PATTY'S SUNDAY.
But we must give up hunting for a little while: Sunday has come. Let us
forget that "live dollar" (_perhaps_ it's a dead dollar now), and go to
church with Patty.
When she was "dressed for meeting," she went into the nicely sanded
parlor and stood alone before the looking-glass a minute or two to
admire herself. Look at her! She had on a blue cambric frock, and a blue
cambric jockey, or hat, turned up a little at the sides, and tied under
the chin with a blue ribbon; and on her little brown hands were a pair
of white cotton gloves. Don't laugh, little city folks! This was all
very fine, sixty years ago, in a backwoods town. But look at her feet,
and you _must_ laugh! Her shoes were of the finest red broadcloth, and
Mrs. Lyman had made them herself out of pieces of her own cloak and some
soft leather left in the house by Mr. Piper, the shoemaker. He went from
family to family, making shoes; but he could not make all that were
needed in town, so this was not the first time Mrs. Lyman had tried her
hand at the business. She used a pretty last and real shoemaker's
thread, and Mr. Piper said she was "a dabster at it; no wonder her
husband was well off when he had such a smart wife."
For, strange as it may seem to you, Squire Lyman _was_ "well off,"--that
is, he had one of the best farms in the county, and more money than any
one else in Perseverance, except Mr. Chase and Dr. Potter; those two
men were much wealthier than he was.
All the Lymans walked to church except the squire and his wife and the
two little boys; they went in the chaise. Dr. Potter rode horseback,
with a great show of silk stockings. His wife was propped up behind him
on a pillion. She was a graceful rider, but of course she had to put one
arm around the doctor to keep from falling off. This would be an odd
sight now to you or me, but Patty was so used to seeing ladies riding on
pillions that she thought nothing about it. She looked down at her red
shoes twinkling in and out of the green grass, and might have been
perfectly happy, only the soles wouldn't squeak.
"Patty! Patty!" called sister Mary, "come back here and walk with me."
Patty did not know till then that she was _hopping_. She went and took
Mary's hand, and walked soberly along, thinking.
"I hope Deacon Turner didn't see me. I guess he's 'way ahead of us. I
want to run and swing my arms; but I won't, because it is God's holy
day."
On the way they overtook Sally Potter, whose jockey was dented and
faded; and Patty said, "Good morning, Sally," with quite an air. But
when Linda Chase came along, and her new red bosom-pin shone out in the
sun, Patty's heart died within her.
"S'pose Linda don't know some folks don't like to see little girls wear
bosom-pins," thought she.
When they reached the meeting-house Mrs. Potter was just alighting upon
a horse-block. "Good morning, Linda," said she; "and how do _you_ do,
Patty, my dear?"
"H'm! She didn't say '_Linda_, my dear.' Guess she don't like
bosom-pins," thought Patty; and her silly heart danced up again.
"O, but I know why Mrs. Chase says 'Patty, my dear;' it's because
I--well, she s'poses I gave that dollar to the girl that her father was
drunk."
And I am glad to say Patty blushed.
The meeting-house was an unpainted building with two doors. As they
walked in at the left door, their feet made a loud sound on the floor,
which was without a carpet. There were galleries on each side of the
house, and indeed the pulpit was in a gallery, up, up, ever so high,
with a sounding-board over the preacher's head. Right in the middle of
the church was a box stove, but you could see that it was not half large
enough to heat the house. Of course there was no fire in it now, for it
was midsummer; but in the winter ladies had to carry foot-stoves full
of live coals to keep their feet warm in their pews.
Squire Lyman's pew was very near the pulpit, and was always pretty well
filled. Like the rest of the great square boxes,--for that was what they
looked like,--the seat was so high that Patty's scarlet shoes dangled in
the air ever so far from the floor.
At precisely ten o'clock, Elder Lovejoy walked feebly up the aisle, and
climbed the pulpit stairs. Patty watched him, as if he had been one of
Jacob's angels ascending the ladder. He was a tall, thin man, with a
fair complexion and long features. He wore a large turned-down collar
and a white neckerchief, stuffed round the throat with what was called a
pudding, and the ends of the neckerchief were so very long that they
hung half way down his vest. Everybody loved Elder Lovejoy, for he was
very good; but Patty thought him more than human. He seemed to her very
far off, and sacred, like King Solomon or King David; and if he had worn
a crown, she would have considered it very appropriate.
After a long prayer, during which all the people stood up, Elder Lovejoy
read a long, long psalm, and the people rose again to hear it sung. They
turned their backs to the pulpit, and faced the singers.
But there was a great surprise to-day. A strange sound mingled with the
voices singing; it was the sound of a bass-viol. The people looked at
one another in surprise, and some with frowns on their faces. Never had
an instrument of music of any sort been brought into that little church
before; and now it was Deacon Turner's brother, the blacksmith, who had
ventured to come there with a fiddle!
Good Elder Lovejoy opened his eyes, and wiped his spectacles, and
thought something must be done about it; they could not have "dance
music" in that holy place. Deacon Turner and a great many others thought
just so too; and at noon they talked to the wicked blacksmith, and put a
stop to his fiddle.
But nothing of this was done in church time. Elder Lovejoy preached a
very long sermon, in a painfully sing-song tone; but Patty thought it
was exactly right; and when she heard a minister preach without the
sing-song, she knew it must be wrong. She could not understand the
sermon, but she stretched up her little neck towards the pulpit till it
ached, thinking,--
"Well, mamma says I must sit still, and let other people listen. I
won't make any _disturbment_."
Mrs. Lyman looked at her little daughter with an approving smile, and
Deacon Turner, that dreadful tithing-man up in the gallery, thought his
lecture had done that "flighty little creetur" a great deal of good--or
else it was his dollar, he did not know which.
Patty sat still for a whole hour and more, counting the brass nails in
the pews, and the panes of glass in the windows, and keeping her eyes
away from Daddy Wiggins, who always made her want to laugh. At last the
sermon was over, and the people had just time enough to go to their
homes for a cold dinner before afternoon service, which began at one
o'clock.
Sunday did seem like a long day to little folks; and do you wonder? They
had no Sabbath school or Sabbath school books; and the only part of the
day which seemed to be made for them was the evening. At that time they
had to say their catechisms,--those who had not said them the night
before.
Did you ever see a Westminster Catechism, with its queer little
pictures? Then you can have no idea how it looks. After supper Mrs.
Lyman called the children into her bedroom, shut the door, and had them
repeat their lessons, beginning with the question, "Who was the first
man?"
Patty supposed the Catechism was as holy as the Bible, and thought the
rhyme,--
"Zaccheus he
Did climb a tree,
His Lord to see,"
was fine poetry, of course, and she never dreamed of laughing at the
picture of dried-up little Zaccheus standing on the top of a
currant-bush.
Little Solly could answer almost all the questions, and sometimes baby
Benny, who sat in his mamma's lap, would try to do it too. They all
enjoyed these Sunday evenings in "mother's bedroom," for Mrs. Lyman had
a very pleasant way of talking with her children, and telling
interesting Bible stories.
The lesson this evening was on the commandment, "Thou shalt not covet."
When Patty understood what it meant, she said promptly, "Well, mamma,
_I_ don't do it."
For she was thinking,--
"What you s'pose I want of Linda Chase's bosom-pin? I wouldn't be seen
wearing it!"