MEETIN' SEED AND SABBATH DAY POSIES
"I touched a thought, I know
Has tantalized me many times.
Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing Fennel run to seed."
--ROBERT BROWNING.
My "thought" is the association of certain flowers with Sunday; the fact
that special flowers and leaves and seeds, Fennel, Dill, and
Southernwood, were held to be fitting and meet to carry to the Sunday
service. "Help me to hold it"--to record those simple customs of the
country-side ere they are forgotten.
In the herb garden grew three free-growing plants, all three called
indifferently in country tongue, "meetin' seed." They were Fennel, Dill,
and Caraway, and similar in growth and seed. Caraway is shown on page
342. Their name was given because, in summer days of years gone by,
nearly every woman and child carried to "meeting" on Sundays, bunches of
the ripe seeds of one or all of these three plants, to nibble throughout
the long prayers and sermon.
It is fancied that these herbs were anti-soporific, but I find no record
of such power. On the contrary, Galen says Dill "procureth sleep,
wherefore garlands of Dill are worn at feasts." A far more probable
reason for its presence at church was the quality assigned to it by
Pliny and other herbalists down to Gerarde, that of staying the "yeox or
hicket or hicquet," otherwise the hiccough. If we can judge by the
manifold remedies offered to allay this affliction, it was certainly
very prevalent in ancient times. Cotton Mather wrote a bulky medical
treatise entitled _The Angel of Bethesda_. It was never printed; the
manuscript is owned by the American Antiquarian Society. The character
of this medico-religious book may be judged by this opening sentence of
his chapter on the hiccough:--
"The Hiccough or the Hicox rather, for it's a Teutonic word that
signifies to sob, appears a Lively Emblem of the battle between the
Flesh and the Spirit in the Life of Piety. The Conflict in the
Pious Mind gives all the Trouble and same uneasiness as Hickox.
Death puts an end to the Conflict."
[Illustration: Caraway.]
Parson Mather gives Tansy and Caraway as remedies for the hiccough, but
far better still--spiders, prepared in various odious ways; I prefer
Dill.
Peter Parley said that "a sprig of Fennel was 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 tempted to sleep, would sometimes borrow a sprig of
Fennel, to exorcise the fiend that threatened their spiritual welfare."
Old-fashioned folk kept up a constant nibbling in church, not only of
these three seeds, but of bits of Cinnamon or Lovage root, or, more
commonly still, the roots of Sweet Flag. Many children went to
brooksides and the banks of ponds to gather these roots. This pleasure
was denied to us, but we had a Flag root purveyor, our milkman's
daughter. This milkman, who lived on a lonely farm, used often to take
with him on his daily rounds his little daughter. She sat with him on
the front seat of his queer cart in summer and his queerer pung in
winter, an odd little figure, with a face of gypsylike beauty which
could scarcely be seen in the depths of the Shaker sunbonnet or pumpkin
hood. If my mother chanced to see her, she gave the child an orange, or
a few figs, or some little cakes, or almonds and raisins; in return the
child would throw out to us violently roots of Sweet Flag, Wild Ginger,
Snakeroot, Sassafras, and Apples or Pears, which she carried in a deep
detached pocket at her side. She never spoke, and the milkman confided
to my mother that he "took her around because she was so wild," by
which he meant timid. We were firmly convinced that the child could not
walk nor speak, and had no ears; and we were much surprised when she
walked down the aisle of our church one Sunday as actively as any child
could, displaying very natural ears. Her father had bought a home in the
town that she might go to school. He was rewarded by her development
into one of those scholars of phenomenal brilliancy, such as are
occasionally produced from New England farmers' families. She also
became a beauty of most unusual type. At her father's death she "went
West." I have always expected to read of her as of marked life in some
way, but I never have. Of course her family name may have been changed
by marriage; but her Christian name, Appoline, was so unusual I could
certainly trace her. If my wild and beautiful little milk girl reads
these lines, I hope she will forgive me, for she certainly was queer.
[Illustration: Sun-dial of Jonathan Fairbanks.]
When her residence was in town, Appoline did not cease her gifts of
country treasures. She brought on spring Sundays a very delightful
addition to our Sabbath day nibblings and browsings, the most delicious
mouthful of all the treasures of New England woods, what we called
Pippins, the first tender leaves of the aromatic Checkerberry. In the
autumn the spicy berries of the same plant filled many a paper
cornucopia which was secretly conveyed to us.
It was also a universal custom among the elder folk to carry a Sunday
posy; the stems were discreetly enwrapped with the folded handkerchief
which also concealed the sprig of Fennel. Dean Hole tells us that a
sprig of Southernwood was always seen in the Sunday smocks of English
farm folk. Mary Howitt, in her poem, _The Poor Man's Garden_, has this
verse:--
"And here on Sabbath mornings
The goodman comes to get
His Sunday nosegay--Moss Rose bud,
White Pink, and Mignonette."
This shows to me that the church posy was just as common in England as
in America; in domestic and social customs we can never disassociate
ourselves from England; our ways, our deeds, are all English.
Thoreau noted with pleasure when, at the last of June, the young men of
Concord "walked slowly and soberly to church, in their best clothes,
each with a Pond Lily in his hand or bosom, with as long a stem as he
could get." And he adds thereto almost the only decorous and
conventional picture he gives of himself, that he used in early life to
go thus to church, smelling a Pond Lily, "its odor contrasting with and
atoning for that of the sermon." He associated this universal bearing of
the Lily with a very natural act, that of the first spring swim and
bath, and pictured with delight the quiet Sabbath stillness and the pure
opening flowers. He said the flower had become typical to him equally of
a Sunday morning swim and of church-going. He adds that the young women
carried on this floral Sunday, as a companion flower, their first Rose.
[Illustration: Bronze Sun-dial on Dutch Reformed Church. West End
Avenue, New York.]
This Sabbath bearing of the early Water Lilies may have been a local
custom; a few miles from Walden Pond and Concord an old kinsman of mine
throughout his long life (which closed twenty years ago) carried Water
Lilies on summer Sundays to church; and starting with neighborly intent
a short time before the usual hour of church service, he placed a
single beautiful Lily in the pew of each of his old friends. All knew
who was the flower bearer, and gentle smiles and nods of thanks would
radiate across the old church to him. These lilies were gathered for him
freshly each Sabbath morning by the young men of his family, who, as
Thoreau tells, all took their morning bath in the pond throughout the
summer.
[Illustration: Sun-dial on Boulder, Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.]
There were conventions in these Sunday posies. I never heard of carrying
sprays of Lemon Verbena or Rose Geranium, or any of the strong-scented
herbs of the Mint family; but throughout eastern Massachusetts,
especially in Concord and Wayland, a favorite posy was a spray of the
refreshing, soft-textured leaves from what country folk called the
Tongue plant--which was none other than Costmary, also called Beaver
tongue, and Patagonian mint. As there has been recently much interest
and discussion anent this Tongue plant, I here give its botanical name
_Chrysanthemum balsamita_, var. _tanacetoides_. A far more popular
Sunday posy than any blossom was a sprig of Southernwood, known also
everywhere as Lad's-love, and occasionally as Old Man and
Kiss-me-quick-and-go. It was also termed Meeting plant from this
universal Sunday use.
A restless little child was once handed during the church services in
summer a bunch of Caraway seeds, and a goodly sprig of Southernwood. The
little girl's mother listened earnestly to the long sermon, and was
horrified at its close to find that her child had eaten the entire bunch
of Caraway, stems and seeds, and all the bitter Southernwood. She was
hurried out of church to the village doctor's, and spent a very unhappy
hour or two as the result of her Nebuchadnezzar-like gorging.
Like many New Englanders, I dearly love the scent of Southernwood:--
"I'll give to him
Who gathers me, more sweetness than he knows
Without me--more than any Lily could,
I, that am flowerless, being Southernwood."
Southernwood bears a balmier breath than is ever borne by many blossoms,
for it is sweet with the fragrance of memory. The scent that has been
loved for centuries, the leaves that have been pressed to the hearts of
fair maids, as they questioned of love, are indeed endeared.
[Illustration: Buckthorn Arch in an Old Salem Garden.]
Southernwood was a plant of vast powers. It was named in the fourteenth
century as potent to cure talking in sleep, and other "vanityes of
the heade." An old Salem sea captain had this recipe for baldness: "Take
a quantitye of Suthernwoode and put it upon kindled coale to burn and
being made into a powder mix it with oyl of radiches, and anoynt a bald
head and you shall see great experiences." The lying old _Dispensatory_
of Culpepper gave a rule to mix the ashes of Southernwood with "Old
Sallet Oyl" which "helpeth those that are hair-fallen and bald."
[Illustration: Sun-dial at Emery Place, Brightwood, District of
Columbia.]
Far pleasanter were the uses of the plant as a love charm. Pliny did not
disdain to counsel putting Southernwood under the pillow to make one
dream of a lover. A sprig of Southernwood in an unmarried girl's shoe
would bring to her the sight of her husband-to-be before night.
Sixty years ago two young country folk of New England were married. The
twain built them a house and established their home. Since a sprig of
Southernwood had played a romantic part in their courtship, each planted
a bush at the side of the broad doorstone; and the husband, William,
often thrust a bit of this Lad's-love from the flourishing bushes in the
buttonhole of his woollen shirt, for he fancied the fresh scent of the
leaves.
[Illustration: Sun-dial at Traveller's Rest.]
The twain had no children, and perhaps therefrom grew and increased in
Hetty a fairly passionate love of exact order and neatness in her
home--a trait which is not so common in New England housewives as many
fancy, and which does not always find equal growth and encouragement in
New England husbands. William chafed under the frequent and bitter
reproofs for the muddy shoes, dusty garments, hanging straws and seeds
which he brought into his wife's orderly paradise, and the jarring
culminated one night over such a trifle, a green sprig of Lad's-love
which he had dropped and trodden into the freshly washed floor of the
kitchen, where it left a green stain on the spotless boards.
The quarrel flamed high, and was followed by an ominous calm which was
not broken at breakfast. It would be impossible to express in words
Hetty's emotions when she crossed her threshold to set her shining milk
tins in the morning sunlight, and saw on one side of the doorstone a
yawning hole where had grown for ten years William's bunch of
Lad's-love. He had driven to the next village to sell some grain, so she
could search unseen for the vanished emblem of domestic felicity, and
soon she found it, in the ditch by the public road, already withered in
the hot sun.
When her husband went at nightfall to feed and water his cattle, he
found the other bush of Lad's-love, which had been planted with such
affectionate sentiment, trodden in the mire of the pigpen, under the
feet of the swine.
They lived together for thirty years after this crowning indignity. The
grass grew green over the empty holes by the doorside, but he never
forgave her, and they never spoke to each other save in direst
necessity, and then in fewest words. Yet they were not wicked folk. She
cared for his father and mother in the last years of their life with a
devotion that was fairly pathetic when it was seen that the old man was
untidy to a degree, and absolutely oblivious of all her orderly ways and
wishes. At their death he sent for and "homed," as the expression ran, a
brother of hers who was almost blind, and paid the expenses of her
nephew through college--but he died unforgiving; the sight of that
beloved Southernwood--in the pigpen--forever killed his affection.