew more accustomed to Miss Asphyxia,
while her hatred of her increased, somewhat of that native hardi-
hood which had characterized her happier days returned ; and
she began to use all the subtlety and secretiveness which be-
longed to her feminine nature in contriving how not to do the
will of her tyrant, and yet not to seem designedly to oppose. It
really gave the child a new impulse in living to devise little plans
for annoying Miss Asphyxia without being herself detected. In
all her daily toils she made nice calculations how slow she could
possibly be, how blundering and awkward, without really bring-
ing on herself a punishment ; and when an acute and capable
child turns all its faculties in such a direction, the results may be
very considerable.
THE CRISIS. 129
Miss Asphyxia found many things going wrong in her estab-
lishment in most unaccountable ways. One morning her sensi-
bilities were almost paralyzed, on opening her milk-room door, to
find there, with creamy whiskers, the venerable Tom, her own
model cat, a beast who had grown up in the very sanctities of
household decorum, and whom she was sure she had herself shut
out of the house, with her usual punctuality, at nine o'clock the
evening before. She could not dream that he had been enticed
through Tina's window, caressed on her bed, and finally sped
stealthily on his mission of revenge, while the child returned to
her pillow to gloat over her success.
Miss Asphyxia also, in more than one instance, in her rapid
gyrations, knocked down and destroyed a valuable bit of pottery
or earthen-ware, that somehow had contrived to be stationed
exactly in the wind of her elbow or her hand. It was the more
vexatious because she broke them herself. And the child as-
sumed stupid innocence : " How could she know Miss Sphyxy
was coming that way ? " or, " She did n't see her." True, she
caught many a hasty cuff and sharp rebuke; but, with true
Indian spirit, she did not mind singeing her own fingers if she
only tortured her enemy.
It would be an endless task to describe the many vexations
that can be made to arise in the course of household experience
when there is a shrewd little elf watching with sharpened faculties
for every opportunity to inflict an annoyance or do a mischief.
In childhood the passions move with a simplicity of action un-
known to any other period of life, and a child's hatred and a
child's revenge have an intensity of bitterness entirely unal-
loyed by moral considerations ; and when a child is without an
object of affection, and feels itself unloved, its whole vigor of
being goes into the channels of hate.
Religious instruction, as imparted by Miss Asphyxia, had
small influence in restraining the immediate force of passion.
That "the law worketh wrath" is a maxim as old as the times
of the Apostles. The image of a dreadful Judge a great God,
with ever-watchful eyes, that Miss Asphyxia told her about
roused that combative element in the child's heart which says in
130 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the heart of the fool, There is no God." After all," thought
the little sceptic, " how does she know ? She never saw him."
Perhaps, after all, then, it might be only a fabrication of her
tyrant to frighten her into submission. There was a dear Father
that mamma used to tell her about ; and perhaps he was the one,
after all. As for the bear story she had a private conversa-
tion with Sol, and was relieved by his confident assurance that
there " had n't been no bears seen round in them parts these
ten year " ; so that she was safe in that regard, even if she should
call Miss Asphyxia a bald-heajtl, which she perfectly longed to do,
just to see what would come of it.
In like manner, though the story of Ananias and Sapphira,
struck down dead for lying, had been told her in forcible and
threatening tones, yet still the little sinner thought within herself
that such things must have ceased in our times, as she had told
more than one clever lie which neither Miss Asphyxia nor any
one else had found out.
In fact, the child considered herself and Miss Asphyxia as in
a state of warfare which suspends all moral rules. In the stoiies
of little girls who were taken captives by goblins or giants or
witches, she remembered many accounts of sagacious deceptions
which they had practised on their captors. Her very blood tin-
gled when she thought of the success of some of them, how
Hensel and Grettel had heated an oven red-hot, and persuaded
the old witch to get into it by some cock-and-bull story of what
she would find there ; and how, the minute she got in, they shut
up the oven door, and burnt her all up ! Miss Asphyxia thought
the child a vexatious, careless, troublesome little . baggage, it is
true ; but if she could have looked into her heart and seen her
imaginings, she would probably have thought her a little fiend.
At last, one day, the smothered fire broke out. The child had
had a half-hour of holiday, and had made herself happy in it by
furbishing up her little bedroom. She had picked a peony, a
yellow lily, and one or two blue irises, from the spot of flowers
in the garden, and put them in a tin dipper on the table in her
room, and ranged around them her broken bits of china, her red
berries and fragments of glass, in various zigzags. The spirit
THE CRISIS.
of adornment thus roused within her, she remembered having
seen her brother make pretty garlands of oak-leaves ; and, run-
ning out to an oak hard by, she stripped off an apronful of the
leaves, and, sitting down in the kitchen door, began her attempts
to plait them into garlands. She grew good-natured and happy
as she wrought, and was beginning to find herself in charity even
with Miss Asphyxia, when down came that individual, broom in
hand, looking vengeful as those old Greek Furies who used to
haunt houses, testifying their wrath by violent sweeping.
" What under the canopy you up to now, making such a litter
on my kitchen floor ? " she said. " Can't I leave you a minute
'thout your gettin' into some mischief, I want to know ? Pick
'em up, every leaf of 'em, and carry 'em and throw 'em over the
fence ; and don't you never let me find you bringing no such rub-
bish into my kitchen agin ! "
In this unlucky moment she turned, and, looking into the little
bedroom, whose door stood open, saw the arrangements there.
"What!'"' she said; "you been getting down the tin cup to
put your messes into ? Take 'ein all out ! " she said, seizing the
flowers with a grasp that crumpled them, and throwing them into
the child's apron. " Take 'em away, every one of 'em ! You 'd
get everything out of place, from one end of the house to the
other, if I did n't watch you ! " And forthwith she swept off the
child's treasures into her dust-pan.
In a moment all the smothered wrath of weeks blazed up in
the little soul. She looked as if a fire had b^en kindled in her
which reddened her cheeks and burned in her eyes ; and, rushing
blindly at Miss Asphyxia, she cried, " You are a wicked woman,
a hateful old witch, and I hate you ! "
" Hity-tity ! I thought I should have to give you a lesson
before long, and so I shall," said Miss Asphyxia, seizing her with
stern determination. " You 've needed a good sound whipping
for a long time, miss, and you are going to get it now. I '11 whip
you so that you'll remember it, I '11 promise you."
And Miss Asphyxia kept her word, though the child, in the
fury of despair, fought her with tooth and nail, and proved her-
self quite a dangerous little animal ; but at length strength got
132 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the better in the fray, and, sobbing, though unsubdued, the little
culprit was put to bed without her supper.
In those days the literal use of the rod in the education of chil-
dren was considered as a direct Bible teaching. The wisest, the
most loving parent felt bound to it in many cases, even though
every stroke cut into his own heart. The laws of New England
allowed masters to correct their apprentices, and teachers their
pupils, and even the public whipping-post was an institution of
New England towns. It is not to be supposed, therefore, that
Miss Asphyxia regarded herself otherwise than as thoroughly
performing a most necessary duty. She was as ignorant of the
blind agony of mingled shame, wrath, sense of degradation, and
burning for revenge, which had been excited by her measures, as
the icy east wind of Boston flats is of the stinging and shivering
it causes in its course. Is it the wind's fault if your nose is
frozen ? There is not much danger in these days that such meas-
ures will be the fashionable ones in the bringing up of children.
But there is a class of coldly-conscientious, severe persons, who
still, as a matter of duty and conscience, justify measures like
these in education. They, at all events, are the ones who ought
to be forbidden to use them, and whose use of them with chil-
dren too often proves a soul-murder, a dispensation of wrath
and death. Such a person is commonly both obtuse in sensibility
and unimaginative in temperament ; but if his imagination could
once be thoroughly enlightened to see the fiend-like passions, the
terrific convulsion?, which are roused in a child's soul by the irri-
tation and degradation of such correction, he would shrink back
appalled. With sensitive children left in the hands of stolid and
unsympathizing force, such convulsions and mental agonies often
are the beginning of a sort of slow moral insanity which gradu-
ally destroys all that is good in the soul. Such was the danger
now hanging over the hapless little one whom a dying mother
had left to God. Is there no stirring among the angel wings on
her behalf ?
As the child lay sobbing in a little convulsed heap in her bed,
a hard, horny hand put back the curtain of the window, and the
child felt something thrown on the bed. It was Sol, who, on
THE CRISIS. loo
coming in to bis supper, had heard from Miss Asphyxia the
whole story, and who, as a matter of course, sympathized entirely
with the child. lie had contrived to slip a doughnut into his
pocket, when his hostess was looking the other way. When the
child rose up in the bed and showed her swelled and tear-stained
face, Sol whispered : ' There 's a doughnut I saved for ye. Darn
her pictur' ! Don't dare say a word, yc know. She '11 hear me."
" O Sol, can't you get Harry to come here and see me ? " said
the child, in an earnest whisper.
" Yes, I '11 get him, if I have to go to thunder for 't," said Sol.
"You jest lie down now, there 's a good girl, and I '11 work it,
ye see if I don't. To-morrow I '11 make her go off to the
store, and I '11 get him down here, you see if I don't. It 's a tar-
nal shame ; that 'ere critter ain't got no more bowels than a file."
The child, however, was comforted, and actually went to sleep
hugging the doughnut. She felt as if she loved Sol, and said so
to the doughnut many times, although he had great horny fists,
and eyes like oxen. With these, he had a heart in his bosom,
and the child loved him.
134 OLDTOWN FOLKS. I
CHAPTER XII.
THE LION'S MOUTH SHUT.
" "1VTO W, where a plague is that boy ? " said Old Crab, suddenly
-L- ^ bearing down, as evil-disposed people are always apt to do,
in a most unforeseen moment.
The fact was that there had been ^a silent conspiracy among
Sol and Goody Smith and the hired men of Old Crab, to bring
about a meeting between the children. Miss Asphyxia had been
got to the country store and kept busy with various bargains
which Sol had suggested, and Old Crab had been induced to go
to mill, and then the boy had been sent by Goody Smith on an
errand to Miss Asphyxia's house. Of course he was not to find
her at home, and was to stay and see his sister, and be sure and
be back again by four o'clock.
" Where a plague is that lazy shote of a boy ? " he repeated.
" What, Harry ? "
"Yes, Harry. Who do you suppose I mean? Harry, where
is he?"
" O, I sent him up to Sphyxy's."
"You sent him?" said Old Crab, with that kind of tone which
sounds so much like a blow that one dodges one's head involun-
tarily. " You sent him ? What busiaess you got interfering in
the work ? "
"Lordy massy, father, I jest wanted Sphyxy's cards and
some o' that 'ere fillin' she promised to give me. He won't be
gone long."
Old Crab stood at this disadvantage .in his fits of ill-temper
with his wife, that there was no form of evil language or abuse
that he had not tried so many times on her that it was quite a
matter of course for her to hear it. He had used up the English
language, made it, in fact, absolutely of no effect, while his
fund of ill-temper was, after all, but half expressed.
THE LION'S MOUTH SHUT. 135
" You 've begun with that 'ere boy just as you allers did with
all your own, gettin' 'em to be a waitin' round on you, jest
'cause you 're a lazy good-for-nothin'. We 're so rich, I wonder
you don't hire a waiter for nothin' but to stan' behind your chair.
I '11 teach him who his master is when he comes back."
" Now, father, 't ain't no fault o' his'n. /sent him."
" And 1 sot him to work in the fields, and I 'd like to know if
he 's goin' to leave what I set him to do, and go round after your
errands. Here 't is gettin' to be 'most five o'clock, and the crit-
ters want fodderin', and that 'ere boy a dancing 'tendance on you.
But he ain't a doin' that. He 's jest off a berryin' or suthin' with
that trollopin' sister o' his'n, jes' what you bring on us, takin'
in trampers. That 'ere gal, she pesters Sphyxy half to death."
" Sphyxy 's pretty capable of takin' care of herself, " said
Goody Smith, still keeping busy with her knitting, but looking
uneasily up the road, where the form of the boy might be ex-
pected to appear.
The outbreak that she had long feared of her husband's evil
nature was at hand. She knew it by as many signs as one fore-
tells the approach of hurricanes or rain-storms. She knew it by
the evil gleam in his small, gray eyes, by the impatient pacing
backward and forward in the veranda, like a caged wild animal.
It made little matter to him what the occasion was : he had such
a superfluity of evil temper to vent, that one thing for his pur-
pose was about as good as another.
It grew later and later, and Old Crab went to the barn to at-
tend to his cattle, and the poor little old woman knitted uneasily.
" What could V kep' him?" she thought. "He can't 'a' run
off." There was a sudden gleam of mingled pleasure and pain in
the old woman's heart as this idea darted through her mind. " I
should n't wonder if he would, but I kind o' hate to part with
him."
At last she sees him coming along the road, and runs to meet
him. " How could you be so late ? He 's drefful mad with ye."
" I did n't know how late it was. Besides, all I could do, Tina
would follow me, and I had to turn back and carry her home.
Tina has bad times there. That woman is n't kind to her."
136 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" No, dear, she ain't noways kind," said the old woman ; " it
ain't Sphyxy's way to be kind ; but she '11 do iniddlin' well by
her, anyway, she won't let nobody hurt her but herself. It 's
a hard world to live in ; we have to take it as 't comes."
" Well, anyway," said the boy, " they must let us go to see
each other. It is n't right to keep us apart."
" No, 't ain't, dear ; but lordy massy, what can ye do? "
There was a great steady tear in the boy's large, blue eyes as
he stopped at the porch, and he gave a sort of dreary shiver.
" Halleoah you there ! you lazy little cuss," said Old Crab,
coming from the barn, '"where you been idling all the after-
noon ? "
" I Ve been seeing my sister," said the boy, steadily.
" Thought so. Where 's them cards and the fillin' you was
sent for ? "
" There was n't anybody at home to get them."
"And why did n't you come right back, you little varmint?"
" Because I wanted to see Tina. She 's my sister ; and my
mother told me to take care of her ; and it 's wicked to keep us
apart so."
" Don't you give me none of yer saace," said Old Crab, seizing
the boy by one ear, to which he gave a vicious wrench. $
" Let me alone," said the boy, flushing up with the sudden irri-
tation of pain and the bitter sense of injustice.
" Let you alone ? I guess I won't ; talking saace to me that
'ere way. Guess I '11 show you who 's master. It 's time you
was walked off down to the barn, sir, and find out who 's your
master," he said, as he seized the boy by the collar and drew
him off.
" O Lord ! " said the woman, running out and stretching her
hands instinctively after them. " Father, do let the boy alone."
She could not help this cry any more than a bird can help a
shriek when she sees the hawk pouncing down on her nest,
though she knew perfectly well that she might as well have
shouted a petition in the angry face of the northeast wind.
"Take off your jacket," said Old Crab, as soon as he had
helped himself to a long cart-whip which stood there.
THE LION'S MOUTH SHUT. 137
The boy belonged to that class of amiable, good-natured chil-
dren who are not easily irritated or often provoked, but who,
when moved by a great injustice or cruelty, are thrown into con-
vulsions of passion. The smallest and most insignificant animal,
in moments of utter despair, when every fibre of its being is
made vital with the energy of desperate resistance, often has a
force which will make the strongest and boldest stand at bay.
The boy retreated a pace or two, braced his back against the
manger, while his whole form trembled and appeared to dilate,
and it seemed as if blue streams of light glared from his eyes
like sparks struck from burning steel.
" Strike me if you dare, you wicked, dreadful man," he
shouted. " Don't you know that God sees you ? God is my
Father, and my mother is gone to God ; and if you hurt me
He '11 punish you. You know I have n't done anything wrong,
and God knows it. Now strike me if you dare."
The sight of any human being in a singular and abnormal
state has something appalling about it ; and at this moment the
child really appeared to Old Crab like something supernatural.
He stood a moment looking at him, and then his eyes suddenly
seemed fixed on something above and beyond him, for he gazed
with a strange, frightened expression ; and at last, pushing with
his hands, called out, " Go along ; get away, get away ! I
hain't touched him," and, turning, fled out of the barn.
He did not go to the house again, but to the village tavern,
and, entering the bar-room with a sort of distraught air, called
for a dram, and passed the evening in a cowering state of quiet
in the corner, which was remarked on by many as singular.
The boy came back into the house.
" Massy to us, child," said the old woman, " I thought he 'd
half killed ye."
u No, he has n't touched me. God would n't let him," said the
boy.
' ; Well, I declare for 't ! he must have sent the angels that
shut the lion's mouth when Daniel was in the den," said the
woman. "I wouldn't V had him struck ye, not for ten dol-
lars."
188 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
The moon was now rising, large, white, and silvery, yet with a
sort of tremulous, rosy flush, as it came up in the girdle of a
burning autumn horizon. The boy stood a moment looking at it.
His eyes were still dilated with that unnatural light, and his lit-
tle breast heaving with waves of passion not yet tranquillized.
" Which way did he go ? " said the woman.
" Up the road," said the boy.
" To the tavern," said the woman. " He 's been there before
this afternoon. At any rate, then, he '11 let us alone awhile.
There comes the men home to supper. Come in ; I 've got a
turnover I made a purpose for ye."
" No, I must bid you good by, now," said the boy. " I can't
stay here any longer."
" Why, where be ye going ? "
" Going to look for a better place, where I can take care of
Tina," said the boy.
" Ye ain't a going to leave me ? " said the old woman. " Yet
I can't want ye to stay, /can't have nothin' nor nobody."
"I'll come back one of these days," said the boy cheerfully,
" come and see you."
" Stay and get your supper, anyhow," pleaded the old woman.
" I hate ter have ye go, drefful bad."
" I don't want any supper," said the child ; " but if you '11 give
me a little basket of things, I want 'em for Tina."
The old soul ran to her buttery, and crammed a small splint
basket with turnovers, doughnuts, and ample slices of rye broad
and butter, and the boy took it and trudged off, just as the hired
men were coming home.
" Hulloah, bub ! " shouted they, " where ye goin' ? "
" Going to seek my fortune," said the boy cheerfully.
" Jest the way they all go," said the old woman.
" Where do you suppose the young im '11 fetch up ? " said ono
of the men to the other.
" No business of mine, can't fetch up wus than he has ben
a doin'."
" Old Crab a cuttin' up one of his shines, I s'pose ? " said the
other, interrogatively.
THE LION'S MOUTH SHUT. 139
" Should n't wonder ; 'bout time, ben to the tavern this ar-
ternoon, I reckon."
The boy walked along the rough stony road towards Miss As-
phyxia's farm. It was a warm, mellow evening in October.
The air had only a pleasant coolness. Everything was tender
and bright. A clump of hickory-trees on a rocky eminence be-
fore him stood like pillars of glowing gold in the twilight ; one
by one little stars looked out, winking and twinkling at the lonely
child, as it seemed to him, with a friendly, encouraging ray, like
his mother's eyes.
That afternoon he had spent trying to comfort his little sister,
and put into her soul some of the childlike yet sedate patience
with which he embraced his own lot, and the good hopes which
he felt of being able some time to provide for her when he grew
bigger. But he found nothing but feverish impatience, which
all his eloquence could scarcely keep within bounds. He had,
however, arranged with her that he should come evenings after
she had gone to bed, and talk to her at the window of her bed-
room, that she should not be so lonesome nights. The perfectly
demoniac violence which Old Crab had shown this night had
determined him not to stay with him any longer. He would
take his sister, and they would wander off, a long, long way, till
they came to better people, and then he would try again to get
work, and ask some good woman to be kind to Tina. Such, in
substance, was the plan that occurred to the child ; and accord-
ingly that night, after little Tina had laid her head on her lonely
pillow, she heard a whispered call at her window. The large,
bright eyes opened very wide as she sat up in bed and looked
towards the window, where Harry's face appeared.
"It's me, Tina, I've come back, be very still. I'm going
to stay in the barn till everybody 's asleep, and then I '11 come and
wake you, and you get out of the window and come with me."
" To be sure I will, Harry. Let me come now, and sleep with
you in the barn."
" No, Tina, that would n't do ; lie still. They 'd see us. Wait
till everybody 's asleep. You just lie down and go to sleep. I '11
get in at your window and waken you when it 's time."
140 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
At this moment the door of the child's room was opened ; the
boy's face was gone in an instant from the window. The child's
heart was beating like a trip-hammer ; there was a tingling in
her ears ; but she kept her little eyes tightly shut.
" 0, here 's that brown towel I gin her to hem," said Miss As-
phyxia, peacefully. " She 's done her stent this arternoon. That
'ere whipping did some good."
"You '11 never whip me again," thought the defiant little heart
under the bedclothes.
* * * * * .
Old Crab came home that night thoroughly drunk, a thing
that did not very often occur in his experience. He commonly
took only just enough to keep himself in a hyena's state of tem-
per, but not enough to dull the edge of his cautious, grasping,
money-saving faculties. But to-night he had had an experience
that had frightened him, and driven him to deeper excess as a
refuge from thought.
When the boy, upon whom he was meaning to wreak his dia-
bolic passions, so suddenly turned upon him in the electric fury
of enkindled passion, there was a sort of jar or vibration of the
nervous element in the man's nature, that brought about a result
not uncommon to men of his habits. As he was looking in a
sort of stunned, stupid wonder at the boy, where he stood braced
against the manger, he afterwards declared that he saw suddenly
in the dark space above it, hovering in the air, the exact figure
and form of the dead woman whom they had buried in the grave-
yard only a few weeks before. " Her eyes was looking right at
me, like live coals," he said ; " and she had up her hand as if
she 'd 'a' struck me ; and I grew all over cold as a stone."
" What do you suppose 't was ? " said his auditor.
" How should I know," said Old Crab. " But there I was ;
and that very night the young 'un ran off. I would n't have
tried to get him back, not for my right hand, I tell you. Tell
you what," he added, rolling a quid of tobacco reflectively in his
mouth, "/don't like dead folks. Ef dead folks '11 let me alone,
I '11 let them alone. That 'ere 's fair, ain't it ? "
THE EMPTY BIKD'S-NEST. 141
CHAPTER XIII.
THE EMPTY BIRD'S-NEST.
THE next morning showed as brilliant a getting up of gold
and purple as ever belonged to the toilet of a morning.
There was to be seen from Miss Asphyxia's bedroom window a
brave sight, if there had been any eyes to enjoy it, a range of
rocky cliffs with little pin-feathers of black pine upon them, and
behind them the sky all aflame with bars of massy light, orange
and crimson and burning gold, and long, bright rays, darting
hither and thither, touched now the window of a farm-house,
which seemed to kindle and flash back a morning salutation;
now they hit a tall scarlet maple, and now they pierced between
clumps of pine, making their black edges flame with gold ; and
over all, in the brightening sky, stood the morning star, like a
great, tremulous tear of light, just ready to fall on a darkened
world.
Not a bit of all this saw Miss Asphyxia, though she had looked
straight out at it. Her eyes and the eyes of the cow, who, with
her horned front, was serenely gazing out of the barn window on
the same prospect, were equally unreceptive.
She looked at all this solemn pomp of gold and purple, and
the mysterious star, and only said : " Good day for killin' the
hog, and I must be up gettin' on the brass kettle. I should like
to know why Sol ain't been a stirrin' an hour ago. I 'd really
like to know how long folks would sleep ef I 'd let 'em."
Here an indistinct vision came into Miss Asphyxia's mind of
what the world would be without her to keep it in order. She
called aloud to her prime minister, who slept in the loft above,
"Sol! Sol! You awake?"
" Guess I be," said Sol ; and a thundering sound of cowhide
boots on the stairs announced that Sol's matutinal toilet was
complete.
142 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" We 're late this morning," said Miss Asphyxia, in a tone of
virtuous indignation.
" Never knowed the time when we wa' n't late," said Sol, com-
posedly.
" You thump on that 'ere child's door, and tell her to be lively,"
said Miss Asphyxia.
" Yaas 'm, I will," said Sol, while secretly he was indulging in
a long and low chuckle, for Sol had been party to the fact that
the nest of that young bird had been for many hours forsaken.
He had instructed the boy what road to take, and bade him " walk
spry and he would be out of the parish of Needmore afore day-
break. Walk on, then, and follow the road along the river," said
Sol, " and it '11 bring you to Oldtown, where our folks be. You
can't miss your victuals and drink any day in Oldtown, call at
what house you may ; and ef you 's to get into Deacon Badger's,
why, your fortin 's made. The Deacon he 's a soft-spoken man
to everybody, white folks, niggers, and Indians, and Ma'arn
Badger keeps regular poor-man's tavern, and won't turn even a
dog away that behaves himself. Ye could n't light on wus than
ye have lit on, for Old Crab 's possessed of a devil, everybody
knows ; and as for Miss Asphyxia, she 's one of the kind of sperits
that goes walkin' through dry places seekin' rest and findin' none.
Lordy massy, an old gal like her ain't nobody to bring up a child.
It takes a woman that 's got juice in her to do that. Why, that
'ere crittur 's drier 'n a two-year-old mullen-stalk. There ain't no
sap ris in her these 'ere thirty years. She means well ; but,
lordy, you might jest as well give young turkey chicks to the old
gobbler, and let him stram off in the mowin' grass with 'em, as
give a delicate little gal like your sister to her to raise ; so you
jest go long and keep up your courage, like a brave boy as ye be,
and you '11 come to somethin' by daylight " ; and Sol added to
these remarks a minced pie, with a rye crust of a peculiarly solid
texture, adapted to resist any of the incidents of time and travel,
which pie had been set out as part of his own last night's supper.
When, therefore, he was exhorted to rap on the little girl's
door, he gave sundry noisy, gleeful thumps, pounding with
both fists, and alternating with a rhythmical kick of the cowhide
THE EMPTY BIRD'S-XEST. 148
boots, calling out in stentorian tones : " Come, little un, time
you 's up. Miss Sphyxy 's comin ? down on ye. Better be
lively ! Bless me, how the gal sleeps ! "
" Don't take the door off the hinges," said Miss Asphyxia,
sweeping down stairs. " Let me come ; I '11 wake her, I guess ! "
and with a dipper of cold water in her hand, Miss Asphyxia
burst into the little room. " What ! what ! where ! " she
said, looking under the bed, and over and around, with a dazed
expression. " What 's this mean ? Do tell if the child 's re'lly
for once got up of herself afore I called her. Sol, see if she 's
out pickin' up chips ! "
Sol opened the door and gazed out with well-affected stolidity
at the wood-pile, which, garnished with a goodly show of large
chips, was now being touched up and brightened by the first rays
of the morning sun.
" Ain't here," he said.
" Ain't here ? Why, where can she be then ? There ain't no-
body swallowed her, I s'pose ; and if anybody 's run off' with
her in the night, I guess they 'd bring her back by daylight."
She must V run off," said Sol.
" Eun ! Where could she 'a' run to ? "
" Mebbe she 's gone to her brother's^
" I bet you," said Miss Asphyxia, " it 's that 'ere boy that 'a
the bottom of it all. You may always know that there 's a boy
at the bottom, when there's any deviltry up. He was here
yesterday, now wa' n't he ? "
" Wai, I reckon he was," said Sol. " But, massy, Miss
Sphyxy, ef the pigs is to be killed to-day, we can't stan' a talkin'
about what yon nor me can't help. Ef the child 's gone, why
she 's somewhere in the Lord's world, and it 's likely she '11 keep,
she won't melt away like the manna in the wilderness ; and
when the pigs is killed, and the pork salted down and got out o'
the way, it '11 be time enough to think o' lookin' on her up. She
wa'n't no gret actual use, and with kettles o' hot water round,
it 's jest as well not to have a child under yer feet. Ef she got
scalded, why, there 's your time a taking care on her, and mebbe
a doctor to pay ; so it 's jest as well that things be as they be.
144 OLDTOWX FOLKS.
1 call it kind o' providential," said Sol, giving a hoist to his
breeches by means of a tug at his suspenders, which gesture
was his usual indication that he was girding up the loins of his
mind for an immediate piece of work ; and, turning forthwith,
lie brought in a mighty armful of wood, with massive back-
log and fore-stick, well grizzled and bearded with the moss that
showed that they were but yesterday living children of the
forest.
The fire soon leaped arid crackled and roared, being well fed
with choice split hickory sticks of last year, of which Sol kept
ample store ; and very soon the big brass kettle was swung over,
upon the old iron crane, and the sacrificial water was beginning
to simmer briskly, while Miss Asphyxia prepared breakfast, not
only for herself and Sol, but for Primus King, a vigorous old
negro, famed as a sort of high-priest in all manner of butchering
operations for miles around. Primus lived in the debatable land
between Oldtown and Needmore, and so was at the call of all
who needed an extra hand in both parishes.
The appearance of Primus at the gate in his butcher's frock,
knife in hand, in fact put an end, in Miss Asphyxia's mind, to
all thoughts apart from the present eventful crisis ; and she
hastened to place upon the table the steaming sausages which,
with her usual despatch, had been put down for their morning
meal. A mighty pitcher of cider flanked this savory dish, to
which Primus rolled delighted eyes at the moment of sitting
down. The time had not yet dawned, in those simple, old New
England days, when the black skin of the African was held to
disqualify him from a seat at the social board with the men whom
he joined in daily labor. The strength of the arm, and the skill
of the hand, and the willingness of the mind of the workman,
in those days, were his passport to equal social rights ; and old
Primus took rank, in the butchering season, as in fact a sort of
leader and commander. His word was law upon all steps and
stages of those operations which should transform the plethoric,
obese inhabitants of the sty into barrels of pink-hued salt-pork
or savory hams and tenderloins and spareribs, or immense messes
of sausage-meat.
THE EMPTY BIRD'S-NEST. 145
Concerning all these matters, Primus was an oracle. His fer-
vid Ethiopian nature glowed with a broad and visible delight, his
black face waxed luminous with the oil of gladness, while he
dwelt on the savory subject, whereon, sitting at breakfast, he
dilated with an unctuous satisfaction that soothed the raven down
of darkness in Miss Asphyxia's perturbed mind, till something
bearing a distant analogy to a smile played over her rugged fea-
tures.
146 OLDTOWK FOLKS.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND.
OUR little travellers, meanwhile, had had a prosperous jour-
ney along the rocky road between Needmore and Oldtown,
in which Sol had planted their feet. There was a great, round-
orbed, sober-eyed October moon in the sky, that made everything
as light as day ; and the children were alive in every nerve with
the keen interest of their escape.
" We are going just as Hensel and Grettel did," said the little
girl. " You are Hensel, and I am Grettel, and Miss Asphyxia
is the old witch. I wish only we could have burnt her up in her
old oven before we came away ! "
" Now, Tina, you must n't wish such things really" said the
boy, somewhat shocked at such very extreme measures. " You
see, what happens in stories would n't do really to happen."
" 0, bat Harry, you don't know how I hate how I h ate
Miss Sphyxy ! I hate her most as much as I love you ! "
" But, Tina, mother always told us it was wicked to hate any-
body. We must love our enemies."
" You don't love Old Crab Smith, do you ? "
" No, I don't ; but I try not to hate him," said the boy. " I
won't think anything about him."
" I can't help thinking," said Tina ; " and when I think, I am
so angry ! I feel such a burning in here ! " she said, striking her
little breast ; " it 's just like fire ! "
" Then don't think about her at all," said the boy ; " it is n't
pleasant to feel that way. Think about the whippoorwills sing-
ing in the woods over there, how plain they say it, don't they ?
and the frogs, all singing, with their little, round, yellow eyes
looking up out of the water ; and the moon looking down on us
so pleasantly ! she seems just like mother ! "
" Harry, I 'm so glad," said the girl, suddenly throwing her-
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. 147
self on his neck and hugging him, "I 'm so glad we 're to-
gether again ! Was n't it wicked to keep us apart, we poor
children ? "
" Yes, Tina, I am glad," said the boy, with a steady, quiet,
inward sort of light in his eyes ; " but, baby, we can't stop to say
so much, because we must walk fast and get way, way, way off'
before daylight ; arid you know Miss Sphyxy always gets up
early, don't she ? "
" O dear, yes ! She always poked me out of bed before it was
light, hateful old thing ! Let 's run as fast as we can, and
get away ! "
And with that she sprang forward, with a brisk and onward
race, over the pebbly road, down a long hill, laughing as she went,
and catching now at a branch of sweetbrier that overhung the
road, and now at the tags of sweet-fern, both laden and hoary
with heavy autumnal dews, till finally, her little foot tripping
over a stone, she fell and grazed her arm sadly. Her brother
lifted her up, and wiped the tears from her great, soft eyes with
her blue check apron, and talked to her in that grandfatherly way
that older children take such delight in when they feel the care
of younger ones.
" Now, Tina, darling, you should n't run so wild. We 'd bet-
ter go pretty fast steadily, than run and fall down. But I '11 kiss
the place, as mother used to."
" I don't mind it, Hensel, I don't mind it," she said, control-
ling the quivering of her little resolute mouth. " That scratch
came for liberty ; but this," she said, showing a long welt on her
other arm, " this was slavery. She struck me there with her
great ugly stick. O, I never can forgive her ! "
" Don't let 's talk any more, baby ; let 's hurry on. She never
shall get you again ; I '11 fight for you till I die, first ! "
" You 'd kill 'em all, would n't you ? You would have knocked
her down, wouldn't you?" said Tina, kindling up with that
inconsiderate exultation in the powers of an elder brother which
belongs to childhood. " I knew you would get me away from
here, Harry, I knew you would."
" But now," said Harry, " you just keep hold of my hand, and
148 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
let 's run together, and J '11 hold you up. We must run fast, after
all, because maybe th -jy will harness up the wagon when day-
light comes, and come out to look for us."
" Well, if it 's only Sol comes," said the little girl, " I sha' n't
care ; for he would only carry us on farther."
" Ay, but you may be sure Miss Asphyxia would come her-
self."
The suggestion seemed too probable, and the two little pairs
of heels seemed winged by it as they flew along, their long shad-
ows dancing before them on the moonlit road, like spiritual con-
ductors. They made such good headway that the hour which
we have already recorded, when Miss Asphyxia's slumbers were
broken, found the pair of tiny pilgrims five miles away on the
road to Oldtown.
" Now, Tina," said the boy, as he stopped to watch the long
bars of crimson and gold that seemed to be drawing back and
opening in the eastern sky, where the sun was flaring upward an
expectant blaze of glory, " only look there ! Is n't it so wonder-
ful ? It 's worth being out here only to see it. There ! there !
there ! the sun is coming ! Look ! Only see that bright-red
maple, it seems all on fire! now that yellow chestnut, and
that old pine-tree ! O, see, see those red leaves ! They are like
the story papa used to tell of the trees that bore rubies and
emeralds. Are n't they beautiful ? "
" Set me on the fence, so as I can see," said Tina. " O Harry,
it 's beautiful ! And to think that we can see it together ! "
Just at this moment they caught the distant sound of wheels.
" Hurry, Tina ! Let me lift you over the fence," said the boy ;
" they are coming ! "
How the little hearts beat, as both children jumped down into a
thicket of sweet-fern, heavy and wet with morning dew ! The lot
was one of those confused jungles which one often sees hedging
the course of rivers in New England. Groups of pine and hem-
lock grew here and there, intermixed with low patches of swampy
land, which were waving with late wild-flowers and nodding
swamp-grasses. The children tore their way through golden-
rods, asters, and cat-tails to a little elevated spot where a great,
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. 149
flat rock was surrounded by a hedge of white-pine. This was
precisely the shelter they wanted ; for the pines grew so thickly
around it as completely to screen it from sight from the road,
while it was open to the warm beams of the morning sun.
" Cuddle down here, Tina," said Harry, in a whispering voice,
as if he feared the driver in the rattling farm-wagon might hear
them.
" 0, what a nice little house the trees make here ! " said Tina.
' We are as snug here and as warm as can be ; and only see
what a nice white-and-green carpet there is all over the rock ! "
The rock, to be sure, was all frothed over with a delicate white
foam of moss, which, later in the clay, would have crackled and
broken in brittle powder under their footsteps, but which now,
saturated by the heavy night-dews, only bent under them, a soft,
elastic carpet.
Their fears were soon allayed when, peeping like scared
partridges from their cover, they saw a farm-wagon go rattling
by from the opposite direction to that in which Miss Asphyxia
lived.
" O, it 's nobody for us ; it comes the other way," said the boy.
It was, in fact, Primus King, going on his early way to preside
over the solemnities of pig-killing.
" Then, Hensel, we are free," said the little girl ; " nobody will
catch us now. They could no more find us in this lot than they
could find a little, little tiny pin in the hay-mow."
" No, indeed, Tina ; we are safe now," said the boy.
" Why don't you call me Grettel ? We will play be Hensel
and Grettel ; and who knows what luck will come to us ? "
"Well, Grettel then," said the boy, obediently. "You sit
now, and spread out your frock in the sun to dry, while I get out
some breakfast for you. Old Aunty Smith has filled my basket
with all sorts of good things."
" And nice old Sol, he gave us his pie," said Tina. " I love
Sol, though he is a funny-looking man. You ought to see Sol's
hand, it 's so big ! And his feet, why, one of his shoes would
make a good boat for me ! But he 's a queer old dear, though,
and I love him."
150 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" What shall we eat first ? " said the boy, " the bread and
butter, or the cookies, or the doughnuts, or the pie ? "
" Let 's try a little of all of them," said young madam.
" You know, Tina," said the boy, in a slow, considerate way,
" that we must take care of this, because we don't know when
we '11 get any more. There 's got to be a dinner and a supper
got out of this at any rate."
" O, well, Hensel, you do just as you please with it, then ; only
let's begin with Sol's pie and some of that nice cheese, for I am
so hungry ! And then, when we have had our breakfast, I mean
to lie down in the sun, and have a nap on this pretty white moss.
O Harry, how pretty this moss is ! There are bright little red
things in it, as bright as mother's scarlet cloak. But, O Harry,
look, quick ! don't say a word ! There 's a squirrel ! How
bright his little eyes are ! Let 's give him some of our breakfast."
Harry broke off a crumb of cake and threw it to the little
striped-backed stranger.
" Why, he 's gone like a wink," said the girl. " Come back,
little fellow ; we sha' n't hurt you."
" O, hush, Tina, he 's coming ! I see his bright eyes. He 's
watching that bit of cake."
" There, he 's got it and is off ! " said Tina, with a shriek of
delight. " See him race up that tree with it ! "
" He 's going to take it home to his wife."
" His wife ! " said Tina, laughing so hard at Harry's wit that
she was obliged to lay down her pie. " Has he got a wife ? "
" Why, of course he has," said Harry, with superior wisdom.
" I 'm your wife, ain't I ? " said Tina, contentedly.
" No. You 're my little sister, and I take care of you," said
the boy. " But people can't have their sisters for wives ; the
Bible says so."
" Well, I can be just like your wife; and I '11 mend your clothes
and knit your stockings when I get bigger."
To which practical view of matrimonial duties Harry gave a
grave assent.
Not a striped-backed squirrel, or a bobolink x or a cat-bird, in the
whole pasture-lot, had better spirits than our two little travellers.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. 151
They were free ; they were together ; the sun was shining and
birds were singing ; and as for the future, it was with them as
with the birds. The boy, to be sure, had a share of fore-
thought and care, and deemed himself a grown man acting with
most serious responsibility for his light-headed little sister ; but
even in him this was only a half-awakening from the dream-land
of childhood.
"When they had finished their breakfast, he bethought him of
his morning prayers, and made Tina kneel down beside him
while he repeated psalm and hymn and prayer, in which she
joined with a very proper degree of attention. When he had
finished, she said, "Do you know, Hensel, I haven't said my
prayers a single once since I 've been at Miss Asphyxia's ? "
" Why, Tina ! "
" Well, you see, there was n't anybody to say them to, now
mother is gone; and you were not there."
" But you say them to God, Tina."
" O, he 's so far off, and I 'm so little, I can't say them to him.
I must say them to somebody I can see. Harry, where is mother
gone ? "
" She is gone to heaven, Tina."
" Where is heaven ? "
" It 's up in the sky, Tina," said the boy, looking up into the
deep, cloudless blue of an October sky, which, to say the truth,
is about as celestial a thing as a mortal child can look into ;
and as he looked, his great blue eyes grew large and serious
with thoughts of his mother's last wonderful words.
" If it 's up in the sky, why did they dig down into the ground,
and put her in that hole ?" said the little sceptic.
" It is her soul that went up. Her body is planted like a beau-
tiful flower. She will come up by and by ; and we shall see her
again, if we are good children."
Tina lay back on the white moss, with only a fringy bough of
white-pine between her and the deep, eternal blue, where the
thinnest films of white clouds were slowly sailing to and fro.
Her spiritual musings grew, to say the truth, rather confused.
She was now very tired with her night tramp; and the long
152 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
fringes fell over her great, dark eyes, as a flower shuts itself, and
she was soon asleep.
The boy sat watching her awhile, feeling soothed by the calm,
soft sunshine, and listening to the thousand sweet lullaby-notes
which Nature is humming to herself, while about her great world-
housework, in a calm October morning. The locusts and katydids
grated a drowsy, continuous note to each other from every tree
and bush ; and from a neighboring thicket a lively-minded cat-
bird was giving original variations and imitations of all sorts of
bird voices and warblings ; while from behind the tangled thicket
which fringed its banks came the prattle of a hidden river,
whose bright brown waters were gossiping, in a pleasant, con-
stant chatter, with the many-colored stones on the bottom ; and
when the light breezes wandered hither and thither, as your idle
breezes always will be doing, they made little tides and swishes
of sound among the pine-trees, like the rising and falling of
sunny waters on the sea-shore.
Altogether, it was not long before Harry's upright watch over
his sister subsided into a droop upon one elbow, and finally the
little curly head went suddenly down on to his sister's shoulder ;
and then they were fast asleep, as nice a little pair of babes in
the wood as ever the robins could cover up. They did not awake
till it was almost noon. The sun was shining warm and cloud-
less, and every bit of dew had long been dried ; and Tina, in
refreshed spirits, proposed thai they should explore the wonders
of the pasture-lot, especially that they should find out where
the river was whose waters they heard gurgling behind the leafy
wall of wild vines.
" We can leave our basket here in our little house, Hensel.
See, I set it in here, way, way in among the pine-trees ; and
that 's my little green closet."
So the children began picking their way through the thicket,
guided by the sound of the water.
" Tina ! " said the boy ; " look there, over your head ! "
The object pointed out was a bough of a wild grape-vine,
heavily laden with ripe purple grapes.
" 0, wild grapes ! " said Tina.- " Harry, do get them ! "
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. 153
Harry soon pulled the bough down within reach, and the chil-
dren began helping themselves.
" I 'm going to take an apronful up to the tree, and put into
our closet," said Tina ; " and we shall have a nice store there."
" But, Tina, we can't live there on the rock," said the boy ;
" we must walk on and get to Oldtown some time."
" O, well, we have the whole long, long day for it," said the
girl, " and we may as well have a good time now ; so, when I 've
put up these grapes, we '11 see where the river is."
A little scrambling and tearing through vines soon brought the
children down to the banks of a broad, rather shallow river,
whose waters were of that lustrous yellow-brown which makes
every stone gleam up from the bottom in mellow colors, like the
tints through the varnish of an old picture. The banks were a
rampart of shrubbery and trees hung with drapery of wild vines,
now in the brilliancy of autumnal coloring. It is not won-
derful that exclamations of delight and wonder burst from both
children. An old hemlock that hung slantwise over the water
opposite was garlanded and interwoven, through all its dusky
foliage, with wreaths and pendants of the Virginia creeper, now
burning in the brilliant carmine and scarlet hues of autumn.
Great, soft, powdery clumps of golden-rod projected their heads
from the closely interwoven thicket, and leaned lovingly over the
stream, while the royal purple of tall asters was displayed in
bending plumage at their side. Here and there, a swamp-maple
seemed all one crimson flame ; while greener shrubbery and
trees, yet untouched by frosts, rose up around it, as if purposely
to give background and relief to so much color. The rippling
surface of the waters, as they dashed here and there over the
stones, gave back colored flashes from the red, yellow, crimson,
purple, and green of the banks; while ever and anon little
bright leaves came sailing down the stream, all moist and bril-
liant, like so many floating gems. The children clapped their
hands, and began, with sticks, fishing them towards the shore.
" These are our little boats," they said. So they were, fairy
boats, coming from the land of nowhere, and going on to oblivion,
shining and fanciful, like the little ones that played with them.
7*
154 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" I declare," said Tina, " I mean to take off my shoes and
stockings, and wade out to that little island where those pretty
white stones are. You go with me."
" Well, Tina, wait till I can hold you."
And soon both the little pairs of white feet were slipping and
spattering among the pebbles at the bottom. On the way,
Tina made many efforts to entrap the bright rings of sunlight on
the bottom, regardless of the logic with which Harry undertook
to prove to her that it was nothing but the light, and that she
could not catch it ; and when they came to the little white gravelly
bank, they sat down and looked around them with great content.
" We 're on a desolate island, are n't we, Hensel ? " said Tina.
" I like desolate islands," she added, looking around her, with the
air of one who had had a wide experience of the article. " The
banks here are so high, and the bushes so thick, that Miss As-
phyxia could not find us if she were to try. We '11 make our
home here."
" Well, I think, Tina, darling, that it won't do for us to stay
here very long," said Harry. " We must try to get to some
place where I can find something to do, and some good, kind
woman to take care of you."
" Harry, what 's the use of thinking of that, it 's so bright
and pleasant, and it 's so long since I 've had you to play with !
Do let 's have one good, pleasant day alone among the flowers !
See how beautiful everything is ! " she added, " and it 's so warm
and quiet and still, and all the birds and squirrels and butterflies
are having such a good time. I don't want anything better than
to play about out in the woods with you."
" But where shall we sleep nights, Tina ? "
" O, it was so pleasant last night, and the moon shone so bright,
I would not be afraid to cuddle down under a bush with you,
Harry."
" Ah, Tina ! you don't know what may come. The moon don't
shine all night, and there may be cold and wind and rain, and
then where would we be ? Come, darling, let 's go on ; we can
walk in the fields by the river, and so get down to the place Sol
told us about."
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. 155
So at last the little fanciful body was persuaded to wade back
from her desolate island, and to set out once more on her pilgrim-
age. But even an older head than hers might have been turned
by the delights of that glorious October day, and gone off into a
vague trance of bliss, in which the only good of life seemed to be
in luxurious lounging and dreamy enjoyment of the passing hour.
Nature in New England is, for the most part, a sharp, determined
matron, of the Miss Asphyxia school. She is shrewd, keen, re-
lentless, energetic. She runs through the seasons a merciless
express-train, on which you may jump if you can, at her hours,
but which knocks you down remorselessly if you come in her
way, and leaves you hopelessly behind if you are late. Only for
a few brief weeks in the autumn does this grim, belligerent female
condescend to be charming ; but when she does set about it, the
veriest Circe of enchanted isles could not do it better. Airs
more dreamy, more hazy, more full of purple light and lustre,
never lay over Cyprus or Capri than those which each October
overshadow the granite rocks and prickly chestnuts of New Eng-
land. The trees seem to run no longer sap, but some strange
liquid glow ; the colors of the flowers flame up, from the cold,
pallid delicacy of spring, into royal tints wrought of the very fire
of the sun and the hues of evening clouds. The humblest weed,
which we trod under our foot unnoticed in summer, changes with
the first frost into some colored marvel, and lifts itself up into a
study for a painter, just as the touch of death or adversity often
strikes out in a rough nature traits of nobleness and delicacy be-
fore wholly undreamed of.
The children travelled onward along the winding course of the
river, through a prairie-land of wild-flowers. The whole tribe
of asters white, lilac, pale blue, and royal purple were roll-
ing in perfect billows of blossoms around them, and the sprays
of golden-rod often rose above their heads, as they crackled their
way through the many-colored thickets. The children were both
endowed with an organization exquisitely susceptible to beauty,
and the flowers seemed to intoxicate them with their variety and
brilliancy. They kept gathering from right to left without any
other object than the possession of a newer and fairer spray, till
156 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
their little arms were full ; and then they would lay them down
to select from the mass the choicest, which awhile after would be
again thrown by for newer and fairer treasures. Their motion
through the bushes often disturbed clouds of yellow butterflies,
which had been hanging on the fringes of the tall purple asters,
and which rose toying with each other, and fluttering in ethereal
dances against the blue sky, looking like whirls and eddies of
air-flowers. One of the most brilliant incidents in the many-
colored pictures of October days is given by these fluttering
caprices of the butterflies. Never in any other part of the season
are these airy tribes so many and so brilliant. There are, in par-
ticular, whole armies of small, bright yellow ones, which seem
born for no other purpose than to make effective and brilliant
contrasts with those royal-purple tints of asters, and they hang
upon them as if drawn to them by some law of affinity in their
contrasting colors.
Tina was peculiarly enchanted with the fanciful fellowship of
these butterflies. They realized exactly her ideal of existence,
and she pointed them out to Harry as proof positive that her own
notion of living on sunshine and flowers was not a bad one. She
was quite sure that they could sleep out all night if the butterflies
could, and seemed not to doubt that they would fancy her as a
bedfellow.
Towards sundown, when the children were somewhat weary
of wandering, and had consumed most of the provisions in their
basket, they came suddenly on a little tent pitched in the field,
at the door of which sat an old Indian woman weaving baskets.
Two or three red-skinned children, of about the same age as our
wanderers, were tumbling and kicking about on the ground,
in high frolic, with about as many young puppies, who were
scratching, rolling, and biting, with their human companions, in
admirable spirits. There was a fire before the door, over which
a pot was swung from a frame of crossed sticks, the odor of which
steamed up, suggestive of good cheer.
The old Indian woman received the children with a broad,
hearty grin, while Harry inquired of her how far it was to Old-
town. The old squaw gave it as her opinion, in very Indian
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. 157
English, that it was " muchee walkee " for little white boy, and
that he had best stay with her that night and go on to-morrow.
" There, Harry," said Tina, " now you see just how it is. This
is a nice little house for us to sleep in, and oh ! I see such pretty
baskets in it."
The old woman drew out a stock of her wares, from which she
selected a small, gayly-painted one, which she gave to the chil-
dren ; in short, it was very soon arranged that they were to stop
to supper and spend the night with her. The little Indians
gathered around them and surveyed them with grins of delight ;
and the puppies, being in that state of ceaseless effervescence of
animal spirits which marks the indiscreet era of puppyhood, soon
had the whole little circle in a state of uproarious laughter.
By and by, the old woman poured the contents of the pot
into a wooden trough, and disclosed a smoking mess of the In-
dian dish denominated succotash, to wit, a soup of corn and
beans, with a generous allowance of salt pork. Offering a large,
clean clam-shell to each of the children, she invited them to help
themselves.
Whether it was the exhilarating effect of a whole day spent
on foot in the open air, or whether it was owing to the absolute
perfection of the cookery, we cannot pretend to say, but certain
it is that the children thought they had never tasted anything bet-
ter ; and Tina's spirits became so very airy and effervescent, that
she laughed perpetually, a state which set the young barba-
rians to laughing for sympathy ; and this caused all the puppies
to bark at once, which made more fun ; so that, on the whole,
a jollier supper company could nowhere be found.
After sundown, when the whole party had sufficiently fatigued
themselves with play and laughing, the old woman spread a skin
inside the tent, where Tina lay down contentedly between Harry
and one of the puppies, which she insisted upon having as her
own particular bedfellow. Harry kneeled down to his prayers
outside the tent, which being observed by the Indian woman, she
clasped her hands, and seemed to listen with great devotion;
and when he had finished, she said, " Me praying Indian ; me
much love Jesus."
158 OLDTOWN FOLKS
The words were said with a tender gleam over the rough, hard,
swarthy features ; and the child felt comforted by them as he
nestled down to his repose.
" Harry," said Tina, decisively, " let 's we live here. I like to
play with the puppies, and the old woman is good to us."
" We '11 see, Tina," said wise little Harry.
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE. 159
CHAPTER XV.
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE.
ALAS ! the next morning dawned wet and rainy. The wind
flapped the tent-cover, and the rain put out the fire ; and,
what was worse, a cross, surly Indian man came home, who beat
the poor old woman, and scattered the children and puppies, like
partridges, into the bushes.
The poor old squaw took it all patiently, and seemed only
intent on protecting the children from injuries and inconven-
iences on which she calculated as part of her daily lot. She
beckoned them to her, and pointed across a field. " Go dat way.
White folks dere be good to you." And she insisted on giving
them the painted basket and some coarse corn bread.
They set off through the fields ; but the wind was chilly and
piercing, and the bushes and grass were wet, and Tina was in a
doleful state. " O Harry, I wish we had a house to live in !
Where do you suppose all the butterflies are staying that we
saw yesterday ? I 'd like to go where they stay."
" Never mind, Tina ; by and by we '11 come to a house."
They passed a spot where evidently some Indians had been
camping, for there were the remains of a fire ; and Harry picked
up some dry brush and refuse sticks around, and kindled it
up bright for Tina to warm and dry herself. They sat there
awhile and fed the fire, till they began to feel quite warm. In
one of Harry's excursions for sticks, he came back and reported
a house in sight.
Sure enough, concealed from view behind a pine thicket was
a large, stately mansion, the approach to which was through an
avenue of majestic trees. The path to this was all grown over
with high grass, and a wilderness of ornamental shrubbery seemed
to have twined and matted itself together in a wild labyrinth of
uttc* desertion and neglect. The children made their way up
160 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the avenue through dripping grass, and bushes that reached
almost to their shoulders, and that drizzled water upon their
partially dried garments in a way that made Tina shiver.
" I 'm so cold ! " she said, pitifully. " The folks must let us
come in to dry us."
They at last stood before the front door, in a sort of porch
which overshadowed it, and which rested on Corinthian pillars
of some architectural pretension. The knocker was a black
serpent with its tail in its mouth. Tina shuddered with some
vague, inward dread, as Harry, rising on tiptoe, struck several
loud blows upon it, and then waited to see who would appear.
The wind now rose, and tossed and swung the branches of the
great trees in the avenue with a creaking, groaning sound. The
shrubbery had grown around the house in a dense and tangled
mass, that produced, in the dismal stormy weather, a sense of
oppression and darkness. Huge lilacs had climbed above the
chamber windows, and clumps of syringas billowed outward from
the house in dense cascades ; while roses and various kinds of
more tender shrubbery, which had been deprived of light and air
by their more hardy neighbors, filled up the space below with
bare, dead branches, through which the wind sighed dolefully.
" Harry, do knock again," said Tina, when they had waited
some time.
"It's no use," said the boy; "I don't think anybody lives
here."
" Perhaps, if we go round to the back of the house, we shall
find somebody," said Tina; "it's storming worse and worse."
And the little girl plunged resolutely into the thicket of dead
shrubbery, and began tearing her way through.
There was a door on the side of the house, much like that in
front ; and there were spacious back buildings, which, joining the
house, stretched far away in the shrubbery. Harry tried this
side door. It was firmly locked. The children then began reg-
ularly trying every door that presented itself to their view. At
last one, after considerable effort, gave way before their united
exertions, and opened to them a shelter from the storm, which
was now driving harder and harder. It was a place that had
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE. 161
evidently been used for the storing of wood, for there was then
quite a pile of fuel systematically arranged against the wall. An
ancient axe, perfectly red with rust, was also hanging there.
" Well, we 're in at last," said Tina, " but wet through. What
a storm it is ! "
" Perhaps we can get to some better place in the house," said
Harry ; " here is wood, and we might make a fire and dry our
clothes, and wait here till the storm is over."
He accordingly pushed against a door at the farther end of the
wood-shed, and it opened before him into a large old kitchen.
There was the ample fireplace of olden times, extending quite
across one side, garnished with a crane having various hooks and
other paraphernalia for the convenience of culinary operations.
" There, now," said Harry, " is a fireplace, and here is wood.
Now we can dry ourselves. Just you wait here, and I '11 go
back and bring a brand from our fire, if the rain has n't put it all
out." And Harry turned, and hastily made the best of his way
out of the house, to secure his treasure before it should be too
late.
Tina now resolved to explore some of the other rooms. She
opened a door which seemed to lead into a large dining-hall. A
heavy dining-table of dark wood stood in the middle of this room,
and a large, old-fashioned carved sideboard filled up an arched
recess. Heavy mahogany chairs with stuffed leathern bottoms
stood against the wall, but the brass nails with which they had
been finished were green with rust. The windows of this room
were so matted over with cobwebs, and so darkened by the dense
shrubbery outside, as to give the apartment a most weird and
forlorn appearance. One of the panes of the window had been
broken, perhaps by the striking of the shrubbery against it ; and
the rain and snow beating in there had ruined the chair that stood
below, for the seat of it was all discolored with mould.
Tina shivered as she looked at this dreary room, and the tap-
ping of her own little heels seemed to her like something ghostly;
so she hastened to open another door. This led to a small apart-
ment, which had evidently been a lady's boudoir. The walls were
hung with tapestry of a dark-green ground, on which flowers and
162 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
fruits and birds were represented in colors that xyet remained
brilliant, notwithstanding the dilapidated air of some portions of
it. There was a fireplace in this room, and the mantel was
choicely carved, of white Italian marble, and upon it were sundry
flasks and vases of Venetian glass, of quaint and strange shapes,
which the child eyed with awe-struck curiosity. By the side of
the fireplace was a broad lounge or sofa, with a pile of cushions,
covered with a rich but faded brocade, of a pattern evidently made
to carry out the same design with the tapestry on the wall.
A harpsichord occupied another side of the room, and upon it
were piled music-books and manuscript music yellow with age.
There was a sort of Oriental guitar or lute suspended from the
wall, of which one of the strings, being broken, vibrated with the
air of the door when the child made her way into the room, and
continued quivering in a way that seemed to her nervous and
ghostly. Still she was a resolute and enterprising little body ; and
though her heart was beating at a terrible rate, she felt a sort of
mixture of gratified curiosity and exultation in her discovery.
" I wish Harry would come back," she said to herself. " We
might make a fire in this pretty little room, and it would be quite
snug, and we could wait here till the folks come home." How
glad she was when the sound of his voice and footsteps broke
the terrible loneliness ! She ran out to him, exclaiming, "
Harry, we won't make a fire in this great, doleful old kitchen.
I 've found such a nice little room full of pretty things ! Let me
bring in some wood " ; and, running to the wood-pile, she
filled her arms.
" It was all I could do to find a brand with a bit of fire on it,"
said Harry. " There was only the least spark left, but I put it
under my jacket and blew and blew, and now we have quite a
bright spot in it," he said, showing with exultation a black brand
with a round, fiery eye in it, which had much the appearance of
a knowing old goblin winking at the children.
The desolate boudoir was soon a scene of much animation, as
the marble hearth was strewn with chips and splinters.
" Let me blow, Harry," said Tina, " while you go and look for
some more of this brushwood. I saw a heap in that wood-
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE. 163
house. I '11 tend the fire while you are gone. See," she said
triumphantly te him, when he returned, dragging in a heavy pile
of brushwood, " we '11 soon have such a fire ! " and she stooped
down over the hearth, laying the burnt ends of sticks together,
and blowing till her cheeks were so aflame with zeal and exer-
tion that she looked like a little live coal herself. " Now for it ! "
she said, as she broke bit after bit of the brushwood. " See now,
it 's beginning to burn, hear it crackle ! Now put on more
and more."
Very soon, in fact, the brushwood crackled and roared in a
wide sheet of flame up the old chimney ; and being now rein-
forced with stout sticks of wood, the fire took a solid and settled
and companionable form, the brightest, most hopeful compan-
ion a mortal could ask for in a chill, stormy day in autumn.
" Now, Harry," said Tina, " let 's dry our clothes, and then we
will see what we can do in our house."
" But is it really ours ? " said thoughtful Harry. " Who knows
who it may belong to ? "
" Do you think," said Tina, apprehensively, " that any giant
lives here that has gone out and will come home again ? Father
used to tell us a story like that."
" There are n't really giants now-a-days, Tina," said Harry ;
"those are only stories. I don't think that it looks as if anybody
had lived here for a great while. Things don't look as if any-
body lived here, or was expecting to come back."
"Then we may as well live here as anybody," said Tina,
" and I will keep house for you. I will roast some apples for our
dinner, I saw ever so many out here on the tree. Roast apples
with our corn bread will be so good ! And then we can sleep to-
night on this great, wide sofa, can't we ? Here, let me sweep
up the chips we have made, and make our little house look nice."
" It must be a long time since any one has lived here," said
Harry, looking up at the cobwebbed window, against which the
shrubbery was dashing and beating in the fury of the storm,
" and there can't be the least harm in our staying here till the
storm is over."
" Such a strange, pretty room this is ! " said Tina, " and so many
164 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
strange, pretty things in it ! Do you know, Harry, I was almost
afraid to be here while you were gone ; but this bright, warm fire
makes such a difference. Fire is company, is n't it ? "
When the little one had dried her clothes, she began, with a
restless, butterfly sort of motion, to investigate more closely the
various objects of the apartment. She opened the harpsichord,
and struck a few notes, which sounded rather discordantly, as an
instrument which chill and solitude had smitten with a lasting
hoarseness.
"0, horrid! This isn't pretty," she said. "I wonder who
ever played on it ? But, O Harry ! come and look here ! I
thought this was another room in here, with a fire in it," she said,
as she lifted a curtain which hung over a recess. " Look ! it 's
only looking-glass in a door. Where does it go to ? Let 's see."
And with eager curiosity she turned the knob, and the door
opened, disclosing only a sort of inner closet, which had been
evidently employed for a writing-cabinet, as a writing-table stood
there, and book-cases filled with books.
What most attracted the attention of the children was a pic-
ture, which was hung exactly opposite the door, so that it met the
children face to face. It was the image of a young girl, dressed
in white, with long, black, curling hair falling down over her neck
and shoulders. The dark eyes had an expression both searching
and melancholy ; and it was painted in that peculiar manner,
which produces such weird effects on the beholder, in which the
eyes seem to be fixed upon the spectator, and to follow him on
whichever side he stands.
" What a pretty lady ! But she looks at us so ! " said Tina,
covering her eyes. " I almost thought it was a real woman."
" Whichever way we move, she looks after us," said Harry.
" She looks as if she would speak to us," said Tina ; " she
surely wants to say something."
" It is something very sad, then," said the boy, studying the
picture attentively. " She was not sad as mother was," said he,
with a delicate, spiritual instinct reading the impression of the
face. " Mother used to look very, very sad, but in a different
way, a better way, I think."
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE. 165
" Of course it is n't in the least like mother," said Tina.
" Mother had soft, bright hair, not black, like this ; and her
eyes were blue, like yours, Harry."
" I don't mean her hair or her eyes," said Harry ; " but when
mother was sad, she always used to pray. I don't think this one
looks as if she would pray," said the boy, rather under his breath.
There was, in fact, a lurking sparkle of haughty determination
in the depths of the mournful eyes, and a firm curve to the lines
of the mouth, an arching of the neck, and a proud carriage of the
head, that confirmed the boy's strictures, and indicated that, what-
ever sorrows might have crushed the poor heart that beat beneath
that fair form, they were borne in her own strength, with no
uplooking for aid.
Tina longed to open the drawers of the cabinet beneath the
picture, but Harry held her hand. " Tina, dear, what would
mother say ? " he said, reprovingly. " This is n't our house.
Whoever owns it would n't think it was wrong for us to stay
here in such a storm, but we certainly ought not to touch their
things."
" But we may go through the house, and see all the rooms,"
said Tina, who had a genuine feminine passion for rummaging,
and whose curiosity was piqued to the extreme point by the dis-
coveries already made. "I shall be afraid to sleep here to-
night, unless I know all that is in the house."
So the children went, hand in hand, through the various apart-
ments. The house was one of those stately manors which, before
the Revolutionary war, the titled aristocracy of England delight-
ed to reproduce on the virgin soil of America. Even to this
modern time, some of the old provincial towns in New England
preserve one or two of these monuments of the pride and pomp
of old colonial days, when America was one of the antechambers
of the English throne and aristocracy.
The histories of these old houses, if searched into, present
many romantic incidents, in which truth may seem wilder than
fiction. In the breaking of the ties between the mother country
and America, many of these stately establishments were suddenly
broken up, and the property, being subject to governmental claims
166 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
yet undecided, lay a long time unoccupied ; the real claimants
being in England, and their possessions going through all the pro-
cesses of deterioration and decay incident to property in the
hands of agents at a distance from the real owners. The moss
of legend and tradition grew upon these deserted houses. Life
in New England, in those days, had not the thousand stimulants
to the love of excitement which are to be found in the throng
and rush of modern society, and there was a great deal more of
story-telling and romancing in real life than exists now ; and the
simple villagers by their firesides delighted to plunge into the fath-
omless abyss of incident that came from the histories of grand,
unknown people across the water, who had established this inci-
dental connection with their neighborhood. They exaggerated
the records of the pomp and wealth that had environed them.
They had thrilling legends of romantic and often tragic incidents,
of which such houses had been the theatres. More than one of
them had its well-attested ghosts, Avhich, at all proper hours, had
been veritably seen to go through all those aimless ghostly per-
ambulations and performances which, according to village legends,
diversify the leisure of the spiritual state.
The house into which the children's wandering fortunes had
led them was one whose legends and history formed the topic of
many an excited hour of my childhood, as crooned over to me by
different story-telling gossips ; and it had, in its structure and
arrangements, the evident impress of days nevermore to be re-
produced in New England. Large and lofty apartments, some
of them still hung with tapestry, and some adorned with arches
and columns, were closed in from air and light by strong shutters,
although a dusky glimmer came through the heart-shaped holes
cut in them. Some of these apartments were quite dismantled
and bare. In others the furniture was piled together in con-
fusion, as if for- the purpose of removal. One or two chambers
were still thoroughly furnished, and bore the marks of having
been, at some recent period, occupied ; for there were mattresses
and pillows and piles of bedclothing on the great, stately bed-
steads.
" We might sleep in one of these rooms," said Harry.
THE OLD MANOR-HOUSE. 167
" O, no, no ! " said the child, clinging to him ; " I should be
afraid. That great, dreadful-looking, dark bed ! And who
knows what might be behind the curtains ! Let me sleep in the
bright little room, where we can see all around us. I should be
afraid that lady in the closet would walk about these rooms in the
night."
" Perhaps she did once," said Harry. " But come, let us go
down. The wind blows and howls so about these lonesome
rooms, it makes me afraid."
" How it rumbles down the chimneys ! " said Tina ; " and now
it squeals just as if somebody was hurting it. It 's a terrible
storm, is n't it ? "
" Yes, it 's well we are in a house at any rate," said Harry ;
" but let 's go down and bring in wood, and I '11 get some apples
and pears off the trees out by the back door."
And so the two poor little swallows chittered as they built
their small, innocent nest in the deserted house, as ignorant of
the great Before and After, as if they had had wings and feath-
ers, and round, bright bird-eyes, instead of curly, golden heads.
Harry brought in a quantity of fruit in Tina's little checked
apron, and, like two squirrels, they stored it under the old bro-
cade sofa.
" Now ever so much wood in the hall here," said Tina, with
the providence of a little housewife ; " because when the dark
night comes we shall be afraid to go into the wood-house."
Harry felt very large and very provident, and quite like a
householder, as he brought armful after armful and laid it outside
the door, wlrile Tina arranged some apples to roast on the mar-
ble hearth. " If we only could get something to eat every day,
we might live here always," she said.
And so that evening, when the night shadows came down
darkly on the house, though the storm without thundered and
beat and groaned amid the branches of the old trees, and rum-
bled and shook the chimneys of the solitary manor-house, there
was one nook that presented as bright and warm a picture as two
fair child-faces, with a background of strange antique furniture
and surroundings, could furnish. The fire had burned down into
168 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
great splendid glowing coals, in which the children, seated before
it on the tapestried hearth-rug, saw all sorts of strange faces.
Tina had insisted on keeping open the door of the cabinet where
the beautiful lady was, because, she said, she must be lonesome
in that dark closet by herself.
" I wish she would only smile," she said, as the sharp spires of
flame from a new stick of wood which she had just laid on, dancing
up, made the face seem to become living and tremulous as if with
emotion. " See, Hensel, she looks as if she were going to speak
to us."
And hours later the fire still burned in the little boudoir ; but
the two pretty child-faces lay cheek to-cheek in the wide, motherly
arms of the sofa, and the shadowy lady seemed to watch over
them silently from her lonely recess.
SAM LAWSOX'S DISCOVERIES. 169
CHAPTER XVI.
SAM LAWSON'S DISCOVERIES.
THE evening was closing in sharp and frosty, with a lowering
of wind and cloud that rendered fire-light doubly dear and
welcome, as we all drew our chairs round the great, glowing fire
in my grandmother's kitchen. I had my little block of wood,
which served as a footstool, far in the cavernous depths of one
end of the fireplace, close by Black Crcsar, who was busy mak-
ing me a popgun, while my grandmother sat at the other end
in her rocking-chair, rattling her knitting-needles. Uncle Fly
had just frisked in, and was perched, as was his wont, on the
very tip of his chair, where he sat fussily warming and rubbing
his hands, much as a meditative blue-bottle performs the same
operation with his fore feet.
" So," said my grandmother to my grandfather, in reproachful
tones, " you 've gone and shut the calf up from its mother."
" To be sure," said my grandfather ; " that was foreordained
and freely predetermined."
" Well, I say it 's a shame," sputtered my grandmother,
" poor creturs ! "
It was a part of the farming ordinance, when the calf waa
fated to be killed, to separate it for a day from its mother, a pro-
ceeding which never failed to excite the indignation of my grand-
mother, which she expressed always with as much life and fresh-
ness as if she had never heard of such a matter before in her life.
She was not, to be sure, precisely aware what was to be done
about it ; but in a general way she considered calf-killing as an
abominable cruelty, and the parting of calf and cow for a day
beforehand as an aggravation. My grandfather was fond of meet-
ing her with a sly use of some of the Calvinistic theological terms
which abounded in her favorite writers. The most considerate of
husbands often enjoy any quiet method of giving a sly tweak to
8
170 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
some cherished peculiarity of their yokefellows ; and there was
the least suggestion of a smile hovering over my grandfather's
face, which smile, in your quiet man, means two things,
first, that he is going to have his own way in spite of all you can
say, and, secondly, that he is quietly amused by your opposition.
" I say it 's a shame," quotli my grandmother, " and I always
shall. Hear that poor cow low ! She feels as bad as I should."
" Mother," said Aunt Lois, in an impatient tone, " I wonder
that you can't learn to let things go on as they must. What
would you have ? We must have fresh meat sometimes, and you
eat as much as any of us."
" I don't care, it 's too bad," said my grandmother, " and I al-
ways shall think so. If I had things my way, folks should n't eat
creatures at all."
" You M be a Brahmin," said my grandfather.
" No, I should n't be a Brahmin, either ; but I know an old
cow's feelings, and I would n't torment her just to save myself a
little trouble."
The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of Sam
Lawson, who came in with a long, lugubrious face, and an air of
solemn, mysterious importance, which usually was the herald of
some communication.
" Well, Sam," said my grandfather, " how are you ? "
" Middlin', Deacon," said Sam, mournfully, " only middlin'."
" Sit down, sit down," said my grandfather, " and tell us the
news."
"Wai, I guess I will. How kind o' revivin' and cheerful it
does look here," said Sam, seating himself in his usual attitude,
with his hands over the fire. " Lordy massy, it 's so different to
our house ! Hepsy hain't spoke a railly decent word to me since
the gineral trainin'. You know, Deacon, Monday, a week ago,
was gineral trainin' day over to Hopkinton, and Hepsy, she was
set in the idee that I should take her and the young nns to mus-
ter. 'All right, Hepsy,' says I, *ef I can borrow a hoss.' Wai,
I walked and walked clean up to Captain Brown's to borrow a
hoss, and I couldn't get none, and I walked clean down to Bill
Peters's, and I couldn't get none. Finally, Ned Parker, ho
SAM LAWSON'S DISCOVERIES.
lent me his'n. Wai, to be sure, his Loss has got the spring-
halt, that kind o' twitches up the waggin, and don't look so
genteel as some; but, lordy massy, 'twas all I could get. But
Hepsy, she blamed me all the same. And then she was at me
'cause she had n't got no gloves. Wai, I had n't no gret o'
change in my pocket, and I wanted to keep it for gingerbread
and sich for the young uns, so I thought I 'd jest borrow a pair
for her, and say nothin' ; and I went over and asked Mis' Captain
Brown, and over to Mis' Dana's, and round to two or three
places ; and finally Lady Lothrop, she said she 'd give me a old
pair o' hern. And I brought 'em to Hepsy ; and do you believe,
she throwed 'em right smack in my face. ' S'pose I 'm goin' to
wear such an old dirty pair as that ? ' says she. Wai, arter all, we
sot out, and Hepsy, she got clear beat out ; and when Hepsy does
get beat out she has spells, and she goes on awful, and they last
day arter day. Hepsy's spells is jest like these 'ere northeast
storms, they never do railly clear off, but kind o' wear out, as
't were, and this 'ere seems to be about one of her longest.
She was at me this mornin' fust thing 'fore I was out o' bed, cry-
in' and goin' on, and castin' on it up at me the men she might 'a'
hed if she had n't 'a' hed me, and the things they 'd 'a' done for
her, jest as if 't was my fault. * Lordy massy, Hepsy,' says I, 'I
ain't t' blame. I wish with all my heart you hed 'a' hed any on
'em you 'd ruther.' You see I wa' n't meanin' no 'fence, you
know, but just a bein' kind o' sympathizin' like, and she flew at
me 't oncet. Massy to us ! why, you 'd 'a' thought all them old
Sodom and Gomorrah sinners biled down wa' n't nothin' to me.
She did talk ridiculous. I tried to reason with her. Says I,
' Hepsy, see here now. Here you be in a good bed, in your own
house, and your kindlin's all split to make your fire, and I
split every one on 'em after twelve o'clock last night, and .you
a goin' on at this 'ere rate. Hepsy,' says I, ' it 's awful.' But,
lordy massy, how that 'ere woman can talk ! She begun agin,
and I could n't get in a word edgeways nor crossways nor no-
ways ; and so I jest got up and went round to the tavern, and
there I met Bill Moss and Jake Marshall, and we had some
crackers and cheese and a little suthin' hot with it, and it kind o'
172 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
'curred to me, as Hepsy was in one o' her spells, it would be a
good time to go kind o' Indianing round the country a spell till she
kind o' come to, ye know. And so I thought I 'd jest go t' other
side o' Hopkinton and see Granny Walkers, her that was
housekeeper to Lady Frankland, ye know, and see if I could n't
rake out the pertickelars of that 'ere Dench house. That 'ere
house has been a lyin' on my mind considerable, along back."
My ears began to prick up with great liveliness and animation
at this sound ; and, deserting Caesar, I went over and stood by
Sam, and surveyed him with fixed attention, wondering in the
mean time how a house could lie on his mind.
" Well," said my grandfather, " what did you hear ? "
" Wai, I did n't get over to her house ; but when I 'd walked a
pretty good piece I came across Widdah Peters's son, Sol Peters,
you know him, Mis' Badger, he lives over in Needmore with
a great, spankin' old gal they call Miss Asphyxy Smith. You 've
heard of Miss Sphyxy Smith, hain't you, Mis' Badger ? "
" Certainly I have," said my grandmother.
"Miss Asphyxia Smith is a smart, industrious woman," said
Aunt Lois ; " it is n't worth while to talk so about her. The world
would be better off," she continued, eying Sam with an air of
didactic severity, " if there were more people in it that keep to
their own business, like Miss Sphyxy."
" Wai, spuz so," said Sam Lawsou, with an innocent and virtu-
ous droop, not in the slightest degree recognizing the hint ; " but
now, you see, I'm coming to a pint. Sol, he asked me if anybody
over to Oldtown had seen or heard 'any thing of a couple of chil-
dren that had run away from Needmore. There was a boy and
a gal about nine or ten or under, that had been put out by the
parish. The boy was livin' with Old Crab Smith, and the gal
witli Miss Sphyxy."
" Well, I pity the child that Miss Sphyxy Smith has taken to
bring up, I must say," said my grandmother. " What business
have old maids a taking children to bring up, I want to know ?
Why, it is n't every hen that 's fit to bring up chickens. How
came the children there, anyway ? "
" Wai, you see, there come a woman along to Crab Smith's
SAM LAWSOX'S DISCOVERIES. 173
with these 'ere children. Sol says they 're real putty children,
putty-behaved as ever he see. The woman, she was took
down and died there. And so Old Crab, he took the boy ; and
Miss Sphyxy, she took the gal."
" Too bad," said my grandmother ; " poor motherless babes,
and nobody but Crab and Sphyxy Smith to do for 'em ! Some-
body ought to see about it."
" Wai, ye see, Sol, he said that Miss Sphyxy was as hard as a
grindstone on this gal, and they kep' the boy and gal apart, and
would n't let 'em see nor speak to each other ; and Sol says he
never did pity any poor, lonesome little critter as he did that 'ere
little gal. She used to lie abed nights, and sob and cry fit to
break her little heart."
" I should like to go and talk to that woman ! " said my grand-
mother, vengefully. " I wonder folks can be so mean ! I won-
der what such folks think of themselves, and where they expect
to go to ! "
" Wai, you see," continued Sam, " the young un was spicy ;
and when Miss Sphyxy was down on her too hard, the child, she
fit her, you know a rat '11 bite, a hen will peck, and a worm
will turn, and finally it come to a fight between 'em ; and Miss
Sphyxy, she gin her an awful whippin'. ' Lordy massy, Sol/
says I, when Sol was a tellin' me, ' you need n't say nothin' about
it. That 'ere gal 's got arms like a windmill ; she 's a regular
brown thrasher, she is, only she ain't got no music in her ; and
ef she undertook to thrash me, she 'd make out.' "
" Well, what became of the children ? " said my grandmother.
" Wai, you see, they run off together ; fact is, Sol says he
helped 'em off, and told 'em to come over to Oldtown. He says
he told 'em to inquire for Deacon Badger's."
" I believe so," said Aunt Lois, severely. " Every man,
woman, and child that wants taking care of is sent straight to
our house."
"And good reason they should, Lois," said my grandmother,
who was wide awake. " I declare, people ought to be out look-
ing for them. 'Liakim, you are always flying about ; why don't
you look 'em up ? "
174 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Uncle Fly jumped up with alacrity. " To be sure, they ought
to be looked after," he said, running to the window. " They
ought to be looked after right off; they must be attended to."
And Uncle Fly seemed to have an indefinite intention of pitch-
ing straight through the window in pursuit.
Sam Lawson eyed him with a serene gravity. He felt the
importance of being possessed of all the information the subject
in question admitted of, which he was determined to develop in
an easy and leisurely manner, without any undue hurry or heat.
" Mr. Sheril," he said, " the fust thing you '11 hev to find out is
where they be. It's no use tearin' round gen'ily. Where be
they ? that 's the question."
" To be sure, to be sure," said Uncle Fly. '' Well, what you
got to say about that ? "
" Wai, you jest set down now, and be kind o' composed. I 'in
a coinin' to that 'ere pint in time," said Sam. " That 'ere 's jest
what I says to Sol. ' Sol,' says J, ' where be they ? ' And Sol,
he says to me, ' I dunno. They might 'a' gone with the Indians,'
says Sol, ' or they might 'a' got lost in the Oldtown woods ' ; and
jest as we was a talkin', we see old Obscue a comin' along. He
was out on a tramp over to Hopkinton, Obscue was, and we asked
him about 'em. Wai, Obscue, he says that a gal and boy like
what we talked of had slep' in his wife's hut not long sence. You
know Obscue's wife ; she makes baskets, and goes round sellin'
on 'em. I could n't fairly get out o' Obscue what day 't was, nor
which way they went arter ; but it was clear that them was the
ones."
" Then," said Uncle Fly, " they must be somewhere. They
may have lost their way in the Oldtown woods, and wandered up
and down. There ought to be a party started out to look for
'em to-morrow morning."
" Now look here, Mr. Sheril," said Sam, " I think we 'd
better kind o' concentrate our idees on some one pint afore we
start out, and I '11 tell you what I 'm a thinkin' of. You know I
was a tellin' you that I 'd seen smoke coming out o' the chirnbly
of the Dench house. Now I jest thought them poor little robins
might have jest got in there. You know it stormed like ven-
SAM LAWSON'S DISCOVERIES. 175
geance last week, and the little critters might have took shelter
in that 'ere lonesome old house."
" Poor babes ! " said my grandmother. " 'Liakim, you go up
there and see."
" Well, I tell you," said Uncle Eliakim, " I '11 be up bright and
early with my old horse and wagon, and go over to the Dench
house and see" about it."
" Wai, now," said Sam, " if you would n't mind, I '11 just ride
over with you. I wanted to kind o' go over that 'ere house.
I 've had it on my mind a good while."
" Is that the haunted house ? " said I, in a whisper.
" Wai, it 's the one they call haunted, but 't ain't best to be
"Traid of nothin'," said Sam, surveying ine paternally, and wink-
ing very obviously with one eye at Uncle Eliakim ; quite forget-
ting the long roll of terrible suggestions he had made on the
same subject a few evenings before.
" But you told about the man in a long red cloak, and the boy
they threw in a well, and a woman in white."
" Lordy massy, what ears young ones has ! " said Sam, throw-
ing up his hands pathetically. "I never thought as you was
round, Horace; but you mustn't never mind nolhin' about it.
There ain't really no such thing as ghosts."
" I want to go over and see the house," said I.
" Well, well, you shall," said Uncle Fly ; " but you must wake
up bright and early. I shall be off by six o'clock."
"Well, now, mother," said Aunt Lois, "I just want to know
if you are going to make our house an asylum for all the tramp-
crs and all the stray children in the neighboring parishes?
Have we got to keep these children, or are we going to send 'em
back where they belong ? "
" Send 'em back to Old Crab Smith and Miss Sphyxy ? " said
my grandmother. " I 'd like to see myself doing that."
" Well, then, are we going to maintain 'em ? " said Aunt
Lois ; " because I want to know definitely what this is coming
to."
" We '11 see," said my grandmother. "It 's our business to
do good as we have opportunity. We must n't reap the corners
176 OLD! OWN FOLKS.
of our fields, nor beat off all our olive-berries, but leave 'em for
the poor, the fatherless, and the widow, Scripture says."
"Well, I guess our olive-berries are pretty well beaten off
now, and our fields reaped, corners and all," said Lois ; " and I
don't see why we needs must intermeddle with children that the
selectmen in Needmore have put out."
Now Aunt Lois was a first-rate belligerent power in oui
family circle, and in many cases carried all before her ; but my
grandmother always bore her down on questions like these, and
it was agreed, nem. con., that the expedition to look up the
wanderers should take place the next morning.
The matter being thus arranged, Sam settled back with a jocu-
lar freedom of manner, surveying the fire, and flopping his hands
over it, smiling to himself in a manner that made it evident that
he had a further reserve' of something on his mind to communi-
cate. " This 'ere Miss Sphyxy Smith 's a rich old gal, and 'mazin'
smart to work," he began. " Tell you, she holds all she gets.
Old Sol, he told me a story 'bout her that was a pretty good
un."
" What was it ? " said my grandmother.
"Wai, ye see, you 'member old Parson Jedutlmn Kendall,
that lives up in Stony town : he lost his wife a year ago last
Thanksgiving, and he thought 't was about time he hed another ;
so he comes down and consults our Parson Lothrop. Says he,
'I want a good, smart, neat, economical woman, with a good
property. I don't care nothin' about her bein' handsome. In
fact, I ain't particular about anything else/ says he. Wai, Par-
son Lothrop, says he, ' I think, if that 's the case, I know jest the
woman to suit ye. She owns a clear, handsome property, and
she 's neat and economical ; but she 's no beauty.' ' 0, beauty is
nothin' to me,' says Parson Kendall ; and so he took the direc-
tion. Wai, one day he hitched up his old one-hoss shay, and
kind o' brushed up, and started off a courtin'. Wai, the parson
he come to the house, and he was tickled to pieces with the looks
o' things outside, 'cause the house is all well shingled and paint-
ed, and there ain't a picket loose nor a nail wantin' nowhere.
' This 'ere 's the woman for me,' says Parson Kendall. So he
SAM LAWSON'S DISCOVERIES. 177
goes up and raps hard on the front door with his whip-handle.
Wai, you see, Miss Sphyxy, she was jest goin' out to help get in
her hay. She had on a pair o' clompin' cowhide boots, and a
pitchfork in her hand, just goin' out when she heard the rap.
So she come jest as she was to the front door. Now you know
Parson Kendall 's a little midget of a man ; but he stood there
on the step kind o' smilin' and genteel, lickin' his lips and lookin'
so agreeable ! Wai, the front door kind o' stuck, front doors
gen'ally do, ye know, 'cause they ain't opened very often, and
Miss Sphyxy, she had to pull and haul and put to all her strength,
and finally it come open with a bang, and she 'peared to the par-
son, pitchfork and all, sort o' frownin' like.
" t What do you want ? ' says she ; for you see Miss Sphyxy
ain't no ways tender to the men.
" ' I want to see Miss Asphyxia Smith/ says he, very civil,
thinking she was the hired gal.
" ' 1 'm Miss Asphyxia Smith/ says she. ' What do you want
o' me ? '
" Parson Kendall, he jest took one good look on her, from top
to toe. ' Nothing' says he, and turned right round and went
down the steps like lightnin'.
" The way she banged that 'ere door, Sol said, was lively.
He jumped into his shay, and I tell you his old hoss was waked
up for once. The way that 'ere old shay spun and bounced was
a sight. And when he come to Oldtown, Parson Lothrop was
walkin' out in his wig and cocked hat and ruffles, as serene as a
pictur, and he took off his hat to him as handsome as a gen-
tleman could ; but Parson Kendall, he driv right by and never
bowed. He was awful riled, Parson Kendall was ; but he
could n't say nothin', 'cause he 'd got all he asked for. But the
story got out, and Sol and the men heard it, and you 'd a thought
they 'd never be done laughin' about it. Sol says, if he was to
be hung for it the next minute, he never can help laughin' when
he thinks how kind o' scared little Parson Kendall looked when
Miss Asphyxia 'peared to him on the doorstep."
" Well, well, well/' said Uncle Eliakim, " if we are going to
the Dench house to-morrow morning, you must all be up early,
8* L
178 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
for I mean to be off by daylight ; and we 'd better all go to bed."
"With which remark he fluttered out of the kitchen.
" 'Liakini '11 be along here by ten o'clock to-morrow," said my
grandfather, quietly. " I don't suppose he 's promised more than
forty people to do something for them to-morrow morning."
" Yes," said Aunt Lois, " and the linch-pins of the wagon are
probably lost, and the tire of the wheels sprung ; but he '11
be up before daylight, and maybe get along some time in the
forenoon."
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 179
CHAPTEE XVII.
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
MY story now approaches a point in which I am soon to
meet and begin to feel the force of a train of circumstances
which ruled and shaped my whole life. That I had been hitherto
a somewhat exceptional child may perhaps have been made ap-
parent in the incidents I have narrated. I was not, in fact, in
the least like what an average healthy boy ought to be. My
brother Bill was exactly that, and nothing more. He was a
good, growing, well-limbed, comfortably disposed animal, reason-
ably docile, and capable, under fair government, of being made to
go exactly in any paths his elders chose to mark out for him.
It had been settled, the night after my father's funeral, that
my Uncle Jacob was to have him for a farm-boy, to work in the
summer on the farm, and to pick up his education as he might at
the district school in the winter season ; and thus my mother was
relieved of the burden of his support, and Aunt Lois of his super-
fluous activity in our home department. To me the loss was a
small one ; for except a very slight sympathy of souls in the mat-
ter of fish-hooks and popguns, there was scarcely a single feel-
ing that we had in common. I had a perfect passion for books,
and he had a solid and well-pronounced horror of them, which
seems to belong to the nature of a growing boy. I could read, as
by a kind of preternatural instinct, as soon as I could walk ; and
reading was with me at ten years a devouring passion. No mat-
ter what the book was that was left in my vicinity, I read it as
by an irresistible fascination. To be sure, I preferred stories,
history, and lively narrative, where such material was to be had ;
but the passion for reading was like hunger, it must be fed, and,
in the absence of palatable food, preyed upon what it could find.
So it came to pass that theological tracts, treatises on agriculture,
.old sermons, anything, in short, that could be raked out of the
180 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
barrels and boxes in my grandfather's garret, would hold me ab-
sorbed in some shady nook of the house when I ought to have been
out playing as a proper boy should. I did not, of course, under-
stand the half of what I read, and miscalled the words to myself
in a way that would have been laughable had anybody heard me ;
but the strange, unknown sounds stimulated vague and dreamy
images in my mind, which were continually seething, changing,
and interweaving, like fog-wreaths by moonlight, and formed a
phantasmagoria in which I took a quaint and solemn delight.
But there was one peculiarity of my childhood which I have
hesitated with an odd sort of reluctance to speak of, and yet
which so powerfully influenced and determined my life, and that
of all with whom I was connected, that it must find some place
here. I was, as I said, dreamy and imaginative, with a mind full
of vague yearnings. But beside that, through an extreme deli-
cacy of nervous organization, my childish steps were surrounded
by a species of vision or apparition so clear and distinct that I
often found great difficulty in discriminating between the forms of
real life and these shifting shapes, that had every appearance of
reality, except that they dissolved at the touch. All my favorite
haunts had their particular shapes and forms, which it afforded
me infinite amusement to watch in their varying movements.
Particularly at night, after I had gone to bed and the candle
was removed from my room, the whole atmosphere around my
bed seemed like that which Raphael has shadowed forth around
his Madonna San Sisto, a palpitating crowd of faces and forms
changing in dim and gliding quietude. I have often wondered
whether any personal experience similar to mine suggested to the
artist this living background to his picture. For the most part,
these phantasms were agreeable to me, and filled me with a
dreamy delight. Sometimes distinct scenes or visions would rise
before my mind, in which I seemed to look far beyond the walls
of the house, and to see things passing wherein were several
actors. I remember one of these, which I saw very often, repre-
senting a venerable old white-headed man playing on a violin.
He was always accompanied by a tall, majestic woman, dressed
in a strange, outlandish costume, in which I particularly remarked
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 181
a high fur cap of a peculiar form. As he played, the woman ap-
peared to dance in time to the music. Another scene which fre-
quently presented itself to my eyes was that of a green meadow
by the side of a lake of very calm water. From a grove on one
side of the lake would issue a miniature form of a woman clothed
in white, with a wide golden girdle around her waist, and long,
black hair hanging down to her middle, which she constantly
smoothed down with both her hands, with a gentle, rhythmical
movement, as she approached me. At a certain point of ap-
proach, she always turned her back, and began a rapid retreat
into the grove; and invariably as she turned there appeared be-
hind her the image of a little misshapen dwarf, who pattered after
her with ridiculous movements which always made me laugh.
Night after night, during a certain year of my life, this panto-
mime never failed to follow the extinguishment of the candle, and
it was to me a never-failing source of delight. One thing was
peculiar about these forms, they appeared to cause a vibration
of the great central nerves of the body, as when a harp-string is
struck. So I could feel in myself the jar of the dwarf's patter-
ing feet, the soft, rhythmic movement of the little woman stroking
down her long hair, the vibrations of the violin, and the steps of
the dancing old woman. Nobody knew of this still and hidden
world of pleasure which was thus nightly open to me. My
mother used often to wonder, when, hours after she put ine to
bed, she would find me lying perfectly quiet, wkh my eyes wide-
ly and calmly open. Once or twice I undertook to tell her what
I saw, but was hushed up with, " Nonsense, child ! there has n't
been anybody in the room ; you should n't talk so."
The one thing that was held above all things sacred and invio-
lable in a child's education in those old Puritan days was to form
habits of truth. Every statement received an immediate and
unceremonious sifting, and anything that looked in the least like
a departure from actual verity was met with prompt and strin-
gent discouragement. When my mother repeated before Aunt
Lois some of my strange sayings, she was met with the down-
right declaration: "That child will be an awful liar, Susy, if
you don't keep a strict lookout on him. Don't you let him tell
you any stones like that."
182 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
So I early learned silence ; but my own confidence in the real-
ity of my secondary world was not a whit diminished. Like
Galileo, who said, "It does move, nevertheless," so I, when I once
had the candle out at night, snapped my fingers mentally at Aunt
Lois, and enjoyed my vision.
One peculiarity of these appearances was that certain of them
seemed like a sort of genii loci, shapes belonging to certain
places. The apparition of the fairy woman with the golden girdle
only appeared in a certain room where I slept one year, and
which had across one of its corners a sort of closet called a buffet.
From this buffet the vision took its rise, and when my parents
moved to another house it never appeared again.
A similar event in my shadow-world had marked our com-
ing to my grandmother's to live. The old violin-player and his
wife had for a long time been my nightly entertainers ; but the
first night after we were established in the apartment given up to
our use by Aunt Lois, I saw them enter as they usually did, seem-
ing to come right through the wall of the room. They, how-
ever, surveyed the apartment with a sort of confused, discon-
tented movement, and seemed to talk to each other with their
backs to me ; finally I heard the old woman say, " We can't stay
here," and immediately I saw them passing through the wall of
the house. I saw after them as clearly as if the wall had dis-
solved and given my eyes the vision of all out of doors. They
went to my grandfather's wood-pile and looked irresolutely round ;
finally they mounted on the pile, and seemed to sink gradually
through it and disappear, and I never saw them afterwards.
But another of the companions of my solitude was more con-
stant to me. This was the form of a young boy of about my
own age, who for a year past had frequently come to me at night,
and seemed to look lovingly upon me, and with whom I used to
have a sort of social communion, without words, in a manner
which seemed to me far more perfect than human language. I
thought to him, and in return I received silent demonstrations of
sympathy and fellowship from him. I called him Harvey, and
used, as I lay looking in his face, mentally to tell him many things
about the books I read, the games I played, and the childish joys
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 183
and griefs I had ; and in return he seemed to express affection
and sympathy by a strange communication, as lovers sometimes
talk to each other by distant glances.
Attendant on all these exceptional experiences, perhaps re-
sulting from them, was a peculiar manner of viewing the human
beings by whom I was surrounded. It is common now-a-days to
speak of the sphere or emanation that surrounds a person. To
my childish mind there was a vivid perception of something of
this nature with regard to every one whom I approached. There
were people for whom I had a violent and instinctive aversion,
whose presence in the room gave me a pain so positive that it
seemed almost physical, and others, again, to whom I was strong-
ly attracted, and whose presence near me filled me with agree-
able sensations, of which I could give no very definite account.
For this reason, I suppose, the judgments which different people
formed concerning me varied extremely. Miss Mehitable, for
example, by whom I was strongly attracted, thought rne one of
the most amiable of boys ; while my poor Aunt Lois was certain
I was one of the most trying children that ever were born.
My poor mother ! I surely loved her, and yet her deficient
vital force, her continual sadness and discouragement, acted on
my nerves as a constant weight and distress, against which J
blindly and instinctively struggled ; while Aunt Lois's very foot-
step on the stair seemed to rouse every nerve of combativeness
in my little body into a state of bristling tension. I remember
that when I was about six or seven years old I had the scarlet-
fever, and Aunt Lois, who was a most rampant and energetic
sick-nurse, undertook to watch with me ; but my cries and resist-
ance were so terrible that I was thought to be going deranged.
Finally the matter was adjusted by Sam Lawson's offering to
take the place, upon which I became perfectly tranquil, and re-
signed myself into his hands with the greatest composure and
decorum. Sam was to me, during my childhood, a guide, phi-
losopher, and friend. The lazy, easy, indefinite atmosphere of
being that surrounded him was to me like the haze of Indian
summer over a landscape, and I delighted to bask in it. Noth-
ing about him was any more fixed than the wavering shadows
184 OLD! OWN FOLKS.
of clouds ; lie was a boundless world of narrative and dreamy
suggestion, tending to no point and having no end, and in it
I delighted. Sam, besides, had a partiality for all those haunts
in which I took pleasure. Near our house was the old town
burying-ground, where reposed the bones of generations of In-
dian sachems, elders, pastors, and teachers, converted from the
wild forests, who, Christianized and churched, died in the faith,
and were gathered into Christian burial. On its green hillocks I
loved to sit and watch and dream long after sundown or moon-
rise, and fancy I saw bands of wavering shapes, and hope that
some one out of the crowd might have a smile of recognition or
a spiritual word for me.
My mother and grandmother and Aunt Lois were horror-
stricken by such propensities, indicating neither more nor less
than indefinite coughs and colds, with early death in the 'rear;
and however much in the way a little boy always seemed in those
times in the active paths of his elders, yet it was still esteemed
a primary duty to keep him in the world. " Horace, what do
you go and sit in the graveyard for ? " would my grandmother
say. " I should think you 'd be 'fraid something would 'pear to
you."
" I want something to appear, grandmother."
" Pshaw, pshaw ! no, you don't. What do you want to be so
odd for ? Don't you ever say such things."
Sam, however, was willing to aid and abet me in strolling and
lounging anywhere and at any hour, and lent a willing ear to my
tales of what I saw, and had in his capacious wallet a pendent
story or a spiritual precedent for anything that I could mention.
On this night, after he had left me, I went to bed with my
mind full of the haunted house, and all that was to be hoped or
feared from its exploration. Whether this was the cause or not,
the result was that Harvey appeared nearer and more friendly
than ever ; and he held by his hand another boy, whose figure
appeared to me like a faintly discerned form in a mist. Some-
times the mist seemed to waver and part, and I caught indistinct
glimpses of bright yellow curls and clear blue eyes, and then
Harvey smiled and shook his head. When he began to disap-
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 185
pear, he said to me, " Good by"; and I felt an inward assurance
that he was about to leave me. I said my " Good by " aloud,
and stretched out my hands.
" Why, Horace, Horace ! " said my mother, waking suddenly
at the sound of my voice, " Horace, wake up ; you 've been
dreaming."
I had not even been asleep, but I did not tell her so, and turn-
ing over, as I usually did when the curtain fell over my dream-
land, I was soon asleep. I was wide awake with the earliest
peep of dawn the next morning, and had finished dressing my-
self before my mother awoke.
Ours was an early household, and the brisk tap of Aunt
Lois's footsteps, and the rattling of chairs and dishes in the
kitchen, showed that breakfast was in active preparation.
My grandfather's prediction with regard to my Uncle Eliakim
proved only too correct. The fact was, that the poor man lived
always in the whirl of a perfect Maelstrom of promises and en-
gagements, which were constantly converging towards every hour
of his unoccupied time. His old wagon and horse both felt
the effects of such incessant activity, and such deficient care and
attention as were consequent upon it, and were at all times in a
state of dilapidation. Therefore it was that the next morning
nine, ten, and eleven o'clock appeared, and no Uncle Eliakim.
Sam Lawson had for more than two hours been seated in an
expectant attitude on our doorstep ; but as the sun shone warm,
and he had a large mug of cider between his hands, he appeared
to enjoy his mind with great equanimity.
Aunt Lois moved about the house with an air and manner of
sharp contempt, which exhibited itself even in the way she did
her household tasks. She put down plates as if she despised
them, and laid sticks of wood on the fire with defiant thumps, as
much as to say that she knew some things that had got to be in
time and place if others were not ; but she spake no word.
Aunt Lois, as I have often said before, was a good Christian,
and held it her duty to govern her tongue. True, she said many
sharp and bitter things ; but nobody but herself and her God
knew how many more she would have said had she not reined
186 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
herself up in conscientious silence. But never was there a wo-
man whose silence could express more contempt and displeasure
than hers. You could feel it in the air about you, though she
never said a word. You could feel it in the rustle of her dress,
in the tap of her heels over the floor, in the occasional flash of
her sharp, black eye. She was like a thunder-cloud whose quiet
is portentous, and from which you every moment expect a flash
or an explosion. This whole morning's excursion was contrary
toher mind and judgment, an ill-advised, ill-judged, shiftless
proceeding, and being entered on in a way as shiftless.
" What time do you suppose it is, mother?" she at last said to
my grandmother, who was busy in her buttery.
" Massy, Lois ! I dare n't look," called out my grandmother,
who was apt to fall behindhand of her desires in the amount of
work she could bring to pass of a, morning. " I don't want to
know."
" Well, it 's eleven o'clock," said Lois, relentlessly, " and no
signs of Uncle 'Liakim yet ; and there 's Sam Lawson, I s'pose
he's going to spend the day on our doorstep."
Sam Lawson looked after my Aunt Lois as she went out of
the kitchen. " Lordy massy, Horace, I would n't be so kind o'
unreconciled as she is all the time for nothin'. Now / might get
into a fluster 'cause / 'm kep' a waitin', but I don't. I think it 's
our duty to be willin' to wait quiet till things come round ; this
'ere 's a world where things can't be driv', and folks must n't set
their heart on havin' everything come out jes' so, 'cause ef they
do they '11 allers be in a stew, like Hepsy and Miss Lois there.
Let 'em jest wait quiet, and things allers do come round in the
end as well or better 'n ef you worried."
And as if to illustrate and justify this train of thought, Uncle
Eliakim's wagon at this moment came round the corner of the
street, driving at a distracted pace. The good man came with
such headlong speed and vivacity that his straw hat was taken
off by the breeze, and flew far behind him, and he shot up to our
door, as he usually did to that of the meeting-house, as if he
were going to drive straight in.
"Lordy massy, Mr. Sheril," said Sam, "don't get out; I'll
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 187
get your hat. Horace, you jest run and pick it up ; that 's a
good boy."
I ran accordingly, but my uncle had sprung out as lively as an
autumn grasshopper. " I 've been through a sea of troubles this
morning," he said. " I lent my waggin to Jake Marshall yester-
day afternoon, to take his wife a ride. I thought if Jake was a
mind to pay the poor woman any attention, I 'd help ; but when
he brought it back last night, one of the bolts was broken, and
the harness gave out in two places."
" Want to know ? " said Sam, leisurely examining the establish-
ment. "I think the neighbors ought to subscribe to keep up
your team, Mr. Sheril, for it 's free to the hull on 'em."
" And what thanks does he get ? " said Aunt Lois, sharpl}'.
" Well, Uncle 'Liakim, it 's almost dinner-time."
" I know it, I know it, I know it, Lois. But there 's been a
lot o' things to do this morning. Just as I got the waggin mended
come Aunt Bathsheba Sawin's boy and put me in mind that I
promised to carry her corn to grind ; and I had to stop and take
that round to mill ; and then I remembered the pills that was to
go to Hannah Dexter "
" I dare say, and forty more things like it," said Aunt Lois.
" Well, jump in now," said Uncle Fly ; " we '11 be over and
back in no time."
" You may as well put it off till after dinner now," said Aunt
Lois.
" Could n't stop for that," said Uncle 'Liakim ; " my afternoon
is all full now. I 've got to be in twenty places before night."
And away we rattled, while Aunt Lois stood looking after us
in silent, unutterable contempt.
" Stop ! stop ! stop ! Whoa ! whoa ! " said Uncle 'Liakim,
drawing suddenly up. " There 's that plaster for Widdah Pe-
ters, after all. I wonder if Lois would n't just run up with it."
By this time he had turned the horse, who ran, with his usual
straightforward, blind directness, in a right line, against the
doorstep again.
" Well, what now ? " said Aunt Lois, appearing at the door.
" Why, Lois, I 've just come back to tell you I forgot I prom-
188 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
ised to carry Widdah Peters that plaster for lumbago ; could n't
you just find time to run up there with it ? "
" Well, give it to me," said Aunt Lois, with sharp precision,
and an air of desperate patience.
" Yes, ye*s, I will," said Uncle Fly, standing up and beginning
a rapid search into that series of pockets which form a distin-
guishing mark of masculine habiliments, searching with such
hurried zeal that he really seemed intent on tearing himself to
pieces. " Here 't is ! no, pshaw, pshaw ! that 's my handker-
chief! O, here! pshaw, pshaw ! Why, where is it ? Didn't
I put it in ? or did I 0, here it is in my vest-pocket ; no,
though. Where a plague ! " and Uncle Fly sprang from the
wagon and began his usual active round-and-round chase after
himself, slapping his pockets, now before and now behind, and
whirling like a dancing dervis, while Aunt Lois stood regarding
him with stony composure.
" If you could ever think where anything was, before you be-
gan to talk about it, it would be an improvement," she said.
" Well, fact is," said Uncle Eliakim, " now I think of it, Mis'
Sheril made me change my coat just as I came out, and that 's
the whole on 't. You just run up, Lois, and tell Mis' Sheril to
send one of the boys down to Widdah Peters's with the plaster
she '11 find in the pocket, right-hand side. Come now, get
up."
These last words were addressed, not to Aunt Lois, but to the
horse, who, kept in rather a hungry and craving state by his mas-
ter's hurrying manner of life, had formed the habit of sedulously
improving every spare interval in catching at a mouthful of any-
thing to eat, and had been accordingly busy in cropping away a
fringe of very green grass that was growing up by the kitchen
doorstep, from which occupation he was remorselessly twitched
up and started on an impetuous canter.
" Wai, now I hope we 're fairly started," said Sam Lawson ;
" and, Mr. Sheril, you may as well, while you are about it, take
the right road as the wrong one, 'cause that 'ere saves time. It 's
pleasant enough anywhere, to be sure, to-day ; but when a body 's
goin' to a place, a body likes to get there, as it were."
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 189
" Well, well, well," said Uncle Fly, " we 're on the right road,
ain't we ? "
" Wai, so fur you be ; but when you come out on the plains,
you must take the fust left-hand road that drives through the
woods, and you may jest as well know as much aforehand."
" Much obliged to you," said my uncle. " I reely had n't
thought particularly about the way."
" S'pose not," said Sam, composedly ; " so it 's jest as well you
took me along. Lordy massy, there ain't a road nor a cart-path
round Oldtown that I hain't been over, time and time agin. I be-
lieve I could get through any on 'em the darkest night that ever
was hatched. Jake Marshall and me has been Indianing round
these 'ere woods more times 'n you could count. It 's kind o'
pleasant, a nice bright day like this 'ere, to be a joggin' along in
the woods. Everything so sort o' still, ye know ; and ye hear
the chestnuts a droppin', and the wa'nuts. Jake and me, last
fall, went up by Widdah Peters's one day, and shuck them trees,
and got nigh about a good bushel o' wa'nuts. I used to kind o'
like to crack 'em for the young uns, nights, last winter, when
Hepsy 'd let em sit up. Though she 's allers for drivin' on 'em
all oiF to bed, and makin' it kind o' solitary, Hepsy is." And
Sam concluded the conjugal allusion with a deep sigh.
" Have you ever been into the grounds of the Dench house ? "
said Uncle Fly.
" Wai, no, not reely ; but Jake, he has ; and ben into the
house too. There was a fellow named 'Biah Smith that used to
be a kind o' servant to the next family that come in after Lady
Frankland went out, and he took Jake all over it once when there
wa' n't nobody there. 'Biah, he said that when Sir Harry lived
there, there was one room that was always kept shet up, and
wa' n't never gone into, and in that 'ere room there was the long
red cloak, and the hat and sword, and all the clothes he hed
on when he was buried under the ruins in that 'ere earthquake.
They said that every year, when the day of the earthquake come
round, Sir Harry used to spend it a fastin' and prayin' in that
'ere room, all alone. 'Biah says that he had talked with a fellow
that was one of Sir Harry's body-servants, and he told him that
190 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Sir Harry used to come out o' that 'ere room lookin' more like a
ghost than a live man, when he' d fasted and prayed for twenty-
four hours there. Nobody knows what might have 'peared to
him there."
I wondered much in my own quiet way at this story, and mar-
velled whether, in Sir Harry's long, penitential watchings, he had
seen the air of the room all tremulous with forms and faces such
as glided around me in my solitary hours.
"Naow, you see," said Sam Lawson, "when the earthquake
come, Sir Harry, he was a driving with a court lady ; and she,
poor soul, went into 'tarnity in a minit, 'thout a minit to pre-
pare. And I 'spect there ain't no reason to s'pose but what
she was a poor, mis'able Roman Catholic. So her prospects
could n't have been noways encouragin'. And it must have
borne on Sir Harry's mind to think she should be took and
he spared, when he was a cuttin' up just in the way he was. I
should n't wonder but she should 'pear to him. You know they
say there is a woman in white walks them grounds, and 'Biah, he
says, as near as he can find out, it 's that 'ere particular chamber
as she allers goes to. 'Biah said he 'd seen her at the windows a
wringin' her hands and a cryin' fit to break her heart, poor soul.
Kind o' makes a body feel bad, 'cause, arter all, 't wa! n't her fault
she was born a Roman Catholic, now was it ? "
The peculiarity of my own mental history had this effect on
me from a child, that it wholly took away from me all dread of
the supernatural. A world of shadowy forms had always been
as much a part of my short earthly experience as the more solid
and tangible one of real people. I had just as quiet and natural
a feeling about one as the other. I had not the slightest doubt,
on hearing Sam's story, that the form of the white lady did ten-
ant those deserted apartments ; and so far from feeling any chill
or dread in the idea, I felt only a sort of curiosity to make her
acquaintance.
Our way to the place wound through miles of dense forest.
Sir Harry had chosen it, as a retreat from the prying eyes and
slanderous tongues of the world, in a region of woodland soli-
tude. And as we trotted leisurely under the bright scarlet and
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 191
yellow boughs of the forest, Uncle Eliakim and Sain discoursed
of the traditions of the place we were going to.
" Who was it bought the place after Lady Frankland went to
England ? " said Uncle Eliakim.
" "Wai, I believe 't was let a spell. There was some French
folks lied it 'long through the war. I heerd tell that they was
pretty high people. I never could quite make out when they
went off; there was a good many stories round about it. I
did n't clearly make out how 't was, till Bench got it. . Bench,
you know, got his money in a pretty peculiar way, ef all they
says 's true."
" How 's that ? " said my uncle.
" "Wai, they do say he got the great carbuncle that was at the
bottom of Sepaug River. You 've heard about the great carbun-
cle, I s'pose ? "
" O, no ! do pray tell me about it," said I, interrupting with
fervor.
" Why, did n't you never hear 'bout that ? want to know.
Wai, I '11 tell ye, then. I know all 'bout it. Jake Marshall, he
told me that Bench fust told him, and he got it from old Mother
Ketury, ye know, a regelar old heathen Injun Ketury is,
and folks do go so fur as to say that in the old times Ketury 'd
V ben took up for a witch, though I never see no harm in her
ways. Ef there be sperits, and we all know there is, what 's the
harm o' Ketury 's seem' on 'em ? "
" Maybe she can't help seeing them," suggested I.
" Jes' so, jes' so ; that 'ere 's what I telled Jake when we 's a
talkin' it over, and he said he did n't like Bench's havin* so much
to do with old Ketury. But la, old Ketury could say the
Lord's Prayer in Injun, cause I 've heard her ; though she
would n't say it when she did n't want to and she would say it
when she did, jest as the fit took her. But lordy massy,
them wild Injuns, they ain't but jest half folks, they 're so kind
o' wild, and birchy and bushy as a body may say. Ef they
take religion at all, it 's got to be in their own way. Ef you get
the wild beast all out o' one on 'em, there don't somehow seem to
be enough left to make an ordinary smart man of, so much on
192 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
'em's wild. Anyhow, Dencli, he was thick with Ketury, and slie
told him all about the gret carbuncle, and gin him directions
how to get it."
" But I don't know what a great carbuncle is," I interrupted.
" Lordy massy, boy, did n't you never read in your Bible
about the New Jerusalem, and the precious stones in the founda-
tion, that shone like the sun ? Wai, the carbuncle was one on
'em."
" Did it fall down out of heaven into the river ? " said I.
"Mebbe," said Sam. "At any rate Ketury, she told 'em
what they had to do to get it. The} 7 had to go out arter it jest
exactly at twelve o'clock at night, when the moon was full.
You was to fast all the day before, and go fastin', and say the
Lord's Prayer in Injun afore you went ; and when you come to
where 't was, you was to dive after it. But there wa' n't to be a
word spoke ; if there was, it went right off."
" What did they have to say the prayer in Indian for ? "
said I.
" Lordy massy, boy, I s'pose 't was 'cause 't was Indian sperits
kep' a watch over it. Any rate 't was considerable of a pull on
'em, 'cause Ketury, she had to teach 'em ; and she wa' n't allers
in the sperit on 't. Sometimes she 's crosser 'n torment, Ketury
is. Bench, he gin her fust and last as much as ten dollars, so
Jake says. However, they got all through with it, and then come
a moonlight night, and they went out. Jake says it was the
splendidest moonlight ye ever did see, all jest as still, only
the frogs and the turtles kind o' peepin' ; and they did n't say a
word, and rowed out past the pint there, where the water 's ten
feet deep, and he looked down and see it a shinin' on the bottom
like a great star, making the waters all light like a lantern.
Dench, he dived for it, Jake said ; and he saw him put his hand
right on it ; and he was so tickled, you know, to see he 'd got it,
that he could n't help hollerin' right out, " There, you got it ! "
and it was gone. Dench was mad enough to 'a' killed him ;
'cause, when it goes that 'ere way, you can't see it agin for a year
and a day. But two or three years arter, all of a sudden,
Dench, he seemed to kind o' spruce up and have a deal o'
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 193
money to spend. He said an uncle had died and left it to him
in England ; but Jake Marshall says you "11 never take him in
that 'ere way. He says he thinks it 's no better 'n witchcraft,
getting money that 'ere way. Ye see Jake was to have had half
if they 'd 'a' got it, and not gettin' nothin' kind o' sot him to
thinkin' on it in a moral pint o' view, ye know. But, lordy
massy, where be we, Mr. Sheril ? This 'ere 's the second or
third time we 've come round to this 'ere old dead chestnut.
"We ain't makin' no progress."
In fact there were many and crossing cart-paths through this
forest, which had been worn by different farmers of the vicinity
in going after their yearly supply of wood ; and, notwithstanding
Sam's assertion of superior knowledge in these matters, we had,
in the negligent inattention of his narrative, become involved in
this labyrinth, and driven up and down, and back and forward, in
the wood, without seeming at all to advance upon our errand.
" Wai, I declare for 't, I never did see nothing beat it," said
Sam. " We 've been goin' jest round and round for this hour or
more, and come out again at exactly the same place. I 've heerd
of places that 's kep' hid, and folks allers gets sort o' struck blind
and confused that undertakes to look 'em up. Wai, I don't say
I believe in sich stories, but this 'ere is curous. Why, I 'd 'a'
thought I could V gone straight to it blindfolded, any day. Ef
Jake Marshall was liere, he' d go straight to it."
" Well, Sam," said Uncle Eliakim, "it's maybe because you and
me got so interested in telling stories that we've missed the way."
That 'ere 's it, 'thout a doubt," said Sam. Now I '11 just
hush up, and kind o' concentrate my 'tention. I '11 just git out
and walk a spell, and take an observation."
The result of this improved attention to the material facts of
the case was, that we soon fell into a road that seemed to wind
slowly up a tract of rising ground, and to disclose to our view,
through an interlacing of distant boughs, the western horizon,
toward which the sun was now sinking with long, level beams.
We had been such a time in our wanderings, that there seemed
ft prospect of night setting in before we should be through with
our errand and ready to return.
9 M
194 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" The house Stan's on the top of a sort o' swell o' ground," said
Sam ; " and as nigh as I can make it out, it must be somewhere
about there."
" There is a woman a little way before us," said I ; " why don't
you ask her ? "
I saw very plainly in a turn of the road a woman whose face
was hidden by a bonnet, who stood as if waiting for us. It was
not the white woman of ghostly memory, but apparently a veri-
table person in the every-day habiliments of common life, who
stood as if waiting for us.
" I don't see no woman," said Sam ; " where is she ? "
I pointed with my finger, but as I did so the form melted away.
I remember distinctly the leaves of the trees back of it appear-
ing through it as through a gauze veil, and then it disappeared
entirely.
" There is n't any woman that I can see," said Uncle Eliakim,
briskly. " The afternoon sun must have got into your eyes, boy."
I had been so often severely checked and reproved for stating
what I saw, that I now determined to keep silence, whatever
might appear to me. At a little distance before us the road
forked, one path being steep and craggy, and the other easier of
ascent, and apparently going in much the same general direction.
A little in advance, in the more rugged path, stood the same fe-
male form. Her face was hidden by a branch of a tree, but she
beckoned to us. " Take that path, Uncle 'Liakim," said I ; "it 's
the right one."
" Lordy massy," said Sam Lawson, " how in the world should
you know that? That 'ere is the shortest road to the Dench
house, and the other leads away from it."
I kept silence as to my source of information, and still watched
the figure. As we passed it, I saw a beautiful face with a serene
and tender expression, and her hands were raised as if in bless-
ing. I looked back earnestly and she was gone.
A few moments after, we were in the grounds of the place, and
struck into Avhat had formerly been the carriage way, though
now overgrown with weeds, and here and there with a jungle of
what was once well-kept ornamental shrubbery. A tree had been
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 195
uprooted by the late tempest, and blown down across the road,
and we had to make quite a little detour to avoid it.
" Now how are we to get into this house ? " said Uncle Eliakim.
" No doubt it 's left fastened up."
" Do you see that ? " said Sam Lawson, who had been gazing
steadily upward at the chimneys of the house, with his eyes shaded
by one of his great hands. " Look at that smoke from the mid-
dle chimbly."
" There 's somebody in the house, to be sure," said Uncle Elia-
kim; "suppose we knock at the front door here?" and with
great briskness, suiting the action to the word, he lifted the black
serpent knocker, and gave such a rat tat tat as must have roused
all the echoes of the old house, while Sara Lawson and I stood
by him, expectant, on the front steps.
Sam then seated himself composedly on a sort of bench which
was placed under the shadow of the porch, and awaited the result
with the contentment of a man of infinite leisure. Uncle Elia-
kim, however, felt pressed for time, and therefore gave another
long and vehement rap. Very soon a chirping of childish voices
was heard behind the door, and a pattering of feet; there ap-
peared to be a sort of consultation.
" There they be now," said Sam Lawson, "jest as I told you."
" Please go round to the back door," said a childish voice ; " this
is locked, and I can't open it."
We all immediately followed Sam Lawson, who took enormous
strides over the shrubbery, and soon I saw the vision of a curly-
headed, blue-eyed boy holding open the side door of the house.
I ran up to him. " Are you Harvey ? " I said.
" No," he answered ; " my name is n't Harvey, it 's Harry ; and
this is my sister Tina," and immediately a pair of dark eyes
looked out over his shoulder.
" Well, we Ve come to take you to my grandmother's house,"
said I.
I don't know how it was, but I always spoke of our domestic
establishment under the style and title of the female ruler. It
was grandmother's house.
" I am glad of it," said the boy, " for we have tried two or
196 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
three times to find our way to Oldtown, and got lost in the woods
and had to come back here again."
Here the female partner in the concern stepped a little for-
ward, eager for her share in the conversation. " Do you know
old Sol?" she said.
" Lordy massy, I do," said Sam Lawson, quite delighted at this
verification of the identity of the children. " Yes, I see him only
day afore yesterday, and he was 'quirin' arter you, and we thought
we 'd find you over in this 'ere house, 'cause I 'd seen smoke a
comin' out o' the chimblies. Had a putty good time in the old
house, I reckon. Ben all over it pretty much, hain't ye ? "
" yes," said Tina ; " and it 's such a strange old place, a
great big house with ever so many rooms in it ! "
" Wai, we '11 jest go over it, being as we 're here," said Sam ;
and into it we all went.
Now there was nothing in the world that little Miss Tina took
more native delight in than in playing the hostess. To entertain
was her dearest instinct, and she hastened with all speed to open
before us all in the old mansion that her own rummaging and in-
vestigating .talents had brought to light, chattering meanwhile
with the spirit of a bobolink.
" You don't know," she said to Sam Lawson, " what a curious
little closet there is in here, with book-cases and drawers, and a
looking-glass in the door, with a curtain over it."
" Want to know ? " said Sam. " Wai, that 'ere does beat all.
It 's some of them old English folks's grander, I s'pose."
" And here 's a picture of such a beautiful lady, that always
looks at you, whichever way you go, just see."
" Lordy massy, so 't does. Wai, now, them drawers, mebbe,
have got curous things in 'em," suggested Sam.
" O yes, but Harry never would let me look in them. I tried,
though, once, when Harry was gone ; but, if you '11 believe me,
they 're all locked."
" Want to know ? " said Sam. " That 'ere 's a kind o' pity,
now."
"Would you open them? You would n't, would you?" said
the little one, turning suddenly round and opening her great
THE VISIT TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 197
wide eyes full on him. " Harry said the place was n't ours, and
it would n't be proper."
" Wai, he 's a nice boy ; quite right in him. Little folks
must n't touch things that ain't theirn," said Sam, who was
strong on the moralities ; though, after all, when all the rest had
left the apartment, I looked back and saw him giving a sly tweak
to the drawers of the cabinet on his own individual account.
" I was just a makin' sure, you know, that 't was all safe," he
said, as he caught my eye, and saw that he was discovered.
Sam revelled and expatiated, however, in the information that
lay before him in the exploration of the house. No tourist with
Murray's guide-book in hand, and with travels to prepare for
publication, ever went more patiently through the doing of a
place. Not a door was left closed that could be opened ; not a
passage unexplored. Sam's head came out dusty and cobwebby
between the beams of the ghostly old garret, where mouldy rel-
ics of antique furniture were reposing, and disappeared into the
gloom of the spacious cellars, where the light was as darkness.
He found none of the marks of the traditional haunted room ;
but he prolonged the search till there seemed a prospect that
poor Uncle Eliakim would have to get him away by physical
force, if we meant to get home in time for supper.
" Mr. Lawson, you don't seem to remember we have n't any
of us had a morsel of dinner, and the sun is actually going down.
The folks '11 be concerned about us. Come, let 's take the chil-
dren and be off."
And so we mounted briskly into the wagon, and the old horse,
vividly impressed with the idea of barn and hay at the end of his
toils, seconded the vigorous exertions of Uncle Fly, and we rat-
tled and spun on our homeward career, and arrived at the farm-
house a little after moonrise.
198 OLDTOWX FOLKS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TINA'S ADOPTION.
DURING the time of our journey to the enchanted ground,
my Aunt Lois, being a woman of business, who always
knew precisely what she was about, had contrived not only to
finish meritoriously her household tasks, and to supplement Uncle
Eliakinvs forgetful benevolence, but also to make a call on Mi?s
Mehitable Rossiter, for the sake of unburdening to her her op-
pressed heart. For Miss Mehitable bore in our family circle the
repute of being a woman of counsel and sound wisdom. The
savor of ministerial stock being yet strong about her, she was
much resorted to for advice in difficult cases.
" I don't object, of course, to doing for the poor and orphaned,
and all that," said Aunt Lois, quite sensibly ; " but I like to see
folks seem to know what they are doing, and where they are go-
ing, and not pitch and tumble into things without asking what 's
to come of them. Now, we 'd just got Susy and the two boys
on our hands, and here will come along a couple more children
to-night; and I must say I don't see what's to be done with
them."
" It 's a pity you don't take snuff," said Miss Mehitable, with
a whimsical grimace. u Now, when I come to any of the cross-
places of life, where the road is n't very clear, I just take a pinch
of snuff and wait ; but as you don't, just stay and get a cup of
tea with me, in a quiet, Christian way, and after it we will walk
round to your mother's and look at these children."
Aunt Lois was soothed in her perturbed spirit by this propo-
sition ; and it was owing to this that, when we arrived at home,
long after dark, we found Miss Mehitable in the circle around
the blazing kitchen fire. The table was still standing, with am-
ple preparations for an evening meal, a hot smoking loaf of
rye-and-Indian bread, and a great platter of cold boiled beef and
TINA'S ADOPTION. 199
pork, garnished with cold potatoes and turnips, the sight of
which, to a party who had had no dinner all day, was most ap-
petizing.
My grandmother's reception of the children was as motherly
as if they had been of her own blood. In fact, their beauty and
evident gentle breeding won for them immediate favor in all
eyes.
The whole party sat down to the table, and, after a long and
somewhat scattering grace, pronounced by Uncle Eliakim, fell
to with a most amazing appearance of enjoyment. Sam's face
waxed luminous as he buttered great blocks of smoking brown
bread with the fruits of my grandmother's morning churning, and
refreshed himself by long and hearty pulls at the cider-mug.
' I tell you,' he said, " when folks hes been a ridin' on an
empty stomach ever since breakfast, victuals is victuals ; we
learn how to be thankful for 'em ; so I '11 take another slice o'
that 'ere beef, and one or two more cold potatoes, and the vine-
gar, Mr. Sheril. Wai, chillen, this ere 's better than bein' alone
in that 'ere old house, ain't it ? "
" Ye=, indeed," piped Tina ; ' I had begun to be quite discour-
aged. We tried and tried to find our way to Oldtown, and al-
ways got lost in the woods." Seeing that this remark elicited
sympathy in the listeners, she added, " I was afraid we should
die there, and the robins would have to cover us up, like some
children papa used to tell about."
"Poor babes! just hear 'em," said my grandmother, who
seemed scarcely able to restrain herself from falling on the
necks of the children, in the ardor of her motherly kindness,
while she doubled up an imaginary fist at Miss Asphyxia Smith,
and longed to give her a piece of her mind touching her treat-
ment of them.
Harry remained modestly silent ; but he and I sat together, and
our eyes met every now and then with that quiet amity to which
I had been accustomed in ray spiritual friend. I felt a cleaving
of spirit to him that I had never felt towards any human being
before, a certainty that something had come to me in him that
I had always been wanting, and I was too glad for speech.
200 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
He was one of those children who retreat into themselves and
make a shield of quietness and silence in the presence of many
people, while Tina, on the other hand, was electrically excited,
waxed brilliant in color, and rattled and chattered with as fearless
confidence as a cat-bird.
" Come hither to me, little maiden," said Miss Mehi table, with
a whimsical air of authority, when the child had done her supper.
Tina came to her knee, and looked up into the dusky, homely
face, in that still, earnest fashion in which children seem to study
older people.
" Well, how do you like me ? " said Miss Mehitable, when this
silent survey had lasted an appreciable time.
The child still considered attentively, looking long into the
great, honest, open eyes, and then her face suddenly rippled and
dimpled all over like a brook when a sunbeam strikes it. " I do
like you. I think you are good," she said, putting out her hands
impulsively.
" Then up you come," said Miss Mehitable, lifting her into her
lap. " It 's well you like me, because, for aught you know, I may
be an old fairy ; and if I did n't like you, I might turn you into a
mouse or a cricket. Now how would you like that ? "
" You could n't do it," said Tina, laughing.
" How do you know I could n't ? "
" Well, if you did turn me into a mouse, I 'd gnaw your knit-
ting-work," said Tina, laying hold of Miss Mehitable's knitting.
" You 'd be glad to turn me back again."
" Heyday ! I must take care how I make a mouse of you, I
see. Perhaps I '11 make you into a kitten."
" Well, I 'd like to be a kitten, if you '11 keep a ball for me to
play with, and give me plenty of milk," said Tina, to whom no
proposition seemed to be without possible advantages.
" Will you go home and live with me, and be my kitten ? "
Tina had often heard her brother speak of finding a good wo-
man who should take care of her ; and her face immediately be-
came grave at this proposal. She seemed to study Miss Mehit-
able in a new way. " Where do you live ? w she said.
" 0, my house is only a little way from here."
TINA'S ADOPTION. 201
" And may Harry come to see me ? "
" Certainly he may."
" Do you want me to work for you all the time ? " said Tina 5
" because," she added, in a low voice, " I like to play sometimes,
and Miss Asphyxia said that was wicked."
" Did n't I tell you I wanted you for my little white kitten,"
said Miss Mehitable, with an odd twinkle. " What work do you
suppose kittens do ? "
" Must I grow up and catch rats ? " said the child.
" Certainly you will be likely to," said Miss Mehitable, sol-
emnly. " I shall pity the poor rats when you are grown up."
Tina looked in the humorous, twinkling old face with a gleam
of mischievous comprehension, and, throwing her arms around
Miss Mehitable, said, "Yes, I like you, and I will be your
kitten."
There was a sudden, almost convulsive pressure of the little
one to the kind old breast, and Miss Mehitable's face wore a
strange expression, that looked like the smothered pang of some
great anguish blended with a peculiar tenderness. One versed
in the reading of spiritual histories might have seen that, at that
moment, some inner door of that old heart opened, not without a
grating of pain', to give a refuge to the little orphan ; but opened
it was, and a silent inner act of adoption had gone forth. Miss
Mehitable beckoned my grandmother and Aunt Lois into a cor-
ner of the fireplace by themselves, while Sam Lawson was en-
tertaining the rest of the circle by reciting the narrative of our
day's explorations.
" Now I suppose I 'm about as fit to undertake to bring up a
child as the old Dragon of Wantley," said Miss Mehitable ; " but
as you seem to have a surplus on your hands, I 'm willing to take
the girl and do what I can for her."
" Dear Miss Mehitable, what a mercy it '11 be to her ! " said my
grandmother and Aunt Lois, simultaneously ; "if you feel that
you can afford it," added Aunt Lois, considerately.
" Well, the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field are taken
care of somehow, as we are informed," said Miss Mehitable. " My
basket and store are not much to ask a blessing on, but I have a
9*
202 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
sort of impression that an orphan child will make it none the less
likely to hold out."
" There '11 always be a handful of meal in the barrel and a
little oil in the cruse for you, I 'm sure," said my grandmother ;
" the word of the Lord stands sure for that."
A sad shadow fell over Miss Mehitable's face at these words,
and then the usual expression of quaint humor stole over it.
" It 's to be hoped that Polly will take the same view of the
subject that you appear to," said she. " My authority over Polly
is, you know, of an extremely nominal kind."
" Still," said my grandmother, " you must be mistress in your
own house. Polly, I am sure, knows her duty to you."
" Polly's idea of allegiance is very much like that of the old
Spanish nobles to their king ; it used to run somewhat thus :
* We, who are every way as good as you are, promise obedience
to your government if you maintain our rights and liberties, but
if not, not.' Now Polly's ideas of 'rights and liberties' are of a
very set and particular nature, and I have found her generally dis-
posed to make a good fight for them. Still, after all," she added,
(i the poor old thing loves me, and I think will be willing to indulge
me in having a doll, if I really am set upon it. The only way
I can carry my point with Polly is, to come down on her with
a perfect avalanche of certainty, and so I have passed my word
to you that I will be responsible for this child. Polly may scold
and fret for a fortnight ; but she is too good a Puritan to ques-
tion whether people shall keep their promises. Polly abhors
covenant-breaking with all her soul, and so in the end she will
have to help mo through."
" It 's a pretty child," said my grandmother, " and an engaging
one, and Polly may come to liking her."
u There 's no saying," said Miss Mehitable. " You never know
what you may find in the odd corners of an old maid's heart, when
you fairly look into them. There are often unused hoards of ma-
ternal affection enough to set up an orphan-asylum ; but it 's like
iron filings and a magnet, you must try them with a live child,
and if there is anything in 'em you find it out. That little
object," she said, looking over her shoulder at Tina, " made an
TINA'S ADOPTION. 203
instant commotion in the dust and rubbish of my forlorn old
garret, and brought to light a deal that I thought had gone to the
moles and the bats long ago. She will do me good, I can feel,
with her little pertnesses and her airs and fancies. If you could
know how chilly and lonesome an old house gets sometimes, par-
ticularly in autumn, when the equinoctial storm is brewing ! A
lively child is a godsend, even if she turns the whole house
topsy-turvy."
" Well, a child can't always be a plaything," said Aunt Lois ;
" it 's a solemn and awful responsibility."
"And if I don't take it, who will?" said Miss Mehitable,
gravely. " If a better one would, I would n't. I 've no great
confidence in myself. I profess no skill in human cobbling. I
can only give house-room and shelter and love, and let come what
will come. ' A man cannot escape what is written on his fore-
head,' the Turkish proverb says, and this poor child's history is
all forewritten."
" The Lord will bless you for your goodness to the orphan,"
said my grandmother.
" I don't know about its being goodness. I take a fancy to
her. I hunger for the child. There 's no merit in wanting your
bit of cake, and maybe taking it when it is n't good for you ;
but let 's hope all 's well that ends well. Since I have fairly
claimed her for mine, I begin to feel a fierce right of property in
her, and you 'd see me fighting like an old hen with anybody that
should try to get her away from me. You '11 see me made an
old fool of by her smart little ways and speeches ; and I already
am proud of her beauty. Did you ever see a brighter little
minx?"
We looked across to the other end of the fireplace, where Miss
Tina sat perched, with great contentment, on Sam Lawson's knee,
listening with wide-open eyes to the accounts he was giving of
the haunted house. The beautiful hair that Miss Asphyxia had
cut so close had grown with each day, till now it stood up in half
rings of reddish gold, through which the fire shone with a
dancing light ; and her great eyes seemed to radiate brightness
from as many points as a diamond.
204 OLDTOWN FOLKS
" Depend upon it, those children are of good blood," said Miss
Mehitable, decisively. " You '11 never make me believe that
they will not be found to belong in some way to some reputable
stock."
"Well, we know nothing about their parents," said my grand-
mother, " except what we heard second-hand through Sam Law-
son. It was a wandering woman, sick and a stranger, who was
taken down and died in Old Crab Smith's house, over in Need-
more."
" One can tell, by the child's manner of speaking, that she has
been brought up among educated people," said Miss Mehitable.
" She is no little rustic. The boy, too, looks of the fine clay of
the earth. But it '& time for me to take little Miss Rattlebrain
home with me, and get her into bed. Sleep K a gracious state for
children, and the first step in my new duties is a plain one." So
saying, Miss Mehitable rose, and, stepping over to the other side
of the fireplace, tapped Tina lightly on the shoulder. " Come,
Pussy," she said, " get your bonnet, and we will go home."
Harry, who had watched all the movements between Miss
Mehitable and his sister with intense interest, now stepped for-
ward, blushing very much, but still with a quaint little old-fash-
ioned air of manliness. " Is my sister going to live with
you?"
" So we have agreed, my little man," said Miss Mehitable. " I
hope you have no objection?"
" Will you let me come and see her sometimes ? "
" Certainly ; you will always be quite welcome."
" I want to see her sometimes, because my mother left her
under my care. I sha' n't have a great deal of time to come in
the daytime, because I must work for my living," he said, " but
a little while sometimes at night, if you would let me."
" And what do you work at ? " said Miss Mehitable, surveying
the delicate boy with an air of some amusement.
"I used to pick up potatoes, and fodder the cattle, and do a
great many things ; and I am growing stronger every day, and
by and by can do a great deal more."
" Well said, sonny," said my grandfather, laying his hand on
TINA'S ADOPTION. 205
Harry's head. " You speak like a smart boy. We can have you
down to help tend sawmill."
" I wonder how many more boys will be wanted to help tend
sawmill, " said Aunt Lois.
" Well, good night, all," said Miss Mehitable, starting to go
home.
Tina, however, stopped and left her side, and threw her arms
round Harry's neck and kissed him. " Good night now. You '11
come and see me to-morrow," she said.
" May I come too ? " I said, almost before I thought.
" O, certainly, do come," said Tina, with that warm, earnest
light in her eyes which seemed the very soul of hospitality.
" She '11 like to have you, I know."
" The child is taking possession of the situation at once," said
Miss Mehitable. " Well, Brighteyes, you may come too," she
added, to me. " A precious row there will be among the old
books when you all get together there " ; and Miss Mehitable,
with the gay, tripping figure by her side, left the room.
" Is this great, big, dark house yours ? " said the child, as they
came under the shadow of a dense thicket of syringas and lilacs
that overhung the front of the house.
" Yes, this is Doubting Castle," said Miss Mehitable.
" And does Giant Despair live here ? " said Tina. " Mamma
showed me a picture of him once in a book."
" Well, he has tried many times to take possession," said Miss
Mehitable, " but I do what I can to keep him out, and you must
help me."
Saying this she opened the door of a large, old-fashioned room,
that appeared to have served both the purposes of a study and
parlor. It was revealed to view by the dusky, uncertain glim-
mer of a wood fire that had burned almost down on a pair of tall
brass andirons. The sides of the room were filled to the ceiling
with book-cases full of books. Some dark portraits of men and
women were duskily revealed by the flickering light, as well as a
wide, ample-bosomed chintz sofa and a great chintz-covered easy-
chair. A table draped with a green cloth stood in a corner by the
fire, strewn over with books and writing-materials, and sustaining
a large work-basket.
206 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" How dark it is ! " said the child.
Miss Mehitable took a burning splinter of the wood, and lighted
a candle in a tall, plated candlestick, that stood on the high, nar-
row mantel-piece over the fireplace. At this moment a side door
opened, and a large-boned woman, dressed in a homespun stuff
petticoat, with a short, loose sack of the same material, appeared
at the door. Her face was freckled ; her hair, of a carroty-yellow,
was plastered closely to her head and secured by a horn comb ;
her eyes were so sharp and searching, that, as she fixed them on
Tina, she blinked involuntarily. Around her neck she wore a
large string of gold beads, the brilliant gleam of which, catching
the firelight, revealed itself at once to Tina's eye, and caused her
to regard the woman with curiosity.
She appeared to have opened the door with an intention of
asking a question ; but stopped and surveyed the child with a
sharp expression of not very well-pleased astonishment. "I
thought you spoke to me," she said, at last, to Miss Mehitable.
" You may warm my bed now, Polly," said Miss Mehitable ;
" I shall be ready to go up in a few moments."
Polly stood a moment more, as if awaiting some communica-
tion about the child ; but as Miss Mehitable turned away, and ap-
peared to be busying herself about the fire, Polly gave a sudden
windy dart from the room, and closed the door with a bang that
made the window-casings rattle.
" Why, what did she do that for ? " said Tina.
" 0, it 's Polly's way ; she does everything with all her might,"
said Miss Mehitable.
" Don't she like me ? " said the child.
" Probably not. She knows nothing about you, and she does
not like new things."
" But won't she ever like me ? " persisted Tina.
" That, my dear, will depend in a great degree on yourself. If
she sees that you are good and behave well, she will probably
end by liking you ; but old people like her are afraid that chil-
dren will meddle with their things, and get them out of place."
" I mean to be good," said Tina, resolutely. " When I lived
with Miss Asphyxia, I wanted to be bad, I tried to be bad ; but
TINA'S ADOPTION. 207
now I am changed. I mean to be good, because you are good to
me," and the child laid her head confidingly in Miss Mehitable's
lap.
The dearest of all flattery to the old and uncomely is this ca-
ressing, confiding love of childhood, and Miss Meliitable felt a
glow of pleasure about her dusky old heart at which she really
wondered. " Can anything so fair really love me ?" she asked
herself. Alas ! how much of this cheap-bought happiness goes to
waste daily ! While unclaimed children grow up loveless, men
and women wither in lonely, craving solitude.
Polly again appeared at the door. "Your bed 's all warm, and
you 'd better go right up, else what 's the use of warming it ?"
" Yes, I '11 come immediately," said Miss Mehitable, endeavor-
ing steadfastly to look as if she did not see Polly's looks, and to
act as if there had of course always been a little girl to sleep
with her.
"Come, my little one." My little one! Miss Mehitable's
heart gave a great throb at this possessive pronoun. It all seemed
as strange to her as a dream. A few hours ago, and she sat in
the old windy, lonesome house, alone with the memories of dead
friends, and feeling herself walking to the grave in a dismal soli-
tude. Suddenly she awoke as from a dark dream, and found
herself sole possessor of beauty, youth, and love, in a glowing
little form, all her own, with no mortal to dispute it. She had
a mother's right in a child. She might have a daughter's love.
The whole house seemed changed. The dreary, lonesome great
hall, with its tall, solemn-ticking clock, the wide, echoing stair-
case, up which Miss Mehitable had crept, shivering and alone, so
many sad nights, now gave back the chirpings of Tina's rattling
gayety and the silvery echoes of her laugh, as, happy in her new
lot, she danced up the stairway, stopping to ask eager questions
on this and that, as anything struck her fancy. For Miss Tina
had one of those buoyant, believing natures, born to ride always
on the very top^ crest of every wave, one fully disposed to ac-
cept of good fortune in all its length and breadth, and to make
the most of it at once.
" This is our home," she said, " is n't it ? J
208 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Yes, darling," said Miss Mehitable, catching her in her
arms fondly; "it is our home; we will have good times here
together."
Tina threw her arms around Miss Mehitable's neck and kissed
her. " I 'm so glad ! Harry said that God would find us a
home as soon as it was best, and now here it comes."
Miss Mehitable set the child down by the side of a great dark
wooden bedstead, with tall, carved posts, draped with curious cur-
tains of India linen, where strange Oriental plants and birds, and
quaint pagodas and figures in turbans, were all mingled together,
like the phantasms in a dream. Then going to a tall chest of
drawers, resplendent with many brass handles, which reached
almost to the ceiling, she took a bunch of keys from her pocket
and unlocked a drawer. A spasm as of pain passed over her
face as she opened it, and her hands trembled with some sup-
pressed emotion as she took up and laid down various articles,
searching for something. At last she found what she wanted,
and shook it out. It was a child's nightgown, of just the size
needed by Tina. It was yellow with age, but made with dainty
care. She sat down by the child and began a movement towards
undressing her.
" Shall I say my prayers to you," said Tina, " before I go to
bed ? "
" Certainly," said Miss Mehitable ; " by all means."
" They are rather long," said the child, apologetically, " that
is, if I say all that Harry does. Harry said mamma wanted us
to say them all every night. It takes some time."
" O, by all means say all," said Miss Mehitable.
Tina kneeled down by her and put her hands in hers, and
said the Lord's Prayer, and the psalm, " The Lord is my shep-
herd." She had a natural turn for elocution, this little one, and
spoke her words with a grace and an apparent understanding
not ordinary in childhood.
" There 's a hymn, besides," she said. " It belongs to tho
prayer."
" Well, let us have that," said Miss Mehitable.
Tina repeated,
TINA'S ADOPTION. 209
" One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of Friend ;
His is love beyond a brother's,
Costly, free, and knows no end."
She had an earnest, half-heroic way of repeating, and as she
gazed into her listener's eyes she perceived, by a subtile instinct,
that what she was saying affected her deeply. She stopped,
wondering.
" Go on, my love," said Miss Mehitable.
Tina continued, with enthusiasm, feeling that she was making
an impression on her auditor :
" Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed his blood ?
But the Saviour died to have us
Reconciled in him to God.
" When he lived on earth abase'd,
Friend of sinners was his name ;
Now, above all glory raised,
He rejoiceth in the same."
" O my child, where did you learn that hymn ? " said Miss
Mehitable, to whom the words were new. Simple and homely
as they were, they had struck on some inner nerve, which was
vibrating with intense feeling. Tears were standing in her eyes.
" It was mamma's hymn," said Tina. " She always used to
say it. There is one more verse," she added.
" for grace our hearts to soften !
Teach us, Lord, at length to love ;
We, alas ! forget too often
What a Friend we have above."
" Is that the secret of all earthly sorrow, then ? " said Miss
Mehitable aloud, in involuntary soliloquy. The sound of her
own voice seemed to startle her. She sighed deeply, and kissed
the child. " Thank you, my darling. It does me good to hear
you," she said.
The child had entered so earnestly, so passionately even, into
the spirit of the words she had been repeating, that she seemed
to Miss Mehitable to be transfigured into an angel messenger,
sent to inspire faith in God's love in a darkened, despairing soul
v
210 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
She put her into bed ; but Tina immediately asserted her claim
to an earthly nature by stretching herself exultingly in the warm
bed, with an exclamation of vivid pleasure.
" How different this seems from my cold old bed at Miss As-
phyxia's ! " she said. " 0, that horrid woman ! how I hate her ! "
she added, with a scowl and a frown, which made the angelhood
of the child more than questionable.
Miss Mehitable's vision melted. It was not a child of heaven,
but a little mortal sinner, that she was tucking up for the night ;
and she felt constrained to essay her first effort at moral training.
" My dear," she said, " did you not say, to-night, ' Forgive us
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us ' ?
Do you know what that means?"
" O yes," said Tina, readily.
" Well, if your Heavenly Father should forgive your sins just
as you forgive Miss Asphyxia, how would you like that ? "
There was a silence. The large bright eyes grew round and
reflective, as they peered out from between the sheets and the
pillow. At last she said, in a modified voice : " Well, I won't
hate her any more. But," she added, with increased vivacity,
" I may think she 's hateful, may n't I ? "
Is there ever a hard question in morals that children do not
drive straight at, in their wide-eyed questioning ?
Miss Mehitable felt inclined to laugh, but said, gravely : " I
would n't advise you to think evil about her. Perhaps she is a
poor woman that never had any one to love her, or anything to
love, and it has made her hard."
Tina looked at Miss Mehitable earnestly, as if she were pon-
dering the remark. "She told me that she was put to work
younger than I was," she said, " and kept at it all the time."
" And perhaps, if you had been kept at work all your life in
that hard way, you would have grown up to be just like her."
"Well, then, I'm sorry for her," said Tina. "There's no-
body loves her, that' s a fact. Nobody can love her, unless it 's
God. He loves every one, Harry says."
" Well, good night, my darling," said Miss Mehitable, kissing
her. " I shall come to bed pretty soon. I will leave you a can-
dle," she added ; " because this is a strange place."
TINA'S ADOPTION. 211
" How good you are ! " said TiDa. " I used to be so afraid in
the dark, at Miss Asphyxia's ; and I was so wicked all day, that
I was afraid of God too, at night. I used sometimes to think I
heard something chewing under my bed ; and I thought it was a
wolf, and would eat me up."
"Poor little darling!" said Miss Mehitable. "Would you
rather I sat by you till you went to sleep ? "
" No, thank you ; I don't like to trouble you," said the child.
" If you leave a candle I sha' n't be afraid. And, besides, I 've
said my prayers now. I did n't use to say them one bit at Miss
Asphyxia's. She would tell me to say my prayers, and then
bang the door so hard, and I would feel cross, and think I
would n't. But I am better now, because you love me."
Miss Mehitable returned to the parlor, and sat down to pon-
der over her fire; and the result of her ponderings shall be
given m a letter which she immediately began writing at the
green-covered table.
212 OLDTCNVN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XIX.
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER, AND THE REPLY, GIVING FURTHER
HINTS OF THE STORY.
MY DEAR BROTHER : Since I wrote you last, so strange
a change has taken place in my life that even now I
walk about as in a dream, and hardly know myself. The events
of a few hours have made everything in the world seem to me
as different from what it ever seemed before as death is from
life.
Not to keep you waiting, after so solemn a preface, I will an-
nounce to you first, briefly, what it is, and then, secondly, how
it happened.
Well, then, / have adopted a child, in my dry and wilted old
age. She is a beautiful and engaging little creature, full of life
and spirits, full of warm affections, thrown an absolute waif
and stray on the sands of life. Her mother was an unknown
Englishwoman, probably some relict of the retired English
army. She died in great destitution, in the neighboring town
of Needmore, leaving on the world two singularly interesting
children, a boy and a girl. They were, of course, taken in
charge by the parish, and fell to the lot of old Crab Smith and
his sister, Miss Asphyxia, just think of it ! I think I need
say no more than this about their lot.
In a short time they ran away from cruel treatment; lived
in a desolate little housekeeping way in the old Dench house ;
till finally Sam Lawson, lounging about in his general and uni-
versal way, picked them up. He brought them, of course, where
every wandering, distressed thing comes, to Deacon Badger's.
Now I suppose the Deacon is comfortably off in the world, as
our New England farmers go, but his ability to maintain gen-
eral charges of housekeeping for all mankind may seriously be
doubted. Lois Badger, who does the work of Martha in that
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 213
establishment, carne over to me, yesterday afternoon, quite dis-
tressed in her mind about it. Lois is a worthy creature,
rather sharp, to be sure, but, when her edge is turned the right
way, none the worse for that, and really I thought she had
the right of it, to some extent.
People in general are so resigned to have other folks made
burnt sacrifices, that it did not appear to me probable that there
was a creature in Oldtown who would do anything more than
rejoice that Deacon Badger felt able to take the children. After
I had made some rather bitter reflections on the world, and its
selfishness, in the style that we all practise, the thought suddenly
occurred to me, What do you, more than others ? and that idea,
together with the beauty and charms of the poor little waif, de-
cided me to take this bold step. I shut my eyes, and took it,
not without quaking in my shoes for fear of Polly ; but I have
carried my point in her very face, without so much as saying
by your leave.
The little one has just been taken up stairs and tucked up
warmly in my own bed, with one of our poor little Emily's old
nightgowns on. They fit her exactly, and I exult over her as
one that findeth great spoil.
Polly has not yet declared herself, except by slamming the
door very hard when she first made the discovery of the child's
presence in the house. I presume there is an equinoctial gale
gathering, but I say nothing; for, after all, Polly is a good
creature, and will blow herself round into the right quarter, in
t'rne, as our northeast rain-storms generally do. People always
accommodate themselves to certainties.
I cannot but regard the coming of this child to me at this time
as a messenger of mercy from God, to save me from sinking into
utter despair. I have been so lonely, so miserable, so utterly,
inexpressibly wretched of late, that it has seemed that, if some-
thing did not happen to help me, I must lose my reason. Our
family disposition to melancholy is a hard enough thing to man-
age under the most prosperous circumstances. I remember my
father's paroxysms of gloom: they used to frighten me when
I was a little girl, and laid a heavy burden on the heart of our
214 OLDTOYrX FOLKS.
dear angel mother. Whatever that curse is, we all inherit it.
In the heart of every one of us children there is that fearful
black drop, like that which the Koran says the angel showed to
Mahomet. It is an inexplicable something which always predis-
poses us to sadness, but in which any real, appreciable sorrow
strikes a terribly deep and long root. Shakespeare describes this
thing, as he does everything else :
" In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me, yon say it wearies you ;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 't is made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn."
You have struggled with, it by the most rational means, an
active out-of-door life, by sea voyages and severe manual labor.
A man can fight this dragon as a woman cannot. We women
are helpless, tied to places, forms, and rules, chained to our
stake. We must meet him as we can.
Of late I have not been able to sleep, and, lying awake all
night long in darkness and misery, have asked, if this be life,
whether an immortal existence is not a curse to be feared, rather
than a blessing to be hoped, and if the wretchedness we fear
in the eternal world can be worse than what we sometimes suffer
now, such sinking of heart, such helplessness of fear, such a
vain calling for help that never comes. Well, I will not live
it over again, for I dare say you know it all too well. I think
I finally wore myself out in trying to cheer poor brother Theo-
dore's darksome way down to death. Can you w r onder that
he would take opium ? God alone can judge people that
suffer as he did, and, let people say what they please, I must,
I will, think that God has some pity for the work of his hands.
Now, brother, I must, I will, write to you about Emily;
though you have said you never wished to hear her name again.
What right had you, her brother, to give her up so, and to let
the whole burden of this dreadful mystery and sorrow come
down on me alone? You are not certain that she has gone
astray in the worst sense that a woman can. We only know
that she has broken away from us and gone, but where, how,
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTEK. 215
and with whom, you cannot say, nor I. And certainly there
was great excuse for her. Consider how the peculiar tempera-
ment and constitution of our family wrought upon her. Consider
the temptations of her wonderful beauty, her highly nervous,
wildly excitable organization. Her genius was extraordinary ;
her strength and vigor of character quite as much so. Alto-
gether, she was a perilously constituted human being, and what
did we do with her ? A good, common girl might have been put
with Uncle and Aunt Farnsworth with great advantage. We
put her there for the simple reason that they were her aunt and
uncle, and had money enough to educate her. But in all other
respects they were about the most unsuited that could be con-
ceived. I must say that I think that glacial, gloomy, religious
training in Uncle Farnsworth's family was, for her, peculiarly
unfortunate. She sat from Sunday to Sunday under Dr. Stern's
preaching. With a high-keyed, acute mind, she could not help
listening and thinking ; and such thinking is unfortunate, to say
the least.
It always seemed to me that he was one of those who experi-
ment on the immortal soul as daring doctors experiment on the
body, using the most violent and terrible remedies, remedies
that must kill or cure. His theory was, that a secret enemy to
God was lying latent in every soul, which, like some virulent poi-
sons in the body, could only be expelled by being brought to the
surface ; and he had sermon after sermon, whose only object ap-
peared to be to bring into vivid consciousness what he calls the
natural opposition of the human heart.
But, alas ! in some cases the enmity thus aroused can never
be subdued ; and Emily's was a nature that would break before
it would bow. Nothing could have subdued her but love, and
love she never heard. These appalling doctrines were presented
with such logical clearness, and apparently so established from
the Scriptures, that, unable to distinguish between the word
of God and the cruel deductions of human logic, she trod both
under foot in defiant despair. Then came in the French lit-
erature, which is so fascinating, and which just now is having
so wide an influence on the thinking of our country. Rousseau
216 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and Voltaire charmed her, and took her into a new world. She
has probably gone to France for liberty, with no protection but
her own virgin nature. Are we at once to infer the worst, when
we know so little ? I, for one, shall love her and trust in her
to the end ; and if ever she should fall, and do things that I and
all the world must condemn, I shall still say, that it will be less
her fault than that of others ; that she will be one of those who
fall by their higher, rather than their lower nature.
I have a prophetic instinct in my heart that some day, poor,
forlorn, and forsaken, she will look back with regret to the old
house where she was born : and then she shall be welcome
here. This is why I keep this solitary old place, full of bitter
and ghostly memories ; because, as long as I keep it, there is
one refuge that Emily may call her own, and one heart that will
be true to her, and love her and believe in her to the end.
I think God has been merciful to me in sending me this child,
to be to me as a daughter. Already her coming has been made
a means of working in me that great moral change for which all
my life I have been blindly seeking. I have sought that con-
version which our father taught us to expect as alchemists seek
the philosopher's stone.
What have I not read and suffered at the hands of tlie theolo-
gians ? How many lonely hours, day after day, have I bent the
knee in fruitless prayer that God would grant me this great,
unknown grace ! for without it how dreary is life !
We are in ourselves so utterly helpless, life is so hard, so
inexplicable, that we stand in perishing need of some helping
hand, some sensible, appreciable connection with God. And yet
for years every cry of misery, every breath of anguish, has
been choked by the logical proofs of theology ; that God is my
enemy, or that I am his ; that every effort I make toward Hini
but aggravates my offence ; and that this unknown gift, which no
child of Adam ever did compass of himself, is so completely in
my own power, that I am every minute of my life to blame for
not possessing it.
How many hours have I gone round and round this dreary
track, chilled, weary, shivering, seeing no light, and hearing
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 217
no voice ! But within this last hour it seems as if a divine ray
had shone upon me, and the great gift had been given me by the
hand of a little child. It came in the simplest and most unex-
pected manner, while listening to a very homely hymn, repeated
by this dear little one. The words themselves were not much
in the way of poetry ; it was merely the simplest statement of
the truth that in Jesus Christ, ever living, ever present, every
human soul has a personal friend, divine and almighty.
This thought came over me with such power, that it seemed as
if all my doubts, all my intricate, contradictory theologies, all
those personal and family sorrows which had made a burden on
my soul greater than poor Christian ever staggered under, had
gone where his did, when, at the sight of the Cross, it loosed
from his back and rolled down into the sepulchre, to be seen no
more. Can it be, I asked myself, that this mighty love, that I
feel so powerfully and so sweetly, has been near me all these dark,
melancholy years ? Has the sun been shining behind all these
heavy clouds, under whose shadows I have spent my life ?
When I laid my little Tina down to sleep to-night, I came
down here to think over this strange, new thought, that I,
even I, in my joyless old age, my poverty, my perplexities, my
loneliness, am no longer alone ! I am beloved. There is One
who does love me, the One Friend, whose love, like the sun-
shine, can be the portion of each individual of the human race,
without exhaustion. This is the great mystery of faith, which
I am determined from this hour to keep whole and undented.
My dear brother, I have never before addressed to you a word
on this subject. It has been one in which I saw only perplexity.
I have, it is true, been grieved and disappointed that you did not
see your way clear to embrace the sacred ministry, which has
for so many generations been the appointed work of our family.
I confess for many years I did hope to see you succeed, not
only to the library, but to the work of our honored, venerated
father and grandfather. It was my hope that, in this position, I
should find in you a spiritual guide to resolve my doubts and lead
me aright. But I have gathered from you at times, by chance
words dropped, that you could not exactly accept the faith of our
10
218 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
fathers. Perhaps difficulties like my own have withheld you.
I know you too well to believe that the French scepticism that
has blown over here with the breath of our political revolution
can have had the least influence over you. Whatever your
views of doctrines may be, you are not a doubter. You arc
not as poor Emily defiantly called herself a deist, an alien
from all that our fathers came to this wilderness to maintain.
Yet when I see you burying your talents in a lonely mountain
village, satisfied with the work of a poor schoolmaster, instead
of standing forth to lead our New England in the pulpit, I ask
myself, Why is this ?
Speak to me, brother ! tell me your innermost thoughts, as I
have told you mine. Is not life short and sad and bitter enough,
that those who could help each other should neglect the few
things they can do to make it tolerable ? Why do we travel
side by side, lonely and silent, each, perhaps, hiding in that
silence the bread of life that the other needs ? Write to me as
I have written to you, and let me know that I have a brother
in soul, as I have in flesh.
Your affectionate sister,
M. E
MY DEAR SISTER: I have read your letter. Answer it
justly and truly how can I ? How little we know of each other
in outside intimacy ! but when we put our key into the door of
the secret chamber, who does not tremble and draw back ?
that is the true haunted chamber!
First, about Emily, I will own I am wrong. It is from no
want of love, though, but from too much. I was and am too sore
and bitter on that subject to trust myself. I have a heart full of
curses, but don't know exactly where to fling them ; and, for
aught I see, we are utterly helpless. Every clew fails ; and what
is the use of torturing ourselves ? It is a man's nature to act,
to do, and, where nothing can be done, to forget. It is a woman's
nature to hold on to what can only torture, and live all her despairs
over. Women's tears are their meat ; men find the diet too salt,
and won't take it.
MISS MEHIIABLE'S LETTER. 219
Tell me anything I can do, and I '11 do it ; but talk I cannot,
every word burns me. I admit every word you say of Emily.
We were mistaken in letting her go to the Famsworths, and be
baited and tortured with ultra-Calvinism ; but we were blind, as
we mortals always are, fated never to see what we should have
done, till seeing is too late.
I am glad you have taken that child, first, because it 's a
good deed in itself, and, secondly, because it 's good for you. That
it should have shed light on your relations to God is strictly phil-
osophical. You have been trying to find your way to Him by
definitions and by logic ; one might as well make love to a lady
by the first book of Euclid. " He that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen ? " That throb of protecting, all-embracing love which
thrilled through your heart for this child taught you more of
God than father's whole library. " He that loveth not knoweth
not God." The old Bible is philosophical, and eminent for its
common sense. Of course this child will make a fool of you.
Never mind ; the follies of love are remedial.
As to a system of education, it will be an amusement for you
to get that up. Every human being likes to undertake to dictate
for some other one. Go at it with good cheer. But, whatever
you do, don't teach her French. Give her a good Saxon-English
education ; and, if she needs a pasture-land of foreign languages,
let her learn Latin, and, more than that, Greek. Greek is the
morning-land of languages, and has the freshness of early dew
in it which will never exhale.
The French helped us in our late war : for that I thank
them ; but from French philosophy and French democracy, may
the good Lord deliver us. They slew their Puritans in the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the nation ever since has been
without a moral sense. French literature is like an eagle with
one broken wing. What the Puritans did for us English people,
in bringing in civil liberty, they lacked. Our revolutions have
been gradual. I predict that theirs will come by and by with an
explosion.
Meanwhile, our young men who follow after French litera-
220 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
ture become rakes and profligates. Their first step in liberty is
to repeal the ten commandments, especially the seventh. There-
fore I consider a young woman in our day misses nothing who
does not read French. Decorous French literature is stupid, and
bright French literature is too wicked for anything. So let
French alone.
She threatens to be pretty, does she? So much the worse
for you and her. If she makes you too much trouble by and by,
send her up to my academy, and I will drill her, and make a
Spartan of her.
As to what you say about religion, and the ministry, and the
schoolmaster, what can I say on this sheet of paper? Briefly
then. No, I am not in any sense an unbeliever in the old Bible ;
I would as soon disbelieve my own mother. And I am in my na-
ture a thorough Puritan. I am a Puritan as thoroughly as a hound
is a hound, and a pointer a pointer, whose pedigree of unmixed
blood can be traced for generations back. I feel within me the
preaching instinct, just as the hound snuffs, and the pointer
points ; but as to the pulpit in these days, well, thereby hangs
a tale.
What should I preach, supposing I were a minister, as my
father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather were before me ?
What they preached was true to them, was fitted for their
times, was loyally and sincerely said, and of course did a
world of good. But when I look over their sermons, I put an
interrogation point to almost everything they say ; and what was
true to them is not true to me; and if I should speak out as
honestly as they did what is true to me, the world would not un-
derstand or receive it, and I think it would do more harm than
good. I believe I am thinking ahead of the present generation,
and if I should undertake to push my thoughts I should only
bother people, just as one of my bright boys in the latter part
of the algebra sometimes worries a new beginner with his ad-
vanced explanations.
Then again, our late Revolution has wrought a change in the
ministry that will soon become more and more apparent. The
time when ministers were noblemen by divine right, and reigned
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 221
over their parishes by the cocked hat and gold-headed cane, is
passing away. Dr. Lothrop, and Dr. Stern, and a few others,
keep up the prestige, but that sort of thing is going by ; and in
the next generation the minister will be nothing but a citizen ; his
words will come without prestige, and be examined and sifted
just like the words of any other citizen.
There is a 1'ace of ministers rising up who are fully adequate
to meet this exigency ; and these men are going to throw Calvin-
ism down into the arena, and discuss every inch of it, hand to
hand and knee to knee, with the common people ; and we shall
see what will come of this.
I, for my part, am not prepared to be a minister on these
terms. Still, as I said, I have the born instinct of preaching ; I
am dictatorial by nature, and one of those who need constantly to
see themselves reflected in other people's eyes ; and so I have
got an academy here, up in the mountains, where I have a set
of as clear, bright-eyed, bright-minded boys and girls as you
would wish to see, and am in my way a pope. Well, I enjoy be-
ing a pope. It is one of my weaknesses.
As to society, we have the doctor, a quiet little wrinkled old
man, a profound disbeliever in medicines, who gives cream-of-
tartar for ordinary cases, and camomile tea when the symptoms
become desperate, and reads Greek for his own private amuse-
ment. Of course he does n't get very rich, but here in the
mountains one can afford to be poor. One of our sunsets is worth
half a Boston doctor's income.
Then there 's the lawyer and squire, who draws the deeds, and
makes the wills, and settles the quarrels ; and the minister, who
belongs to the new dispensation. He and I are sworn friends ;
he is my Fidus Achates. His garden joins mine, and when I am
hoeing my corn he is hoeing his, and thence comes talk. As it
gets more eager I jump the fence and hoe in his garden, or he
does the same to mine. We have a strife on the matter of garden
craft, who shall with most skill outwit our Mother Nature, and get
cantelopes and melons under circumstances in which she never
intended them to grow. This year I beat the parson, but I can
see that he is secretly resolved to revenge himself on me when
222 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the sweet corn comes in. One evening every week we devote to
reading the newspaper and settling the affairs of the country. We
are both stanch Federalists, and make the walls ring with our
denunciations of Jacobinism and Democracy. Once a month we
have the Columbian Magazine and the foreign news from Europe,
and then we have a great deal on our hands ; we go over affairs,
every country systematically, and settle them for the month. In
general we are pretty well agreed, but now and then our lines of
policy differ, and then we fight it out with good courage, not
sparing the adjectives. The parson has a sly humor of his own,
and our noisiest discussions generally end in a hearty laugh.
So much for the man and friend, now for the clergyman.
He is neither the sentimental, good parson of Goldsmith, nor the
plaintive, ascetic parish priest of Romanism, nor the cocked
hat of the theocracy, but a lively, acute, full-blooded man, who
does his duty on equal terms among men. He is as single-
hearted as an unblemished crystal, and in some matters sacredly
simple ; but yet not without a thrifty practical shrewdness, both
in things temporal and things spiritual. He has an income of
about two hundred and fifty dollars, with his wood. The farmers
about here consider him as rolling in wealth, and I must say that,
though the parsonage is absolutely bare of luxuries, one is not
there often unpleasantly reminded that the parson is a poor man.
He has that golden faculty of enjoying the work he does so ut-
terly, and believing in it so entirely, that he can quite afford to
be poor. He whose daily work is in itself a pleasure ought not
to ask for riches : so I tell myself about rny school-keeping, and
him about his parish. He takes up the conversion of sinners as
an immediate practical business, to be done and done now ; he
preaches in all the little hills and dales and hollows and brown
school-houses for miles around, and chases his sinners up and
down so zealously, that they have, on the whole, a lively time of
it. He attacks drinking and all our small forms of country im-
morality with a vigor sufficient to demolish sins of double their
size, and gives nobody even a chance to sleep in meeting. The
good farmers around here, some of whom would like to serve
Mammon comfortably, are rather in a quandary what to do.
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 223
They never would bear the constant hounding which he gives
them, and the cannonades he fires at their pet sins, and the way
he chases them from pillar to post, and the merciless manner in
which he breaks in upon their comfortable old habit of sleeping
in meeting, were it not that they feel that they are paying him
an enormous salary, and ought to get their money's worth out of
him, which they are certain they are doing most fully. Your
Yankee has such a sense of values, that, if he pays a man to thrash
him, he wants to be thrashed thoroughly.
My good friend preaches what they call New Divinity, by
which I understand the Calvinism which our fathers left us, in
the commencing process of disintegration. He is thoroughly and
enthusiastically in earnest about it, and believes that the system,
as far as Edwards and Hopkins have got it, is almost absolute
truth ; but, for all that, is cheerfully busy in making some little
emendations and corrections, upon which he values himself, and
which he thinks of the greatest consequence. What is to the
credit of his heart is, that these emendations are generally in
favor of some original-minded sheep who can't be got into the
sheep-fold without some alteration in the paling. In these cases
I have generally noticed that he will loosen a rail or tear off a
picket, and let the sheep in, it being his impression, after all, that
the sheep are worth more than the sheep-fold.
In his zeal to catch certain shy sinners, he has more than once
preached sermons which his brethren about here find fault with,
as wandering from old standards ; and it costs abundance of
bustle and ingenuity to arrange his system so as to provide for
exceptional cases, and yet to leave it exactly what it was before
the alterations were made.
It is, I believe, an admitted thing among theologians, that,
while theology must go on improving from age to age, it must
also remain exactly what it was a hundred years ago.
The parson is my intimate friend, and it is easy for me to see
that he has designs for the good of my soul, for which I sincerely
love him. I can see that he is lying in wait for me patiently, as
sometimes we do for trout, when we go out fishing together.
He reconnoitres me, approaches me carefully, makes nice little
224 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
logical traps to catch me in, and baits them with very innocent-
looking questions, which I, being an old theological rat, skilfully
avoid answering.
My friend's forte is logic. Between you and me, if there is a
golden calf worshipped in our sanctified New England, its name
is Logic ; and my good friend the parson burns incense before it
with a most sacred innocence of intention. He believes that
sinners can be converted by logic, and that, if he could once get
me into one of these neat little traps aforesaid, the salvation of
my soul would be assured. He has caught numbers of the
shrewdest infidel foxes among the farmers around, and I must
say that there is no trap for the Yankee like the logic-trap.
I must tell you a story about this that amused me greatly.
You know everybody's religious opinions are a matter of discus-
sion in our neighborhood, and Ezekiel Scranton, a rich farmer
who lives up on the hill, enjoys the celebrity of being an atheist,
and rather values himself on the distinction. It takes a man of
courage, you know, to live without a God ; and Ezekiel gives
himself out as a plucky dog, and able to hold the parson at bay.
The parson, however, had privately prepared a string of ques-
tions which he was quite sure would drive Ezekiel into strait
quarters. So he meets him the other day in the store.
" How 's this, Mr. Scranton ? they tell me that you 're an
atheist ! "
" Well I guess I be, Parson," says Ezekiel, comfortably.
" Well, Ezekiel, let 's talk about this. You believe in your
own existence, don't you ? "
" No, I don't."
" What ! not believe in your own existence ? "
" No, I don't." Then, after a moment, " Tell you what,
Parson, ain't a going to be twitched up by none o' your syl-
logisms."
Ezekiel was quite in the right of it ; for I must do my friend
the parson the justice to say, that, if you answer one of his
simple-looking questions, you are gone. You must say B after
saying A, and the whole alphabet after that.
For my part, I do not greatly disbelieve the main points of
MISS MEfflTABLE'S LETTER. 225
Calvinism. ' They strike me, as most hard and disagreeable things
do, as quite likely to be true, and very much in accordance with a
sensible man's observation of facts as they stand in life and na-
ture. My doubts come up, like bats, from a dark and dreadful
cavern that underlies all religion, natural or revealed. They are
of a class abhorrent to myself, smothering to my peace, imbitter-
ing to my life.
What must he be who is tempted to deny the very right of his
Creator to the allegiance of his creatures ? who is tempted to
feel that his own conscious existence is an inflicted curse, and
that the whole race of men have been a set of neglected, suffer-
ing children, bred like fish-spawn on a thousand shores, by
a Being who has never interested himself to care for their
welfare, to prevent their degradation, to interfere with their
cruelties to each other, as they have writhed and wrangled into
life, through life, and out of life again ? Does this look like being
a Father in any sense in which we poor mortals think of father-
hood ? After seeing nature, can we reason against any of the harsh-
est conclusions of Calvinism, from the character of its Author ?
Do we not consider a man unworthy the name of a good father
who, from mere blind reproductive instinct, gives birth to children
for whose improvement, virtue, and happiness he makes no pro-
vision ? and yet does not this seem to be the way more than half
of the human race actually comes into existence ?
Then the laws of nature are an inextricable labyrinth, puz-
zling, crossing, contradictory; and ages of wearisome study have
as yet hardly made a portion of them clear enough for human
comfort ; and doctors and ministers go on torturing the body and
the soul, with the most devout good intentions. And so forth,
for there is no end to this sort of talk.
Now my friend the parson is the outgrowth of the New
England theocracy, about the simplest, purest, and least objec-
tionable state of society that the world ever saw. He has a good
digestion, a healthy mind in a healthy body ; he lives in a vil-
lage where there is no pauperism, and hardly any crime, where
all the embarrassing, dreadful social problems and mysteries
of life scarcely exist. But I, who have been tumbled up and
10* o
226 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
down upon all the shores of earth, lived in India, China, and
Polynesia, and seen the human race as they breed like vermin,
in their filth and their contented degradation, how can I think
of applying the measurements of any theological system to a real-
ity like this ?
Now the parts of their system on which my dear friend the
parson, and those of his school, specially value themselves, are
their explanations of the reasons why evil was permitted, and
their vindications of the Divine character in view of it. They
are specially earnest and alert in giving out their views here, and
the parson has read to me more than one sermon, hoping to
medicate what he supposes to be my secret wound. To me
their various theories are, as my friend the doctor once said to
me, " putting their bitter pill in a chestnut-burr ; the pill is bad,
there is no help for that, but the chestnut-burr is impossible."
It is incredible, the ease and cheerfulness with which a man in
his study, who never had so much experience of suffering as even
a toothache would give him, can arrange a system in which the
everlasting torture of millions is casually admitted as an item.
But I, to whom, seriously speaking, existence has been for much
of my life nothing but suffering, and who always looked on my
existence as a misfortune, must necessarily feel reasonings of
this kind in a different way. This soul-ache, this throb of pain,
that seems as if it were an actual anguish of the immaterial part
itself, is a dreadful teacher, and gives a fearful sense of what the
chances of an immortal existence might be, and what the respon-
sibilities of originating such existence.
I am not one of the shallow sort, who think that everything for
everybody must or ought to end with perfect bliss at death.
On the contrary, I do not see how anything but misery in eternal
ages is to come from the outpouring into their abyss, of wran-
gling, undisciplined souls, who were a torment to themselves and
others here, and who would make this world unbearable, were
they not all swept off in their turn by the cobweb brush of
Death.
So you see it 's all a hopeless muddle to me. Do I then be-
lieve nothing? Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ with all my
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 227
heart, all my might. He stands before me the one hopeful
phenomenon of history. I adore him as Divine, or all of the
Divine that I can comprehend ; and when he bids me say to
God, " Our Father which art in heaven," I smother all my
doubts and say it. Those words are the rope thrown out to
me, choking in the waters, the voice from the awful silence.
" God so loved the world that he gave his own Son." I try
to believe that he loves this world, but I have got only so far
as " Help thou mine unbelief."
Now, as to talking out all this to the parson, what good would
it do ? He is preaching well and working bravely. His preach-
ing suits the state of advancement to which New England has
come ; and the process which he and ministers of his sort insti-
tute, of having every point in theology fully discussed by the
common people, is not only a capital drill for their minds, but it
will have its effect in the end on their theologies, and out of
them all the truth of the future will arise.
So you see my position, and why I am niched here for life, as
a schoolmaster. Come up and see me some time. I have a
housekeeper who is as ugly as Hecate, but who reads Greek.
She makes the best bread and cake in town, keeps my stock-
ings mended and my shirt-ruffles plaited and my house like wax,
and hears a class in Virgil every day, after she has " done her
dinner-dishes." I shall not fall in love with her, though. Come
some time to see me, and bring your new acquisition.
Your brother,
JONATHAN ROSSITER.
I have given these two letters as the best means of showing
to the reader the character of the family with whom my destiny
and that of Tina became in future life curiously intertwisted.
Among the peculiarly English ideas which the Colonists
brought to Massachusetts, which all the wear and tear of democ-
racy have not been able to obliterate, was that of family. Family
feeling, family pride, family hope and fear and desire, were, in
my early day, strongly-marked traits. Genealogy was a thing at
the tip of every person's tongue, and in every person's mind ;
228 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and it is among my most vivid remembrances, with what a solemn
air of intense interest my mother, grandmother, Aunt Lois, and
Aunt Keziah would enter into minute and discriminating par-
ticulars with regard to the stock, intermarriages, and family set-
tlements of the different persons whose history was under their
consideration. " Of a very respectable family," was a sentence
so often repeated at the old fireside that its influence went in
part to make up my character. In our present days, when
every man is emphatically the son of his own deeds, and nobody
cares who his mother or grandmother or great-aunt was, there
can scarcely be an understanding of this intense feeling of race
and genealogy which pervaded simple colonial Massachusetts.
As I have often before intimated, the aristocracy of Massachu-
setts consisted of two classes, the magistracy and the ministry ;
and these two, in this theocratic State, played into each other's
hands continually. Next to the magistrate and the minister, in
the esteem of that community, came the schoolmaster ; for edu-
cation might be said to be the ruling passion of the State.
The history of old New England families is marked by strong
lights and deep shadows of personal peculiarity. We appeal to
almost every old settler in New England towns, if he cannot
remember stately old houses, inhabited by old families, whose
histories might be brought to mind by that of Miss Mehitable
and her brother. There was in them a sort of intellectual vigor,
a ceaseless activity of thought, a passion for reading and study,
and a quiet brooding on the very deepest problems of mental
and moral philosophy. The characteristic of such families is
the greatly disproportioned force of the internal, intellectual,
and spiritual life to the external one. Hence come often morbid
and diseased forms of manifestation. The threads which con-
nect such persons with the real life of the outer world are so fine
and so weak, that they are constantly breaking and giving way
here and there, so that, in such races, oddities and eccentricities
are come to be accepted only as badges of family character. Yet
from stock of this character have come some of the most brilliant
and effective minds in New England ; and from them also have
come hermits and recluses, peculiar and exceptional people,
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 229
people delightful to the student of human nature, but excessively
puzzling to the e very-day judgment of mere conventional society.
The Rossiter family had been one of these. It traced its ori-
gin to the colony which came out with Governor Winthrop. The
eldest Rossiter had been one of the ejected ministers, and came
from a good substantial family of the English gentry. For
several successive generations there had never been wanting a
son in the Rossiter family to succeed to the pulpit of his father.
The Rossiters had been leaned on by the magistrates and con-
sulted by the governors, and their word had been law down to the
time of Miss Mehitable's father.
The tendency of the stately old families of New England to
constitutional melancholy has been well set forth by Dr. Cotton
Mather, that delightful old New England grandmother, whose
nursery tales of its infancy and childhood may well be pon-
dered by those who would fully understand its far-reaching ma-
turity. As I have before remarked, I have high ideas of the
wisdom of grandmothers, and therefore do our beloved gossip,
Dr. Cotton Mather, the greatest possible compliment in grant-
ing him the title.
The ministers of the early colonial days of New England,
though well-read, scholarly men, were more statesmen than theo-
logians. Their minds ran upon the actual arrangements of socie-
ty, which were in a great degree left in their hands, rather than
on doctrinal and metaphysical subtilties. They took their con-
fession of faith just as the great body of Protestant reformers left
it, and acted upon it as a practical foundation, without much fur-
ther discussion, until the time of President Edwards. He was
the first man who began the disintegrating process of applying
rationalistic methods to the accepted doctrines of religion, and
he rationalized far more boldly and widely than any publishers
of his biography have ever dared to let the world know. He
sawed the great dam and let out the whole waters of discus-
sion over all New England, and that free discussion led to all the
shades of opinion of our modern days. Little as he thought
it, yet Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker were the last re-
sults of the current set in motion by Jonathan Edwards.
230 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Miss Mehitable Rossiter's father, during the latter part of his
life, had dipped into this belt of New Divinity, and been exces-
sively and immoderately interested in certain speculations con-
cerning them. All the last part of his life had been consumed
in writing a treatise in opposition to Dr. Stern, another rigorous
old cocked-hat of his neighborhood, who maintained that the
Deity had created sin on purpose, because it was a necessary
means of the greatest good. Dr. Rossiter thought that evil had
only been permitted, because it could be overruled for the greatest
good ; and each of them fought their battle as if the fate of the
universe was to be decided by its results.
Considered as a man, in his terrestrial and mundane relations,
Dr. Rossiter had that wholesome and homely interest in the
things of this mortal life which was characteristic of the New
England religious development. "While the Puritans were in-
tensely interested in the matters of the soul, they appeared to
have a realizing sense of the fact that a soul without a body, in a
material world, is at a great disadvantage in getting on. So
they exhibited a sensible and commendable sense of the worth of
property. They were especially addicted to lawful matrimony,
and given to having large families of children ; and, if one wife
died, they straightway made up the loss by another, a com-
pliment to the virtues of the female sex which womankind ap-
pear always gratefully to appreciate.
Parson Rossiter had been three times married ; first, to a
strong-grained, homely, highly intellectual woman of one of the
first Boston families, of whom Miss Mehitable Rossiter was the
only daughter. The Doctor was said to be one of the handsomest
men of his times. Nature, with her usual perversity in these
matters, made Miss Mehitable an exact reproduction of all the
homely traits of her mother, with the addition of the one or two
physical defects of her handsome father. No woman with a heart
in her bosom ever feels marked personal uncomeliness otherwise
than as a great misfortune. Miss Mehitable bore it with a
quaint and silent pride. Her brother Jonathan, next to herself
in age, the son of a second and more comely wife, was far more
gifted in personal points, though not equal to his father.
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 231
Finally, late in life, after a somewhat prolonged widowhood,
Parson Rossiter committed the folly of many men on the down-
hill side of life, that of marrying a woman considerably younger
than himself. She was a pretty, nervous, excitable, sensitive
creature, whom her homely elder daughter, Miss Mehitable, no
less than her husband, petted and caressed on account of her
beauty, as if she had been a child. She gave birth to two more
children, a son named Theodore, and a daughter named Emily,
and then died.
All the children had inherited from their father the peculiar
constitutional tendency to depression of spirits of which we have
spoken. In these last two, great beauty and brilliant powers
of mind were united with such a singular sensitiveness and way-
wardness of nature as made the prospect for happiness in such a
life as this, and under the strict requirements of New England
society, very problematical.
Theodore ran through a brilliant course in college, notwith-
standing constant difficulties with the college authorities, but
either could not or would not apply himself to any of the ac-
cepted modes of getting bread and butter which a young man
must adopt who means to live and get on with other men.
He was full of disgusts, and repulsions, and dislikes ; everything
in life wounded and made him sore ; he could or would do noth-
ing reasonably or rationally with human beings, and, to deaden
the sense of pain in existence, took to the use of opiates, which left
him a miserable wreck on his sister's hands, the father being
dead.
Thus far the reader has the history of this family, and intima-
tions of the younger and more beautiful one whose after fate was
yet to be connected with ours.
Miss Mehitable Rossiter has always been to me a curious study.
Singularly plain as she was in person, old, withered, and poor,
she yet commanded respect, and even reverence, through the
whole of a wide circle of acquaintance ; for she was well known
to some of the most considerable families in Boston, with whom,
by her mother's side, she was connected. The interest in her
was somewhat like that in old lace, old china, and old cashmere
232 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
shawls ; which, though often excessively uncomely, and looking in
the eyes of uninterested people like mere rubbish, are held by
connoisseurs to be beyond all price.
Miss Mehitable herself had great pride of character, in the
sense in which pride is an innocent weakness, if not a species of
virtue. She had an innate sense that she belonged to a good
family, a perfectly quiet conviction that she was a Bradford by
her mother's side, and a Rossiter by her father's side, come
what might in this world. She was too well versed in the duties
of good blood not to be always polite and considerate to the last
degree to all well-meaning common people, for she felt the
noblesse oblige as much as if she had been a duchess. And, for
that matter, in the circles of Oldtown everything that Miss
Mehitable did and said had a certain weight, quite apart from
that of her really fine mental powers. It was the weight of past
generations, of the whole Colony of Massachusetts ; all the ser-
mons of five generations of ministers were in it, which to a God-
fearing community is a great deal.
But in her quaint, uncomely body was lodged, not only a most
active and even masculine mind, but a heart capable of those'
passionate extremes of devotion which belong to the purely fem-
inine side of woman. She was capable of a romantic excess
of affection, of an extravagance of hero-worship, which, had she
been personally beautiful, might perhaps have made her the
heroine of some poem of the heart. It was among the quietly
accepted sorrows of her life, that for her no such romance was
possible.
Men always admired her as they admired other men, and
talked to her as they talked with each other. Many, during the
course of her life, had formed friendships with her, which were
mere relations of comradeship, but which never touched the
inner sphere of the heart. That heart, so warm, so tender, and
so true, she kept, with a sort of conscious shame, hidden far
behind the intrenchments of her intellect. With an instinctive
fear of ridicule, she scarcely ever spoke a tender word, and
generally veiled a soft emotion under some quaint phrase of
drollery. She seemed forever to feel the strange contrast
MISS MEHITABLE'S LETTER. 233
between the burning, romantic heart and the dry and withered
exterior.
Like many other women who have borne the curse of marked
plainness, Miss Mehitable put an extravagant valuation on per-
sonal beauty. Her younger sister, whose loveliness was uncom-
mon, was a sort of petted idol to her, during all her childish years.
At the time of her father's death, she would gladly have re-
tained her with her, but, like many other women who are strong
on the intellectual side of their nature, Miss Mehitable had a sort
of weakness and helplessness in relation to mere material mat-
ters, which rendered her, in the eyes of the family, unfit to be
trusted with the bringing up of a bright and wilful child. In
fact, as regarded all the details of daily life, Miss Mehitable was
the servant of Polly, who had united the offices of servant-of-all-
work, housekeeper, nurse, and general factotum in old Parson
Eossiter's family, and between whom and the little wilful Emily
grievous quarrels had often arisen. For all these reasons, and
because Mrs. Farnsworth of the neighboring town of Adams
was the only sister of the child's mother, was herself childless,
and in prosperous worldly circumstances, it would have been
deemed a flying in the face of Providence to refuse her, when
she declared her intention of adopting her sister's child as her
own.
Of what came of this adoption I shall have occasion to speak
hereafter.
234 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XX.
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT, AND MY GRANDMOTHER
GIVES HER VIEWS ON EDUCATION.
WHEN Miss Asphyxia Smith found that both children
really had disappeared from Needmore so completely that
no trace of them remained, to do her justice, she felt some solici-
tude to know what had become of them. There had not been
wanting instances in those early days, when so large a part of
Massachusetts was unbroken forest, of children who had wandered
away into the woods and starved to death ; and Miss Asphyxia
was by no means an ill-wisher to any child, nor so utterly with-
out bowels as to contemplate such a possibility without some
anxiety.
Not that she in the least doubted the wisdom and perfect pro-
priety of her own mode of administration, which she had full
faith would in the end have made a " smart girl " of her little
charge. " That 'ere little limb did n't know what was good for
herself," she said to Sol, over their evening meal of cold potatoes
and boiled beef.
Sol looked round-eyed and stupid, and squared his shoulders,
as he always did when this topic was introduced. He suggested,
" You don't s'pose they could 'a' wandered off to the maountains
where Bijah Peters' boy got lost ? "
There was a sly satisfaction in observing the anxious, brooding
expression which settled down over Miss Asphyxia's dusky fea-
tures at the suggestion.
" When they found that 'ere boy," continued Sol, " he was all
worn to skin and bone ; he 'd kep' himself a week on berries
and ches'nuts and sich, but a boy can't be kep' on what a squirrel
can."
" Well," said Miss Asphyxia, " I know one thing ; it ain't my
fault if they do starve to death. Silly critters, they was ; well
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IX PURSUIT. 235
provided for, good home, good clothes, plenty and plenty to eat.
I 'm sure you can bear witness ef I ever stinted that 'ere child in
her victuals."
" I '11 bear you out on that 'ere," said Sol.
" And well you may ; I 'd scorn not to give any one in my
house a good bellyful," quoth Miss Asphyxia.
" That 's true enough," said Sol ; " everybody '11 know that."
" Well, it 's jest total depravity," said Miss Asphyxia. " How
can any one help bein' convinced o' that, that has anything to
do with young uns ? "
But the subject preyed upon the severe virgin's mind ; and she
so often mentioned it, with that roughening of her scrubby eye-
brows which betokened care, that Sol's unctuous good-nature was
somewhat moved, and he dropped at last a hint of having fallen
on a trace of the children. He might as well have put the tips
of his fingers into a rolling-mill. Miss Asphyxia was so wide-
awake and resolute about anything that she wanted to know,
that Sol at last was obliged to finish with informing her that he
had heard of the children as having been taken in at Deacon
Badger's, over in Oldtown. Sol internally chuckled, as he gave
the information, when he saw how immediately Miss Asphyxia
bristled with wrath. Even the best of human beings have felt
that transient flash when anxiety for the fate of a child supposed
to be in fatal danger gives place to unrestrained vexation at the
little culprit who has given such a fright.
" Well, I shall jest tackle up and go over and bring them
children home agin, at least the girl. Brother, he says he don't
want the boy ; he wa'n't nothin' but a plague ; but I 'm one o'
them persons that when I undertake a thing I mean to go through
with it. Now I undertook to raise that 'ere girl, and I mean to.
She need n't think she 's goin' to come round me with any o' her
shines, going over to Deacon Badger's with lying stories about
me. Mis' Deacon Badger need n't think she 's goin' to hold up
her head over me, if she is a deacon's wife and I aint a perfessor
of religion. I guess I could be a perfessor if I chose to do as
some folks do. That 's what I told Mis' Deacon Badger once
when she asked me why I did n't jine the church. < Mis'
236 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Badger,' says I, l perfessiu ain't possessin, and I 'd ruther stand
outside the church than go on as some people do inside on 't.' "
Therefore it was that a day or two after, when Miss Mehitable
was making a quiet call at my grandmother's, and the party, con-
sisting of my grandmother, Aunt Lois, and Aunt Keziah, were
peacefully rattling their knitting-needles, while Tina was play-
ing by the river-side, the child's senses were suddenly paralyzed
by the sight of Miss Asphyxia driving with a strong arm over
the bridge near my grandmother's.
In a moment the little one's heart was in her throat. She had
such an awful faith in Miss Asphyxia's power to carry through
anything she undertook, that all her courage withered at once at
sight of her. She ran in at the back door, perfectly pale with
fright, and seized hold imploringly of Miss Mehitable's gown.
" O, she 's coming ! she 's coming after me. Don't let her get
me ! " she exclaimed.
"What's the matter now?" said my grandmother. "What
ails the child ? "
Miss Mehitable lifted her in her lap, and began a soothing
course of inquiry ; but the child clung to her, only reiterating,
" Don't let her have me ! she is dreadful ! don't ! "
" As true as you live, mother," said Aunt Lois, who had tripped
to the window, " there 's Miss Asphyxia Smith hitching her horse
at our picket fence."
" She is ? " said my grandmother, squaring her shoulders, and
setting herself in fine martial order. " Well, let her come in ;
she 's welcome, I 'm sure. I 'd like to talk to that woman ! It 's a
free country, and everybody 's got to speak their minds," and
my grandmother rattled her needles with great energy.
In a moment more Miss Asphyxia entered. She was arrayed
in her best Sunday clothes, and made the neighborly salutations
with an air of grim composure. There was silence, and a sense
of something brooding in the air, as there often is before the out-
burst of a storm.
Finally, Miss Asphyxia opened the trenches. " I come over,
Mis' Badger, to see about a gal o' mine that has run away."
Here her eye rested severely on Tina.
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT. 237
" Run away ! " quoth my grandmother, briskly ; " and good
reason she should run aAvay ; all I wonder at is that you have
the face to come to a Christian family after her, that 's all.
Well, she is provided for, and you 've no call to be inquiring any-
thing about her. So I advise you to go home, and attend to
your own affairs, and leave children to folks that know how to
manage them better than you do."
" I expected this, Mis' Badger," said Miss Asphyxia, in a
towering wrath, " but I 'd have you to know that I ain't a person
that 's going to take sa'ace from no one. No deacon nor deacon's
wife, nor perfesser of religion, 's a goin' to turn up their noses at
me ! I can hold up my head with any on 'em, and I think your
religion might teach you better than takin' up stories agin your
neighbors, as a little lyin', artful hussy '11 tell." Here there
was a severe glance at Miss Tina, who quailed before it, and
clung to Miss Mehitable's gown. " Yes, indeed, you may hide
your head/' she continued, " but you can't git away from the
truth ; not when I 'm round to bring you out. Yes, Mis'
Badger, I defy her to say I hain't done well by her, if she
says the truth ; for I say it now, this blessed minute, and
would say it on my dyin' bed, and you can ask Sol ef that 'ere
child hain't had everything pervided for her that a child could
want, a good clean bed and plenty o' bedclothes, and good
whole clothes to wear, and her belly full o' good victuals every
day; an' me a teachin' and a trainin' on her, enough to wear
the very life out o' me, for I always hated young uns, and
this ere 's a perfect little limb as I ever did see. Why, what
did she think I was a goin' to do for her ? I did n't make a lady
on her ; to be sure I did n't : I was a fetchin' on her up to work
for her livin' as I was fetched up. I had n't nothin' more 'n she ;
an' just look at me now ; there ain't many folks that can turn off
as much work in a day as I can, though I say it that should n't.
And I 've got as pretty a piece of property, and as well seen to,
as most any round ; and all I 've got house and lands is
my own arnin's, honest, so there ! There 's folks, I s'pose, that
thinks they can afford to keep tavern for all sorts of stragglers
and runaways, Injun and white. I never was one o' them sort of
238 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
folks, an' I should jest like to know cf those folks is able, that's
all. I guess if 'counts was added up, my 'counts would square up
better 'n theirn."
Here Miss Asphyxia elevated her nose and sniffed over my
grandmother's cap-border in a very contemptuous manner, and
the cap-border bristled defiantly, but undismayed, back again.
" Come now, Mis' Badger, have it out ; I ain't afraid of you !
I 'd just like to have you tell me what I could ha' done more
nor better for this child."
" Done ! " quoth my grandmother, with a pop like a roasted
chestnut bursting out of the fire. " Why, you 've done what
you 'd no business to. You 'd no business to take a child at
all ; you have n't got a grain of niotherliness in you. Why,
look at natur', that might teach you that more than meat and
drink and clothes is wanted for a child. Hens brood their
chickens, and keep 'em warm under their wings ; and cows lick
their calves and cosset 'em, and it 's a mean shame that folks will
take 'em away from them. There 's our old cat will lie an hour
on the kitchen floor and let her kittens lug and pull at her,
at ween sleeping and waking, just to keep 'em warm and com-
fortable, you know. 'T ain't just feedin' and clothin' back and
belly that 's all ; it 's broodin' that young creeturs wants ; and you
hain't got a bit of broodin' in you ; your heart 's as hard as the
nether mill-stone. Sovereign grace may soften it some day, but
nothin' else can ; you 're a poor, old, hard, worldly woman, Miss
Asphyxia Smith : that 's what you are ! If Divine grace could
have broken in upon you, and given you a heart to love the child,
you might have brought her up, 'cause you are a smart woman,
and an honest one ; that nobody denies."
Here Miss Mehitable took up the conversation, surveying
Miss Asphyxia with that air of curious attention with which one
studies a human being entirely out of the line of one's personal
experience. Miss Mehitable was, as we have shown, in every
thread of her being and education an aristocrat, and had for Miss
Asphyxia that polite, easy tolerance which a sense of undoubted
superiority gives, united with a shrewd pleasure in the study of
a new and peculiar variety of the human species.
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT. 239
" My good Miss Smith," she observed, in conciliatory tones,
" by your own account you must have had a great deal of trouble
with this child. Now I propose for the future to relieve you of it
altogether. I do not think you would ever succeed in making as
efficient a person as yourself of her. It strikes me," she added,
with a humorous twinkle of her eye, "that there are radical
differences of nature, which would prevent her growing up like
yourself. I don't doubt you conscientiously intended to do your
duty by her, and I beg you to believe that you need have no fur-
ther trouble with her."
" Goodness gracious knows," said Miss Asphyxia, " the child
ain't much to fight over, she was nothin' but a plague ; and I M
rather have done all she did any day, than to 'a' had her round
under my feet. I hate young uns, anyway."
" Then why, my good woman, do you object to parting with
her ? "
" Who said I did object ? I don't care nothin' about parting
with her ; all is, when I begin a thing I like to go through with it."
" But if it is n't worth going through with," said Miss Mehita-
ble, " it 's as well to leave it, is it not ? "
" And I 'd got her clothes made, not that they 're worth
so very much, but then they 're worth just what they are worth,
anyway," said Miss Asphyxia.
Here Tina made a sudden impulsive dart from Miss Mehitable's
lap, and ran out of the back door, and over to her new home, and
up into the closet of the chamber where was hanging the new
suit of homespun in which Miss Asphyxia had arrayed her. She
took it down and rolled the articles all together in a tight bundle,
which she secured with a string, and, before the party in the
kitchen had ceased wondering at her flight, suddenly reappeared,
with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes, and tossed the bundle into
Miss Asphyxia's lap. " There 's every bit you ever gave me,"
she said ; " I don't want to keep a single thing."
" My dear, is that a proper way to speak ? " said Miss Mehita-
ble, reprovingly ; but Tina saw my grandmother's broad shoul-
ders joggling with a secret laugh, and discerned twinkling lines
in the reproving gravity which Miss Mehitable tried to assume.
She felt pretty sure of her ground by this time.
240 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Well, it 's no use talkin'," said Miss Asphyxia, rising. " If
folks think they 're able to bring up a beggar child like a lady,
it 's their lookout and not mine. I was n't aware," she added,
with severe irony, " that Parson Rossiter left so much of an es-
tate that you could afford to bring up other folks' children in
silks and satins."
" Our estate is n't much," said Miss Mehitable, good-naturedly,
" but we shall make the best of it."
" Well, now, you just mark my words, Miss Rossiter," said
Miss Asphyxia, " that 'ere child will never grow up a smart wo-
man with your bringin' up ; she '11 jest run right over you, and
you '11 let her have her head in everything. I see jest how 't '11
be ; I don't want nobody to tell me."
" I dare say you are quite right, Miss Smith," said Miss Me-
hitable ; " I have n't the slightest opinion of my own powers in
that line ; but she may be happy with me, for all that."
"Happy?" repeated Miss Asphyxia, with an odd intonation, as
if she were repeating a sound of something imperfectly compre-
hended, and altogether out of her line. " 0, well, if folks is
goin' to begin to talk about that, I hain't got time ; it don't seem
to me that that 's what this 'ere world 's for."
" What is it for, then ? " said Miss Mehitable, who felt an odd
sort of interest in the human specimen before her.
" Meant for ? Why, for hard work, I s'pose ; that 's all I ever
found it for. Talk about coddling ! it 's little we get o' that, the
way the Lord fixes things in this world, dear knows. He 's pretty
up and down with us, by all they tell us. You must take things
right off, when they 're goin'. Ef you don't, so much the worse for
you ; they won't wait for you. Lose an hour in the morning, and
you may chase it till ye drop down, you never '11 catch it ! That 's
the way things goes, and I should like to know who 's a going to
stop to quiddle with young uns ? 'T ain't me, that 's certain ; so,
as there 's no more to be made by this 'ere talk, I may 's well be
goin'. You're welcome to the young un, ef you say so; I jest
wanted you to know that what I begun I 'd 'a' gone through with,
ef you had n't stepped in ; and I did n't want no reflections on my
good name, neither, for I had my ideas of what 's right, and can
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT.
have 'em yet, I s'pose, if Mis' Badger does think I 've got a
heart of stone. I should like to know how I 'm to have any
other when I ain't elected, and I don't see as I am, or likely to be,
and I don't see neither why I ain't full as good as a good many
that be."
"Well, well, Miss Smith," said Miss Mehitable, "we can't
any of us enter into those mysteries, but I respect your motives,
and would be happy to see you any time you will call, and I 'm
in hopes to teach this little girl to treat you properly," she said,
taking the child's hand.
" Likely story," said Miss Asphyxia, with a short, hard laugh.
" She '11 get ahead o' you, you '11 see that : but I don't hold malice,
so good morning," and Miss Asphyxia suddenly and promptly
departed, and was soon seen driving away at a violent pace.
" Upon my word, that woman is n't so bad, now," said Miss
Mehitable, looking after her, while she leisurely inhaled a pinch
of snuff.
" 0, I 'm so glad you did n't let her have me ! " said Tina.
" To think of a creature so dry and dreary, so devoid even
of the conception of enjoyment in life," said Miss Mehitable,
"hurrying through life without a moment's rest, without even
the capacity of resting if she could, and all for what ? "
" For my part, mother, I think you were down too hard on
her," said Aunt Lois.
" Not a bit," said my grandmother, cheerily. " Such folks ought
to be talked to; it may set her to thinking, and do her good.
I 've had it on my heart to give that woman a piece of my mind
ever since the children came here. Come here, my poor little
dear," said she to Tina, with one of her impulsive outgushes of
motherliness. " I know you must be hungry by this time ; come
into the buttery, and see what I 've got for you."
Now there was an indiscreet championship of Miss Tina, a
backing of her in her treatment of Miss Asphyxia, in this over-
flow, which Aunt Lois severely disapproved, and which struck
Miss Mehitable as not being the very best thing to enforce her
own teachings of decorum and propriety.
The small young lady tilted into the buttery after my grand-
11 p
242 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
mother, with the flushed cheeks and triumphant air of a victor,
and they heard her little tongue running with the full assurance
of having a sympathetic listener.
" Now mother will spoil that child, if you let her," said Aunt
Lois. " She 's the greatest hand to spoil children ; she always
lets 'em have what they ask for. I expect Susy's boys '11 be
raising Cain round the house ; they would if it was n't for me.
They have only to follow mother into that buttery, and out they
come with great slices of bread and butter, any time of day,
yes, and even sugar on it, if you '11 believe me."
" And does 'em good, too," said my grandmother, who re-
appeared from the buttery, with Miss Tina tilting and dancing
before her, with a confirmatory slice of bread and butter and
sugar in her hand. "Tastes good, don't it, dear?" said she,
giving the child a jovial chuck under her little chin.
" Yes, indeed," said Miss Tina ; " I 'd like to have old nasty
Sphyxy see me now."
* Tut, tut ! my dear," said grandmother ; " good little girls
don't call names " ; but at the same time the venerable gentle-
woman nodded and winked in the most open manner across the
curly head at Miss Mehitable, and her portly shoulders shook
with laughter, so that the young culprit was not in the least
abashed at the reproof.
" Mother, I do wonder at you ! " said Aunt Lois, indignantly.
" Never you mind, Lois ; I guess I Ve brought up more chil-
dren than ever you did," said my grandmother, cheerily. " There,
rny little dear," she added, " you may run down to your play
now, and never fear that anybody 's going to get you."
Miss Tina, upon this hint, gladly ran off to finish an architec-
tural structure of pebbles by the river, which she was busy in
building at the time when the awful vision of Miss Asphyxia
appeared ; and my grandmother returned to her buttery to at-
tend to a few matters which had been left unfinished in the
morning's work.
" It is a very serious responsibility," said Miss Mehitable,
when she had knit awhile in silence, " at my time of life, to charge
one's self with the education of a child. One treats one's self to
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT. 243
a child as one buys a picture or a flower, but the child will not
remain a picture or a flower, and then comes the awful question,
what it may grow to be, and what share you may have in
determining its future."
" Well, old Parson Moore used to preach the best sermons on
family government that ever I heard," said Aunt Lois. " He said
you must begin in the very beginning and break a child's will,
short off, nothing to be done without that. I remember he
whipped little Titus, his first son, off and on, nearly a whole day,
to make him pick up a pocket-handkerchief."
Here the edifying conversation was interrupted by a loud
explosive expletive from the buttery, which showed that my grand-
mother was listening with anything but approbation.
" FIDDLESTICKS ! " quoth she.
"And did he succeed in entirely subduing the child's will in
that one effort ? " said Miss Mehitable, musingly.
" Well, no. Mrs. Moore told me he had to have twenty or
thirty just such spells before he brought him under ; but he per-
severed, and he broke his will at last, at least so far that he
always minded when his father was round."
" FIDDLESTICKS ! " quoth my grandmother, in a yet louder
and more explosive tone.
" Mrs. Badger does not appear to sympathize with your views,"
said Miss Mehitable.
" O, mother ? Of course she don't ; she has her own ways and
doings, and she won't hear to reason," said Aunt Lois.
" Come, come, Lois ; I never knew an old maid who did n't
think she knew just how to bring up children," said my grand-
mother. "Wish you could have tried yourself with that sort
of doxy when you was little. Guess if I 'd broke your will, I
should ha' had to break you for good an' all, for your will is
about all there is of you ! But I tell you, I had too much to do
to spend a whole forenoon making you pick up a pocket-handker-
chief. When you did n't mind, I hit you a good clip, and picked
it up myself; and when you would n't go where I wanted you, I
picked you up, neck and crop, and put you there. That was my
I let your will take care of itself. I thought the
244 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Lord had given you a pretty strong one, and he knew what
't was for, and could take care of it in his own time, which
hain't come yet, as I see."
Now this last was one of those personal thrusts with which
dear family friends are apt to give arguments a practical appli-
cation ; and Aunt Lois's spare, thin cheeks flushed up as she said,
in an aggrieved tone : " Well, I s'pose I 'm dreadful, of course.
Mother always contrives to turn round on me."
" Well, Lois, I hate to hear folks talk nonsense," said my
grandmother, who by this time had got a pot of cream under her
arm, which she was stirring with the pudding-stick ; and this
afforded her an opportunity for emphasizing her sentences with
occasional dumps of the same.
" People don't need to talk to me," she said, " about Parson
Moore's government. Tite Moore was n't any great shakes, after
all the row they made about him. He was well enough while
his father was round, but about the worst boy that ever I saw
when his eye was off from him. Good or bad, my children was
about the same behind my back that they were before my face,
anyway."
" Well, now, there was Aunt Sally Morse," said Aunt Lois,
steadily ignoring the point of my grandmother's discourse.
" There was a woman that brought up children exactly to suit
me. Everything went like clock-work with her babies; they
were nursed just so often, and no more ; they were put down to
sleep at just such a time, and nobody was allowed to rock 'em, or
sing to 'em, or fuss with 'em. If they cried, she just whipped
them till they stopped ; and when they began to toddle about, she
never put things out of their reach, but just slapped their hands
whenever they touched them, till they learnt to let things
alone."
" Slapped their hands ! " quoth my grandmother, " and learnt
them to let things alone ! I 'd like to ha' seen that tried on my
children. Sally had a set of white, still children, that were all
just like dipped candles by natur', and she laid it all to her
management ; and look at 'em now they 're grown up. They 're
decent, respectable folks, but noways better than other folks'
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT. 245
children. Lucinda Morse ain't a bit better than you are, Lois, if
she was whipped and made to lie still when she was a baby, and
you were taken up and rocked when you cried. All is, they
had hard times when they were little, and cried themselves to
sleep nights, and were hectored and worried when they ought to
have been taking some comfort. Ain't the world hard enough,
without fighting babies, I want to know ? I hate to see a woman
that don't want to rock her own baby, and is contriving ways all
the time to shirk the care of it. Why, if all the world was
that way, there would be no sense in Scriptnr'. ' As one whom
his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,' the Bible says,
taking for granted that mothers were made to comfort children
and give them good times when they are little. Sally Morse
was always talking about her system. She thought she did
wonders, 'cause she got so much time to piece bedquilts, and
work counterpanes, and make pickles, by turning off her chil-
dren ; but I took my comfort in mine, and let them have their
comfort as they went along. It 's about all the comfort there is
in this world, anyway, and they 're none the worse for it now, as
I see."
" Well, in all these cases there is a medium, if we could hit it,"
said Miss Mehitable. " There must be authority over these
ignorant, helpless little folks in early years, to keep them from
ruining themselves."
" O yes. Of course there must be government," said my grand-
mother. " I always made my children mind me ; but I would n't
pick quarrels with 'em, nor keep up long fights to break their
will ; if they did n't mind, I came down on 'em and had it over
with at once, and then was done with 'em. They turned out
pretty fair, too," said my grandmother complacently, giving an
emphatic thump with her pudding-stick.
" I was reading Mr. John Locke's treatise on education yes-
terday," said Miss Mehitable. " It strikes me there are many
good ideas in it."
" Well, one live child puts all your treatises to rout," said my
grandmother. There ain't any two children alike ; and what
works with one won't with another. Folks have just got to open
246 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
their eyes, and look and see what the Lord meant when he put
the child together, if they can, and not stand in his way ; and
after all we must wait for sovereign grace to finish the work : if
the Lord don't keep the house, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Children are the heritage of the Lord, that 's all you can
make of it."
My grandmother, like other warm-tempered, impulsive, dicta-
torial people, had formed her theories of life to suit her own
style of practice. She was, to be sure, autocratic in her own
realm, and we youngsters knew that, at certain times when her
blood was up, it was but a word and a blow for us, and that the
blow was quite likely to come first and the word afterward ; but
the temporary severities of kindly-natured, generous people never
lessen the affection of children or servants, any more than the too
hot rays of the benignant sun, or the too driving patter of the
needful rain. When my grandmother detected us in a childish
piece of mischief, and soundly cuffed our ears, or administered
summary justice with immediate polts of her rheumatic crutch, we
never felt the least rising of wrath or rebellion, but only made off
as fast as possible, generally convinced that the good woman was
in the right of it, and that we got no more than we deserved.
I remember one occasion Avhen Bill had been- engaged in
making some dressed chickens dance, which she had left trussed
up with the liver and lights duly washed and replaced within
them. Bill set them up on their pins, and put them through
active gymnastics, in course of which these interior treasures
were rapidly scattered out upon the table. A howl of indigna-
tion from grandmother announced coming wrath, and Bill darted
out of the back door, while I was summarily seized and chastised.
" Grandmother, grandmother ! /did n't do it, it was Bill."
" Well, but I can't catch Bill, you see," said my venerable
monitor, continuing the infliction.
" But I did n't do it."
" Well, let it stand for something you did do, then," quoth my
grandmother, by this time quite pacified : " you do bad things
enough that you ain't whipped for, any day."
The whole resulted in a large triangle of pumpkin pie,
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IX PLUSUIT. 247
administered with the cordial warmth of returning friendship;
and thus the matter was happily adjusted. Even the prodigal
son Bill, when, returning piteously, and standing penitent under
the milk-room window, he put in a submissive plea, " Please,
grandmother, I won't do so any more," was allowed a peaceable
slice of the same comfortable portion, and bid to go in peace.
I remember another funny instance of iny grandmother's dis-
cipline. It was when I was a little fellow, seated in the chimney-
corner at my grandfather's side. I had discovered a rising at the
end of my shoe-sole, which showed that it was beginning to come
off. It struck me as a funny thing to do to tear up the whole
sole, which piece of mischief my grandfather perceiving, he
raised his hand to chastise.
" Come here, Horace, quick ! " said my grandmother, imper-
atively, that she might save me from the impending blow.
I lingered, whereat she made a dart at me, and seized me. Just
as rny grandfather boxed my ear on one side, she hit me a
similar cuff on the other.
" Why did n't you come when I called you," she said ; " now
you've got your ears boxed both sides."
Somewhat bewildered, I retreated under her gown in disgrace,
but I was after a relenting moment lifted into her lap, and allowed
to go to sleep upon her ample bosom.
" Mother, why don't you send that boy to bed nights ? " said
Aunt Lois. " You never have any regular rules about anything."
" Law, he likes to sit up and see the fire as well as any of us,
Lois ; and do let him have all the comfort he can as he goes
along, poor boy ! there ain't any too much in this world, any-
way."
" Well, for my part, I think there ought to be system in bring-
ing up children," said Aunt Lois.
" Wait till you get 'em of your own, and then try it, Lois,"
said my grandmother, laughing with a rich, comfortable laugh
which rocked my little sleepy head up and down, as I drowsily
opened my eyes with a delicious sense of warmth and security.
From all these specimens it is to be inferred that the theorists
on education will find no improvement in the contemplation of
248 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
my grandmother's methods, and will pronounce her a pig-headed,
passionate, impulsive, soft-hearted body, as entirely below the
notice of a rational, inquiring mind as an old brooding hen,
which model of maternity in many respects she resembled. It
may be so, but the longer I live, the more faith I have in grand-
mothers and grandmotherly logic, of which, at some future time, I
shall give my views at large.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY? 249
CHAPTEE XXI.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY?
" "VYTELL," said my Aunt Lois, as she gave the last sweep to
T T the hearth, after she had finished washing up the supper-
dishes ; " I 've been up to Ebal Scran's store this afternoon, to see
about soling Horace's Sunday shoes. Ebal will do 'em as rea-
sonable as any one ; and he spoke to me to know whether I
knew of any boy that a good family would like to bind out to
him for an apprentice, and I told him I 'd speak to you about
Horace. It'll be time pretty soon to think of putting him at
something."
Among the many unexplained and inexplicable woes of child-
hood, are its bitter antagonisms, so perfectly powerless, yet often
so very decided, against certain of the grown people who control it.
Perhaps some of us may remember respectable, well-meaning
people, with whom in our mature years we live in perfect amity,
but who in our childhood appeared to us bitter enemies. Chil-
dren are remarkably helpless in this respect, because they can-
not choose their company and surroundings as grown people can ;
and are sometimes entirely in the power of those with whom
their natures are so unsympathetic that they may be almost said
to have a constitutional aversion to them. Aunt Lois was such
a one to me, principally because of her forecasting, untiring,
pertinacious, care-taking propensities. She had already looked
over my lot in life, and set down in her own mind what was to
be done with me, and went at it with a resolute energy that
would not wait for the slow development of circumstances.
That I should want to study, as my father did, that I should
for this cause hang as an unpractical, unproductive, dead weight
on the family, was the evil which she saw in prospective,
against which my grandfather's placid, easy temper, and my
grandmother's impulsive bountifulness, gave her no security. A
11*
250 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
student in the family, and a son in college, she felt to be luxuries
to which a poor widow in dependent circumstances had no right
to look forward, and therefore she opened the subject betimes,
with prompt energy, by the proposition above stated.
My mother, who sat on the other side of the fireplace, looked
at me with a fluttering look of apprehension. I flushed up in a
sort of rage that somehow Aunt Lois always succeeded in put-
ting me into. "I don't want to be a shoemaker, and I won't
neither," I said.
" Tut, tut," said my grandfather, placidly, from his corner ;
" we don't let little boys say ' won't ' here."
I now burst out crying, and ran to my grandmother, sobbing
as if my heart would break.
" Lois, can't you let this boy alone ? " said my grandmother,
vengefully ; " I do wonder at you. Poor little fellow ! his father
ain't quite cold in his grave yet, and you want to pitch him out
into the world," and my grandmother seized me in her strong
arms, and lulled me against her ample bosom. " There, poor boy,
don't you cry ; you sha' n't, no, you sha' n't; you shall stay and
help grandma, so you shall."
" Great help he is," said Aunt Lois, contemptuously ; " gets
a book in his hand and goes round with his head in a bag ;
never gives a message right, and is always stumbling over things
that are right in his way. There 's Harry, now, is as handy as a
girl, and if he says he '11 do a thing, I know 't '11 be done," and
Aunt Lois illustrated her doctrine by calling up Harry, and
making him stretch forth his arms for a skein of blue-mixed
yarn which she was going to wind. The fire-light shone full on
his golden curls and clear blue eyes, as he stood obediently and
carefully yielding to Aunt Lois's quick, positive movements. As
she wound, and twitched, and pulled, with certainly twice the
energy that the work in hand required, his eyes followed her
motions with a sort of quiet drollery ; there was a still, inward
laugh in them, as if she amused him greatly.
Such open comparisons between two boys might have gone
far to destroy incipient friendship ; but Harry seemed to be in a
wonderful degree gifted with the faculties that made him a uni-
WHAT IS TO BE DOSE WITH THE BOY? 251
versa! favorite. All the elders of the family liked him, because
he was quiet and obedient, always doing with cheerful promptness
exactly what he was bidden, unless, as sometimes happened in our
family circle, he was bidden to do two or three different things at
one and the same time, when he w r ould stand looking innocently
puzzled, till my grandmother and Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah
had settled it among tliem whose was to be the ruling will. He
was deft and neat-handed as a girl about any little offices of a
domestic nature ; he was thoughtful and exact in doing errands ;
he was delicately clean and neat in his personal habits; he
never tracked Aunt Lois's newly scoured floor with the traces
of unwiped shoes ; he never left shavings and litter on a cleanly
swept hearth, or tumbled and deranged anything, so that he
might safely be trusted on errands even to the most sacred pre-
cincts of a housekeeper's dominions. What boy with all these
virtues is not held a saint by all women-folk ? Yet, though he
was frequently commended in all those respects, to my marked
discredit, Harry was to me a sort of necessary of life. There
was something in his nature that was wanting to mine, and I
attached myself to him with a pertinacity which had never
before marked my intercourse with any boy.
A day or two after the arrival of the children, the minister and
Lady Lothrop had called on my grandmother in all the dignity
of their station, and taken an approving view of the boy. Lady
Lothrop had engaged to take him under her care, and provide a
yearly sum for his clothing and education. She had never had a
child of her own, and felt that diffidence about taking the entire
charge of a boy which would be natural to a person of fastidious
and quiet habits, and she therefore signified that it would be more
agreeable to her if my grandmother would allow him to make
one of her own family circle, a proposal to which she cheer-
fully assented, saying, that " one more chick makes little differ-
ence to an old hen."
I immediately petitioned that I might have Harry for a bed-
fellow, and iie and I were allowed a small bedroom to ourselves
at the head of the back stairs. It was a rude little crib, roughly
fenced off from the passage-way by unplaned boards of different
252 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
heights. A pine table, two stools, a small trundle-bed, and a
rude case of drawers, were all its furniture. Harry's love of
order was strikingly manifest in the care which he took of this
little apartment. His few articles of clothing and personal be-
longings all had their exact place, and always were bestowed
there with scrupulous regularity. He would adjust the fur-
niture, straighten the bed-clothing, and quietly place and replace
the things that I in my fitful, nervous eagerness was always
disarranging ; and when, as often happened in one of my spasms
of enthusiasm, I turned everything in the room topsy-turvy,
searching for something I had lost, or projecting some new ar-
rangement, he would wait peaceably till I had finished, and
then noiselessly get everything back again into its former order.
He never quarrelled with me, or thwarted me in my turbulent or
impatient moods, but seemed to wait for me to get through what-
ever I was doing, when he would come in and silently rearrange.
He was, on the whole, a singularly silent child, but with the kind
of silence which gives a sense of companionship. It was evi-
dent that he was always intensely observant and interested in
whatever was going on before him, and ready at any moment to
take a friendly part when he was wanted ; but for the most part
his place in the world seemed that of an amused listener and
observer. Life seemed to present itself to him as a curious spec-
tacle, and he was never tired of looking and listening, watching
the ways and words of all our family circle, and often smiling to
himself as if they afforded him great diversion. Aunt Lois,
with her quick, sharp movements, her determined, outspoken
ways, seemed to amuse him as much as she irritated me, and I
would sometimes see him turn away with a droll smile when he
had been watching one of her emphatic courses round the room.
He had a certain tact in avoiding all the sharp corners and
angles of her character, which, in connection with his handiness
and his orderly ways, caused him at last to become a prime
favorite with her. With his quiet serviceableness and manual
dexterity, he seemed to be always the one that was exactly want-
ing to do an odd turn, so that at last he came to be depended on
for many little inferior offices, which he rendered with a good-
will none the less cheerful because of his silence.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY? 253
" There 's time enough to think about what Horace is to do
another year," said my grandfather, having reflected some mo-
ments after the passage of arms between my grandmother and
Aunt Lois. " He 's got to have . some schooling. The boys had
both better go to school for this winter, and then we '11 see
what next."
" Well, I just mentioned about Ebal Scran, because he 's a
good man to take a boy, and he wants one now. If we don't
take that chance it may not come again."
" Wai, Miss Lois," said Sam Lawson, who had sat silent in a
dark corner of the chimney, " ef I was to say about Horace,
I 'd say he 'd do better for somethin' else 'n shoemakin'. He 's
the most amazin' little fellow to read I ever see. As much as a
year ago Jake Marshall and me and the other fellers round to
the store used to like to get him to read the Columbian Sentinel
to us ; he did it off slicker than any on us could, he did, there
wa' n't no kind o' word could stop him. I should say such a
boy as that ought to have a liberal education."
" And who 's going to pay for it ? " said Aut Lois, turning
round on him sharply. " I suppose you know it costs something
to get a man through college. We never can afford to send him
to college. It 's all we can do to bring his Uncle Bill through."
" Well, well," said my grandmother, " there 's no use worrying
the child, one way or the other."
"They can both go to district school this winter," said my
grandfather.
" Well," said Aunt Lois, " the other day I found him down in
a corner humping his back out over a Latin grammar that I'd
put away with all the rest of his father's books on the back side
of the upper shelf in our closet, and I took it away from him.
If he was going to college, why, it 's well enough to study for it ;
but if he is n't we don't want him idlin' round with scraps of
Latin in his head like old Jock Twitchel, got just Latin enough
to make a fool of his English, and he 's neither one thing nor
another."
" I do wonder, Lois, what there is under the sun that you don't
feel called to see to," said my grandmother. " What do you want
254 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
to quarrel with the child for ? He shall have his Latin grammar
if he wants it, and any of the rest of his father's books, poor
child. I s'pose he likes 'em because they were his poor father's."
I leaped for joy in my grandmother's lap, for my father's pre-
cious books had been in a state of blockade ever since we had
been in the house, and it was only by putting a chair on a table
one day, when Aunt Lois and my mother were out, that I had
managed to help myself to the Latin grammar, out of which my
father had begun to teach me before he died.
" Well, well," said Aunt Lois, " at any rate it 's eight o'clock,
and time these boys went to bed."
Upon this hint Harry and I went to our little bedroom without
the ceremony of a candle. It was a frosty autumn night, but a
good, clear square of moonlight lay on the floor.
Now Harry, in common with many other very quiet-natured
people, was remarkable for a peculiar persistency in all his ways
and manners. Ever since I had roomed with him, I had noticed
with a kind of silent wonder the regularity of his nightly devo-
tional exercises, to which he always addressed himself before he
went to bed, with an appearance of simple and absorbed fervor,
kneeling down by the bed, and speaking in a low, earnest tone of
voice, never seeming to hurry or to abbreviate, as I was always
inclined to do whenever I attempted similar performances. In
fact, as usually I said no prayers at all, there was often an awk-
ward pause and stillness on my part, while I watched and waited
for Harry to be through with his devotions, so that I might re-
sume the thread of worldly conversation.
Now to me the perseverance with which he performed these
nightly exercises was unaccountable. The doctrines which in
that day had been gaining ground in New England, with regard
to the utter inutility and unacceptableness of any prayers or re-
ligious doings of the unregencrate, had borne their' legitimate fruits
in causing parents to become less and less particular in cultivat-
ing early habits of devotion in children ; and so, when I had a
room to myself, my mother had ceased to take any oversight of
my religious exercises ; and as I had overheard my Aunt Lois
maintaining very stringently that there was no use in it so long
WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY? 255
as my heart was not changed, I very soon dropped the form.
So, when night after night I noticed Harry going on with his de-
votions, it seemed to me, from my more worldly point of view,
that he gave himself a great deal of unnecessary trouble, partic-
ularly if, after all, his prayers did no good. I thought I would
speak with him about it, and accordingly this night I said to him,
" Harry, do you think it does any good to say your prayers ? "
" To be sure I do," he said.
" But if your heart has n't been changed, your prayer is an
abomination to the Lord. Aunt Lois says so," I said, repeating
a Scriptural form I had often heard quoted.
Harry turned over, and in the fading daylight I saw his eyes,
large, clear, and tranquil. There was not the sHadow of a cloud
in them. " I don't know anything about that," he said quietly.
" You see I don't believe that sort of talk. God is our Father ; he
loves us. If we want things, and ask him for them, he will
give them to us if it is best ; mother always told me so, and I
find it is so. I promised her always to say these prayers, and to
believe that God loves us. I always shall."
" Do you really think so, Harry ? " I said.
" Why, yes ; to be sure I do."
" I mean, do you ever ask God for things you want ? I don't
mean saying prayers, but asking for anything."
" Of course I do. I always have, and he gives them to me.
He always has taken care of me, and he always will."
" Now, Harry," said I, " I want to go to college, and Aunt
Lois says there is n't any money to send me there. She wants
mother to bind me out to a shoemaker ; and I 'd rather die than
do that, I love to study, and I mean to learn. Now do you
suppose if I ask God he will help me ? "
" Certainly he will," said Harry, with an incredible firmness
and quietness of manner. " Just you try it."
" Don't you want to study and go to college ? " said I.
" Certainly I do. I ask God every night that I may if it is
lest" he said with simplicity.
" It will be a great deal harder for you than for me," I said,
" because you have n't any relations."
256 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Yes, but God can do anything he pleases," said Harry, with
a sort of energetic simplicity.
The confidence expressed in his manner produced a kind of
effect upon me. I had urgent needs, too, longings which I
was utterly helpless ever to fulfil, particularly that visionary
desire to go to college and get an education. " Harry," I said,
" you ask God that I may go to college."
" Yes, I will," he answered, " I '11 ask every night. But
then," he added, turning over and looking at me, " why don't you
ask yourself, Horace ? "
It was difficult for me to answer that question. I think that
the differences among human beings in the natural power of
faith are as gretot as any other constitutional diversity, and that
they begin in childhood. Some are born believers, and some are
born sceptics. I was one of the latter. There was an eternal
query, an habitual interrogation-point to almost every proposi-
tion in my mind, even from childhood, a habit of looking at
everything from so many sides, that it was difficult to get a settled
assent to anything.
Perhaps the curious kind of double life that I led confirmed
this sceptical tendency. I was certain that I constantly saw and
felt things, the assertion of whose existence as I saw them drew
down on me stinging reproofs and radical doubts of my veracity.
This led me to .distrust my own perceptions on all subjects, for I
was no less certain of what I saw and felt in the spiritual world
than of what I saw and felt in the material ; and, if I could be
utterly mistaken in the one, I could also be in the other.
The repression and silence about this which became the habit
of my life formed a covering for a constant wondering inquiry.
The habit of reserve on these subjects had become so intense,
that even to Harry I never spoke of it. I think I loved Harry
more than I loved anything ; in fact, before he came to us, I do
not think I knew anything of love as a sentiment. My devotion
to my father resembled the blind, instinctive worship of a dog for
his master. My feeling toward my mother and grandmother
was that impulse of want that induces a chicken to run to a hen
in any of its little straits. It was an animal instinct, a com-
merce of helplessness with help.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY? 257
For Harry I felt a sort of rudimentary, poetical tenderness,
like the love of man for woman. I admired his clear blue eyes,
his curling golden hair, his fair, pure complexion, his refined and
quiet habits, and a sort of unconsciousness of self that there was
about him. His simplicity of nature was incorruptible; he
seemed always to speak, without disguise, exactly what he
thought, without the least apparent consideration of anything but
its truth ; and this gave him a strange air of innocency. A sort
of quaint humor always bubbling up in little quiet looks and
ways, and in harmless practical jokes, gave me a constant sense
of amusement in his society.
As the reader may have observed, we were a sharp-cut and
peculiar set in our house, and sometimes, when the varied
scenes of family life below stairs had amused Harry more than
common, he would, after we had got into our chamber by our-
selves, break into a sudden flow of mimicry, imitating now
Aunt Lois's sharp, incisive movements and decided tones, or flying
about like my venerated grandmother in her most confused and
hurried moments, or presenting a perfect image of Uncle Flia-
kim's frisky gyrations, till he would set me into roars of laugh-
ter; when he would turn gravely round and ask what I was
laughing at. He never mentioned a name, or made remarks
about the persons indicated, the sole reflection on them was
the absurd truthfulness of his imitation ; and when I would call
out the name he would look at me with eyes brimful of mischief,
but in utter silence.
Generally speaking, his language was characterized by a pecu-
liar nicety in the selection of words, and an avoidance of clownish
or vulgar phraseology, and was such as marks a child whose early
years have all been passed in the intercourse of refined society ; but
sometimes he would absurdly introduce into his conversation scraps
from Sam Lawson's vocabulary, with flashes of mimicry of his
shambling gait, and the lanky droop of his hands; yet these
shifting flashes of imitation were the only comment he ever made
upon him.
After Harry began to share my apartment, my nightly visions
became less frequent, because, perhaps, instead of lying wide-
Q
258 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
awake expecting them, I had him to talk to. Once or twice,
indeed, I saw standing by him, after he had fallen asleep, that
same woman whose blue eyes and golden hair I had remarked
when we were lost in the forest. She looked down on him with
an inexpressible tenderness, and seemed to bless him ; and I used
to notice that he spoke oftener of his mother the next day, and
quoted her words to me with the simple, unquestioning venera
tion which he always showed for them.
One thing about Plarry which was striking to me, and which
he possessed in common with many still, retiring people, was
great vigor in maintaining his individuality. It has been the
experience of my life that it is your quiet people who, above
all other children of men, are set in their ways and intense
in their opinions. Their very reserve and silence are a fortifica-
tion behind which all their peculiarities grow and thrive at their
leisure, without encountering those blows and shocks which ma-
terially modify more outspoken natures. It is owing to the
peculiar power of quietness that one sometimes sees characters
fashioning themselves in a manner the least to be expected from
the circumstances and associates which surround them. As a
fair white lily grows up out of the bed of meadow muck, and,
without note or comment, rejects all in the soil that is alien from
her being, and goes on fashioning her own silver cup side by side
with weeds that are drawing coarser nutriment from the soil, so
we often see a refined and gentle nature by some singular in-
ternal force unfolding itself by its own laws, and confirming itself
in its own beliefs, as wholly different from all that surround it as
is the lily from the rag-weed. There are persons, in fact, who
seem to grow almost wholly from within, and on whom the
teachings, the doctrines, and the opinions of those around them
produce little or no impression.
Harry was modest in his bearing ; he never put forth an
opinion opposed to those around him, unless a special question
was asked him ; but, even from early childhood, the opinion of no
human being seemed to have much power to modify or alter cer-
tain convictions on which his life was based.
I remember, one Sunday, our good Parson Lothrop took it into
WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE BOY? 259
his head to preach one of those cool, philosophical sermons in
which certain scholarly and rational Christians in easy worldly
circumstances seem to take delight, a sort of preaching which
removes the providence of God as far off from human sympathy
as it is possible to be. The amount of the matter as he stated it
seemed to be, that the Creator had devised a very complicated
and thorough- working machine, which he had wound up and set
going ages ago, which brought out results with the undeviating
accuracy of clock-work. Of course there was the declaration
that " not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father,"
and that " the very hairs of our head are numbered," standing
square across his way. But we all know that a text of Scripture
is no embarrassment at all in the way of a thorough-paced
theologian, when he has a favorite idea to establish.
These declarations were explained as an Oriental, metaphorical
way of stating that the All-wise had started a grand world-
machine on general laws which included the greatest good to the
least of his creation.
I noticed that Harry sat gazing at him with clear, wide-open
eyes and that fixed attention which he always gave to any-
thing of a religious nature. The inference that I drew from it
was, that Harry must be mistaken in his confidence in prayer,
and that the kind of Fatherly intervention he looked for and
asked for in his affairs was out of the question. As we walked
home I expected him to say something about it, but he did not.
When we were in our room at night, and he had finished his
prayers, I said," Harry, did you notice Dr. Lothrop's sermon?"
" Yes, I noticed it," he said.
" Well, if that is true, what good does it do to pray ? "
" It is n't true," he said, simply.
" How do you know it is n't ? "
" O, I know better," he said.
" But, Harry, Dr. Lothrop, you know, why, he 'a the min-
ister," and what could a boy of that day say more ?
" He 's mistaken there, though," said Harry, quietly, as he
would speak of a man who denied the existence of the sun or
loon. He was too positive and too settled to be in any frame to
260 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
argue about it, and the whole of the discourse, which had seemed
to me so damaging to his opinions, melted over him like so much
moonshine. He fell asleep saying to himself, " The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want," and I lay awake, wondering in my
own mind whether this was the way to live, and, if it were, why
my grandmother and Aunt Lois, and my father and mother, and
all the good people I had ever known, had so many troubles and
worries.
Ages ago, in the green, flowery hollows of the hills of Bethle-
hem, a young shepherd boy took this view of life, and began his
days singing, " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," and
ended them by saying, " Thou hast taught me from my youth up,
and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works " ; and his ten
der communings with an unseen Father have come down to our
days as witnesses of green pastures and still waters to be found
in this weary work-a-day world, open ever to those who are
simple-hearted enough to seek them. It would seem to be the
most natural thing in the world that the child of an ever-present
Father should live in this way, that weakness and ignorance,
standing within call and reach of infinite grace and strength,
should lay hold of that divine helpfulness, and grow to it and
by it, as the vine climbs upon the rock ; but yet such lives are
the exception rather than the rule, even among the good. But
the absolute faith of Harry's mind produced about him an atmos-
phere of composure and restfulness which was, perhaps, the
strongest attraction that drew me to him. I was naturally ner-
vous, sensitive, excitable, and needed the repose which he gave
me. His quiet belief that all would be right had a sort of effect
on me, and, although I did not fall into his way of praying, I came
to have great confidence in it for him, and to indulge some vague
hopes that something good might come of it for me.
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN. 261
CHAPTEE XXII.
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN.
HENCEFORTH my story must be a cord with three strands,
inexplicably intertwisted, and appearing and disappearing
in their regular intervals, as each occupies for the moment the
prominent place. And this threefold cord is composed of my-
self, Harry, and Tina. To show how the peculiar life of old
Massachusetts worked upon us, and determined our growth and
character and destinies, is a theme that brings in many per-
sonages, many subjects, many accessories. It is strange that no
human being grows up who does not so intertwist in his growth
the whole idea and spirit of his day, that rightly to dissect out his
history would require one to cut to pieces and analyze society,
law, religion, the metaphysics and the morals of his times ; and,
as all these things run back to those of past days, the problem
is still further complicated. The humblest human being is the
sum total of a column of figures which go back through centuries
before he was born.
Old Crab Smith and Miss Asphyxia, if their biographies were
rightly written, would be found to be the result and out-come of
certain moral and social forces, justly to discriminate which
might puzzle a philosopher. But be not alarmed, reader ; I am
not going to puzzle you, but to return in the briefest time possi-
ble to my story.
Harry was adopted into our family circle early in the autumn ;
and, after much discussion, it was resolved in the family synod
that he and I should go to the common school in the neighbor-
hood that winter, and out of school-hours share between us cer-
tain family tasks or " chores," as they were called at home.
Our daily life began at four o'clock in the morning, when the
tapping of Aunt Lois's imperative heels on the back stairs, and
her authoritative rap at our door, dispelled my slumbers. I was
262 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
never mucli of a sleeper ; my slumbers at best were light and
cat-like ; but Harry required all my help and my nervous wake-
fulness to get him to open his drowsy blue eyes, which he always
did with the most perfectly amiable temper. He had that charm-
ing gift of physical good-humor which is often praised as a vir-
tue in children and in grown people, but which is a mere condi-
tion of the animal nature. We all know that there are good-
natured animals and irritable animals, that the cow is tranquil
and gentle, and the hyena snarly and fretful ; but we never think
of praising and rewarding the one, or punishing the other, for this
obvious conformation. But in the case of the human animal it
always happens that he <vho has the good luck to have a quiet,
imperturbable nature has also the further good luck of being
praised for it as for a Christian virtue, while he who has the ill
fortune to be born with irritable nerves has the further ill fortune
of being always considered a sinner on account of it.
Nobody that has not suffered from such causes can tell the
amount of torture that a child of a certain nervous formation un-
dergoes in the mere process of getting accustomed to his body,
to the physical forces of life, and to the ways and doings of that
world of grown-up people who have taken possession of the
earth before him, and are using it, and determined to go on using
it, for their own behoof and convenience, in spite of his childish
efforts to push in his little individuality and seize his little portion
of existence. He is at once laid hold upon by the older majori-
ty as an instrument to work out their views of what is fit and
proper for himself and themselves ; and if he proves a hard-work-
ing or creaking instrument, has the further capability of being
rebuked and chastened for it.
My first morning feeling was generally one of anger at the
sound of Aunt Lois's heels, worthy soul ! I have lived to see the
day when the tap of those efficient little instruments has seemed
to me a most praiseworthy and desirable sound ; but in those days
they seemed only to be the reveille by which I was awakened to
that daily battle of my will with hers which formed so great a
feature in my life. It imposed in the first place the necessity of
my quitting my warm bed in a room where the thermometer
DAILY LIVING IK OLDTOWN. 263
must have stood below zero, and where the snow, drifting through
the loosely framed window, often lay in long wreaths on the
floor.
As Aunt Lois always opened the door and set in a lighted can-
dle, one of my sinful amusements consisted in lying and admir-
ing the forest of glittering frost-work which had been made by
our breath freezing upon the threads of the blanket. I some-
times saw rainbow colors in this frost-work, and went off into
dreams and fancies about it, which ended in a doze, from which
I was awakened, perhaps, by some of the snow from the floor
rubbed smartly on my face, and the words, " How many times
must you be called ? " and opened my eyes to the vision of Aunt
Lois standing over me indignant and admonitory.
Then I would wake Harry. We would spring from the bed
and hurry on our clothes, buttoning them with fingers numb with
cold, and run down to the back sink-room, where, in water that
flew off in icy spatters, we performed our morning ablutions, re-
freshing our faces and hands by a brisk rub upon a coarse rolling-
towel of brown homespun linen. Then with mittens, hats, and
comforters, we were ready to turn out with old Cassar to the
barn to help him fodder the cattle. I must say that, when it came
to this, on the whole it began to be grand fun for us. As Caesar
went ahead of us with his snow-shovel, we plunged laughing and
rolling into the powdery element, with which we plentifully pelted
him. Arrived at the barn we climbed, like cats, upon the mow,
whence we joyously threw down enough for all his foddering
purposes, and with such superabundant good-will in our efforts,
that, had need so required, we would have stayed all day and
flung off all the hay upon the mow ; in fact, like the broomstick
in the fable, which would persist in bringing water without rhyme
or reason, so we overwhelmed our sable friend with avalanches
of hay, which we cast down upon him in an inconsiderate fury of
usefulness, and out of which we laughed to see him tear his way,
struggling, gesticulating and remonstrating, till his black face
shone with perspiration, and his woolly head bristled with hay-
seeds and morsels of clover.
Then came the feeding of the hens and chickens and other
264 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
poultry, a work in which we especially delighted, going alto-
gether beyond Cassar in our largesses of corn, and requiring a
constant interposition of his authority to prevent our emptying
the crib on every single occasion.
In very severe weather we sometimes found hens or turkeys
so overcome with the cold as to require, in Caesar's view, hospital
treatment. This awoke our sympathies, and stimulated our sense
of personal importance, and we were never so happy as when
trudging back through the snow, following Caesar with a great
cock-turkey lying languidly over his shoulder like a sick baby, his
long neck drooping, his wattles, erst so fiery red with pride and
valor, now blue and despairing. Great on such occasions were
our zeal and excitement, as the cavalcade burst into the kitchen
with much noise, and upturning of everything, changing Aunt
Lois's quiet arrangements into an impromptu sanitary commission.
My grandmother bestirred herself promptly, compounding messes
of Indian-meal enlivened with pepper-corns, which were forced
incontinently down the long throat, and which in due time acted
as a restorative.
A turkey treated in this way soon recovered his wonted pride
of demeanor, and, with an ingratitude which is like the ways of
this world, would be ready to bully my grandmother and fly at
her back when she was picking up chips, and charge down upon
us children with vociferous gobblings, the very first warm day
afterwards. Such toils as these before breakfast gave a zest to
the smoking hot brown bread, the beans and sausages, which
formed our morning meal.
The great abundance of food in our New England life is one
subject quite worthy of reflection, if we consider the hardness of
the soil, the extreme severity of the climate, and the shortness of
the growing season between the late frosts of spring and those
of early autumn. But, as matter of fact, good, plain food was
everywhere in New England so plentiful, that at the day I
write of nobody could really suffer for the want of it. v The
theocracy of New England had been so thoroughly saturated
with the humane and charitable spirit of the old laws of
Moses, in which, dealing " bread to the hungry " is so often
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN. 265
reiterated and enforced as foremost among human duties, that no
one ever thought of refusing food to any that appeared to
need it ; and a traveller might have walked on foot from one end
of New England to the other, as sure of a meal in its season, as
he was that he saw a farm-house. Even if there was now and
then a Nabal like Crab Smith, who, from a native viciousness,
hated to do kindness, there was always sure to be in his family an
Abigail, ashamed of his baseness, who redeemed the credit of
the house by a surreptitious practice of the Christian virtues.
I mention all this because it strikes me, in review of my
childhood, that, although far from wealth, and living in many
respects in a hard and rough way, I remember great enjoyment
in that part of our physical life so important to a child, the
eating and drinking. Our bread, to be sure, was the black com-
pound of rye and Indian which the economy of Massachusetts
then made the common form, because it was the result of what
could be most easily raised on her hard and stony soil ; but I can
inform all whom it may concern that rye and Indian bread
smoking hot, on a cold winter morning, together with savory
sausages, pork, and beans, formed a breakfast fit for a king, if the
king had earned it by getting up in a cold room, washing in ice-
water, tumbling through snow-drifts, and foddering cattle. We
partook of it with a thorough cheeriness ; and black Caesar, seated
on his block in the chimney-corner, divided his rations with Bose,
the yellow dog of our establishment, with a contentment which
it was pleasant to behold.
After breakfast grandfather conducted family prayers, com-
mencing always by reading his chapter in the Bible. He read
regularly through in course, as was the custom in those days,
without note, comment, or explanation. Among the many in-
sensible forces which formed the minds of New England children,
was this constant, daily familiarity with the letter of the Bible.
It was for the most part read twice a day in every family of any
pretensions to respectability, and it was read as a reading-book
in every common school, in both cases without any attempt at
explanation. Such parts as explained themselves were left to do
so. Such as were beyond our knowledge were still read, and
12
266 OLDTOWX FOLKS.
left to make what impression they would. For my part, I am
impatient of the theory of those who think that nothing that is
not understood makes any valuable impression on the mind of a
child. I am certain that the constant contact of the Bible with
my childish mind was a very great mental stimulant, as it certainly
was a cause of a singular and vague pleasure. The wild, poetic
parts of the prophecies, with their bold figures, vivid exclama-
tions, and strange Oriental names and images, filled me with a
quaint and solemn delight. Just as a child brought up under the
shadow of the great cathedrals of the Old World, wandering into
them daily, at morning, or eventide, beholding the many-colored
windows flamboyant with strange legends of saints and angels,
and neither understanding the legends, nor comprehending the
architecture, is yet stilled and impressed, till the old minster
grows into his growth and fashions his nature, so this wonderful
old cathedral book insensibly wrought a sort of mystical poetry
into the otherwise hard and sterile life of New England. Its
passionate Oriental phrases, its quaint, pathetic stories, its wild,
transcendent bursts of imagery, fixed an indelible mark in my
imagination. Where Kedar and Tarshish and Pul and Lud,
Chittim and the Isles, Dan and Beersheba, were, or what they
were, I knew not, but they were fixed stations in my realm
of cloud-land. I knew them as well as I knew my grand-
mother's rocking-chair, yet the habit of hearing of them only
in solemn tones, and in the readings of religious hours, gave
to them a mysterious charm. J think no New-Englander, brought
up under the regime established by the Puritans, could really
estimate how much of himself had actually been formed by this
constant face-to-face intimacy with Hebrew literature. It is
worthy of remark, too, that, although in details relating to
human crime and vice, the Old Bible is the most plain-spoken
book conceivable, it never violated the chastity of a child's
mind, or stimulated an improper curiosity. I have been aston-
ished in later years to learn the real meaning of passages to
which, in family prayers, I listened with innocent gravity.
My grandfather's prayers had a regular daily form, to which,
in time, I became quite accustomed. No man of not more than
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN. 267
ordinary capacity ever ministered twice a day the year round, in
the office of priest to his family, without soon learning to repeat
the same ideas in the same phrases, forming to himself a sort of
individual liturgy. My grandfather always prayed standing, and
the image of his mild, silvery head, leaning over the top of the
high-backed chair, always rises before me as I think of early days.
There was no great warmth or fervor in these daily exercises, but
rather a serious and decorous propriety. They were Hebraistic
in their form ; they spoke of Zion and Jerusalem, of the God of
Israel, the God of Jacob, as much as if my grandfather had been
a veritable Jew ; and except for the closing phrase, " for the
sake of thy Son, our Saviour," might all have been uttered in
Palestine by a well-trained Jew in the time of David.
When prayers were over every morning, the first move of the
day, announced in Aunt Lois's brief energetic phrases, was to
" get the boys out of the way." Our dinner was packed in a
small splint basket, and we were started on our way to the dis-
trict school, about a mile distant. We had our sleds with us,
dear winter companions of boys, not the gayly painted, genteel
little sledges with which Boston boys in these days enliven the
Common, but rude, coarse fabrics, got up by Caesar in rainy days
out of the odds and ends of old sleigh-runners and such rough
boards as he could rudely fashion with saw and hatchet. Such
as they were, they suited us well, mine in particular, because
upon it I could draw Tina to school ; for already, children as we
were, things had naturally settled themselves between us. She
was supreme mistress, and I the too happy slave, only anxious to
be permitted to do her bidding. With Harry and me she as-
sumed the negligent airs of a little empress. She gave us her
books to carry, called on us to tie her shoes, charged us to re-
member her errands, got us to learn her lessons for her, and to
help her out with whatever she had no mind to labor at ; and we
were only too happy to do it. Harry was the most doting of
brothers, and never could look on Tina in any other light than as
one whom he must at any price save from every care and every
exertion; and as for me, I never dreamed of disputing her
supremacy.
268 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
One may, perhaps, wonder how a person so extremely aristo-
cratic in all her ideas of female education as Miss Mehitablc
should commit her little charge to the chance comradeship and
unselect society of the district school. But Miss Mehitable, like
many another person who has undertaken the task of bringing
up a human being, found herself reduced to the doing of a great
many things which she had never expected to do. She prepared
for her work in the most thorough manner ; she read Locke and
Milton, and Dr. Gregory's " Legacy to his Daughter," and Mrs.
Chapone on the bringing up of girls, to say nothing of Miss
Hannah More and all the other wise people ; and, after forming
some of the most carefully considered and select plans of opera-
tion for herself and her little charge, she was at length driven to
the discovery that in education, as in all other things, people who
cannot do as they would must do as they can. She discovered
that a woman between fifty and sixty years of age, of a peculiar
nature, and with very fixed, set habits, could not undertake to
be the sole companion and educator of a lively, wilful, spirited
little pilgrim of mortality, who was as active as a squirrel,
and as inconsequent and uncertain in all her movements as a
butterfly.
By some rare good fortune of nature or of grace, she found
her little protegee already able to read with fluency, and a toler-
able mistress of the use of the needle and thimble. Thus she pos-
sessed the key of useful knowledge and of useful feminine practice.
But truth compels us to state that there appeared not the smallest
prospect, during the first few weeks of Miss Mehitable's educa-
tional efforts, that she would ever make a good use of either.
In vain Miss Mehitable had written a nice card, marking out
regular hours for sewing, for reading, for geography and grammar,
with suitable intervals of amusement ; and in vain Miss Tina,
with edifying enthusiasm, had promised, with large eyes and
most abundant eloquence, and with many overflowing caresses,
to be " so good." Alas ! when it came to carrying out the
programme, all alone in the old house, Mondays, Tuesdays,
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and all days, Tina gaped and
nestled, and lost her thimble and her needle, and was infinite
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN. 269
in excuses, and infinite in wheedling caresses, and arguments,
enforced with flattering kisses, in favor of putting off the duties
now of this hour and then of that, and substituting something
more to her fancy. She had a thousand plans of her own for
each passing hour, and no end of argument and eloquence to
persuade her old friend to follow her ways, to hear her read
an old ballad instead of applying herself to her arithmetic lesson,
or listen to her recital of something that she had just picked out
of English history, or let her finish a drawing that she was just
inspired to commence, or spend a bright, sunny hour in flower-
gatherings and rambles by the brown river-side ; whence she
would return laden with flowers, and fill every vase in the old,
silent room till it would seem as if the wilderness had literally
blossomed as the rose. Tina's knack for the arranging of vases
and twining of vines and sorting of wild-flowers amounted to a
species of genius ; and, as it was something of which Miss
Mehitable had not the slightest comprehension, the child took
the lead in this matter with a confident assurance. And, after
all, the effect was so cheerful and so delightful, that Miss Mehit-
able could not find it in her heart to call to the mind of the little
wood-fairy how many hours these cheerful decorations had cost.
Thus poor Miss Mehitable found herself daily being drawn, by
the leash that held this gay bird, into all sorts of unseemly gyra-
tions and wanderings, instead of using it to tether the bird to her
own well-considered purposes. She could not deny that the
child was making her old days pass in a very amusing manner,
and it was so much easier to follow the lively little sprite in all
her airy ways and caprices, seeing her lively and spirited and
happy, than to watch the ennui and the yawns and the rest-
lessness that came over her with every effort to conform to the
strict letter of the programme, that good Miss Mehitable was
always yielding. Every night she went to bed with an unquiet
conscience, sensible that, though she had had an entertaining
day, she had been letting Tina govern her, instead of governing
Tina.
Over that grave supposed necessity of governing Tina, this
silent woman groaned in spirit on many a night after the
270 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
little wheedling tongue had become silent, and the bright, de-
luding eyes had gone down under their fringy lashes. "The
fact is," said the sad old woman, "Miss Asphyxia spoke the
truth. It is a fact, I am not fit to bring up a child. She
does rule over me, just as she said she would, and I 'in a poor
old fool ; but then, what am I to do ? She is so bright and sweet
and pretty, and I 'm a queer-looking, dry, odd old woman, with
nobody to love me if she does n't. If I cross her and tie her to
rules, and am severe with her, she won't love me, and I am too
selfish to risk that. Besides, only think what came of using
severe measures with poor Emily ! people can be spoilt by sever-
ity just as much as by indulgence, and more hopelessly. But
what shall I do?"
Miss Mehitable at first had some hope of supporting and
backing up the weaknesses of her own heart by having recourse
to Polly's well-known energy. Polly was a veritable dragon of
education, and strong in the most efficient articles of faith.
Children must have their wills broken, as she expressed it,
"short off"; they must mind the very first time you speak;
they must be kept under and made to go according to rule, and,
if they swerved, Polly recommended measures of most sangui-
nary severity.
But somehow or other Tina had contrived to throw over this
grimmest and most Calvinistic of virgins the glamour of her pres-
ence, so that she ruled, reigned, and predominated in the most
awful sanctuaries of Polly's kitchen, with a fearfully unconcerned
and negligent freedom. She dared to peep into her yeast-jug in
the very moment of projection, and to pinch off from her downy
puffs of newly raised bread sly morsels for her own cooking exper-
iments ; she picked from Polly's very hand the raisins which
the good woman was stoning for the most awfully sacred elec-
tion cake, and resolutely persisted in hanging on her chair and
chattering in her ear during the evolution of high culinary mys-
teries with which the Eleusinian, or any other heathen trump-
eries of old, were not to be named. Had n't the receipt for elec-
tion cake been in the family for one hundred years ? and was not
Polly the sacred ark and tabernacle in which that divine secret
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWX. 271
resided ? Even Miss Mehitable had always been politely re-
quested to step out of the kitchen when Polly was composing
her mind for this serious work, but yet Tina neglected her geog-
raphy and sewing to be present, chattered all the time, as Polly
remarked, like a grist-mill, tasted the sugar and spices, and
helped herself at intervals to the savory composition as it was
gradually being put together, announcing her opinions, and giving
Polly her advice, with an effrontery to which Polly's submission
was something appalling.
It really used to seem to Miss Mehitable, as she listened to
Polly's dissonant shrieks of laughter from the kitchen, as if that
venerable old girl must be slightly intoxicated. Polly's laughter
was in truth something quite formidable. All the organs in her
which would usually be employed in this exercise were so rusty
for want of use, so choked up with theological dust and debris,
that when brought into exercise they had a wild, grating, disso-
nant sound, rather calculated to alarm. Miss Mehitable really
wondered if this could be the same Polly of whom she herself
stood in a certain secret awe, whose premises she never invaded,
and whose will over and about her had been always done instead
of her own ; but if she ventured to open the kitchen door and re-
call Tina, she was sure to be vigorously snubbed by Polly, who
walked over all her own precepts and maxims in the most
shameless and astonishing manner.
Polly, however, made up for her own compliances by heaping
up censures on poor Miss Mehitable when Tina had gone to bed
at night. When the bright eyes were fairly closed, and the lit-
tle bewitching voice hushed in sleep, Polly's conscience awoke
like an armed man, and she atoned for her own sins of compli-
ance and indulgence by stringently admonishing Miss Mehitable
that she must be more particular about that child, and not let her
get her own head so much, most unblushingly ignoring her own
share in abetting her transgressions, and covering her own espe-
cial sins under the declaration that " she never had undertaken to
bring the child up, she had to get along with her the best way
she could, but the child never would make anything if she
was let to go on so." Yet, in any particular case that arose,
272 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Polly was always sure to go over to Tina's side and back her
usurpations.
For example, it is to be confessed that Tina never could or
would be got to bed at those hours which are universally ad-
mitted to be canonical for well-brought-up children. As night
drew on, the little one's tongue ran with increasing fluency, and
her powers of entertainment waxed more dizzy and dazzling;
and so, oftentimes, as the drizzling, freezing night shut in, and
the wind piped and howled lonesomely round the corners of the
dusky old mansion, neither of the two forlorn women could find
it in her heart to extinguish the little cheerful candle of their
dwelling in bed ; and so she was to them ballet and opera as she
sung and danced, mimicked the dog, mimicked the cat and the
hens and the torn-turkey, and at last talked and flew about the
room like Aunt Lois, stirred up butter and pshawed like grand-
ma, or invented imaginary scenes and conversations, or impro-
vised unheard-of costumes out of strange old things she had rum-
maged out of Miss Mehitable's dark closets. Neither of the two
worthy women had ever seen the smallest kind of dramatic rep-
resentation, so that Tina's histrionic powers fascinated them by
touching upon dormant faculties, and seemed more wonderful for
their utter novelty ; and more than once, to the poignant self-re-
proach of Miss Mehitable, and Polly's most moral indignation,
nine o'clock struck, in the inevitable tones of the old family time-
piece, before they were well aware what they were doing. Then
Tina would be hustled off to bed, and Polly would preach Miss
Mehitable a strenuous discourse on the necessity of keeping chil-
dren to regular hours, interspersed with fragments of quotations
from one of her venerable father's early sermons on the Chris-
tian bringing up of households. Polly would grow inexorable as
conscience on these occasions, and when Miss Mehitable humbly
pleaded in extenuation how charming a little creature it was, and
what a pleasant evening she had given, Polly would shake her
head, and declare that the ways of sin were always pleasant for
a time, but at the last it would " bite like a serpent and sting like
an adder " ; and when Miss Mehitable, in the most delicate man-
ner, would insinuate that Polly had been sharing the forbidden
DAILY LIVING IN OLDTOWN. 273
fruit, such as it was, Polly would flare up in sudden wrath, and de-
clare that " everything that went wrong was always laid to her."
In consequence of this, though Miss Mehitable found the first
few weeks with her little charge altogether the gayest and bright-
est that had diversified her dreary life, yet there was a bitter
sense of self-condemnation and perplexity with it all. One day
she opened her mind to my grandmother.
" Laws a massy ! don't try to teach her yourself," said that
plain-spoken old individual, " send her to school with the boys.
Children have to go in droves. What 's the use of fussing with
'em all day ? let the schoolmaster take a part of the care. Chil-
dren have to be got rid of sometimes, and we come to them all
the fresher for having them out of our sight."
The consequence was, that Tina rode to school on our sleds in
triumph, and made more fun, and did more mischief, and learned
less, and was more adored and desired, than any other scholar of
us all.
12#
274 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XXIII.
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD.
ONE of my most vivid childish remembrances is the length of
our winters, the depth of the snows, the raging fury of the
storms that used to whirl over the old farm-house, shrieking and
piping and screaming round each angle and corner, and thunder-
ing down the chimney in a way that used to threaten to topple
all down before it.
The one great central kitchen fire was the only means of
warming known in the house, and duly at nine o'clock every
night that was raked up, and all the family took their way to bed-
chambers that never knew a fire, where the very sheets and
blankets seemed so full of stinging cold air that they made one's
fingers tingle ; and where, after getting into bed, there was a pro-
longed shiver, until one's own internal heat-giving economy had
warmed through the whole icy mass. Delicate people had these
horrors ameliorated by the application of a brass warming-pan,
an article of high respect and repute in those days, which
the modern conveniences for warmth in our houses have entirely
banished.
Then came the sleet storms, when the trees bent and creaked
under glittering mail of ice, and every sprig and spray of any
kind of vegetation was reproduced in sparkling crystals. These
were cold days par excellence, when everybody talked of the
weather as something exciting and tremendous, when the cider
would freeze in the cellar, and the bread in the milk-room would
be like blocks of ice, when not a drop of water could be got
out of the sealed well, and the very chimney-back over the
raked-up fire would be seen in the morning sparkling with a
rime of frost crystals. How the sledges used to squeak over the
hard snow, and the breath freeze on the hair, and beard, and
woolly comforters around the necks of the men, as one and
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN 'THE WORLD. 275
another brought in news of the wondei-ful, unheard-of excesses
of Jack Frost during the foregone night! There was always
something exhilarating about those extremely cold days, when a
very forest of logs, heaped up and burning in the great chimney,
could not warm the other side of the kitchen ; and when Aunt
Lois, standing with her back so near the blaze as to be uncom-
fortably warm, yet found her dish-towel freezing in her hand,
while she wiped the teacup drawn from the almost boiling water.
When things got to this point, we little folks were jolly. It was
an excitement, an intoxication ; it filled life full of talk. People
froze the tips of their noses, their ears, their toes ; we froze our
own. Whoever touched a door-latch incautiously, in the early
morning, received a skinning bite from Jack. The axe, the saw,
the hatchet, all the iron tools, in short, were possessed of a cold
devil ready to snap out at any incautious hand that meddled
with him. What ponderous stalactites of ice used to hang from
the eaves, and hung unmelted days, weeks, and months, dripping
a little, perhaps, towards noon, but hardening again as night came
on ! and how long all this lasted ! To us children it seemed
ages.
Then came April with here and there a sunny day. A
bluebird would be vaguely spoken of as having appeared.
Sam Lawson was usually the first to announce the fact, to the
sharp and sceptical contempt of his helpmeet.
On a shimmering April morning, with a half-mind to be sun-
shiny, Sam sav/ Harry and myself trotting by his door, and
called to us for a bit of gossip.
" Lordy massy, boys, ain't it pleasant ? Why, bless your soul
and body, I do believe spring 's a comin', though Hepsy she
won't believe it," he said, as he leaned over the fence contem-
platively, with the axe in his hand. " I heard a bluebird last
week, Jake Marshall and me, when we was goin' over to Hop-
kinton to see how Ike Saunders is. You know he is down with
the measles. I went over to offer to sit up with him. Where
be ye goin' this mornin' ? "
" We 're going to the minister's. Grandfather is n't well, and
Lady Lothrop told us to come for some wine."
276 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Jes' so," said Sam. " Wai, now, he orter take something for
his stomach's sake, Scriptur' goes in for that. A little good hot
spiced wine, it 's jest the thing ; and Ma'am Lothrop, she has the
very best. Why, some o' that 'ere wine o' hern come over from
England years ago, when her fust husband was living ; and he
was a man that knew where to get his things. Wai, you must n't
stop to play ; allers remember when you 're sent on errands not
to be a idlin' on the road."
" Sam Lawson, will you split me that oven-wood or won't you ? "
said a smart, cracking voice, as the door flew open and Hepsy's
thin face and snapping black eyes appeared, as she stood with
a weird, wiry, sharp-visaged baby exalted on one shoulder, while
in the other hand she shook a dish-cloth.
" Lordy massy, Hepsy, I 'm splittin' as fast as I can. There,
run along, boys ; don't stop to play."
We ran along, for, truth to say, the vision of Hepsy's sharp
features always quickened our speed, and we heard the loud,
high-pitched storm of matrimonial objurgation long after we had
left them behind.
Timidly we struck the great knocker, and with due respect
and modesty told our errand to the black doctor of divinity who
opened the door.
" I '11 speak to Missis," he said ; " but this 'ere 's Missis' great
day ; it 's Good Friday, and she don't come out of her room the
whole blessed day."
" But she sent word that we should come," we both answered
in one voice.
" Well, you jest wait here while I go up and see," and the
important messenger creaked up stairs on tiptoe with infinite
precaution, and knocked at a chamber door.
Now there was something in all this reception that was vaguely
solemn and impressive to us. The minister's house of itself was
a dignified and august place. The minister was in our minds
great and greatly to be feared, and to be had in reverence of
them that were about him. The minister's wife was a very great
lady, who wore very stiff silks, and rode in a coach, and had no
end of unknown wealth at her control, so ran the village gossip.
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD. 277
And now what this mysterious Good Friday was, and why the
house was so still, and why the black doctor of divinity tiptoed
up stairs so stealthily, and knocked at her door so timidly, we
could not exactly conjecture ; it was all of a piece with the gen-
eral marvellous and supernatural character of the whole estab-
lishment.
We heard above the silvery well-bred tones that marked Lady
Lothrop.
" Tell the children to come up."
We looked at each other, and each waited a moment for the
other to lead the way ; finally I took the lead, and Harry fol-
lowed. We entered a bedroom shaded in a sombre gloom which
seemed to our childish eyes mysterious and impressive. There
were three windows in the room, but the shutters were closed,
and the only light that came in was from heart-shaped apertures
in each one. There was in one corner a tall, solemn-looking,
high-post bedstead with heavy crimson draperies. There were
heavy carved bureaus and chairs of black, solid oak.
At a table covered with dark cloth sat Lady Lothrop, dressed
entirely in black, with a great Book of Common Prayer spread
out before her. The light from the heart-shaped hole streamed
down upon this prayer-book in a sort of dusky shaft, and I
was the more struck and impressed because it was not an ordinary
volume, but a great folio bound in parchment, with heavy brass
knobs and clasps, printed in black-letter, of that identical old
edition first prepared in King Edward's time, and appointed to be
read in churches. Its very unusual and antique appearance
impressed me with a kind of awe.
There was at the other end of the room a tall, full-length mir-
ror, which, as we advanced, duplicated the whole scene, giving
back faithfully the image of the spare figure of Lady Lothrop,
her grave and serious face, and the strange old book over which
she seemed to be bending, with a dusky gleaming of crimson
draperies in the background.
" Come here, my children," she said, as we hesitated ; " how is
your grandfather?"
" He is not so well to-day ; and grandmamma said "
278 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Yes, yes ; I know," she said, with a gentle little wave of the
hand ; " I desired that you might be sent for some wine ; Porn-
pey shall have it ready for you. But tell me, little boys, do you
know what day this is ? "
" It 's Friday, ma'am," said I, innocently.
" Yes, my child ; but do you know what Friday it is ? " she said.
" No, ma'am," said I, faintly.
" Well, my child, it is Good Friday ; and do you know why it
is called Good Friday ? "
" No, ma'am."
" This is the day when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
died on the cross for our salvation ; so we call it Good Friday."
I must confess that these words struck me with a strange and
blank amazement. That there had been in this world a personage
called " Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," I had learned from
the repetition of his name as the usual ending of prayers at
church and in the family ; but the real literal fact that he had
lived on earth had never presented itself to me in any definite
form before; but this solemn and secluded room, this sombre
woman shut out from all the ordinary ways of the world, de-
voting the day to lonely musing, gave to her words a strange
reality.
When did he die ? " I said.
" More than a thousand years ago," she answered.
Insensibly Harry had pressed forward till he stood in the shaft
of light, which fell upon his golden curls, and his large blue eyes
now had that wide-open, absorbed expression with which he
always listened to anything of a religious nature, and, as if
speaking involuntarily, he said eagerly, " But he is not dead.
He is living ; and we pray to him."
" Why, yes, my son," said Lady Lothrop, turning and looking
with pleased surprise, which became more admiring as she gazed,
" yes, he rose from the dead."
" I know. Mother told me all about that. Day after to-
morrow will be Easter day," said Harry ; " I remember."
A bright flush of pleased expression passed over Lady Lothrop's
face as she said, " I am glad, my boy, that you at least have been
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD. 279
taught. Tell me, boys," she said at last, graciously, "should
you like to go with me in my carriage to Easter Sunday, in
Boston?"
Had a good fairy offered to take us on the rainbow to the pal-
ace of the sunset, the offer could not have seemed more un-
worldly and dream-like. What Easter Sunday was I had not
the faintest idea, but I felt it to be something vague, strange, and
remotely suggestive of the supernatural.
Harry, however, stood the thing in the simple, solemn, gen-
tlemanlike way which was habitual with him.
" Thank you, ma'am, I shall be very happy, if grandmamma is
willing."
It will be seen that Harry slid into the adoptive familiarity
which made my grandmother his, with the easy good faith of
childhood.
" Tell your grandmamma if she is willing I shall call for you
in my coach to-morrow," and we were graciously dismissed.
"We ran home in all haste with our bottle of wine, and burst
into the kitchen, communicating our message both at once to
Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah. The two women looked at each
other mysteriously; there was a slight flush on Aunt Lois's
keen, spare face.
" Well, if she 's a mind to do it, Kezzy, I don't see how we
can refuse."
" Mother never would consent in the world," said Aunt Keziah.
"Mother must" said Aunt Lois, with decision. "We can't
afford to offend Lady Lothrop, with both these boys on our
hands. Besides, now father is sick, what a mercy to have 'em
both out of the house for a Sunday ! "
Aunt Lois spoke this with an intensive earnestness that deep-
ened my already strong convictions that we boys were a daily
load upon her life, only endured by a high and protracted exer-
cise of Christian fortitude.
She rose and tapped briskly into the bedroom where my
grandmother was sitting reading by my grandfather's bed. I
heard her making some rapid statements in a subdued, impera-
tive tone. There were a few moments of a sort of suppressed,
280 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
earnest hum of conversation, and soon we heard sundry vehe-
ment interjections from my grandmother, "Good Friday!
Easter ! pish, Lois ! don't tell me ! old cast-off rags of the
scarlet woman, nothing else.
' Abhor the arrant whore of Kome.
And all her blasphemies ;
Drink not of her accursed cup,
Obey not her decrees.' "
" Now, mother, how absurd ! " I heard Aunt Lois say. "Who 's
talking about Rome ? I 'm sure, if Dr. Lothrop can allow it, we
can. It 's all nonsense to talk so. We don't want to offend
our minister's wife ; we must do the things that make for peace " ;
and then the humming went on for a few moments more and
more earnestly, till finally we heard grandmother break out :
" Well, well, have it your own way, Lois, you always did
and always will, I suppose. Glad the boys '11 have a holiday, any-
how. She means well, I dare say, thinks she 's doing right."
I must say that this was a favorite formula with which my
grandmother generally let herself down from the high .platform
of her own sharply defined opinions to the level of Christian
charity with her neighbors.
" Who is the whore of Rome ? " said Harry to me, confiden-
tially, when we had gone to our room to make ready for our
jaunt the next day.
" Don't you know ? " said I. " Why, it 's the one that burnt
John Rogers, in the Catechism. I can show it to you"; and,
forthwith producing from my small stock of books my New Eng-
land Primer, I called his attention to the picture of Mr. John
Rogers in gown and bands, standing in the midst of a brisk and
voluminous coil of fire and smoke, over which an executioner,
with a supernatural broadaxe upon his shoulders, seemed to pre-
side with grim satisfaction. There was a woman with a baby in
her arms and nine children at her side, who stood in a row, each
head being just a step lower than the preceding, so that they
made a regular flight of stairs. The artist had represented the
mother and all the children with a sort of round bundle on each
of their heads, of about the same size as the head itself, a
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WOELD. 281
thing which I always interpreted as a further device of the
enemy in putting stones on their heads to crush them down ;
and I pointed it out to Harry as an aggravating feature of the
martyrdom.
" Did the whore of Rome do that ? " said Harry, after a few
moments' reflection.
"Yes, she did, and it tells about it in the poetry which he
wrote here to his children the night before his execution " ; and
forthwith I proceeded to read to Harry that whole poetical pro-
duction, delighted to find a gap in his education which I was
competent to fill. We were both wrought up into a highly Prot-
estant state by reading this.
" Horace," said Harry, timidly, " she would n't like such things,
would she ? she is such a good woman."
" What, Lady Lothrop ? of course she 's a good woman ; else
she would n't be our minister's wife."
" What was grandma talking about ? " said Harry.
" O, I don't know ; grandmother talks about a great many
things," said I. " At any rate, we shall see Boston, and I Ve
always wanted to see Boston. Only think, Harry, we shall go in
a coach ! "
This projected tour to Boston was a glorification of us chil-
dren in the eyes of the whole family. To go, on the humblest of
terms, to Boston, but to be taken thither in Lady Lothrop's
coach, to be trotted in magnificently behind her fat pair of car-
riage-horses, that was a good fortune second only to translation.
Boston lay at an easy three hours' ride from Qldtown, and Lady
Lothrop had signified to my grandmother that we were to be
called for soon after dinner. We were to spend the night and
the Sunday following at the house of Lady Lothrop's mother, who
slill kept the old family mansion at the north end, and Lady
Lothrop was graciously pleased to add that she would keep the
children over Easter Monday, to show them Boston. Faithful
old soul, she never omitted the opportunity of reminding the
gainsaying community among whom her lot was cast of the sol-
emn days of her church and for one / have remembered Easter
Sunday and Monday to this day.
282 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Our good fortune received its crowning stroke in our eyes
when, running over to Miss Mehitable's with the news, we found
that Lady Lothrop had considerately included Tina in the invi-
tation.
"Well, she must like children better than I do," was Aunt
Lois's comment upon the fact, when we announced it. " Now,
boys, mind and behave yourselves like young gentlemen," she
added, " for you are going to one of the oldest families of Bos-
ton, among real genteel people."
" They 're Tories, Lois," put in Aunt Keziah, apprehensively.
" Well, what of that ? that thing 's over and gone now," said
Aunt Lois, "and nobody lays it up against the Kitterys, and
everybody knows they were in the very first circles in Boston
before the war, and connected with the highest people in Eng-
land, so it was quite natural they should be Tories."
" I should n't wonder if Lady Widgery should be there," said
Aunt Keziah, musingly, as she twitched her yarn; "she always
used to come to Boston about this time o' the year."
" Very likely she will," said my mother. " What relation is she
to Lady Lothrop ? "
" Why, bless me, don't you know ? " said Aunt Lois. " Why,
she was Polly Steadman, and sister to old Ma'am Kittery's hus-
band's first wife. She was second wife to Sir Thomas ; his first
wife was one of the Keatons of Penshurst, in England ; she died
while Sir Thomas was in the custom-house ; she was a poor,
sickly thing. Polly was a great beauty in her day. People said
he admired her rather too much before his wife died, but I don't
know how that was."
" I wonder what folks want to say such things for," quoth my
grandmother. " I hate backbiters, for my part."
" We are n't backbiting, mother. I only said how the story ran.
It was years ago, and poor Sir Thomas is in his grave long ago."
" Then you might let him rest there," said my grandmother.
" Lady Widgery was a pleasant-spoken woman, I remember."
" She 's quite an invalid now, I heard," said Aunt Lois. " Our
Bill was calling at the Kitterys' the other day, and Miss Deborah
Kittery spoke of expecting Lady Widgery. The Kitterys have
WE TAKE A STEP UP IX THE WORLD. 288
been very polite to Bill ; they 've invited him there to dinner
once or twice this winter. That was one reason why I thought we
ought to be careful how we treat Lady Lothrop's invitation. It 's
entirely through her influence that Bill gets these attentions."
" I don't know about their being the best thing for him," said
my grandmother, doubtfully.
" Mother, how can you talk so ? What can be better than
for a young man to have the run of good families in Boston ? "
said Aunt Lois.
" I 'd rather see him have intimacy with one godly minister
of old times," said my grandmother.
" Well, that 's what Bill is n't likely to do," quoth Aunt Lois,
with a slight shade of impatience. " We must take boys as we
find 'em."
" I have n't anything against Tories or Episcopalians," said
my grandmother ; " but they ain't our sort of folks. I dare say
they mean as well as they know how."
" Miss Mehitable visits the Kitterys when she is in Boston,"
said Aunt Lois, " and thinks everything of them. She says
that Deborah Kittery is a very smart, intelligent woman, a
woman of a very strong mind."
" I dare say they 're well enough," said my grandmother.
" I 'm sure I wish 'em well with all my heart."
" Now, Horace," said Aunt Lois, " be careful you don't sniff,
and be sure and wipe your shoes on the mat when you come in,
and never on any account speak a word unless you are spoken to.
Little "boys should be seen and not heard ; and be very careful
you never touch anything you see. It is very good of Lady
Lothrop to be willing to take all the trouble of having you with
her, and you must make her just as little as possible."
I mentally resolved to reduce myself to a nonentity, to go
out of existence, as it were, to be nobody and nowhere, if only
I might escape making trouble.
" As to Harry, he is always a good, quiet boy, and never
touches things, or forgets to wipe his shoes," said my aunt.
" I 'm sure he will behave himself." .
My mother colored slightly at this undisguised partiality for
284 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Harry, but she was too much under Aunt Lois's discipline to
venture a word.
" Lordy massy, Mis' Badger, how do ye all do ? " said Sam
Lawson, this moment appearing at the kitchen door. " I saw
your winders so bright, I thought I 'd jest look in and ask after
the Deacon. I ben into Miss Mehitable's, and there 's Polly, she
telled me about the chillen goin' to Boston to-morrow. Tiny,
she 'B jest flying round and round like a lightning-bug, most out
of her head, she 's so tickled ; and Polly, she was a i'nin' up her
white aprons to get her up smart. Polly, she says it 's all pagan
flummery about Easter, but she 's glad the chillen are goin' to
have the holiday." And with this Sam Lawson seated himself
on his usual evening roost in the corner, next to black Caesar,
and we both came and stood by his knee.
" Wai, boys, now you 're goin' among real, old-fashioned gen-
tility. Them Kitterys used to hold their heads 'mazin' high afore
the war, and they 've managed by hook and crook to hold on to
most what they got, and now by-gones is by-gones. But I be-
lieve they don't go out much, or go into company. Old Ma'am
Kittery, she 's kind o' broke up about her son that was killed at
the Delaware."
" Fighting on the wrong side, poor woman," said my grand-
mother. " Well, I s'pose he thought he was doing right."
" Yes, yeg," said Sam, " there 's all sorts o' folks go to make
up a world, and, lordy massy, we must n't be hard on nobody ;
can't 'spect everybody to be right all round ; it 's what I tell
Polly when she sniffs- at Lady Lothrop keepin' Christmas and
Easter and sich. ' Lordy massy, Polly/ says I, l if she reads
her Bible, and 's good to the poor, and don't speak evil o' nobody,
why, let her have her Easter ; what 's the harm on 't ? ' But, lordy
massy bless your soul an' body ! there 's no kind o' use talkin' to
Polly. She fumed away there, over her i'nin' table ; she
did n't believe in folks that read their prayers out o' books ; and
then she hed it all over about them tew thousan' ministers that
was all turned out o' the church in one day in old King Charles's
time. Now, raily, Mis'. Badger, I don't see why Lady Lothrop
should be held 'sponsible for that are, if she is 'Piscopalian."
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD.
285
" Well, well," said my grandmother ; " they did turn out the
very best men in England, but the Lord took 'em for seed to
plant America with. But no wonder we feel it : burnt children
dread the fire. I 've nothing against Lady Lothrop, and I don't
wish evil to the Episcopalians nor to the Tories. There 's good
folks among 'em all, and ' the Lord kuoweth them that are his.'
But I do hope, Horace, that, when you get to Boston, you will go
out on to Copps Hill and see the graves of the Saints. There
are the men that I want my children to remember. You
come here, and let me read you about them in my ' Magnaly ' *
here." And with this my grandmother produced her well-worn
copy ; and, to say the truth, we were never tired of hearing what
there was in it. What legends, wonderful and stirring, of the
solemn old forest life, of rights with the Indians, and thrilling
adventures, and captivities, and distresses, of encounters with
panthers and serpents, and other wild beasts, which made our
very hair stand on end! Then there were the weird witch-
stories, so wonderfully attested ; and how Mr. Peter So-and-so
did visibly see, when crossing a river, a cat's head swimming in
front of the boat, and the tail of the same following behind ; and
how worthy people had been badgered and harassed by a sudden
friskiness in all their household belongings, in a manner not un-
known in our modern days. Of all these fascinating legends my
grandmother was a willing communicator, and had, to match them,
numbers of corresponding ones from her own personal observa-
tion and experience ; and sometimes Sam Lawson would chime
in with long-winded legends, which, being told by flickering fire-
light, with the wind rumbling and tumbling down the great chim-
ney, or shrieking and yelling and piping around every corner of
the house, like an army of fiends trying with tooth and claw to
get in upon us, had power to send cold chills down our backs in
the most charming manner.
For my part, I had not the slightest fear of the supernatural ;
it was to me only a delightful stimulant, just crisping the surface
of my mind with a pleasing horror. I had not any doubt of the
stories of apparitions related by Dr. Cotton, because I had seen
* Dr. Cotton Mather's Magnalia."
286 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
so many of them myself; and I did not doubt that many of the
witnesses who testified in these cases really did see what they
said they saw, as plainly as I had seen similar appearances.
The consideration of the fact that there really are people in whose
lives such phenomena are of frequent occurrence seems to have
been entirely left out of the minds of those who have endeav-
ored to explain that dark passage in our history.
In my maturer years I looked upon this peculiarity as some-
thing resulting from a physical idiosyncrasy, and I have supposed
that such affections may become at times epidemics in communi-
ties, as well as any other affection of the brain and nervous sys-
tem. Whether the things thus discerned have an objective re-
ality or not, has been one of those questions at which, all my
life, the interrogation point has stood unerased.
On this evening, however, my grandmother thought fit to
edify us by copious extracts from "The Second Part, entituled
Sepher-Jearinij i. e. Liber Deum Timentium ; or, Dead Abels ;
yet speaking and spoken of."
The lives of several of these " Dead Abels " were her favorite
reading, and to-night she designed especially to fortify our minds
with their biographies ; so she gave us short dips and extracts
here and there from several of them, as, for example : " Janus
Nov.-Anglicus ; or, The Life of Mr. Samuel Higginson " ;
" Cadmus Americanus ; or, Life of Mr. Charles Chauncey " ;
"Cygnea Cantio ; or, The Death of Mr. John Avery " ; " Ful-
gentius ; or, The Life of Mr. Richard Mather"; and "Elisha's
Bones ; or, Life of Mr. Henry Whitefield."
These Latin titles stimulated my imagination like the sound of
a trumpet, and I looked them out diligently in my father's great
dictionary, and sometimes astonished my grandmother by telling
'her what they meant.
In fact, I was sent to bed that night thoroughly fortified
against all seductions of the gay and worldly society into which
I was about to be precipitated ; and my reader will see that there
was need enough of this preparation.
All these various conversations in regard to differences of re-
ligion went on before us children with the freedom with which
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD. 287
older people generally allow themselves to go on in the presence
of" the little non-combatants of life. In those days, when utter
silence and reserve in the presence of elders was so forcibly in-
culcated as one of the leading virtues of childhood, there was lit-
tle calculation made for the effect of such words on the childish
mind. With me it was a perfect hazy mist of wonder and bewil-
derment ; and I went to sleep and dreamed that John Rogers was
burning Lady Lothrop at the stake, and Polly, as executioner,
presided with a great broadaxe over her shoulder, while grand-
mother, with nine small children, all with stone bundles on their
heads, assisted at the ceremony.
Our ride to Boston was performed in a most proper and edi-
fying manner. Lady Lothrop sat erect and gracious on the back
seat, and placed Harry, for whom she seemed to have conceived a
special affection, by her side. Tina was perched on the knee of
my lady's maid, a starched, prim woman who had grown up and
dried in all the most sacred and sanctified essences of genteel
propriety. She was the very crispness of old-time decorum,
brought up to order herself lowly and reverently to all her bet-
ters, and with a secret conviction that, aside from Lady Lothrop,
the whole of the Oldtown population were rather low Dissenters,
whom she was required by the rules of Christian propriety to be
kind to. To her master, as having been honored with the au-
gust favor of her mistress's hand, she looked up with respect,
but her highest mark of approbation was in the oft-repeated burst
which came from her heart in moments of confidential enthusi-
asm, " Ah, ma'am, depend upon it, master is a churchman in
his heart. If 'e 'ad only 'ad the good fortune to be born in
Hengland, 'e would 'ave been a bishop ! "
Tina had been talked to and schooled rigorously by Miss
Mehitable as to propriety of manner during this ride ; and, as
Miss Mehitable well knew what a chatterbox she was, she exacted
from her a solemn promise that she would only speak when she
was spoken to. Being perched in Mrs. Margery's lap, she felt
still further the stringent and binding power of that atmosphere
of frosty decorum which encircled this immaculate waiting-maid.
A more well-bred, inoffensive, reverential little trio never sur-
288 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
rounded a lady patroness ; and as Lady Lothrop was not much
of a talker, and, being a childless woman, had none of those
little arts of drawing out children which the maternal instinct
alone teaches, our ride, though undoubtedly a matter of great en-
joyment, was an enjoyment of a serious and even awful character.
Lady Lothrop addressed a few kind inquiries to each one of us
in turn, to which we each of us replied, and then the conversa-
tion fell into the hands of Mrs. Margery, and consisted mainly
in precise details as to where and how she had packed her
mistress's Sunday cap and velvet dress ; in doing which she
evinced the great fluency and fertility of language with which
women of her class are gifted on the one subject of their souls.
Mrs. Margery felt as if the Sunday cap of the only supporter of
the true Church in the dark and heathen parish of Oldtown was
a subject not to be lightly or unadvisedly considered ; and, there-
fore, she told at great length how she had intended to pack it
first all together, how she had altered her mind and taken off
the bow, and packed that in a little box by itself, and laid the
strings out flat in the box, what difficulties had met her in fold-
ing the velvet dress, and how she had at first laid it on top of
the trunk, but had decided at last that the black lutestring might
go on top of that, because it was so much lighter, &c., &c., &c.
Lady Lothrop was so much accustomed to this species of
monologue, that it is quite doubtful if she heard a word of it ;
but poor Tina, who felt within herself whole worlds of things to
say, from the various objects upon the road, of which she was
dying to talk and ask questions, wriggled and twisted upon Mrs.
Margery's knee, and finally gave utterance to her pent-up feel-
ings in deep sighs.
" What 's the matter, little dear ? " said Lady Lothrop.
" O dear ! I was just wishing I could go to church."
" Well, you are going to-morrow, dear."
" I just wish I could go now to say one prayer."
" And what is that, my dear ? "
" I just want to say, ' O Lord, open thou my lips,' said Tina,
with effusion.
Lady Lothrop smiled with an air of innocent surprise, and
Mrs. Margery winked over the little head.
WE TAKE A STEP UP IN THE WORLD. 28
" I 'm 50 tired of not talking ! " said Tina, pathetically ; " but I
promised Miss Mehitable I would n't speak unless I was spoken
to," she added, with an air of virtuous resolution.
" Why, my little dear, you may talk," said Lady Lothrop. " It
won't disturb me at all. Tell us now about anything that inter-
ests you."
" O, thank you ever so much," said Tina ; and from this
moment, as a little elfin butterfly bursts from a cold, gray
chrysalis, Tina rattled and chattered and sparkled, and went on
with verve and gusto that quite waked us all up. Lady Lothrop
and Mrs. Margery soon found themselves laughing with a
heartiness which surprised themselves ; and, the icy chains of
silence being once broken, we all talked, almost forgetting in
whose presence we were. Lady Lothrop looked from one to
another in a sort of pleased and innocent surprise. Her still,
childless, decorous life covered and concealed many mute feminine
instincts which now rose at the voice and touch of childhood ;
and sometimes in the course of our gambols she would sigh,
perhaps thinking of her own childless hearth.
1.3
290 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR.
IT was just at dusk that our carriage stood before the door of
a respectable mansion at the north end of Boston.
I remember our alighting and passing through a wide hall
with a dark oaken staircase, into a low-studded parlor, lighted
by the blaze of a fire of hickory logs, which threw out tongues
of yellow flame, and winked at itself with a thousand fanciful
flashes, in the crinkles and angles of a singularly high and
mighty pair of brass andirons.
A lovely, peaceful old lady, whose silvery white hair and black
dress were the most striking features of the picture, kissed Lady
Lothrop, and then came to us with a perfect outgush of motherly
kindness. " Why, the poor little dears ! the little darlings ! " she
said, as she began with her trembling fingers to undo Tina's bonnet-
strings. " Did they want to come to Boston and see the great
city ? Well, they should. They must be cold ; there, put them
close by the fire, and grandma will get them a nice cake pretty
soon. Here, I '11 hold the little lady," she said, as she put Tina
on her knee.
The child nestled her head down on her bosom as lovingly and
confidingly as if she had known her all her days. " Poor babe,"
said the old lady to Lady Lothrop, " who could have had a heart to
desert such a child ? and this is the boy," she said, drawing
Harry to her and looking tenderly at him. " Well, a father of
the fatherless is God in his holy habitation." There was some-
thing even grand about the fervor of this sentence as she uttered
it, and Tina put up her hand with a caressing gesture around the
withered old neck.
" Debby, get these poor children a cake," said the lady to a
brisk, energetic, rather high-stepping individual, who now entered
the apartment.
WE BEHOLD GRAXDKUK. 291
" Come now, mother, do let it rest till supper-tiine. If we let
you alone, you would murder all the children in your neighbor-
hood with cake and sugar-plums ; you 'd be as bad as King
Herod."
Miss Debby was a well-preserved, up-and-down, positive,
cheery, sprightly maiden lady of an age lying somewhere in the
indeterminate region between forty and sixty. There was a
positive, brusque way about all her movements, and she ad-
vanced to the fire, rearranged the wood, picked up stray brands,
and whisked up the coals with a brush, and then, seating herself
bolt upright, took up the business of making our acquaintance in
the most precise and systematic manner.
" So this is Master Horace Holyoke. How do you do, sir ? ?>
As previously directed, I made my best bow with anxious
politeness.
" And this is Master Harry Percival, is it ? " Harry did the
same.
" And this," she added, turning to Tina, " is Miss Tina Perci-
val, I understand ? Well, we are very happy to see good little
children in this house always." There was a rather severe em-
phasis on the good, which, together with the somewhat martial
and disciplinary air which invested all Miss Deborah's words and
actions, was calculated to strike children with a wholesome awe.
Our resolution " to be very good indeed " received an imme-
diate accession of strength. At this moment a serving-maid ap-
peared at the door, and, with eyes cast down, and a stiff, respect
ful courtesy, conveyed the information, " If you please, ma'am,
tea is ready."
This humble, self-abased figure the utter air of self-abnega-
tion with which the domestic seemed to intimate that, unless
her mistress pleased, tea was not ready, and that everything in
creation was to be either ready or not ready according to her
sovereign will and good pleasure was to us children a new
lesson in decorum.
"Go tell Lady Widgery that tea is served," said Miss
Deborah, in a loud, resounding voice. " Tell her that we will
wait her ladyship's convenience."
292 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
The humble serving-maid courtesied, and closed the door softly
with reverential awe. On the whole, the impression upon our
minds was deeply solemn ; we were about to see her ladyship.
Lady Widgery was the last rose of summer of the departed
aristocracy. Lady Lothrop's title was only by courtesy; but Sir
Thomas Widgery was a live baronet ; and as there were to be
no more of these splendid dispensations in America, one may
fancy the tenderness with which old Tory families cherished the
last lingering remnants.
The door was soon opened again, and a bundle of black silk
appeared, with a pale, thin face looking out of it. There was to
be seen the glitter of a pair of sharp, black eyes, and the shim-
mer of a thin white hand with a diamond ring upon it. These
were the items that made up Lady Widgery, as she dawned
upon our childish vision.
Lest the reader should conceive any false hopes or impres-
sions, I may as well say that it turned out, on further acquaint-
ance, that these items were about all there was of Lady Widgery.
It was one of the cases where Nature had picked up a very in-
different and commonplace soul, and shut it up in a very intelli-
gent-looking body. From her youth up, Lady Widgery's
principal attraction consisted in looking as if there was a great
deal more in her than there really was. Her eyes were spar-
kling and bright, and had a habit of looking at things in this world
with keen, shrewd glances, as if she were thinking about them
to some purpose, which she never was. Sometimes they were
tender and beseeching, and led her distracted admirers to feel as
if she were melting with emotions that she never dreamed of.
Thus Lady Widgery had always been rushed for and contended
for by the other sex ; and one husband had hardly time to be cold in
his grave before the air was filled with the rivalry of candidates
to her hand ; and after all the beautiful little hoax had nothing
for it but her attractive soul-case. In her old age she still looked
elegant, shrewd, and keen, and undeniably high-bred, and carried
about her the prestige of rank and beauty. Otherwise she was
a little dry -bundle of old prejudices, of faded recollections of
past conquests and gayeties, and weakly concerned about her own
WE BEHOLD GEANDEUR. 293
health, which, in her view and that of everybody about her, ap-
peared a most sacred subject. She had a somewhat entertaining
manner of rehearsing the gossip and scandals of the last forty
years, and was, so far as such a person could be, religious : that
is to say, she kept all the feasts and fasts of the Church scrupu-
lously. She had, in a weakly way, a sense of some responsibility
in this matter, because she was Lady Widgery, and because in-
fidelity was prevailing in the land, and it became Lady Widgery
to cast her influence against it, Therefore it was that, even at
the risk of her precious life, as she thought, she had felt it im-
perative to come to Boston to celebrate Easter Sunday.
When she entered the room there was an immediate bustle of
welcome. Lady Lothrop ran up to her, saluting her with an
appearance of great fondness, mingled, I thought, with a sort of
extreme deference. Miss Deborah was pressing in her attentions.
" Will you sit a moment before tea to get your feet warm, or
will you go out at once ? The dining-room is quite warm."
Lady Widgery's feet were quite warm, and everybody was so
glad to hear it, that we were filled with wonder.
Then she turned and fixed her keen, dark eyes on us, as if she
were reading our very destiny, and asked who we were. We
were all presented circumstantially, and the brilliant eyes seemed
to look through us shrewdly, as we made our bows and courtesies.
One would have thought that she was studying us with a deep in-
terest, which was not the case.
We were now marshalled out to the tea-table, where we children
had our plates put in a row together, and were waited on with
obsequious civility by Mrs. Margery and another equally starched
and decorous . female, who was the attendant of Lady Widgery.
We stood at our places a moment, while the lovely old lady, rais-
ing her trembling hand, pronounced the words of the customary
grace : " For what we are now about to receive, the Lord make
us truly thankful." Her voice trembled as she spoke, and some-
how the impression of fragility and sanctity that she made on me
awoke in me a sort of tender awe. When the blessing was over,
the maids seated us, and I had leisure to notice the entirely new
scene about me.
294 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
It was all conducted with an inexpressible stateliness of pro-
priety, and, in an undefined way, the impression was produced
upon ray mind that the frail, shivery, rather thin and withered
little being, enveloped in a tangle of black silk wraps, was some-
thing inexpressibly sacred and sublime. Miss Deborah waited
on her constantly, pressingly, energetically ; and the dear, sweet
old white-haired lady tended her with obsequiousness, which,
like everything else that she did, was lost in lovingness ; and
Lady Lothrop, to me the most awe-inspiring of the female race,
paled her ineffectual fires, and bowed her sacred head to the
rustling little black silk bundle, in a way that made me inwardly
wonder. The whole scene was so different from the wide, rough,
noisy, free-and-easy democracy of my grandmother's kitchen,
that I felt crusted all over with an indefinite stiffness of embar-
rassment, as if I had been dipped in an alum-bath. At the head
of the table there was an old silver tea-urn, looking heavy
enough to have the weight of whole generations in it, into which,
at the moment of sitting down, a serious-visaged waiting-maid
dropped a red-hot weight, and forthwith the noise of a violent
boiling arose. We little folks looked at each other inquiringly,
but said nothing. All was to us like an enchanted palace. The
great, mysterious tea-urn, the chased silver tea-caddy, the pre-
cise and well-considered movements of Miss Deborah as she
rinsed the old embossed silver teapots in the boiling water, the
India-china cups and plates, painted with the family initials and
family crest, all were to us solemn signs and symbols of that
upper table-land of gentility, into which we were forewarned by
Aunt Lois we were to enter.
" There," said Miss Deborah, with emphasis, as she poured
and handed to Lady Widgery a cup of tea, " there 's some of
the tea that my brother saved at the time of that disgraceful
Boston riot, when Boston Harbor was floating with tea-chests.
His cargo was rifled in the most scandalous manner, but he went
out in a boat and saved some at the risk of his life."
Now my most sacred and enthusiastic remembrance was of
the glow of patriotic fervor with which, seated on my grand-
father's knee, I had heard the particulars of that event at a time
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR. 295
when names and dates and dress, and time, place, and circum-
stance, had all the life and vividness of a recent transaction. I
cannot describe the clarion tones in which Miss Deborah rung
out the word disgraceful, in connection with an event which had
always set my blood boiling with pride and patriotism. Now, as
if convicted of sheep-stealing, I felt myself getting red to the
very tips of my ears.
" It was a shameful proceeding," sighed Lady Widgery, in her
pretty, high-bred tones, as she pensively stirred the amber fluid
in her teacup. " I never saw Sir Thomas so indignant at any-
thing in all my life, and I 'm sure it gave me a sick-headache
for three days, so that I had to stay shut up in a dark room, and
could n't keep the least thing on my stomach. What a mysteri-
ous providence it is that such conduct should be suffered to lead
to success ! "
" Well," said Lady Lothrop, sipping her tea on the other side,
" clouds and darkness are about the Divine dispensations ; but
let us hope it will be all finally overruled for the best."
"0, come/' said Miss Debby, giving a cheerful, victorious
crow of defiance from behind her teapots. "Dorothy will be
down on us with the tip-end of one of her husband's sermons,
of course. Having married a Continental Congress parson, she
has to say the best she can ; but I, Deborah Kittery, who was
never yet in bondage to any man, shall be free to have my say
to the end of my days, and I do say that the Continental Con-
gress is an abomination in the land, and the leaders of it, if
justice had been done, they would all have been hanged high as
Haman ; and that there is one house in old Boston, at the North
End, and not far from the spot where we have the honor to be,
where King George now reigns as much as ever he did, and
where law and order prevail in spite of General Washington
and Mrs. Martha, with her court and train. It puts me out of
all manner of patience to read the papers, receptions to 'em
here, there, and everywhere ; I should like to give 'em a re-
ception."
" Come, come, Deborah, my child, you must be patient," said
the old lady. "The Lord's ways are not as our ways. He
knows what is best."
296 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" I dare say he does, mother, but we know he does let wicked-
ness triumph to au awful extent. I think myself he 's given
this country up."
" Let us hope not," said the mother, fervently.
" Just look at it," said Miss Deborah. " Has not this miser-
able rebellion broken up the true Church in this country just as
it was getting a foothold ? has it not shaken hands with French
infidelity ? Thomas Jefferson is a scoffing infidel, and he drafted
their old Declaration of Independence, which, I will say, is the
most abominable and blasphemous document that ever sinners
dared to sign."
"But General Washington was a Churchman," said Lady
Widgery, " and they were always very careful about keeping the
feasts and fasts. Why, I remember, in the old times, I have
been there to Easter holidays, and we had a splendid ball."
" Well, then, if he was in the true Church, so much the worse
for him," said Miss Deborah. " There is some excuse for men of
Puritan families, because their ancestors were schismatics and dis-
organizers to begin with, and came over here because they
did n't like to submit to lawful government. For my part, I
have always been ashamed of having been born here. If I 'd
been consulted I should have given my voice against it."
" Debby, child, how you do talk ! " said the old lady.
" Well, mother, what can I do but talk ? and it 's a pity if I
should n't be allowed to do that. If I had been a man, I 'd
have fought ; and, if I could have my way now, I 'd go back to
England and live, where there 's some religion and some govern-
ment."
"I don't see," said the old lady, "but people are doing pretty
well under the new government."
"Indeed, mother, how can you know anything about it?
There 's a perfect reign of infidelity and immorality begun.
Why, look here, in Boston and Cambridge things are going just
as you might think they would. The college fellows call them-
selves D'Alembert, Rousseau, Voltaire, and other French heathen
names; and there's Ellery Davenport! just look at him,
came straight down from generations of Puritan ministers, and
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR. 297
has n't half as much religion as my cat there ; for Tom does know
how to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters."
Here there was such a burst of pleading feminine eloquence on
all hands as showed that general interest which often pervades
the female breast for some bright, naughty, wicked prodigal
son. Lady Widgery and old Mrs. Kittery and Lady Lothrop
all spoke at once. "Indeed, Miss Deborah," "Come, come,
Debby," " You are too bad, he goes to church with us some-
times."
" To church, does he ? " said Miss Debby, with a toss ; " and
what does he go for ? Simply to ogle the girls."
" We should be charitable in our judgments," said Lady Widgery.
" Especially of handsome young men," said Miss Debby, with
strong irony. " You all know he does n't believe as much as a
heathen. They say he reads and speaks French like a native, and
that 's all I want to know of anybody. I Ve no opinion of such
people ; a good honest Christian has no occasion to go out of his
own language, and when he does you may be pretty sure it 's for
no good."
i( O, come now, Deborah, you are too sweeping altogether,"
said Lady Lothrop ; " French is of course an elegant accomplish-
ment."
" I never saw any good of the French language, for my part,
I must confess," said Miss Debby, " nor, for that matter, of the
French nation either ; they eat frogs, and break the Sabbath, and
are as immoral as the old Canaanites. It 's just exactly like them
to aid and abet this unrighteous rebellion. They always hated
England, and they take delight in massacres and rebellions, and
every kind of mischief, ever since the massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew. Well, well, we shall see what '11 come of these ungodly
levelling principles in time. ' All men created free and equal/
forsooth- Just think f that ! clearly against the church cate-
chism."
" Of course that is all infidelity," said Lady Widgery, confi-
dently. " Sir Thomas used to say it was the effect on the lower
classes he dreaded. You see these lower classes are something
dreadful ; and what 's to keep them down if it is n't religion ? as
13*
298 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Sir Thomas used to say when he always would go to church
Sundays. He felt such a responsibility."
" Well," said Mass Deborah, " you '11 see. I predict we shall
see the time when your butcher and your baker, and your candle-
stick-maker will come into your parlor and take a chair as easy
as if they were your equals, and every servant-maid will be
thinking she must have a silk gown like her mistress. That 's
what we shall get by our revolution."
" But let us hope it will be all overruled for good," said Lady
Lothrop.
" O, overruled, overruled ! " said Miss Deborah. " Of course
it will be overruled. Sodom and Gomorrah were overruled for
good, but 't was a great deal better not to be living there about
those times." Miss Debby's voice had got upon so high a key,
and her denunciations began to be so terrifying, that the dear
old lady interposed.
" Well, children, do let 's love one another, whatever we do,"
she said ; " and, Debby, you must n't talk so hard about Ellery,
he 's your cousin, you know."
" Besides, my dear," said Lady Widgery, " great allowances
should be made for his domestic misfortunes."
" I don't see why a man need turn infidel and rebel because
his wife has turned out a madwoman," said Miss Debby ; " what
did he marry her for ? "
" my dear, it was a family arrangement to unite the two
properties," said Lady Widgery. " You see all the great Pierre-
point estates came in through her, but then she was quite shock-
ing, very peculiar always, but after her marriage her temper
was dreadful, it made poor Ellery miserable, and drove him
from home ; it really was a mercy when it broke out into real
insanity, so that they could shut her up. I 've always had great
tenderness for Ellery on that account."
" Of course you have, because you 're a lady. Did I ever
know a lady yet that did n't like Ellery Davenport, and was n't
ready to go to the stake for him? For my part I hate him, be-
cause, after all, he humbugs me, and will make me like him in
spite of myself. I have to watch and pray against him all the
time."
WE BEHOLD GRAXDKUR. 299
And as if, by the odd law of attraction which has given birth
to the proverb that somebody is always nearest when you are
talking about him, at this moment the dining-room door was
thrown open, and the old man-servant announced " Colonel Ellery
Davenport."
" Colonel ! " said Miss Debby, with a frown and an accent of
contempt. " How often must I tell Hawkins not to use those
titles of the old rebel mob army ? Insubordination is beginning
to creep in, I can see."
These words were lost in the bustle of the entrance of one on
whom, after listening to all the past conversation, we children
looked with very round eyes of attention. What we saw was
a tall, graceful young man, whose air and movements gave a
singular impression of both lightness and strength. He carried
his head on his shoulders with a jaunty, slightly haughty air,
like that of a thorough-bred young horse, and there was quality
and breeding in every movement of his body. He was dressed
in the imposing and picturesque fashion of those times, with a
slight military suggestion in its arrangements. His hair was
powdered to a dazzling whiteness, and brushed off his low
Greek forehead, and the powder gave that peculiar effect to
the eye and complexion which was one of the most distinctive
traits of that style of costume. His eyes were of a deep violet
blue, and of that lively, flashing brilliancy which a painter could
only represent by double lights. They seemed to throw out light
like diamonds. He entered the room bowing and smiling with
the gay good-humor of one sure of pleasing. An inspiring sort
of cheerfulness came in with him, that seemed to illuminate the
room like a whole stream of sunshine. In short, he fully justified
all Miss Deborah's fears.
In a moment he had taken a rapid survey of the party ; he
had kissed the hand of the dear old lady ; he had complimented
Lady Widgery ; he had inquired with effusion after the health of
Parson Lothrop, and ended all by an adroit attempt to kiss Miss
Deborah's hand, which earned him a smart little cuff from that
wary belligerent.
" No rebels allowed on these premises," said Miss Debby, sen-
tentiously.
300 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" On my soul, cousin, you forget that peace has been declared,"
he said, throwing himself into a chair with a nonchalant freedom.
" Peace ! not in our house. / have n't surrendered, if Lord
Cornwallis has," said Miss Debby, " and I consider you as the
enemy."
" Well, Debby, we must love our enemies," said the old lady,
in a pleading tone.
" Certainly you must," he replied quickly ; " and here I 've
come to Boston on purpose to go to church with you to-morrow."
" That 's right, my boy," said the old lady. " I always knew
you 'd come into right w r ays at last."
" O, there are hopes of me, certainly," he said ; " if the gentler
sex will only remember their mission, and be guardian angels, I
think I shall be saved in the end."
" You mean that you are going to wait on pretty Lizzie Cabot
to church to-morrow," said Miss Debby ; " that 's about all the
religion there is in it."
" Mine is the religion of beauty, fair cousin," said he. " If I
had had the honor of being one of the apostles, I should have
put at least one article to that effect into our highly respectable
creed."
" Ellery Davenport, you are a scoffer."
" What, I ? because I believe in the beautiful ? What is good-
ness but beauty ? and what is sin but bad taste ? I could prove
it to you out of my grandfather Edwards's works, passim,
and I think nobody in New England would dispute him."
" I don't know anything about him," said Miss Debby, with a
toss. " He was n't in the Church."
"Mere matter of position, cousin. Could n't very well be
when the Church was a thousand miles across the water ; but he
lived and died a stanch loyalist, an aristocrat in the very
marrow of his bones, as anybody may see. The whole of his
system rests on the undisputed right of big folks to eat up little
folks in proportion to their bigness, and the Creator, being
biggest of all, is dispensed from all obligation to seek any-
thing but his own glory. Here you have the root-doctrine of
the divine right of kings and nobles, who have only to follow
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR. 301
their Maker's example in their several spheres, as his blessed
Majesty King George has of late been doing with his American
colonies. If he had got the treatise on true virtue by heart, he
could not have carried out its principles better."
" Well, now, I never knew that there was so much good in
President Edwards before," said Lady Widgery, with simplicity.
" I must get my maid to read me that treatise some time."
" Do, madam," said Ellery. " I think you will find it exactly
adapted to your habits of thought, and extremely soothing."
" It will be a nice thing for her to read me to sleep with," said
Lady Widgery, innocently.
" By all means," said Ellery, with an indescribable mocking
light in his great blue eyes.
For my own part, having that strange, vibrating suscept-
ibility of constitution which I have described as making me
peculiarly impressible by the moral sphere of others, I felt in
the presence of this man a singular and painful contest of at-
traction and repulsion, such as one might imagine to be produced
by the near approach of some beautiful but dangerous animal.
His singular grace and brilliancy awoke in me an undefined an-
tagonism akin to antipathy, and yet, as if under some enchant-
ment, I could not keep my eyes off from him, and eagerly lis-
tened to everything that he had to say.
With that quick insight into human nature which enabled him,
as by a sort of instinct, to catch the reflex of every impression
which he made on any human being, he surveyed the row of
wide-open, wondering, admiring eyes, which followed him at our
end of the table.
" Aha, what have we here ? " he said, as he advanced and laid
his hand on my head. I shuddered and shook it off with a feel-
ing of pain and dislike amounting to hatred.
" How now, my little man ? " he said ; " what '& the matter
here ? " and then he turned to Tina. " Here 's a little lady will
be more gracious, I know," and he stooped and attempted to kiss
her.
The little lady drew her head back and repulsed him with the
dignity of a young princess.
802 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Upon my word," he said, " we learn the tricks of our trade
early, don't we ? Pardon me, petite mademoiselle," he said as he
retreated, laughing. " So you don't like to be kissed ? "
" Only by proper persons," said Tina, with that demure
gravity which she could at times so whimsically assume, but send-
ing with the words a long mischievous flash from under her
downcast eyelashes.
" Upon my word, if there is n't one that 's perfect in Mother
Eve's catechism at an early age," said Ellery Davenport.
" Young lady, I hope for a better acquaintance with you one of
these days."
" Come Ellery, let the child alone," said Miss Debby ; " why
should you be teaching all the girls to be forward ? If you no-
tice her so much she will be vain."
" That 's past praying for, anyhow," said he, looking with ad-
miration at the dimpling, sparkling face of Tina, who evidently was
dying to answer him back. " Don't you see the monkey has her
quiver full of arrows ? " he said. " Do let her try her infant hand
on me."
But Miss Debby, eminently proper, rose immediately, and
broke up the tea-table session by proposing adjournment to the
parlor.
After this we had family prayers, the maid-servants and man-
servant being called in and ranged in decorous order on a bench
that stood prepared for exactly that occasion in a corner of the
room. Miss Deborah placed a stand, with a great quarto edition
of the Bible and prayer-book, before her mother, and the old
lady read in a trembling voice the psalm, the epistle, and the
gospel for Easter evening, and then, all kneeling, the evening
prayers. The sound of her tremulous voice, and the beauty of the
prayers themselves, which I vaguely felt, impressed me so much
that I wept, without knowing why, as one sometimes does at
plaintive music. One thing in particular filled me with a sol-
emn surprise ; and that was the prayers, which I had never heard
before, for " The Eoyal Family of England." The trembling
voice rose to fervent clearness on the words, " We beseech Thee,
with Thy favor, to behold our most Sovereign Lord, King
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR. 303
George, and so replenish him with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit,
that he may alway incline to Thy will, and walk in Thy way. En-
due him plenteously with heavenly gifts, grant him in health
and wealth long to live, strengthen him that he may vanquish
and overcome all his enemies, and finally after this life may
attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our
Lord."
The loud " Amen " from Miss Debby which followed this,
heartily chorussed as it was by the well-taught man-servant and
maid-servants, might have done any king's heart good. For my
part, I was lost in astonishment ; and when the prayer followed
" for the gracious Queen Charlotte, their Royal Highnesses,
George, Prince of Wales, the Princess Dowager of Wales, and
all the Royal Family," my confusion of mind was at its height.
All these unknown personages were to be endued with the Holy
Spirit, enriched with heavenly grace, and brought to an everlast-
ing kingdom, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I must confess
that all I had heard of them previously, in my education, had
not prepared me to see the propriety of any peculiar celestial
arrangements in their favor ; but the sweet and solemn awe in-
spired by the trembling voice which pleaded went a long way
towards making me feel as if there must have been a great mis-
take in my bringing up hitherto.
When the circle rose from their knees, Ellery Davenport said
to Miss Debby, " It 's a pity the king of England could n't know
what stanch supporters he has in Boston."
" I don't see," said the old lady, " why they won't let us have
that prayer read in churches now ; it can't do any harm."
" I don't, either," said Ellery. " For my part, I don't know any
one who needs praying for more than the King of England ; but
the prayers of the Church don't appear to have been answered
in his case. If he had been in the slightest degree ' endowed
with heavenly gifts,' he need n't have lost these American colo-
nies."
" Come, Ellery, none of your profane talk," said Miss Debby ;
" you don't believe in anything good."
" On the contrary, I always insist on seeing the good before I
304 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
believe ; I should believe in prayer, if I saw any good come
from it,"
For shame, Ellery, when children are listening to you ! " said
Miss Debby. " But come, my little folks," she added, rising
briskly, " it 's time for these little eyes to be shut."
The dear old lady called us all to her, and kissed us good
night," laying her hand gently on our heads as she did so. I
felt the peaceful influence of that hand go through me like music,
and its benediction even in my dreams.
EASTEE SUNDAY. 305
CHAPTER XXV.
!
EASTER SUNDAY.
FOR a marvel, even in the stormy clime of Boston, our Eas-
ter Sunday was one of those celestial days which seem,
like the New Jerusalem of the Revelations, to come straight
down from God out of heaven, to show us mortals what the
upper world may be like. Our poor old Mother Boston has
now and then such a day given to her, even in the uncertain
spring-time ; and when all her bells ring together, and the
old North Church chimes her solemn psalm-tunes, and all
the people in their holiday garments come streaming out to-
wards the churches of every name which line her streets, it
seems as if the venerable dead on Copps Hill must dream
pleasantly, for " Blessed are the dead that die in the ord,"
and even to this day, in dear old Boston, their works do follow
them.
At an early hour we were roused, and dressed ourselves with
the most anxious and exemplary care. For the first time in my
life I looked Anxiously in the looking-glass, and scanned with
some solicitude, as if it had been a third person, the little being
who called himself " I." I saw a pair of great brown eyes, a face
rather thin and pale, a high forehead, and a great profusion of
dark curls, the combing out of which, by the by, was one of
the morning trials of my life. In vain Aunt Lois had cut them
off repeatedly, in the laudable hope that my hair would grow
out straight. It seemed a more inextricable mat at each
shearing ; but as Harry's flaxen poll had the same peculiarity,
we consoled each other, while we labored at our morning
toilet.
Down in the sunny parlor, a little before breakfast was on the
table, we walked about softly with our hands behind us, lest
Satan, who we were assured had always some mischief still for
T
306 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
idle hands to do, should entice us into touching some of the many
curious articles which we gazed upon now for the first time.
There was the picture of a very handsome young man over the
mantel-piece, and beneath it hung a soldier's sword in a large
loop of black crape, a significant symbol of the last great sorrow
which had overshadowed the household. On one side of the
door, framed and glazed, was a large coat of arms of the Kittery
family, worked in chenille and embroidery, the labor of Miss
Deborah's hands during the course of her early education. In
other places on the walls hung oil paintings of the deceased mas-
ter of the mansion, and of the present venerable mistress, as she
was in the glow of early youth. They were evidently painted
by a not unskilful hand, and their eyes always following us as
we moved about the room gave us the impression of being over-
looked, even while as yet there was nobody else in the apartment.
Conspicuously hung on one side of the room was a copy of one
of the Vandyck portraits of Charles the First, with his lace ruff
and peaked beard. Underneath this was a printed document,
framed and glazed ; and I, who was always drawn to read any
thing that could be read, stationed myself opposite to it and be
gan reading aloud :
"The Twelve Good Rules of the Most Blessed Martyr, King
Charles First, of Blessed Memory."
I was reading these in a loud, clear voice, when Miss Debby
entered the room. She stopped and listened to me, with a coun-
tenance beaming with approbation.
" Go on, sonny ! " she said, coming up behind me, with an ap-
proving nod, when I blushed and stopped on seeing her. " Read
them through ; those are good rules for a man to form his life
by."
I wish I could remember now what these so highly praised
rules were. The few that I can recall are not especially in ac-
cordance with the genius of our modern times. They began :
" 1st. Profane no Divine Ordinances.
" 2d. Touch no State Matter.
" 3d. Pick no Quarrels.
" 4th. Maintain no ill Opinions."
EASTER SUNDAY. 307
Here ray memory fails me, but I remember that, stimulated
by Miss Deborah's approbation, I did commit the whole of them
to memory at the time, and repeated them with a readiness and
fluency which drew upon me warm commendations from the dear
old lady, and in fact from all in the house, though Ellery Daven-
port did shrug his shoulders contumaciously and give a sort of
suppressed whistle of dissent.
" If we had minded those rules," he said, " we should n't be
where we are now."
" No, indeed, you would n't ; the more 's the pity you did n't,"
said Miss Debby. " If I 'd had the bringing of you up, you
should be learning things like that, instead of trumpery French
and democratic nonsense."
" Speaking of French," said Ellery, " I declare I forgot u
package of gloves that I brought over especially for you and
Aunty here, the very best of Paris kid."
" You may spare yourself the trouble of bringing them,
cousin," said Miss Deborah, coldly. " Whatever others may do,,
I trust /never shall be left to put a French glove on my hands.
They may be all very fine, no doubt, but English gloves, made
under her Majesty's sanction, will always be good enough for me."
" O, well, in that case I shall have the honor of presenting
them to Lady Lothrop, unless her principles should be equally
rigid."
" I dare say Dorothy will take them," said Miss Deborah.
" When a woman has married a Continental parson, what can
you expect of her ? but, for my part, I should feel that I dis-
honored the house of the Lord to enter it with gloves on made
by those atheistical French people. The fact is, we must put
a stop to worldly conformities somewhere."
" And you draw the line at French gloves," said Ellery.
" No, indeed," said Miss Deborah ; " by no means French
gloves. French novels, French philosophy, and, above all,
French morals, or rather want of morals, these are what I go
against, Cousin Ellery."
So saying, Miss Debby led the way to the breakfast-table, with
an air of the most martial and determined moral principle.
308 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
I remember only one other incident of that morning before we
went to church. The dear old lady had seemed sensibly affected
by the levity with which Ellery Davenport generally spoke upon
sacred subjects, and disturbed by her daughter's confident asser-
tions of his infidel sentiments. So she administered to him an
admonition in her own way. A little before church-time she was
sitting on the sofa, reading in her great Bible spread out on the
table before her.
" Ellery," she said, " come here and sit down by me. I want
you to read me this text."
" Certainly, Aunty, by all means," he said, as he seated him-
self by her, bent his handsome head over the book, and, following
the lead of her trembling finger, read :
" And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy
fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind.
If thou seek him, he will be found of thee, but if thou forsake
him, he will cast thee off forever."
% " Ellery," she said, with trembling earnestness, " think of that,
my boy. O Ellery, remember ! "
He turned and kissed her hand, and there certainly were tears
in his eyes. " Aunty," he said, " you must pray for me ; I may
be a good boy one of these days, who knows ? "
There was no more preaching, and no more said ; she only
held his hand, looked lovingly at him, and stroked his forehead.
" There have been a great many good people among your
fathers, Ellery."
" I know it," he said.
At this moment Miss Debby came in with the summons to
church. The family carriage came round for the old lady, but
we were better pleased to walk up the street under convoy of
Ellery Davenport, who made himself quite delightful to us.
Tina obstinately refused to take his hand, and insisted upon walk-
ing only with Harry, though from time to time she cast glances
at him over her shoulder, and he called her " a little chip of
mother Eve's block," at which she professed to feel great
indignation.
The reader may remember my description of our meeting-
EASTER SO DAY. 309
house at Oldtown, and therefore will not wonder that the archi-
tecture of the Old North and its solemn-sounding chimes, though
by no means remarkable compared with European churches,
appeared to us a vision of wonder. We gazed with delighted
awe at the chancel and. the altar, with their massive draperies
of crimson looped back with heavy gold cord and tassels, and
revealing a cloud of little winged cherubs, whereat Tina's eyes
grew large with awe, as if she had seen a vision. Above this
there was a mystical Hebrew word emblazoned in a golden
halo, while around the galleries of the house were marvellous
little colored statuettes of angels blowing long golden trum-
pets. These figures had been taken from a privateer and
presented to the church by a British man-of-war, and no child
that saw them would ever forget them. Then there was the
organ, whose wonderful sounds were heard by me for the first
time in my life. There was also an indefinable impression of
stately people that worshipped there. They all seemed to me
like Lady Lothrop, rustling in silks and brocades ; with gentle-
men like Captain Brown, in scarlet cloaks and powdered hair.
Not a crowded house by any means, but a well-ordered and se-
lect few, who performed all the responses and evolutions of the
service with immaculate propriety. I was struck with every one's
kneeling and bowing the head on taking a seat in the church ;
even gay Ellery Davenport knelt down and hid his face in
his hat, though what he did it for was a matter of some specu-
lation with us afterward. Miss Debby took me under her
special supervision. She gave me a prayer-book, found the
places for me, and took me up and down with her through the
whole service, giving her responses in such loud, clear, and ener-
getic tones as entirely to acquit herself of her share of responsi-
bility in the matter. The " true Church " received no detriment,
so far as she was concerned. I was most especially edified and
astonished by the deep courtesies which she and several distin-
guished-looking ladies made at the name of the Saviour in the
Creed ; so much so, that she was obliged to tap me on the head
to indicate to me my own part in that portion of the Church
service.
310 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
I was surprised to observe that Harry appeared perfectly
familiar with the ceremony ; and Lady Lothrop, who had him
under her particular surveillance, looked on" with wonder and
approbation, as he quietly opened his prayer-book and went
through the service with perfect regularity. Tina, who stood
between Ellery Davenport and the old lady, seemed, to tell the
truth, much too conscious of the amused attention with which
he was regarding her little movements, notwithstanding the
kindly efforts of her venerable guardian to guide her through
the service. .She resolutely refused to allow him to assist her,
half-turning her back upon him, but slyly watching him from
under her long eyelashes, in a way that afforded him great
amusement.
The sermon which followed the prayers was of the most dron-
ing and sleepy kind. But as it was dispensed by a regularly
ordained successor of the Apostles, Miss Deborah, though
ordinarily the shrewdest and sharpest of womankind, and cer-
tainly capable of preaching a sermon far more to the point
herself, sat bolt upright and listened to all those slumberous
platitudes with the most reverential attention.
It yet remains a mystery to my mind, how a church which re-
tains such a stimulating and inspiring liturgy could have such
drowsy preaching, how men could go through with the " Te
Deum," and the " Gloria in Excelsis," without one thrill of in
spiration, or one lift above the dust of earth, and, after uttering
words which one would think might warm the frozen heart of
the very dead, settle sleepily down into the quietest commonplace.
Such, however, has been the sin of ritualism in all days, prin-
cipally because human nature is, above all things, lazy, and
needs to be thorned and goaded up those heights where it ought
to fly.
Harry and I both had a very nice little nap during sermon-
time, while Ellery Davenport made a rabbit of his pocket-hand-
kerchief by way of paying his court to Tina, who sat shyly
giggling and looking at him.
After the services came the Easter dinner, to which, as a great
privilege, we were admitted from first to last ; although children
EASTER SUNDAY. 311
in those days were held to belong strictly to the dessert, and only
came in with the nuts and raisins. I remember Ellery Daven-
port seemed to be the life of the table, and kept everybody
laughing. He seemed particularly fond of rousing up Miss
Debby to those rigorous and energetic statements concerning
Church and King which she delivered with such freedom.
" I don't know how we are any of us to get to heaven now/'
he said to Miss Debby. " Supposing I wanted to be confirmed,
there is n't a bishop in America."
" Well, don't you think they will send one over?" said Lady
Widgery, with a face of great solicitude.
" Two, madam ; it would take two in order to start the succes-
sion in America. The apostolic electricity cannot come down
through one."
" I heard that Dr. Franklin was negotiating with the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury," said Lady Lothrop.
"Yes, but they are not in the best humor toward us over
there," said Ellery. " You know what Franklin wrote back,
don't you?"
" No," said Lady Widgery ; " what was it ? "
" Well, you see, he found Canterbury & Co. rather huffy, and
somewhat on the bigh-and-mighty order with him, and, being a
democratic American, he did n't like it. So he wrote over that
he did n't see, for his part, why anybody that wanted to preach
the Gospel could n't preach it, without sending a thousand miles
across the water to ask leave of a cross old gentleman at Canter-
bury."
A shocked expression went round the table, and Miss Debby
drew herself up. " That 's what I call a profane remark, Ellery
Davenport," she said.
" I did n't make it, you understand."
" No, dear, you did n't," said the old lady. " Of course you
would n't say such a thing."
" Of course I should n't, Aunty, O no. I 'm only concerned
to know how I shall be confirmed, if ever I want to be. Do
you think there really is no other way to heaven, Miss Debby ?
Now, if the Archbishop of Canterbury won't repent, and I do,
312 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
if lie won't send a bishop, and I become a good Christian, don't
you think now the Church might open the door a little crack
for me?"
" Why, of course, Ellery," said Lady Lothrop. " We believe
that many good people will be saved out of the Church."
" My dear madam, that 's because you married a Congrega-
tional parson ; you are getting illogical."
" Ellery, you know better," said Miss Debby, vigorously.
" You know we hold that many good persons out of the Church
are saved, though they are saved by uucovenanted mercies.
There are no direct promises to any but those in the Church ;
t|iey have no authorized ministry or sacraments."
" What a dreadful condition these American colonies are in ! "
said Ellery ; " it 's a result of our Revolution which never struck
me before."
" You can sneer as much as you please, it 's a solemn fact,
Ellery ; it 's the chief mischief of this dreadful rebellion."
" Come, come, children," said the old lady ; " let 's talk
about something else. We Ve been to the communion, and
heard about 'peace on earth and good-will to men/ I always
think of our blessed King George every time I take the com-
munion wine out of those cups that he gave to our church."
" Yes, indeed," said Miss Debby ; " it will be a long time be-
fore you get the American Congress to giving communion ser-
vices, like our good, pious King George."
" It 's a pity pious folks are so apt to be pig-headed," said
Ellery, in a tone just loud enough to stir up Miss Debby, but
not to catch the ear of the old lady.
" I suppose there never was such a pious family as our royal
family," said Lady Widgery. "I have been told that Queen
Charlotte reads prayers with her maids regularly every night,
and we all know how our blessed King read prayers beside a
dying cottager."
" I do not know what the reason is," said Ellery Davenport,
reflectively, " but political tyrants as a general thing are very
pious men. The worse their political actions are, the more they
pray. Perhaps it is on the principle of compensation, just as
EASTER SUNDAY. 313
animals that are incapacitated from helping themselves in one
way have some corresponding organ in another direction."
" I agree with you that kings are generally religious," said
Lady Widgery, " and you must admit that, if monarchy makes
men religious, it is an argument in its favor, because there is
nothing so important as religion, you know."
" The argument, madam, is a profound one, and does credit to
your discernment ; but the question now is, since it has pleased
Providence to prosper rebellion, and allow a community to be
founded without any true church, or any means of getting at true
ordinances and sacraments, what young fellows like us are to do
about it,"
" I '11 tell you, Ellery," said the old lady, laying hold of his
arm. " ' Know the God of thy fathers, and serve him with a per-
fect heart and willing mind,' and everything will come right."
" But, even then, I could n't belong to * the true Church,' "
said Ellery.
" You 'd belong to the church of all good people," said the old
lady, " and that 's the main thing."
" Aunty, you are always right," he said.
Now I listened with the sharpest attention to all this conver-
sation, which was as bewildering to me as all the rest of the scen-
ery and surroundings of this extraordinary visit had been.
Miss Debby's martial and declaratory air, the vigorous faith in
her statements which she appeared to have, were quite a match,
it seemed to me, for similar statements of a contrary nature
which I had heard from my respected grandmother ; and I could
n't help wondering in my own mind what strange concussions of
the elementary powers would result if ever these two should be
brought together. To use a modern figure, it would be like the
meeting of two full-charged railroad engines, from opposite direc-
tions, on the same track.
After dinner, in the evening, instead of the usual service of
family prayers, Miss Debby catechised her family in a vigorous
and determined manner. We children went and stood up with
the row of men and maid servants, and Harry proved to have
a very good knowledge of the catechism, but Tina and I only
14
814 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
compassed our answers by repeating them after Miss Debby ; and
she applied herself to teaching us as if this were the only oppor-
tunity of getting the truth we were ever to have in our lives.
In fact, Miss Debby made a current of electricity that, for the
time being, carried me completely away, and I exerted myself to
the utmost to appear well before her, especially as I had gath-
ered from Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah's conversations, that what-
ever went on in this mansion belonged strictly to upper circles of
society, dimly known and revered. American democracy had not
in those days become a practical thing, so as to outgrow the
result of generations of reverence for the upper classes. And
the man-servant and the maid-servants seemed so humble, and
Miss Debby so victorious and dominant, that I could n't help feel-
ing what a grand thing the true Church must be, and find grow-
ing in myself the desires of a submissive catechumen.
As to the catechism itself, I don't recollect that I thought one
moment what a word of it meant, I was so absorbed and busy
in the mere effort of repeating it after Miss Debby's rapid dic-
tation.
The only comparison I remember to have made with that
which I had been accustomed to recite in school every Saturday
respected the superior case of answering the first question ; which
required me, instead of relating in metaphysical terms what
" man's chief end " was in time and eternity, to give a plain
statement of what my own name was on this mortal earth.
This first question, as being easiest, was put to Tina, who dim-
pled and colored and flashed out of her eyes, as she usually did
when addressed, looked shyly across at Ellery Davenport, who
sat with an air of negligent amusement contemplating the scene,
and then answered with sufficient precision and distinctness,
" Eglantine Percival."
He gave a little start, as if some sudden train of recollection
had been awakened, and looked at her with intense attention ;
and when Ellery Davenport fixed his attention upon anybody,
there was so much fire and electricity in his eyes that they
seemed to be felt, even at a distance ; and I saw that Tina con-
stantly colored and giggled, and seemed so excited that she
EASTER SUNDAY. 315
scarcely knew what she was saying, till at last Miss Debby, per-
ceiving this, turned sharp round upon him, and said, " Ellery
Davenport, if you have n't any religion yourself, I wish you
would n't interrupt my instructions."
"Bless my soul, cousin ! what was I doing? I have been sit-
ting here still as a mouse ; but I '11 turn my back, and read a
good book " ; and round he turned, accordingly, till the cate-
chising was finished.
When it was all over, and the servants had gone out, we
grouped ourselves around the fire, and Ellery Davenport began :
" Cousin Debby, I 'm going to come down handsomely to you.
I admit that your catechism is much better for children than the
one I was brought up on. I was well drilled in the formulas of
the celebrated Assembly of dryvin^s of Westminster, and dry
enough I found it. Now it 's a true proverb, ' Call a man a thief,
and he 11 steal ' ; e give a dog a bad name, and he '11 bite you ' ;
tell a child that he is ' a member of Christ, a child of God, and
an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,' and he feels, to say the
least, civilly disposed towards religion ; tell him ' he is under
God's wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of
this life, to death itself, and the pains of hell forever,' because
somebody ate an apple five thousand years ago, and his religious
associations are not so agreeable, especially if he has the an-
swers whipped into him, or has to go to bed without his supper
for not learning them."
" You poor dear ! " said the old lady ; " did they send you to
bed without your supper ? They ought to have been whipped
themselves, every one of them."
" Well, you see, I was a little fellow when my parents died,
and brought up under brother Jonathan, who was the bluest kind
of blue ; and he was so afraid that I should mistake my naturally
sweet temper for religion, that he instructed me daily that I was
a child of wrath, and could n't, and did n't, and never should do
one right thing till I was regenerated, and when that would hap-
pen no mortal knew ; so I thought, as my account was going to
be scored off at that time, it was no matter if I did run up a
pretty long one ; so I lied and stole whenever it came handy."
316 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Ellery, I hope not ! " said the old lady ; " certaiply you
never stole anything ! "
" Have, though, my blessed aunt, robbed orchards and
watermelon patches ; but then St. Augustine did that very thing
himself, and he did n't turn about till he was thirty years old,
and I 'm a good deal short of that yet ; so you see there is a
great chance for me."
" Ellery, why don't you come into the true Church ? " said Miss
Debby. " That 's what you need."
" Well," said Ellery, " I must confess that I like the idea of a
nice old motherly Church, that sings to us, and talks to us, and
prays with us, and takes us in her lap and coddles us when we
are sick and says,
' Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber.'
Nothing would suit me better, if I could get my reason to sleep ;
but the mischief of a Calvinistic education is, it wakes up your
reason, and it never will go to sleep again, and you can't take a
pleasant humbug if you would. Now, in this life, where nobody
knows anything about anything, a capacity for humbugs would
be a splendid thing to have. I wish to my heart I'd been
brought up a Roman Catholic ! but I have not, I 've been
brought up a Calvinist, and so here I am."
" But if you 'd try to come into the Church and believe," said
Miss Debby, energetically, " grace would be given you. You 've
been baptized, and the Church admits your baptism. Now just
assume your position."
Miss Debby spoke with such zeal and earnestness, that I,
whom she was holding in h'er lap, looked straight across with the
expectation of hearing Ellery Davenport declare his immediate
conversion then and there. I shall never forget the expression
of his face. There was first a flash of amusement, as he looked
at Miss Debby's strong, sincere face, and then it faded into some-
thing between admiration and pity ; and then he said to himself
in a musing tone : " I a * member of Christ, a child of God, and
an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.' " And then a strange,
sarcastic expression broke over his face, as he added : " Could n't
EASIER SUNDAY. 317
do it, cousin ; not exactly niy style. Besides, I should n't be
much of a credit to any church, and whichever catches me would
be apt to find a shark in the net. Yon see," he added, jumping
up and walking about rapidly, " I have the misfortune to have
an extremely exacting nature, and, if I set out to be religious
at all, it would oblige me to carry the thing to as great lengths
as did my grandfather Jonathan Edwards. I should have to
take up the cross and all that, and I don't want to, and don't
mean to; and as to all these pleasant, comfortable churches,
where a fellow can get to heaven without it, I have the misfor-
tune of not being able to believe in them; so there you see
precisely my situation."
" These horrid old Calvinistic doctrines," said Miss Debby,
" are the ruin of children."
" My dear, they are all in the Thirty-nine Articles as strong
as in the Cambridge platform, and all the other platforms, for the
good reason that John Calvin himself had the overlooking of
them. And, what is worse, there is an abominable sight of truth
in them. Nature herself is a high Calvinist, old jade ; and there
never was a man of energy enough to feel the force of the
world he deals with that was n't a predestinarian, from the time
of the Greek Tragedians down to the time of Oliver Cromwell,
and ever since. The hardest doctrines are the things that a fellow
sees with his own eyes going on in the world around him. If
you had been in England, as I have, where the true Church
prevails, you 'd see that pretty much the whole of the lower
classes there are predestinated to be conceived and born in sin, and
shapen in iniquity ; and come into the world in such circumstances
that to expect even decent morality of them is expecting what
is contrary to all reason. This is your Christian country, after
eighteen hundred years' experiment of Christianity. The elect,
by whom I mean the bishops and clergy and upper classes, have
attained to a position in which a decent and religious life is prac-
ticable, and where there is leisure from the claims of the body
to attend to those of the soul. These, however, to a large extent
are smothering in their own fat, or, as your service to-day had it,
' Their heart is fat as brawn ' ; and so they don't, to any great
818 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
extent, make their calling and election sure. Then, as for
heathen countries, they are a peg below those of Christianity.
Taking the mass of human beings in the world at this hour, they
are in such circumstances, that, so far from it 's being reasonable to
expect the morals of Christianity of them, they are not within
sight of ordinary human decencies. Talk of purity of heart to a
Malay or Hottentot ! Why, the doctrine of a clean shirt is an
uncomprehended mystery to more than half the human race at
this moment. That 's what I call visible election and reproba-
tion, get rid of it as we may or can."
" Positively, Ellery, I am not going to have you talk so before
these children," said Miss Debby, getting up and ringing the bell
energetically. " This all comes of the vile democratic idea
that people are to have opinions on all subjects, instead of believ-
ing what the Church tells them ; and, as you say, it 's Calvinism
that starts people out to be always reasoning and discussing and
having opinions. I hate folks who are always speculating and
thinking, and having new doctrines ; all I want to know is my
duty, and to do it. I want to know what my part is, and it 's
none of my business whether the bishops and the kings and the
nobility do theirs or not, if I only do mine. ' To do my duty in
that state of life in which it has pleased God to call me,' is all I
want, and I think it is all anybody need want."
" Amen ! " said Ellery Davenport, " and so be it."
Here Mrs. Margery appeared with the candles to take us to
bed.
In bidding our adieus for the night, it was customary for good
children to kiss all round ; but Tina, in performing this ceremony
both this night and the night before, resolutely ignored Ellery
Davenport, notwithstanding his earnest petitions ; and, while she
would kiss with ostentatious affection those on each side of him,
she hung her head and drew back whenever he attempted the
familiarity, yet, by way of reparation, turned back at the door
as she was going out, and made him a parting salutation with the
air of a princess ; and I heard him say, " Upon my word, how
she does it ! "
After we left the room (this being a particular which, like
EASTER SUNDAY. 319
tellers of stories in general, I learned from other sources), he
turned to Lady Lothrop and said : " Did I understand that she
said her name was Eglantine Percival, and that she is a sort of
foundling ? "
" Certainly," said Lady Lothrop ; " both these children are
orphans, left on the parish by a poor woman who died in a neigh-
boring town. They appear to be of good blood and breeding,
but we have no means of knowing who they are."
" Well," said Ellery Davenport, " I knew a young English
officer by the name of Percival, who was rather a graceless
fellow. He once visited me at my country-seat, with several
others. When he went away, being, as he often was, not very lit
to take care of himself, he dropped and left a pocket-book, so some
of the servants told me, which was thrown into one of the
drawers, and for aught I know may be there now : it 's just
barely possible that it may be, and that there may be some
papers in it which will shed light on these children's parentage.
If I recollect rightly, he was said to be connected with a good
English family, and it might be possible, if we were properly in-
formed, to shame him, or frighten him into doing something for
these children. I will look into the matter myself, when I am in
England next winter, where I shall have some business ; that is to
say, if we can get any clew. The probability is that the children
are illegitimate."
" O, I hope not," said Lady Lothrop ; " they appear to have
been so beautifully educated."
" Well," said Ellery Davenport, " he may have seduced his
curate's daughter ; that 's a very simple supposition. At any rate,
he never produced her in society, never spoke of her, kept her in
cheap, poor lodgings in the country, and the general supposition
was that she was his mistress, not his wife."
" No," said a little voice near his elbow, which startled every
one in the room, " no, Mr. Davenport, my mother was my
father's wife."
The fire had burnt low, and the candles had not been brought
in, and Harry, who had been sent back by Mrs. Margery to give
a message as to' the night arrangements, had entered the room
320 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
softly, and stood waiting to get a chance to deliver it. He now
came forward, and stood trembling with agitation, pale yet bold.
Of course all were very much shocked as he went on : " They
took my mother's wedding-ring, and sold it to pay for her coffin ;
but she always wore it and often told me when it was put on.
But," he added, " she told me, the night she died, that I had no
father but God."
" And he is Father enough ! " said the old lady, who, entirely
broken down and overcome, clasped the little boy in her arms.
" Never you mind it, dear, God certainly will take care of you."
" I know he will," said the boy, with solemn simplicity ; " but
I want you all to believe the truth about my mother."
It was characteristic of that intense inwardness and delicacy
which were so peculiar in Harry's character, that, when he
came back from this agitating scene, he did not tell me a word
of what had occurred, nor did I learn it till years afterwards.
I was very much in the habit of lying awake nights, long after
he had sunk into untroubled slumbers, and this night I remember
that he lay long but silently awake, so very still and quiet, that
it was some time before I discovered that he was not sleeping.
The next day Ellery Davenport left us, but we remained to
see the wonders of Boston. I remembered my grandmother's
orders, and went on to Copps Hill, and to the old Granary bury-
ing-ground, to see the graves of the saints, and read the inscrip-
tions. I had a curious passion for this sort of mortuary literature,
even as a child, a sort of nameless, weird, strange delight,
so that I accomplished this part of my grandmother's wishes con
amore.
Boston in those days had not even arrived at being a city, but,
as the reader may learn from contemporary magazines, was
known as the Town of Boston. In some respects, however, it
was even more attractive in those days for private residences than
it is at present. As is the case now in some of our large rural
towns, it had many stately old houses, which stood surrounded by
gardens and grounds, where fruits and flowers were tended with
scrupulous care. It was sometimes called " the garden town."
The house of Madam Kittery stood on a high eminence over-
EASTER SUNDAY. 321
looking the sea, and had connected with it a stately garden,
which, just at the time of year I speak of, was gay with the first
crocuses and snowdrops.
In the eyes of the New England people, it was always a sort
of mother-town, a sacred city, the shrine of that religious en-
thusiasm which founded the States of New England. There
were the graves of her prophets and her martyrs, those who
had given their lives through the hardships of that enterprise in
so ungenial a climate.
On Easter Monday Lady Lothrop proposed to take us all to
see the shops and sights of Boston, with the bountiful inten-
tion of purchasing some few additions to the children's ward-
robes. I was invited to accompany the expedition, and all parties
appeared not a little surprised, and somewhat amused, that I pre-
ferred, instead of this lively tour among the living, to spend my
time in a lonely ramble in the Copps Hill burying-ground.
I returned home after an hour or two spent in this way, and
found the parlor deserted by all except dear old Madam Kittery.
I remember, even now, the aspect of that sunny room, and the
perfect picture of peace and love that she seemed to me, as she
sat on the sofa with a table full of books drawn up to her,
placidly reading.
She called me to her as soon as I came in, and would have me
get on the sofa by her. She stroked my head, and looked lov-
ingly at me, and called me " Sonny," till my whole heart opened
toward her as a flower opens toward the sunshine.
Among all the loves that man has to woman, there is none so
sacred and saint-like as that toward these dear, white-haired an-
gels, who seem to form the connecting link between heaven and
earth, who have lived to get the victory over every sin and every
sorrow, and live perpetually on the banks of the dark river, in
that bright, calm land of Beulah, where angels daily walk to and
fro, and sounds of celestial music are heard across the water.
Such have no longer personal cares, or griefs, or sorrows.
The tears of life have all been shed, and therefore they have
hearts at leisure to attend to every one else. Even the sweet,
guileless childishness that comes on in this period has a sacred
322 OLDTOWN i'OLKS.
dignity ; it is a seal of fitness for that heavenly kingdom which
whosoever shall not receive as a little child, shall not enter
therein.
Madam Kittery, with all her apparent simplicity, had a sort
of simple shrewdness. She delighted in reading, and some of
the best classical literature was always lying on her table.
She began questioning me about my reading, and asking me
to read to her, and seemed quite surprised at the intelligence and
expression with which I did it.
I remember, in the course of the reading, coming across a very
simple Latin quotation, at which she stopped me. " There," said
she, " is one of those Latin streaks that always trouble me in
books, because I can't tell what they mean. When George was
alive, he used to read them to me."
Now, as this was very simple, I felt myself quite adequate to
its interpretation, and gave it with a readiness which pleased her.
" Why ! how came you to know Latin ? " she said.
Then my heart opened, and I told her all my story, and how
my poor father had always longed to go to college, " and died
without the sight," and how he had begun to teach me Latin ;
but how he was dead, and my mother was poor, and grandpapa
could only afford to keep Uncle Bill in college, and there was no
way for me to go, and Aunt Lois wanted to bind me out to a
shoemaker. And then I began to cry, as I always did when
I thought of this.
I shall never forget the overflowing, motherly sympathy which
had made it easy for me to tell all this to one who, but a few
hours before, had been a stranger ; nor how she comforted me,
and cheered me, and insisted upon it that I should immediately
eat a piece of cake, and begged me not to trouble myself about
it, and she would talk to Debby, and something should be done.
Now I had not the slightest idea of what Madam Kittery
could do in the situation, but I was exceedingly strengthened
and consoled, and felt sure that there had come a favorable
turn in my fortunes ; and the dear old lady and myself forth-
with entered into a league of friendship.
I was thus emboldened, now that we were all alone, and Miss
EASTER SUNDAY. 823
Debby far away, to propound to her indulgent ear certain polit-
ical doubts, raised by the conflict of my past education with the
things I had been hearing for the last day or two.
" If King George was such a good man, what made him op-
press the Colonies so ? " said I.
" Why, dear, he did n't," she said, earnestly. " That 's all a
great mistake. Our King is a dear, pious, good man, and wished
us all well, and was doing just the best for us he knew how."
" Then was it because he did n't know how to govern us ? "
said I.
" My dear, you know the King can do no wrong ; it was his
ministers, if anybody. I don't know exactly how it was, but
they got into a brangle, and everything went wrong ; and then
there was so much evil feeling and fighting and killing, and * there
was confusion, and every evil work.' There 's my poor boy,"
she said, pointing to the picture with a trembling hand, and to
the sword hanging in its crape loop, " he died for his King, do-
ing his duty in that state of life in which it pleased God to call
him. I must n't be sorry for that, but 0, I wish there had n't
been any war, and we could have had it all peaceful, and George
could have stayed with us. I don't see, either, the use of all
these new-fangled notions, but then I try to love everybody,
and hope for the best."
So spoke my dear old friend ; and has there ever been a step
in human progress that has not been taken against the prayers
of some good soul, and been washed by tears, sincerely and de-
spondently shed? But, for all this, is there not a true unity of
the faith in all good hearts ? and when they have risen a little
above the mists of earth, may not both sides the conqueror
and the conquered agree that God hath given them the vic-
tory in advancing the cause of truth and goodness ?
Only one other conversation that I heard during this memora-
ble visit fixed itself very strongly in my mind. On the evening
of this same day, we three children were stationed at a table to
look at a volume of engravings of beautiful birds, while Miss
Debby, Lady Widgery and Madam Kittery sat by the fire. I
heard them talking of Ellery Davenport, and, though I had been
324 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
instructed that it was not proper for children to listen when their
elders were talking among themselves, yet it really was not possi-
ble to avoid hearing what Miss Debby said, because all her words
were delivered with such a sharp and determinate emphasis.
As it appeared, Lady Widgery had been relating to them some
of the trials and sorrows of Ellery Davenport's domestic life.
And then there followed a buzz of some kind of story which
Lady Widgery seemed relating with great minuteness. At last
I heard Miss Deborah exclaim earnestly : " If I had a daughter,
catch me letting her be intimate with Ellery Davenport ! I tell
you that man has n't read French for nothing."
" I do assure you, his conduct has been marked with perfect
decorum," said lady Widgery.
" So are your French novels," said Miss Deborah ; " they are
always talking about decorum ; they are full of decorum and
piety ! why, the kingdom of heaven is nothing to them ! but
somehow they all end in adultery."
" Debby," said the old lady, " I can't bear to hear you talk so.
I think your cousin's heart is in the right place, after all ; and
he 's a good, kind boy as ever was."
" But, mother, he 's a liar ! that 's just what he is."
" Debby, Debby ! how can you talk so ? "
" Well, mother, people have different names for different
things. I hear a great deal about Ellery Davenport's tact and
knowledge of the world, and all that ; but he does a great deal
of what /call lying, so there ! Now there are some folks who
lie blunderingly, and unskilfully, but I '11 say for Ellery Daven-
port that he can lie as innocently and sweetly and prettily as a
French woman, and I can't say any more. And if a woman
doesn't want to believe him, she just must n't listen to him, that's
all. I always believe him when he is around, but when he 's away
and I think him over, I know just what he is, and see just what
an old fool he has made of me."
These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should
accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of
them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the
ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.
WHAT "OUK FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN. 325
CHAPTER XXVI.
WHAT "OUR FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN.
WE children returned to Oldtown, crowned with victory^
as it were. Then, as now, even in the simple and se-
vere Puritanical village, there was much incense burnt upon the
altar of gentility, a deity somewhat corresponding to the un-
known god whose altar Paul found at Athens, and probably more
universally worshipped in all the circles of this lower world than
any other idol on record.
Now we had been taken notice of, put forward, and patron-
ized, in undeniably genteel society. We had been to Boston and
come back in a coach ; and what well-regulated mind does not
see that that was something to inspire respect ?
Aunt Lois was evidently dying to ask us all manner of ques-
tions, but was restrained by a sort of decent pride. To exhibit
any undue eagerness would be to concede that she was ignorant
of good society, and that the ways and doings of upper classes
were not perfectly familiar to her. That, my dear reader, is
what no good democratic American woman can for a moment
concede. Aunt Lois therefore, for once in her life, looked com-
placently on Sam Lawson, who continued to occupy his usual
roost in the chimney-corner, and who, embarrassed with no simi-
lar delicate scruples, put us through our catechism with the usual
Yankee thoroughness.
" Well, chillen, I suppose them Kitterys has everythin' in
real grander, don't they ? I 've heerd tell that they hes Turkey
carpets on th' floors. You know Josh Kittery, he was in the
Injy trade. Turkey carpets is that kind, you know, that lies
all up thick like a mat. They had that kind, did n't they ? "
We eagerly assured him that they did.
" Want to know, now," said Sam, who always moralized as he
went along. " Wai, wal, some folks does seem to receive their
326 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
good thin's in this life, don't they ? S'pose the tea-things all on
'em was solid silver, wa' n't they ? Yeh did n't ask them, did
yeh ? "
" no," said I ; " you know we were told we must n't ask
questions."
" Jes so ; very right, little boys should n't ask questions.
But I 've heerd a good 'eal about the Kittery silver. Jake Mar-
shall, he knew a fellah that had talked with one of their servants,
that helped bury it in the cellar in war-times, and he said theh
was porringers an' spoons an' tankards, say nothing of table-
spoons, an' silver forks, an' sich. That 'ere would ha' been a haul
for Congress, if they could ha' got hold on 't in war-time, would n't
it ? S'pose yeh was sot up all so grand, and hed servants to wait
on yeh, behind yer chairs, did n't yeh ? "
" Yes," we assured him, " we did."
" Wai, wal ; yeh must n't be carried away by these 'ere glories:
they 's transitory, arte"r all : ye must jest come right daown to plain
livin'. How many servants d' yeh say they kep' ? "
" Why, there were two men and two women, besides Lady
Widgery's maid and Mrs. Margery."
" And all used to come in to prayers every night," said Harry.
" Hes prayers reg'lar, does they ? " said Sam. " Well, now,
that 'ere beats all ! Did n't know as these gran' families wus so
pious as that comes to. Who prayed ? "
" Old Madam Kittery," said I. " She used to read prayers out
of a large book."
" O yis ; these 'ere gran' Tory families is 'Piscopal, pretty
much all on 'em. But now readin' prayers out of a book, that
'ere don' strike me as just the right kind o' thing. For my part,
I like prayers that come right out of the heart better. But then,
lordy massy, folks lies theh different ways ; an' I ain't so set as
Polly is. Why, I b'lieve, if that 'ere woman had her way, theh
would n't nobody be 'lowed to do nothin', except just to suit her.
Yeh did n't notice, did yeh, what the Kittery coat of arms was ? "
Yes, we had noticed it ; and Harry gave a full description
of an embroidered set of armorial bearings which had been one
of the ornaments of the parlor.
WHAT "OUR FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN. 827
" So you say," said Sam, " 't was a lion upon his hind legs,
that 'ere is what they call * the lion rampant,' and then there
was a key and a scroll. Wai ! coats of arms is curus, and I don't
wonder folks kind o' hangs onter urn ; but then, the Kitterys bein'
Tories, they nat'ally has more interest in sech thin's. Do you
know where Mis' Kittery keeps her silver nights ? "
" No, really," said I ; " we were sent to bed early, and did n't
see."
Now this inquiry, from anybody less innocent than Sam Lawson,
might have been thought a dangerous exhibition of burglarious
proclivities ; but from him it was received only as an indication
of that everlasting thirst for general information which was his
leading characteristic.
When the rigor of his cross-examination had somewhat abated,
he stooped over the fire to meditate further inquiries. I seized
the opportunity to propound to my grandmother a query which
had been the result of my singular experiences for a day or two
past. So, after an interval in which all had sat silently looking
into the great coals of the fire, I suddenly broke out with the
inquiry, " Grandmother, what is The True Church ? "
I remember the expression on my grandfather's calm, be-
nign face as I uttered this query. It was an expression of
shrewd amusement, such as befits the face of an elder when a
younger has propounded a well-worn problem ; but my grand-
mother had her answer at the tip of her tongue, and replied, " It
is the whole number of the elect, my son."
I had in my head a confused remembrance of Ellery Daven-
port's tirade on election, and of the elect who did or did not
have clean shirts ; so I pursued my inquiry by asking, " Who
are the elect ? "
"All good people," replied my grandfather. "In every
nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is ac-
cepted of Him."
" Well, how came you to ask that question ? " said my grand-
mother, turning on me.
" Why," said I, " because Miss Deborah Kittery said that the
war destroyed the true Church in this country."
328 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
u O, pshaw ! " said my grandmother ; " that 's some of her
Episcopal nonsense. I really should like to ask her, now, if she
thinks there ain't any one going to heaven but Episcopalians."
" O no, she does n't think so,'" said I, rather eagerly. " She
said a great many good people would be saved out of the Church,
but they would be saved by uncovenanted mercies."
" Uncovenanted fiddlesticks ! " said my grandmother, her very
cap-border bristling with contempt and defiance. " Now, Lois,
you just see what comes of sending children into Tory Episcopal
families, coming home and talking nonsense like that ! "
" Mercy, mother ! what odds does it make ? " said Aunt Lois.
" The children have got to learn to hear all sorts of things said,
may as well hear them at one time as another. Besides, it
all goes into one ear and out at the other."
My grandmother was better pleased with the account that I
hastened to give her of my visit to the graves of the saints and
martyrs, in my recent pilgrimage. Her broad face glowed with
delight, as she told over again to our listening ears the stories of
the faith and self-denial of those who had fled from an oppressive
king and church, that they might plant a new region where life
should be simpler, easier, and more natural. And she got out
her " Cotton Mather," and, notwithstanding Aunt Lois's reminder
that she had often read it before, read to us again, in a trembling
yet audible voice, that wonderful document, in which the reasons
for the first planting of New England are set forth. Some of
these reasons I remember from often hearing them in my child-
hood. They speak thus quaintly of the old countries of Eu-
rope :
" Thirdly. The land grows weary of her inhabitants, insomuch
that man, which is the most precious of all creatures, is here
more vile than the earth he treads upon, children, neighbors,
and friends, especially the poor, which, if things were right,
would be the greatest earthly blessings.
" Fourthly. We are grown to that intemperance in all excess
of riot, as no mean estate will suffice a man to keep sail with his
equals, and he that fails in it must live in scorn and contempt :
hence it comes to pass that all arts and trades are carried in that
WHAT "OUR FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN. 329
deceitful manner and unrighteous course, as it is almost impos-
sible for a good, upright man to maintain his constant charge,
and live comfortably in them.
" Fifthly. The schools of learning and religion are so corrupted
as (besides the insupportable charge of education) most children
of the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes are perverted, cor-
rupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evil examples
and licentious behaviours in these seminaries.
" Sixthly. The whole earth is the Lord's garden, and he hath
given it to the sons of Adam to be tilled and improved by them.
Why then should we stand starving here for places of habitation,
and in the mean time suffer whole countries as profitable for the
use of man to lie waste without any improvement ? "
Language like this, often repeated, was not lost upon us. The
idea of self-sacrifice which it constantly inculcated, the rever-
ence for self-denial, the conception of a life which should look,
not mainly to selfish interests, but to the good of the whole
human race, prevented the hardness and roughness of those early
New England days trom becoming mere stolid, material toil. It
was toil and manual labor ennobled by a new motive.
Even in those very early times there was some dawning sense
of what the great American nation was yet to be. And every
man, woman, and child was constantly taught, by every fireside,
to feel that he or she was part and parcel of a great new move-
ment in human progress. The old aristocratic ideas, though still
lingering in involuntary manners and customs, only served to
give a sort of quaintness and grace of Old- World culture to the
roughness of new-fledged democracy.
Our visit to Boston was productive of good to us such as we
little dreamed of. In the course of a day or two Lady Lothrop
called, and had a long private interview with the female portion
of the family; after which, to my great delight, it was an-
nounced to us that Harry and I might begin to study Latin, if
we pleased, and if we proved bright, good boys, means would be
provided for the finishing of our education in college.
I was stunned and overwhelmed by the great intelligence,
and Harry and I ran over to tell it to Tina, who jumped about
830 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and hugged and kissed us botli with an impartiality which some
years later she quite forgot to practise.
" I 'm glad, because you like it," she said ; " but I should think
it would be horrid to study Latin."
I afterwards learned that I was indebted to nay dear old friend
Madam Kittery for the good fortune which had befallen me.
She had been interested in my story, as it appears, to some pur-
pose, and, being wealthy and without a son, had resolved to con-
sole herself by appropriating to the education of a poor boy a
portion of the wealth which should have gone to her own child.
The searching out of poor boys, and assisting them to a liberal
education, had ever been held to be one of the appropriate works
of the minister in a New England town. The schoolmaster who
taught the district school did not teach Latin ; but Lady Lothrop
was graciously pleased to say that, for the present, Dr. Lothrop
would hear our lessons at a certain hour every afternoon ; and
the reader may be assured that we studied faithfully in view of
an ordeal like this.
I remember one of our favorite places fof study. The brown,
sparkling stream on which my grandfather's mill was placed had
just below the mill-dam a little island, which a boy could easily
reach by wading through the shallow waters over a bed of many-
colored pebbles. The island was overshadowed by thick
bushes, which were all wreathed and matted together by a wild
grape-vine ; but within I had hollowed out for myself a green
little arbor, and constructed a rude wigwam of poles and bark,
after the manner of those I had seen among the Indians. It
was one of the charms of this place, that nobody knew of it:
it was utterly secluded; and being cut off from land by the
broad belt of shallow water, and presenting nothing to tempt or
attract anybody to its shores, it was mine, and mine alone.
There I studied, and there I read ; there I dreamed and saw
visions.
Never did I find it in my heart to tell to any other boy the
secret of this woodland shelter, this fairy-land, so near to the
real outer world ; but Harry, with his refinement, his quietude,
his sympathetic silence, seemed to me as unobjectionable an asso-
WHAT "OUK FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN. 831
ciate as the mute spiritual companions whose presence had
cheered my lonely, childish sleeping-room.
We moved my father's Latin books into a rough little closet
that we constructed in our wigwam ; and there, with the water
dashing behind us, and the afternoon sun shining down through
the green grape-leaves, with bluebirds and bobolinks singing to
us, we studied our lessons. More than that, we spent many pleas-
ant hours in reading ; and I have now a resume, in our boyish
handwriting, of the greater part of Plutarch's Lives, which we
wrote out during this summer.
As to Tina, of course she insisted upon it that we should occa-
sionally carry her in a lady-chair over to this island, that she
might inspect our operations and our housekeeping, and we read
some of these sketches to her for her critical approbation ; and
if any of them pleased her fancy, she would immediately insist
that we should come over to Miss Mehitable's, and have a
dramatic representation of them up in the garret.
Saturday afternoon, in New England, was considered, from time
immemorial, as the children's perquisite ; and hard-hearted must
be that parent or that teacher who would wish to take away from
them its golden hours. Certainly it was not Miss Mehilable, nor
my grandmother, that could be capable of any such cruelty.
Our Saturday afternoons were generally spent as Tina dic-
tated ; and, as she had a decided taste for the drama, one of our
most common employments was the improvising of plays, with
Miss Tina for stage manager. The pleasure we took in these
exercises was inconceivable ; they had for us a vividness and
reality past all expression.
I remember our acting, at one time, the Book of Esther, with
Tina, very much be-trinketed and dressed out in an old flowered
brocade that she had rummaged from a trunk in the garret, as
Queen Esther. Harry was Mordecai, and I was Ahasuerus.
The great trouble was to find a Haman ; but, as the hanging of
Hainan was indispensable to any proper moral effect of the tragedy,
Tina petted and cajoled and coaxed old Bose, the yellow dog of our
establishment, to undertake the part, instructing him volubly that
he must sulk and look cross when Mordecai went by, a thing
332 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
which Bose, who was one of the best-natured of dogs, found diffi-
culty in learning. Bose would always insist upon sitting on his
haunches, in his free-and-easy, jolly manner, and lolling out his
red tongue in a style so decidedly jocular as utterly to spoil the
effect, till Tina, reduced to desperation, ensconced herself under
an old quilted petticoat behind him, and brought out the proper
expression at the right moment by a vigorous pull at his tail.
Bose was a dog of great constitutional equanimity, but there
were some things that transcended even his powers of endur-
ance, and the snarl that he gave to Mordecai was held to be a
triumphant success ; but the thing was, to get him to snarl when
Tina was in front of him, where she could see it; and now
will it be believed that the all-conquering little mischief-maker
actually kissed and flattered and bejuggled old Polly into taking
this part behind the scenes ?
No words can more fitly describe the abject state to which that
vehemently moral old soul was reduced.
When it came to the hanging of Haman, the difficulties thick-
ened. Polly warned^ us that we must by no means attempt to
hang Bose by the neck, as " the crittur was heavy, and 't was
sartin to be the death of him." So we compromised by passing
the rope under his fore paws, or, as Tina called it, " under his
arms." But Bose was rheumatic, and it took all Tina's petting
and caressing, and obliged Polly to go down and hunt out two or
three slices of meat from her larder, to induce him fairly to sub-
mit to the operation ; but hang him we did, and he ki-hied with
a vigor that strikingly increased the moral effect. So we soon let
him down again, and plentifully rewarded him with cold meat.
In a similar manner we performed a patriotic drama, entitled
The Battle of Bunker Hill," in which a couple of old guns that
we found in the garret produced splendid effects, and salvoes of
artillery were created by the rolling across the garret of two old
cannon-balls ; but this was suppressed by order of the authori-
ties, on account of the vigor of the cannonade. Tina, by the by,
figured in this as the " Genius of Liberty," with some stars on
her head cut out of gilt paper, and wearing an old flag which
we had pulled out of one of the trunks.
WHAT "OUR FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN.
We also acted the history of " Romulus and Remus," with
Bose for the she-wolf. The difference in age was remedied by a
vigorous effort of the imagination. Of course, operations of this
nature made us pretty familiar with the topography of the old
garret. There was, however, one quarter, fenced off by some
barrels filled with pamphlets, where Polly strictly forbade us
to go.
What was the result of such a prohibition, O reader ? Can
you imagine it to be any other than that that part of the garret
became at once the only one that we really cared about investi-
gating ? How we hung about it, and considered it, and peeped
over and around and between the barrels at a pile of pictures,
that stood with their faces to the wall ! What were those pic-
tures, we wondered. When we asked Polly this, she drew on
a mysterious face and said, "Them was things we must n't ask
about."
We talked it over among ourselves, and Tina assured us that
she dreamed about it nights ; but Polly had strictly forbidden us
even to mention that corner of the garret to Miss Mehitable, or
to ask her leave to look at it, alleging, as a reason, that " 't would
bring on her hypos."
We did n't know what " hypos " were, but we supposed of
course they must be something dreadful; but the very fear-
fulness of the consequences that might ensue from our getting
behind those fatal barrels only made them still more attractive.
Finally, one rainy Saturday afternoon, when we were tired of
acting plays, and the rain pattered on the roof, and the wind
howled and shook the casings, and there was a generally wild and
disorganized state of affairs out of doors, a sympathetic spirit
of insubordination appeared to awaken in Tina's bosom. " I de-
clare, I am going inside of those barrels ! " she said. " I don't
care if Polly does scold us ; I know I can bring her all round
again fast enough. I can do about what I like with Polly.
Now you boys just move this barrel a little bit, and I '11 go in
and see!"
Just at this moment there was one of those chance lulls in the
storm that sometimes occur, and as Tina went in behind the
334 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
barrels, and boldly turned the first picture, a ray of sunshine
streamed through the dusky window and lit it up with a watery
light.
Harry and Tina both gave an exclamation of astonishment.
" O Tina ! it 's the lady in the closet ! "
The discovery seemed really to frighten the child. She
retreated quickly to the outside of the barrels again, and stood
with us, looking at the picture.
It was a pastel of a young girl in a plain, low-necked white
dress, with a haughty, beautiful head, and jet-black curls flowing
down her neck, and deep, melancholy black eyes, that seemed to
fix themselves reproachfully on us.
" O dear me, Harry, what shall we do ? " said Tina. " How
she looks at us ! This certainly is the very same one that we
saw in the old house."
" You ought not to have done it, Tina," said Harry, in a
rather low and frightened voice ; " but I '11 go in and turn it
back again."
Just at this moment we heard what was still more appalling,
the footsteps of Polly on the garret stairs.
" Well ! now I should like to know if there 's any mischief
you wouldn't be up to, Tina Percival," she said, coming for-
ward, reproachfully. " When I give you the run of the whole
garret, and wear my life out a pickin' up and puttin' up after
you, I sh'd think you might let this 'ere corner alone ! "
" Oh ! but, Polly, you 've no idea how I wanted to see it, and
do pray tell me who it is, and how came it here ? Is it anybody
that 's dead ? " said Tina, hanging upon Polly caressingly.
" Somebody that 's dead to us, I 'm afraid," said Polly, sol-
emnly.
Do tell us, Polly, do ! who was she ? "
" Well, child, you must n't never tell nobody, nor let a word
about it come out of your lips ; but it 's Parson Rossiter's daugh-
ter Emily, and where she 's gone to, the Lord only knows. I
took that 'ere pictur' down myself, and put it up here with Mr.
Theodore's, so 't Miss Mehitable need n't see 'em, 'cause they
always give her the hypos."
WHAT "OUR FOLKS" SAID AT OLDTOWN. 335
" And don't anybody know where she is," said Tina, " or
if she 's alive or dead ? "
" Nobody," said Polly, shaking her head solemnly. " All
I hope is, she may never come back here again. You see, chil-
dren, what comes o' fbllerin' the nateral heart ; it 's deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked. She followed her
nateral heart, and nobody knows where she 's gone to."
Polly spoke with such sepulchral earnestness that, what with
gloomy weather and the consciousness of having been acces-
sory to an unlawful action, we all felt, to say the least, extremely
sober.
" Do you think I have got such a heart as that ? " said Tina,
after a deep-drawn sigh.
" Sartain, you have," said the old woman. " We all on us
has. "Why, if the Lord should give any on us a sight o' our own
heart just as it is, it would strike us down dead right on the
spot."
" Mercy on us, Polly ! I hope he won't, then," said Tina.
" But, Polly," she added, getting her arms round her neck and
playing with her gold beads, "you have n't got such a very bad
heart now ; I don't believe a word of it. I 'm sure you are just
as good as can be."
" Law, Miss Tina, you don't see into me," said Polly, who,
after all, felt a sort of ameliorating gleam stealing over her.
" You must n't try to wheedle me into thinking better of myself
than I be ; that would just lead to carnal security."
" Well, Polly, don't tell Miss Mehitable, and I '11 try and not
get you into carnal security."
Polly went behind the barrels, gently wiped the dust from the
picture, and turned the melancholy, beseeching face to the wall
again ; but we pondered and talked many days as to what it
might be.
336 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTEE XXVII.
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN.
ON the whole, about this time in our life we were a reasona-
bly happy set of children. The Thanksgiving festival of
that year is particularly impressed on my mind as a white
day.
Are there any of my readers who do not know what Thanks-
giving day is to a child ? Then let them go back with me, and
recall the image of it as we kept it in Oldtown.
People have often supposed, because the Puritans founded
a society where there were no professed public amusements, that
therefore there was no fun going on in the ancient land of
Israel, and that there were no cakes and ale, because they were
virtuous. They were never more mistaken in their lives. There
was an abundance of sober, well-considered merriment ; and the
hinges of life were well oiled with that sort of secret humor
which to this day gives the raciness to real Yankee wit. Be-
sides this, we must remember that life itself is the greatest
possible amusement to people who really believe they can do
much with it, who have that intense sense of what can be
brought to pass by human effort, that was characteristic of the
New England colonies. To such it is not exactly proper to say
that life is an amusement, but it certainly is an engrossing interest
that takes the place of all amusements.
Looking over the world on a broad scale, do we not find that
public entertainments have very generally been the sops thrown
out by engrossing upper classes to keep lower classes from in-
quiring too particularly into their rights, and to make them sat-
isfied with a stone, when it was not quite convenient to give them
bread ? Wherever there is a class that is to be made content to
be plundered of its rights, there is an abundance of fiddling and
dancing, and amusements, public and private, are in great requi-
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 337
sition. It may also be set down, I think, as a general axiom,
that people feel the need of amusements less and less, precisely
in proportion as they have solid reasons for being happy.
Our good Puritan fathers intended to form a state of society
of such equality of conditions, and to make the means of secur-
ing the goods of life so free to all, that everybody should find
abundant employment for his faculties in a prosperous seeking
of his fortunes. Hence, while they forbade theatres, operas,
and dances, they made a state of unparalleled peace and pros-
perity, where one could go to sleep at all hours of day or night
with the house door wide open, without bolt or bar, yet without
apprehension of any to molest or make afraid. .
There were, however, some few national fetes : Election
day, when the Governor took his seat with pomp and rejoicing,
and all the housewives outdid themselves in election cake, and
one or two training days, when all the children were refreshed,
and our military ardor quickened, by the roll of drums, and the
flash of steel bayonets, and marchings and evolutions, sometimes
ending in that sublimest of military operations, a sham fight, in
which nobody was killed. The Fourth of July took high rank,
after the Declaration of Independence ; but the king and high
priest of all festivals was the autumn Thanksgiving.
When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made,
and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows
of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labors of the season were
done, and the warm, late days of Indian Summer came in, dreamy
and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of
a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at
noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of
spirit, a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden
mark made in advance on the calendar of life, and the deacon
began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, " I suppose it 's about
time for the Thanksgiving proclamation."
Rural dress-makers about this time were extremely busy in
making up festival garments, for everybody's new dress, if she
was to have one at all, must appear on Thanksgiving day.
Aunt Keziah and Aunt Lois and my mother talked over their
15 v
338 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
bonnets, and turned them round and round on their hands, and dis-
coursed sagely of ribbons and linings, and of all the kindred bon-
nets that there were in the parish, and how they would prob-
ably appear after Thanksgiving. My grandmother, whose mind
had long ceased to wander on such worldly vanities, was at this
time officiously reminded by her daughters that her bonnet was n't
respectable, or it was announced to her that she must have a
new gown. Such were the distant horizon gleams of the Thanks-
giving festival.
We also felt its approach in all departments of the household,
the conversation at this time beginning to turn on high and
solemn culinary mysteries and receipts of wondrous power and
virtue. New modes of elaborating squash pies and quince tarts
were now ofttimes carefully discussed at the evening fireside by
Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and notes seriously compared with
the experiences of certain other Aunties of high repute in such
matters. I noticed that on these occasions their voices often fell
into mysterious whispers, and that receipts of especial power and
sanctity were communicated in tones so low as entirely to escape
the vulgar ear. I still remember the solemn shake of the head
with which my Aunt Lois conveyed to Miss Mehitable Rossiter
the critical properties of mace, in relation to its powers of produ-
cing in corn fritters a suggestive resemblance to oysters. As
ours was an oyster-getting district, and as that charming bivalve
was perfectly easy to come at, the interest of such an imitation
can be accounted for only by the fondness of the human mind
for works of art.
For as much as a week beforehand, " we children " were em-
ployed in chopping mince for pies to a most wearisome fineness,
and in pounding cinnamon, allspice, and cloves in a great lignum-
vit.se mortar ; and the sound of this pounding and chopping re-
echoed through all the rafters of the old house with a hearty and
vigorous cheer, most refreshing to our spirits.
In those clays there were none of the thousand ameliorations
of the labors of housekeeping which have since arisen, no
ground and prepared spices and sweet herbs ; everything came
into our hands in the rough, and in bulk, and the reducing of it
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 339
into a state for use was deemed one of the appropriate labors of
childhood. Even the very salt that we used in cooking was
rock-salt, which we were required to wash and dry and pound
and sift, before it became fit for use.
At other times of the year we sometimes murmured at these
labors, but those that were supposed to usher in the great Thanks-
giving festival were always entered into with enthusiasm. There
were signs of richness all around us, stoning of raisins, cutting
of citron, slicing of candied orange-peel. Yet all these were
only dawnings and intimations of what was coming during the
week of real preparation, after the Governor's proclamation had
been read.
The glories of that proclamation ! We knew beforehand the
Sunday it was to be read, and walked to church with alacrity,
filled with gorgeous and vague expectations.
The cheering anticipation sustained us through what seemed
to us the long waste of the sermon and prayers ; and when at
last the auspicious moment approached, when the last quaver
of the last hymn had died out, the whole house rippled with
a general movement of complacency, and a satisfied smile of
pleased expectation might be seen gleaming on the faces of
all the young people, like a ray of sunshine through a garden
of flowers.
Thanksgiving now was dawning ! We children poked one
another, and fairly giggled with unreproved delight as we lis-
tened to the crackle of the slowly unfolding document. That
great sheet of paper impressed us as something supernatural,
by reason of its mighty size, and by the broad seal of the
State affixed thereto ; and when the minister read therefrom,
" By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty
repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders.
Then, after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the
Commonwealth had that year received at the hands of Divine
Providence, came at last the naming of the eventful day, and,
at the end of all, the imposing heraldic words, " God save the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And then, as the congre-
340 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
gallon broke up and dispersed, all went their several ways with
schemes of mirth and feasting in their heads.
And now came on the week in earnest. In the very watches
of the night preceding Monday morning, a preternatural stir be-
low stairs, and the thunder of the pounding-barrel, announced
that the washing was to be got out of the way before daylight,
so as to give " ample scope and room enough " for the more
pleasing duties of the season.
The making of pies at this period assumed vast proportions
that verged upon the sublime. Pies were made by forties and
fifties and hundreds, and made of everything on the earth and
under the earth.
The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American
soil, forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety
of genera and species. Not merely the old traditional mince
pie, but a thousand strictly American seedlings from that main
stock, evinced the power of American housewives to adapt old
institutions to new uses. Pumpkin pies, cranberry pies, huckle-
berry pies, cherry pies, green-currant pies, peach, pear, and plum
pies, custard pies, apple pies, Marlborough-pudding pies, pies
with top crusts, and pies without, pies adorned with all sorts
of fanciful flutings and architectural strips laid across and around,
and otherwise varied, attested the boundless fertility of the femi-
nine mind, when once let loose in a given direction.
Fancy the heat and vigor of the great pan-formation, when
Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and my mother and grandmother, all
in ecstasies of creative inspiration, ran, bustled, and hurried,
mixing, rolling, tasting, consulting, alternately setting us chil-
dren to work when anything could be made of us, and then chas-
ing us all out of the kitchen when our misinformed childhood
ventured to take too many liberties with sacred mysteries. Then
out we would all fly at the kitchen door, like sparks from a black-
smith's window.
On these occasions, as there was a great looseness in the police
department over us children, we usually found a ready refuge at
Miss Mehitable's with Tina, who, confident of the strength of her
position with Polly, invited us into the kitchen, and with the air
of a mistress led us around to view the proceedings there.
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 341
A genius for entertaining was one of Tina's principal charac-
teristics ; and she did not fail to make free with raisins, or citron,
or whatever came to hand, in a spirit of hospitality at which
Polly seriously demurred. That worthy woman occasionally felt
the inconvenience of the state of subjugation to which the little
elf had somehow or other reduced her, and sometimes rattled her
chains fiercely, scolding with a vigor which rather alarmed us,
but which Tina minded not a whit. Confident of her own pow-
ers, she would, in the very midst of her wrath, mimic her to her
face with such irresistible drollery as to cause the torrent of re-
proof to end in a dissonant laugh, accompanied by a submis-
sive cry for quarter.
" I declare, Tina Percival," she said to her one day, " you 're
saucy enough to physic a horn-bug! I never did see the beater
of you ! If Miss Mehitable don't keep you in better order, I
don't see what 's to become of any of us ! "
" Why, what did become of you before I came ? " was the un-
dismayed reply. " You know, Polly, you and Aunty both were
just as lonesome as you could be till I came here, and you
never had such pleasant times in your life as you 've had since
I 've been here. You 're a couple of old beauties, both of you,
and know just how to get along with me. But come, boys, let's
take our raisins and go up in the garret and play Thanksgiving."
In the corner of the great kitchen, during all these days, the
jolly old oven roared and crackled in great volcanic billows of
flame, snapping and gurgling as if the old fellow entered with
joyful sympathy into the frolic of the hour ; and then, his great
heart being once warmed up, he brooded over successive gen-
erations of pies and cakes, which went in raw and came out
cooked, till butteries and dressers and shelves and pantries were
literally crowded with a jostling abundance.
A great cold northern chamber, where the sun never shone,
and where in winter the snow sifted in at the window-cracks, and
ice and frost reigned with undisputed sway, was fitted up to be
the storehouse of these surplus treasures. There, frozen solid,
and thus well preserved in their icy fetters, they formed a great
repository for all the winter months; and the pies baked at
342 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Thanksgiving often came out fresh and good with the violets of
April.
During this eventful preparation week, all the female part of
my grandmother's household, as I have before remarked, were at
a height above any ordinary state of mind, they moved about
the house rapt in a species of prophetic frenzy. It seemed to be
considered a necessary feature of such festivals, that everybody
should be in a hurry, and everything in the house should be turned
bottom upwards with enthusiasm, so at least we children under-
stood it, and we certainly did our part to keep the ball rolling.
At this period the constitutional activity of Uncle Fliakim
increased to a degree that might fairly be called preternatural.
Thanksgiving time was the time for errands of mercy and benefi-
cence through the country ; and Uncle Fliakim's immortal old
rubber horse and rattling wagon were on the full jump, in tours of
investigation into everybody's affairs in the region around. On
returning, he would fly through our kitchen like the wind,
leaving open the doors, upsetting whatever came in his way,
now a pan of milk, and now a basin of mince, talking rap-
idly, and forgetting only the point in every case that gave it
significance, or enabled any one to put it to any sort of use.
When Aunt Lois checked his benevolent effusions by putting
the test questions of practical efficiency, Uncle Fliakim always
remembered that he 'd " forgotten to inquire about that," and
skipping through the kitchen, and springing into his old wagon,
would rattle off again on a full tilt to correct and amend his in-
vestigations.
Moreover, my grandmother's kitchen at this time began to
be haunted by those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of un-
certain fortunes, whom a full experience of her bountiful habits
led to expect something at her hand at this time of the year.
All the poor, loafing tribes, Indian and half-Indian, who at
other times wandered, selling baskets and other light wares, were
sure to come back to Oldtown a little before Thanksgiving time,
and report themselves in rny grandmother's kitchen.
The great hogshead of cider in the cellar, which my grand-
father called the Indian Hogshead, was on tap at all hours of the
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 843
day ; and many a mugful did I draw and dispense to the tribes
that basked in the sunshine at our door.
Aunt Lois never had a hearty conviction of the propriety of
these arrangements ; but my grandmother, who had a prodigious
verbal memory, bore down upon her with such strings of quota-
tions from the Old Testament that she was utterly routed.
"Now," says my Aunt Lois, " I s'pose we Ve got to have Betty
Poganut and Sally Wonsamug, and old Obscue and his wife,
and the whole tribe down, roosting around our doors, till we give
'em something. That 's just mother's way ; she always keeps a
whole generation at her heels."
" How many times must I tell you, Lois, to read your Bible ? "
was my grandmother's rejoinder ; and loud over the sound of
pounding and chopping in the kitchen could be heard the voice
of her quotations : " If there be among you a poor man in any of
the gates of the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou
shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand, from thy poor
brother. Thou shalt surely give him ; and thy heart shall not be
grieved when thou givest to him, because that for this thing the
Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works ; for the poor shall
never cease from out of the land."
These words seemed to resound like a sort of heraldic proc-
lamation to call around us all that softly shiftless class, who, for
some reason or other, are never to be found with anything in hand
at the moment that it is wanted.
" There, to be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our prep-
arations were in full blast, " there comes Sam Lawson down
the hill, limpsy as ever; now he '11 have his doleful story to
tell, and mother '11 give him one of the turkeys."
And so, of course, it fell out.
Sam came in with his usual air of plaintive assurance, and
seated himself a contemplative spectator in the chimney-corner,
regardless of the looks and signs of unwelcome on the part of
Aunt Lois.
" Lordy massy, how prosperous everything does seem, here ! "
he said, in musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider ; " so
different from what 't is t' our house. There 's Hepsy, she 's all
344 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
in a stew, an' I 've just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth
o' nutmegs, yet she says she 's sure she don't see how she 's
to keep Thanksgiving, an' she 's down on me about it, just
as ef 't was my fault. Yeh see, last winter our old gobbler got
froze. You know, Mis' Badger, that 'ere cold night we hed last
winter. Wai, I was off with Jake Marshall that night ; ye see,
Jake, he hed to take old General Dearborn's corpse into Boston,
to the family vault, and Jake, he kind o' hated to go alone;
't was a drefful cold time, and he ses to me, ' Sam, you jes'
go 'Jong with me ' ; so I was sort o' sorry for him, and I kind o'
thought I 'd go 'long. Wai, come 'long to Josh Bissel's tahvern,
there at the Half-way House, you know, 't was so swinging cold
we stopped to take a little suthin' warmin', an' we sort o' sot an'
sot over the fire, till, fust we knew, we kind o' got asleep ; an'
when we woke up we found we 'd left the old General hitched
up t' th' post pretty much all night. Wai, did n't hurt him none,
poor man ; 't was allers a favorite spot o' his'n. But, takin' one
thing with another, I did n't get home till about noon next day,
an', I tell you, Hepsy she was right down on me. She said the
baby was sick, and there had n't been no wood split, nor the barn
fastened up, nor nothin'. Lordy massy, I did n't mean no harm ;
I thought there was wood enough, and I thought likely Hepsy 'd
git out an' fasten up the barn. But Hepsy, she was in one o'
her contrary streaks, an' she would n't do a thing ; an', when I
went out to look, why, sure 'nuff, there was our old torn-turkey
froze as stiff as a stake, his claws jist a stickin' right straight
up like this." Here Sam struck an expressive attitude, and
looked so much like a frozen turkey as to give a pathetic reality
to the picture.
" Well now, Sam, why need you be off on things that 's none
of your business ? " said my grandmother. " I 've talked to you
plainly about that a great many times, Sam," she continued, in
tones of severe admonition. " Hepsy is a hard-working woman,
but she can't be expected to see to everything, and you oughter
'ave been at home that night to fasten up your own barn and
look after your own creeturs."
Sam took the rebuke all the more meekly as he perceived the
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 345
stiff black legs of a turkey poking out from under niy grand-
mother's apron while she was delivering it. To be exhorted and
told of his shortcomings, and then furnished with a turkey at
Thanksgiving, was a yearly part of his family programme. In
time he departed, not only with the turkey, but with us boys
in procession after him, bearing a mince and a pumpkin pie for
Hepsy's children.
" Poor things ! " my grandmother remarked ; " they ought to
have something good to eat Thanksgiving day ; 't ain't their fault
that they 've got a shiftless father."
Sam, in his turn, moralized to us children, as we walked beside
him: "A body 'd think that Hepsy 'd learn to trust in Provi-
dence," he said, " but she don't. She allers has a Thanksgiving
dinner pervided ; but that 'ere woman ain't grateful for it, by no
manner o' means. Now she '11 be jest as cross as she can be,
'cause this 'ere ain't our turkey, and these 'ere ain't our pies.
Folks doos lose so much, that hes sech dispositions."
A multitude of similar dispensations during the course of the
week materially reduced the great pile of chickens and turkeys
which black Caesar's efforts in slaughtering, picking, and dressing
kept daily supplied.
Besides these offerings to the poor, the handsomest turkey of
the flock was sent, dressed in first-rate style, with Deacon Bad-
ger's dutiful compliments, to the minister ; and we children, who
were happy to accompany black Caesar on this errand, generally
received a seed-cake and a word of acknowledgment from the
minister's lady.
Well, at last, when all the chopping and pounding and baking
and brewing, preparatory to the festival, were gone through with,
the eventful day dawned. All the tribes of the Badger family
were to come back home to the old house, with all the relations
of every degree, to eat the Thanksgiving dinner. And it was
understood that in the evening the minister and his lady would
look in upon us, together with some of the select aristocracy of
Oldtown.
Great as the preparations were for the dinner, everything was
so contrived that not a soul in the house should be kept from the
15*
346 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
morning service of Thanksgiving in the church, and from lis-
tening to the Thanksgiving sermon, in which the minister was
expected to express his views freely concerning the politics of
the country, and the state of things in society generally, in a
somewhat more secular vein of thought than was deemed exactly
appropriate to the Lord's day. But it is to be confessed, that,
when the good man got carried away by the enthusiasm of his
subject to extend these exercises beyond a certain length, anxious
glances, exchanged between good wives, sometimes indicated a
weakness of the flesh, having a tender reference to the turkeys
and chickens and chicken pies, which might possibly be over-
doing in the ovens at home. But your old brick oven was a
true Puritan institution, and backed up the devotional habits of
good housewives, by the capital care which he took of whatever
was committed to his capacious bosom. A truly well-bred oven
would have been ashamed of himself all his days, and blushed
redder than his own fires, if a God-fearing house-matron, away
at the temple of the Lord, should come home and find her pie-
crust either burned or underdone by his over or under zeal ; so
the old fellow generally managed to bring things out exactly
right.
When sermons and prayers were all over, we children rushed
home to see the great feast of the year spread.
What chitterings and chatterings there were all over the
house, as all the aunties and uncles and cousins came pour-
ing in, taking off their things, looking at one another's bonnets
and dresses, and mingling their comments on the morning ser-
mon with various opinions on the new millinery outfits, and with
bits of home news, and kindly neighborhood gossip.
Uncle Bill, whom the Cambridge college authorities released,
as they did all the other youngsters of the land, for Thanksgiv-
ing day, made a breezy stir among them all, especially with
the young cousins of the feminine gender.
The best room on this occasion was thrown wide open, and
its habitual coldness had been warmed by the burning down
of a great stack of hickory logs, which had been heaped up unspar-
ingly since morning. It takes some hours to get a room warm,
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 847
where a family never sits, and which therefore has not in its walls
one particle of the genial vitality which comes from the in-dwell-
ing of human beings. But on Thanksgiving day, at least, every
year, this marvel was effected in our best room.
Although all servile labor and vain recreation on this day were
by law forbidden, according to the terms of the proclamation, it
was not held to be a violation of the precept, that all the nice old
aunties should bring their knitting-work and sit gently trotting
their needles around the fire ; nor that Uncle Bill should start
a full-fledged romp among the girls and children, while the din-
ner was being set on the long table in the neighboring kitchen.
Certain of the good elderly female relatives, of serious and dis-
creet demeanor, assisted at this operation.
But who shall do justice to the dinner, and describe the
turkey, and chickens, and chicken pies, with all that endless
variety of vegetables which the American soil and climate have
contributed to the table, and which, without regard to the French
doctrine of courses, were all piled together in jovial abundance
upon the smoking board ? There was much carving and laugh-
ing and talking and eating, and all showed that cheerful ability
to despatch the provisions which was the ruling spirit of the hour.
After the meat came the plum-puddings, and then the endless
array of pies, till human nature was actually bewildered and
overpowered by the tempting variety ; and even we children
turned from the profusion offered to us, and wondered what
was the matter that we could eat no more.
When all was over, my grandfather rose at the head of the
table, and a fine venerable picture he made as he stood there,
bis silver hair flowing in curls down each side of his clear, calm
face, while, in conformity to the old Puritan custom, he called
their attention to a recital of the mercies of God in his dealings
with their family.
It was a sort of family history, going over and touching upon
the various events which had happened. He spoke of my father's
death, and gave a tribute to his memory; and closed all with
the application of a time-honored text, expressing the hope that
as years passed by we might " so number our days as to apply
348 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
our hearts unto wisdom " ; and then he gave out that psalm
which in those days might be called the national hymn of the
Puritans.
" Let children hear the mighty deeds
Which God performed of old,
Which in our younger years we saw,
And Avhich our fathers told.
" He bids us make his glories known,
His works of power and grace.
And we '11 convey his wonders down
Through every rising race.
" Our lips shall tell them to our sons,
And they again to theirs ;
That generations yet unborn
May teach them to their heirs.
" Thus shall they learn in God alone
Their hope securely stands ;
That they may ne'er forget his works,
But practise his commands."
This we all united in singing to the venerable tune of St. Mar-
tin's, an air which, the reader will perceive, by its multiplicity of
quavers and inflections gave the greatest possible scope to the
cracked and trembling voices of the ancients, who united in it
with even more zeal than the younger part of the community.
Uncle Fliakim Sheril, furbished up in a new crisp black suit,
and with his spindle-shanks trimly incased in the smoothest of
black silk stockings, looking for all the world just like an alert
and spirited black cricket, outdid himself on this occasion in sing-
ing counter, in that high, weird voice that he must have learned
from the wintry winds that usually piped around the corners of
the old house. But any one who looked at him, as he sat with
his eyes closed, beating time with head and hand, and, in short,
with every limb of his body, must have perceived the exquisite
satisfaction which he derived from this mode of expressing
himself. I much regret to be obliged to state that my graceless
Uncle Bill, taking advantage of the fact that the eyes of all his
elders were devotionally closed, stationing himself a little in the
rear of my Uncle Fliakim, performed an exact imitation of his
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 349
counter, with such a killing facility that all the younger part
of the audience were nearly dead with suppressed laughter.
Aunt Lois, who never shut her eyes a moment on any occa-
sion, discerned this from a distant part of the room, and in vain
endeavored to stop it by vigorously shaking her head at the
offender. She might as well have shaken it at a bobolink tilt-
ing on a clover-top. In fact, Uncle Bill was Aunt Lois's weak
point, and the corners of her own mouth were observed to twitch
in such a suspicious manner that the whole moral force of her
admonition was destroyed.
And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters,
already excited to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best
room, under the supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves
with a game of " blind-man's-buff," while the elderly women
washed up the dishes and got the house in order, and the men-
folks went out to the barn to look at the cattle, and walked over
the farm and talked of the crops.
In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best
of tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial
care for this illumination. It was understood that we were to
have a dance, and black Caesar, full of turkey and pumpkin pie,
and giggling in the very jollity of his heart, had that afternoon
rosined his bow, and tuned his fiddle, and practised jigs and Vir-
ginia reels, in a way that made us children think him a perfect
Orpheus.
As soon as the candles were lighted came in Miss Mehitable
with her brother Jonathan, and Tina, like a gay little tassel,
hanging on her withered arm.
Mr. Jonathan Eossiter was a tall, well-made man, with a clear-
cut, aquiline profile, and high round forehead, from which his
powdered hair was brushed smoothly back and hung down be-
hind in a long cue- His eyes were of a piercing dark gray, with
that peculiar expression of depth and intensity which marks a
melancholy temperament. He had a large mouth, which he
kept shut with an air of firmness that suggested something even
hard and dictatorial in his nature. He was quick and alert in
all his movements, and his eyes had a searching quickness of
350 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
observation, which seemed to lose nothing of what took place
around him. There was an air of breeding and self-command
about him ; and in all his involuntary ways he bore the appear-
ance of a man more interested to make up a judgment of others
than concerned as to what their judgment might be about himself.
Miss Mehitable hung upon his arm with an evident admiration
and pride, which showed that when he came he made summer
at least for her.
After them soon arrived the minister and his lady, she in a
grand brocade satin dress, open in front to display a petticoat
brocaded with silver flowers. With her well-formed hands shin-
ing out of a shimmer of costly lace, and her feet propped on high-
heeled shoes, Lady Lothrop justified the prestige of good society
which always hung about her. Her lord and master, in the
spotless whiteness of his ruffles on wrist and bosom, and in the
immaculate keeping and neatness of all his clerical black, and
the perfect pose of his grand full-bottomed clerical wig, did honor
to her conjugal cares. They moved through the room like a
royal prince and princess, with an appropriate, gracious, well-
considered word for each and every one. They even returned,
with punctilious civility, the awe-struck obeisance of black
Caesar, who giggled over straightway with joy and exultation at
the honor.
But conceive of my Aunt Lois's pride of heart, when, follow-
ing in the train of these august persons, actually came Ellery
Davenport, bringing upon his arm Miss Deborah Kittery. Here
was a situation ! Had the whole island of Great Britain waded
across the Atlantic Ocean to call on Bunker Hill, the circum-
stance could scarcely have seemed to her more critical.
"Mercy on us!" she thought to herself, "all these Epis-
copalians coming ! I do hope mother '11 be careful ; I hope she
won't feel it necessary to give them a piece of her mind, as she 's
always doing."
Miss Deborah Kittery, however, knew her soundings, and
was too genuine an Englishwoman not to know that " every
man's house is his castle," and that one must respect one's
neighbor's opinions on his own ground.
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 351
As to my grandmother, her broad and buxom heart on this
evening was so full of motherliness, that she could have patted
the very King of England on the head, if he had been there,
and comforted his- soul with the assurance that she supposed he
meant well, though he did n't exactly know how to manage ; so,
although she had a full consciousness that Miss Deborah Kit-
tery had turned all America over to uncovenanted mercies, she
nevertheless shook her warmly by the hand, and told her she
hoped she'd make herself at home. And I think she would
have done exactly the same by the Pope of Rome himself, if that
poor heathen sinner had presented himself on Thanksgiving
evening. So vast and billowy was the ocean of her loving-kind-
ness, and so firmly were her feet planted on the rock of the Cam-
bridge Platform, that on it she could stand breathing prayers for
all Jews, Turks, Infidels, Tories, Episcopalians, and even Roman
Catholics. The very man that burnt Mr. John Rogers might
have had a mug of cider in the kitchen on this evening, with an
exhortation to go and sin no more.
You may imagine the astounding wassail among the young
people, when two such spirits as Ellery Davenport and my
Uncle Bill were pushing each other on, in one house. My
Uncle Bill related the story of " the Wry-mouth Family," with
such twists and contortions and killing extremes of the ludi-
crous as perfectly overcame even the minister ; and he was to
be seen, at one period of the evening, with a face purple with
laughter, and the tears actually rolling down over his well-formed
cheeks, while some of the more excitable young people almost
fell in trances, and rolled on the floor in the extreme of their
merriment. In fact, the assemblage was becoming so tumultu-
ous, that the scrape of Caesar's violin, and the forming of sets for
a dance, seemed necessary to restore the peace.
Whenever or wherever it was that the idea of the sinfulness
of dancing arose in New England, I know not ; it is a certain
fact that at Oldtow^ at this time, the presence of the minister
and his lady was held not to be in the slightest degree incom-
patible with this amusement. I appeal to many of my readers,
if they or their parents could not recall a time in New England
352 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
when in all the large towns dancing assemblies used to be
statedly held, at which the minister and his lady, though never
uniting in the dance, always gave an approving attendance, and
where all the decorous, respectable old church-members brought
their children, and stayed to watch an amusement in which they
no longer actively partook. No one looked on with a more placid
and patronizing smile than Dr. Lothrop and his lady, as one after
another began joining the exercise, which, commencing first with
the children and young people, crept gradually upwards among
the elders.
Uncle Bill would insist on leading out Aunt Lois, and the
bright color rising to her thin cheeks brought back a fluttering
image of what might have been beauty in some fresh, early
day. Ellery Davenport insisted upon leading forth Miss Deb-
orah Kittery, notwithstanding her oft-repeated refusals and
earnest protestations to the contrary. As to Uncle Fliakim,
he jumped and frisked and gyrated among the single sisters
and maiden aunts, whirling them into the dance as if he had
been the little black gentleman himself. With that true spirit
of Christian charity which marked all his actions, he invariably
chose out the homeliest and most neglected, and thus worthy
Aunt Keziah, dear old soul, was for a time made quite promi-
nent by his attentions.
Of course the dances in those days were of a strictly moral
nature. The very thought of one of the round dances of modern
times would have sent Lady Lothrop behind her big fan in
helpless confusion, and exploded my grandmother like a full-
charged arsenal of indignation. As it was, she stood, her broad,
pleased face radiant with satisfaction, as the wave of joyous-
ness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who
stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one
another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good
old days gone by, and the elder women began to blush and
bridle, and boast of steps that they could take in their youth,
till the music finally subdued them, and into the dance they
went.
"Well, well!" quoth my grandmother; "they're all at it so
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN. 353
hearty, I don't see why I should n't try it myself." And into the
Virginia reel she went, amid screams of laughter from all the
younger members of the company.
But I assure you my grandmother was not a woman to be
laughed at ; for whatever she once set on foot, she " put through "
with a sturdy energy befitting a daughter of the Puritans.
" Why should n't I dance ? " she said, when she arrived red
and resplendent at the bottom of the set. " Did n't Mr. De-
spondency and Miss Muchafraid and Mr. Readytohalt all dance
together in the Pilgrim's Progress ? " and the minister in his
ample flowing wig, and my lady in her stiff brocade, gave to my
grandmother a solemn twinkle of approbation.
As nine o'clock struck, the whole scene dissolved and melted ;
for what well-regulated village would think of carrying festivities
beyond that hour ?
And so ended our Thanksgiving at Oldtown.
354 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE KAID ON OLDTOWN, AND UNCLE FLIAKIM'S BRAVERY.
rilHE next morning after Thanksgiving, life resumed its usual
-*- hard, laborious course, with a sharp and imperative reac-
tion, such as ensues when a strong spring, which has been for
some time held back, is suddenly let fly again.
Certainly Aunt Lois appeared to be astir fully an hour earlier
than usual, and dispelled all our golden visions of chicken pies
and dancings and merry-makings, by the flat, hard summons of
every-day life. We had no time to become demoralized and
softened.
Breakfast this next morning was half an hour in advance of
the usual time, because Aunt Lois was under some vague impres-
sion of infinite disturbances in the house, owing to the latitude of
the last two weeks, and of great furbishings and repairs to be
done in the best room, before it could be again shut up and con-
demned to silence.
While we were eating our breakfast, Sam Lawson came in,
with an air of great trepidation.
" Lordy massy, Mis' Badger ! what do you s'pose has hap-
pened ? " he exclaimed, holding up his hands. " Wai ! if I ever
no, I never did ! " and, before an explanation could be
drawn out of him, in fluttered Uncle Fliakim, and began dancing
an indignant rigadoon round the kitchen.
" Perfectly abominable ! the selectmen ought to take it up ! "
he exclaimed, " ought to make a State affair of it, and send to
the Governor."
" Do for mercy's sake, Fliakim, sit down, and tell us what the
matter is," said my grandmother.
" I can't ! I can't ! ! I can't ! ! ! I 've just got to hitch right up
and go on after 'em ; and mebbe I '11 catch 'em before they get
over the State line. I just wanted to borrow your breech-band,
THE RAID ON OLDTOWN. 355
'cause ours is broke. Where is it ? Is it out in the barn, or
where ? "
By this time we had all arisen from table, and stood looking
at one another, while Uncle Fliakim had shot out of the back
door toward the barn. Of course our information must now be
got out of Sam Lawson.
" "Wai, you see, Deacon, who ever would ha' thought of it ?
They've took every child on 'em, every one ! "
" Who 's taken ? what children ? " said my grandmother. " Do
pray begin at the right end of your story, and not come in here
scaring a body to death."
"Wai, it's Aunt Nancy Prime's children. Last night the
kidnappers come to her house an' took her an' every single one
of the child'en, an' goin' to carry 'em off to York State for
slaves. Jake Marshall, he was round to our house this mornin',
an' told me 'bout it. Jake, he ? d ben over to keep Thanksgivin',
over t' Aunt Sally Proddy's ; an' way over by the ten-mile tah-
vern he met the waggin, an' Aunt Nancy, she called out to him,
an' he heerd one of the fellers swear at her. The' was two fellers
in the waggin, an' they was a drivin' like mad, an' I jest come
runnin' down to Mr. Sheril's, 'cause I know his horse never gits
out of a canter, an' 's pretty much used to bein' twitched up sudden.
But, Lordy massy, s'posin' he could ketch up with 'em, what
could he do ? He could n't much more 'n fly at 'em like an old
hen ; so I don't see what 's to be done."
" Well," said my grandfather, rising up, " if that 's the case,
it 's time we should all be on the move ; and I '11 go right over to
Israel Scran's, and he and his two sons and I '11 go over, and I
guess there'll be enough of us to teach them reason. These
kidnappers always make for the New York State line. Boys,
you go out and tackle the old mare, and have our wagon round
to the house ; and, if Fliakim's wagon will hold together, the two
will just carry the party."
" Lordy massy ! I should like to go 'long too," said Sam Law-
son. " I hain't got no special business to-day but what could be
put off as well as not."
" You never do have," said Aunt Lois. " That 's the trouble
with you."
356 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Wai, I was a thinkin'," said Sam, " that Jake and me hes
been over them roads so often, and we kind o' know all the ups
an' downs an' cross-roads. Then we 's pretty intimate with some
o' them Injun fellers, an' ye git them sot out on a trail arter a
body, they 's like a huntin' dog."
" Well, father," said Aunt Lois, " I think it 's quite likely that
Sam may be right here. He certainly knows more about such
things than any decent, industrious man ought to, and it 's a pity
you should n't put him to some use when you can."
" Jes' so ! " said Sam. " Now, there 's reason in that 'ere ; an'
I '11 jes' go over to Israel's store with the Deacon. Yeh see ye
can't take both the boys, 'cause one on 'em '11 have to stay and
tend the store ; but I tell you what 't is, I ain't no bad of a
hand a hittin' a lick at kidnappers. I could pound on 'em as
willingly as ever I pounded a horseshoe ; an' a woman 's a
woman, an' child'en 's child'en, ef they be black ; that 's jes' my
'pinion."
" Sam, you 're a good fellow," said my grandmother, approv-
ingly. " But come, go right along."
Here, now, was something to prevent the wave of yesterday's
excitement from flatting down into entire insipidity.
Harry and I ran over instantly to tell Tina ; and Tina with
all her eloquence set it forth to Miss Mehitable and Polly, and
we gave vent to our emotions by an immediate rush to the gar-
ret and a dramatic representation of the whole scene of the
rescue, conducted with four or five of Tina's rag-dolls and a
little old box wagon, with which we cantered and re-cantered'
across the garret floor in a way that would have been intolerable
to any less patient and indulgent person than Miss Mehitable.
The fact is, however, that she shared in the universal ex-
citement to such a degree, that she put on her bonnet immedi-
ately, and rushed over to the minister's to give vent to her feel-
ings, while Polly, coming up garret, shouldered one of the guns
lovingly, and declared she'd " like nothing better than to fire it
off at one o' them fellers " ; and then she told us how, in her
young days, where she was brought up in Maine, the painters
(panthers) used to come round their log cabin at night, and howl
THE KAID ON OLDTOWN.
357
and growl ; and how they always had to keep the guns loaded ;
and how once her mother, during her father's absence, had treed
a painter, and kept him up in his perch for hours by threatening
him whenever he offered to come down, until her husband came
home and shot him.
Pretty stanch, reliant blood, about those times, flowed in the
bosoms of the women of New England, and Polly relieved the
excitement of her mind this morning by relating to us story
after story of the wild forest life of her early days.
"While Polly was thus giving vent to her emotions at home,
Miss Mehitable had produced a corresponding excitement in the
minister's family. Ellery Davenport declared his prompt in-
tention of going up and joining the pursuing party, as he was
young and strong, with all his wits about him ; and, with the
prestige of rank in the late Revolutionary war, such an accession
to the party was of the greatest possible importance. As to
Miss Deborah Kittery, she gave it as her opinion that such
uprisings against law and order were just what was to be
expected in a democracy. "The lower classes, my dear, you
know, need to be kept down with a strong hand," she said with
an instructive nod of the head ; " and I think we shall find that
there 's no security in the way things are going on now."
Miss Mehitable and the minister listened with grave amuse-
ment while the worthy lady thus delivered herself; and, as they
did not reply, she had the comfort of feeling that she had given
lem something to think of.
All the village, that day, was in a ferment of expectation ; for
Aunt Nancy was a general favorite in all the families round, and
was sent for in case of elections or weddings or other high
merry-makings, so that meddling with her was in fact taking
away part of the vested property of Oldtown. The loafers
who tilted, with their heels uppermost, on the railings of the
tavern veranda, talked stringently of State rights, and some
were of opinion that President Washington ought to be ap-
'ised of the fact without loss of time. My grandmother went
)out house in a state of indignation all day, declaring it was
pretty state of things, to be sure, and that, next they should
358 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
know, they should wake up some morning and find that Cassar
had been gobbled up in the night and run off with. But Harry
and I calmed the fears which this seemed to excite in his breast,
by a vivid description of the two guns over in Miss Mehitable's
garret, and of the use that we should certainly make of them in
case of an attack on Ca3sar.
The chase, however, was conducted with such fire and ardor
that before moonrise on the same night the captives were
brought back in triumph to Oldtown village, and lodged for
safe-keeping in my grandmother's house, who spared nothing in
their entertainment.
A happy man was Sam Lawson that evening, as he sat in the
chimney-corner and sipped his mug of cider, and recounted his
adventures.
" Lordy massy ! well, 't was providential we took Colonel
Devenport 'long with us, I tell you ; he talked to them fellers in
a way that made 'em shake in their shoes. Why, Lordy massy,
when we fust came in sight on 'em, Mr. Sheril an' me, we wus
in the foremost waggin, an' we saw 'em before us just as we got to
the top of a long, windin' hill, an' I tell you if they did n't whip
up an' go lickity-split down that 'ere hill, I tell you, they rat-
tled them child'en as ef they 'd ben so many punkins, an' I tell
you one of 'em darned old young-uns flew right over the side of
the waggin, an' jest picked itself up as lively as a cricket, an'
never cried. We did n't stop to take it up, but jes' kep' right
along arter ; an' Mr. Sheril, he hollers out, ' Whoa ! whoa ! stop !
stop thief!' as loud as he could yell; but they jes' laughed
at him ; but Colonel Devenport, he come ridin' by on horseback,
like thunder, an' driv' right by 'em, an' then turned round an'
charged down on their horses so it driv' 'em right out the road,
an' the waggin was upsot, an' the fellers, they were pitched out,
an' in a minute Colonel Devenport had one on 'em by the collar
an' his pistol right out to the head o' t'other. ' Now,' ses he, ' if
you stir you 're a dead man ! '
" Wai, Mr. Sheril, he made arter the other one, he always
means mighty well, Mr. Sheril does, he gin a long jump, he
did, an' he lit right in the middle of a tuft of blackberry-bushes,
THE RAID ON OLDTOWN. 359
an' tore his breeches as ef the heavens an' 'arth was a goin' asun-
der. Yeh see, they never 'd a got 'em ef 't had n't ben for
Colonel Devenport. He kep' the other feller under range of his
pistol, an' told him he 'd shoot him ef he stirred ; an' the feller,
he was scart to death, an' he roared an' begged for mercy in a
way 't would ha' done your heart good to hear.
" Wai, wal ! the upshot on 't all was, when Israel Scran come
down with his boy (they was in the back waggin), they got out
the ropes an' tied 'em up snug, an' have ben a fetchin' on 'em
along to jail, where I guess they '11 have one spell o' considerin
their ways. But, Lordy massy, yeh never see such a sight as
your uncle's breeches wus. Mis' Sheril, she says she never see
the beater of him for allus goin' off in his best clothes, 'cause,
you see, he heard the news early, an' he jes' whips on his Thanks-
givin' clothes an' went off in 'em just as he was. His intentions
is allus so good. It 's a pity, though, he don't take more time to
consider. Now I think folks ought to take things more moderate.
Yeh see, these folks that hurries allus, they gits into scrapes, is
just what I 'm allus a tellin' Hepsy."
" Who were the fellows, do you know ? " said my grandmother.
" Wal, one on 'em was one of them Hessians that come over in
the war times, he is a stupid crittur ; but the other is Widdah
Huldy Miller's son, down to Black Brook there."
"Do tell," said my grandmother, with the liveliest concern;
" has Eph Miller come to that ? "
" Yes, yes ! " said Sam, " it J s Eph, sure enough. He was exalted
to heaven in p'int o' privilege, but he took to drink and onstiddy
ways in the army, and now here he is in jail. I tell you, I tried
to set it home to Eph, when I was a bringin' on him home in the
waggin, but, Lordy massy, we don't none of us like to have our
sins set in order afore us. There was David, now, he was crank
as could be when he thought Nathan was a talkin' about other
people's sins. Says David, * The man that did that shall surely
die ' ; but come to set it home, and say, * Thou art the man,' Da-
vid caved right in. * Lordy massy bless your soul and body, Na-
than,' says he, ' I don't want to die.' "
It will be seen by these edifying moralizings how eminently
860 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Scriptural was the course of Sam's mind. In fact, his turn for
long-winded, pious reflection was not the least among his many
miscellaneous accomplishments.
As to my grandmother, she busied herself in comforting the
hearts of Aunt Nancy and the children with more than they
could eat of the relics of the Thanksgiving feast, and bidding
them not to be down-hearted nor afeard of anything, for the
neighbors would all stand up for them, confirming her words
with well-known quotations from the Old Testament, to the
effect that " the triumphing of the wicked is short," and that
" evil-doers shall soon be cut off from the earth."
This incident gave Ellery Davenport a wide-spread popularity
in the circles of Oldtown. My grandmother was predisposed to
look on him with complacency as a grandson of President Ed-
wards, although he took, apparently, a freakish delight in shock-
ing the respectable prejudices, and disappointing the reasonable
expectations, of people in this regard, by assuming in every con-
versation precisely the sentiments that could have been least
expected of him in view of such a paternity.
In fact, Ellery Davenport was one of those talkers who de-
light to maintain the contrary of every proposition started, and
who enjoy the bustle and confusion which they thus make in
every circle.
In good, earnest, intense New England, where every idea was
taken up and sifted with serious solemnity, and investigated with
a view to an immediate practical action upon it as true or false,
this glittering, fanciful system of fencing which he kept up on all
subjects, maintaining with equal brilliancy and ingenuity this to-
day and that to-morrow, might possibly have drawn down upon
a man a certain horror, as a professed scoffer and a bitter enemy
of all that is good ; but Ellery Davenport, with all his apparent
carelessness, understood himself and the world he moved in per-
fectly. He never lost sight of the effect he was producing on any
mind, and had an intuitive judgment, in every situation, of ex-
actly how far he might go without going too far.
The position of such young men as Ellery Davenport, in the
theocratic state of society in New England at this time, can be
THE EAID ON OLDTOWN. 361
understood only by considering the theologic movements of their
period.
The colonists who founded Massachusetts were men whose
doctrine of a Christian church in regard to the position of its
children was essentially the same as that of the Church of
England. Thus we find in Doctor Cotton Mather this state-
ment :
" They did all agree with their brethren at Plymouth in this
point : that the children of the faithful were church-members
with their parents ; and that their baptism was a seal of their
being so ; only, before their admission to fellowship in any par-
ticular church, it was judged necessary that, being free from
scandal in life, they should be examined by the elders of the
church, upon whose approbation of their fitness they should
publicly and personally own the covenant, and so be received
unto the table of the Lord. And accordingly the eldest son
of Mr. Higginson, being about fifteen years of age, and laudably
answering all the characters expected in a communicant, was
then so received."
Thecolony under Governor Winthrop and Thomas Dudley
was, in fact, composed of men in all but political opinion warmly
attached to the Church of England; and they published, on
their departure, a tract called "The Humble Request of His
Majesty's Loyal Subjects, the Governor and Company lately
gone for New England, for the Obtaining of their Prayers, and
the Removal of Suspicions and Misconstruction of their Inten-
tions " ; and in this address they called the Church of England
their dear mother, acknowledging that such hope and part as
they had attained in the common salvation, they had sucked
from her breasts ; and entreating their many reverend fathers
and brethren to recommend them unto the mercies of God, in
their constant prayers, as a church now springing out of their
own bowels. Originally, thsrefore, the first young people who
grew up in New England were taught in their earliest childhood
to regard themselves as already members of the church, as under
obligations to comport themselves accordingly, and at a very early
age it was expected of them that they would come forward by
16
862 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
their own act and confirm the action of their parents in their bap-
tism, in a manner much the same in general effect as confirmation
in England. The immediate result of this was much sympathy
on the part of the children and young people with the religious
views of their parents, and a sort of growing up into them from
generation to generation. But, as the world is always tending to
become unspiritual and mechanical in its views and sentiments,
the defect of the species of religion thus engendered was a want
of that vitality and warmth of emotion which attend the convert
whose mind has come out of darkness into marvellous light,
who has passed through interior conflicts which have agitated
his soul to the very depths. So there was always a party in
New England who maintained that only those who could relate a
change so marked as to be characterized as supernatural should
hope that they were the true elect of God, or be received in
churches and acknowledged as true Christians.
Many pages of Cotton Mather record the earnest attention
which not only the ministers, but the governors and magistrates,
of New England, in her early days, gave to the question,
"What is the true position of the baptized children* of the
Church ? " and Cotton Mather, who was warmly in favor of the
Church of England platform in this respect, says : " It was the
study of those prudent men who might be called our seers, that
the children of the faithful should be kept, as far as may be,
under a church watch, in expectation that they might be in a
fairer way to receive the grace of God ; so that the prosperous
condition of religion in our churches might not be a matter of
one age alone."
Old Cotton waxes warm in arguing this subject, as follows :
" The Scriptures tell us that men's denying the children of the
Church to have any part in the Lord hath a strong tendency in it
to make them cease from fearing the Lord, and harden their
hearts from his fear. But the awful obligations of covenant
interest have a great tendency to soften the heart and break it,
and draw it home to God. Hence, when the Lord would power-
fully win men to obedience, he often begins with this : that he
is their God. The way of the Anabaptists, to admit none unto
THE RAID ON OLDTOWN. 363
membership and baptism but adult professors, is the straitest
way. One would think it should be a way of great purity, but
experience hath shown that it has been an inlet unto great cor-
ruption, and a troublesome, dangerous underminer of reformation."
And then old Cotton adds these words, certainly as explicit as
even the modern Puseyite could desire :
" If we do not keep in the way of a converting, grace-giving
covenant, and keep persons under those church dispensations
wherein grace is given, the Church will die of a lingering, though
not a violent death. The Lord hath not set up churches, only
that a few old Christians may keep one another warm while they
live and then carry away the Church into the cold grave with
them when they die. No; but that they might with all care
and with all the obligations and advantages to that care that
may be, nurse up another generation of subjects to our Lord,
that may stand up in his kingdom when they are gone."
It was for some time doubtful whether the New England
Church would organize itself and seek its own perpetuation on
the educational basis which has been the foundation of the ma-
jority of the Christian Church elsewhere ; and the question
was decided, as such society questions often are, by the vigor
and power of one man. Jonathan Edwards, a man who united
in himself the natures of both a poet and a metaphysician, all
whose experiences and feelings were as much more intense than
those of common men as Dante's or Milton's, fell into the error
of making his own constitutional religious experience the meas-
ure and standard of all others, and revolutionizing by it the in-
stitutions of the Pilgrim Fathers.
Regeneration, as he taught it in his " Treatise on the Affec-
tions," was the implantation by Divine power of a new spiritual
sense in the soul, as diverse from all the other senses as seeing
is from hearing, or tasting from smelling. No one that had not
received this new, divine, supernatural sense, could properly be-
long to the Church of Christ, and all men, until they did receive
it, were naturally and constitutionally enemies of God to such a
degree, that, as he says in a sermon to that effect, " If they had
God in their power, they would kill him."
364 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
It was his power and his influence which succeeded in com-
pletely upsetting New England from the basis on which the
Reformers and the Puritan Fathers had placed her, and casting
out of the Church the children of the very saints and martyrs
who had come to this country for no other reason than to found
a church.
It is remarkable that, in all the discussions of depravity inher-
ited from Adam, it never seemed to occur to any theologian that
there might also be a counter-working of the great law of de-
scent, by which the feelings and habits of thought wrought in the
human mind by Jesus Christ might descend through generations
of Christians, so that, in course of time, many might be born
predisposed to good, rather than to evil. Cotton Mather fear-
lessly says that " the seed of the Church are horn holy," not, of
course, meaning it in a strictly theological sense, but certainly
indicating that, in his day, a mild and genial spirit of hope
breathed over the cradle of infancy and childhood.
Those very persons whom President Edwards addresses in
such merciless terms of denunciation in his sermons, telling them
that it is a wonder the sun does not refuse to shine upon them,
that the earth daily groans to open under them, and that the
wind and the sun and the waters are all weary of them and
longing to break forth and execute the wrath of God upon them,
were the children for uncounted generations back of fathers
and mothers nursed in the bosom of the Church, trained in
habits of daily prayer, brought up to patience and self-sacrifice
and self-denial as the very bread of their daily being, and lack-
ing only this supernatural sixth sense, the want of which brought
upon them a guilt so tremendous. The consequence was, that,
immediately after the time of President Edwards, there grew up
in the very bosom of the New England Church a set of young
people who were not merely indifferent to religion, but who
hated it with the whole energy of their being.
Ellery Davenport's feeling toward the Church and religion had
all the bitterness of the disinherited son, who likes nothing better
than to point out the faults in those favored children who enjoy
the privileges of which he is deprived. All the consequences
THE RAID ON OLDTOWN. 365
that good, motherly Cotton .Mather had foreseen as likely to
result from the proposed system of arranging the Church were
strikingly verified in his case. He had not been able entirely
to rid himself of a belief in what he hated. The danger of all
such violent recoils from the religion of one's childhood consists
in this fact, that the person is always secretly uncertain that
he may not be opposing truth and virtue itself; he struggles
confusedly with the faith of his mother, the prayers of his fa-
ther, with whatever there may be holy and noble in the profes-
sion of that faith from which he has broken away; and few
escape a very serious shock to conscience and their moral nature
in doing it.
Ellery Davenport was at war with himself, at war with the
traditions of his ancestry, and had the feeling that he was re-
garded in the Puritan community as an apostate ; but he took a
perverse pleasure in making his position good by a brilliancy of
wit and grace of manner which few could resist ; and, truth to
say, his success, even with the more rigid, justified his self-con-
fidence. As during these days there were very few young per-
sons who made any profession of religion at all, the latitude
of expression which he allowed himself on these subjects was
looked upon as a sort of spiritual sowing of wild oats. Heads
would be gravely shaken over him. One and another would
say, " Ah ! that Edwards blood is smart ; it runs pretty wild in
youth, but the Lord's time may come by and by " ; and I doubt
not that my grandmother that very night, before she slept,
wrestled with God in prayer for his soul with all the enthusiasm
of a Monica for a St. Augustine.
Meantime, with that easy facility which enabled him to please
everybody, he became, during the course of a somewhat ex-
tended visit which he made at the minister's, rather a hero in
Oldtown. What Colonel Davenport said, and what Colonel
Davenport did, were spoken of from mouth to mouth. Even his
wicked wit was repeated by the gravest and most pious, of
course with some expressions of disclaimer, but, after all, with
that genuine pleasure which a Yankee never fails to feel in any-
thing smartly and neatly hit off in language.
866 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
He cultivated a great friendship with Miss Mehitable, talk-
ing with her of books and literature and foreign countries, and
advising her in regard to the education of Tina, with great
unction and gravity. With that little princess there was always
a sort of half whimsical flirtation, as she demurely insisted on
being treated by him as a woman, rather than as a child, a
caprice which amused him greatly.
Miss Mehitable felt herself irresistibly drawn, in his society, as
almost everybody else was, to make a confidant of him. He was
so winning, so obliging, so gentle, and knew so well just where
and how to turn the conversation to avoid anything that he
did n't like to hear, and to hear anything that he did. So
gently did his fingers run over the gamut of everybody's nature,
that nobody dreamed of being played on.
Such men are not, of course, villains ; but, if they ever should
happen to wish to become so, their nature gives them every
facility.
Before she knew what she was about, Miss Mehitable found
herself talking with Ellery Davenport on the strange, mysterious
sorrow which imbittered her life, and she found a most sympa-
thetic and respectful listener.
Ellery Davenport was already versed in diplomatic life, and
had held for a year or two a situation of importance at the court
of France ; was soon to return thither, and also to be employed
on diplomatic service in England. Could he, would he, find any
traces of the lost one there ? On this subject there were long,
and, on the part of Miss Mehitable, agitating interviews, which
much excited Miss Tina's curiosity.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 867
CHAPTER XXIX.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK.
READER, this is to be a serious chapter, and I advise all
those people who want to go through the world without
giving five minutes' consecutive thought to any subject to skip it.
They will not find it entertaining, and it may perhaps lead
them to think on puzzling subjects, even for so long a time as
half an hour ; and who knows what may happen to their brains,
from, so unusual an exercise ?
My grandmother, as I have shown, was a character in her
way, full of contradictions and inconsistencies, brave, generous,
energetic, large-hearted, and impulsive. Theoretically she was
an ardent disciple of the sharpest and severest Calvinism, and
used to repeat Michael Wigglesworth's " Day of Doom " to us in
the chimney-corner, of an evening, with a reverent acquiescence
in all its hard sayings, while practically she was the most pitiful,
eapy-to-be-entreated old mortal on earth, and was ever falling
a prey to any lazy vagabond who chose to make an appeal to
her abounding charity. She could not refuse a beggar that
asked in a piteous tone ; she could not send a child to bed that
wanted to sit up ; she could not eat a meal in peace when there
were hungry eyes watching her ; she could not, in cool, deliber-
ate moments, even inflict transient and necessary pain for the
greater good of a child, and resolutely shut her eyes to the neces-
sity of such infliction. But there lay at the bottom of all this
apparent inconsistency a deep cause that made it consistent, and
that cause was the theologic stratum in which her mind, and the
mind of all New England, was embedded.
Never, in the most intensely religions ages of the world,
did the insoluble problem of the WHENCE, the WHY, and the
WHITHER of mankind receive such earnest attention, New
England was founded by a colony who turned their backs on the
368 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
civilization of the Old "World, on purpose that they might have
nothing else to think of. Their object was to form a community
that should think of nothing else.
Working on a hard soil, battling with a harsh, ungenial cli-
mate, everywhere being treated by Nature with the most rigorous
severity, they asked no indulgence, they got none, and they gave
none. They shut out from their religious worship every poetic
drapery, every physical accessory that they feared would inter-
fere with the abstract contemplation of hard, naked truth, and set
themselves grimly and determinately to study the severest prob-
lems of the unknowable and the insoluble. Just as resolutely as
they made their farms by blasting rocks and clearing land of
ledges of stone, and founded thrifty cities and thriving money-
getting communities in places which one would think might
more properly have been left to the white bears, so resolutely
they pursued their investigations amid the grim mysteries of
human existence, determined to see and touch and handle
everything for themselves, and to get at the absolute truth if
absolute truth could be got at.
They never expected to find truth agreeable. Nothing in their
experience of life had ever prepared them to think it would be
so. Their investigations were made with the courage of the
man who hopes little, but determines to know the worst of his
affairs. They wanted no smoke of incense to blind them, and no
soft opiates of pictures and music to lull them ; for what they
were after was truth, and not happiness, and they valued duty
far higher than enjoyment.
The underlying foundation of life, therefore, in New England,
was one of profound, unutterable, and therefore unuttered, mel-
ancholy, which regarded human existence itself as a ghastly
risk, and, in the case of the vast majority of human beings, an
inconceivable misfortune.
My grandmother believed in statements which made the fortu-
nate number who escaped the great catastrophe of mortal life as
few and far between as the shivering, half-drowned mariners, who
crawl up on to the shores of sonle desert island, when all else
on board have perished. In this view she regarded the birth
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 869
of an infant with a suppressed groan, and the death of one almost
with satisfaction. That more than half the human race die
in infancy, that infanticide is the general custom in so many
heathen lands, was to her a comforting consideration, for so
many were held to escape at once the awful ordeal, and to be
gathered into the numbers of the elect.
As I have said, she was a great reader. On the round table
that stood in her bedroom, next to the kitchen, there was an
ample supply of books. Rollin's Ancient History, Hume's His-
tory of England, and President Edwards's Sermons, were
among these.
She was not one of those systematic, skilful housewives who
contrive with few steps and great method to do much in little
time ; she took everything the hardest end first, and attacked
difficulties by sheer inconsiderate strength. For example, in-
stead of putting on the great family pot, filling it with water,
and afterwards putting therein the beef, pork, and vegetables of
our daily meal, she would load up the receptacle at the sink in
the back room, and then, with strong arm and cap-border erect,
would fly across the kitchen with it and swing it over the fire by
main strength. Thus inconsiderately she rushed at the daily
battle of existence. But there was one point of system in which
she never failed. There was, every day, a period, sacred and
inviolable, which she gave to reading. The noon meal came
exactly at twelve o'clock ; and immediately after, when the
dishes were washed and wiped, and the kitchen reduced to
order, my grandmother changed her gown, and retired to the
sanctuary of her bedroom to read. In this way she accom-
plished an amount which a modern housekeeper, with four ser-
vants, would pronounce to be wholly incredible.
The books on her table came in time to be my reading as well
as hers ; for, as I have said, reading was with me a passion, a
hunger, and I read all that came in my way.
Her favorite books had different-colored covers, thriftily put
on to preserve them from the wear of handling ; and it was by
these covers they were generally designated in the family.
Hume's History of England was known as " the brown book " ;
16* x
870 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Rollin's History was "the green book"; but there was one
volume which she pondered oftener and with more intense ear-
nestness than any other, which received the designation of " the
blue book." This was a volume by the Rev. Dr. Bellamy of
Connecticut, called " True Religion delineated, and distinguished
from all Counterfeits." It was originally published by subscrip-
tion, and sent out into New England with a letter of introduction
and recommendation from the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, who
earnestly set it forth as being a condensed summary, in popular
language, of what it is vital and important for human beings to
know for their spiritual progress. It was written in a strong,
nervous, condensed, popular style, such as is fallen into by a
practical man speaking to a practical people, by a man thor-
oughly in earnest to men as deeply in earnest, and lastly, by a
man who believed without the shadow of a doubt, and without
even the comprehension of the possibility of a doubt.
I cannot give a better idea of the unflinching manner in which
the deepest mysteries of religion were propounded to the common
people than by giving a specimen of some of the headings of
this book.
Page 288 considers, " Were we by the Fall brought into a
State of Being worse than Not to Be ? "
The answer to this comprehensive question is sufficiently
explicit.
"Mankind were by their fall brought into a state of being
worse than not to be. The damned in hell, no doubt, are in such
a state, else their punishment would not be infinite, as justice re-
quires it should be. But mankind, by the fall, were brought into
a state, for substance, as bad as that which the damned are in."
The next inquiry to this is, " How could God, consistent with
his perfections, put us into a state of being worse than not to
be ? And how can we ever thank God for such a being ? "
The answer to this, as it was read by thousands of reflecting
minds like mine, certainly shows that these hardy and courageous
investigators often raised spirits that they could not lay. As, for
instance, this solution of the question, which never struck me as
satisfactory.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 871
"Inasmuch as God did virtually give being to all mankind,
when he blessed our first parents and said, ' Be fruitful and
multiply ' ; and inasmuch as Being, under the circumstances that
man was then put in by God, was very desirable : we ought, there-
fore, to thank God for our being, considered in this light, and
justify God for all the evil that has come upon us by apos-
tasy."
On this subject the author goes on to moralize thus :
" Mankind, by the fall, were brought into a state of being in-
finitely worse than not to be ; and were they but so far awake as
to be sensible of it, they would, no doubt, all over the earth, mur-
mur and blaspheme the God of Heaven. But what then ? there
would be no just ground for such conduct. We have no reason
to think hard of God, to blame him or esteem him e'er the less.
What he has done was fit and right. His conduct was beautiful,
and he is worthy to be esteemed for it. For that constitution
was holy, just, and good, as has been proved. And, therefore, a
fallen world ought to ascribe to themselves all the evil, and to
justify God and say : ( God gave us being under a constitution
holy, just, and good, and it was a mercy. We should have
accounted it a great mercy in case Adam had never fallen ; but
God is not to blame for this, nor, therefore, is he the less worthy
of thanks.' "
After this comes another and quite practical inquiry, which is
stated as follows :
" But if mankind are thus by nature children of wrath, in a
state of being worse than not to be, how can men have the heart
to propagate their kind ? "
The answer to this inquiry it is not necessary to give at length.
I merely state it to show how unblinking was the gaze which
men in those days fixed upon the problems of life.
The objector is still further represented as saying,
" It cannot be thought a blessing to have children, if most of
them are thought to be likely to perish."
The answer to this is as follows :
"The most of Abraham's posterity for these three thousand
years, no doubt, have been wicked and perished. And God knew
372 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
beforehand how it would be, and yet he promised such a numer-
ous posterity under the notion of a great blessing. For, con-
sidering children as to this life, they may be a great blessing and
comfort to their parents ; and we are certain that God will do
them, no wrong in the life to come. All men's murmuring
thoughts about this matter arise from their not liking God's
way of governing the world."
I will quote but one more passage, as showing the hardy vigor
of assertion on the darkest of subjects, the origin of evil. The
author says :
" When God first designed the world, and laid out his scheme
of government, it was easy for him to have determined that
neither angels nor men should ever sin, and that misery should
never be heard of in all his dominions ; for he could easily have
prevented both sin and misery. Why did not he ? Surely not
for want of goodness in his nature, for that is infinite ; not from
anything like cruelty, for there is no such thing in him ; not for
want of a suitable regard to the happiness of his creatures, for
that he always has : but because in his infinite wisdom he did not
think it best on the whole.
" But why was it not best ? What could he have in view,
preferable to the happiness of his creatures ? And, if their hap-
piness was to him above all things most dear, how could he bear
the thoughts of their ever any of them being miserable ?
" It is certain that he had in view something else than merely
the happiness of his creatures. It was something of -greater
importance. But what was that thing that was of greater worth
and importance, and to which he had the greatest regard, making
all other things give way to this ? What was his great end in
creating and governing the- world ? Why, look what end he is at
last likely to obtain, when the whole scheme is finished, and the
Day of Judgment passed, and heaven and hell filled with all
their proper inhabitants. What will be the final result ? What
will he get by all ? Why, this : that he will exert and display
every one of his perfections to the life, and so by all will exhibit
a most perfect and exact image of himself.
" Now it is evident that the fall of angels and of man, together
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 373
with all those things which have and will come to pass in conse-
quence thereof, from the beginning of the world to the Day of
Judgment and throughout eternity, will serve to give a much
more lively and perfect representation of God than could possibly
have been given had there been no sin or misery."
This book also led the inquirer through all the mazes of mental
philosophy, and discussed all the problems of mystical religion,
such as,
" Can a man, merely from self-love, love God more than him-
self ? "
" Is our impotency only moral ? "
" What is the most fundamental difference between Arminians
and Calvinists ? "
" How the love to our neighbor which is commanded by God
is a thing different from natural compassion, from natural affec-
tion, from party-spirited love, from any love whatever that arises
merely from self-love, and from the love which enthusiasts and
heretics have for one another."
I give these specimens, that the reader may reflect what kind
of population there was likely to be where such were the daily
studies of a plain country farmer's wife, and such the common
topics discussed at every kitchen fireside.
My grandmother's blue book was published and recommended
to the attention of New England, August 4, 17oO, just twenty-
six years before the Declaration of Independence. How popular
it was, and how widely read in New England, appears from the
list of subscribers which stands at the end of the old copy which
my grandmother actually used. Almost every good old Massa-
chusetts or Connecticut family name is there represented. We
have the Emersons, the Adamses, the Brattles of Brattle Street,
the Bromfields of Bromfield Street, the Brinsmaids of Connecticut,
the Butlers, the Campbells, the Chapmans, the Cottons, the
Daggetts, the Hawleys, the .Hookers, with many more names
of families yet continuing to hold influence in New England.
How they regarded this book may be inferred from the fact
that some subscribed for six books, some for twelve, some for
thirty-six, and some for fifty. Its dissemination was deemed an
874 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
act of religious ministry, and there is not the slightest doubt that
it was needfully and earnestly read in every good family of New
England ; and its propositions were discussed everywhere and by
everybody. This is one undoubted fact ; the other is, that it
was this generation who fought through the Revolutionary war.
They were a set of men and women brought up to think, to
think not merely on agreeable subjects, but to wrestle and tug
at the very severest problems. Utter self-renunciation, a sort
of grand contempt for personal happiness when weighed with
things greater and more valuable, was the fundamental principle
of life in those days. They who could calmly look in the face,
and settle themselves down to, the idea of being resigned and
thankful for an existence which was not so good as non-exist-
ence, who were willing to be loyal subjects of a splendid
and powerful government which was conducted on quite other
issues than a regard for their happiness, were possessed of a
courage and a fortitude which no mere earthly mischance could
shake. They who had faced eternal ruin with an unflinch-
ing gaze were not likely to shrink before the comparatively
trivial losses and gains of any mere earthly conflict. Being
accustomed to combats with the Devil, it was rather a recrea-
tion to fight only British officers.
If any should ever be so curious as to read this old treatise, ns
well as most of the writings of Jonathan Edwards, they will per-
ceive with singular plainness how inevitably monarchical and
aristocratic institutions influence theology.
That " the king can do no wrong," that the subject owes
everything to the king, and the king nothing to the subject,
that it is the king's first duty to take care of himself, and keep
up state, splendor, majesty, and royalty, and that it is the people's
duty to give themselves up, body and soul, without a murmuring
thought, to keep up this state, splendor, and royalty, were ideas
for ages so wrought into the human mind, and transmitted by
ordinary generation, they so reflected themselves in literature
and poetry and art, and all the great customs of society, that it
was inevitable that systematic theology should be permeated by
them.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 375
The idea of God in which theologians delighted, and which the
popular mind accepted, was not that of the Good Shepherd that
giveth his life for the sheep, of him that made himself of no
reputation, and took unto himself the form of a servant, of
him who on his knees washed the feet of his disciples, and said
that in the kingdom of heaven the greatest was he who served
most humbly, this aspect of a Divine Being had not yet been
wrought into their systematic theology ; because, while the Bible
comes from God, theology is the outgrowth of the human mind,
and therefore must spring from the movement of society.
When the Puritans arrived at a perception of the political
rights of men in the state, and began to enunciate and act
upon the doctrine that a king's right to reign was founded upon
his power to promote the greatest happiness of his subjects,
and when, in pursuance of this theory, they tried, condemned,
and executed a king who had been false to the people, they took
a long step forward in human progress. Why did not immediate
anarchy follow, as when the French took such a step in regard to
their king ? It was because the Puritans transferred to God all
those rights and immunities, all that unquestioning homage and
worship and loyalty, which hitherto they had given to an earthly
king.
The human mind cannot bear to relinquish more than a cer-
tain portion of its cherished past ideas in one century. Society
falls into anarchy in too entire a change of base.
The Puritans had still a King. The French Revolutionists
had nothing ; therefore, the Puritan Revolution went on stronger
and stronger. The French passed through anarchy back under
despotism.
The doctrine of Divine sovereignty was the great rest to the
human mind in those days, when the foundations of many gen-
erations were broken up. It is always painful to honest and
loyal minds to break away from that which they have rever-
enced, to put down that which they have respected. And the
Puritans were by nature the most reverential and most loyal
portion of the community. Their passionate attachment to the
doctrine of Divine sovereignty, at this period, was the pleading
376 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and yearning within them of a faculty robbed of its appropriate
object, and longing for support and expression.
There is something most affecting in the submissive devotion
of these old Puritans to their God. Nothing shows more com-
pletely the indestructible nature of the filial tie which binds man
to God, of the filial yearning which throbs in the heart of a great
child of so great a Father, than the manner in which these men
loved and worshipped and trusted God as the ALL LOVELY, even
in the face of monstrous assertions of theology ascribing to him
deeds which no father could imitate without being cast out of
human society, and no governor without being handed down
to all ages as a monster.
These theologies were not formed by the Puritans ; they were
their legacy from past monarchical and mediaeval ages ; and the
principles of true Christian democracy upon which they founded
their new state began, from the time of the American Revolution,
to act upon them with a constantly ameliorating power ; -so that
whosoever should read my grandmother's blue book now would
be astonished to find how completely New England theology has
changed its base.
The artist, in reproducing pictures of New England life dur-
ing this period, is often obliged to hold his hand. He could not
faithfully report the familiar conversations of the common people,
because they often allude to and discuss the most awful and tre-
mendous subjects. This, however, was the inevitable result of
the honest, fearless manner in which the New England ministry
of this second era discussed the Divine administration. They
argued for it with the common people in very much the tone
and with much the language in which they defended the Con-
tinental Congress and the ruling President ; and every human
being was addressed as a competent judge.
The result of such a mode of proceeding, in the long run,
changed the theology of New England, from what it was when
Jonathan Edwards recommended my grandmother's blue book,
into what it is at this present writing. But, during the process
of this investigation, every child born in New England found
himself beaten backwards and forwards, like a shuttlecock,
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 377
between the battledoors of discussion. Our kitchen used to be
shaken constantly by what my grandfather significantly called
"the battle of the Infinites," especially when my Uncle Bill
came home from Cambridge on his vacations, fully charged with
syllogisms, which he hurled like catapults back on the syllogisms
which my grandmother had drawn from the armory of her blue
book.
My grandmother would say, for example : " Whatever sin is
committed against an infinite being is an infinite evil. Every in-
finite evil deserves infinite punishment ; therefore every sin of
man deserves an infinite punishment."
Then Uncle Bill, on the other side, would say : " No act of
a finite being can be infinite. Man is a finite being ; therefore
no sin of man can be infinite. No finite evil deserves infinite
punishment. Man's sins are finite evils ; therefore man's sins
do not deserve infinite punishment." When the combatants had
got thus far, they generally looked at each other in silence.
As a result, my grandmother being earnest and prayerful,
and my uncle careless and worldly, the thing generally ended in
her believing that he was wrong, though she could not answer
him ; and in his believing that she, after all, might be right,
though he could answer her ; for it is noticeable, in every battle
of opinion, that honest, sincere, moral earnestness has a certain
advantage over mere intellectual cleverness.
It was inevitable that a people who had just carried through
a national revolution and declared national independence on the
principle that " governments owe their just power to the consent
of the governed," and who recognized it as an axiom that the
greatest good to the greatest number was the object to be held in
view in all just governments, should very soon come into painful
collision with forms of theological statement, in regard to God's
government, which appeared to contravene all these principles,
and which could be supported only by referring to the old notion
of the divine right and prerogative of the King Eternal.
President Edwards had constructed a marvellous piece of
logic to show that, while true virtue in man consisted in su-
preme devotion to the general good of all, true virtue in God
378 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
consisted in supreme regard for himself. This " Treatise on
True Virtue " was one of the strongest attempts to back up
by reasoning the old monarchical and aristocratic ideas of the
supreme right of the king and upper classes. The whole of
it falls to dust before the one simple declaration of Jesus Christ,
that, in the eyes of Heaven, one lost sheep is more prized than
all the ninety and nine that went not astray, and before the
parable in which the father runs, forgetful of parental pre-
rogative and dignity, to cast himself on the neck of the far-off
prodigal.
Theology being human and a reflection of human infirmities,
nothing is more common than for it to come up point-blank in
opposition to the simplest declarations of Christ.
I must beg my readers' pardon for all this, but it is a fact that
the true tragedy of New England life, its deep, unutterable
pathos, its endurances and its sufferings, all depended upon,
and were woven into, this constant wrestling of thought with in-
finite problems which could not be avoided, and which saddened
the days of almost every one who grew up under it.
Was this entire freedom of thought and discussion a bad thing,
then ?. Do we not see that strength of mind and strength of will,
and the courage and fortitude and endurance which founded this
great American government, grew up out of characters formed
thus to think and struggle and suffer ? It seems to be the law of
this present existence, that all the changes by which the world is
made better are brought about by the struggle and suffering, and
sometimes the utter shipwreck, of individual human beings.
In regard to our own family, the deepest tragedy in it, and the
one which for a time brought the most suffering and sorrow on
us all, cannot be explained unless we take into consideration
this peculiar state of society.
In the neighboring town of Adams there lived one of the
most remarkable clergymen that New England has ever pro-
duced. His career influenced the thinking of Massachusetts,
both in regard to those who adopted his opinions, and in the
violent reaction from those opinions which was the result of
his extreme manner of pushing them.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 379
Dr. Moses Stern's figure is well remembered by me as I saw it
in my boyhood. Everybody knew him, and when he appeared
in the pulpit everybody trembled before him. He moved among
men, but seemed not of men. An austere, inflexible, grand indif-
ference to all things earthly seemed to give him the prestige and
dignity of a supernatural being. His Calvinism was of so severe
and ultra a type, and his statements were so little qualified either
by pity of human infirmity, or fear of human censure, or desire
of human approbation, that he reminded one of some ancient
prophet, freighted with a mission of woe and wrath, which he
must always speak, whether people would hear or whether they
would forbear.
The Revolutionary war had introduced into the country a
great deal of scepticism, of a type of which Paine's " Age of
Reason " was an exponent ; and, to meet this, the ministry of
New England was not slow or unskilful.
Dr. Stern's mode of meeting this attitude of the popular
mind was by an unflinching, authoritative, vehement reiteration
of all the most unpopular and unpleasant points of Calvinism.
Now as Nature is, in many of her obvious aspects, notoriously
uncompromising, harsh, and severe, the Calvinist who begins to
talk to common-sense people has this advantage on his side,
that the things which he represents the Author of Nature as doing
and being ready to do, are not very different from what the com-
mon-sense man sees that the Author of Nature is already in the
habit of doing.
The farmer who struggles with the hard soil, and with drouth
and frost and caterpillars and fifty other insect plagues, who
finds his most persistent and well-calculated efforts constantly
thwarted by laws whose workings he never can fully anticipate,
and which never manifest either care for his good intentions or
sympathy for his losses, is very apt to believe that the God who
created nature may be a generally benevolent, but a severe and
unsympathetic being, governing the world for some great, un-
known purpose of his own, of which man's private improvement
and happiness may or may not form a part.
Dr. Stern, with characteristic independence and fearlessness,
380 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
on his own simple authority cut loose from and repudiated the
whole traditional idea of the fall in Adam as having anything to
do with the existence of human depravity ; and made up his own
theory of the universe, and began preaching it to the farmers of
Adams. It was simply this : that the Divine Being is the effi-
cient cause of all things, not only in matter but in mind, that
every good and every evil volition of any being in the universe is
immediately caused by Him and tends equally well in its way
to carry on his great designs. But, in order that this might not
interfere with the doctrines of human responsibility, he taught
that all was accomplished by Omniscient skill and knowledge in
such a way as not in the slightest degree to interfere with hu-
man free agency ; so that the whole responsibility of every
human being's actions must rest upon himself.
Thus was this system calculated, like a skilful engine of tor-
ture, to produce all the mental anguish of the most perfect sense
of helplessness with the most torturing sense of responsibility.
Alternately he worked these two great levers with an almost
supernatural power, on one Sunday demonstrating with the
most logical clearness, and by appeals to human consciousness,
the perfect freedom of man, and, on the next, demonstrating
with no less precision and logic the perfect power which an
Omniscient Being possessed and exercised of controlling all his
thoughts and volitions and actions.
Individually, Dr. Stern, like many other teachers of severe,
uncompromising theories, was an artless, simple-hearted, gentle-
mannered man. He was a close student, and wore two holes in
the floor opposite his table in the spot where year after year
his feet were placed in study. He refused to have the smallest
thing to do with any temporal affair of this life. Like the other
clergymen, he lived on a small salary, and the support of his
family depended largely on the proceeds of a farm. But it is
recorded of him, that once, when his whole summer's crop of hay
was threatened with the bursting of a thunder-shower, and, farm-
hands being short, he was importuned to lend a hand to save
it, he resolutely declined, saying, that, if he once began to allow
himself to be called on in any emergency for temporal affairs, he
should become forgetful of his great mission.
MY GKANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 381
The same inflexible, unbending perseverance he showed in
preaching, on the basis of his own terrible theory, the most fear-
ful doctrines of Calvinism. His sermons on Judas, on Jeroboam,
and on Pharaoh, as practical examples of the doctrine of
reprobation, were pieces of literature so startling and astound-
ing, that, even in those days of interrupted travel, when there
were neither railroads nor good roads of any kind, and al-
most none of our modern communicative system of magazines
and newspapers, they were heard of all over New England.
So great was the revulsion which his doctrines excited, that,
when he exchanged with his brother ministers, his appearance in
the pulpit was the signal for some of the most independent of
the congregation to get up and leave the meeting-house. But, as
it was one of his maxims that the minister who does not excite
the opposition of the natural heart fails to do his work, he re-
garded such demonstrations as evident signs of a faithful min-
istry.
The science of Biblical criticism in his day was in its infancy ;
the Bible was mostly read by ministers, and proof-texts quoted
from it as if it had been a treatise written in the English lan-
guage by New-Englanders, and in which every word must bear
the exact sense of a New England metaphysical treatise. And
thus interpreting the whole wide labyrinth of poetry and history,
and Oriental allegory and hyperbole, by literal rules, Dr. Stern
found no difficulty in making it clear to those who heard him that
there was no choice between believing his hard doctrines and
giving up the Bible altogether. And it shows the deep and rooted
attachment which the human heart has for that motherly book,
that even in this dreadful dilemma the majority of his hearers
did not revolt from the Bible.
As it was, in the town where he lived his preaching formed
the strongest, most controlling of all forces. No human being
could hear his sermons unmoved. He would not preach to an
inattentive audience, and on one occasion, observing a large num-
ber of his congregation asleep, he abruptly descended from the
pulpit and calmly walked off home, leaving the astonished
congregation to their own . reflections j nor would he resume
382 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
public services until messages of contrition and assurances of
better conduct had been sent him.
Dr. Stern was in his position irresistible, simply because he
cared nothing at all for the things which men ordinarily care for,
and which therefore could be used as motives to restrain the
declarations and actions of a clergyman. He cared nothing
about worldly prosperity; he was totally indifferent to money;
he utterly despised fame and reputation ; and therefore from
none of these sources could he be in the slightest degree in-
fluenced. Such a man is generally the king of his neighbor-
hood, the one whom all look up to, and all fear, and whose
word in time becomes law.
Dr. Stern never sought to put himself forward otherwise
than by the steady preaching of his system to the farming
population of Adams. And yet, so great were his influence and
his fame, that in time it became customary for young theological
students to come and settle themselves down there as his stu-
dents. This was done at first without his desire, and contrary to
his remonstrance.
" I can't engage to teach you," he said ; but still, when scholars
came and continued to come, he found himself, without seeking
it, actually at the head of a school of theology.
Let justice be done to all; it is due to truth to state that
the theological scholars of Dr. Stern, wherever they Avent in
the United States, were always marked men, marked for an
unflinching adherence to principle, and especially for a great
power in supporting unpopular truths.
The Doctor himself lived to an extreme old age, always re-
taining and reiterating with unflinching constancy his opinions.
He was the last of the New England ministers who preserved the
old clerical dress of the theocracy. Long after the cocked hat and
small-clothes, silk stockings and shoe-buckles, had ceased to ap-
pear in modern life, his venerable figure, thus apparelled, walked
the ways of modern men, seeming like one of the primitive
Puritans risen from the dead.
He was the last, also, of the New England ministers to
claim for himself that peculiar position, as God's ambassa-
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 383
dor, which was such a reality in the minds of the whole early-
Puritan community. To extreme old age, his word was law in
his parish, and he calmly and positively felt that it should be
so. In time, his gray hairs, his fine, antique figure and quaint
costume came to be regarded with the sort of appreciative
veneration that every one gives to the monuments of the past.
When he was near his ninetieth year, he was invited to New
York to give the prestige of his venerable presence to the re-
ligious anniversaries which then were in the flush of newly
organized enthusiasm, and which gladly laid hold of this striking
accessory to the religious picturesque.
Dr. Stern was invited and feted in the most select upper
circles of New York, and treated with attentions which would
have been nattering had he not been too entirely simple-minded
and careless of such matters even to perceive what they meant.
But at this same time the Abolitionists, who were regarded as
most improper people to be recognized in the religious circles
of good society, came to New York, resolving to have their
anniversary also ; and, knowing that Dr. Stern had always pro-
fessed to be an antislavery man, they invited him to sit on the
stage with them ; and Dr. Stern went. Shocking to relate, and
dreadful to behold, this very cocked hat and these picturesque
gray hairs, that had been brought to New York on purpose to
ornament religious anniversaries which were all agreed in ex-
cluding and ignoring the Abolitionists, had gone right over into
the camp of the enemy ! and he was so entirely ignorant and
uninstructible on the subject, and came back, after having com-
mitted this abomination, with a face of such innocent and serene
gravity, that nobody dared to say a word to him on the subject.
He was at this time the accepted guest in a family whose very
religion consisted in a gracious carefulness and tenderness lest
they should wake up the feelings of their Southern brethren on
the delicate subject of slavery. But then Dr. Stern was a
man that it did no good to talk to, since it was well kno^wn that,
wherever there was an unpopular truth to be defended, his cocked
hat was sure to be in the front ranks.
Let us do one more justice to Dr. Stern, and say that his
384 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
utter inflexibility toward human infirmity and human feeling
spared himself as little as it spared any other. In his early
life he records, in a most affecting autobiography, the stroke
which deprived him, within a very short space, of a beloved
wife and two charming children. In the struggle of that hour
he says, with affecting* simplicity, " I felt that I should die if I
did not submit ; and I did submit then, once for all." Thence-
forward the beginning and middle and end of his whole preach-
ing was submission, utter, absolute, and unconditional.
In extreme old age, trembling on the verge of the grave, and
looking back over sixty years of intense labor, he said, " After
all, it is quite possible that / may not be saved"; but he con-
sidered himself as but one drop in the ocean, and his personal
salvation as of but secondary account. His devotion to the King
Eternal had no reference to a matter so slight. In all this, if
there is something terrible and painful, there is something also
which is grand, and in which we can take pride, as the fruit of
our human nature. Peace to his ashes ! he has learned better
things ere now.
'
If my readers would properly understand the real depth of
sorrowful perplexity in which our friend Miss Mehitable Ros-
siter was struggling, they must go back with us some years
before, to the time when little Emily Rossiter was given up to
the guardianship and entire control of her Aunt Farnsworth.
Zedekiah Farnsworth was one of those men who embody
qualities which the world could not afford to be without, and
which yet are far from being the most agreeable. Uncompro-
mising firmness, intense self-reliance, with great vigor in that part
of the animal nature which fits man to resist and to subdue and
to hold in subjection the forces of nature, were his prominent -
characteristics. His was a bold and granite formation, most
necessary for the stability of the earth, but without a flower.
His wife was a woman who had once been gay and beautiful,
but who, coming under the dominion of a stronger nature, was
perfectly magnetized by it, so as to assimilate and become a mod-
ified reproduction of the same traits. A calm, intense, severe
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 385
conscientiousness, which judged alike herself and others with un-
flinching severity, was her leading characteristic.
Let us now imagine a child inheriting from the mother a
sensitive, nervous organization, and from the father a predis-
position to morbid action, with a mind as sensitive to external
influence as a daguerreotype-plate, brought suddenly from the
warmth of a too-indulgent household to the arctic regularity and
frozen stillness of the Farnsworth mansion. It will be seen that
the consequences must have been many conflicts, and many strug-
gles of nature with nature, and that a character growing up thus
must of course grow up into unnatural and unhealthy develop-
ment.
The problem of education is seriously complicated by the
peculiarities of womanhood. If we suppose two souls, exactly
alike, sent into bodies, the one of man, the other of woman, that
mere fact alone alters the whole mental and moral history of the
two.
In addition to all the other sources of peril which beset the
little Emily, she early developed a beauty so remarkable as to
draw upon her constant attention, and, as she grew older, brought
to her all the trials and the dangers which extraordinary beauty
brings to woman. It was a part of her Aunt Farnsworth's sys-
tem to pretend to be ignorant of this great fact, with a view, as
she supposed, of checking any disposition to pride or vanity
which might naturally arise therefrom. The consequence was
that the child, hearing this agreeable news from every one else
who surrounded her, soon learned the transparent nature of the
hoax, and with it acquired a certain doubt of her aunt's sincerity.
Emily had a warm, social nature, and had always on hand
during her school days a list of enthusiastic friends whose admi-
ration of her supplied the light and warmth which were entirely
wanting from every other source.
Mrs. Farnsworth was not insensible to the charms of her niece.
She was, in fact, quite proud of them, but was pursuing conscien-
tiously the course in regard to them which she felt that duty re-
quired of her. She loved the child, too, devotedly, but her own
nature had been so thoroughly frozen by maxims of self-restraint,
17 Y
886 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
that this love seldom or never came into outward forms of ex-
pression.
It is sad to be compelled to trace the ill effects produced by the
overaction and misapplication of the very noblest faculties of the
human mind.
The Farnsworth family was one in which there was the fullest
sympathy with the severest preaching of Dr. Stern. As Emily
grew older, it was exacted of her, as one of her Sabbath duties,
to take notes of his discourses at church, which were afterwards
to be read over on Sunday evening by her aunt and uncle, and
preserved in an extract-book.
The effect of such kinds of religious teaching on most of the
children and young people in the town of Adams was to make
them consider religion, and everything connected with it, as the
most disagreeable of all subjects, and to seek practically to have
as little to do with it as possible ; so that there was among the
young people a great deal of youthful gayety and of young
enjoyment in life, notwithstanding the preaching from Sunday
to Sunday of assertions enough to freeze every heart with fear.
Many formed the habit of thinking of something else during
the sermon-time, and many heard without really attaching any
very definite meaning to what they heard.
The severest utterances, if constantly reiterated, lose their
power and come to be considered as nothing. But Emily Rossi-
ter had been gifted with a mind of far more than ordinary vigor,
and with even a Greek passion for ideas, and with capabili-
ties for logical thought which rendered it impossible for her to
listen to discourses so intellectual without taking in their drift
and responding to their stimulus by a corresponding intellectual
activity.
Dr. Stern set the example of a perfectly bold and indepen-
dent manner of differing from the popular theology of his day
in certain important respects ; and, where he did differ, it was with
a hardihood of self-assertion, and an utter disregard of popular
opinion, and a perfect reliance on his own powers of discovering
truth, which were very apt to magnetize these same qualities in
other minds. People who thus set the example of free and
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 387
independent thinking in one or two respects, and yet hope to
constrain their disciples to think exactly as they do on all other
subjects, generally reckon without their host; and there is no
other region in Massachusetts where all sorts of hardy free-think-
ing are so rife at the present day as in the region formerly con-
trolled by Dr. Stern.
Before Emily was fourteen years old she had passed through
two or three of those seasons of convulsed and agonized feeling
which are caused by the revolt of a strong sense of justice and
humanity against teachings which seem to accuse the great
Father of all of the most frightful cruelty and injustice. The
teachings were backed up by literal quotations from the Bible,
which in those days no common person possessed the means,
or the habits of thought, for understanding, and thus were
accepted by her at first as Divine declarations.
When these agonized conflicts occurred, they were treated by
her aunt and uncle only as active developments of the natural
opposition of the human heart to God. Some such period of
active contest with the Divine nature was on record in the lives of
some of the most eminent New England saints. President Ed-
wards recorded the same ; and therefore they looked upon them
hopefully, just as the medical faculty of those same uninstructed
times looked upon the writhings and agonies which their ad-
ministration of poison produced in the human body.
The last and most fearful of these mental struggles came after
the death of her favorite brother Theodore ; who, being supposed
to die in an unregenerate state, was forthwith judged and sen-
tenced, and his final condition spoken of with a grim and solemn
certainty, by her aunt and uncle.
How far the preaching of Dr. Stern did violence to the most
cherished feelings of human nature on this subject will appear
by an extract from a sermon preached about this time.
The text was from Rev. xix, 3. " And again they said Alle-
luia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever."
The subject is thus announced :
" The heavenly hosts will praise God for punishing the finally
impenitent forever."
388 OLDTOWN FOLKS,
In the improvement or practical application of this text, is the
following passage :
" Will the heavenly hosts praise God for all the displays of
his vindictive justice in the punishment of the damned ? then we
may learn that there is an essential difference between saints and
sinners. Sinners often disbelieve and deny this distinction ; and
it is very difficult to make them see and believe it
They sometimes freely say that they do not think that heaven is
such a place as has been described ; or that the inhabitants of it
say 'Amen, Alleluia,' while they see the smoke of the torments
of the damned ascend up for ever and ever. They desire and
hope to go to heaven, without ever being willing to speak such a
language, or to express such feelings in the view of the damned.
And is not this saying that their hearts are essentially different
from those who feel such a spirit, and are willing to adopt the
language of heaven ? Good men do adopt the language of heaven
before they arrive there. And all who are conscious that they
cannot say ' Amen, Alleluia/ may know that they are yet sinners,
and essentially different from saints, and altogether unprepared to
go with them to heaven and join with them in praising God for
the vindictive justice he displays in dooming all unholy creatures
to a never-ending torment."
It was this sermon that finally broke those cords which years
of pious descent had made so near and tender between the heart
of Emily and her father's Bible.
No young person ever takes a deliberate and final leave of the
faith of the fathers without a pang ; and Emily suffered so
much in the struggle, that her aunt became alarmed for her
health. She was sent to Boston to spend a winter under the
care of another sister of her mother's, who was simply a good-
natured woman of the world, who was proud of her niece's
beauty and talents, and resolved to make the most of them in a
purely worldly way.
At this time she formed the acquaintance of a very interesting
French family of high rank, who for certain family reasons were
just then exiled to America. She became fascinated with their
society, and plunged into the study of the French language and
MY GRANDMOTHER'S BLUE BOOK. 389
literature with all the enthusiasm of a voyager who finds him-
self among enchanted islands. And French literature at this
time was full of the life of a new era, the era which produced
both the American and the French Revolution.
The writings of Voltaire were too cold and cynical for her
enthusiastic nature ; but Rousseau was to her like a sudden trans-
lation from the ice and snow of Massachusetts to the tropical
flowers of a February in Florida. In " La Nouvelle Heloise,"
she found, not merely a passionate love story, but the considera-
tion, on the author's side, of just such problems as had been
raised by her theological education.
When she returned from this visit she was apparently quiet
and at peace. Her peace was the peace of a river which has
found an underground passage, and therefore chafes and frets no
more. Her philosophy was the philosophy of Emile, her faith
the faith of the Savoyard vicar, and she imitated Dr. Stern
only in utter self-reliance and fearlessness of consequences in
pursuit of what she believed true.
Had her aunt and uncle been able to read the French
language, they would have found her note-book of sermons
sometimes interspersed by quotations from her favorite author,
which certainly were quite in point ; as, for instance, at the
foot of a severe sermon on the doctrine of reprobation was
written :
"Quand cette dure et decourageante doctrine se de'duit de
1'Ecriture elle-meme, mon premier devoir n'est-il pas d'honorer
Dieu ? Quelque respect que je doive au texte sacre, j'en dois
plus encore a son Auteur; etfaimerais mieux croire la Bible
fahifee ou inintelligiUe, que Dieu injuste ou malfaisant. St.
Paul ne veut pas que le vase dise au potier, Pourquoi m'as-tu
fait ainsi ? Cela est fort bien si le potier n'exige du vase que
des services qu'il Fa mis en etat de lui rendre; mais s'il s'en
prenait au vase de n' etre pas propre a un usage pour lequel il
ne 1'aurait pas fait, le vase aurait-il tort de lui dire, Pourquoi
m'as-tu fait ainsi ? " *
* " When this harsh, discouraging doctrine is deduced from the Scriptures
themselves, is not my first duty to honor God ? Whatever respect I owe to
390 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
After a period of deceitful quiet and calm, in which Emily
read and wrote and studied alone in her room, and moved about
in her daily circle like one whose heart is afar off, she suddenly
disappeared from them all. She left ostensibly to go on a visit
to Boston to her aunt, and all that was ever heard from her
after that was a letter of final farewell to Miss Mehitable, in
which she told her briefly, that, unable any longer to endure the
life she had been leading, and to seem to believe what she could
not believe, and being importuned to practise what she never
intended to do, she had chosen her lot for herself, and requested
her neither to seek her out nor to inquire after her, as all such
inquiries would be absolutely vain.
All that could be ascertained on the subject was, that about
this time the Marquis de Conte and his lady were found to have
sailed for France.
This was the sad story which Miss Mehitable poured into the
sympathetic ear of Ellery Davenport.
the sacred text, I owe still more to its Author, and I should prefer to believe
the*Bible falsified or unintelligible to believing God unjust or cruel. St. Paul
would not that the vase should say to the potter, Why hast thou made me
thus ? That is all very well if the potter exacts of the vase only such
services as he has fitted it to render ; but if he should require of it a usage
for which he has not fitted it, would the vase be in the wrong for saying,
Why hast thou made me thus ? "
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE. 391
CHAPTER XXX.
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE.
WE begin to be grown-up people. We cannot always re-
main in the pleasant valley of childhood. I myself, good
reader, have dwelt on its scenes longer, because, looking back on
it from the extreme end of life, it seems to my weary eyes so
fresh and beautiful ; the dew of the morning-land lies on it, that
dew wfiich no coming day will restore.
Our childhood, as the reader has seen, must be confessed to
have been reasonably enjoyable. Its influences were all homely,
innocent, and pure. There was no seductive vice, no open or
covert immorality. Our worst form of roaring dissipation con-
sisted in being too fond of huckleberry parties, or in the immod-
erate pursuit of chestnuts and walnuts. Even the vagrant asso-
ciates of uncertain social standing who abounded in Oldtown were
characterized by a kind of woodland innocence, and were not
much more harmful than woodchucks and squirrels.
Sam Lawson, for instance, though he dearly loved lazy loung-
ing, and was devoted to idle tramps, was yet a most edifying va-
grant. A profane word was an abomination in his sight ; his
speculations on doctrines were all orthodox, and his expositions
of Scripture as original and abundant as those of some of the
dreamy old fathers. As a general thing he was a devout Sun-
day keeper and a pillar of the sanctuary, playing his bass-viol to
the most mournful tunes with evident relish.
I remember being once left at home alone on Sunday, with an
incipient sore-throat, when Sam volunteered himself as my nurse.
In the course of the forenoon stillness, a wandering Indian came
in, who, by the joint influence of a large mug of cider and the
weariness of his tramp, fell into a heavy sleep on our kitchen
floor, and somehow Sam was beguiled to amuse himself by tick-
ling his nose with a broom-straw, and laughing, until the tears
892 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
rolled down his cheeks, at the sleepy snorts and struggles and
odd contortions of visage which were the results. Yet so tender
was Sam's conscience, that he had frequent searchings of heart,
afterward, on account of this profanation of sacred hours, and in-
dulged in floods of long-winded penitence.
Though Sam abhorred all profanity, yet for seasons of extreme
provocation he was well provided with that gentler Yankee lit-
any which affords to the irritated mind the comfort of swearing,
without the commission of the sin. Under great pressure of
provocation Sam Lawson freely said, " Darn it ! " The word
" darn," in fact, was to the conscientious New England mind a
comfortable resting-place, a refreshment to the exacerbated spirit,
that shrunk from that too similar word with an m in it.
In my boyhood I sometimes pondered that other hard word,
and vaguely decided to speak it, with that awful curiosity which
gives to an unknown sin a hold upon the imagination. What
would happen if I should say "damn"? I dwelt on that
subject with a restless curiosity which my grandmother cer-
tainly would have told me was a temptation of the Devil. The
horrible desire so grew on me, that once, in the sanctity of my
own private apartment, with all the doors shut and locked, I
thought I would boldly try the experiment of saying " damn " out
loud, and seeing what would happen. I did it, and looked up
apprehensively to see if the walls were going to fall on me, but
they did n't, and I covered up my head in the bedclothes and
felt degraded. I had committed the sin, and got not even the
excitement of a catastrophe. The Lord apparently did not think
me worth his notice.
In regard to the awful questions of my grandmother's blue
book, our triad grew up with varying influences. Harry, as I
have said, was one of those quiet human beings, of great force in
native individuality, who silently draw from all scenes and things
just those elements which their own being craves, and resolutely
and calmly think their own thoughts, and live their own life, amid
the most discordant influences ; just as the fluid, sparkling waters
of a mountain brook dart this way and that amid stones and rub-
bish, and hum to themselves their own quiet, hidden tune.
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE. 393
A saintly woman, whose heart was burning itself away in the
torturing fires of a slow martyrdom, had been for the first ten
years of his life his only companion and teacher, and, dying,
had sealed him with a seal given from a visibly opened heaven ;
and thenceforward no theologies, and no human authority, had
the power and weight with him that had the remembrance of
those dying eyes, and the sanctity of those last counsels.
By native descent Harry was a gentleman of the peculiarly
English stock. He had the shy reserve, the silent, self-respecting
pride and delicacy, which led him to keep his own soul as a
castle, and that interested, because it left a sense of something
veiled and unexpressed.
We were now eighteen years old, and yet, during all these
years that he had lived side by side with me in closest intimacy,
he had never spoken to me freely and frankly of that which I
afterwards learned was always the intensest and bitterest morti-
fication of his life, namely, his father's desertion of his mother
and himself. Once only do I remember ever to have seen him
carried away by anger, and that was when a coarse and cruel
bully among the school-boys applied to him a name which re-
flected on his mother's honor. The anger of such quiet people
is often a perfect convulsion, and it was so in this case. He
seemed to blaze with it, to flame up and redden with a deliri-
ous passion ; and he knocked down and stamped upon the boy
with a blind fury which it was really frightful to see, and which
was in singular contrast with his usual unprovokable good-humor.
Ellery Davenport had made good his promise of looking for
the pocket-book which Harry's father had left in his country-
seat, and the marriage certificate of his mother had been found
in it, and carefully lodged in the hands of Lady Lothrop ; but
nothing had been said to us children about it ; it was merely held
quietly, as a document that might be of use in time in bringing
some property to the children. And even at the time of this
fight with the school-boy, Harry said so little afterward, that the
real depth of his feeling on this subject was not suspected.
I have reason to believe, also, that Ellery Davenport did suc-
ceed in making the father of Harry and Tina aware of the
17*
894: OLDTOWN FOLKS.
existence of two such promising children, and of the respecta-
bility of the families into which they had been adopted. Captain
Percival, now Sir Harry Percival, had married again in Eng-
land, so Ellery Davenport had informed Miss Mehitable in a
letter, and had a son by this marriage, and so had no desire to
bring to view his former connection. It was understood, I
believe, that a sum of money was to be transmitted yearly to the
hands of the guardians of the children, for their benefit, and that
they were to be left undisturbed in the possession of those who
had adopted them.
Miss Mehitable had suffered so extremely herself by the con-
flict of her own earnest, melancholy nature with the theologic
ideas of her time, that she shrunk with dread from imposing
them on the gay and joyous little being whose education she
had undertaken. Yet she was impressed by that awful sense of
responsibility which is one of the most imperative characteristics
of the New England mind; and she applied to her brother
earnestly to know what she should teach Tina with regard to
her own spiritual position. The reply of her brother was char-
acteristiC; and we shall give it here :
" MY DEAR SISTER : I am a Puritan, the son, the grand-
son, the great-grandson of Puritans, and I say to you, Plant
the footsteps of your child on the ground of the old Cambridge
Platform, and teach her as Winthrop and Dudley and the
Mathers taught their children, that she 'is already a member
in the Church of Christ, that she is in covenant with God, and
hath the seal thereof upon her, to wit, baptism ; and so, if not
regenerate, is yet in a more hopeful way of attaining regenera-
tion and all spiritual blessings, both of the covenant and seal.' *
By teaching the child this, you will place her mind in natural and
healthful relations with God and religion. She will feel in her
Father's house, and under her Father's care, and the long and
weary years of a sense of disinheritance with which you strug-
gled will be spared to her.
" J hold Jonathan Edwards to have been the greatest man, since
* Cambridge Platform. Mather's Magnalia, page 227, article 7.
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE. 395
St. Augustine, that Christianity has turned out. But when a
great man, instead of making himself a great ladder for feeble
folks to climb on, strikes away the ladder and bids them come to
where he stands at a step, his greatness and his goodness both
may prove unfortunate for those who come after him. I go for
the good old Puritan platform.
" Your affectionate brother,
" JONATHAN ROSSITER."
The consequence of all this was, that Tina adopted in her glad
and joyous nature the simple, helpful faith of her brother, the
faith in an ever good, ever present, ever kind Father, whose child
she was and in whose household she had grown up. She had a
most unbounded faith in prayer, and in the indulgence and tender-
ness of the Heavenly Power. All things to her eyes were seen
through the halo of a cheerful, sanguine, confiding nature. Life
had for her no cloud or darkness or mystery.
As to myself, I had been taught in the contrary doctrines,
that I was a disinherited child of wrath. It is true that this doc-
trine was contradicted by the whole influence of the minister,
who, as I have said before, belonged to the Arminian wing of
the Church, and bore very mildly on all these great topics. My
grandmother sometimes endeavored to stir him up to more de-
cisive orthodoxy, and especially to a more vigorous presentation
of the doctrine of native human depravity. I remember once,"
in her zeal, her quoting to him as a proof-text the quatrain
of Dr. Watts:
; ' Conceived in sin, woful state!
Before we draw our breath,
The first young pulse begins to beat
Iniquity and death."
" That, madam," said Dr. Lothrop, who never forgot to be the
grand gentleman under any circumstances, " that, madam, is
not the New Testament, but Dr. Isaac Watts, allow me to remind
you."
"Well," said my grandmother, "Dr. Watts got it from the
Bible."
396 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
"Yes, madam, a very long way from the Bible, allow me to
say."
And yet, after all, though I did not like my grandmother's
Calvinistic doctrines, I must confess that she, and all such as
thought like her, always impressed me as being more earnestly
religious than those that held the milder and more moderate
belief.
Once in a while old Dr. Stern would preach in our neighbor-
hood, and I used to go to hear him. Everybody went to hear
him. A sermon on reprobation from Dr. Stern would stir up a
whole community in those days, jugt as a presidential election
stirs one up now. And I remember that he used to impress
me as being more like a messenger from the other world than
most ministers. Dr. Lothrop's sermons, by the side of his, were
like Pope's Pastorals beside the Tragedies of JEschylus. Dr.
Lothrop's discourses were smooth, they were sensible, they were
well worded, and everybody went to sleep under them; but
Dr. Stern shook and swayed his audience like a field of grain
under a high wind. There was no possibility of not listening
to him, or of hearing him with indifference, for he dealt in asser-
tions that would have made the very dead turn in their graves.
One of his sermons was talked of for months afterward, with a
sort of suppressed breath of supernatural awe, such as men would
use in discussing the reappearance of a soul from the other
world.
But meanwhile I believed neither my grandmother, nor Dr.
Stern, nor the minister. The eternal questions seethed and
boiled and burned in my mind without answer. It was not my
own personal destiny that lay with weight on my mind ; it was
the incessant, restless desire to know the real truth from some un-
answerable authority. I longed for a visible, tangible communion
with God ; I longed to see the eternal beauty, to hear a friendly
voice from the eternal silence. Among all the differences with
regard to doctrinal opinion, I could see clearly that there were
two classes of people in the world, those who had found God
and felt him as a living power upon their spirits, and those who
had not ; and that unknown experience was what I sought.
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE, 397
Such, then, were we three children when Harry and I were in
our eighteenth year and Tina in her fifteenth. And just at this
moment there was among the high consulting powers that regu-
lated our destiny a movement as to what further was to be done
with the three that had hitherto grown up together.
Now, if the reader has attentively read ancient and modern
history, he will observe that there is a class of women to be
found in this lower world, who, wherever they are, are sure to be
in some way the first or the last cause of everything that is going
on. Everybody knows, for instance, that Helen was the great
instigator of the Trojan war, and if it had not been for her we
should have had no Homer. In France, Madame Recamier was,
for the time being, reason enough for almost anything that any
man in France did ; and yet one cannot find out that Madame
Recamier had any uncommon genius of her own, except the
sovereign one of charming every human being that came in her
way, so that all became her humble and subservient subjects.
The instance is a marked one, because it operated in a wide
sphere, on very celebrated men, in an interesting historic period.
But it individualizes a kind of faculty which, generally speaking,
is peculiar to women, though it is in some instances exercised
by men, a faculty of charming and controlling every person
with whom one has to do.
Tina was now verging toward maturity ; she was in just that
delicious period in which the girl has all the privileges and
graces of childhood, its freedom of movement and action, bright-
ened with a sort of mysterious aurora by the coming dawn
of womanhood ; and everything indicated that she was to be one
of this powerful class of womankind. Can one analyze the charm
which such women possess ? I have a theory that, in all cases,
there is a certain amount of genius with it, genius which does
not declare itself in literature, but in social life, and which de-
votes itself to pleasing, as other artists devote themselves to
painting or to poetry.
Tina had no inconsiderable share of self-will ; she was very
pronounced in her tastes, and fond of her own way ; but she had
received from nature this passion for entertaining, and been
398 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
endowed with varied talents in this line which made her always,
from early childhood, the coveted and desired person in every
circle. Not a visage in Oldtown was so set in grimness of care,
that it did not relax its lines when it saw Tina coming down the
street ; for Tina could mimic and sing and dance, and fling back
joke for joke in a perfect meteoric shower. So long as she enter-
tained, she was perfectly indifferent who the party was. She
would display her accomplishments to a set of strolling Indians,
or for Sam Lawson and Jake Marshall, as readily as for any one
else. She would run up and catch the minister by the elbow as
he solemnly and decorously moved down street, and his face al-
ways broke into a laugh at the sight of her.
The minister's lady, and Aunt Lois, and Miss Deborah Kit-
tery, while they used to mourn in secret places over her want of
decorum in thus displaying her talents before the lower classes,
would afterward laugh till the tears rolled down their cheeks and
their ancient whalebone stays creaked, when she would do the
same thing over in a select circle for them.
We have seen how completely she had conquered Polly, and
what difficulty Miss Mehitable found in applying the precepts of
Mrs. Chapone and Miss Hannah More to her case. The pat-
tern young lady of the period, in the eyes of all respectable
females, was expressed by Lu cilia Stanley, in " Coelebs in
Search of a Wife." But when Miss Mehitable, after delighting
herself with the Johnsonian balance of the rhythmical sentences
which described this paragon as " not so much perfectly beauti-
ful as perfectly elegant," this model of consistency, who always
blushed at the right moment, spoke at the right moment, and
stopped at the right moment, and was, in short, a woman made to
order, precisely to suit a bachelor who had traversed the whole
earth, " not expecting perfection, but looking for consistency,"
when, after all these charming visions, she loooked at Tina,
she was perfectly dismayed at contemplating her scholar. She
felt the power by which Tina continually charmed and beguiled
her, and the empire which she exercised over her ; and, with
wonderful good sense, she formally laid down the weapons of
authority when she found she had no heart to use them.
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE. 399
" My child," she said to her one day, when that young lady
was about eleven years of age, " you are a great deal stronger
than I. I am weak because I love you, and because I have been
broken by sorrow, and because, being a poor old woman, I don't
trust myself. And you are young and strong and fearless ; but
remember, dear, the life you have to live is yours and not mine.
I have not the heart to force you to take my way instead of your
own, but I shall warn you that it will be better you should do so.
and then leave you free. If you don't take my way, I shall do
the very best for you that I can in your way, and you must take
the responsibility in the end."
This was the only kind of system which Miss Mehitable was
capable of carrying out. She was wise, shrewd, and loving, and
she gradually controlled her little charge more and more by
simple influence, but she had to meet in her education the
opposition force of that universal petting and spoiling which
everybody in society gives to an entertaining child.
Life is such a monotonous, dull affair, that anybody who has
the gift of making it pass off gayly is in great demand. Tina
was sent for to the parsonage, and the minister took her on his
knee and encouraged her to chatter all sorts of egregious non-
sense to him. And Miss Deborah Kittery insisted on having her
sent for to visit them in Boston, and old Madam Kittery over
whelmed her with indulgence and caresses. Now Tina loved
praises and caresses ; incense was the very breath of her nostrils ;
and she enjoyed being feted and petted as much as a cat enjoys
being stroked.
It will not be surprising to one who considers the career of this
kind of girl to hear that she was not much of a student. What
she learned was by impulses and fits and starts, and all of it im-
mediately used for some specific purpose of entertainment, so
that among simple people she had the reputation of being a prod-
igy of information, on a very small capital of actual knowledge.
Miss Mehitable sighed after thorough knowledge and discipline
of mind for her charge, but she invariably found all Tina's
teachers becoming accomplices in her superficial practices by
praising and caressing her when she had been least faithful,
400 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
always apologizing for her deficiencies, and speaking in the most
flattering terms of her talents. During the last year the school-
master had been observed always to walk home with her and
bring her books, with a humble, trembling subserviency and
prostrate humility which she rewarded with great apparent con-
tempt ; and finally she announced to Miss Mehitable that she
" did n't intend to go to school any more, because the master
acted so silly."
Now Miss Mehitable, during all her experience of life, had
always associated with the men of her acquaintance without ever
being reminded in any particular manner of the difference of sex,
and it was a subject which, therefore, was about the last to enter
into her calculations with regard to her little charge. So she
said, " My dear, you should n't speak in that way about your
teacher ; he knows a great deal more than you do."
" He may know more than I do about arithmetic, but he
does n't know how to behave. What right has he to put his old
hand under my chin? and I won't have him putting his arm
round me when he sets my copies ! and I told him to-day he
should n't carry my books home any more, so there ! "
Miss Mehitable was struck dumb. She went that afternoon
and visited the minister's lady.
" Depend upon it, my dear," said Lady Lothrop, " it 's time to
try a course of home reading/'
A bright idea now struck Miss Mehitable. Her cousin, Mr.
Mordecai Rossiter, had recently been appointed a colleague with
the venerable Dr. Lothrop. He was a young man, finely read,
and of great solidity and piety, and Miss Mehitable resolved to
invite him to take up his abode with them for the purpose of as-
sisting her educational efforts. Mr. Mordecai Rossiter accord-
ingly took up his abode in the family, used to conduct family
worship, and was expected now and then to drop words of good
advice and wholesome counsel to form the mind of Miss Tina.
A daily hour was appointed during which he was to superintend
her progress in arithmetic.
Mr. Mordecai Rossiter was one of the most simple-minded,
honest, sincere human beings that ever wore a black coat. He
WE BEGIN TO BE GROWN-UP PEOPLE. 401
accepted his charge in sacred simplicity, and took a prayerful
view of his young catechumen, whom he was in hopes to make
realize, by degrees, the native depravity of her own heart, and
to lead through a gradual process to the best of all results.
Miss Tina also took a view of her instructor, and without any
evil intentions, simply following her strongest instinct, which was
to entertain and please, she very soon made herself an exceed-
ingly delightful pupil. Since religion was evidently the engross-
ing subject in his mind, Tina also turned her attention to it,
and instructed and edified him with flights of devout eloquence
which were to him perfectly astonishing. Tina would discourse
on the goodness of God, and ornament her remarks with so
many flowers, and stars, and poetical fireworks, and be so rapt
and carried away with her subject, that he would sit and listen
to her as if she was an inspired being, and wholly forget the
analysis which he meant to propose to her, as to whether her
emotions of love to God proceeded from self-love or from dis-
interested benevolence.
As I have said, Tina had a genius for poetry, and had em-
ployed the dull hours which children of her age usually spend
in church in reading the psalm-book and committing to mem-
ory all the most vividly emotional psalms and hymns. And
these she was fond of repeating with great fervor and enthusiasm
to her admiring listener.
Miss Mehitable considered that the schoolmaster had been an
ill-taught, presumptuous man, who had ventured to take improper
liberties with a mere child ; but, when she established this con-
nection between this same child and a solemn young minister, it
never occurred to her to imagine that there would be any em-
barrassing consequences from the relation. She considered Tina
as a mere infant, as not yet having approached the age when
the idea of anything like love or marriage could possibly be
suggested to her.
In course of time, however, she could not help remarking that her
cousin was in some respects quite an altered man. He reformed
many little negligences in regard to his toilet which Miss Tina
had pointed out to him with the nonchalant freedom of a young
402 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
empress. And he would run and spring and fetch and carry in
her service with a zeal and alertness quite wonderful to behold.
He expressed privately to Miss Mehitable the utmost astonish-
ment at her mental powers, and spoke of the wonderful work of
divine grace which appeared to have made such progress in her
heart. Never had he been so instructed and delighted before
by the exercises of any young person. And he went so far as to
assure Miss Mehitable that in many things he should be only too
happy to sit at her feet and learn of her.
" Good gracious me ! " said Miss Mehitable to herself, with a
sort of half start of awakening, though not yet fully come to
consciousness ; " what does ail everybody that gets hold of
Tina?"
What got hold of her cousin in this case she had an opportu-
nity of learning, not long after, by overhearing him tell her
young charge that she was an angel, and that he asked nothing
more of Heaven than to be allowed to follow her lead through
life. Now Miss Tina accepted this, as she did all other incense,
with great satisfaction. Not that she had the slightest idea of
taking this clumsy-footed theological follower round the world
with her ; but having the highest possible respect for him, know-
ing that Miss Mehitable and the minister and his wife thought
him a person of consideration,, she had felt it her duty to please
him, had taxed her powers of pleasing to the utmost, in his own
line, and had met with this gratifying evidence of success.
Miss Mehitable was for once really angry. She sent for her
cousin to a private interview, and thus addressed him :
" Cousin Mordecai, I thought you were a man of sense when
I put this child under your care ! My great trouble in bringing
her up is, that everybody flatters her and defers to her ; but I
thought that in you I had got a man that could be depended
on!"
"I do not flatter her, cousin," replied the young minister,
earnestly.
" You pretend you don't flatter her ? did n't I hear you calling
her an angel ? "
Well, I don't care if I did ; she is an angel," said Mr. Mor-
WE BEGIN TO BE GEOWN-UP PEOPLE. 403
decai Rossiter, with tears in his eyes ; " she is the most perfectly
heavenly being I ever saw ! "
" Ah ! bah ! " said Miss Mehitable, with intense disgust ; " what
fools you men are ! "
Miss Mehitable now, much as she disliked it, felt bound to have
some cautionary conversation with Miss Tina.
" My dear," she said ; " you must be very careful in your
treatment of Cousin Mordecai. I overheard some things he said
to you this morning which I do not approve of."
" yes, Aunty, he does talk in a silly way sometimes. Men
always begin to talk that way to me. Why, you 've no idea the
things they will say. Well, of course I don't believe them ; it 's
only a foolish way they have, but they all talk just alike."
" But I thought my cousin would have had his mind on better
things," said Miss Mehitable. " The idea of his making love to
you!"
" I know it ; only think of it, Aunty ! how very funny it is !
and there, I have n't done a single thing to make him. I 've
been just as religious as I could be, and said hymns to him, and
everything, and given him good advice, ever so much, be-
cause, you see, he did n't know about a great many things till I
told him."
" But, my dear, all this is going to make him too fond of you ;
you know you ought not to be thinking of such things now."
" What things, Aunty ? " said the catechumen, innocently.
" Why, love and marriage ; that 's what such feelings will
come to, if you encourage them."
" Marriage ! O dear me, what nonsense ! " and Tina laughed
till the room rang again. " Why, dear Aunty, what absurd ideas
have got into your head ! Of course you can't think that he 's
thinking of any such thing ; he 's only getting very fond of
me, and I 'm trying to make him have a good time, that 's
all."
But Miss Tina found that was not all, and was provoked
beyond endurance at the question proposed to her in plain terms,
whether she would not look upon her teacher as one destined in
a year or two to become her husband. Thereupon at once the
404 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
whole gay fabric dissolved like a dream. Tina was as vexed at
the proposition as a young unbroken colt is at the sight of a
halter. She cried, and said she did n't like him, she could n't
bear him, and she never wanted to see him again, that he was
silly and ridiculous to talk so to a little girl. And Miss Mehit-
able sat down to write a long letter to her brother, to inquire what
she should do next.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA? 405
CHAPTER XXXI.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA?
"ll/TY DEAR BROTHER: I am in a complete embarras what
-^-'-*- to do with Tina. She is the very light of my eyes, the
sweetest, gayest, brightest, and best-meaning little mortal that
ever was made ; but somehow or other I fear I am not the one
that ought to have undertaken to bring her up.
" She has a good deal of self-will ; so much that I have long
felt it would be quite impossible for me to control her merely by
authority. In fact I laid down my sceptre long ago, such as it
was. I never did have much of a gift in that way. But Ti-
na's self-will runs in the channel of a most charming persua-
siveness. She has all sorts of pretty phrases, and would talk
a bird off from a bush, or a trout out of a brook, by dint of
sheer persistent eloquence ; and she is always so delightfully
certain that her way is the right one and the best for me and all
concerned. Then she has no end of those peculiar gifts of enter-
tainment which are rather dangerous things for a young woman.
She is a born mimic, she is a natural actress, and she has always
a repartee or a smart saying quite apropos at the tip of her
tongue. All this makes her an immense favorite with people
who have no responsibility about her, who merely want to be
amused with her drolleries, and then shake their heads wisely
when she is gone, and say that Miss Mehitable Rossiter ought to
keep a close hand on that girl.
" It seems to be the common understanding that everybody
but me is to spoil her ; for there is n't anybody, not even Dr.
Lothrop and his wife, that won't connive at her mimicking and
fripperies, and then talk gravely with me afterward about the
danger of these things, as if I were the only person to say any-
thing disagreeable to her. But then, I can see very plainly that
the little chit is in danger on all sides of becoming trivial and
406 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
superficial, of mistaking wit for wisdom, and thinking she
has answered an argument when she has said a smart thing and
raised a laugh.
" Of late, trouble of another kind has been added. Tina is a
little turned of fifteen ; she is going to be very beautiful ; she is
very pretty now ; and, in addition to all my other perplexities,
the men are beginning to talk that atrocious kind of nonsense to
her which they seem to think they must talk to young girls. I
have had to take her away from the school on account of the
schoolmaster, and when I put her under the care of Cousin Mor-
decai Rossiter, whom I thought old enough, and discreet enough,
to make a useful teacher to her, he has acted like a natural fool.
I have no kind of patience with him. I would not have believed
a man could be so devoid of common sense. I shall have to send
Tina somewhere, though I can't bear to part with her, and it
seems like taking the very sunshine out of the house ; so I re-
member what you told me about sending her up to you.
" Lady Lothrop and Lois Badger and I have been talking to-
gether, and we think the boys might as well go up too to your
academy, as our present schoolmaster is not very competent, and
you will give them a thorough fitting for college."
To this came the following reply :
" SISTER MEHITABLE : The thing has happened that I
have foreseen. Send her up here ; she shall board in the minis-
ter's family ; and his daughter Esther, who is wisest, virtuousest,
discreetest, best, shall help keep her in order.
" Send the boys along, too ; they are bright fellows, as I re-
member, and I would like to h#ve a hand at them. One of them
might live with us and do the out-door chores and help hoe in
the garden, and the other might do the same for the minister.
So send them along.
" Your affectionate brother,
"JONATHAN ROSSITER."
This was an era in our lives. Harry and I from this time felt
ourselves to be men, and thereafter adopted the habit of speaking
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA? 407
of ourselves familiarly as "a man of my character," "a man
of my age," and " a man in my circumstances." The comfort
and dignity which this imparted to us were wonderful. We
also discussed Tina in a very paternal way, and gravely consid-
ered what was best for her. We were, of course, properly
shocked at the behavior of the schoolmaster, and greatly ap-
plauded her spirit in defending herself against his presumption.
Then Tina had told Harry and me all about her trouble with
the minister, and I remember at this time how extremely aged
and venerable I felt, and what quantities of good advice I gave
to Tina, which was all based on the supposition of her danger-
ously powerful charms and attractions. This is the edifying kind
of counsel with which young gentlemen of my age instruct their
lady friends, and it will be seen at once that advice and admo-
nition which rest on the theory of superhuman excellence and
attractions in the advised party are far more agreeable than the
rough, common admonitions, generally addressed to boys at this
time of life, which are unseasoned by any such pleasing hallu-
cination.
There is now a general plea in society that women shall be
educated more as men are, and we hear much talk as if the dif-
ference between them and our sex is merely one of difference in
education. But how could it be helped that Tina should be edu-
cated and formed wholly unlike Harry and myself, when every
address made to her from her childhood was of necessity wholly
different from what would be made to a boy in the same circum-
stances ? and particularly when she carried with her always that
dizzying, blinding charm which turned the head of every boy
and man that undertook to talk reason to her ?
In my own mind I had formed my plan of life. I was to go
to college, and therefrom soar to an unmeasured height of liter-
ary distinction, and when I had won trophies and laurels and re-
nown, I was to come back and lay all at Tina's feet. This was
what Harry and I agreed on, in many a conversation, as the
destined result of our friendship.
Harry and I had sworn friendship by all the solemn oaths and
forms known in ancient or modern history. We changed names
408 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
with each other, and in our private notes and letters addressed
each by the name of the other, and felt as if this was some sacred
and wonderful peculiarity. Tina called us both brothers, and
this we agreed was the best means of preserving her artless
mind unalarmed and undisturbed until the future hour of the
great declaration. As for Tina, she absolutely could not keep
anything to herself if she tried. Whatever agitated her mind or
interested it had to be told to us. She did not seem able to rest
satisfied with herself till she had proved to us that she was ex-
actly right, or made us share her triumphs in her achievements,
or her perplexity in her failures.
At this crisis Miss Mehitable talked very seriously and sensi-
bly with her little charge. She pointed out to her the danger of
living a trivial and superficial life> of becoming vain, and living
merely for admiration. She showed her how deficient she had
been in those attainments which require perseverance and stead-
iness of mind, and earnestly recommended her now to devote
herself to serious studies.
Nobody was a better subject to preach such a sermon to than
Tina. She would even take up the discourse and enlarge upon
it, and suggest new and fanciful illustrations; she entered into
the project of Miss Mehitable with enthusiasm; she confessed all
her faults, and resolved hereafter to become a pattern of the con-
trary virtues. And then she came and related the whole conver-
sation to us, and entered into the project of devoting herself to
study with such a glow of enthusiasm, that we formed at once
the most brilliant expectations.
The town of Cloudland, whither we were going, was a two
days' journey up into the mountains ; and, as travelling facilities
then were, it was viewed as such an undertaking to send us
there, that the whole family conclave talked gravely of it and dis-
cussed it in every point of view, for a fortnight before we started.
Our Uncle Jacob, the good, meek, quiet farmer of whom I have
spoken, had a little business in regard to some property that
had been left by a relative of his wife in that place, and sug-
gested the possibility of going up with us himself. So weighty a
move was at first thrown out as a mere proposal to be talked of
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA? 409
in the family circle. Grandmother and Aunt Lois and Aunt
Keziah and my mother picked over and discussed this proposi-
tion for days, as a lot of hens will pick over an ear of corn, turn-
ing it from side to side, and looking at it from every possible
point of view. Uncle Fliakim had serious thoughts of offering
his well-worn equipage, but it was universally admitted that his
constant charities had kept it in such a condition of frailty that
the mountain roads would finish it, and thus deprive multitudes
of the female population of Oldtown of an establishment which
was about as much their own as if they had the care and keep-
ing of it.
I don't know anybody who could have been taken from Old-
town whose loss would have been more universally felt and de-
plored than little Miss Tina's. In the first place, Oldtown had
come into the way of regarding her as a sort of Child of the Regi-
ment, and then Tina was one of those sociable, acquaintance-
making bodies that have visited everybody, penetrated every-
body's affairs, and given a friendly lift now and then in almost
everybody's troubles.
" Why, lordy massy ! " said Sam Lawson, " I don't know
nothin' what we 're any on us goin' to do when Tiny 's gone.
Why, there ain't a dog goes into the meetin'-house but wags his
tail when he sees her a comin'. I expect she knows about every
yellow-bird's nest an' blue jay's an' bobolink's an' meadow-
lark's that there 's ben round here these five years, an' how
they 's goin' to set an' hatch without her 's best known to 'em-
selves, I s'pose. Lordy massy! that child can sing so like a
skunk blackbird that you can't tell which is which. Wai, I '11
say one thing for her ; she draws the fire out o' Hepsy, an' she 's
'bout the only livin' critter that can ; but some nights when she 's
ben inter our house a play in' checkers or fox an' geese with the
child'en, she 'd railly git Hepsy slicked down so that 't was kind
o' comfortable bein' with her. I'm sorry she's goin', for my
part, an' all the child'en '11 be sorry."
As for Polly, she worked night and day on Tina's outfit, and
scolded and hectored herself for certain tears that now and then
dropped on the white aprons that she was ironing. On the night
18
410 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
before Tina was to depart, Polly came into her room and in-
sisted upon endowing her with her string of gold beads, the only
relic of earthly vanity in which that severe female had ever been
known to indulge. Tina was quite melted, and fell upon her
neck.
" Why, Polly ! No, no ; you dear old creature, you, you 've
been a thousand times too good for me, and 1 've nearly plagued
the life out of you, and you sha' n't give me your poor, dear, old
gold beads, but keep them yourself, for you 're as good as gold any
day, and so it 's a great deal better that you should wear them."
" Tina, child, you don't know my heart," said Polly, shaking
her head solemnly; "if you could see the depths of depravity
that there are there ! "
" I don't believe a word of it, Polly."
" Ah ! but, you see, the Lord seeth not as man sees, Tina."
" I know he don't," said Tina ; " he 's a thousand times kinder,
and makes a thousand more excuses for us than we ever do for
ourselves or each other. You know the Bible says, ' He know-
eth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust.' "
u Tina, Tina, you always was a wonderful child to talk,"
said Polly, shaking her head doubtfully ; " but then you know
the heart is so deceitful, and then you see there 's the danger that
we should mistake natural emotions for grace."
" 0, 1 dare say there are all sorts of dangers," said Tina ; " of
course there are. I know I 'm nothing but just a poor little
silly bird ; but He knows it too, and he 's taken care of ever
so many such little silly people as I am, so that 1 'm not afraid.
He won't let me deceive myself. You know, when that bird got
shut in the house the other day, how much time you and I and
Miss Mehitable all spent in trying to keep it from breaking its
foolish head against the glass, and flying into the fire, and all that,
and how glad we were when we got it safe out into the air. I 'm
sure we are not half as good as God is, and, if we take so much
care about a poor little bird that we did n't make and had noth-
ing to do with, he must care a good deal more about us when
we are his children. And God is all the Father I have or ever
knew."
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA? 411
This certainly looked to Polly like very specious reasoning,
but, after all, the faithful creature groaned in spirit. Might not
this all be mere natural religion and not the supernatural grace ?
So she said trembling : " O Tina, did you always feel so towards
God ? wa' n't there a time when your heart rose in opposition to
him ? "
" O, certainly," said Tina, " when Miss Asphyxia used to talk
to me about it, I thought I never wanted to hear of him, and I
never said my prayers ; but as soon as I came to Aunty, she was
so loving and kind that I began to see what God must be like,
because I know he is kinder than she can be, or you, or anybody
can be. That 's so, is n't it ? You know the Bible says his lov-
ing-kindness is infinite."
The thing in this speech which gave Polly such peculiar satis-
faction was the admission that there had been a definite point of
time in which the feelings of her little friend had undergone a
distinct change. Henceforth she was better satisfied, never
reflecting how much she was trusting to a mere state of mind
in the child, instead of resting her faith on the Almighty Friend
who so evidently had held her in charge during the whole of
her short history.
As for me, the eve of my departure was to me one of triumph.
When I had seen all my father's Latin books fairly stowed away
in my trunk, with the very simple wardrobe which belonged to
Harry and me, and the trunk had been shut and locked and
corded, and we were to start at sunrise the next morning, I felt
as if my father's unfulfilled life-desire was at last going to be
accomplished in me.
It was a bright, clear, starlight night in June, and we were
warned to go to bed early, that we might be ready in season the
next morning. As usual, Harry fell fast asleep, and I was too
nervous and excited to close my eyes. I began to think of the
old phantasmagoria of my childish days, which now so seldom
appeared to me. I felt stealing over me that peculiar thrill and
vibration of the great central nerves which used to indicate the
approach of those phenomena, and, looking up, I saw distinctly
my father, exactly as I used to see him, standing between the
412 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
door and the bed. It seemed to me that he entered by passing
through the door, but there he was, every line and lineament
of his face, every curl of his hair, exactly as I remembered it.
His eyes were fixed on mine with a tender human radiance.
There was something soft and compassionate about the look
he gave me, and I felt it vibrating on my nerves with that
peculiar electric thrill of which I have spoken. I learned by
such interviews as these how spirits can communicate with one
another without human language.
The appearance of my father was vivid and real even to the
clothing that he used to wear, which was earthly and home-
like, precisely as I remembered it. Yet I felt no disposition to
address him, and no need of words. Gradually the image faded ;
it grew thinner and fainter, and I saw the door through it as if
it had been a veil, and then it passed away entirely.
What are these apparitions ? I know that this will be read
by many who have seen them quite as plainly as I have, who,
like me, have hushed back the memory of them into the most
secret and silent chamber of their hearts.
I know, with regard to myself, that the sight of my father was
accompanied by such a vivid conviction of the reality of his
presence, such an assurance radiated from his serene eyes that
he had at last found the secret of eternal peace, such an intense
conviction of continued watchful affection and of sympathy in the
course that I was now beginning, that I could not have doubted
if I would. And when we remember that, from the beginning of
the world, some such possible communication between departed
love and the beloved on earth has been among the most cher-
ished legends of humanity, why must we always meet such
phenomena with a resolute determination to account for them
by every or any supposition but that which the human heart
most craves ? Is not the great mystery of life and death made
more cruel and inexorable by this rigid incredulity ? One would
fancy, to hear some moderns talk, that there was no possibility
that the departed, even when most tender and most earnest,
could, if they would, recall themselves to their earthly friends.
For my part, it was through some such experiences as these
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH TINA? 413
that I learned that there are truths of the spiritual life which are
intuitive, and above logic, which a man must believe because he
cannot help it, just as he believes the facts of his daily ex-
perience in the world of matter, though most ingenious and un-
answerable treatises have been written to show that there is no
proof of its existence.
414 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE JOURNEY TO CLOTTDLAND.
THE next morning Aunt Lois rapped at our door, when
there was the very faintest red streak in the east, and
the birds were just in the midst of that vociferous singing which
nobody knows anything about who is n't awake at this precise
hour. We were forward enough to be up and dressed, and, be-
fore our breakfast was through, Uncle Jacob came to the door.
The agricultural population of Massachusetts, at this time,
were a far more steady set as regards locomotion than they are
in these days of railroads. At this time, a journey from Boston
to New York took a fortnight, a longer time than it now takes
to go to Europe, and my Uncle Jacob had never been even
to Boston. In fact, the seven-mile tavern in the neighborhood
had been the extent of his wanderings, and it was evident that
he regarded the two days' journey as quite* a solemn event
in his life. He had given a fortnight's thought to it ; he had
arranged all his worldly affairs, and given charges and messages
to his wife and children, in case, as he said, " anything should
happen to him." And he informed Aunt Lois that he had been
awake the biggest part of the night thinking it over. But when
he had taken Tina and her little trunk on board, and we had fin-
ished all our hand-shakings, and Polly had told us over for the
fourth or fifth time exactly where she had put the cold chicken
and the biscuits and the cakes and pie, and Miss Mehitable had
cautioned Tina again and again to put on her shawl in case a
shower should come up, and my grandmother and Aunt Lois had
put in their share of parting admonitions, we at last trolled off as
cheery and merry a set of youngsters as the sun ever looked
upon in a dewy June morning.
Our road lay first along the beautiful brown river, with its
sweeping bends, and its prattling curves of water dashing and
THE JOUKXKY TO CLOUDLAXD. 415
chattering over mossy rocks. Towards noon we began to find
ourselves winding up and up amid hemlock forests, whose solemn
shadows were all radiant and aglow with clouds of blossoming
laurel. We had long hills to wind up, when we got out and
walked, and gathered flowers^ and scampered, and chased the
brook up stream from one little dashing waterfall to another,
and then, suddenly darting out upon the road again, we would
meet the wagon at the top of the hill.
Can there be anything on earth so beautiful as these mountain
rides in New England ? At any rate we were full in the faith
that there could not. When we were riding in the wagon,
Tina's powers of entertainment were brought into full play.
The great success of the morning was her exact imitation of a
squirrel eating a nut, which she was requested to perform many
times, and which she did, with variations, until at last Uncle
Jacob remarked, with a grin, that "if be should meet her and a
squirrel sitting on a stone fence together, he believed he should
n't know which was which."
Besides this, we acted various impromptu plays, assuming
characters and supporting them as we had been accustomed to
do in our theatrical rehearsals in the garret, till Uncle Jacob
declared that he never did see such a musical set as we were.
About nightfall we came to Uncle Sim Geary's tavern, which
had been fixed upon for our stopping-place. This was neither
more nor less than a mountain farm-house, where the few travel-
lers who ever passed that way could find accommodation.
Uncle Jacob, after seeing to his horses, and partaking of a
plentiful supper, went immediately to bed, as was his innocent
custom every evening, as speedily as possible. To bed, but not
to sleep, for when, an hour or two afterward, I had occasion to
go into his room, I found him lying on his bed with his clothes
on, his shoes merely slipped off, and his hat held securely over
the pit of his stomach.
" Why, Uncle Jacob," said I, " are n't you going to bed ? "
"Well, I guess I '11 just lie down as I be; no knowin' what
may happen when you 're travelling. It 's a very nice house, and
a very respectable family, but it 's best always to be prepared for
416 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
anything that may happen. So I think you children had better
all go to bed and keep quiet."
What roars of laughter there were among us when I described
this scene and communicated the message of Uncle Jacob ! It
seemed as if Tina could not be got to sleep that night, and we
could hear her giggling, through the board partition that sepa-
rated our room from hers, every hour of the night.
Happy are the days when one can go to sleep and wake up
laughing. The next morning, however, Uncle Jacob reaped the
reward of his vigilance by finding himself ready dressed at six
o'clock, when I came in and found him sleeping profoundly.
The fact was, that, having kept awake till near morning, he was
sounder asleep at this point of time than any of us, and was
snoring away like a grist-mill. He remarked that he should n't
wonder if he had dropped asleep, and added, in a solemn tone,
" We 've got through the night wonderfully, all things consid-
ered."
The next day's ride was the same thing over, only the hills
were longer ; and by and by we came into great vistas of moun-
tains, whose cloudy purple heads seemed to stretch and veer
around our path like the phantasmagoria of a dream. Sometimes
the road seemed to come straight up against an impenetrable
wall, and we would wonder what we were to do with it ; but lo !
as we approached, the old mountain seemed gracefully to slide
aside, and open to us a passage round it. Tina found ever so
many moralities and poetical images in these mountains. It
was like life, she said. Your way would seem all shut up be-
fore you, but, if you only had faith and went on, the mountains
would move aside for you and let you through.
Towards night we began to pull in earnest up a series of as-
cents toward the little village of Cloudland. Hill after hill, hill
after hill, how long they seemed ! but how beautiful it was when
the sun went down over the distant valleys ! and there was such
a pomp and glory of golden clouds and rosy vapors wreathing
around the old mountain-tops as one must go to Cloudland to
know anything about.
At last we came to a little terrace of land, where were a white
THE JOUENEY TO CLOUDLAND. ' 417
meeting-house, and a store, and two or three houses, and to the door
of one of these our wagon drove. There stood Mr. Jonathan
Rossiter and the minister and Esther. You do not know Esther,
do you ? neither at this minute did we. We saw a tall, straight,
graceful girl, who looked at us out of a pair of keen, clear, hazel
eyes, with a sort of inquisitive yet not unkindly glance, but as if
she meant to make up her mind about us ; and when she looked
at Tina I could see that her min,d was made up in a moment.
LETTER FROM TINA TO MISS MEH1TABLE.
" CLOUDLAND, June 6.
" Here we are, dear Aunty, up in the sides, in the most beau-
tiful place that you can possibly conceive of. We had such a
good time coming! you've no idea of the fun we had. You
know I am going to be very sober, but I did n't think it was
necessary to begin while we were travelling, and we kept Uncle
Jacob laughing so that I really thihk he must have been tired.
" Do you know, Aunty, I have got so that I can look exactly
like a squirrel ? We saw ever so many on the way, and I got a
great many new hints on the subject, and now I can do squirrel
in four or five different attitudes, and the boys almost killed
themselves laughing.
" Harry is an old sly-boots. Do you know, he is just as much
of a mimic as I am, for all he looks so sober ; but when we get
him a going he is perfectly killing. He and I and Horace acted
all sorts of plays on the way. We agreed with each other that
we'd give a set of Oldtown representations, and see if Uncle
Jacob would know who they were, and so Harry was Sam Law-
son and I was Hepsy, and I made an unexceptionable baby out
of our two shawls, and Horace was Uncle Fliakim come in to
give us moral exhortations. I do wish you could hear how we
did it. Uncle Jacob is n't the brightest of all mortals, and not
very easily roused, but we made him laugh till he said his sides
were sore ; and to pay for it he made us laugh when we got to
the tavern where we stopped all night. Do you believe, Aunty,
Uncle Jacob really was frightened, or care-worn, or something,
18* AA
418 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
so that he hardly slept any all night ? It was just the quietest
place that ever you saw, and there was a good motherly woman,
who got ns the nicest kind of supper, and a peaceable, slow, dull
old man, just like Uncle Jacob. There wasn't the least thing
that looked as if we had fallen into a cave of banditti, or a castle
in the Apennines, such as Mrs. Radcliffe tells about in the Mys-
teries of Udolpho; but, for all that, Uncle Jacob's mind was so
oppressed with care that he wegt to bed with all his clothes on,
and lay broad awake with his hat in his hand all night. I
did n't think before that Uncle Jacob had such a brilliant imagi-
nation. Poor man ! I should have thought he would have lain
down and slept as peaceably as one of his own oxen.
" We got up into Cloudland about half past six o'clock in the
afternoon, the second day ; and such a sunset ! I thought of a
good subject for a little poem, and wrote two or three verses,
which I '11 send you some time ; but I must tell you now about
the people here.
" I don't doubt I shall become very good, for just think what
a place I am in, living at the minister's ! and then I room with
Esther ! You ought to see Esther. She 's a beautiful girl ; she 's
tall, and straight, and graceful, with smooth black hair, and pierc-
ing dark eyes that look as if they could read your very soul.
Her face has the features of a statue, at least such as I think
some of the beautiful statues that I 've read about might have ;
and what makes it more statuesque is, that, she 's so very pale ;
she is perfectly healthy, but there does n't seem to be any red
blood in her cheeks ; and, dear Aunty, she is alarmingly good.
She knows so much, and does so much, that it is really discour-
aging to me to think of it. Why, do you know, she has read
through Virgil, and is reading a Greek tragedy now with Mr.
Rossiter ; and she teaches a class in mathematics in school, be-
sides being her father's only housekeeper, and taking care of her
younger brothers.
" I should be frightened to death at so much goodness, if it
were not that she seems to have taken the greatest possible fancy
to me. As I told you, we room together ; and such a nice room
as it is ! everything is just like wax ; and she gave me half of
THE JOURNEY TO CLOUDLAND. 419
everything, half the drawers and half the closet, and put all
my things so nicely in their places, and then in the morning she
gets up at unheard-of hours, and she was beginning to pet me
and tell me that I need n't get up. Now you know, Aunty, that 's
just the way people are always doing with me, and the way poor
dear old Polly would spoil me ; but I told Esther all about my
new resolutions and exactly how good I intended to be, and that
I thought I could n't do better than to do everything that she
did, and so when she gets up I get up ; and really, Aunty,
you 've no idea what a sight the sunrise is here in the moun-
tains ; it really is worth getting up for.
"We have breakfast at six o'clock, and then there are about
three hours before school, and I help Esther wash up the break-
fast things, and we make our bed and sweep our room, and put
everything up nice, and then I have ever so long to study, while
Esther is seeing to all her family cares and directing black
Dinah about the dinner, and settling any little cases that may
arise among her three younger brothers. They are great, strong,
nice boys, with bright red cheeks, and a good capacity for mak-
ing a noise, but she manages them nicely. Dear Aunty, I hope
some of her virtues will rub off on to me by contact ; don't you ?
" I don't think your brother likes me much. He hardly no-
ticed me at all when I was first presented to him, and seemed to
have forgotten that he had ever seen me. I tried to talk to him,
but he cut me quite short, and turned round and went to talking
to Mr. Avery, the minister, you know. I think that these peo-
ple that know so much might be civil to us little folks, but then I
dare say it's all right enough; but sometimes it does seem as if
he wanted to snub me. Well, perhaps it 's good for me to be
snubbed: I have such good times generally that I ought to have
something that is n't quite so pleasant.
" Life is to me such a beautifu^ story ! and every morning when
I open my eyes and see things looking so charming as they do
here, I thank God that I am alive.
" Mr. Rossiter has been examining the boys in their studies.
He is n't a man that ever praises anybody, I suppose, but I can
see that he is pretty well pleased with them. We have a lady
420 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
principal, Miss Titcomb. She is about forty years old, I should
think, and very pleasant and affable. I shall tell you more about
these things by and by.
" Give my love to dear old Polly, and to grandma and Aunt
Lois, and all the nice folks in Oldtown.
" Dear Aunty, sometimes I used to think that you were de-
pressed, and had troubles that you did not tell me ; and some-
thing you said once about your life being so wintry made me
quite sad. Do let me be your little Spring, and think always
how dearly I love you, and how good I am going to try to be for
your sake.
" Your own affectionate little
TINA."
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 421
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND.
THE academy in Cloudland was one of those pure wells from
which the hidden strength of New England is drawn, as
her broad rivers are made from hidden mountain brooks. The
first object of every colony in New England, after building the
church, was to establish a school-house ; and a class of the most
superior men of New England, in those days of simple living,
were perfectly satisfied to make it the business of their lives to
teach in the small country academies with which the nooks and
hollows of New England were filled.
Could materials be got as profuse as Boswell's Life of John-
son to illustrate the daily life and table-talk of some of the
academy schoolmasters of this period, it would be an acquisition
for the world.
For that simple, pastoral germ-state of society is a thing for-
ever gone. Never again shall we see that union of perfect
repose in regard to outward surroundings and outward life
with that intense activity of the inward and intellectual world,
that made New England, at this time, the vigorous, germi-
nating seed-bed for all that has since been developed of politics,
laws, letters, and theology, through New England to America, and
through America to the world. The hurry of railroads, and the
rush and roar of business that now fill it, would have prevented
that germinating process. It was necessary that there should be
a period like that we describe, when villages were each a separate
little democracy, shut off by rough roads and forests from the rest
of the world, organized round the church and school as a common
centre, and formed by the minister and the schoolmaster.
The academy of Cloudland had become celebrated in the
neighborhood for the skill and ability with which it was con-
ducted, and pupils had been drawn, even from as far as Boston,
422 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
to come and sojourn in our mountain town to partake of
these advantages. They were mostly young girls, who were
boarded at very simple rates in the various families of the
place. In all, the pupils of the academy numbered about a
hundred, equally divided between the two sexes. There was a
class of about fifteen young men who were preparing for college,
and a greater number of boys who were studying with the same
ultimate hope.
As a general rule, the country academies of Massachusetts
have been equally open to both sexes. Andover and Exeter,
so far as I know, formed the only exceptions to this rule, being
by their charters confined rigorously to the use of the dominant
sex. But, in the generality of country academies, the girls and
boys studied side by side, Avithout any other restriction as to the
character of their studies than personal preference. As a gen-
eral thing, the classics and the higher mathematics were more
pursued by the boys than the girls. But if there were a daughter
of Eve who wished, like her mother, to put forth her hand to the
tree of knowledge, there was neither cherubim nor flaming sword
to drive her away.
Mr. Rossiter was always stimulating the female part of his
subjects to such undertakings, and the consequence was that in
his school an unusual number devoted themselves to these pur-
suits, and the leading scholar in Greek and the higher mathe-
matics was our new acquaintance, Esther Avery.
The female principal, Miss Titcomb, was a thorough-bred, old-
fashioned lady, whose views of education were formed by Miss
Hannah More, and whose style, like Miss Hannah More's,
was profoundly Johnsonian. This lady had composed a set of
rules for the conduct of the school, in the most ornate and
resounding periods. The rules, briefly epitomized, required of us
only absolute moral perfection, but they were run into details
which caused the reading of them to take up about a quarter of
an hour every Saturday morning. I would that I could remem-
ber some of the sentences. It was required of us all, for one
thing, that we should be perfectly polite. " Persons truly polite,"
it was added, " invariably treat their superiors with reverence,
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 423
their equals with exact consideration, and their inferiors with
condescension." Again, under the head of manners, we were
warned, " not to consider romping as indicative of sprightliness,
or loud laughter a mark of wit."
The scene every Saturday morning, when these rules were
read to a set of young people on whom the mountain air acted
like champagne, and among whom both romping and loud
laughter were fearfully prevalent, was sufficiently edifying.
There was also a system of marks, quite complicated, by which
our departure from any of these virtuous proprieties was indi-
cated. After a while, however, the reciting of these rules, like
the reading of the Ten Commandments in churches, and a great
deal of other good substantial reading, came to be looked upon
only as a Saturday morning decorum, and the Johnsonian
periods, which we all knew by heart, were principally useful in
pointing a joke. Nevertheless, we were not a badly behaved set
of young people.
Miss Titcomb exercised a general supervision over the man-
ners, morals, and health of the young ladies connected with the
institution, taught history and geography, and also gave especial
attention to female accomplishments. These, so far as I could
observe, consisted largely in embroidering mourning pieces, with
a family monument in the centre, a green ground worked in
chenille and floss silk, with an exuberant willow-tree, and a
number of weeping mourners, whose faces were often concealed
by flowing pocket-handkerchiefs.
Pastoral pieces were also in great favor, representing fair
young shepherdesses sitting on green chenille banks, with crooks
in their hands, and tending some animals of an uncertain de-
scription, which were to be received by faith as sheep. The
sweet, confiding innocence which regarded the making of objects
like these as more suited to the tender female character than
the pursuit of Latin and mathematics, was characteristic of the
ancient regime. Did not Penelope embroider, and all sorts of
princesses, ancient and modern ? and was not embroidery a true
feminine grace? Even Esther Avery, though she found no
time for works of this kind, looked upon it with respect, as
424 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
an accomplishment for which nature unfortunately had not given
her a taste.
Mr. Rossiter, although he of course would not infringe on the
kingdom of his female associate, treated these accomplishments
with a scarce concealed contempt. It was, perhaps, the frosty
atmosphere of scepticism which he breathed about him touching
those works of art, that prevented his favorite scholars from going
far in the direction of such accomplishments. The fact is, that
Mr. Rossiter, during the sailor period of his life, had been to
the Mediterranean, had seen the churches of Spain and Italy,
and knew what Murillos and Titians were like, which may
account somewhat for the glances of civil amusement which he
sometimes cast over into Miss Titcomb's department, when the
adjuncts and accessories of a family tombstone were being eagerly
discussed.
Mr. Jonathan Rossiter held us all by the sheer force of his
personal character and will, just as the ancient mariner held the
wedding guest with his glittering eye. He so utterly scorned
and contemned a lazy scholar, that trifling and inefficiency in
study were scorched and withered by the very breath of his nos-
trils. We were so awfully afraid of his opinion, we so hoped for
his good word and so dreaded his contempt, and we so verily be-
lieved that no such man ever walked this earth, that he had
only to shake his ambrosial locks and give the nod, to settle us
all as to any matter whatever.
In an age when in England schools were managed by the
grossest and most brutal exercise of corporal punishment, the
schoolmasters of New England, to a great extent, had entirely
dropped all resort to such barbarous measures, and carried on
their schools as republics, by the sheer force of moral and intel-
lectual influences. Mr. Jonathan Rossiter would have been
ashamed of himself at even the suggestion of caning a boy,
as if he were incapable of any higher style of government.
And yet never was a man more feared and his will had in
more awful regard. Mr. Rossiter was sparing of praise, but his
praise bore a value in proportion to its scarcity. It was like
diamonds and rubies, few could have it, but the whole of his
little commonwealth were working for it.
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 425
He scorned all conventional rules in teaching, and he would
not tolerate a mechanical lesson, and took delight in puzzling
his pupils and breaking up all routine business by startling and
unexpected questions and assertions. He compelled every one
to think, and to think for himself. "Your heads may not be
the best in the world," was one of his sharp, off-hand sayings,
" but they are the best God has given you, and you must use
them for yourselves."
To tell the truth, he used his teaching somewhat as a mental
gratification for himself. If there was a subject he wanted to in-
vestigate, or an old Greek or Latin author that he wanted to dig
out, he would put a class on it, without the least regard to
whether it was in the course of college preparation or not, and
if a word was said by any poor mechanical body, he would blast
out upon him with a sort of despotic scorn.
" Learn to read Greek perfectly," he said, " and it 's no matter
what you read"; or, "Learn to use your own heads, and you
can learn anything."
There was little idling and no shirking in his school, but a
slow, dull, industrious fellow, if he showed a disposition to work
steadily, got more notice from him than even a bright one.
Mr. Eossiter kept house by himself in a small cottage adjoin-
ing that of the minister. His housekeeper, Miss Minerva Ran-
dall, generally known to the village as " Miss Nervy Randall,"
was one of those preternaturally well-informed old mermaids
who, so far as I know, are a peculiar product of the State of
Maine. Study and work had been the two passions of her life,
and in neither could she be excelled by man or woman. Single-
handed, and without a servant, she performed all the labors of
Mr. Jonathan Rossiter's little establishment. She washed for
him, ironed for him, plaited his ruffled shirts in neatest folds,
brushed his clothes, cooked his food, occasionally hoed in the
garden, trained flowers around the house, and found, also, time
to read Greek and Latin authors, and to work out problems in
mathematics and surveying and navigation, and to take charge
of boys in reading Virgil.
Miss Minerva Randall was one of those female persons who
426 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
are of Sojourner Truth's opinion, that if women want any
rights they had better take them, and say nothing- about it. Her
sex had never occurred to her as a reason for doing or not do-
ing anything which her hand found to do. In the earlier part
of her life, for the mere love of roving and improving her mind
by seeing foreign countries, she had gone on a Mediterranean
voyage with her brother Zachariah Randall, who was wont to
say of her that she was a better mate than any man he could
find. And true efiough, when he was confined to his berth with
a fever, Miss Minerva not only nursed him, but navigated the ship
home in the most matter of-fact way in the world. She had no
fol-de-rol about woman's rights, but she was always wide-awake
to perceive when a thing was to be done, and to do it. Nor
did she ever after in her life talk of this exploit as a thing to be
boasted of, seeming to regard it as a matter too simple, and
entirely in the natural course of things, to be mentioned. Miss
Minerva, however, had not enough of the external illusive charms
of her sex, to suggest to a casual spectator any doubt on that
score of the propriety of her doing or not doing anything.
Although she had not precisely the air of a man, she had very
little of what usually suggests the associations of femininity.
There was a sort of fishy quaintness about her that awakened
grim ideas of some unknown ocean product, a wild and with-
ered appearance, like a wind-blown juniper on a sea promon-
tory, unsightly and stunted, yet not, after all, commonplace or
vulgar. She was short, square, and broad, and the circumference
of her waist was if anything greater where that of other females
decreases. "What the color of her hair might have been in days
of youthful bloom was not apparent; but she had, when we
knew her, thin tresses of a pepper-and-salt mixture of tint,
combed tightly, and twisted in a very small nut on the back of
her head, and fastened with a reddish-yellowish horn comb. Her
small black eyes were overhung by a grizzled thicket of the
same mixed color as her hair. For the graces of the toilet, Miss
Nervy had no particular esteem. Her clothing and her person,
as well as her housekeeping and belongings, were of a scrupulous
and wholesome neatness ; but the idea of any other beauty than
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. ' 427
that of utility had never suggested itself to her mind. She wore
always a stuff petticoat of her own spinning, with a striped linen
short gown, and probably in all her life never expended twenty
dollars a year for clothing ; and yet Miss Nervy was about the
happiest female person whose acquaintance it has ever been my
fortune to make. She had just as much as she wanted of exact-
ly the two things she liked best in the world, books and work,
and when her work was done, there were the books, and lifa
could give no more. Miss Nervy had no sentiment, not a
particle of romance, she was the most perfectly contented
mortal that could possibly be imagined. As to station and posi-
tion, she was as well known and highly respected in Cloudland
as the schoolmaster himself: she was one of the fixed facts of the
town, as much as the meeting-house. Days came and went, and
spring flowers and autumn leaves succeeded each other, and boys
and girls, like the spring flowers and autumn leaves, came and
went in Cloudland Academy, but there was always Miss Nervy
Randall, not a bit older, not a bit changed, doing her spin-
ning and her herb-drying, working over her butter and plaiting
Mr. Jonathan's ruffled shirts and teaching her Virgil class. What
gave a piquancy to Miss Nervy's discourse was, that she always
clung persistently to the racy Yankee dialect of her childhood,
and when she was discoursing of Latin and the classics the
idioms made a droll mixture. She was the most invariably good-
nutured of mortals, and helpful to the last degree ; and she would
always stop her kitchen work, take her hands out of the bread,
or turn away from her yeast in a critical moment, to show a
puzzled boy the way through a hard Latin sentence.
" Why, don't you know what that 'ere is ? " she would say.
" That 'ere is part of the gerund in dum ; you 've got to decline
it, and then you '11 find it. Look here ! " she 'd say ; " run that
'ere through the moods an' tenses, and ye '11 git it in the sub-
junctive"; or, " Massy, child ! that 'ere is one o' the deponent
verbs. 'T ain't got any active form ; them deponent verbs allus
does trouble boys till they git used to 'em."
Now these provincialisms might have excited the risibles of so
keen a set of grammarians as we were, only that Miss Randall
428 ' OLDTOWN FOLKS.
was a dead shot in any case of difficulty presented by the learned
languages. No matter how her English phrased it, she had
taught so many boys that she knew every hard rub and difficult
stepping-stone and tight place in the Latin grammar by heart,
and had relief at her tongue's end for any distressed beginner.
In the cottage over which Miss Randall presided, Harry and
I had our room, and we were boarded at the master's table ; and
so far we were fortunate. Our apartment, which was a roof-
room of a gambrel-roofed cottage, was, to be sure, unplastered
and carpetless ; but it looked out through the boughs of a great
apple-tree, up a most bewildering blue vista of mountains, whence
the sight of a sunset was something forever to be remembered.
All our physical appointments, though rustically plain, were kept
by Miss Nervy in the utmost perfection of neatness. She had
as great a passion for soap and sand as she had for Greek roots,
and probably for the same reason. These wild sea-coast coun-
tries seemed to produce a sort of superfluity of energy which
longed to wreak itself on something, and delighted in digging
and delving mentally as well as physically.
Our table had a pastoral perfection in the articles of bread and
butter, with honey furnished by Miss Minerva's bees, and game
and fish brought in by the united woodcraft of the minister and
Mr. Rossiter.
Mr. Rossiter pursued all the natural sciences with an industry
and enthusiasm only possible to a man who lives in so lonely and
retired a place as Cloudland, and who has, therefore, none of the
thousand dissipations of time resulting from our modern sys-
tem of intercommunication, which is fast producing a state of
shallow and superficial knowledge. He had a ponderous herba-
rium, of some forty or fifty folios, of his own collection and ar-
rangement, over which he gloated with affectionate pride. He
had a fine mineralogical cabinet ; and there was scarcely a ledge
of rocks within a circuit of twelve miles that had not resounded
to the tap of his stone hammer and furnished specimens for
his collection; and he had an entomologic collection, where
luckless bugs impaled on steel pins stuck in thin sheets of
cork struggled away a melancholy existence, martyrs to the
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 429
taste for science. The tender-hearted among us sometimes
ventured a remonstrance in favor of these hapless beetles, but
were silenced by the authoritative dictum of Mr. Rossiter. " In-
sects," he declared, "are unsusceptible of pain, the structure
of their nervous organization forbidding the idea, and their spas-
modic action being simply nervous contraction." As nobody
has ever been inside of a beetle to certify to the contrary, and as
the race have no mode of communication, we all found it com-
fortable to put implicit faith in Mr. Rossiter's statements till
better advised.
It was among the awe-inspiring legends that were current of
Mr. Rossiter in the school, that he corresponded with learned men
in Norway and Sweden, Switzerland and France, to whom he
sent specimens of American plants and minerals and insects, re-
ceiving in return those of other countries. Even in that remote
day, little New England had her eyes and her thoughts and her
hands everywhere where ship could sail.
Mr. Rossiter dearly loved to talk and to teach, and out of
school-hours it was his delight to sit surrounded by his disciples,
to answer their questions, and show them his herbarium and his
cabinet, to organize woodland tramps, and to start us on re-
searches similar to his own. It was fashionable in his school to
have private herbariums and cabinets, and before a month was
passed our garret-room began to look quite like a grotto. In
short, Mr. Rossiter's system resembled that of those gardeners
who, instead of bending all their energies toward making a hand-
some head to a young tree, encourage it to burst out in suckers
clear down to the root, bringing every part of it into vigorous life
and circulation.
I still remember the blessed old fellow, as he used to sit
among us on the steps of his house, in some of those resplendent
moonlight nights which used to light up Cloudland like a fairy
dream. There he still sits, in memory, with his court around
him, Esther, with the thoughtful shadows in her eyes and the
pensive Psyche profile, and Tina, ever restless, changing, enthu-
siastic, Harry with his sly, reticent humor and silent enjoy-
ment, anfl he, our master, talking of everything under the sun,
430 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
past, present, and to come, of the cathedrals and pictures of
Europe, describing those he had not seen apparently with as
minute a knowledge as those he had, of plants and animals,
of the ancients and the moderns, of theology, metaphysics,
grammar, rhetoric, or whatever came uppermost, always full
and suggestive, startling us with paradoxes, provoking us to argu-
ments, setting us out to run eager tilts of discussion with him, yet
in all holding us in a state of unmeasured admiration. Was he
conscious, our great m,an and master, of that weakness of his
nature which made an audience, and an admiring one, always a
necessity to him ? Of a soul naturally self-distrustful and melan-
choly, he needed to be constantly reinforced and built up in his
own esteem by the suffrage of others. What seemed the most
trenchant self-assertion in him was, after all, only the desperate
struggles of a drowning man to keep his head above water;
and, though he seemed at times to despise us all, our good
opinion, our worship and reverence, were the raft that kept him
from sinking in despair.
.The first few weeks that Tina was in school, it was evident
that Mr. Rossiter considered her as a spoiled child of fortune,
whom the world had conspired to injure by over-much petting.
He appeared resolved at once to change the atmosphere and
the diet. For some time in school it seemed as if she could do
nothing to please him. He seemed determined to put her through
a sort of Spartan drill, with hard work and small praise.
Tina had received from nature and womanhood that inspira-
tion in dress and toilet attraction which led her always and in-
stinctively to some little form of personal adornment. Every
wild spray or fluttering vine in our woodland rambles seemed to
suggest to her some caprice of ornamentation. Each day she
had some new thing in her hair, now a feathery fern-leaf, and
anon some wild red berry, whose presence just where she placed
it was as picturesque as a French lithograph ; and we boys were
in the habit of looking each day to see what she would wear next.
One morning she came into school, fair as Ariadne, with her
viny golden curls rippling over and around a crown of laurel-
blossoms. She seemed to us like a little woodland pdfeni. We
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAXD. 431
all looked at her, and complimented her, and she received our
compliments, as she always did coin of that sort, with the most
undisguised and radiant satisfaction. Mr. Rossiter was in one of
his most savage humors this morning, and eyed the pretty toilet
grimly. " If you had only an equal talent for ornamenting the
inside of your head," he said to her, " there might be some hopes
of you."
Tears of mortification came into Tina's eyes, as she dashed the
offending laurel-blossoms out of the window, and bent resolutely
over her book. At recess-time she strolled out with me into the
pine woods back of the BChool-heDte, and we sat down on a mossy
log together, and I comforted her and took her part.
" I don't care, Horace," she said, "I don't care ! " and she
dashed the tears out of her eyes. " I '11 mate that man like me
yet, you see if I don't. He shall like me before I 'm done with
him, so there ! I don't care how much he scolds. I '11 give in to
him, and do exactly as he tells me, but I '11 conquer hirn, you
see if I don't."
And true enough Miss Tina from this time brushed her curly
hair straight as such rebellious curls possibly could be brushed,
and dressed herself as plainly as Esther, and went at study as if
her life depended on it. She took all Mr. Rossiter's snubs and
despiteful sayings with the most prostrate humility, and now we
began to learn, to our astonishment, what a mind the little crea-
ture had. In all my experience of human beings, I never saw
one who learned so easily as she. It was but a week or two
after she began the Latin grammar before, jumping over all the
intermediate books, she alighted in a class in Virgil among schol-
ars who had been studying for a year, and kept up with them,
and in some respects stood clearly as the first scholar. The vim
with which the little puss went at it, the zeal with which she turned
over the big dictionary and whirled the leaves of the grammar,
the almost inspiration which she showed in seizing the poetical
shading of words over which her more prosaic companions
blundered, were matters of never-ending astonishment and admi-
ration to Harry and myself. At the end of the first week she
gravely announced to us that she intended to render Virgil into
432 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
English verse ; and we had not the smallest doubt that she
would do it, and were so immensely wrought up about it that we
talked of it after we went to bed that night. Tina, in fact, had
produced quite a clever translation of the first ten lines of
" Arma virumque," &c. and we wondered what Mr. Rossiter would
say to it. One of us stepped in and laid it on his writing-desk.
" Which of you boys did this ? " he said the next morning, in
not a disapproving tone.
There was a pause, and he slowly read the lines aloud.
" Pretty fair ! " he said, " pretty fair ! I should n't be sur-
prised if that boy should be able to write English one of these
days."
" If you please, sir," said I, " it 's Miss Tina Percival that
wrote that."
Tina's cheeks were red enough as he handed her back her
poetry.
" Not bad," he said, " not bad ; keep on as you 've begun,
and you may come to something yet."
This scanty measure of approbation was interpreted as high
praise, and we complimented Tina on her success. The project
of making a poetical translation of Virgil, however, was not car-
ried out, though every now and then she gave us little jets and
spurts, which kept up our courage.
Bless me, how we did study everything in that school ! Eng-
lish grammar, for instance. The whole school was divided into
a certain number of classes, each under a leader, and at the close
of every term came on a great examination, which was like a
tournament or passage at arms in matters of the English lan-
guage. To beat in this great contest of knowledge was what
excited all our energies. Mr. Rossiter searched out the most
difficult specimens of English literature for us to parse, and
we were given to understand that he was laying up all the most
abstruse problems of grammar to propound to us. All that
might be raked out from the coarse print and the fine print of
grammar was to be brought to bear on us ; and the division that
knew the most the division that could not be puzzled by any
subtlety, that had anticipated every possible question, and was
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 433
prepared' with an answer would be the victorious division, and
would be crowned with laurels as glorious in our eyes as those of
the old Olympic games. For a week we talked, spoke, and
dreamed of nothing but English grammar. Each division sat'in
solemn, mysterious conclave, afraid lest one of its mighty secrets
of wisdom should possibly take wing and be plundered by some
of the outlying scouts of another division.
We had for a subject Satan's address to the sun, in Milton,
which in our private counsels we tore limb from limb with as
little remorse as the anatomist dissects a once lovely human body.
The town doctor was a noted linguist and grammarian, and his
son was contended for by all the divisions, as supposed to have
access to the fountain of his father's wisdom on these subjects ;
and we were so happy in the balloting as to secure him for our
side. Esther was our leader, and we were all in the same divis-
ion, and our excitement was indescribable. We had also to man-
age a quotation from Otway, which I remember contained the
clause, " Were the world on fire." To parse " on fire " was a
problem which kept the eyes of the whole school waking. Each
division had its theory, of which it spoke mysteriously in the
presence of outsiders ; but we had George Norton, and George
had been in solemn consultation with Dr. Norton. Never shall I
forget the excitement as he came rushing up to our house at nine
o'clock at night with the last results of his father's analysis. We
shut the doors and shut the windows, for who knew what of
the enemy might be listening? and gathered breathlessly
around him, while in a low, mysterious voice he unfolded to us
how to parse "on fire." At that moment George Norton en-
joyed the full pleasure of being a distinguished individual, if he
never did before or after.
Mr. Rossiter all this while was like the Egyptian Sphinx, per-
fectly unfathomable, and severely resolved to sift and test us to
the utmost.
Ah, well ! to think of the glories of the day when our divis-
ion beat ! for we did beat. We ran along neck and neck with
Ben Baldwin's division, for Ben was an accomplished gramma-
rian, and had picked up one or two recondite pieces of informa-
19 BB
434 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
tion wherewith he threatened for a time to turn our flank, but
the fortunes of the field were reversed when it came to the
phrase " on fire," and our success was complete and glorious. It
was well to have this conflict over, for I don't believe that Tina
slept one night that week without dreams of particles and prep-
ositions, Tina, who was as full of the enthusiasm of everything
, that was going on as a flossy evening cloud is of light, and to
whose health I really do believe a defeat might have caused a
serious injury.
Never shall I forget Esther, radiant, grave, and resolved, as
she sat in the midst of her division through all the fluctuations
of the contest. A little bright spot had come in each of her
usually pale cheeks, and her eyes glowed with a fervor which
showed that she had it in her to have defended a fortress, or
served a cannon, like the Maid of Saragossa. We could not
have felt more if our division had been our country and she
had led us in triumph through a battle.
Besides grammar, we gave great attention to rhetoric. We
studied Dr. Blair with the same kind of thoroughness with which
we studied the English grammar. Every week a division of
the school was appointed to write compositions ; but there was,
besides, a call for volunteers, and Mr. Rossiter had a smile of
approbation for those who volunteered to write every week ; and
so we were always among that number.
It was remarkable that the very best writers, as a general
thing, were among the female part of the school. There were
several young men, of nineteen and twenty years of age, whose
education had been retarded by the necessity of earning for them
selves the money which was to support them while preparing
for college. They were not boys, they were men, and, generally
speaking, men of fine minds and fine characters. Some of them
have since risen to distinction, and acted leading parts at Wash
ington. But, for all that, the best writers of the school, as I have
before said, were the girls. Nor was the standard of writing
low : Mr. Rossiter had the most withering scorn for ordinary sen-
timental nonsense and school-girl platitudes. If a bit of weakly
poetry got running among the scholars, he was sure to come
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 435
down upon it with such an absurd parody that nobody could ever
recall it again without a laugh.
We wrote on such subjects as "The Difference between the
Natural and Moral Sublime," " The Comparative Merits of Mil-
ton and Shakespeare," " The Comparative Merits of the Athe-
nian and Lacedaemonian Systems of Education." Sometimes,
also, we wrote criticisms. If, perchance, the master picked up
some verbose Fourth of July oration, or some sophomorical news-
paper declamation, he delivered it over to our tender mercies
with as little remorse as a huntsman feels in throwing a dead
fox to the dogs. Hard was the fate of any such composition
thrown out to us. With what infinite zeal we attacked it ! how
we riddled and shook it ! how we scoffed, and sneered, and jeered
at it ! how we exposed its limping metaphors, and hung up in
triumph its deficient grammar ! Such a sharp set of critics
we became that our compositions, read to each other, went
through something of an ordeal.
Tina, Harry, Esther, and I were a private composition club.
Many an hour have we sat in the old school-room long after all
the other scholars had gone, talking to one another of our literary
schemes. We planned poems and tragedies; we planned ro-
mances that would have taken many volumes to write out ; we
planned arguments and discussions ; we gravely criticised each
other's style, and read morsels of projected compositions to one
another.
It was characteristic of the simple, earnest fearlessness of those
times in regard to all matters of opinion, that the hardest theo-
logical problems were sometimes given out as composition sub-
jects, and we four children not unfrequently sat perched on the
old high benches of the school-room during the fading twilight
hours, and, like Milton's fallen angels,
" Reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate ;
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, ....
Of happiness and final misery."
Esther, Harry, and I were reading the " Prometheus Bound '
with Mr. Rossiter. It was one of his literary diversions, into
436 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
which he carried us ; and the Calvinism of the old Greek trage-
dian mingling with the Calvinism of the pulpit and of modern
New England life, formed a curious admixture in our thoughts.
Tina insisted on reading this with us, just as of old she in-
sisted on being carried in a lady chair over to our woodland study
in the island. She had begun Greek with great zeal under Mr.
Rossiter, but of course was in no situation to venture upon any
such heights ; but she insisted upon always being with us when
we were digging out our lesson, and in fact, when we were talk-
ing over doubtfully the meaning of a passage, would irradiate it
with such a flood of happy conjecture as ought to have softened
the stern facts of moods and tenses, and made itself the meaning.
She rendered sonou parts of it into verse much better than any
of us could have done it, and her versifications, laid on Mr. Ros-
siter's desk, called out a commendation that was no small triumph
to her.
" My forte lies in picking knowledge out of other folks and
using it," said Tina, joyously. " Out of the least bit of ore that
you dig up, I can make no end of gold-leaf ! " O Tina, Tina,
you never spoke a truer word, and while you were with us you
made everything glitter with your " no end of gold-leaf."
It may seem to some impossible that, at so early an age as
ours, our minds should have striven with subjects such as have
been indicated here ; but let it be remembered that these prob-
lems are to every human individual a part of an unknown tragedy
in which he is to play the role either of the conqueror or the
victim. A ritualistic church, which places all souls under the
guardianship of a priesthood, of course shuts all these doors of
discussion so far as the individual is concerned. " The Church "
is a great ship, where you have only to buy your ticket and pay
for it, and the rest is none of your concern. But the New Eng-
land system, as taught at this time, put on every human being
the necessity of crossing the shoreless ocean alone on his own
raft; and many a New England child of ten or twelve years of
age, or even younger, has trembled at the possibilities of final
election or reprobation.
I remember well that at one time the composition subject
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAND. 437
given out at school was, " Can the Benevolence of the Deity
be proved by the Light of Nature ? " Mr. Rossiter generally
gave out the subject, and discussed it with the school in an
animated conversation, stirring up all the thinking matter that
there was among us by vigorous questions, and by arguing
before us first on one side and then on the other, until our
minds were strongly excited about it ; and, when he had wrought
up the whole school to an intense interest, he called for volun-
teers to write on either side. Many of these compositions were
full of vigor and thought ; two of those on the above-mentioned
subject were very striking. Harry took the affirmative ground,
and gave a statement of the argument, so lucid, and in language
so beautiful, that it has remained fixed in my mind like a gem
ever since. It was the statement of a nature harmonious and
confiding, naturally prone to faith in goodness, harmonizing and
presenting all those evidences of tenderness, mercy, and thought-
ful care which are furnished in the workings of natural laws.
The other composition was by Esther ; it was on the other and
darker side of the subject, and as perfect a match for it as the
u Penseroso " to the " Allegro." It was condensed and logical,
fearfully vigorous in conception and expression, and altogether a
very melancholy piece of literature to have been conceived and
written by a girl of her age. It spoke of that fearful law of ex-
istence by which the sins of parents who often themselves escape
punishment are visited on the heads of innocent children, as a
law which seems made specifically to protect and continue the
existence of vice and disorder from generation to generation.
It spoke of the apparent injustice of an arrangement by which
human beings, in the very outset of their career in life, often
inherit almost uncontrollable propensities to evil. The sorrows,
the perplexities, the unregarded wants and aspirations, over
which the unsympathetic laws of nature cut their way regard-
less of quivering nerve or muscle, were all bitterly dwelt upon.
The sufferings of dumb animals, and of helpless infant children,
apparently so useless and so needless, and certainly so unde-
served, were also energetically mentioned. There was a bitter
intensity in the style" that was most painful. In short, the two
438 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
compositions were two perfect pictures of the world and life as
they appear to two classes of minds. I remember looking at
Esther while her composition was read, and being struck with
the expression of her face, so pale, so calm, so almost hope-
less, its expression was very like despair. I remember that
Harry noticed it as well as I, and when school was over he
took a long and lonely ramble with her, and from that time a
nearer intimacy arose between them.
Esther was one of those intense, silent, repressed women
that have been a frequent outgrowth of New England society.
Moral traits, like physical ones, often intensify themselves in
course of descent, so that the child of a long line of pious ances-
try may sometimes suffer from too fine a moral fibre, and become
a victim to a species of morbid spiritual ideality.
Esther looked to me, from the first, less like a warm, breath-
ing, impulsive woman, less like ordinary flesh and blood, than
some half-spiritual organization, every particle of which was a
thought.
Old Dr. Donne says of such a woman, " One might almost say
her body thought " ; and it often came in my mind when I
watched the movements of intense yet repressed intellect and
emotion in Esther's face.
With many New England women at this particular period,
when life was so retired and so cut off from outward sources of
excitement, thinking grew to be a disease. The great subject
of thought was, of course, theology ; and woman's nature has
never been consulted in theology. Theologic systems, as to the
expression of their great body of ideas, have, as yet, been
the work of man alone. They have had their origin, as in
St. Augustine, with men who were utterly ignorant of moral and
intellectual companionship with woman, looking on her only in
her animal nature as a temptation and a snare. Consequently,
when, as in this period of New England, the theology of
Augustine began to be freely discussed by every individual
in society, it was the women who found it hardest to tolerate or
to assimilate it, and many a delicate and sensitive nature was
utterly wrecked in the struggle.
SCHOOL-LIFE IN CLOUDLAXD. 439
Plato says somewhere that the only perfect human thinker
and philosopher who will ever arise will be the MAN-WOMAN, or
a human being who unites perfectly the nature of the two sexes.
It was Esther's misfortune to have, to a certain degree, this
very conformation. From a long line of reasoning, thinking,
intellectual ancestry she had inherited all the strong logical facul-
ties, and the tastes and inclinations for purely intellectual modes
of viewing things, which are supposed to be more particularly
the characteristic of man. From a line of saintly and tender
women, half refined to angel in their nature, she had inherited
exquisite moral perceptions, and all that flattering host of tremu-
lous, half-spiritual, half-sensuous intuitions that lie in the border-
land between . the pure intellect and the animal nature. The
consequence of all this was the internal strife of a divided na-
ture. Her heart was always rebelling against the conclusions
of her head. She was constantly being forced by one half of her
nature to movements, inquiries, and reasonings which brought
only torture to the other half.
Esther had no capacity for illusions ; and in this respect her
constitution was an unfortunate one.
Tina, for example, was one of those happily organized human
beings in whom an intellectual proposition, fully assented to,
might lie all her life dormant as the wheat-seed which remained
thousands of years ungerminate in the wrappings of a mummy.
She thought only of what she liked to think of; and a disagree-
able or painful truth in her mind dropped at once out of sight,
it sank into the ground and roses grew over it.
Esther never could have made one of those clinging, submis-
sive, parasitical wives who form the delight of song and story, and
are supposed to be the peculiar gems of womanhood. It was her
nature always to be obliged to see her friends clearly* through
the understanding, and to judge them by a refined and exquisite
conscientiousness. A spot or stain on the honor of the most
beloved could never have become invisible to her. She had none
of that soft, blinding, social aura, that blending, blue haze,
such as softens the sharp outlines of an Italian landscape, and in
life changes the hardness of reality into illusive and charming
440 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
possibilities. Her clear, piercing hazel eyes seemed to pass
over everything with a determination to know only and exactly
the truth, hard and cold and unwelcome though it might be.
Yet there is no doubt that the warm, sunny, showery, rain-
bow nature of Tina acted as a constant and favorable alterative
upon her. It was a daily living poem acting on the unused
poetical and imaginative part of her own nature ; for Esther had
a suppressed vigor of imagination, and a passionate capability
of emotion, stronger and more intense than that of Tina herself.
I remarked this to Harry, as we were talking about them one
day. " Both have poetical natures," I said ; " both are intense ;
but how different they are ! "
" Yes," said Harry, " Tina's is electricity, and that snaps
and sparkles and flashes ; Esther's is galvanism, that comes in
long, intense waves, and shakes arid convulses ; she both thinks
and feels too much on all subjects."
" That was a very strange composition," I said.
" It is an unwholesome course of thought," said Harry, after
thinking for a few moments with his head on his hands ; " none
but bitter berries grow on those bushes."
" But the reasoning was very striking," said I.
" Reasoning ! " said Harry, impatiently ; " we must trust the
intuition of our hearts above reason. That is what I am trying
to persuade Esther to do. To me it is an absolute demonstra-
tion, that God never could make a creature who would be better
than himself. We must look at the noblest, best human beings.
"We must see what generosity, what tenderness, what magnanim-
ity can be in man and woman, and believe all that and more in
God. All that there is in the best fathers and best mothers
must be in him."
" But the world's history does not look like this, as Mr. Rossi-
ter was saying."
"We have not seen the world's history yet," said Harry.
" What does this green aphide, crawling over this leaf, know of
the universe ? "
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 441
CHAPTER XXXIV.
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND.
THE picture of our life in Cloudland, and of the developing
forces which were there brought to bear upon us, would be
incomplete without the portrait of the minister.
Even during the course of my youth, the principles of demo-
cratic equality introduced and maintained in the American Rev-
olution were greatly changing the social position and standing
of the clergy. Ministers like Dr. Lothrop, noble men of the
theocracy, men of the cocked hat, were beginning to pass away,
or to appear among men only as venerable antiquities, and the
present order of American citizen clergy was coming in.
Mr. Avery was a cheerful, busy, manly man, who posed himself
among men as a companion and fellow-citizen, whose word on
any subject was to go only so far as its own weight and momen-
tum should carry it. His preaching was a striking contrast to
the elegant Addisonian essays of Parson Lothrop. It was a
vehement address to our intelligent and reasoning powers, an
address made telling by a back force of burning enthusiasm.
Mr. Avery preached a vigorous system of mental philosophy in
theology, which made our Sundays, on the whole, about as intense
an intellectual drill as any of our week-days. If I could de-
scribe its character by any one word, I should call it manly
preaching.
Every person has a key-note to his mind which determines all
its various harmonies. The key-note of Mr. Avery's mind was
" the free agency of man." Free agency was with him the uni-
versal solvent, the philosopher's stone in theology ; every line of
his sermons said to every human being, " You are free, and you
are able." And the great object was to intensify to its highest
point, in every human being, the sense of individual, personal
responsibility.
19*
442 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Of course, as a Calvinist, he found food for abundant discourse
in reconciling this absolute freedom of man with those declara-
tions in the standards of the Church which assert the absolute
government of God over all his creatures and all their actions.
But the cheerfulness and vigor with which he drove and inter-
preted and hammered in the most contradictory statements, when
they came in the way of his favorite ideas, was really quite
inspiring.
During the year we had a whole course of systematic theology,
beginning with the history of the introduction of moral evil, the
fall of the angels, and the consequent fall of man and the work
of redemption resulting therefrom. In the treatment of all these
subjects, the theology and imagery of Milton figured so largely
that one might receive the impression that Paradise Lost was
part of the sacred canon.
Mr. Avery not only preached these things in the pulpit, but
talked them out in his daily life. His system of theology was to
him the vital breath of his being. His mind was always running
upon it, and all nature was, in his sight, giving dailytributary
illustrations to it. In his farming, gardening, hunting, or fishing,
he was constantly finding new and graphic forms of presenting
his favorite truths. The most abstract subject ceased to be
abstract in his treatment of it, but became clothed upon with the
homely, every-day similes of common life.
I have the image of the dear good man now, as I have seen
him, seated on a hay-cart, mending a hoe-handle, and at the same
moment vehemently explaining to an inquiring brother minister
the exact way that Satan first came to fall, as illustrating how a
perfectly holy mind can be tempted to sin. The familiarity that
he showed with the celestial arcana, the zeal with which he
vindicated his Maker, the perfect knowledge that he seemed to
have of the strategic plans of the evil powers in the first great
insurrection, are traits strongly impressed on my memory.
They seemed as vivid and as much a matter of course to his
mind as if he had read them out of a weekly newspaper.
Mr. Avery indulged the fond supposition that he had solved
the great problem of the origin of evil in a perfectly satisfactory
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 443
manner. He was fond of the Socratic method, and would clench
his reasoning in a series of questions, thus :
" Has not God power to make any kind of thing he pleases ? "
" Yes."
" Then he can make a kind of being incapable of being gov-
erned except by motive ? "
"Yes."
" Then, when he has made that kind of being, he cannot gov-
ern them except by motive, can he ?"
"No."
" Now if there is no motive in existence strong enough to
govern them by, he cannot keep them from falling, can he ? "
"No."
"You see then the necessity of moral evil: there must be
experience of evil to work out motive."
The Calvinism of Mr. Avery, though sharp and well defined,
was not dull, as abstractions often are, nor gloomy and fateful
like that of Dr. Stern. It was permeated through and through
by cheerfulness and hope.
Mr. Avery was one of the kind of men who have a passion
for saving souls. If there is such a thing as apostolic succession,
this passion is what it ought to consist in. It is what ought to
come with the laying on of hands, if the laying on of hands is
what it is sometimes claimed to be.
Mr. Avery was a firm believer in hell, but he believed also
that nobody need go there, and he was determined, so far as he
was concerned, that nobody should go there if he could help it.
Such a tragedy as the loss of any one soul in his parish he
could not and would not contemplate for a moment ; and he had
such a firm belief in the truths he preached, that he verily ex-
pected with them to save anybody that would listen to him.
Goethe says, " Blessed is the man who believes that he has an
idea by which he may help his fellow-creatures." Mr. Avery
was exactly that man. He had such faith in what he preached
that he would have gone with it to Satan himself, could he have
secured a dispassionate and unemployed hour, with a hope of
bringing him round.
444 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Generous and ardent in his social sympathies, Mr. Avery never
could be brought to believe that any particular human being
had finally perished. At every funeral he attended he con-
trived to see a ground for hope that the departed had found
mercy. Even the slightest hints~of repentance were magnified in
his warm and hopeful mode of presentation. He has been known
to suggest to a distracted mother, whose thoughtless boy had
been suddenly killed by a fall from a horse, the possibilities of
the merciful old couplet,
" Between the saddle and the ground,
Mercy was sought, and mercy found."
Like most of the New England ministers, Mr. Avery was a
warm believer in the millennium. This millennium was the favo-
rite recreation ground, solace, and pasture land, where the New
England ministry fed their hopes and courage. Men of large
hearts and warm benevolence, their theology would have filled
them with gloom, were it not for this overplus of joy and peace
to which human society on earth was in their view tending.
Thousands of years, when the poor old earth should produce only
a saintly race of perfected human beings, were to them some com-
pensation for the darkness and losses of the great struggle.
Mr. Avery believed, not only that the millennium was coming,
but that' it was coming fast, and, in fact, was at the door. Every
political and social change announced it. Our Revolution was a
long step towards it, and the French Revolution, now in progress,
was a part of that distress of nations which heralded it; and every
month, when the Columbia Magazine brought in the news from
Europe, Mr. Avery rushed over to Mr. Rossiter, and called him
to come and hear how the thing was going.
Mr. Rossiter took upon himself that right which every free-
born Yankee holds sacred, the right of contravening his minis-
ter. Though, if he caught one of his boys swelling or ruffling
with any opposing doctrine, he would scath and scorch the young-
ster with contemptuous irony, and teach him to comport himself
modestly in talking of his betters, yet it was the employment of
a great many of his leisure hours to run argumentative tilts
against Mr. Avery. Sometimes, when we were sitting in our
OUK MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 445
little garret window digging out the Greek lessons, such a war
of voices and clangor of assertion and contradiction would come
up from among the tassels of the corn, where the two were hoe-
ing together in the garden, as would have alarmed people less
accustomed to the vigorous manners of both the friends.
" Now, Rossiter, that will never do. Your system would upset
moral government entirely. Not an angel could be kept in his
place upon your supposition."
" It is not my supposition. I have n't got any supposition, and
I don't want any ; but I was telling you that, if you must have a
theory of the universe, Origen's was a better one than yours."
" And I say that Origen's system would upset everything, and
you ought to let it alone."
" I sha' n't let it alone ! "
"Why, Rossiter, you will destroy responsibility, and anni-
hilate all the motives of God's government."
" That's just what you theologians always say. You think the
universe will go to pieces if we upset your pine-shingle theology."
" Rossiter, you must be careful how you spread your ideas."
" I don't want to spread my ideas ; I don't want to interfere
with your system. It 's the best thing you can make your
people take, but you ought to know that no system is anything
more than human theory."
"It's eternal truth."
" There 's truth in it, but it is n't eternal truth."
"It's Bible."
" Part, and part Milton and Edwards, and part Mr. Avery."
Harry and I were like adopted sons in both families, and the
two expressed their minds about each other freely before us.
Mr. Avery would say : " The root of the matter is in Rossiter.
I don't doubt that he 's a really regenerate man, but he has a
head that works strangely. We must wait for him, he '11 come
along by and by.".
And Mr. Rossiter would say of Mr. Avery : " That 's a growing
man, boys ; he has n't made his terminal buds yet. Some men
make them quick, like lilac-bushes. They only grow a little way
and stop. And some grow all the season through, like locust-
446 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
trees. Avery is one of that sort : he '11 never be done thinking
and growing, particularly if he has me to fight him on all hands.
He '11 grow into different opinions on a good many subjects,
before he dies."
It was this implied liberty of growth the liberty to think and
to judge freely upon all subjects that formed the great distinc-
tive educational force of New England life, particularly in this
period of my youth. Monarchy, aristocracy, and theocracy, with
their peculiar trains of ideas, were passing away, and we were
coming within the sweep of pure republican influences, in which
the individual is everything. Mr. Avery's enthusiastic preaching
of free agency and personal responsibility was more than an indi-
vidual impulse. It was the voice of a man whose ideas were the
reflection of a period in American history. While New England
theology was made by loyal monarchists, it reflected monarchical
ideas. The rights and immunities of divine sovereignty were its
favorite topics. When, as now, the government was becoming
settled in the hands of the common people, the freedom of the
individual, his absolute power of choice, and the consequent
reasonableness of the duties he owed to the Great Sovereign
Authority, began to be the favorite subjects of the pulpit.
Mr. Avery's preaching was immensely popular. There were
in Cloudland only about half a dozen families of any prestige as
to ancestral standing or previous wealth and cultivation. The
old aristocratic idea was represented only in the one street that
went over Cloudland Hill, where was a series of wide, cool,
roomy, elm-shadowed houses, set back in deep door-yards, and
flanked with stately, well-tended gardens. The doctor, the law-
yer, the sheriff of the county, the schoolmaster, and the minis-
ter, formed here a sort of nucleus ; but outlying in all the hills
and valleys round were the mountain and valley farmers. Their
houses sat on high hills or sunk in deep valleys, and their flam-
ing windows at morning and evening looked through the encir-
cling belts of forest solitudes as if to say, " We are here, and we
are a power." These hard-working farmers formed the body
of Mr. Avery's congregation. Sunday morning, when the little
bell pealed out its note of invitation loud and long over the
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 447
forest-feathered hills, it seemed to evoke a caravan of thrifty,
well-filled farm-wagons, which, punctual as the village-clock
itself, came streaming from the east and west, the north and
south. Past the parsonage they streamed, with the bright cheeks
and fluttering ribbons of the girls, and the cheery, rubicund
faces of children, and with the inevitable yellow dog of the
family faithfully pattering in the rear. The audience that filled
the rude old meeting-house every Sunday would have astonished
the men who only rode through the village of a week-day. For
this set of shrewd, toil-hardened, vigorous, full-blooded republicans
I can think of no preaching more admirably adapted than Mr.
Avery's. It was preaching that was on the move, as their minds
were, and which was slowly shaping out and elaborating those
new forms of doctrinal statement - that inevitably grow out of
new forms of society. Living, as these men did, a lonely,
thoughtful, secluded life, without any of the thousand stimulants
which railroads and magazine and newspaper literature cast
into our existence, their two Sunday sermons were the great
intellectual stimulus which kept their minda bright, and they
were listened to with an intense interest of which the scattered
and diversified state of modern society gives few examples.
They felt the compliment of being talked to as if they were ca-
pable of understanding the v^fj highest of subjects, and they
liked it. Each hard, heroic nature flashed like a flint at the
grand thought of a free agency with which not even their Maker
would interfere. Their Go,d himself asked to reign over them,
not by force, but by the free, voluntary choice of their own
hearts. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve. If the
Lord be God, serve him, and if Baal be God, serve him," was
a grand appeal, fit for freemen.
The reasoning on moral government, on the history of man,
the theories of the universe past, present, and to come,
opened to these men a grand Miltonic poem, in which their own
otherwise commonplace lives shone with a solemn splendor.
Without churches or cathedrals or physical accessories to quicken
their poetic nature, their lives were redeemed only by this poetry
of ideas.
448 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Calvinism is much berated in our days, but let us look at the
political, social, and materialistic progress of Calvinistic countries,
and ask if the world is yet far enough along to dispense with it
altogether. Look at Spain at this hour, and look back at New
England at the time of which I write, both having just fin-
ished a revolution, both feeling their way along the path of na-
tional independence, and compare the Spanish peasantry with
the yeomen of New England, such as made up Mr. Avery's con-
gregation ; the one set made by reasoning, active-minded Cal-
vinism, the other by pictures, statues, incense, architecture, and
all the sentimental paraphernalia of ritualism.
If Spain had had not a single cathedral, if her Murillos had
been all sunk in the sea, and if she had had, for a hundred years
past, a set of schoolmasters and ministers working together as I
have described Mr. Avery and Mr. Rossiter as working, would
not Spain be infinitely better off for this life at least, whether
there is any life to come or not ? This is a point that I humoly
present to the consideration of society.
Harry and I were often taken by Mr. Avery on his preach-
ing tours to the distant farm parishes. There was a brown
school-house in this valley, and a red school-house in that, and
another on the hill, and so on for miles around, and Mr. Avery
kept a constant stream of preaching going in one or other of
these every evening. We liked these expeditions with him, be-
cause they were often excursions amid the wildest and most
romantic of the mountain scenery, and we liked them further-
more because Mr. Avery was a man that made himself, for the
time being, companionable to every creature of human shape
that was with him.
With boys he was a boy, a boy in the vigor of his animal life,
his keen delight in riding, hunting, fishing. With farmers he
was a farmer. Brought up on a farm, familiar during all his
early days with its wholesome toils, he still had a farmer's eye
and a farmer's estimates, and the working-people felt him bone
of their bone, and flesh of their flesh. It used to be a saying
among them, that, when Mr. Avery hoed more than usual in his
potato-field, the Sunday sermon was sure to be better.
OUft MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 449
But the best sport of all was when some of Mr. Avery's
preaching tours would lead up the course of a fine mountain trout-
brook in the vicinity. Then sometimes Mr. Rossiter, Mr. Avery,
Harry, and I would put our supper in our pockets, and start with
the sun an hour or two high, designing to bring up at the red
school-house, as the weekly notice phrased it, at " early candle-
lighting."
A person who should accidentally meet Mr. Avery on one of
these tours, never having seen him before, might imagine him to
be a man who had never thought or dreamed of anything but
catching trout all his days, he went into it with such abandon.
Eye, voice, hand, thought, feeling, all were concentrated on trout.
He seemed to have the quick perception, the rapid hand, and
the noiseless foot of an Indian, and the fish came to his hook as
if drawn there by magic. So perfectly absorbed was he that
wo would be obliged to jog his memory, and, in fact, often to
drag him away by main force, when the hour for the evening
lecture arrived. Then our spoils would be hid away among
the bushes, and with wet feet he would hurry in; but, once
in, he was as completely absorbed in his work of saving sinners
as he had before been in his temporal fishery. He argued,
illustrated, stated, guarded, answered objections, looking the
while from one hard, keen, shrewd face to another, to see if he
was being understood. The phase of Calvinism shown in my
grandmother's blue book had naturally enough sowed through
the minds of a thoughtful community hosts of doubts and queries.
A great part of Mr. Avery's work was to remove these doubts
by substituting more rational statements. It was essential that
he should feel that he had made a hit somewhere, said some-
thing that answered a purpose in the minds of his hearers, and
helped them at least a step or two on their way.
After services were over, I think of him and Mr. Rossiter
cheerily arguing with and contradicting each other a little beyond
us in the road, while Harry and I compared our own notes be-
hind. Arrived at the parsonage, there would be Tina and Es-
ther coming along the street to meet us. Tina full of careless,
open, gay enthusiasm, Esther with a shy and wistful welcome,
CO
450 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
that said far less, and perhaps meant more. Then our treasures
were displayed and exulted over ; the supper-table was laid,
and Mr. Avery, Mr. Rossiter, and we boys applied ourselves to
dressing our fish ; and then Mr. Avery, disdaining Dinah, and,
in fact, all female supervision, presided himself over the frying-
pan, and brought our woodland captives on the table in a state
worthy of a trout brook. It should have comforted the very
soul of a trout taken in our snares to think how much was made
of him, and how perfectly Mr. Avery respected his dignity, and
did him justice in his cookery.
We two boys were in fact domesticated as sons in the family.
Although our boarding-place was with the master, we were al-
most as much with the minister as if we had been of his house-
hold. "We worked in his garden, we came over and sat with
Esther and Tina. Our windows faced their windows, so that in
study hours we could call to one another backward and forward,
and tell where the lesson began, and what the root of the verb
was, or any other message that came into our heads. Some-
times, of a still summer morning, while we were gravely digging
at our lessons, we would hear Esther in tones of expostulation
at some madcap impulse of Tina, and, looking across, would see
her bursting out in some freak of droll pantomimic performance,
and then an immediate whirlwind of gayety would seize us all.
We would drop our dictionaries and grammars, rush together,
and have a general outbreak of jollity.
In general, Tina was a most praiseworthy and zealous student,
and these wild, sudden whisks of gayety seemed only the escape-
valves by which her suppressed spirits vented themselves ; but,
when they came, they were perfectly irresistible. She devoted
herself to Esther with that sympathetic adaptation which seemed
to give her power over every nature. She was interested in her
housekeeping, in all its departments, as if it had been her own
glory and pride ; and Tina was one that took glory and pride in
everything of her friends, as if it had been her own. Esther
had been left by the death of her mother only the year before
the mistress of the parsonage. The great unspoken sorrow of
this loss lay like a dark chasm between her and her father, each
CUE MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 451
striving to hide from the other its depth and coldness by a brave
cheerfulness.
Esther, strong as was her intellectual life, had that intense
sense of the worth of a well-ordered household, and of the dignity
of house-economies, which is characteristic of New England wo-
men. Her conscientiousness pervaded every nook and corner
of her domestic duties with a beautiful perfection ; nor did she
ever feel tempted to think that her fine mental powers were a
reason why these homely details should be considered a slavery.
Household cares are a drudgery only when unpervaded by sen-
timent. When they are an offering of love, a ministry of care
and devotion to the beloved, every detail- has its interest.
There were certain grand festivals of a minister's family which
fill a housekeeper's heart and hands, and in which all of us made
common interest with her. The Association was a reunion when
all the ministers of the county met together and spent a social
day with the minister, dining together, and passing their time in
brotherly converse, such* as reading essays, comparing sermons,
taking counsel with each other in all the varied ups and downs
of their pastoral life. The Consociation was another meeting of
the clergy, but embracing also with each minister a lay delegate,
and thus uniting, not only the ministry, but the laymen of the
county, in a general fraternal religious conference.
The first Association that Esther had to manage quite alone as
sole mistress of the parsonage occurred while we were with her.
Like most solemn festivals of New England, these seasons were
announced under the domestic roof by great preparatory pound-
ings and choppings, by manufacture, on a large scale, of cakes,
pies, and provisions for the outer man ; and at this time Harry,
Tina, and I devoted all our energies, and made ourselves every-
where serviceable. We ran to the store on errands, we chopped
mince for pies with a most virtuous pertinacity, we cut citron
and stoned raisins, we helped put up curtains and set up bed-
steads. We were all of us as resolved as Esther that the house-
keeping of the little parsonage should be found without speck or
flaw, and should reflect glory upon her youthful sovereignty.
Some power or other gilded and glorified these happy days,
452 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
for happy enough they were. What was it that made every-
thing that we four did together so harmonious and so charming ?
" Friendship, only friendship," sang Tina, with silver tongue.
" Such a perfect friendship," she remarked, " was never known
except just in our particular case " ; it exceeded all the clas-
sical records, all the annals, ancient and modern.
But what instinct or affinity in friendship made it a fact
that when we four sat at table together, with our lessons before
us, Harry somehow was always found on Esther's side ? I used
to notice it because his golden-brown mat of curls was such
a contrast to the smooth, shining black satin bands of her hair as
they bent together over the dictionary, and looked up innocently
into each other's eyes, talking of verbs and adjectives and termi-
nations, innocently conjugating "amo, amare" to each other.
"Was it friendship that made Esther's dark, clear eyes, instinct-
ively look towards Harry for his opinion, when we were reading
our compositions to one another ? Was it friendship, that starry
brightness that began to come in Harry's eyes, and made them
seem darker and bluer and deeper, with a sort of mysterious
meaning, when he looked at Esther? Was it friendship that
seemed to make him feel taller, stronger, more manly, when
he thought of her, and that always placed him at her hand
when there was some household task that required a manly height
or handiness ? It was Harry and Esther together who put up the
white curtains all through the parsonage that spring, that made
it look so trim and comely for the ministers' meeting. Last
year, Esther said, innocently, she had no one to help her, and
the work tired her so. How happy, how busy, how bright
they were as they measured and altered, and Harry, in
boundless complacency, went up and down at her orders, and
changed and altered and arranged, till her fastidious eye was
satisfied, and every fold hung aright ! It was Harry who took
down and cleansed the family portraits, and hung them again,
and balanced them so nicely ; it was Harry who papered over
a room where the walls had been disfigured by an accident,
and it was Esther by him who cut the paper and trimmed
the bordering and executed all her little sovereignties of taste
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 453
and disposal by his obedient hands. And Tina and I at this
time gathered green boughs and ground-pine for the vases,
and made floral decorations without end, till the bare little par-
sonage looked like a woodland bower.
I have pleasant recollections of those ministers' meetings.
Calvinistic doctrines, in their dry, abstract form, are, I confess,
rather hard ; but Calvinistic ministers, so far as I have ever had
an opportunity to observe, are invariably a jolly set of fellows.
In those early days the ministry had not yet felt the need of
that generous decision which led them afterwards to forego all
dangerous stimulants, as an example to their flock. A long
green wooden case, full of tobacco-pipes and a quantity of
papers of tobacco, used to be part of the hospitable stock pre-
pared for the reception of the brethren. No less was there
a quantity of spirituous liquor laid in. In those days' its dispen-
sation was regarded as one of the inevitable duties of hospitality.
The New England ministry of this period were men full of
interest. Each one was the intellectual centre of his own
district, and supplied around him the stimulus which is now
brought to bear through a thousand other sources. It was
the minister who overlooked the school, who put parents upon
the idea of giving their sons liberal educations. In poor dis-
tricts the minister often practised medicine, and drew wills and
deeds, thus supplying the place of both lawyer and doctor. Apart
from their doctrinal theology, which was a constant source of
intellectual activity to them, their secluded life led them to many
forms of literary labor.
As a specimen of these, it is recorded of the Rev. Mr. Tay-
lor of Westfield, that he took such delight in the writings
of Origen, that, being unable to purchase them, he copied them
in four quarto volumes, that he might have them for his own
study. These are still in the possession of his descendants.
Other instances of literary perseverance and devotion, equally
curious, might be cited.
The lives that these men led were simple and tranquil. Al-
most all of them were practical farmers, preserving about them
the fresh sympathies and interests of the soil, and laboring enough
454 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
with their hands to keep their muscles in good order, and prevent
indigestion. Mingling very little with the world, each one a sort
of autocrat in his way, in his own district, and with an idea of
stability and perpetuity in his office, which, in these days, does
not belong to the position of a minister anywhere, these men
developed many originalities and peculiarities of character, to
which the simple state of society then allowed full scope. They
were humorists, like the mossy old apple-trees which each of
them had in his orchard, bending this way and turning that, and
throwing out their limbs with quaint twists and jerks, yet
none the less acceptable, so long as the fruit they bore was
sound and wholesome.
We have read of " Handkerchief Moody," who for some years
persisted in always appearing among men with his face covered
with a handkerchief, an incident which Hawthorne has worked
up in his weird manner into the story of " The Minister with the
Black Veil."
Father Mills, of Torringford, was a gigantic man who used to
appear in the pulpit in a full-bottomed white horse-hair wig. On
the loss of a beloved wife, he laid aside his wig for a year, and
appeared in the pulpit with his head tied up in a black hand-
kerchief, representing to the good housewives of his parish that,
as he always dressed in black, he could in no other way testify
to his respect for his dear wife's memory ; and this tribute was
accepted by his parish with the same innocent simplicity with
which it was rendered.
On the whole, the days which brought all the brother ministers
to the parsonage were days of enlivenment to all us young peo-
ple. They seemed to have such a hearty joy in their meeting,
and to deliver themselves up to mirth and good-fellowship with
such a free and hearty abandon, and the jokes and stories which
they brought with them were chorused by such roars of merri-
ment, as made us think a ministers' meeting the most joyous
thing on earth.
I know that some say this jocund mirthfulness indicated a
want of faith in the doctrines they taught. But do not you and
I, honest friends, often profess our belief in things which it would
OUR MINISTER IN CLOUDLAND. 455
take away our appetite and wither our strength to realize, but
notwithstanding which we eat and drink and sleep joyously ?
You read in your morning paper that the city of so-and-so has
been half submerged by an earthquake, and that after the earth-
quake came a fire and burnt the crushed inhabitants alive in the
ruins of their dwellings. Nay, if you are an American, you may
believe some such catastrophe to have happened on the Erie
Railroad a day or two before, and that men, women, and children
have been cooped up and burnt, in lingering agonies, in your own
vicinity. And yet, though you believe these things, you laugh
and talk and are gay, and plan for a party in the evening and a
ride on the same road the next week.
No ; man was mercifully made with the power of ignoring
what he believes. It is all that makes existence in a life like
this tolerable. And our ministers, conscious of doing the very
best they can to keep the world straight, must be allowed their
laugh and joke, sin and Satan to the contrary notwithstanding.
There was only one brother, in the whole confraternity that
used to meet at Mr. Avery's, who was not a married man ; and
he, in spite of all the snares and temptations which must beset a
minister who guides a female flock of parishioners, had come to
the afternoon of life in the state of bachelorhood. But O the
jokes and witticisms which 'always set the room in a roar at his
expense ! It was a subject that never wearied or grew old. To
clap Brother Boardman on the back and inquire for Mrs. Board-
man, to joke him about some suitable widow,' or bright-eyed
young lamb of his flock, at each ministers' meeting, was a pro-
vocative of mirth ever fresh and ever young. But the undaunted
old bachelor was always a match for these attacks, and had his
rejoinder ready to fling back into the camp of the married men.
He was a model of gallant devotion to womanhood in the
abstract, and seemed loath to give up to one what was meant
for womankind. So, the last that I ever heard of him, he was
still unmarried, a most unheard-of thing for a New England
parson.
Mr. Avery was a leader among the clergy of his State. His
zeal, enthusiasm, eloquence, and doctrinal vigor, added to a
456 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
capacity for forming an indefinite number of personal friendships,
made him a sort of chief among them.
What joyous hours they spent together in the ins and the
outs, the highways and by-ways, of metaphysics and theology !
Harry and Esther and Tina and I learned them all. "We
knew all about the Arminians and Pelagians and the Tasters
and the Exercisers, and made a deal of fun with each other
over it in pur private hours. We knew precisely every shade
of difference between tweedle;dum and tweedle-dee which the
different metaphysicians had invented, and tossed our knowl-
edge joyously back and forward at one another in our gayer
hours, just as the old ministers did, when they smoked and
argued in the great parsonage dining-room. Everything is
joyful that is learned by two young men in company with two
young women with whom they are secretly in love. Mathemat-
ics, metaphysics, or no matter what of dry and desolate, buds and
blossoms as the rose under such circumstances.
Did you ever go out in the misty gray of morning dawn, when
the stars had not yet shut their eyes, and still there were rosy
bands lying across the east ? And then have you watched a trel-
lis of morning-glories, with all the buds asleep, but ready in one
hour to waken ? The first kiss of sunlight and they will be open !
That was just where we were.
THE EEVIVAL OF EELIGION. 457
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION.
NO New England boy or girl comes to maturity without a full
understanding of what is meant by the term at the head of
this chapter.
Religion was, perhaps, never so much the governing idea in
any Commonwealth before. Nowhere has there been a people,
the mass of whom acted more uniformly on considerations drawn
from the unseen and future life ; yet nowhere a people who paid
a more earnest attention to the life that is seen and temporal.
The New England colonies were, in the first instance, the out-
growth of a religious enthusiasm. Right alongside of them, at
the same period of time, other colonies were founded from a re-
ligious enthusiasm quite as intense and sincere. The French
missionary settlers in Canada had a grandeur of self-sacrifice, an
intensity of religious devotion, which would almost throw in the
shade that of the Pilgrim Fathers ; and the sole reason why one
set of colonists proved the seed of a great nation, and the other
attained so very limited success, is the difference between the
religions taught by the two.
The one was the religion of asceticism, in view of which con-
tempt of the body and of material good was taught as a virtue,
and its teachers were men and women to whom marriage and its
earthly relations were forbidden. The other was the spirit of the
Old Testament, in which material prosperity is always spoken of
as the lawful reward of piety, in which marriage is an honor, and
a numerous posterity a thing to be desired. Our forefathers
were, in many essential respects, Jews in their thoughts and feel-
ings with regard to this life, but they superadded to this broad
physical basis the intense spiritualism of the New Testament.
Hence came a peculiar race of men, uniting the utmost ex-
tremes of the material and the spiritual.
458 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Dr. Franklin represents that outgrowth of the New England
mind which moves in the material alone, and scarcely ever rises
to the spiritual. President Edwards represents the mind so
risen to the spiritual as scarcely to touch the material. Put
these two together, and you have the average New England
character, that land in which every ism of social or religious
life has had its origin, that land whose hills and valleys arc one
blaze and buzz of material and manufacturing production.
A revival of religion in New England meant a time when that
deep spiritual undercurrent of thought and emotion with regard
to the future life, which was always flowing quietly under its
intense material industries, exhaled and steamed up into an at-
mosphere which pervaded all things, and made itself for a few
weeks the only thought of every person in some town or village
or city. It was the always-existing spiritual becoming visible
and tangible.
Such periods would come in the labors of ministers like Mr.
Avery. When a man of powerful mind and shrewd tact and great
natural eloquence lives among a people already thoughtfully pre-
disposed, for no other purpose than to stir them up to the care of
their souls, it is evident that there will come times when the re-
sults of all his care and seeking, his public ministrations, his pri-
vate conversations with individuals, will come out in some marked
social form ; and such a period in New England is called a revival
of religion.
There were three or four weeks in the autumn of the first
year that we spent in Cloudland, in which there was pervading
the town a sort of subdued hush of emotions, a quiet sense of
something like a spiritual presence brooding through the mild
autumn air. This was accompanied by a general inclination to
attend religious services, and to converse on religious subject?.
It pervaded the school ; it was to be heard at the store. Every
kind of individual talked on and about religion in his own char-
acteristic way, and in a small mountain town like Cloudland
everybody's characteristic way is known to every one else.
Ezekiel Scranton, the atheist of the parish, haunted the store
where the farmers tied up their wagons when they brought their
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 459
produce, find held, after his way, excited theological arguments
with Deacon Phineas Simons, who kept the store, arguments
to which the academy boys sometimes listened, and of which they
brought astounding reports to the school-room.
Tina, who was so intensely sympathetic with all social influ-
ences that she scarcely seemed to have an individuality of her
own, was now glowing like a luminous cloud with religious
zeal.
" I could convert that man," she said ; " I know I could ! I
wonder Mr. Avery has n't converted him long ago ! "
At this time, Mr. Avery, who had always kept a watchful eye
upon us, had a special conversation with Harry and myself, the
object of which was to place us right in our great foundation rela-
tions. Mr. Avery stood upon the basis that most good New Eng-
land men, since Jonathan Edwards, have adopted, and regarded all
young people, as a matter of course, out of the fold of the Church,
and devoid of anything truly acceptable to God, until they had
passed through a mental process designated, in well-known lan-
guage, as conviction and conversion.
He began to address Harry, therefore, upon this supposition.
I well remember the conversation.
" My son," he said, " is it not time for you to think seriously
of giving your heart to God ? "
" I have given my heart to God," replied Harry, calmly.
" Indeed ! " said Mr. Avery, with surprise ; " when did that
take place ? "
" I have always done it."
Mr. Avery looked at him with a gentle surprise.
" Do you mean to say, my son, that you have always loved
God?"
" Yes, sir," said Harry, quietly.
Mr. Avery felt entirely incredulous, and supposed that this
must be one of those specious forms of natural piety spoken of
depreciatingly by Jonathan Edwards, who relates in his own
memoirs similar exercises of early 'devotion as the mere fruits
of the ungrafted natural heart. Mr. Avery, therefore, proceeded
to put many theological questions to Harry on the nature of sin
460 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
and holiness, on the difference between manly, natural affections
and emotions, and those excited by the supernatural movement
of a divine power on the soul, the good man begging him to
remember the danger of self-deception, saying that nothing was
more common than for young people to mistake the transient
movements of mere natural emotions for real religion.
I observed that Harry, after a few moments, became violently
agitated. Two large blue veins upon his forehead swelled out, his
eyes had that peculiar flash and fire that they had at rare inter-
vals, when some thought penetrated through the usual gentle
quietude of his surface life to its deepest internal recesses. He
rose and walked up and down the room, and finally spoke in a
thick, husky voice, as one who pants with emotion. He was one
of the most reserved human beings I have ever known. There
was a region of emotion deep within him, which it was almost
like death to him to express. There is something piteous and
even fearful in the convulsions by which such natures disclose
what is nearest to their hearts.
" Mr. Avery," he said, " I have heard your preaching ever
since I have been here, and thought of it all. It has done me
good, because it has made me think deeply. It is right and
proper that our minds should be forced to think on all these sub-
jects ; but I have not thought, and cannot think, exactly like you,
nor exactly like any one that I know of. I must make up my
opinions for myself. I suppose I am peculiar, but I have been
brought up peculiarly. My lot in life has been very different
from that of ordinary boys. The first ten years of my life, all
that I can remember is the constant fear and pain and distress
and mortification and want through which my mother and I
passed together, she a stranger in this strange land, her hus-
band and my father worse than nothing to us, oftentimes our
greatest terror. We should both of us have died, if it had not
been for one thing : she believed that her Saviour loved her, and
loved us all. She told me that these sorrows were from him,
that he permitted them because he loved us, that they would be
for good in the end. She died at last alone and utterly forsaken
by everybody but her Saviour, and yet her death was blessed. I
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 461
saw it in her eyes, and she left it as her last message to me,
whatever happened to me, never to doubt God's love, in all my
life to trust him, to seek his counsel in all things, and to believe
that all that happened to me was ordered by him. This was and
is my religion ; and, after all that I have heard, I can have no
other. I do love God because he is good, and because he has
been good to me. I believe that Jesus Christ is God, and I wor-
ship God always through him, and I leave everything for myself,
for life and death are in his hands. I know that I am not very
good. I know, as you say, I am liable to make mistakes, and to
deceive myself in a thousand ways ; but He knows all -things,
and he can and will teach me ; he will not let me lose myself, I
feel sure."
" My son," said Mr. Avery, " you are blessed. I thank God
with all my heart for you. Go on, and God be with you ! "
It is to be seen that Mr. Avery was a man who always cor-
rected theory by common sense. When he perceived that a
child could be trained up a Christian, and grow into the love
of a Heavenly Father as he grows into the love of an earthly
one, by a daily and hourly experience of goodness, he yielded
to the perceptions of his mind in that particular case.
Of course our little circle of four had, at this time, deep com-
munings. Tina was buoyant and joyous, full of poetic images,
delighted with the news of every conversion, and taking such an
interest in Mr. Avery's preaching that she several times sug-
gested to him capital subjects for sermons. She walked up to
Ezekiel Scranton's, one afternoon, for no other object than to con-
vert him from his atheism, and succeeded so far as to exact a
promise from him that he would attend all Mr. Avery's meetings
for a fortnight. Ezekiel was one of the converts of that re-
vival, and Harry and I, of course, ascribed it largely to Tina's
influence.
A rough old New England farmer, living on the windy side of
a high hill, subsisting largely on codfish and hard cider, does not
often win the flattering attention of any little specimen of hu-
manity like Tina ; and therefore it was not to be wondered at
that the results of her missionary zeal appeared to his mind some-
462 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
tiling like that recorded in the New Testament, where " an angel
went down at a certain season and troubled the waters."
But, while Tina was thus buoyant and joyous, Esther seemed
to sink into the very depths of despondency. Hers, as I have
already intimated, was one of those delicate and sensitive natures,
on which the moral excitements of New England acted all the while
with too much power. The work and care of a faithful pastor are
always complicated by the fact that those truths, and modes of
presenting truths, which are only just sufficient to arouse the at-
tention of certain classes of hearers, and to prevent their sinking
into apathetic materialism, are altogether too stimulating and
exciting for others, of a more delicate structure.
Esther Avery was one of those persons for whom the peculiar
theory of religious training which prevailed in- New England
at this period, however invigorating to the intellect of the
masses, might be considered as a personal misfortune. Had she
been educated in the tender and paternal manner recommended
by the Cambridge platform, and practised among the earlier
puritans, recognized from infancy as a member of Christ's
Church, and in tender covenant relations with him, her whole
being would have responded to such an appeal ; her strongest
leading faculties would have engaged her to fulfil, in the most
perfect manner, the sacred duties growing out of that relation,
and her course into the full communion of the Church would have
been gentle and insensible as a flowing river.
" 'T is a tyranny," says old Dr. Cotton Mather, " to impose
upon every man a record of the precise time and way of their
conversion to God. Few that have been restrained by a religious
education can give such an one."
Esther, however, had been trained to expect a marked and
decided period of conversion, a change that could be described
in the same language in which Paul described the conversion of
the heathen at dissolute Corinth and Ephesus. She was told,
as early as she was capable of understanding language, that she
was by nature in a state of alienation from God, in which every
thought of her heart and action of her life was evil, and evil
only ; and continually that she was entirely destitute of holiness,
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 463
and exposed momently to the wrath of God ; and that it was her
immediate duty to escape from this state by an act of penitence
for sin and supreme love to God.
The effort to bring about in her heart that state of emotion
was during all her youth a failure. She was by constitution del-
icately, intensely self-analytic, and her analysis was guided by
the most exacting moral ideality. Every hopeful emotion of her
higher nature, as it rose, was dissolved in this keen analysis, as
diamond and pearls disappeared in the smelting furnaces of the
old alchemists. We all know that self-scrutiny is the death of
emotion, and that the analytic, self-inspective habit is its sure
preventive. Had Esther applied to her feelings for her own
beloved father the same tests by which she tried every rising
emotion of love to the Divine Being, the result would have
been precisely the same.
Esther was now nineteen years of age ; she was the idol of
her father's heart ; she was the staff and stay of her family ;
she was, in all the duties of life, inspired by a most faultless
conscientiousness. Her love of the absolute right was almost
painful in its excess of minuteness, and yet, in her own view, in
the view of the Church, in the view even of her admiring and
loving father, she was no Christian. Perfectly faultless in every
relation so far as human beings could observe, reverent to God,
submissive to his will, careful in all outward religious obser-
vances, yet wanting in a certain emotional experience, she
judged herself to be, and was judged to be by the theology
which her father taught, utterly devoid of virtue or moral excel-
lence of any kind in the sight of God. The theology of the
times also taught her that the act of grace^ which should put an
end to this state, and place her in the relation of a forgiven child
with her Heavenly Father, was a voluntary one, momently in her
power, and that nothing but her own persistent refusal prevented
her performing it ; yet taught at the same time that, so desperate
was the obstinacy of the human heart, no child of Adam ever
would, or ever could, perform it without a special interpo-
sition of God, an interposition which might or might not
come. Thus all the responsibility and the guilt rested upon her.
464 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Now, when a nature intensely conscientious is constantly op-
pressed by a sense of unperformed duty, that sense becomes a
gnawing worm at the very root of life. Esther had in vain
striven to bring herself into the required state of emotion.
Often for weeks and months she offered daily, and many times
a day, prayers which brought no brightness and no relief, and
read conscientiously that Bible, all whose tender words and com-
forting promises were like the distant vision of Eden to the fallen
exiles, guarded by a flaming sword which turned every way.
Mute and mournful she looked into the paradise of peace pos-
sessed by the favored ones whom God had chosen to help through
the mysterious passage, and asked herself, would that helping
hand ever open the gate to her?
Esther had passed through two or three periods of revival of
religion, and seen others far less consistent gathered into the
fold of the Church, while she only sunk at each period into a state
of hopeless gloom and despondency which threatened her health.
Latterly, her mind, wounded and bruised, had begun to turn in
bitter reactions. From such experiences as hers come floods of
distracting intellectual "questions. Scepticism and doubt are the
direct children of unhappiness. If she had been, as her stand-
ards stated, born " utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite
to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil," was not this an ex-
cuse for sin ? Was it her fault that she was born so ? and, if
her Creator had brought her into being in this state, was it not
an act of simple justice to restore her mind to a normal con-
dition ?
When she addressed these questions to her father, he was
alarmed, and warnejl her against speculation. Mr. Avery did
not consider that the Assembly's catechism and the Cambridge
platform and a great part of his own. preaching were, after all,
but human speculation, the uninspired inferences of men from
the Bible, and not the Bible itself, and that minds once set going
in this direction often cannot help a third question after a second,
any more than they can help breathing ; and that third question
may be one for which neither God nor nature has an answer.
Such inquiries as Esther's never arose from reading the parables
THE REVIVAL OF KELIGION. 465
t
of Christ, the Sermon on the Mount: they are the legitimate
children of mere human attempts at systematic theology.
How to deliver a soul that has come from excessive harass-
ments, introspections, self-analysis, into that morbid state of half-
sceptical despondency, was a problem over which Mr. Avery
sighed in vain. His cheerful hopefulness, his sympathetic
vitality, had drawn many others through darkness into light,
and settled them in cheerful hope. But with his own daughter
he felt no power, his heart trembled, his hand was weak as
the surgeon's who cannot operate when it is the life of his best
beloved that lies under his hands.
Esther's deliverance came through that greatest and holiest of
all the natural sacraments and means of grace, LOVE.
An ancient gem has upon it a figure of a Psyche sitting with
bound wings and blindfolded and weeping, whose bonds are
being sundered by Love. It is an emblem of what often occurs
in woman's life.
It has sometimes been thrown out as a sneer on periods of
religious excitement, that they kindle the enthusiasm of man and
woman towards each other into earthly attachments; but the
sneer should wither as something satanic before the purity of
love as it comes to noble natures. The man who has learned
to think meanly of that, to associate it with vulgar thoughts and
low desires, the man who has not been lifted by love to aspire
after unworldly excellence, to sigh for unworldly purity, to rev-
erence unworldly good, has lost his one great chance of regen-
eration.
Harry and Esther had moved side by side for months, drawn
daily to each other, showing each other their compositions,
studying out of the same book, arguing together in constant
friendly differences, and yet neither of them exactly conscious
whither they were tending. A great social, religious excitement
has often this result, that it throws open between friends the
doors of the inner nature. How long, how long we may live in
the same house, sit at the same table, hold daily converse with
friends to whom and by whom these inner doors are closed!
We cannot even tell whether we should love them more or less
20* i>
466 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
if they were open, they are a mystery. But a great, pure,
pervading, social excitement breaks like some early spring day
around us ; the sun shines, the birds sing ; and forthwith open
fly all the doors and windows, and let in the sunshine and the
breeze and the bird-song !
In such an hour Esther saw that she was beloved ! beloved
by a poet soul, one of that rare order to whom the love of
woman is a religion ! a baptism ! a consecration !
Her life, hitherto so chill and colorless, so imprisoned and
bound in the chains of mere and cold intellect, awoke with a
sudden thrill of consciousness to a new and passionate life. She
was as changed as the poor and silent Jungfrau of the Swiss
mountains, when the gray and ghostly cold of the night bursts into
rosy light, as the morning sunbeams rise upon it. The most
auspicious and beautiful of all phenomena that ever diversify
this weary life is that wonderful moment in which two souls,
who hitherto have not known each other, suddenly, by the lift-
ing of a veil or the falling of a barrier, become in one moment
and forever after one. Henceforth each soul has in itself the
double riches of the other. Each weakness is made strong by
some corresponding strength in the other ; for the truest union is
where each soul has precisely the faculty which the other needs.
Harry was by nature and habit exactly the reverse of Esther.
His conclusions were all intuitions. His religion was an emana-
tion from the heart, a child of personal experience, and not a for-
mula of the head. In him was seen the beginning of that great
reaction which took place largely in the young mind of New
England against the tyranny of mere logical methods as applied
to the ascertaining of moral truths.
The hour of full heart union that made them one placed her
mind under the control of his. His simple faith in God's love
was an antidote to her despondent fears. His mind bore hers
along on its current. His imagination awakened hers. She was
like one carried away by a winged spirit, lifted up and borne
heavenward by his faith and love. She was a transfigured be-
ing. An atmosphere of joy brightened and breathed around her j
her eyes had a mysterious depth, her cheeks a fluttering color.
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 467
The winter was over and past for her, and the time of the sing-
ing of birds had come.
Mr. A very was in raptures. The long agony was past. He
had gained a daughter and a son, and he was too joyful, too will-
ing to believe, to be analytic or critical. Long had he secretly
hoped that such faultless consistency, such strict attention to
duty, might perhaps indicate a secret work of divine grace, which
would spring into joy if only recognized and believed in. But
now, when the dove that had long wandered actually bent her
white wings at the window of the ark, he stretched forth his
hand and drew her in with a trembling eagerness.
468 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AFTER THE REVIVAL.
BUT the revival could not always last. The briefness of these
periods, and the inevitable gravitation of everybody back
to the things of earth, has sometimes been mentioned with a
sneer.
" Where 's your revival now ? "
The deacon whose face was so radiant as he talked of the love
of Christ now sits with the same face drawn into knots and
puckers over his account-book ; and he thinks the money for the
mortgage is due, and the avails for the little country store are
small ; and somehow a great family of boys and girls eat up and
wear out ; and the love of Christ seems a great way off, and the
trouble about the mortgage very close at hand ; and so the dea-
con is cross, and the world has its ready sneer for the poor man.
" He can talk about the love of Christ, but he 's a terrible screw
at a bargain," they say. Ah, brother, have mercy ! the world
screws us, and then we are tempted to screw the world. The
soil is hard, the climate cold, labor incessant, little to come of
it, and can you sneer that a poor soul has, for a brief season,
forgotten all this and risen out of his body and above his cares,
and been for a little while a glorified deacon instead of a poor,
haggling, country store-keeper ?
Plato says that we all once had wings, and that they still tend to
grow out in us, and that our burnings and aspirations for higher
things are like the teething pangs of children. We are trying
to cut our wings. Let. us not despise these teething seasons.
Though the wings do not become apparent, they may be starting
under many a rough coat, and on many a clumsy pair of shoul-
ders.
But in our little town of Cloudland, after the heavenly breeze
had blown over, there were to be found here and there immortal
AFTEK THE REVIVAL. 469
flowers and leaves from the tree of life, which had blown into
many a dwelling.
Poor old drunken Culver, who lived under the hill, and was
said to beat his wife, had become a changed man, and used
to come out to weekly prayer-meetings. Some tough old family
quarrels, such as follow the settlement of wills in a poor country,
had at last been brought to an end, and brother had shaken hands
with brother : the long root of bitterness had been pulled up and
burned on the altar of love. It is true that nobody had become
an angel. Poor sharp-tongued Miss Krissy Pike still went on
reporting the wasteful excesses she had seen in the minister's
swill-barrel. And some that were crabbed and cross-grained
before were so still, and some, perhaps, were a little more snarly
than usual, on account of the late over-excitement.
A revival of religion merely makes manifest for a time what
religion there is in a community, but it does not exalt men above
their nature or above their times. It is neither revelation nor
inspiration ; it is impulse. It gives no new faculties, and it goes
at last into that general average of influences which go to make
up the progress of a generation.
One terrestrial result of the revival in our academy was that
about half a dozen of the boys fell desperately in love with Tina.
I have always fancied Tina to be one of that species of woman-
kind that used to be sought out for priestesses to the Delphic
oracle. She had a flame-like, impulsive, ethereal temperament,
a capacity for sudden inspirations, in which she was carried out
of herself, and spoke winged words that made one wonder whence
they came. Her religious zeal had impelled her to be the ad-
viser of every one who came near her, and her sayings were
quoted, and some of our shaggy, rough-coated mountain boys
thought that they had never had an idea of the beauty of holiness
before. Poor boys ! they were so sacredly simple about it. And
Tina came to me with wide brown eyes that sparkled like a
cairngorm-stone, and told me that she believed she had found
what her peculiar calling was : it was to influence young men in
religion ! She cited, with enthusiasm, the wonderful results she
liad been able to produce, the sceptical doubts she had removed,
470 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
the conceptions of heavenly things that she had been able to pour
into their souls.
The divine priestess and I had a grand quarrel one day, be-
cause I insisted upon it that these religious ministrations on the
part of a beautiful young girl to those of the opposite sex would
assuredly end in declarations of love and hopes of marriage.
Girls like Tina are often censured as flirts, most unjustly so,
too. Their unawakened nature gives them no power of perceiving
what must be the full extent of their influence over the opposite
sex. Tina was warmly social ; she was enthusiastic and self-
confident, and had precisely that spirit which should fit "a
woman to be priestess or prophetess, to inspire and to lead.
She had a magnetic fervor of nature, an attractive force that
warmed in her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes, and seemed to
make summer around her. She excited the higher faculties,
poetry, ideality, blissful dreams seemed to be her atmos-
phere, and she had a power of quick sympathy, of genuine,
spontaneous outburst, that gave to her looks and words almost
the value of a caress, so that she was an unconscious de-
ceiver, and seemed always to say more for the individual than
&li& really meant. All men are lovers of sunshine and spring
gales, but they are no one's in particular ; and he who seeks
to hold them to one heart finds his mistake. Like all others
who have a given faculty, Tina loved its exercise, she loved
to influence, loved to feel her power, alike, over man and woman.
But who does not know that the power of the sibyl is doubled
by the opposition of sex? That which is only acquiescence in a
woman friend becomes devotion in a man. That which is ad-
miration from a woman becomes adoration in a man. And of all
kinds of power which can be possessed by man or woman, there is
none which I think so absolutely intoxicating as this of per-
sonal fascination. You may as well blame a bird for wanting to
soar and sing as blame such women for the instinctive pleasure
they feel in their peculiar kind of empire. Yet, in simple good
faith, Tina did not want her friends of the other sex to become
lovers. She was willing enough that they should devote them-
selves, under all sorts of illusive names of brother and friend and
AFTEE THE EEVIVAL. 471
what-not, but when they proceeded to ask her for herself there
was an instant revulsion, as when some person has unguardedly
touched a strong electric circle. The first breath of passion re-
pelled her ; the friend that had been so agreeable the hour before
was unendurable. Over and over again have I seen her go the
same illusive round, always sure that in this instance it was
understood that it was to be friendship, and only friendship,
or brotherly or Christian love, till the hour came for the electric
revulsion, and the friend was lost.
Tina had not learned the modern way of girls, who count their
lovers and offers as an Indian does his scalps, and parade the num-
ber of their victims before their acquaintances. Every incident
of this kind struck her as a catastrophe ; and, as Esther, Harry,
and I were always warning her, she would come to us like a
guilty child, and seek to extenuate her offence. I think the girl
was sincere in the wish she often uttered, that she could be a boy,
and be loved as a comrade and friend only. " Why must, why
would, they always persist in falling into this tiresome result ? "
" O Horace ! " she would say to me, " if I were only Tom Perci-
val, I should be perfectly happy ! but it is so stupid to be a girl ! "
In my own secret soul I had no kind of wish that she should be
Tom Percival, but I did not tell her so. No, I was too wise for that.
I knew that my only chance of keeping my position as father-
confessor to this elastic young penitent consisted in a judicious
suppression of all peculiar claims or hopes on my part, and I was
often praised and encouraged for this exemplary conduct, and
the question pathetically put to me, " Why could n't the others do
as I did ? " O Tina, Tina ! did your brown eyes see, and your
quick senses divine, that there was something in me which you
dreaded to awaken, and feared to meet ?
There are some men who have a faculty of making themselves
the confidants of women. Perhaps because they have a certain
amount of the feminine element in their own composition. They
seem to be able to sympathize with them on their feminine side,
and are capable of running far in a friendship without running
fatally into love.
I think I had this power, and on it I founded my hopes in this
472 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
regard. I enjoyed, in my way, almost as much celebrity in our
little circle for advising and guiding my friends of the other sex
as Tina did, and I took care to have on hand such a list of inti-
mates as would prevent my name from being coupled with hers
in the school gossip.
In these modern times, when man's fair sister is asking admis-
sion at the doors of classic halls, where man has hitherto reigned
in monastic solitude, the query is often raised by our modern
sociologists, Can man and woman, with propriety, pursue their
studies together ? Does the great mystery of sex, with its wide
laws of attraction, and its strange, blinding, dazzling influences,
furnish a sufficient reason why the two halves of creation, made
for each other, should be kept during the whole course of educa-
tion rigorously apart ? This question, like a great many others,
was solved without discussion by the good sense of our Puritan
ancestors, in throwing the country academies, where young men
were fitted for college, open alike to both sexes, and in making
the work of education of such dignity in the eyes of the com-
munity, that first-rate men were willing to adopt it for life. The
consequences were, that, in some lonely mountain town, under
some brilliant schoolmaster, young men and women actually were
studying together the branches usually pursued in college.
"But," says the modern objector, "bring young men and
young women together in these relations, and there will be flir-
tations and love affairs."
Even so, my friend, there will be. But flirtations and love
affairs among a nice set of girls and boys, in a pure and simple
state of community, where love is never thought of, except as
leading to lawful marriage, are certainly not the worst things
that can be thought of, not half so bad as the grossness and
coarseness and roughness and rudeness of those wholly male
schools in which boys fight their way on alone, with no human-
izing influences from the other sex.
There was, to be sure, a great crop of love affairs, always green
and vigorous, in our academy, and vows of eternal constancy inter-
changed between boys and girls who afterwards forgot and out-
grew them, without breaking their hearts on either side ; but,
AFTER THE REVIVAL. 473
for my own part, I think love-making over one's Latin and Greek
much better than the fisting and cuffing and fagging of English
schools, or than many another thing to which poor, blindly fer-
menting boyhood runs when separated from home, mother, and
sister, and confined to an atmosphere and surroundings sharply
and purely male. It is certain that the companionship of the
girl improves the boy, but more doubt has been expressed
whether the delicacy of womanhood is not impaired by an early
experience of the flatteries and gallantries of the other sex.
But, after all, it is no worse for a girl to coquette and flirt in
her Latin and mathematical class than to do it in the German or
the polka. The studies and drill of the school have a certain
repressive influence, wholly wanting in the ball-room and under
the gas-light of fashionable parties. In a good school, the standard
of attraction is, to some extent, intellectual. The girl is valued
for something besides her person ; her disposition and character
are thoroughly tested, the powers of her mind go for something,
and, what is more, she is known in her every-day clothes. On the
whole, I do not think a better way can be found to bring the two
sexes together, without that false glamour which obscures their
knowledge of each other, than to put them side by side in the
daily drill of a good literary institution.
Certainly, of all the days that I look back upon, this
academy life in Cloudland was the most perfectly happy. It
was happier than college life, because of the constant intertwin-
ing and companionship with woman, which gave a domestic and
family charm to it. It was happy because we were in the first
flush of belief in ourselves, and in life.
O that first belief! those incredible first visions! when all
things look "possible, and one believes in the pot of gold at the end
of the rainbow, and sees enchanted palaces in the sunset clouds!
What faith we had in one another, and how wonderful we were
in one another's eyes ! Our little clique of four was a sort of holy
of holies in our view. We believed that we had secrets of hap-
piness and progress known only to ourselves. We had full faith
in one another's destiny; we were all remarkable people, and
destined to do great things.
474 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
At the close of the revival, we four, with many others, joined
Mr. Avery's church, a step which in New England, at this time,
meant a conviction of some spiritual experience gained, of some
familiar communion with the Great Invisible. Had I found it
then ? Had I laid hold of that invisible hand, and felt its warmth
and reality ? Had I heard the beatings of a warm heart under
the cold exterior of the regular laws of nature, and found a liv-
ing God ? I thought so. That hand and heart were the hand
and heart of Jesus, the brother, the friend, and the interpreting
God for poor, blind, and helpless man.
As we stood together before the pulpit, with about fifty others,
on that Sunday most joyful to Mr. Avery's heart, we made our re-
ligious profession with ardent sincerity. The dear man found in
that day the reward of all his sorrows, and the fruit of all his
labors. He rejoiced in us as first fruits of the millennium, which,
having already dawned in his good honest heart, he thought could
not be far off from the earth.
Ah ! those days of young religion were vaguely and igno-
rantly beautiful, like all the rest of our outlook on life. We were
sincere, and meant to be very good and true and pure, and we
knew so little of the world we were living in ! The village of
Cloudland, without a pauper, with scarcely an ignorant person in
it, with no temptation, no dissipation, no vice, what could we
know there of the appalling questions of real life ? We were hid
there together, as in the hollow of God's hand ; and a very sweet
and lovely hiding-place it was.
Harry had already chosen his profession ; he was to be a cler-
gyman, and study with Mr. Avery when his college course was
finished. In those days the young aspirants for the pulpit were
not gathered into seminaries, but distributed through the coun-
try, studying, writing, and learning the pastoral work by sharing
the labors of older pastors. Life looked, therefore, very bright
to Harry, for life was, at that age, to live with Esther. Worldly
care there was none. Mr. Avery was rich on two hundred and
fifty dollars, and there were other places in the mountains where
birds sung and flowers grew, where Esther could manage another
parsonage, as now her father's. She lived in the world of taste
AFTER THE REVIVAL. 475
and intellect and thought. Her love of the beautiful was fed by
the cheap delights of nature, and there was no onerous burden of
care in looking forward to marriage, such as now besets a young
man when he meditates taking to himself some costly piece of
modern luxury, some exotic bird, who must be fed on incense
and odors, and for whom any number of gilded cages and costly
surroundings may be necessary. Marriage, in the days of which
I speak, was a very simple and natural affair, and Harry and
Esther enjoyed the full pleasure of talking over and arranging
what their future home should be ; and Tina, quite as interested
as they, drew wonderful pictures of it, and tinted them with
every hue of the rainbow.
Mr. A very talked with me many times to induce me to choose
the same profession. He was an enthusiast for it ; it was to him
a calling that eclipsed all others, and he could wish the man he
loved no greater blessedness than to make him a minister.
But I felt within myself a shrinking doubt of my own ability
to be the moral guide of others, and my life-long habit of half-
sceptical contemplation made it so impossible to believe the New
England theology with the perfect, undoubting faith that Mr.
Avery had, that I dared not undertake. I did not disbelieve.
I would not for the world controvert ; but I could not believe with
his undoubting enthusiasm. His sword and spear, so effective in
his hands, would tremble in mine. I knew that Harry would do
something. He had a natural call, a divine impulse, that led him
from childhood to sacred ministries ; and though he did not more
than I accept the system of new-.school theology as complete
truth, yet I could see that it would furnish to his own devotional
nature a stock from which vigorous grafts would shoot forth.
Shall I say, also, that my future was swayed unconsciously by
a sort of instinctive perception of what yet might be desired by
Tina ? Something a little more of this world I seemed to want
to lay at her feet. I felt, somehow, that there was in her an
aptitude for the perfume and brightness and gayeties of this lower
world. And as there must be, not only clergymen, but lawyers,
and as men will pay more for getting their own will than for
saving their souls, I dreamed of myself, in the future, as a law-
476 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
yer, of course a rising one ; of course I should win laurels at
the bar, and win them by honorable means. I would do it ; and
Tina should be mistress of a fine, antique house in Boston, like
the Kitterys', with fair, large gardens and pleasant prospects, and
she should glitter and burn and twinkle like a gem, in the very
front ranks of society. Yes, I was ambitious, but it was for her.
One thing troubled me : every once in a while, in the letters
from Miss Mehitable, came one from Ellery Davenport, written
in a free, gay, dashing, cavalier style, and addressing Tina with a
kind of patronizing freedom that made me ineffably angry. I
wanted to shoot him. Such are the risings of the ancient Adam
in us, even after we have joined the Church. Tina always
laughed at me because I scolded and frowned at these letters, and,
I thought, seemed to take rather a perverse pleasure in them. I
have often speculated on that trait wherein lovely woman slightly
resembles a cat ; she cannot, for the life of her, resist the tempta-
tion to play with her mouse a little, and rouse it with gentle pats
of her velvet paw, just to see what it will do.
I was, of course, understood to be under solemn bond and prom-
ise to love Tina only as a brother ; but was it not a brother's duty
to watch over his sister ? With what satisfaction did I remem-
ber all Miss Debby Kittery's philippics against Ellery Daven-
port ! Did I not believe every word of them heartily ? I hated
the French language with all my soul, and Ellery Davenport's
proficiency in it ; and Tina could not make me more angry than
by speaking with admiration of his graceful fluency in French, and
expressing rather wilful determinations that, when she got away
from Mr. Rossiter' s dictation, she would study it. Mr. Davenport
had said that, when he came back to America, he would give her
French lessons. He was always kind and polite, and she did n't
doubt that he 'd give me lessons, too, if I 'd take them. " French
is the language of modern civilization," said Tina, with the decis-
ion of a professor. But she made me promise that I would n't
say a word to her about it before Mr. Rossiter.
" Now, Horace dear, you know," she said, " that French to him
is just like a red rag to a bull ; he 'd begin to roar and lash his sides
the minute you said the words, and Mr. Rossiter and I are capi-
AFTER THE REVIVAL. 477
tal friends now. You Ve no idea, Horace, how good he is to me.
He takes such an interest in the development of my mind. He
writes me a letter or note almost every week about it, and I take
his advice, you know, and I would n't want to hurt his feelings
about French, or anything else. What do you suppose he hates the
French so for ? I should think he was a genuine Englishman,
that had been kept awake nights during all the French wars."
" Well, Tina," I said, " you know there is a great deal of cor-
rupt and dangerous literature in the French language."
" What nonsense, Horace ! just as if there was n't in the Eng-
lish language, too, and I none the worse for it. And I 'm sure
there are no ends of bad things in the classical dictionary, and in
the mythology. He 'd better talk about the French language !
No, you may depend upon it, Horace, I shall learn French as
soon as I leave school."
It will be inferred from this that my young lady had a consid-
erable share of that quality which Milton represents to have been
the ruin of our first mother ; namely, a determination to go her
own way and see for herself, and have little confidential inter-
views with the serpent, notwithstanding all that could be urged
to the contrary by sober old Adam.
" Of course, Adam," said Eve, " I can take care of myself,
and don't want you always lumbering after me with your advice.
You think the serpent will injure me, do you ? That just shows
how little you know about me. The serpent, Adam, is a very
agreeable fellow, and helps one to pass away one's time ; but he
don't take me in. O no ! there 's no danger of his ever getting
around me ! So, my dear Adam, go your own way in the garden,
and let me manage for myself."
Whether in the celestial regions there will be saints and
angels who develop this particular form of self-will, I know not ;
but in this world of what Mr. Avery called " imperfect sanctifi-
cation," religion does n't prevent the fair angels of the other
sex from developing this quality in pretty energetic forms.
In fact, I found that, if I was going to guide my Ariadne at
all, I must let out my line fast, and let her feel free and un-
watched.
478 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE MINISTER'S WOOD-SPELL.
IT was in the winter of this next year that the minister's
" wood-spell " was announced.
" What is a wood-spell ? " you say. Well, the pastor was
settled on the understanding of receiving two hundred dollars a
year and his wood ; and there was a certain day set apart in the
winter, generally in the time of the best sleighing, when every
parisMoner brought the minister a sled-load of wood ; and thus,
in the course of time, built him up a mighty wood-pile.
It was one of the great seasons of preparation in the minister's
family, and Tina, Harry, and I had been busy for two or three
days beforehand, in helping Esther create the wood-spell cake,
which was to be made in quantities large enough to give ample
slices to every parishioner. Two days beforehand, the fire was
besieged with a row of earthen pots, in which the spicy com-
pound was rising to the necessary lightness, and Harry and I
split incredible amounts of oven-wood, and in the evening we sat
together stoning raisins round the great kitchen fire, with Mr.
Avery in the midst of us, telling us stories and arguing with us,
and entering into the hilarity of the thing like a boy. He was
so happy in Esther, and delighted to draw the shy color into
her cheeks, by some sly joke or allusion, when Harry's head of
golden curls came into close proximity with her smooth black
satin tresses.
The cake came out victorious, and we all claimed the merit of
it ; and a mighty cheese was bought, and every shelf of the
closet, and all the dressers of the kitchen, were crowded with
the abundance.
We had a jewel of a morning, one of those sharp, clear,
sunny winter days, when the sleds squeak over the flinty snow,
and the little icicles tingle along on the glittering crust as they
THE MINISTER'S WOOD-SPELL. 479
fall from the trees, and the breath of the slow-pacing oxen
steams up like a rosy cloud in the morning sun, and then falls
back condensed in little icicles on every hair.
We were all astir early, full of life and vigor. There was a
holiday in the academy. Mr. Rossiter had been invited over to
the minister's to chat and tell stories with the farmers, and give
them high entertainment. Miss Nervy Randall, more withered
and wild in her attire than usual, but eminently serviceable,
stood prepared to cut cake and cheese without end, and dispense
it with wholesome nods and messages of comfort. The minister
himself heated two little old andirons red-hot in the fire, and
therewith from time to time stirred up a mighty bowl of flip,
which was to ilow in abundance to every comer. Not then had
the temperance reformation dawned on America, though ten
years later Mr. A very would as soon have been caught in a
gambling-saloon as stirring and dispensing a bowl of flip to his
parishioners.
Mr. Avery had recently preached a highly popular sermon on
agriculture, in which he set forth the dignity of the farmer's life,
from the text, " For the king himself is served of the field " ; and
there had been a rustle of professional enthusiasm in all the
mountain farms around, and it was resolved, by a sort of general
consent, that the minister's wood-pile this year should be of the
best : none of your old make-shifts, loads made out with
crooked sticks and snapping chestnut logs, most noisy, and
destructive to good wives' aprons. Good straight shagbark-hick-
ory was voted none too good for the minister. Also the axe was
lifted up on many a proud oak and beech and maple. What
destruction of glory and beauty there was in those mountain
regions ! How ruthlessly man destroys in a few hours that
which centuries cannot bring again !
What an idea of riches in those glorious woodland regions !
We read legends of millionnaires who fed their fires with cinna-
mon and rolled up thousand-dollar bills into lamp-lighters, in the
very wantonness of profusion. But what was that compared to
the prodigality which fed our great roaring winter fires on the
thousand-leafed oaks, whose conception had been ages ago,
480 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
who were children of the light and of the day, every fragment
and fibre of them made of most celestial influences, of sunshine
and rain-drops, and night-dews arid clouds, slowly working for
centuries until they had wrought the wondrous shape into a gi-
gantic miracle of beauty? And then snuffling old Heber Atwood,
with his two hard-fisted boys, cut one down in a forenoon and
made logs of it for the minister's wood-pile. If this is n't mak-
ing light of serious things, we don't know what is. But think
of your wealth, O ye farmers ! think what beauty and glory
every year perish to serve your cooking-stoves and chimney-
corners.
To tell the truth, very little of such sentiment was in Mr.
Avery's mind or in any of ours. We lived in a woodland
regipn, and we were blase with the glory of trees. We did
admire the splendid elms that hung their cathedral arches over
the one central street of Cloudland Village, and on this particu-
lar morning they were all aflame like Aladdin's palace, hanging
with emeralds and rubies and crystals, flashing and glittering
and dancing in the sunlight. And when the first sled came
squeaking up the village street, we did not look upon it as the
funereal hearse bearing the honored corpse of a hundred sum-
mers, but we boys clapped our hands and shouted, " Hurrah for
old Heber ! " as his load of magnificent oak, well-bearded with
gray moss, came scrunching into the yard. Mr. Avery hastened
to draw the hot flip-iron from the fire and stir the foaming bowl.
Esther began cutting the first loaf of cake, and Mr. Rossiter
walked out and cracked a joke on Heber's shoulder, whereat all
the cast-iron lineaments of his hard features relaxed. Heber had
not the remotest idea at this moment that he was to be branded
as a tree-murderer. On the contrary, if there was anything
for which he valued himself, and with which his heart was at
this moment swelling with victorious pride, it was his power of
cutting down trees. Man he regarded in a physical point of
view as principally made to cut down trees, and trees as the
natural enemies of man. When he stood under a magnificent
oak, and heard the airy rustle of its thousand leaves, to his ear it
was always a rustle of defiance, as if the old oak had challenged
THE MINISTER'S WOOD-SPELL. 481
him to single combat ; and Heber would feel of his axe and say,
" Next winter, old boy, we '11 see, we '11 see ! " And at this
moment he and his two tall, slab-sided, big-handed boys came into
the kitchen with an uplifted air, in which triumph was but just
repressed by suitable modesty. They came prepared to be com-
plimented, and they were complimented accordingly.
" Well, Mr. Atwood," said the minister, " you must have had
pretty hard work on that load ; that 's no ordinary oak ; it took
strong hands to roll those logs, and yet I don't see but two of
your boys. "Where are they all now ? "
" Scattered, scattered ! " said Heber, as he sat with a great
block of cake in one hand, and sipped his mug of flip, looking,
with his grizzly beard and shaggy hair and his iron features,
like a cross between a polar bear and a man, a very shrewd,
thoughtful, reflective polar bear, however, quite up to any sort of
argument with a man.
" Yes, they 're scattered," he said. " We 're putty lonesome
now 't our house. Nobody there but Pars, Dass, Dill, Noah,
and 'Liakim. I ses to Noah and 'Liakim this mornin', ' Ef we
had all our boys to hum, we sh'd haf to take up two loads to the
minister, sartin, to make it fair on the wood-spell cake.' "
" Where are your boys now ? " said Mr. Avery. " I have n't
seen them at meeting now for a good while."
" Wai, Sol and Tim 's gone up to Umbagog, lumberin' ; and
Tite, he 's sailed to Archangel ; and Jeduth, he 's gone to th'
West Injies for molasses ; and Pete, he 's gone to the West.
Folks begins to talk now 'bout that 'ere Western kentry, and so
Pete, he must go to Buffalo, and see the great West. He 's writ
back about Niagry Falls. His letters is most amazin'. The old
woman, she can't feel easy 'bout him no way. She insists 'pon it
them Injuns '11 scalp him. The old woman is just as choice of
her boys as ef she had n't got just es many es she has."
" How many sons have you ? " said Harry, with a countenance
of innocent wonder.
" Wai," said Heber, " I 've seen the time when I had fourteen
good, straight boys^ all on 'em a turnin' over a log together."
"Dear me!" said Tina. " Had n't you any daughters ?"
21 EB
482 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
" Gals ? " said Heber, reflectively. " Bless you, yis. There 's
been a gal or two 'long, in between, here an' there, don't jest
remember where they come ; but, any way, there 's plenty of
women-folks 't our house."
" Why ! " said Tina, with a toss of her pretty head, " you
don't seem to think much of women."
" Good in their way," said Heber, shaking his head ; " but
Adam was fust formed, and then Eve, you know." Looking
more attentively at Tina as she stood bridling and dimpling be-
fore him, like a bird just ready to fly, Heber conceived an indis-
tinct idea that he must say something gallant, so he added,
" Give all honor to the women, as weaker vessels, ye know ;
that 's sound doctrine, I s'pose."
Heber having now warmed and refreshed himself, and endowed
Lis minister with what he conceived to be a tip-top, irreproach-
able load of wood, proceeded, also, to give him the benefit of a
little good advice, prefaced by gracious words of encouragement.
" I wus tellin' my old woman this mornin' that I did n't grudge a
cent of my subscription, 'cause your preachin' lasts well and pays
well. Ses I, 'Mr. Avery ain't the kind of man that strikes
twelve the fust time. He 's a man that '11 wear/ That 's what
I said fust, and I 've followed y' up putty close in yer preachin' ;
but then I Ve jest got one word to say to ye. Ain't free
agency a gettin' a leetle too top-heavy in yer preachin' ? Ain't
it kind o' overgrowin' sovereignty ? Now, ye see, divine sover-
eignty hes got to be took care of as well as free agency. That 's
all, that 's all. I thought I 'd jest drop the thought, ye know,
and leave you to think on 't. This 'ere last revival you run along
considerble on ' Whosoever will may come,' an' all that. Now,
p'r'aps, ef you 'd jest tighten up the ropes a leetle t'other side,
and give 'em sovereignty, the hull load would sled easier."
" Well," said Mr. Avery, " I 'm much obliged to you for your
suggestions."
K Now there ? s my wife's brother, Josh Baldwin," said Heber ;
"he was delegate to the last Consociation, and he heerd your
openin' sermon, and ses he to me, ses he, ' Your minister
sartin doos slant a leetle towards th' Arminians ; he don't quite
THE MINISTER'S WOOD-SPELL. 488
walk llie crack,' Josh says, ses lie. Ses I, < Josh, we ain't none
on us perfect ; but/ ses I, * Mr. Avery ain't no Anninian, I can
tell you. Yeh can't judge Mr. Avery by one sermon,' ses I.
You hear him preach the year round, and ye '11 find that all
the doctrines gits their place.' Ye see I stood up for ye, Mr.
Avery, but I thought 't would n't do no harm to kind o' let ye
know what folks is sayin'."
Here the theological discussion was abruptly cut short by
Deacon Zachary Chipman's load, which entered the yard amid
the huzzahs of the boys. Heber and his boys were at the door
in a minute. " Wai, railly, ef the deacon hain't come down with
his shagbark! Wai, wal, the revival has operated on him
some, I guess. Last year the deacon sent a load that I 'd ha'
been ashamed to had in my back yard, an' I took the liberty o*
tellin' on him so. Good, straight-grained shagbark. Wal,
wal ! I '11 go out an' help him onload it. Ef that 'ere holds out
to the bottom, the deacon 's done putty wal, an* I shall think
grace has made some progress."
The deacon, a mournful, dry, shivery-looking man, with a little
round bald head, looking wistfully out of a great red comforter, all
furry and white with the sharp frosts of the morning, and, with his
small red eyes weeping tears through the sharpness of the air,
looked as if he had come as chief mourner at the hearse of his
beloved hickory-trees. He had cut down the very darlings of
his soul, and come up with his precious load, impelled by a
divine impulse like that which made the lowing kine, in the Old
Testament story, come slowly bearing the ark of God, while
their brute hearts were turning toward the calves that they had
left at home. Certainly, if virtue is in proportion to sacrifice,
Deacon Chipman's load of hickoiy had more of self-sacrifice in
it than a dozen loads from old Heber ; for Heber was a forest
prince in his way of doing things, and, with all his shrewd calcu-
lations of money's worth, had an open-handed generosity of
nature that made him take a pride in liberal giving.
The little man shrank mournfully into a corner, and sipped his
tumbler of flip and ate his cake and cheese as if he had been at
a funeral.
484 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
"How are you all at home, deacon?" said Mr. Avery,
heartily.
"Just crawlin', thank you, just crawlin'. My old woman
don't git out much ; her rheumatiz gits a dreadful strong hold
on her ; and, Mr. Avery, she hopes you '11 be round to visit her
'fore long. Since the revival she 's kind o' fell into darkness, and
don't see no cheerin' views. She ses sometimes the universe
ain't nothin' but blackness and darkness to her."
" Has she a good appetite ? " said Mr. Avery.
"Wai, no. She don't enjoy her vittles much. Some say
she 's got the jaunders. I try to cosset her up, and git her to
take relishin' things. I tell her ef she 'd eat a good sassage for
breakfast of a cold mornin', with a good hearty bit o' mince-pie,
and a cup o' strong coffee, 't would kind o' set her up for the
day ; but, somehow, she don't git no nourishment from her
food."
" There, Rossiter," we heard Mr. Avery whisper aside, " you
see what a country minister has to do, give cheering views to
a dyspeptic that breakfasts on sausages and mince-pies."
And now the loads began coming thick and fast. Sometimes
two and three, and sometimes four and five, came stringing along,
one after another, in unbroken procession. For every one Mr.
Avery had an appreciative word. Its especial points were
noticed and commended, and the farmers themselves, shrewdest
observers, looked at every load and gave it their verdict. By
and by the kitchen was full of a merry, chatting circle, and Mr.
Rossiter and Mr. Avery were telling their best stories, and roars
of laughter came from the house.
Tina glanced in and out among the old farmers, like a bright
tropical bird, carrying the cake and cheese to each one, laugh-
ing and telling stories, dispensing smiles to the younger ones,
treacherous smiles, which meant nothing, but made the hearts
beat faster under their shaggy coats ; and if she saw a red-fisted
fellow in a corner, who seemed to be having a bad time, she
would go and sit down by him, and be so gracious and warming
and winning that his tongue would be loosened, and he would tell
her all about his steers and his calves and his last crop of corn,
THE MINISTER'S WOOD-SPELL. 485
and his load of wood, and then wonder all the way home whether
he should ever have, in a house of his own, a pretty little woman
like that.
By afternoon the minister's wood-pile was enormous. It
stretched beyond anything before seen in Cloudland ; it exceeded
all the legends of neighboring wood-piles and wood-spells re-
lated by deacons and lay delegates in the late Consociation.
And truly, among things picturesque and graceful, among child-
ish remembrances, dear and cheerful, there is nothing that more
speaks to my memory than the dear, good old mossy wood-pile.
Harry, Tina, Esther, and I ran up and down and in and about
the piles of wood that evening with a joyous satisfaction. How
fresh and spicy and woodsy it smelt ! I can smell now the
fragrance of the hickory, whose clear, oily bark in burning cast
forth perfume quite equal to cinnamon. Then there was the
fragrant black birch, sought and prized by us all for the high-
flavored bark on the smaller limbs, which was a favorite species
of confectionery to us. There were also the logs of white birch,
gleaming up in their purity, from which we made sheets of wood-
land parchment.
It is recorded of one man who stands in a high position at
Washington, that all his earlier writing-lessons were performed
upon leaves of the white birch bark, the only paper used in the
family.
Then there were massive trunks of oak, veritable worlds of
mossy vegetation in themselves, with tufts of green velvet nestled
away in their bark, and sheets of greenness carpeting their sides,
and little white, hoary trees of moss, with little white, hoary apples
upon them, like miniature orchards.
One of our most interesting amusements was forming land-
scapes in the snow, in which we had mountains and hills and
valleys, and represented streams of water by means of glass, and
clothed the sides of our hills with orchards of apple-trees made
of this gray moss. It was an incipient practice at landscape-
gardening, for which we found rich material in the wood-pile.
Esther and Tina had been filling their aprons with these mossy
treasures, for which we had all been searching together, and
486 OLDTOWN FOLKS.
now we all sat chatting in the evening light. The sun was
going down. The sleds had ceased to come, the riches of our
woodland treasures were all in, the whole air was full of the
trembling, rose-colored light that turned all the snow-covered
landscape to brightness. All around us not a fence to be seen,
nothing but waving hollows of spotless snow, glowing with the
rosy radiance, and fading away in purple and lilac shadows ; and
the evening stars began to twinkle, one after another, keen and
clear through the frosty air, as we all sat together in triumph on
the highest perch of the wood-pile. And Harry said to Esther,
" One of these days they '11 be bringing in our wood," and
Esther's cheeks reflected the pink of the sky.
" Yes, indeed ! " said Tina. " And then I am coming to live
with you. I 'm going to be an old maid, you know, and I shall
help Esther as I do now. I never shall want to be married."
Just at this moment the ring of sleigh-bells was heard coming
up the street. Who and what now ? A little one-horse sleigh
drove swiftly up to the door, the driver sprang out with a lively
alacrity, hitched his horse, and came toward the house. In the
same moment Tina and I recognized Ellery Davenport !
ELLERY DAVENPORT. 487
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ELLERY DAVENPORT.
TINA immediately turned and ran into the house, laughing,
and up stairs into her chamber, leaving Esther to go
seriously forward, Esther always tranquil and always ready.
For myself, I felt such a vindictive hatred at the moment as
really alarmed me. What had this good-natured man done, with
his frank, merry face and his easy, high-bred air, that I should
hate him so ? What sort of Christian was I, to feel in this
way ? Certainly it was a temptation of the Devil, and I would
put it down, and act like a reasonable being. So I went forward
with' Harry, and he shook hands with us.
" Hulloa, fellows ! " he said, " you Ve made the great leap
since I saw you, and changed from boys into men."
" Goo
