"The fennel with its yellow flowers
That, in an earlier age than ours,
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,
Lost vision to restore."
And traditions of mysterious powers, dream-influencing, spirit-exorcising,
virtue-awakening, health-giving properties, hung vaguely around the
southernwood and made it specially fit to be a Sabbath-day posy. These
traditions are softened by the influence of years into simply idealizing,
in the mind of every country-bred New Englander, the peculiar refreshing
scent of the southernwood as a typical Sabbath-day fragrance. Half a
century ago, the pretty feathery pale-green shrub grew in every country
door-yard, humble or great, throughout New England; and every church-going
woman picked a branch or spray of it when she left her home on Sabbath
morn. To this day, on hot summer Sundays, many a staid old daughter of
the Puritans may be seen entering the village meeting-house, clad in
a lilac-sprigged lawn or a green-striped barège,--a scanty-skirted,
surplice-waisted relic of past summers,--with a lace-bordered silk cape
or a delicate, time-yellowed, purple and white cashmere scarf on her bent
shoulders, wearing on her gray head a shirred-silk or leghorn bonnet, and
carrying in her lace-mitted hand a fresh handkerchief, her spectacle-case
and well-worn Bible, and a great sprig of the sweet, old-fashioned
"lad's-love." A rose, a bunch of mignonette would be to her too gay a posy
for the Lord's House and the Lord's Day. And balmier breath than was
ever borne by blossom is the pure fragrance of green growing
things,--southernwood, mint, sweet fern, bayberry, sweetbrier. No rose is
half so fresh, so countrified, so memory-sweet.
The benches and the pew-seats in the old churches were never cushioned.
Occasionally very old or feeble women brought cushions to meeting to sit
upon. It is a matter of recent tradition that Colonel Greenleaf caused a
nine days' talk in Newbury town at the beginning of this century when
he cushioned his pew. The widow of Sir William Pepperell, who lived in
imposing style, had her pew cushioned and lined and curtained with
worsted stuff, and carpeted with a heavy bear-skin. This worn, faded, and
moth-eaten furniture remained in the Kittery church until the year 1840,
just as when Lady Pepperell furnished and occupied the pew. Nor were even
the seats of the pulpit cushioned. The "cooshoons" of velvet or leather,
which were given by will to the church, and which were kept in the pulpit,
and were nibbled by the squirrels, were for the Bible, not the minister, to
rest upon.
In many churches--in Durham, Concord and Sandwich--the pews had
swing-shelves, "leaning shelves," upon which a church attendant could rest
his paper and his arm when taking notes from the sermon, as was at one time
the universal custom, and in which even school-boys of a century ago had
to take part. Funny stories are told of the ostentatious notes taken by
pompous parishioners who could neither write nor read, but who could
scribble, and thus cut a learned figure.
The doors of the pews were usually cut down somewhat lower than the
pew-walls, and frequently had no top-rails. They sometimes bore the name of
the pew-owner painted in large white letters. They were secured when
closed by clumsy wooden buttons. In many country congregations the elderly
men--stiff old farmers--had a fashion of standing up in the middle of the
sermon to stretch their cramped limbs, and they would lean against and hang
over the pew door and stare up and down the aisle. In Andover, Vermont,
old Deacon Puffer never let a summer Sunday pass without thus resting and
diverting himself. One day, having ill-secured the wooden button at the
door of his pew, the leaning-place gave way under his weight, and out he
sprawled on all-fours, with a loud clatter, into the middle of the aisle,
to the amusement of the children, and the mortification of his wife.
Thus it may be seen, as an old autobiography phrases it, "diversions was
frequent in meeting, and the more duller the sermon, the more likely it was
that some accident or mischief would be done to help to pass the time."