University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
FIRE-LIGHT TALKS IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S KITCHEN.

MY grandmother's kitchen was a great, wide, roomy apartment,
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 another
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 grandmother
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 determination,
tear down the whole structure and rebuild from the foundation
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

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 Cæsar'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
Cæsar 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.

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 irresistible.
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 Cæsar'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 manifested
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 fashionable
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

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 grandfather
had also a large splint-bottomed arm-chair, with rockers to
it, in which he swung luxuriously in the corner of the great fireplace.
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 collected
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.

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 putting
down her shovel.

“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 'd rather, I 'll pin a card to
that effect upon the door; and then we 'll take our ease. Or,
better than that, I 'll 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 seated
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

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 blackberry-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. Did n'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.

“Do sit down, 'Liakim,” said my 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 believe
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 dispensation,
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 identical
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 uncomeliness
has its differing characters, and there are some very

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 character,
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 faithfulness
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 omnivorous
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 contained
her father's library, over an edition of Æsop's Fables
illustrated with plates, which, opened, was an endless field of enchantment
to me.

Miss Mehitable lived under the watch and charge of an ancient
female domestic named Polly Shubel. Polly was a representative

specimen of the now extinct species of Yankee serving-maids.
She had been bred up from a child in the Rosseter family
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 Oldtown.
Polly was a driving, thrifty, doctrinal and practical
female, with strong bones and muscles, and strong opinions, believing
most potently in early rising, soap and sand, and the Assembly'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 physical
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 gingerbread,
when I went to visit Miss Rossiter. I counted Miss Mehitable
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 amusing
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

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 Badger?
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 Cambridge?
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, simultaneously
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 sometimes?”

I looked bashful and wistful at this address, and Miss Mehitable
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 Major 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 occasion
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, recognizing
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.”

While the conversation was thus taking a turn of the most approved
genteel style, Aunt Keziah's ears heard alarming premonitory
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.”

“Wal now, Mr. Badger,” said Sam, with white eyes of veneration,
“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.”

“Wal, 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.

“Wal, 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.

“Wal,” said Sam, leaning over the fire, with his long, bony

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' discouragin'.
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 immediate
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 nobody
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 thousand,
— 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 Mehitable,
“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 Mehitable's
face. It looked haggard and weary, as of one tired of
struggling with painful thoughts.

“Wal,” said Sam Lawson, “I stopped a minute round to
your back door, Miss Rossiter, to talk with Polly about the sermon.
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.”

“Wal,” 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. Wal, 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. Wal, I telled her it was Adam chopped our hands off.
But she said, no; it was we did it in Adam, and she brought
up the catechise plain enough, — We sinned in him, and fell with
him.'”

“She had you there, Sam,” said Uncle Fly, with great content.
“You won't catch Polly tripping on the catechism.”

“Well, for my part,” said Major Broad, “I don't like these
doctrinal subtilties, 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 'm 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 particularly
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,

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, my 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 admire
your spirit. But, Sam, what does Hepsy think of all this?
I suppose you enlighten her when you return from your investigations.”

“Wal, 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 meant 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' 'cumulate,
ye know.”

“Mr. Lawson,” said my grandmother, with a look of long-suffering
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

'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 'll stay him with flagons, and comfort
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 say. That is, I jest said, `O 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 should n't wonder if we got

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 'em 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 housekeeper
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 liberally
dispensed at the other side of the room.

“Want some, Sam, my boy?” said Uncle Bill, with a patronizing
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
did n'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 satisfyin', — 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

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 Mehitable.

“I have two. One is, it gives too much power to the President.
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 dreadful
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 dreadful
punishment. I am certain of it.”[1]

“Well, really,” said my grandfather, “I 'm concerned to hear
you speak so. I have felt such anxiety to have something settled.
You see, without a union we are all afloat, — we are separate logs,
but no raft.”

“Yes,” said Miss Mehitable, “but nothing can be settled that
is n't founded on right. We ought to dig deep, and lay our foundations
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 Constitution,
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, he 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 Cæsar's
forehead sees what slavery comes to.”

My grandmother always pointed her anti-slavery arguments
with an appeal to this mark of ill-usage which old Cæsar had received
at the hands of a brutal master years before, and the appeal
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.

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 Cæsar, 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.

“Wal, 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 talkin'
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?”

“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 Surridge,
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 connection
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 entertained,
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

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. He 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, `Neither do I condemn thee; go
and sin no more.'”

I noticed again that sort of shiver of feeling in Miss Mehitable;
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.”

“Wal, I 've heerd 'em say,” said Sam Lawson, “that it would

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.
She 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 something
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 consider
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, — producing
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, — where

religion, theology, politics, 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 question
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.