Recollections of a Lifetime, by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (New York & Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856)

[To main page for this work]

[To previous page]

LETTER V.

The Joyous Nature of Childhood--Drawbacks--The Small-Pox--The Pest-House--Our House a Hospital--Inoculation--The Force of Early Impressions--Rogers' Pleasures of Memory--My First Whistle--My Sister's Recollections of a Sunday Afternoon--The Song of Kalewala-- Poetic Cliaracter of Early Life--Obligations to make Childhood Happy--Beautiful Instinct of Mothers--Improvements in the Training of Children Suggested--Example of our Saviour--The Family a Divine Institution--Christian Marriage.

My dear C******

I hope you will not imagine that I am thinking too little of your amusement and too much of my own, if I stop a few moments to note the lively recollections I entertain of the joyousness of my early life, and not of mine only, but that of my playmates and companions. In looking back to those early days, the whole circle of the seasons seems to me almost like one unbroken morning of pleasure.

I was of course subjected to the usual crosses incident to my age--those painful and mysterious visitations sent upon children--the measles, mumps, whooping-cough, and the like--usually regarded as retributions for the false step of our mother Eve in the Garden; but they have almost passed from my memory, as if overflowed and borne away by the general drift of happiness which filled my bosom. Among these calamities, one monument alone remains--the small-pox. It was in the year 1798, as I

well remember, that my father's house was converted into a hospital, or, as it was then called, a "pest-house," where, with some dozen other children, I was inoculated for this disease, then the scourge and terror of the world.

It will be remembered that Jenner published his first memoir upon vaccination about this period, but his discoveries were generally repudiated as mere charlatanism, for some time after. There were regular small-pox hospitals in different parts of New England, usually in isolated situations, so as not to risk dissemination of the dreaded infection. One of these, and quite the most celebrated of its time, had been established by my maternal grandfather upon Duck Island, lying off the present town of West Brook--then called Pochaug--in Long Island Sound; but it had been destroyed by the British during the Revolution, and was never revived. There was one upon the northern shore of Long Island, and doubtless many others; but as it was often inconvenient to send children to these places, several families would unite and convert one house, favorably situated, into a temporary hospital, for the inoculation of such as needed it. It was in pursuance of this custom that our habitation was selected, on the present occasion, as the scene of this somewhat awful process.

There were many circumstances which contributed to impress this event upon my mind. In the first place, there was a sort of popular horror of the "pest-

house," not merely because of the virulent nature of small-pox, but because of a common superstitious feeling in the community--though chiefly confined to the ignorant classes--that voluntarily to create the disease, was contrary to nature, and a plain tempting of Providence. In their view, if death ensued, it was esteemed little better than murder. Thus, as our house was being put in order for the coming scene, and as the subjects of the fearful experiment were gathering in, a gloom pervaded all countenances, and its shadow naturally fell upon me.

The lane in which our house was situated was fenced up, north and south, so as to cut off all intercourse with the world around. A flag was raised, and upon it were inscribed the ominous words "SMALLPOX." My uncle and aunt, from New Haven, arrived with their three children.* Half a dozen others of the neighborhood were gathered together, making, with our own children, somewhat over a dozen subjects for the experiment. When all was ready, like Noah and his family we were shut in. Provisions were deposited in a basket at a point agreed upon, down the lane. Thus, we were cut off from the world, excepting only that Dr. Perry, the physician, ventured to visit us in our fell dominion.

As to myself, the disease passed lightly over, leav-

ing, however, its indisputable autographs upon various part of my body.* Were it not for these testimonials, I should almost suspect that I had escaped the disease, for I only remember, among my symptoms and my sufferings, a little headache, and the privation of salt and butter upon my hasty-pudding. My restoration to these privileges I distinctly recollect: doubtless these gave me more pleasure than the clean bill of health which they implied. Several of the patients suffered severely, and among them my brother and one of my cousins. The latter, in a recent conversation upon the subject, claimed the honor of two thousand pustules, and was not a little humbled when, by documentary evidence, they were reduced to two hundred.

Yet, while it is evident that I was subjected to the usual drawbacks upon the happiness of childhood, these were, in fact, so few as to have passed away from my mind, leaving in my memory only the general tide of life, seeming, as I look back, to have been one bright current of enjoyment, flowing

amid flowers, and all in the company of companions as happy and jubilant as myself. By a beautiful alchemy of the heart, the clouds of early life appear afterward to be only accessories to the universal spring-tide of pleasure. Even this dark episode of the pest-house, stands in my memory as rather an interesting event, partly because there was something strange and romantic about it, and partly because it is the office of the imagination to gild with sunshine even the clouds of the past.

In all this, my experience was in no way peculiar: I was but a representation of childhood in all countries and ages. I do not forget the instances in which children are subjected to misfortune, nor the moral obliquity which is in every childish heart. But making due allowance for the shadows thus cast upon the spring of life, its general current is such as I have described.

It has been oracularly said that the child is father of the man. If it is meant that men fulfill the promises of childhood, it is not true; for so far as my observation goes, not one child in five, when grown up, is altogether what was expected of him. If it is meant that the influences operating upon children ordinarily determine their future fate, it is doubtless correct; though I may remark, by the way, that it is rather an obscure mode of saying what had been happily expressed by Solomon, thousands of years ago.

But why is it that early impressions are thus wing-

ed with fate? Partly because of the plastic character of young life, and partly also because of the vividness, sincerity, and intensity of its conceptions. And these, be it remembered, are always pleasurable, unless some extraneous incident or accident intervenes to thwart the tendency of nature. The heart of childhood as readily inclines to flow in a current of enjoyment as water to run down hill. Hence it is, that in a majority of cases, or at least in a large proportion of cases, the remembrances of childhood are like those I have described--not only vivid and glowing, but cheerful and joyous.

As to this fullness and intensity of youthful impressions, every mind can furnish examples: all true poets recognize it; most celebrate it. Who can not remember particular places--such as hillsides, valleys, lawns; particular things--as rocks, trees, brooks; particular times and seasons-- which have become fixed in the mind, and consecrated in the heart for all future time, by association with the ardent and glowing thoughts or experiences of childhood? Often a single incident, one momentary impression, is indelibly stamped as upon a die of steel. Let me take an example in my own childish remembrance. There was a willow-tree near my father's house, which was graven on my memory by a particular circumstance: from this my brother cut a branch and made me a whistle of it--the first I remember to have possessed. The form of this tree, and all

the surrounding objects, as well as the day of the week and the season of the year, have lived from that hour in my memory. In a similar way, I remember a multitude of other familiar objects, all suggesting similar associations and recollections. Rogers, in his beautiful poem, the "Pleasures of Memory," recognizes this vividness of early impressions, in supposing a person, after an absence of many years, to visit the site of the school-house of his early days--now in decay and ruin. As he passes over the place,

"Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship form'd in childhood here;
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams."

I was recently conversing with my sister M..... upon this subject, and entertaining the views I have here expressed, she recited to me, as illustrative of her experience, some lines she had composed several years ago, but which she had not thought worth committing to paper. I requested a copy, which she furnished me, and I here insert them. They are designed to express the thoughts suggested by the recollection of a particular family scene, of a Sunday afternoon, which, for some reason or other, had been indelibly impressed upon her young mind.

A REMEMBERED SABBATH EVENING OF MY CHILDHOOD.

Oh! let me weave one song to-night,
      For the spell is on me now;
And thoughts come thronging thick and bright,
All fresh and rosy with the light
      Of childhood's early glow.

They hurry from out the forgotten past,
      Through the gather'd mist of years--
From the halls of Memory, dim and vast,
Where they have buried lain in the shadows cast
      By recent joy or fears.

Say not mine is a thoughtful brow,
      Furrow'd by care and pain;
My childhood's curls seem over it now,
As they lay there years and years ago--
      And I am a child again.

And I am again in my childhood's home,
      Which looks on the distant sea;
And the loved and lost--they come--they come!
To the old but well-remember'd room,
      And I sit by my father's knee.

'Tis the Sabbath evening hour of prayer;
      And in the accustom'd place
Is my Father, with calm, benignant air:
Each brother and sister too is there,
      And my Mother, with stately grace.

And with the rest comes a dark-eyed child--
      The youngest of all is she,
Bringing her friend and playmate wild
In her dimpled arms, and with warnings mild
      Checking its sportive glee.

And well could my young heart sympathize 
      With all I saw her do: 
With the thought which danced in those laughing eyes, 
Veil'd by a look demure and wise,-- 
      That her kitten should join the service
too. 
 
And though glad I came at my father's call, 
      My thoughts had much to do 
With the whispering leaves of the poplar tall, 
And the checker'd light on the whitewashed wall, 
      And the pigeons' loving coo. 
 
And I watch'd the banish'd kitten's bound, 
      As it frolick'd to and fro; 
And wish'd the spyglass could be found, 
That I might see on the distant Sound 
      The tall ships come and go. 
 
Through the open door my stealthy gaze 
      Sought the shadows, long and still; 
When sudden the sun's departing rays 
Set the church windows all a-blaze, 
      On Greenfield's* distant hill. 
 
But new and wondering thoughts awoke, 
      Like morning from the night, 
As, with deeply reverent voice and look, 
My father read from the Holy Book, 
      By that Sabbath's waning light. 
 
He read of Creation's early birth-- 
      This vast and wondrous frame-- 
How "in the beginning" the Heavens and Earth 
From the formless void were order'd forth, 
      And how they obedient came.

How Darkness lay like a heavy pall 
      On the face of the silent deep, 
Till, answering to the Almighty call, 
Light came, and spread, and waken'd all 
      From that deep and brooding sleep. 
 
Oh! ever as sinks the Sabbath sun 
      In the glowing summer skies, 
My father's voice, my mother's look, 
Blent with the words of the Holy Book, 
      Upon my memory rise. 
 
For then were traced on the mystic scroll 
      Of deathless imagery, 
Deep hidden within my secret soul, 
Which eternity only will fully unroll-- 
      Some lines of my destiny !

The impressibility of youth, and the depth and earnestness of its conceptions, are beautifully suggested in the opening passage of the famous Finnish poem, the epic song of Kalewala. The lines are as follows:

"These the words we have received-- 
These, the songs we do inherit, 
Are of Wainämöimen's girdle-- 
From the forge of Ilmarinen, 
Of the sword of Kankoinieli, 
Of the bow of Youkanhainen, 
Of the borders of the North-fields, 
Of the plains of Kalewala. 
 
"These my father sang aforetime, 
As he chipped the hatchet's handle 
These were taught me by my mother

As she twirled her flying spindles, 
When I on the floor was sporting, 
Bound her knee was gayly dancing, 
As a pitiable weakling-- 
As a weakling small of stature. 
Never failed these wondrous stories, 
Told of Sampo, told of Louhi: 
Old grew Sampo in the stories; 
Louhi vanished with her magic; 
In the songs Wiunen perished: 
In the play died Lemminkainen. 
 
"There are many other stories, 
Magic sayings which I learned, 
Which I gathered by the wayside, 
Culled amid the heather-blossoms, 
Rifled from the bushy copses. 
From the bending twigs I pluck'd them, 
Plucked them from the tender grasses, 
When a shepherd-boy I sauntered, 
As a lad upon the pastures, 
On the honey-bearing meadows, 
On the gold-illumined hillock, 
Following black Muurikki 
At the side of spotted Kimmo. 
 
"Songs the very coldness gave me, 
Music found I in the rain-drops; 
Other songs the winds brought to me, 
Other songs, the ocean-billows; 
Birds, by singing in the branches, 
And the tree-top spoke in whispers."

Thus in early life all nature is poetry: childhood and youth are indeed one continuous poem. In most cases this ecstasy of emotion and conception passes

away without our special notice. A it dies out from the memory, but passages are written upon the heart in lines of light and power, that can not be effaced. These become woven into the texture of the soul, and give character to it for time--perchance for eternity. The whole fountain of the mind, like some mineral spring, reaching to the interior elements of the earth--is imbued with ingredients which make its current sweet or bitter forever.

Pray excuse me for making a few suggestions upon these facts:--even if they seem like sermonizing. If early life is thus happy in its general current--in its nature and tendency--surely it is well and wise for those who have the care of children, to see in it the design of the Creator, and to follow the lead He has thus given. If God places our offspring in Eden, let us not causeless or carelessly take them out of it. It is certainly a mistake to consider childhood and youth--the first twenty years of life--as only a period of constraint and discipline. This is one-third part of existence--to a majority, it is more than the half of life. It is the only portion which seems made for unalloyed enjoyment. It is the morning, and all is sunshine: the after part of the day is necessarily devoted to toil and care, and that too amid clouds, and at last, beneath the shadows of approaching night. Let us not, then, presume to mar this birthright of bliss.

You will not suspect me to mean that government,

discipline, instruction, are to be withheld. These, are indispensable, but they should all be reconciled with the happy flow of life. This is, in fact, often attained by the instinct of mothers, whom God has given grace to combine government and indulgence, discipline and encouragement in such happy mixture, and measure, as to check the weeds, and foster the fruits, of the soul. It is not always done: it is not done perfectly, perhaps, in a single case. Yet I can not doubt that--despite all the difficulties which poverty, and ignorance, and sin impose upon the world--a majority of mothers do in fact temper their conduct to their children, so as, on the whole, to exercise, in a large degree, a saving, redeeming, regenerating influence upon them.

Nevertheless, there is room for improvement. There are too many persons who look upon children as reprobate--too many who regard the rod as the rule, not the exception. Some imagine that the whole business of education lies in study, and that to cram the mind is to enrich it. Some, indeed, are indifferent, and think even less of the moral growth and improvement of their children, than they do of the growth and improvement of their cattle. I think there are still others, who dislike children--who are annoyed by their presence, impatient of their little caprices, and regardless of their virtues; who only see their foibles, and would always confine them to the nursery. Even the Disciples of Christ seem not to

have been superior to this common feeling. The answer of our Saviour was at once a rebuke and a lesson. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." There is profound theology--there is deep, touching, divine humanity in this. Children are not reprobate: they are docile and teachable, with thoughts and emotions so pure as to breathe of heaven. They are cheerful, happy; their presence was healthful, even to the "Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief!"

It is in this last aspect that I particularly wish to present this subject. Children, no doubt, impose burdens upon their parents. No words can express the weight of care which often presses "upon the heart of the mother--in the deep watches of the night, in moments of despondency, in periods of feeble health, in the pinches of poverty, in the trying, dark days of the spirit--as to the future prospects of her offspring. Anxieties for their welfare, temporal and eternal, often seem to wring the very heart, drop by drop, of its blood. And yet, all things considered, children are the great blessing of the household. They impose cares, but they elevate all hearts around them. They cultivate unselfish and therefore purifying feelings: they cheer the old, by reviving recollections of early life; they excite the young, by kindly fellowship and emulous sympathy. Without children, the world would be like a forest of old oaks, gnarled,

groaning, and fretful in the desolation of winter. For myself, I can say, that children are the best of playmates when I am well with the world, and they are the best of medicine, when I am sick and weary of it. It is children, here in the family, that are thus a blessing: not the children of a community, as in Sparta, for there they were educated to crime. In every community, where they are not the charge of the parents, and especially of the mother, they would, I think, infallibly become reprobates. The family seems to me a divine institution. Marriage, sanctioned by religion, is its bond: children its fruition. No statesman, no founder of a religion, no reformer--after innumerable attempts--has given the world a substitute for Christian Marriage and that institution which follows--the Family. It is, up to this era of our world, the anchor of society, the fountain of love and hope and dignity in man and human society. Those who attempt to overturn it, are, I think, working against the Almighty.

-----
I, p. 56

LETTER VI.

The Inner Life of Towns--Physical Aspect and Character of Ridgefield--Effects of Cultivation upon Climate--Energetic Character of the First Settlers of Ridgefield--Classes of the People as to Descent--Their Occupations--Newspapers--Position of my Father's Family--Management of the Farm--Domestic Economy--Mechanical Professions--Beef and Pork--The Thanksgiving Turkey--Bread--Fuel--Flint and Steel--Friction Matches--Prof. Silliman--Pyroligneous Acid--Maple Sugar--Rum--Dram-drinking--Tansey Bitters--Brandy-- Whisky--The First "Still"--Wine--Dr. G.'s Sacramental Wine--Domestic Products--Bread and Butter--Linen and Woolen Cloth--Cotton-- Flax and Wool--The Little Spinning-wheel--Sally St. John and the Rat-trap-- Manufacture of Wool--Molly Gregory and Fuging Tunes--The Tanner and Hatter--The Revolving Shoemaker--Whipping the Cat--Carpets--Coverlids and Quiltings--Village Bees and Raisings--The Meetlng-House that was destroyed by Lightning--Deaconing a Hymn.

My dear C******

It will be no new suggestion to a reflecting man like yourself, that towns, as well as men, have their inner and their outer life. There is a striking difference in one respect, between the two subjects; the age of man is set at threescore years and ten, while towns seldom die. The pendulum of human life vibrates by seconds, that of towns by centuries. The history of cities, the focal points of society, may be duly chronicled even to their minutest incidents; but cities do not constitute nations; the mass of almost every country is in the smaller towns and villages. The outer life of these is vaguely jotted down

in the census, and reported in the Gazetteers; but their inner life, which comprises the condition and progress of the community at large, is seldom written. We may see glimpses of it in occasional sermons, in special biographies, in genealogical memoranda. We may take periods of fifty years, and deduce certain general inferences from statistical tables of births and deaths; but still, the living men and manners as they rise in a country town, are seldom portrayed. I am therefore tempted to give you a rapid sketch of Ridgefield and of the people--how they lived, thought, and felt, at the beginning of the present century. It will serve as an example of rustic life throughout New England, fifty years ago, and it will moreover enable me, by contrasting this state of things with what I found to exist many years after, to show the steady, though silent, and perhaps unnoted progress of society among us.

From what I have already said, you will easily imagine the prominent physical characteristics and aspect of my native town--a general mass of hills, rising up in a crescent of low mountains, and commanding a wide view on every side. The soil was naturally hard, and thickly sown with stones of every size, from the immovable rock to the pebble. The fields, at this time, were divided by rude stone walls, and the surface of most was dotted with gathered heaps of stones and rocks, thus clearing spaces for cultivation, yet leaving a large portion of

the land still encumbered with its original curse. The climate was severe, on account of the elevation of the site, yet this was perhaps fully compensated by a corresponding salubrity.

I may add, in passing, that the climate of New England generally, has been mitigated within the last fifty years by the changes which civilization has wrought on the surface of the country--the felling of forests, the draining of marshes, the cultivation of the soil, and other similar causes--to an extent not generally appreciated. A person who has not made observations for a long period of time, is hardly aware of these mutations--effected by a growing and industrious agricultural community, even in the sterner features of nature. This may, however, be easily appreciated, if one will compare a district of country covered with its original forests, and converted into one vast sponge by its thick coating of weeds, shrubs, mosses, and decayed wood--the accumulations of centuries--thus making the hills and valleys a universal swamp, hoarding the rains of summer, and treasuring the snows of winter--with the same district, cleared of its trees, its soil turned up by the plow to the sun, and its waste waters carried off by roads and drains. Such a process over a whole country, is evidently sufficient to affect its temperature, and materially to modify its climate. I know many tracts of land, which, fifty years ago, were reeking with moisture, their surface defying cultivation by the

plow, and their roads impassable a great part of the year by means of the accumulation of water in the soil--now covered with houses, gardens, and cornfields, and all the result of the slow but transforming processes bestowed by man upon every country which he subjects to cultivation. Nature is like man himself--rude in his aspect and severe in his temper, until softened and subdued by civilization. Our New England, two centuries ago, was, like its inhabitants, bleak and wild to the view, harsh and merciless in its climate: the change of these is analogous to the change which has been effected by substituting towns and villages for wigwams, and Christian man for the savage.

Yet despite the somewhat forbidding nature of the soil and climate of Ridgefield, it may be regarded as presenting a favorable example of New England country life and society, at the beginning of the present century. The town was originally settled by a sturdy race of men, mostly the immediate descendants of English emigrants, some from Norwalk and some from Milford. Their migration over an intervening space of savage hills, rocks, and ravines, into a territory so forbidding, and their speedy conversion of this into a thriving and smiling village, are witnesses to their courage and energy. The names which they bore, and which have been disseminated over the Union--Benedicts, Olmsteads, Northups, Keelers, Hoyts, Nashes, Dauceys, Meads, Hawleys--are no

less significant of the vigor and manliness of the stock to which they belonged.

At the time referred to, the date of my earliest recollection, the society of Ridgefield was exclusively English, and the manners and customs such as might have been expected, under the modifying influence of existing circumstances. I remember but one Irishman, one negro, and one Indian in the town. The first had begged and blarneyed his way from Long Island, where he had been wrecked; the second was a liberated slave; and the last was the vestige of a tribe, which dwelt of yore in a swampy tract, the name of which I have forgotten. We had a professed beggar, called Jagger, who had served in the armies of more than one of the Georges, and insisted upon crying "God save the king!" even on the 4th of July, and when openly threatened by the boys with a gratuitous ride on a rail. We had one settled pauper, Mrs. Yabacomb, who, for the first dozen years of my life, was my standard type for the witch of Endor.

Nearly all the inhabitants of Ridgefield were farmers, with the few mechanics that were necessary to carry on society in a somewhat primeval state. Even the persons not professionally devoted to agriculture, had each his farm, or at least his garden and home lot, with his pigs, poultry, and cattle. The population might have been 1200, comprising two hundred families. All could read and write, but in point

of fact, beyond the Almanac and Watts' Psalms and Hymns, their literary acquirements had little scope. There were, I think, four newspapers, all weekly, published in the State: one at Hartford, one at New London, one at New Haven, and one at Litchfield. There were, however, not more than three subscribers to all these in our village. We had, however, a public library of some two hundred volumes, and what was of equal consequence--the town was on the road which was then the great thoroughfare, connecting Boston with New York, and hence it had means of intelligence from travelers constantly passing through the place, which kept it up with the march of events. If Ridgefield was thus rather above the average of Connecticut villages in its range of civilization, I suppose the circumstances and modes of life in my father's family, were somewhat above those of most people around us. We had a farm of forty acres, with four cows, two horses, and some two dozen sheep, to which may be added a stock of poultry, including a flock of geese. My father carried on the farm, besides preaching two sermons a week, and attending to other parochial duties--visiting the sick, attending funerals, solemnizing marriages, &c. He personally laid out the beds and planted the garden, he pruned the fruit-trees, and worked with the men in the meadow in the press of haying-time. He generally cut the corn-stalks himself, and always shelled the ears; the latter being done by drawing

them across the handle of the frying-pan, fastened over a wash-tub. I was sometimes permitted, as indulgence, to spell my father in this, which was a favorite employment. With these and a few other exceptions, our agricultural operations were carried on by hired help.

It may seem that I should have passed over these somewhat commonplace passages in my father's life, but my judgment teaches me otherwise. There is good example and good argument in behalf of these labors of the garden and the field, even in a professional man. Not to cite Achilles and Abraham, who slaughtered their own mutton, and Cincinnatus, who held his own plow, it was the custom in New England, at the time I speak of, for country lawyers, physicians, clergymen--even Doctors of Divinity, to partake of these homespun labors. In the library of the Atheneum at Hartford, is a collection of Almanacs, formerly belonging to John Cotton Smith-- one of the most elegant and accomplished men of his time--a distinguished member of Congress, Judge of the Superior Court, and several years Governor of the State. In looking it over, I observed such notes as the following, made with his own hand: "cut my barley," "began rye harvest," "planted field of potatoes," &c.; thus showing his personal attention to, if not his participation in, the affairs of the farm.*

Nearly all the judges of the Superior Court occasionally worked in the field, in these hearty old federal times.

Whether these facts may be connected with others, which I am about to state, is a question I leave for doctors to determine. Certain it is that at this period professional men had good health and good digestion: no clergyman was known to have bronchitis. I seldom heard of dyspepsia, bodily or mental, during the existence of the Charter of Charles II. There is a pretty common notion in the United States, that Jefferson infused a general demagogism into this country, which percolated through the blood and bone of society, and set everybody in some way or other, to flattering the masses. It is certain that about this time, not only the politician, but the preacher, the lawyer, the editor, the author, all took to talking, speech-making, lecturing in a new way, in a new sense--that is, so as to seduce the multitude. Thus was ushered in the Age of Talk, which soon grew into a rage. The mania kept pace with democracy, and democracy with the mania; and at last, at the end of this national flatulence, the world grew light-headed, and forth came a spawn of isms, which no man can number. Under the influence of this advent of new notions, some took to cold water and some to mint-juleps; some to raw vegetables and some to hot slings. All agonized in one way or another. Every thing grew intense: politics swam with pota-

tions; religion got mixed up with transcendentalism; until at last, professors took to table-turning and judges to spirit-rappings. Now I do not say that all this is a sequence of logical deductions: that spiritualism is to be fathered upon Thomas Jefferson: what I affirm is, that demagogism and democracy, dyspepsia and transcendentalism, vegetarianism and spiritualism, have all come up, one after another, since old federalism went down! If it is any object to cure mankind of these vapors, I recommend that we all go back to the habits of other days, in which ministers, judges and governors wrought occasionally in the field.

But I return to Ridgefield. The household, as well as political, economy of these days lay in this, that every family lived as much as possible within itself. Money was scarce, wages being about fifty cents a day, though these were generally paid in meat, vegetables, and other articles of use--seldom in money. There was not a factory of any kind in the place.* There was a butcher, but he only went from house to house to slaughter the cattle and swine of his neighbors. There was a tanner, but he only dressed other people's skins: there was a clothier, but he generally fulled and dressed other people's cloth. All this is typical of the mechanical opera-

tions of the place. Even dyeing blue a portion of the wool, so as to make linsey-woolsey for short-gowns, aprons, and blue-mixed stockings--vital necessities in those days--was a domestic operation. During the autumn, a dye-tub in the chimney corner--thus placed so as to be cherished by the genial heat--was as familiar in all thrifty houses, as the Bible or the back-log. It was covered with a board, and formed a cosy seat in the wide-mouthed fireplace, especially of a chill evening. When the night had waned, and the family had retired, it frequently became the anxious seat of the lover, who was permitted to carry on his courtship, the object of his addresses sitting demurely in the opposite corner. Some of the first families in Connecticut, I suspect, could their full annals be written, would find their foundations to have been laid in these chimney-corner courtships.

Being thus exposed, this institution of the dye-tub was the frequent subject of distressing and exciting accidents. Among the early, indelible incidents in my memory, happening to all vigorous characters, turning this over is one of the most prominent. Nothing so roused the indignation of thrifty housewives, for besides the ignominious avalanche of blue upon the floor, there was an infernal appeal made to another sense than that of sight. Every youth of parts was laden with experience in this way. I have a vague impression that Philip N...., while courting

H.... M...., was suspended for six weeks, for one of these mischances. If it was not he, it was some other spark of that generation.

To this general system of domestic economy our family was not an exception. Every autumn, it was a matter of course that we had a fat ox or a fat cow, ready for slaughter. One full barrel was salted down; the hams were cut out, slightly salted, and hung up in the chimney for a few days, and thus became "dried" or "hung beef," then as essential as the staff of life. Pork was managed in a similar way, though even on a larger scale, for two barrels were indispensable. A few pieces, as the spare-ribs, &c., were distributed to the neighbors, who paid in kind when they killed their swine.

Mutton and poultry came in their turn, all from our own stock, save that on Thanksgiving-day some of the magnates gave the parson a turkey. This, let me observe, in those good old times, was a bird of mark; no timid, crouching biped, with downcast head and pallid countenance, but stalking like a lord, and having wattles red as a "banner bathed in slaughter." His beard, or in modern parlance, his goat, without the aid of gum and black-ball, was so long, shining, and wiry, that it might have provoked the envy of his modern human rival in foppery. There was, in fact, something of the genius of the native bird still in him, for though the race was nearly extinct, a few wild flocks lingered in the remote

woods. Occasionally in the depth of winter, and along to the early spring, these stole to the barnyard, and held communion with their civilized compatriots. Severe battles ensued among the leaders for the favors of the fair, and as the wild cocks always conquered, the vigor of the race was kept up.

Our bread was of rye, tinged with Indian meal. Wheat bread was reserved for the sacrament and company; a proof not of its superiority, but of its scarcity and consequent estimation. All the vegetables came from our garden and farm. The fuel was supplied by our own woods--sweet-scented hickory, snapping chestnut, odoriferous oak, and reeking, fizzling ash--the hot juice of the latter, by the way, being a sovereign antidote for the ear-ache. These were laid in huge piles, all alive with sap, on the tall, gaunt andirons. You might have thought you heard John Rogers and his family at the stake, by their plaintive simmerings. The building of a fire was a real architectural achievement, favored by the wide yawning fireplace, and was always begun by daybreak. There was first a back-log, from fifteen to four and twenty inches in diameter and five feet long, imbedded in the ashes; then came a top log; then a fore stick; then a middle stick, and then a heap of kindlings, reaching from the bowels down to the bottom. A-top of all was a pyramid of smaller fragments, artfully adjusted, with spaces for the blaze.

Friction matches had not then been sent from the

regions of brimstone, to enable every boy or beggar to carry a conflagration in his pocket. If there were no coals left from the last night's fire, and none to be borrowed from the neighbors, resort was had to flint, steel, and tinder-box. Often, when the flint was dull and the steel soft, and the tinder damp, the striking of fire was a task requiring both energy and patience. If the edifice on the andirons was skilfully constructed, the spark being applied, there was soon a furious stinging smoke, which Silliman told the world some years after, consisted mainly of pyroligneous acid. Nevertheless, in utter ignorance of this philosophical fact, the forked flame soon began to lick the sweating sticks above, and by the time the family had arisen, and assembled in the "keeping room," there was a roaring blaze, which defied even the bitter blasts of winter--and which, by the way, found abundant admittance through the crannies of the doors and windows. To feed the family fire in those days, during the severe season, was fully one man's work.

But to go on with our household history. Sugar was partially supplied by our maple-trees. These were tapped in March, the sap being collected, and boiled down in the woods. This was wholly a domestic operation, and one in which all the children rejoiced, each taking his privilege of an occasional sip or dip, from the period of the limpid sap, to the granulated condiment. Nevertheless, the chief supply, of sugar was from the West Indies.

-----

Making Maple Sugar. Vol. 1, p. 68.

Rum was largely consumed, but our distilleries had scarcely begun. A half-pint of it was given as a matter of course to every day laborer, more particularly in the summer season. In all families, rich or poor, it was offered to male visitors as an essential point of hospitality, or even good manners. Women--I beg pardon--ladies, took their schnapps, then named "Hopkins' Elixir," which was the most delicious and seductive means of getting tipsy that has been invented. Crying babies were silenced with hot toddy, then esteemed an infallible remedy for wind on the stomach. Every man imbibed his morning dram, and this was esteemed temperance. There is a story of a preacher about those days, who thus lectured his parish: "I say nothing, my beloved brethren, against taking a little bitters before breakfast, and after breakfast, especially if you are used to it. What I contend against is this dramming, dramming, dramming, at all hours of the day. There are some men who take a glass at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and at four in the afternoon. I do not purpose to contend against old established customs, my brethren, rendered respectable by time and authority; but this dramming, dramming, is a crying sin in the land."

However absurd this may seem now, it was not then very wide of the public sentiment. Huxham's tincture was largely prescribed by the physicians. Tansey bitters were esteemed a sort of panacea,

moral as well as physical, for even the morning prayer went up heavily without it. The place of Stoughton--for this mixture was not then invented--was supplied by a tuft of tansey which Providence seemed to place somewhere in every man's garden or home lot.

As to brandy, I scarcely heard of it, so far as I can recollect, till I was sixteen years old, and as apprentice in a country store, was called upon to sell it. Cider was the universal table beverage. Cider brandy and whisky were soon after evoked from the infernal caldron of evil spirits. I remember, in my boyhood, to have seen a strange, zigzag tin tube, denominated a "still," belonging to one of our neighbors, converting, drop by drop, certain innocent liquids into the infernal fire-water. But, in the days I speak of, French brandy was rather confined to the houses of the rich, and to the drug shop.

Wine in our country towns was then almost exclusively used for the sacrament. I remember to have heard a story of these days, which is suggestive. The Rev. Dr. G..... of J.... had a brother who had lived some years in France, and was familiar with the wines of that country. On a certain occasion, he dined with his clerical brother, who after dinner gave him a glass of this beverage. The visitor having tasted it, shrugged his shoulders, and made wry faces.

"Where did you get this liquor, brother?" said he.

"Why it is some that was left over from the sacrament, and my deacons sent it to me."

"I don't wonder, brother," was the reply, "that your church is so small, now that I know what wine you give them."

There was, of course, no baker in Ridgefield; each family not only made its own bread, cakes, and pies, but their own soap, candles, butter, cheese, and the like. The fabrication of cloth, linen, and woolen was no less a domestic operation. Cotton--that is, raw cotton--was then wholly unknown among us at the North, except as a mere curiosity, produced somewhere in the tropics; but whether it grew on a plant, or an animal, was not clearly settled in the public mind.

We raised our own flax, rotted it, hackled it, dressed it, and spun it. The little wheel, turned by the foot, had its place, and was as familiar as if it had been a member of the family. How often have I seen my mother, and my grandmother too, sit down to it--though this, as I remember, was for the purpose of spinning some finer kind of thread--the burden of the spinning being done by a neighbor of ours, Sally St. John. By the way, she was a good-hearted, cheerful old maid, who petted me beyond my deserts. I grieve to say, that I repaid her partiality by many mischievous pranks, for which I should have been roundly punished, had not the good creature, like charity, covered a multitude of sins. I did indeed

get filliped for catching her foot one day in a steel-trap, but I declare that I was innocent of malice prepense, inasmuch as I had set the trap for a rat instead of the said Sally. Nevertheless, the verdict was against me, not wholly because of my misdemeanor in this particular instance, but partly upon the general theory that if I did not deserve punishment for that, I had deserved it, and should deserve it for something else, and so it was safe to administer it.

The wool was also spun in the family, partly by my sisters, and partly by Molly Gregory, daughter of our neighbor, the town carpenter. I remember her well as she sang and spun aloft in the attic. In those days, church singing was one of the fine arts--the only one, indeed, which flourished in Ridgefield, except the music of the drum and fife. The choir was divided into four parts, ranged on three sides of the meeting-house gallery. The tenor, led by Deacon Hawley, was in front of the pulpit, the base to the left, and the treble and counter to the right*--the whole being set in motion by a pitch-pipe, made by the deacon himself, who was a cabinet-maker. Molly took upon herself the entire counter, for she had excellent lungs. The fuging tunes, which had then run a little mad, were her delight, and of all these, Montgomery was the general favorite. In her solitary operations aloft, I have often heard

her send forth from the attic windows, the droning hum of her wheel, with fitful snatches of a hymn, in which the base began, the tenor followed, then the treble, and finally, the counter--winding up with irresistible pathos. Molly singing to herself, and all unconscious of eavesdroppers, carried on all the parts, thus:

Base. "Long for a cooling--

Tenor. "Long for a cooling--

Treble. "Long for a cooling--

Counter. "Long for a cooling stream at hand,

And they must drink or die!"

The knitting of stockings was performed by the female part of the family in the evening, and especially at tea parties. According to the theory of society in that golden age, this was a moral as well as an economical employment, inasmuch as Satan was held to find

Satan, however, dodged the question, for if the hands were occupied, the tongue was loose; and it was said that in some families, he kept them well occupied with idle gossip. At all events, pianos, chessboards, graces, battledoors, and shuttlecocks, with other safety-valves of the kind, were only known by the hearing of the ear, as belonging to some such Vanity Fair as New York or Boston.

The weaving of cloth--linen, as well us woolen--was performed by an itinerant workman, who came to the house, put up his loom, and threw his shuttle till the season's work was done. The linen was bleached, and made up by the family; the woolen cloth was sent to the fuller to be dyed and dressed. Twice a year, that is, in the spring and autumn, the tailor came to the house and fabricated the semiannual stock of clothes for the male members--this being called "whipping the cat."

Mantuamakers and milliners came in their turn, to fit out the female members of the family. There was a similar process as to boots and shoes. We sent the hides of the cattle--cows and calves we had killed--to the tanner, and these came back in assorted leather. Occasionally a little morocco, then wholly a foreign manufacture, was bought at the store, and made up for the ladies' best shoes. Amby Benedict, the circulating shoemaker, upon due notice, came with his bench, lapstone, and awls, and converted some little room into a shop, till the household was duly shod. He was a merry fellow, and threw in lots of singing gratis. He played all the popular airs upon his lapstone--as hurdygurdies and hand-organs do now.

Carpets were then only known in a few families, and were confined to the keeping-room and parlor. They were all home-made: the warp consisting of woolen yarn, and the woof of lists and old woolen

cloth, cut into strips, and sewed together at the ends. Coverlids generally consisted of quilts, made of pieces of waste calico, elaborately sewed together in octagons, and quilted in rectangles, giving the whole a gay and rich appearance. This process of quilting generally brought together the women of the neighborhood, married and single, and a great time they had of it--what with tea, talk, and stitching. In the evening, the beaux were admitted, so that a quilting was a real festival, not unfrequently getting young people into entanglements which matrimony alone could unravel.

I am here reminded of a sort of communism or socialism which prevailed in our rural districts long before Owen or Fourier was born. If some old Arcadian of the golden age had written his life, as I now write mine, I have no doubt that it would have appeared that this system existed then and there, and that these pretended inventors were mere imitators. At all events, at Ridgefield we used to have "stone bees," when all the men of a village or hamlet came together with their draft cattle, and united to clear some patch of earth which had been stigmatized by nature with an undue visitation of stones and rocks. All this labor was gratuitously rendered, save only that the proprietor of the land furnished the grog. Such a meeting was always of course a very social and sociable affair. When the work was done, gymnastic exercises--such as hopping, wrestling, and foot-

racing--took place among the athletic young men[.] My father generally attended these celebrations as a looker-on. It was indeed the custom for the clergy of the olden time, to mingle with the people, even in their labors and their pastimes. For some reason or other, it seemed that things went better when the parson gave them his countenance. I followed my father's example, and attended these cheerful and beneficial gatherings. Most of the boys of the town did the same. I may add that, if I may trust the traditions of Ridgefield, the cellar of our new house was dug by a bee in a single day, and that was Christmas.

House-raising and barn-raising, the framework being always of wood, were done in the same way by a neighborly gathering of the people. I remember an anecdote of a church-raising, which I may as well relate here. In the eastern part of the State, I think at Lyme, or Pautipaug, a meeting-house was destroyed by lightning. After a year or two, the society mustered its energies, and raised the frame of another on the site of the old one. It stood about six months, and was then blown over.

In due time, another frame was prepared, and the neighborhood gathered together to raise it. It was now proposed by Deacon Hart that they should commence the performances by a prayer and hymn, it having been suggested that perhaps the want of these pious preliminaries on former occasions, had something to

do with the calamitous results which attended them. When all was ready, therefore, a prayer was made, and the chorister of the place deaconed* the first two lines of the hymn thus:

"If God to build the house deny,
The builders work in vain."

This being sung, the chorister completed the verse thus, adapting the lines to the occasion:

"Unless the Lord doth shingle it,
It will blow down agin!"

I must not fail to give you a portrait of one of our village homes--of the middle class--at this era. I take as an example that of our neighbor, J..... B.... who had been a tailor, but having thriven in his affairs, and now advanced to the age of some fifty years, had become a farmer--such a career, by the way, being common at the time; for the prudent mechanic, adding to his house and his lands, as his necessities and his thrift dictated, usually ended as the proprietor of an ample house, fifty to a hundred acres of land, and an ample barn, stocked with half

a dozen cows, one or two horses, a flock of sheep, and a general assortment of poultry.

The home of this, our neighbor B....., was situated on the road leading to Salem, there being a wide space in front occupied by the wood-pile, which in these days was not only a matter of great importance, but of formidable bulk. The size of the wood-pile was indeed in some sort an index to the rank and condition of the proprietor. The house itself was a low edifice, forty feet long, and of two stories in front; the rear being what was called a breakback, that is, sloping down to a height of ten feet; this low part furnishing a shelter for garden tools, and various household instruments. The whole was constructed of wood; the outside being of the dun complexion assumed by unpainted wood, exposed to the weather for twenty or thirty years, save only that the roof was tinged of a reddish-brown by a fine moss that found sustenance in the chestnut shingles.

To the left was the garden, which in the productive season was a wilderness of onions, squashes, cucumbers, beets, parsnips, and currants, with the never-failing tansey for bitters, horseradish for seasoning, and fennel for keeping old women awake in church time. A sprig of fennel was in fact the theological smelling-bottle of the tender sex, and not unfrequently of the men, who, from long sitting in the sanctuary--after a week of labor in the field--found themselves too strongly tempted to visit the forbidden

land of Nod--would sometimes borrow a sprig of fennel, and exorcise the fiend that threatened their spiritual welfare.

The interior of the house presented a parlor with plain, whitewashed walls, a home-made carpet upon the floor, calico curtains at the window, and a mirror three feet by two against the side, with a mahogany frame: to these must be added eight chairs and a cherry table, of the manufacture of Deacon Hawley. The keeping or sitting room had also a carpet, a dozen rush-bottom chairs, a table, &c. The kitchen was large--fully twenty feet square, with a fireplace six feet wide and four feet deep. On one side, it looked out upon the garden, the squashes and cucumbers climbing up and forming festoons over the door; on the other a view was presented of the orchard, embracing first a circle of peaches, pears, and plums, and beyond, a wide-spread clover field, embowered with apple-trees. Just by, was the well, with its tall sweep, the old oaken bucket dangling from the pole. The kitchen was in fact the most comfortable room in the house; cool in summer, and perfumed with the breath of the garden and the orchard: in winter, with its roaring blaze of hickory, it was a cosy resort, defying the bitterest blasts of the season. Here the whole family assembled at meals, save only when the presence of company made it proper to serve tea in the parlor.

The chambers were all without carpets, and the

furniture was generally of a simple character. The beds, however, were of ample size, and well filled with geese feathers, these being deemed essential for comfortable people. I must say, by the way that every decent family had its flock of geese, of course which was picked thrice a year, despite the noisy remonstrances of both goose and gander. The sheets of the bed, though of home-made linen, were as white as the driven snow. Indeed, the beds of this era showed that sleep was a luxury, well understood and duly cherished by all classes. The cellar, extending under the whole house, was a vast receptacle, and by no means the least important part of the establishment. In the autumn, it was supplied with three barrels of beef and as many of pork, twenty barrels of cider, with numerous bins of potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, and cabbages. The garret, which was of huge dimensions, at the same time displayed a labyrinth of dried pumpkins, peaches, and apples--hung in festoons upon the rafters, amid bunches of summer savory, boneset, fennel, and other herbs--the floor being occupied by heaps of wool, flax, tow, and the like.

The barn corresponded to the house. It was a low brown structure, having abundance of sheds built on to it, without the least regard to symmetry. I need not say it was well stocked with hay, oats, rye, and buckwheat. Six cows, one or two horses, three dozen sheep, and an ample supply of poultry, including two

or three broods of turkeys, constituted its living tenants.

The farm I need not describe in detail, but the orchard must not be overlooked. This consisted of three acres, covered, as I have said, with apple-trees, yielding abundantly--as well for the cider-mill as for the table, including the indispensable winter applesauce--according to their kinds. In the spring, an apple orchard is one of the most beautiful objects in the world. No tree or shrub presents a bloom at once so gorgeous, and so fragrant. Just at this time it is the paradise of the bees and the birds--the former filling the air with their gentle murmurs, and the latter celebrating their nuptials with all the frolic and fun of a universal jubilee. How often have I ventured into Uncle Josey's ample orchard at this joyous season, and stood entranced among the robins, blackbirds, woodpeckers, bluebirds, jays, and orioles,--all seeming to me like playmates, racing, chasing, singing, rollicking, in the exuberance of their joy, or perchance slyly pursuing their courtships, or even more slyly building their nests, and rearing their young.

The inmates of the house I need not describe, further than to say that Uncle Josey himself was a little deaf, and of moderate capacity, yet he lived to good account, for he reared a large family, and was gathered to his fathers at a good old age, leaving behind him a handsome estate, a fair name, and a safe

example. His wife, who spent her early life at service in a kitchen, was a handsome, lively, efficient woman, mother of a large and prosperous family, and a universal favorite in the neighborhood. She is still living in a green old age, with several generations of descendants, who call down blessings on her name.

This is the homely picture of a Ridgefield farmer's home, half a century ago. There were other establishments more extensive and more sumptuous in the town, as there were others also of an inferior grade. Yet this was a fair sample of the houses, barns, and farms of the middle class--the majority of the people. Since then the times have changed, as I shall hereafter show: the general standard of living has in all things improved; but still the same elements of thrift, economy, piety, prudence, and progress are visible on every side. Uncle Josey's house is still standing; its exterior shows no coat of paint, but the interior displays Kidderminster carpets--made at Enfield or Lowell--mahogany bureaus, gilt looking-glasses, and a small well-filled mahogany bookcase.

-----
I, p. 83

LETTER VII.

Domestic Habits of the People--Meals--Servants and Masters--Dress--Amusements--Festivals--Marriages--Funerals--Dancing--Winter Sports--Up and Down--My Two Grandmothers.

My dear C******

You will gather from my preceding letter, some ideas of the household industry and occupations of country people in Connecticut, at the beginning of the present century. Their manners, in other respects, had a corresponding stamp of homeliness and simplicity.

In most families, the first exercise of the morning was reading the Bible, followed by a prayer, at which all were assembled, including the servants and helpers of the kitchen and the farm. Then came the breakfast, which was a substantial meal, always including hot viands, with vegetables, apple-sauce, pickles, mustard, horseradish, and various other condiments. Cider was the common drink for laboring people; even children drank it at will. Tea was common, but not so general as now. Coffee was almost unknown. Dinner was a still more hearty and varied repast--characterized by abundance of garden vegetables; tea was a light supper.

The day began early: breakfast was had at six in summer and seven in winter; dinner at noon--the

work people in the fields being called to their meals by a conch-shell, usually winded by some kitchen Triton. The echoing of this noon-tide horn, from farm to farm, and over hill and dale, was a species of music which even rivaled the popular melody of drum and fife. Tea--the evening meal, usually took place about sundown. In families where all were laborers, all sat at table, servants as well as masters--the food being served before sitting down. In families where the masters and mistresses did not share the labors of the household or the farm, the meals of the domestics were had separate. There was, however, in those days a perfectly good understanding and good feeling between the masters and servants. The latter were not Irish; they had not as yet imbibed the plebeian envy of those above them, which has since so generally embittered and embarrassed American domestic life. The terms democrat and aristocrat had not got into use: these distinctions, and the feelings now implied by them, had indeed no existence in the hearts of the people. Our servants, during all my early life, were of the neighborhood, generally the daughters of respectable farmers and mechanics, and respecting others, were themselves respected and cherished. They were devoted to the interests of the family, and were always relied upon and treated as friends. In health, they had the same food; in sickness, the same care as the masters and mistresses or their children. This servitude implied no degra-

dation, because it did not degrade the heart or manners of those subjected to it. It was never thought of as a reproach to a man or woman--in the stations they afterwards filled--that he or she had been out to service. If servitude has since become associated with debasement, it is only because servants themselves, under the bad guidance of demagogues, have lowered their calling by low feelings and low manners.

At the period of my earliest recollections, men of all classes were dressed in long, broad-tailed coats, with huge pockets, long waistcoats, and breeches. Hats had low crowns, with broad brims--some so wide as to be supported at the sides with cords. The stockings of the parson, and a few others, were of silk in summer and worsted in winter; those of the people were generally of wool, and blue and gray mixed. Women dressed in wide bonnets--sometimes of straw and sometimes of silk: the gowns were of silk, muslin, gingham, &c.--generally close and short-waisted, the breast and shoulders being covered by a full muslin kerchief. Girls ornamented themselves with a large white Vandyke. On the whole, the dress of both men and women has greatly changed. As to the former, short, snug, close-fitting garments have succeeded to the loose latitudinarian coats of former times: stove-pipe hats have followed broad brims, and pantaloons have taken the place of breeches. With the other sex--little French bon-

nets, set round with glowing flowers, flourish in the place of the plain, yawning hats of yore; then it was as much an effort to make the waists short, as it is now to make them long. As to the hips, which now make so formidable a display--it seems to me that in the days I allude to, ladies had none to speak of.

The amusements were then much the same as at present--though some striking differences may be noted. Books and newspapers--which are now diffused even among the country towns, so as to be in the hands of all, young and old--were then scarce, and were read respectfully, and as if they were grave matters, demanding thought and attention. They were not toys and pastimes, taken up every day, and by everybody, in the short intervals of labor, and then hastily dismissed, like waste paper. The aged sat down when they read, and drew forth their spectacles, and put them deliberately and reverently upon the nose. These instruments were not as now, little tortoise-shell hooks, attached to a ribbon, and put off and on with a jerk; but they were of silver or steel, substantially made, and calculated to hold on with a firm and steady grasp, showing the gravity of the uses to which they were devoted. Even the young approached a book with reverence, and a newspaper with awe. How the world has changed!

The two great festivals were Thanksgiving and "training-day"--the latter deriving, from the still lingering spirit of the revolutionary war, a decidedly

martial character. The marching of the troops, and the discharge of gunpowder, which invariably closed the exercises, were glorious and inspiring mementoes of heroic achievements, upon many a bloody field. The music of the drum and fife resounded on every side. A match between two rival drummers always drew an admiring crowd, and was in fact one of the chief excitements of the great day.

Tavern haunting--especially in winter, when there was little to do--for manufactures had not then sprung up to give profitable occupation, during this inclement season--was common, even with respectable farmers. Marriages were celebrated in the evening, at the house of the bride, with a general gathering of the neighborhood, and usually wound off by dancing. Everybody went, as to a public exhibition, without invitation. Funerals generally drew large processions, which proceeded to the grave. Here the minister always made an address, suited to the occasion. If there was any thing remarkable in the history of the deceased, it was turned to religious account in the next Sunday's sermon. Singing meetings, to practice church music, were a great resource for the young, in winter. Dances at private houses were common, and drew no reproaches from the sober people present. Balls at the taverns were frequented by the young; the children of deacons and ministers attended, though the parents did not. The winter brought sleighing, skating, and the usual round of indoor sports. In

general, the intercourse of all classes was kindly and considerate--no one arrogating superiority, and yet no one refusing to acknowledge it, where it existed. You would hardly have noticed that there was a higher and a lower class. Such there were certainly, for there must always and everywhere be the strong and the weak, the wise and the foolish--those of superior and those of inferior intellect, taste, manners, appearance, and character. But in our society, these existed without being felt as a privilege to one which must give offence to another. The feuds between Up and Down, which have since disturbed the whole fabric of society, had not then begun.

It may serve, in some degree, to throw light upon the manners and customs of this period, if I give you a sketch of my two grandmothers. Both were widows, and were well stricken in years, when they came to visit us at Ridgefield--about the year 1803 or 4. My grandmother Ely was of the old regime--a lady of the old school, and sustaining the character in her upright carriage, her long, tapering waist, and her high-heeled shoes. The costumes of Louis XV.'s time had prevailed in New York and Boston, and even at this period they still lingered there, in isolated cases, though the Revolution had generally exercised a transforming influence upon the toilet of both men and women. It is curious enough that at this moment--1855--the female attire of a century ago is revived; and in every black-eyed,

stately old lady, dressed in black silk, and showing her steel-gray hair beneath her cap, I can now see semblances of this, my maternal grandmother.

My other grandmother was in all things the opposite: short, fat, blue-eyed, practical, utilitarian. She was a good example of the country dame--hearty, homespun, familiar, full of strong sense and practical energy. I scarcely know which of the two I liked the best. The first sang me plaintive songs; told me stories of the Revolution--her husband, Col. Ely, having had a large and painful share in its vicissitudes; she described Gen. Washington, whom she had seen; and the French officers, Lafayette, Rochambeau, and others, who had been inmates of her house. She told me tales of even more ancient date, and recited poetry, generally consisting of ballads, which were suited to my taste. And all this lore was commended to me by a voice of inimitable tenderness, and a manner at once lofty and condescending. My other grandmother was not less kind, but she promoted my happiness and prosperity in another way. Instead of stories, she gave me bread and butter: in place of poetry, she fed me with apple-sauce and pie. Never was there a more hearty old lady: she had a firm conviction that children must be fed, and what she believed, she practiced.