University of Virginia Library

5. 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 ancestors,
in the decision of their reaction from a dead formalism, had
swept away from the solemn crises of life every symbolic expression;
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 townspeople
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 grandfather's
house, — the asylum ever ready for the widowed daughter.

The next day after was Sunday, and a Sunday full of importance
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 together
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

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 moralized
at the satin lining, so smooth and soft, that lies inside of
that sharpness. It is an emblem of a kind of nature very frequent
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

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 instrumentality.
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 hardness
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 in some such expectations,
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, and
carried all sorts of imaginary loads that would come in supposititious

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 thwarting
you in everything you want to do, and putting their will instead
of yours in every step of your life.

Between Aunt Lois and my father there had been that constant
antagonism which is often perceptible between two human
beings, each good enough in himself, but of a quality to act destructively
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 recommended.

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, and 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

women, who, like flowers by the wayside, seem to be at the disposal
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 morning
that we had come home to be under the dominion of Aunt
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 ribbons
and veil and pins as if she had been a lay figure going to exhibition;
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 take you and
set you on the pulpit stairs.”

Now Mr. Israel Scran on week-days was a rather jolly, secular-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 nand, and spoke not a
word, though he made several overtures towards conversation by

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 Lawson
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 ecclesiastical
forms of the Old World, which seemed in their view as “garments
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 meeting-house
the communion was administered under a temperature
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, nobody 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

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 possible,
the whole population of a town, — men, women, and children.
There was then in a village but one fold and one shepherd,
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 simplest
and most primitive form, on which were collected every
Sunday the thin and wasted remnants of what once was a numerous
and powerful tribe. There were four or five respectable
Indian families, who owned comfortable farms in the neighborhood,
and came to meeting in their farm-wagons, like any of their
white neighbors.

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 apostolic
traditions of the good Eliot. By his side sat his wife, Keturah,
who, though she had received Christian baptism, still retained
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; 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 syllables
that occurred very often, — “ah-mah-ga, ah-mah-ga,” — sometimes
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
said their prayers and made their manners when they came into
her house. Next behind her came Betty Poganut, Patty Pegan,
and old Sarah Wonsamug, — hard-visaged, high-cheek-boned
females, with snaky-black eyes, principally remarkable, in my

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 face, but much in request
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 garments
a little tighter, and, with a patronizing nod, say, “Wal,
naow, 'f you can spare me I 'll 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 existed,
neither older nor younger. He was of a majestic stature,
slender and proudly erect, and perfectly graceful in every movement,
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

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 demand
in all the region about as assistant in butchering operations.

Besides these, let me not forget dear, jolly old Cæsar, my
grandfather's own negro, the most joyous creature on two feet.
What could not Cæsar 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 cat, and
bark like a dog; he could sing and fiddle, and dance the double-shuffle,
and was au fait in all manner of jigs and hornpipes; and
one need not wonder, therefore, that old Cæsar was hugged and
caressed and lauded by me in my childhood as the most wonderful
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 polished
as ebony, smooth-spoken and respectful, and quite a favorite
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

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 'll 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 distinguishing
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 increasing
evidence of that versatility of genius for which he was distinguished.

Another principal bass-singer was old Joe Stedman, who asserted
his democratic right to do just as he had a mind to by
always appearing every Sunday in a clean leather apron of precisely
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

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 conduct
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 rampant
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 observances
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 altitude
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

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 Sunday
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 Rossiter, 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 mysteriously
vanished from view, as many good Tories did; but now
that the new social status was well established, he suddenly reappeared
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

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. He 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 resemblance
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, handsome
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 concealed
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 anything

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 provoking
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 reappointment
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 bestowal
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 theologic 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

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 intrenched,
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 Arminian 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, without
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 smilingly
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 industrious.
He was in his place to be prayed for as one of a bereaved
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 Sunday,
as much as making hay or digging potatoes on Monday.
His wife by his side displayed no less the aspect of calm, respectable,
well-to-do content. Her Sunday bonnet was without

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, Eliakim 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 'Liakim 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 rendering
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 his
usual smile, “never go after him, — you 'll 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 overseeing
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 questions
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

sure, it was a general stir of loving-kindness and good intentions,
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 hammer-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 importing
into the congregation those dry, forlorn, tremulous specimens
of female mortality which abound in every village congregation.

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 unedifying giggle and
titter of light-minded young men and damsels when Aunt Bathsheba
Sawin and Aunt Jerusha Pettibone, in their rusty blackcrape
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 tithing-man
was not looking at them, would bet marbles whether
the next load would be old Mother Chris and Phœbe 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

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 Fliakim was often dealt with as
one of good intentions, but wanting the wisdom which is profitable
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 expectancy
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 distractedly
on the neck of the horse. “My young friend, I cannot permit
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 he
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 character,
who haunted the tavern and was called by the boys Old
Mopshear, gave a résumé of his opinions of tithing-men as seen
from the camp of the enemy.

“Old Deacon Badger,” he said, “was always lookin' 't other

way, and never saw nothin' 't' was 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 middlin'-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-man!”

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 temporal
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 acquired
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, barbarian
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.

We 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

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 of 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 minister
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 consolation.
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

the life to come the substance, — that there is but one thing needful,
— 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,

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 shivered
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, —