Read Ebook: Village Life in America 1852-1872 Including the Period of the American Civil War As Told in the Diary of a School-Girl by Richards Caroline Cowles Sangster Margaret Elizabeth Munson Author Of Introduction Etc

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hird wife. Grandmother says that they visited her once and she was quite nervous thinking about having such a great man as Dr. Lyman Beecher for her guest, as he was considered one of the greatest men of his day, but she said she soon got over this feeling, for he was so genial and pleasant and she noticed particularly how he ran up and down stairs like a boy. I think that is very apt to be the way for "men are only boys grown tall."

There was a Know Nothing convention in town to-day. They don't want any one but Americans to hold office, but I guess they will find that foreigners will get in. Our hired man is an Irishman and I think he would just as soon be "Prisidint" as not.

Grandfather made me a present of a beautiful blue stone to-day called Malachite. Anna said she always thought Malachite was one of the prophets.

Anna jumped the rope two hundred times to-day without stopping, and I told her that I read of a girl who did that and then fell right down stone dead. I don't believe Anna will do it again. If she does I shall tell Grandmother.

A man came to our door the other day and asked if "Deacon" Beals was at home. I asked Grandmother afterwards if Grandfather was a Deacon and she said no and never had been, that people gave him the name when he was a young man because he was so staid and sober in his appearance. Some one told me once that I would not know my Grandfather if I should meet him outside the Corporation. I asked why and he said because he was so genial and told such good stories. I told him that was just the way he always is at home. I do not know any one who appreciates real wit more than he does. He is quite strong in his likes and dislikes, however. I have heard him say,

"I do not like you, Dr. Fell, The reason why, I cannot tell; But this one thing I know full well, I do not like you, Dr. Fell."

Bessie Seymour wore a beautiful gold chain to school this morning and I told Grandmother that I wanted one just like it. She said that outward adornments were not of as much value as inward graces and the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, in the sight of the Lord, was of great price. I know it is very becoming to Grandmother and she wears it all the time but I wish I had a gold chain just the same.

Aunt Ann received a letter to-day from Lucilla, who is at Miss Porter's school at Farmington, Connecticut. She feels as if she were a Christian and that she has experienced religion.

Grandfather noticed how bright and smart Bentley Murray was, on the street, and what a business way he had, so he applied for a place for him as page in the Legislature at Albany and got it. He is always noticing young people and says, "As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined." He says we may be teachers yet if we are studious now. Anna says, "Excuse me, please."

Grandmother knows the Bible from Genesis to Revelation excepting the "begats" and the hard names, but Anna told her a new verse this morning, "At Parbar westward, four at the causeway and two at Parbar." Grandmother put her spectacles up on her forehead and just looked at Anna as though she had been talking in Chinese. She finally said, "Anna, I do not think that is in the Bible." She said, "Yes, it is; I found it in 1 Chron. 26: 18." Grandmother found it and then she said Anna had better spend her time looking up more helpful texts. Anna then asked her if she knew who was the shortest man mentioned in the Bible and Grandmother said "Zaccheus." Anna said that she just read in the newspaper, that one said "Nehimiah was" and another said "Bildad the Shuhite" and another said "Tohi." Grandmother said it was very wicked to pervert the Scripture so, and she did not approve of it at all. I don't think Anna will give Grandmother any more Bible conundrums.

I asked Grandmother to-day to write a verse for me to keep always and she wrote a good one: "To be happy and live long the three grand essentials are: Be busy, love somebody and have high aims." I think, from all I have noticed about her, that she has had this for her motto all her life and I don't think Anna and I can do very much better than to try and follow it too. Grandfather tells us sometimes, when she is not in the room, that the best thing we can do is to be just as near like Grandmother as we can possibly be.

Last week Jennie Howell invited us to go up to Black Point Cabin with her and to-day with a lot of grown-up people we went and enjoyed it. There was a little colored girl there who waits on the table and can row the boats too. She is Polly Carroll's granddaughter, Mary Jane. She sang for us,

"Nellie Ely shuts her eye when she goes to sleep, When she opens them again her eyes begin to peep; Hi Nellie, Ho Nellie, listen love to me, I'll sing for you, I'll play for you, A dulcet melody."

She is just as cute as she can be. She said Mrs. Henry Chesebro taught her to read.

"Of gentle seeming was her form And the soft beaming of her radiant eye Was sunlight to the beauty of her face. Peace, sacred peace, was written on her brow And flowed in the low music of her voice Which came unto the list'ner like the tones of soothing Autumn winds. Her hands were full of consolations which she scattered free to all--the poor, the sick, the sorrowful."

I think she must have been exactly like Grandmother only she was 32 and Grandmother is 72.

Stewart went to prayer meeting because it was Wednesday night, and when he came home his mother asked him if he took part in the meeting. He said he did and she asked him what he said. He said he told the story of Ethan Allen, the infidel, who was dying, and his daughter asked him whose religion she should live by, his or her mother's, and he said, "Your mother's, my daughter, your mother's." This pleased Mrs. Ellsworth very much. Stewart is a great boy and you never can tell whether he is in earnest or not. It was very warm while we were gone and when we got home Anna told Grandmother she was going to put on her bar?ge dress and take a rocking-chair and a glass of ice water and a palm leaf fan and go down cellar and sit, but Grandmother told her if she would just sit still and take a book and get her mind on something else besides the weather, she would be cool enough. Grandmother always looks as cool as a cucumber even when the thermometer is 90 in the shade.

Grandfather said that I did better than the little boy he read about who, when a visitor asked the Sunday School children what was the ostensible object of Sabbath School instruction, waited till the question was repeated three times and then stood up and said, "Yes, sir."

Old Dobbin's dead, that good old horse, We ne'er shall see him more, He always used to lag behind But now he's gone before.

It is a parody on old Grimes is dead, which is in our reader, only that is a very long poem. I am not going to show mine to Grandfather till he gets over feeling bad about the horse.

Miss Lizzie Bull told us in Sunday School to-day that she cannot be our Sunday School teacher any more, as she and her sister Mary are going to join the Episcopal Church. We hate to have her go, but what can't be cured must be endured. Part of our class are going into Miss Mary Howell's class and part into Miss Annie Pierce's. They are both splendid teachers and Miss Lizzie Bull is another. We had preaching in our church this afternoon, too. Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, of Le Roy Female Seminary, preached. He is a great man, very large, long white hair combed back. I think if a person once saw him they would never forget him. He preached about Melchisidek, who had neither "beginning of days or end of life." Some people thought that was like his sermon, for it was more than one hour long. Dr. Cox and Mrs. Taylor came to call and asked Grandfather to let me go to Le Roy Female Seminary, but Grandfather likes Ontario Female Seminary better than any other in the world. We wanted Grandmother to have her picture taken, but she did not feel able to go to Mr. Finley's, so he came up Tuesday and took it in our dining-room. She had her best cap on and her black silk dress and sat in her high back rocking chair in her usual corner near the window. He brought one up to show us and we like it so much. Anna looked at it and kissed it and said, "Grandmother, I think you are perfectly beautiful." She smiled and very modestly put her handkerchief up to her face and said, "You foolish child," but I am sure she was pleased, for how could she help it? A man came up to the open window one day where she was sitting, with something to sell, and while she was talking to him he said, "You must have been handsome, lady, when you were young." Grandmother said it was because he wanted to sell his wares, but we thought he knew it was so. We told her she couldn't get around it that way and we asked Grandfather and he said it was true. Our Sunday School class went to Mr. Finley's to-day and had a group ambrotype taken for our teacher, Miss Annie Pierce; Susie Daggett, Clara Willson, Sarah Whitney, Mary Field and myself. Mary Wheeler ought to have been in it, too, but we couldn't get her to come. We had very good success.

Mr. William Wood came to call this afternoon and gave us some morning-glory seeds to sow and told us to write down in our journals that he did so. So here it is. What a funny old man he is. Anna and Emma Wheeler went to Hiram Tousley's funeral to-day. She has just written in her journal that Hiram's corpse was very perfect of him and that Fannie looked very pretty in black. She also added that after the funeral Grandfather took Aunt Ann and Lucilla out to ride to Mr. Howe's and just as they got there it sprinkled. She says she don't know "weather" they got wet or not. She went to a picnic at Sucker Brook yesterday afternoon, and this is the way she described it in her journal. "Miss Hurlburt told us all to wear rubbers and shawls and bring some cake and we would have a picnic. We had a very warm time. It was very warm indeed and I was most roasted and we were all very thirsty indeed. We had in all the party about 40 of us. It was very pleasant and I enjoyed myself exceedingly. We had boiled eggs, pickles, Dutch cheese and sage cheese and loaf cake and raisin cake, pound cake, dried beef and capers, jam and tea cakes and gingerbread, and we tried to catch some fish but we couldn't, and in all we had a very nice time. I forgot to say that I picked some flowers for my teacher. I went to bed tired out and worn out."

Her next entry was the following day when she and the other scholars dressed up to "speak pieces." She says, "After dinner I went and put on my rope petticoat and lace one over it and my bar?ge de laine dress and all my rings and white bask and breastpin and worked handkerchief and spoke my piece. It was, 'When I look up to yonder sky.' It is very pretty indeed and most all the girls said I looked nice and said it nice. They were all dressed up, too."

Mr. William Wood, the venerable philanthropist of whom Canandaigua has been justly proud for many years, is dead. I have preserved this poem, written by Mrs. George Willson in his honor:

Mr. Editor,--The following lines were written by a lady of this village, and have been heretofore published, but on reading in your last paper the interesting extract relating to the late William Wood, Esq., it was suggested that they be again published, not only for their merit, but also to keep alive the memory of one who has done so much to ornament our village.

When first on this stage of existence we come Blind, deaf, puny, helpless, but not, alas, dumb, What can please us, and soothe us, and make us sleep good? To be rocked in a cradle;--and cradles are wood. When older we grow, and we enter the schools Where masters break rulers o'er boys who break rules, What can curb and restrain and make laws understood But the birch-twig and ferule?--and both are of wood. When old age--second childhood, takes vigor away, And we totter along toward our home in the clay, What can aid us to stand as in manhood we stood But our tried, trusty staff?--and the staff is of wood. And when from this stage of existence we go, And death drops the curtain on all scenes below, In our coffins we rest, while for worms we are food, And our last sleeping place, like our first, is of wood. Then honor to wood! fresh and strong may it grow, 'Though winter has silvered its summit with snow; Embowered in its shade long our village has stood; She'd scarce be Canandaigua if stripped of her Wood.

Stanza added after the death of Mr. Wood

The sad time is come; she is stript of her Wood, 'Though the trees that he planted still stand where they stood, Still with storms they can wrestle with arms stout and brave; Still they wave o'er our dwellings--they droop o'er his grave! Alas! that the life of the cherished and good Is more frail and more brief than the trees of the wood!

"I'm monarch of all I survey, My rights there are none to dispute: From the center, all round to the sea, I'm lord of the fowl and brute."

I was standing on a block and she said I looked like "Patience on a monument smiling at Grief." I am sure she could not be taken for "Grief." She always has some quotation on her tongue's end. We were down at Sucker Brook the other day and she picked her way out to a big stone in the middle of the stream and, standing on it, said, in the words of Rhoderick Dhu,

Just then the big stone tipped over and she had to wade ashore. She is not at all afraid of climbing and as we left the Court House she said she would like to go outside on the cupola and help Justice balance the scales.

A funny old man came to our house to-day as he wanted to deposit some money and reached the bank after it was closed. We were just sitting down to dinner so Grandfather asked him to stay and have "pot luck" with us. He said that he was very much "obleeged" and stayed and passed his plate a second time for more of our very fine "pot luck." We had boiled beef and dumplings and I suppose he thought that was the name of the dish. He talked so queer we couldn't help noticing it. He said he "heered" so and he was "afeered" and somebody was very "deef" and they "hadn't ought to have done it" and "they should have went" and such things. Anna and I almost laughed but Grandmother looked at us with her eye and forefinger so we sobered down. She told us afterwards that there are many good people in the world whose verbs and nouns do not agree, and instead of laughing at them we should be sure that we always speak correctly ourselves. Very true. Dr. Daggett was at the Seminary one day when we had public exercises and he told me afterwards that I said "sagac-ious" for "saga-cious" and Aunt Ann told me that I said "epi-tome" for "e-pit-o-me." So "people that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

"According to Thy gracious word, In deep humility, This will I do, my dying Lord I will remember Thee."

And the last verse:

"And when these failing lips grow dumb, And mind and memory flee, When in Thy kingdom Thou shalt come, Jesus remember me."

Deacon Taylor always starts the hymn. Deacon Taylor and Deacon Tyler sit on one side of Dr. Daggett and Deacon Clarke and Deacon Castle on the other. Grandfather and Grandmother joined the church fifty-one years ago and are the oldest living members. She says they have always been glad that they took this step when they were young.

Grandfather says he thinks the 19th Psalm is a prophecy of the electric telegraph. "Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world." It certainly sounds like it.

"A mourning class, a vacant seat, Tell us that one we loved to meet Will join our youthful throng no more, 'Till all these changing scenes are o'er."

And now he will never meet with us again and the children will never have another minister all their own. He thinks he may be able to write letters to the children and perhaps write his own life. We all hope he may be able to sit up if he cannot walk.

We went to our old home in Penn Yan visiting last week and stayed at Judge Ellsworth's. We called to see the Tunnicliffs and the Olivers, Wells, Jones, Shepards, Glovers, Bennetts, Judds and several other families. They were glad to see us for the sake of our father and mother. Father was their pastor from 1841 to 1847.

We had experiments in the philosophy class to-day and took electric shocks. Mr. Chubbuck managed the battery which has two handles attached. Two of the girls each held one of these and we all took hold of hands making the circuit complete. After a while it jerked us almost to pieces and we asked Mr. Chubbuck to turn it off. Dana Luther, one of the Academy boys, walked up from the post-office with me this noon. He lives in Naples and is Florence Younglove's cousin. We went to a ball game down on Pleasant Street after school. I got so far ahead of Anna coming home she called me her "distant relative."

"Beauty of perthon, ith thertainly chawming Beauty of feachure, by no meanth alawming But give me in pwefrence, beauty of mind, Or give me Cawwie, with all thwee combined."

It takes Anna to find "amuthement" in "evewything."

Mary Wheeler came over and pierced my ears to-day, so I can wear my new earrings that Uncle Edward sent me. She pinched my ear until it was numb and then pulled a needle through, threaded with silk. Anna would not stay in the room. She wants hers done but does not dare. It is all the fashion for girls to cut off their hair and friz it. Anna and I have cut off ours and Bessie Seymour got me to cut off her lovely long hair to-day. It won't be very comfortable for us to sleep with curl papers all over our heads, but we must do it now. I wanted my new dress waist which Miss Rosewarne is making, to hook up in front, but Grandmother said I would have to wear it that way all the rest of my life so I had better be content to hook it in the back a little longer. She said when Aunt Glorianna was married, in 1848, it was the fashion for grown up women to have their waists fastened in the back, so the bride had hers made that way but she thought it was a very foolish and inconvenient fashion. It is nice, though, to dress in style and look like other people. I have a Garibaldi waist and a Zouave jacket and a balmoral skirt.

"A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content And strength for the toil of to-morrow, But a Sabbath profaned, whatever be gained, Is a certain forerunner of sorrow."

There was a lecture at the seminary to-night and Rev. Dr. Hibbard, the Methodist minister, who lives next door above the Methodist church, came home with us. Grandmother was very much pleased when we told her.

"Anna, when you have grown old and wear spectacles and a cap, remember the boyish young man who saw your fine talents in 1859 and was certain you would add culture to nature and become the pride of Canandaigua. Do not forget also that no one deserves praise for anything done by others and that your progress in wisdom and goodness will be watched by no one more anxiously than by your true friend, E. M. Morse."

I think she might as well have told Mr. Morse that the old journals were as much hers as mine; but I think she likes to make out she is not as good as she is. Sarah Foster helped us to do our arithmetic examples to-day. She is splendid in mathematics.

Much to our surprise Bridget Flynn, who has lived with us so long, is married. We didn't know she thought of such a thing, but she has gone. Anna and I have learned how to make rice and cornstarch puddings. We have a new girl in Bridget's place but I don't think she will do. Grandmother asked her to-day if she seasoned the gravy and she said, either she did or she didn't, she couldn't tell which. Grandfather says he thinks she is a little lacking in the "upper story."

"Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,"

to see which we would marry. The last leaf tells the story. Anna's came "rich man" every time and she thinks it is true because Eugene Stone has asked to marry her and he is quite well off. She is 13 and he is 17. He is going now to his home in St. Paul, Minn., but he is coming back for her some day. Tom Eddy is going to be groomsman and Emma Wheeler bridesmaid. They have all the arrangements made. She has not shown any of Eugene Stone's notes to Grandmother yet for she does not think it is worth while. Anna broke the seal on Tom Eddy's page in her mystic book, although he wrote on it, "Not to be opened until December 8, 1859." He says:

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