TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
One occurrence of the oe ligature has been replaced by oe, in the word
'pharmacopoeia'.
One occurrence of the 'pointing hand' symbol has been replaced by ==>.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
More detail can be found at the end of the book.
POGANUC PEOPLE.
MRS. STOWE'S RECENT BOOKS.
_Among the writers of fiction there is no single name that stands
higher than that of Mrs. Stowe, as one whose style is always fresh,
attractive, and charming, whose wit and humor are genuine, whose
depiction of human nature is apt and true, and the atmosphere of
whose writings is invariably wholesome, clean, stimulating to the
moral sense. The following books from her pen may be had of all
booksellers; or, if not, will be mailed, postpaid, to any address on
receipt of the price, by_
FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 27 Park Place, N.Y.
MY WIFE AND I: or, Harry Henderson's History. A Novel.
_Illustrated._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS: The Records of an Unfashionable Street. A
Novel. _Illustrated._ 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
BETTY'S BRIGHT IDEA: and Other Tales. Comprising "Betty's Bright
Idea," "Deacon Pitkin's Farm," and "The First Christmas in New
England." _Illustrated._ 12mo. Cloth, 75 cts.
POGANUC PEOPLE: Their Loves and Lives. A Novel. _Illustrated._
12mo. Cloth, $1.50. (_Just out._)
BIBLE HEROINES: Narrative Biographies of Prominent Hebrew Women
in the Patriarchal, National and Christian Eras. Imperial Octavo.
_Spirited colored frontispiece_, "Deborah the Prophetess."
Elegantly bound, red burnished edges. $2.
FOOTSTEPS OF THE MASTER: Studies in the Life of Christ. With
Illustrations and Illuminated Titles. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
[Illustration: THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER.
"_Oh, Nabby, Nabby! do tell me what they are doing up at your church.
I've seen 'em all day carrying armfulls and armfulls--ever so
much--of spruce and pine up that way._"--p. 8.]
POGANUC PEOPLE:
THEIR LOVES AND LIVES.
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
_Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "My Wife and I," "We and Our
Neighbors," etc._
With Illustrations.
[Illustration: (Publisher's colophon.)]
NEW YORK:
FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT.
COPYRIGHT, 1878, A.D.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. DISSOLVING VIEWS, 7
II. DOLLY, 16
III. THE ILLUMINATION, 24
IV. DOLLY'S ADVENTURE, 39
V. DOLLY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS DAY, 48
VI. VILLAGE POLITICIANS, 61
VII. THE DOCTOR'S SERMON, 68
VIII. MR. COAN ANSWERS THE DOCTOR, 81
IX. ELECTION DAY IN POGANUC, 90
X. DOLLY'S PERPLEXITIES, 107
XI. DOLLY AND NABBY ARE INVITED OUT, 115
XII. DOLLY GOES INTO COMPANY, 127
XIII. COLONEL DAVENPORT'S EXPERIENCES, 138
XIV. THE PUZZLE OF POGANUC, 150
XV. THE POGANUC PUZZLE SOLVED, 160
XVI. POGANUC PARSONAGE, 166
XVII. SPRING AND SUMMER COME AT LAST, 181
XVIII. DOLLY'S FOURTH OF JULY, 190
XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC, 203
XX. GOING "A-CHESTNUTTING," 220
XXI. DOLLY'S SECOND CHRISTMAS, 228
XXII. THE APPLE BEE, 239
XXIII. SEEKING A DIVINE IMPULSE, 250
XXIV. "IN SUCH AN HOUR AS YE THINK NOT," 260
XXV. DOLLY BECOMES ILLUSTRIOUS, 267
XXVI. THE VICTORY, 274
XXVII. THE FUNERAL, 280
XXVIII. DOLLY AT THE WICKET GATE, 290
XXIX. THE CONFLICT, 294
XXX. THE CRISIS, 300
XXXI. THE JOY OF HARVEST, 309
XXXII. SIX YEARS LATER, 317
XXXIII. THE DOCTOR MAKES A DISCOVERY, 325
XXXIV. HIEL AND NABBY, 330
XXXV. MISS DEBBY ARRIVES, 337
XXXVI. PREPARATIONS FOR SEEING LIFE, 344
XXXVII. LAST WORDS, 350
XXXVIII. DOLLY'S FIRST LETTER TO BOSTON, 354
XXXIX. DOLLY'S SECOND LETTER, 360
XL. ALFRED DUNBAR TO EUGENE SINCLAIR, 365
XLI. FINALE, 370
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER, FRONTISPIECE.
CASTE, PAGE 67
HIEL IN HIS GLORY, " 109
CHESTNUTTING, " 226
POGANUC PEOPLE.
CHAPTER I.
DISSOLVING VIEWS.
The scene is a large, roomy, clean New England kitchen of some sixty
years ago. There was the great wide fire-place, with its crane and
array of pot-hooks; there was the tall black clock in the corner,
ticking in response to the chirp of the crickets around the broad,
flat stone hearth. The scoured tin and pewter on the dresser caught
flickering gleams of brightness from the western sunbeams that
shone through the network of elm-boughs, rattling and tapping as
the wind blew them against the window. It was not quite half-past
four o'clock, yet the December sun hung low and red in the western
horizon, telling that the time of the shortest winter days was come.
Everything in the ample room shone with whiteness and neatness;
everything was ranged, put up, and in order, as if work were some
past and bygone affair, hardly to be remembered. The only living
figure in this picture of still life was that of a strapping, buxom
Yankee maiden, with plump arms stripped to the elbow and hands
plunged deep in the white, elastic cushion of puffy dough, which rose
under them as she kneaded.
Apparently pleasant thoughts were her company in her solitude, for
her round, brown eyes twinkled with a pleased sparkle, and every now
and then she broke into fragments of psalmody, which she practiced
over and over, and then nodded her head contentedly, as if satisfied
that she had caught the tune.
Suddenly the outside door flew open and little Dolly Cushing burst
into the kitchen, panting and breathless, her cheeks glowing with
exercise in face of the keen winter wind.
In she came, noisy and busy, dropping her knitting-work and
spelling-book in her eagerness, shutting the door behind her with a
cheerful bang, and opening conversation without stopping to get her
breath:
"Oh, Nabby, Nabby! do tell me what they are doing up at your church.
I've seen 'em all day carrying armfulls and armfulls--ever so
much--spruce and pine up that way, and Jim Brace and Tom Peters told
me they were going to have a 'lumination there, and when I asked
what a 'lumination was they only laughed at me and called me a
Presbyterian. Don't you think it's a shame, Nabby, that the big boys
will laugh at me so and call me names and won't tell me anything?"
"Oh, land o' Goshen, Dolly, what do you mind them boys for?" said
Nabby; "boys is mostly hateful when girls is little; but we take our
turn by and by," she said with a complacent twinkle of her brown
eyes. "I make them stand around, I bet ye, and you will when you get
older."
"But, Nabby, what is a 'lumination?"
"Well now, Dolly, you jest pick up your book, and put up your
knittin' work, and sweep out that snow you've tracked in, and hang up
your bonnet and cloak, and I'll tell you all about it," said Nabby,
taking up her whole cushion of dough and letting it down the other
side with a great bound and beginning kneading again.
The little maiden speedily complied with all her requisitions and
came and stood, eager and breathless, by the bread bowl.
And a very pretty picture she made there, with her rosy mouth just
parted to show her little white teeth, and the afternoon sunshine
glinting through the window brightness to go to the brown curls that
hung over her round, white forehead, her dark blue eyes kindling with
eagerness and curiosity.
"Well, you see," said Nabby, "to-morrow's Christmas; and they've
been dressin' the church with ground pine and spruce boughs, and
made it just as beautiful as can be, and they're goin' to have a
great gold star over the chancel. General Lewis sent clear to Boston
to get the things to make it of, and Miss Ida Lewis she made it;
and to-night they're going to 'luminate. They put a candle in every
single pane of glass in that air church, and it'll be all just as
light as day. When they get 'em all lighted up you can see that air
church clear down to North Poganuc."
Now this sentence was a perfect labyrinth of mystery to Dolly; for
she did not know what Christmas was, she did not know what the
chancel was, she never saw anything dressed with pine, and she was
wholly in the dark what it was all about; and yet her bosom heaved,
her breath grew short, her color came and went, and she trembled with
excitement. Something bright, beautiful, glorious, must be coming
into her life, and oh, if she could only see it!
"Oh, Nabby, are you going?" she said, with quivering eagerness.
"Yes, I'm goin' with Jim Sawin. I belong to the singers, and I'm
agoin' early to practice on the anthem."
"Oh, Nabby, won't you take me? Do, Nabby!" said Dolly, piteously.
"Oh, land o' Goshen! no, child; you mustn't think on't. I couldn't
do that noways. Your pa never would hear of it, nor Mis' Cushing
neither. You see, your pa don't b'lieve in Christmas."
"What is Christmas, Nabby?"
"Why, it's the day Christ was born--that's Christmas."
"Why, my papa believes Christ was born," said Dolly, with an injured
air; "you needn't tell me that he don't. I've heard him read all
about it in the Testament."
"I didn't say he didn't, did I?" said Nabby; "but your papa ain't
a 'Piscopal, and he don't believe in keeping none of them air
prayer-book days--Christmas, nor Easter, nor nothin'," said Nabby,
with a generous profusion of negatives. "Up to the 'Piscopal
church they keep Christmas, and they don't keep it down to your
meetin'-house; that's the long and short on't," and Nabby turned her
batch of dough over with a final flounce, as if to emphasize the
statement, and, giving one last poke in the middle of the fair, white
cushion, she proceeded to rub the paste from her hands and to cover
her completed batch with a clean white towel and then with a neat
comforter of quilted cotton. Then, establishing it in the warmest
corner of the fireplace, she proceeded to wash her hands and look at
the clock and make other movements to show that the conversation had
come to an end.
Poor little Dolly stood still, looking wistful and bewildered. The
tangle of brown and golden curls on the outside of her little head
was not more snarled than the conflicting ideas in the inside. This
great and wonderful idea of Christmas, and all this confusion of
images, of gold stars and green wreaths and illuminated windows
and singing and music--all done because Christ was born, and yet
something that her papa did not approve of--it was a hopeless puzzle.
After standing thinking for a minute or two she resumed:
"But, Nabby, _why_ don't my papa like it? and why don't we have a
'lumination in our meeting-house?"
"Bless your heart, child, they never does them things to Presbyterian
meetin's. Folks' ways is different, and them air is 'Piscopal ways.
For my part I'm glad father signed off to the 'Piscopalians, for it's
a great deal jollier."
"Oh, dear! my papa won't ever sign off," said Dolly, mournfully.
"To be sure he won't. Why, what nonsense that is!" said Nabby, with
that briskness with which grown people shake off the griefs of
children. "Of course _he_ won't when he's a minister, so what's the
use of worryin'? You jest shet up now, for I've got to hurry and get
tea; 'cause your pa and ma are goin' over to the lecture to-night in
North Poganuc school-house and they'll want their supper early."
Dolly still hung about wishfully.
"Nabby, if I should ask papa, and he _should_ say I might go, would
you take me?" said Dolly.
Now, Nabby was a good-natured soul enough and in a general way
fond of children; she encouraged Miss Dolly's prattling visits to
the kitchen, let her stand about surveying her in various domestic
processes, and encouraged that free expression of opinion in
conversation which in those days was entirely repressed on the part
of juveniles in the presence of their elders. She was, in fact, fond
of Dolly in a certain way, but not fond enough of her to interfere
with the serious avocations of life; and Nabby was projecting very
serious and delicate movements of diplomacy that night. She was going
to the church with Jim Sawin, who was on the very verge of a declared
admiration, not in the least because her heart inclined toward Jim,
but as a means of bringing Ike Peters to capitulation in a quarrel of
some weeks' standing. Jim Sawin's "folks," as she would have phrased
it, were "meetin'ers," while Ike Peters was a leading member of the
Episcopal choir, and it was designed expressly to aggravate him that
she was to come in exhibiting her captive in triumph. To have "a
child 'round under her feet," while engaged in conducting affairs
of such delicacy, was manifestly impossible--so impossible that she
thought stern repression of any such idea the very best policy.
"Now, Dolly Cushing, you jest shet up--for 'tain't no use talkin'.
Your pa nor your ma wouldn't hear on't; and besides, little girls
like you must go to bed early. They can't be up 'night-hawkin','
and goin' round in the cold. You might catch cold and die like
little Julia Cavers. Little girls must be in bed and asleep by eight
o'clock."
Dolly stood still with a lowering brow. Just then the world looked
very dark. Her little rose-leaf of an under lip rolled out and
quivered, and large bright drops began falling one by one over her
cheeks.
Nabby had a soft spot in her heart, and felt these signs of
affliction; but she stood firm.
"Now, Dolly, I'm sorry; but you can't go. So you jest be a good girl
and not say no more about it, and don't cry, and I'll tell you what
I'll do: I'll buy you a sugar dog down to the store, and I'll tell
you all about it to-morrow."
Dolly had seen these sugar dogs in the window of the store,
resplendent with their blue backs and yellow ears and pink
tails--designed probably to represent dogs as they exist at the end
of the rainbow. Her heart had burned within her with hopeless desire
to call one of these beauties her own; and Nabby's promise brought
out a gleaming smile through the showery atmosphere of her little
face. A sugar dog might reconcile her to life.
"Now, you must promise me 'certain true as black is blue,'" said
Nabby, adjuring by an apparently irrational form of conjuration in
vogue among the children in those times. "You must promise you won't
say a word about this 'ere thing to your pa or ma; for they wouldn't
hear of your goin', and if they would I shouldn't take you. I really
couldn't. It would be very inconvenient."
Dolly heaved a great sigh, but thought of the sugar dog, and calmed
down the tempest that seemed struggling to rise in her little breast.
A rainbow of hope rose over the cloud of disappointment, and a sugar
dog with yellow ears and pink tail gleamed consolingly through it.