WORK AND PLAY IN THE BEECHER PARSONAGE
In the Beecher household there was naturally a necessity that every one
should be up and doing: Monday, because it was washing day; Tuesday,
because it was ironing day; Wednesday, because it was baking day;
Thursday, because to-morrow was Friday, and so on through the week.
Daily life began at four o’clock in the morning when the tapping of a
pair of imperative heels on the stair and an authoritative rap on the
door dispelled the slumbers of the children. On winter mornings the
door was opened and a lighted candle was set inside. The sleepy eyes of
little girl Harriet could then watch the forest of glittering frostwork
made by her breath as it froze on the threads of the blanket. She saw
rainbow colors on this frostwork, and she then floated off into dreams
and fancies about it which would perhaps end in a doze. Very soon,
however, her cold little fingers managed the fastenings on her own
clothes as well as on those of her little brother, and she was at her
breakfast with the large family circle.
The breakfast! It was not like the five-course banquet we have to-day.
The bread was that black compound of rye and Indian meal which the
economy of New England made the common form because it could be most
easily raised on a hard and stony soil; but Mrs. Stowe in later life
informed all whom it might concern that rye and Indian bread, smoking
hot, together with savory sausage, pork and beans formed a breakfast
fit for a king, if the king had earned it by getting up in a cold
room, washing in ice-water, tumbling through snow-drifts and foddering
cattle. The children in the Beecher home no doubt partook of this form
of nourishment with thorough cheerfulness, dividing their portions with
the dog and the cat of the establishment in a contentment pleasant to
behold.
After breakfast came family prayers. They read the Bible through in
course, without note or comment. At that time the very letter of the
Bible was one of the forces that formed the minds of the children,
since it was for the most part read twice a day in every family of
any pretensions to respectability. It was also used as a reading book
in every common school. If the children understood, well; if not, the
mental stimulant of constant contact with the Book was left to make
what impression it would. It was wonderful to hear the Doctor read the
Bible at family prayers in the morning, for he read it in such an
eager, earnest tone of admiring delight, with such an indescribable
air of intentness and expectancy, as if the Book had just been handed
him out of Heaven! The joy of his soul in every new ray of Heaven’s
glory was manifest to each member of the home circle and had its effect
on the impressionable children so that they could hardly fail to
partake with him of that hunger and thirst after the knowledge of God.
The reading of the chapter was followed by an earnest prayer by Dr.
Beecher, and sometimes by what they called a “concert of prayer,” when
every member of the family would offer an extemporaneous petition, long
or short, according to ability and experience. These sacred hours were
remembered by the children as long as life lasted.
After this ceremony, the first thing to do was to get the children off
to school. It was not a small matter when the list included William
Henry, Edward, Mary Foote, George, Harriet Elizabeth, Henry Ward and
Charles. Later on were added the names of Isabella Holmes, Thomas
Kennicut and James. Now the dinner for each child was packed in a small
splint basket, and after much business was gone through all were away
to Academy or Dame School, according to age and ability. In winter
William and Edward had their sleds--not gayly painted ones from the
emporium as modern boys have, but rude fabrics made on rainy days out
of odds and ends of old sleigh runners and any rough boards that could
be fashioned with saw and hatchet. Such as they were, they served the
Beecher family well, and happy was the day when big brother William or
Edward would take the little sister to school on the sled, drawing her
swiftly over the snow, her little charge, the younger brother, closely
clasped in her arms.
On Sunday mornings strenuous exertions were required, for besides going
through the usual routine, Sunday clothes had to be donned; also, it
was to be made quite certain that the catechism had been successfully
and permanently drilled into the mind of each child. In her account of
the life of her distinguished brother, Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs. Stowe
records an early experience of hers in trying to teach him his grammar,
and if she had equal difficulties in making him learn the catechism,
she certainly had her hands full.
“Now, Henry,” she would say, “_A_ is the indefinite article, you see,
and must be used only with a singular noun. You can say _a man_, but
you can’t say _a men_, can you?”
“Why, yes, I can say Amen, too,” was the ready rejoinder. “Father says
it at the end of his prayers.”
“Come, Henry, now don’t be joking; now decline _he_.”
“Nominative, _he_; possessive, _his_; objective, _him_.”
“Yes,” said the young teacher. “You see, _his_ is possessive. Now you
can say, _his book_, but you cannot say _him book_.”
“Yes, I do say hymn-book, too,” said the incorrigible scholar, with a
quizzical twinkle. Each one of his sallies produced from the teacher a
laugh, which was the victory he wanted.
“But now, Henry, seriously. Just attend to the active and passive
voice. Now _I strike_ is active, you see, because if you strike you do
something. But _I am struck_ is passive, because if you are struck you
don’t do anything, do you?”
“Yes, I do; I strike back again.”
When Harriet was old enough to become the instructor of a frisky pupil
like this she may well have found that the New England Catechism
occasionally brought her to her wit’s end.
The church to which the Beecher children were regularly led was one of
those square, bald structures of which but few have come down to us
from the old times. It was wide, roomy, and of a desolate plainness.
During the long hours of the sermon the youngsters, perched in a row
on a low seat in front of the pulpit, attempted occasionally sundry
small exercises of their own, such as making their handkerchiefs into
rabbits, or exhibiting slyly the apples and gingerbread they had
brought for the Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears of some discreet,
meeting-going dog, who now and then soberly pit-a-patted through
the broad aisle. But woe be to them, says Harriet, if during those
contraband sports they should see the sleek head of the Deacon
dodge up from behind the top of his seat. Instantly all the apples,
gingerbread and handkerchiefs would vanish and the whole row of
children would be seen sitting there with their hands folded looking as
demure as if they understood every word of the sermon and more, too.
Mrs. Stowe says that her book, “Poganuc People,” consists of chapters
taken right out of her own life, and so we may read the name “Harriet”
in the place of “Dolly” all the way through. We may believe, then,
that Harriet was disposed of in all those shorthand methods by which
children were taught to be the least possible trouble. She was told
to come when called, and to do as she was bid without question or
argument, to be quiet in bed at the earliest possible hour of the
night, and, in the presence of her elders, to speak only when spoken
to. All this was a great repression to Harriet, who was by nature a
lively, excitable little thing, bursting with questions that she longed
to ask, and with comments and remarks that she burned to make. Perhaps
it never distinctly occurred to her to murmur at her lot in life, yet
at times she must have sighed over the dreadful insignificance of being
only a little girl in a great family of grown-up people. For even the
brothers nearest her own age were studying at the Academy and spouting
scraps of superior Latin at her to make her stare and wonder at their
learning. They were tearing, noisy, tempestuous boys, good-natured
enough and willing to pet her at intervals, but prompt to suggest that
it was time for her to go to bed when her questions or her gambols
interfered with their evening pleasures.
Moreover, since Harriet was a robust, healthy little creature, she
received none of the petting which a more delicate child might have
claimed. The general course of her experience impressed her with the
mournful conviction that she was always likely to be in the way. But if
she was it was because of her childish curiosity, and of her burning
desire to see and hear all that interested the grown people about her.
At that time there were no amusements especially provided for children,
no children’s books, and no Sunday schools to teach bright little
songs and to give children picnics and presents. It was a grown
people’s world. The toys of the period were so poor and so few that,
in comparison with our modern profusion, they could scarcely be said
to exist. Harriet was, however, not without some home-made toys, and
we are glad to believe that a doll baby, though perhaps only a rag
one, was, in the course of providential events, assigned to little,
human-hearted Harriet Beecher.
We know that Harriet’s older sister Catherine was a master hand at
making dolls. With scissors, needle, paint and other materials she
could make dolls of all sizes, sexes and colors, and surround them
with all sorts of droll contrivances. For instance, she once made a
Queen of Sheba with a gold crown, seated her in a chariot made of half
a pumpkin drawn by four prancing steeds fashioned out of crook-necked
squashes, whose ears and legs she whittled out and fastened securely in
their proper places. Then she manufactured a negro driver and placed
him above with the reins in hand. Her care and artistry were rewarded
by the admiration and amusement of the whole family. It was certainly
worth a great deal to the little Harriet to have a sister like that,
and we believe that the exercise of Catherine’s talents was not wholly
selfish.
In “Poganuc People,” Mrs. Stowe, remembering her own childhood well,
gives to the young heroine a gorgeous wooden doll with staring glass
eyes. This precious treasure was the central point in all _Dolly’s_
arrangements. To this companion _Dolly_ showed her stores of chestnuts
and walnuts, gave jay-bird feathers and bluebird’s wings, and a set of
tea cups made out of the backbone of a codfish. She brushed and curled
the doll’s hair till she took all the curl out of it, and washed all
the paint off its cheeks in her motherly zeal.
Besides her doll and its excellent codfish backbone tea-set--and no one
who has not tried to make them, by the way, can know how beautiful and
delicate such tea cups can be--Harriet had in her earliest play days an
unfailing source of occupation and delight in the gigantic woodpile in
the back yard where the fuel for the season was laid up in long rows
eight or ten feet high. Here was a world of marvels. The child skipped
and sung and climbed among its intricacies, finding and collecting
wonderful treasures, green velvet mosses, little white trees of lichen
that seemed to have tiny apples upon them, fine scarlet cups and
fairy caps. From these materials she constructed miniature landscapes
in which the mosses made the fields, little sprigs of spruce and
ground pine the trees, and bits of broken glass the lakes and rivers,
reflecting the overshadowing banks.
With such delights as these, Harriet was busy, healthy and happy. When
her brothers came home from the Academy in the evening and tossed her
up in their long arms, her laugh rang out gay and loud as if there
were no such thing as disappointment in the world. Sometimes the other
children joined her in the magic field of the woodpile. Then they
made themselves houses, castles and fortresses. They played at giving
parties and entertainments at which the dog and the cat assisted. They
held town meetings also, and had voting days with speeches against the
Democrats. (The word did not mean then what it does now.) They held
religious meetings, too, sung hymns and preached sermons, and on these
occasions Harriet was known to exhort and recite texts of Scripture
with a degree of fervor that seemed to produce a great effect upon her
auditors. Thus the woodpile became a great forum of debate as well as
a studio of art, and Harriet was the first to welcome the time when
its stores should be reinforced at that great event of the year, the
wood-spell.
A wood-spell is an old-fashioned sort of donation party. The pastor
used to be settled with the understanding that he should receive a
certain sum of money as salary, _and his wood_, just as in Easthampton,
Long Island, Dr. Beecher’s first pastorate, one-fourth of the whales
that were stranded on the beach was assigned to the minister as a part
of his yearly payment. In Litchfield a day was set apart in the winter
about the time when the sleighs were running most smoothly over the
pressed snow, and on that day every parishioner was to bring to the
minister a sled-load of wood. This was built up in the back yard of the
parsonage into a mighty woodpile for the year’s use. When Harriet was
five years old, partly because sorrow had visited the Beecher family
that year, and partly because of a quickened religious enthusiasm
throughout the community, the wood-spell of that winter was more
than usually interesting and the number of loads very generous. With
her father’s rejoicing approval, Harriet’s elder sister, Catherine,
now sixteen years old, was allowed to take the whole responsibility
of preparing the banquet for the occasion. This meant a great deal.
Everything in the house must be spick and span; dozens of doughnuts
must be cooked; and, above all, the wood-spell cake must be made.
For nearly a week the kitchen was as busy as an ant-hill. The fat was
prepared to fry the doughnuts, the spices were pounded, the flour was
sifted, the materials for the flips were collected. Catherine was
assisted by eleven-year-old Mary; William, Edward and George split and
brought in an incredible amount of wood for the oven, and the girls sat
all the evening about the kitchen fire stoning raisins, with the best
story-teller in the midst to make the time pass--and she, we are sure,
could have been none other than Harriet.
Then came the baking of the cake. For two days beforehand the fire was
surrounded by a row of earthen jars in which the spicy compound was
rising to the necessary lightness. At exactly the quivering instant for
perfection each loaf was shoved into the little black door of the brick
oven.
At last all the wood-spell loaves came out victorious, while each
helper merrily claimed merit for the baking.
The frying of the doughnuts was also a matter of the greatest delicacy,
requiring experience and the nicest art; but this also was a triumph.
Catherine said, “Were I to tell how many loaves I have put in and taken
out of the oven, and how many bushels of doughnuts I have boiled over
the kitchen fire, I fear my credit for veracity would be endangered.”
Finally all was finished. A mighty cheese was brought; every shelf in
the closet and all the dressers of the kitchen were crowded with the
abundance. The delicious stores of food were indeed a sight to behold,
calling in admiring visitors, and Catherine’s success was a matter of
universal congratulation. But may we not give Harriet some credit,
too? For though her part may have been largely the care of the younger
children, still, without her help, Catherine would not have been free
to do the work.
The auspicious day for the coming of the farmers arrived. It was a
jewel of a morning, one of those sharp, clear, sunny, winter days when
the sleds squeak over the flinty snow and the little icicles, falling
from the trees, tingle along on the glittering crust. The breath of the
slow-pacing oxen steamed up like a rosy cloud in the morning sun and
then fell back condensed in globes of ice on every hair.
All the children were astir early, full of life and vigor. The boys
were at home for the day. There was a holiday at the Academy, for the
teacher had been asked to come over to the minister’s to chat and
tell stories with the farmers and give them high entertainment. There
was enough work for all to do, for the three big boys and for the two
sisters. Besides all the rest, there was little Henry Ward, aged three,
and Charles, aged but one, to be cared for and kept out of mischief.
Eager, lively, little Harriet could take care of herself, and do a
great deal of helping besides.
Pretty soon the first load came squeaking up the village street, and
the boys clapped their hands and shouted, “Hurrah for Heber!” as his
load of magnificent oak, well-bearded with gray moss, came scrunching
into the yard.
“Well, Mr. Atwood,” said the Doctor, “you must have had pretty hard
work on that load; that’s no ordinary oak, I can tell you.”
And now the loads began to arrive thick and fast. Sometimes two and
three, sometimes four and five, came stringing along in unbroken
procession. For every load the minister had an appreciative word,
noticing and commending the especial points, and the farmers
themselves, shrewdest of observers, looked at every pile and gave it
their verdict. The loads were of the best, none of your crooked-stick
makeshifts. Good, straight, shagbark hickory was voted none too good
for the minister.
Before long the yard, street, and the lower rooms of the house were
swarming with cheerful faces. Then Aunt Esther began to cut the first
loaf of wood-spell cake. The flip-irons were taken out of the fire and
thrust into the foaming bowl. The little folks were as busy as bees
in waiting on the kind farmers. They handed around the good things to
eat, the cider and doughnuts, the cheese and the cake. The teacher and
the minister were in the midst of merry chatting circles; their best
stories were told, and roars of laughter resounded.
Meantime such a woodpile was arising in the yard as never before
was seen in ministerial domains! And how fresh and woodsy it smelt!
Harriet eyed it with a view to future plays. There was the black birch
whose flavored bark she prized as a species of confectionery. There
were also gleaming logs of white birch, from the bark of which she
could cut strips for her woodland parchment. Then there were massive
trunks of oak affording veritable worlds of supplies for her woodsy
palette.
And now the sun was going down. The sleds had ceased to come, the
riches of woodland treasure were all in, the whole air was full of a
trembling, rose-colored light. All over the distant landscape there was
not a fence to be seen, nothing but waving hollows of spotless snow,
glowing with the rosy radiance and fading away into purple and lilac
shadows. And the evening stars began to twinkle, one after another,
keen and clear, through the frosty air, as the children all sat
together in triumph on the highest perch of the woodpile.
In the town where the Beechers had their home there were other unique
expressions of social feeling calculated to influence the mind of a
growing child, as for instance, the Fourth of July, the apple bee, and
the sleighing party. But perhaps Thanksgiving Day was the one most
noted in the calendar. When this characteristic Yankee festival came
around there was again an opportunity for the parishioners to show the
grace of generosity toward the minister. In 1818 Dr. Beecher writes to
his son at college: “We had a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner and, they
say, a good sermon. We had presents piled up yesterday at a great
rate. Mr. Henry Wadsworth sent 6 lbs. of butter, 6 lbs. lard, 2 lbs.
Hyson tea, 5 dozen eggs, 8 lbs. sugar, a large pig, a large turkey and
four cheeses. The governor sent a turkey; Mrs. Thompson, do.; and, to
cap it all, Mr. Rogers sent us a turkey!” Under such circumstances as
these it is rather fortunate that the Beecher family had a considerable
number of mouths to be filled.
Again the kitchen was fragrant with the smell of cinnamon, cloves and
allspice which the children were set to pound to a most wearisome
fineness in the great lignum-vitæ mortar. Again there was the stoning
of raisins, the cutting of citron, the slicing of orange-peel. Again
the fire was built up more architecturally than usual and roared
and crackled up the wide chimney, brightening with its radiance the
farthest corner of the ample room. Then a tub of rosy-cheeked apples,
another of golden quinces, and a bushel basket full of cranberries were
set in the midst of the circle of happy children who were being led in
the ways of industry, sorting and cutting, to the tune of the snapping
fire.
But who shall do justice to the dinner? Who shall describe the turkey,
the chicken, with the confusing series of vegetables, the plum puddings
and the endless variety of pies? After dinner the father of the house
conformed to the old Puritan custom by recounting the mercies of God
in his dealings with the family. He recited a sort of family history,
closing with the time-honored text that expressed the hope that as
years went by every member of the house circle might so number his days
as to apply his heart unto wisdom. Then with the national hymn of the
Puritans,
Let children hear the mighty deeds
Which God performed of old,
sung to the venerable tune of St. Martin’s, the ceremonies closed.
So it was in the noble old New England days! Amid scenes like this
a child was growing up in whose character love of home and love of
country were to be corner stones.