The Old Peabody Pew

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The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church


Dedication


To a certain handful of dear New England women of names unknown to the
world, dwelling in a certain quiet village, alike unknown:--

We have worked together to make our little corner of the great universe a
pleasanter place in which to live, and so we know, not only one another's
names, but something of one another's joys and sorrows, cares and
burdens, economies, hopes, and anxieties.

We all remember the dusty uphill road that leads to the green church
common. We remember the white spire pointing upward against a background
of blue sky and feathery elms. We remember the sound of the bell that
falls on the Sabbath morning stillness, calling us across the
daisy-sprinkled meadows of June, the golden hayfields of July, or the
dazzling whiteness and deep snowdrifts of December days. The little
cabinet-organ that plays the doxology, the hymn-books from which we sing
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow," the sweet freshness of the old
meeting-house, within and without--how we have toiled to secure and
preserve these humble mercies for ourselves and our children!

There really _is_ a Dorcas Society, as you and I well know, and one not
unlike that in these pages; and you and I have lived through many
discouraging, laughable, and beautiful experiences while we emulated the
Bible Dorcas, that woman "full of good works and alms deeds."

There never was a Peabody Pew in the Tory Hill Meeting-House, and Nancy's
love story and Justin's never happened within its century-old walls; but
I have imagined only one of the many romances that have had their birth
under the shadow of that steeple, did we but realize it.

As you have sat there on open-windowed Sundays, looking across purple
clover-fields to blue distant mountains, watching the palm-leaf fans
swaying to and fro in the warm stillness before sermon time, did not the
place seem full of memories, for has not the life of two villages ebbed
and flowed beneath that ancient roof? You heard the hum of droning bees
and followed the airy wings of butterflies fluttering over the
gravestones in the old churchyard, and underneath almost every moss-grown
tablet some humble romance lies buried and all but forgotten.

If it had not been for you, I should never have written this story, so I
give it back to you tied with a sprig from Ophelia's nosegay; a spring of
"rosemary, that's for remembrance."

K. D. W.

August, 1907




CHAPTER I


Edgewood, like all the other villages along the banks of the Saco, is
full of sunny slopes and leafy hollows. There are little, rounded, green-
clad hillocks that might, like their scriptural sisters, "skip with joy,"
and there are grand, rocky hills tufted with gaunt pine trees--these
leading the eye to the splendid heights of a neighbour State, where snow-
crowned peaks tower in the blue distance, sweeping the horizon in a long
line of majesty.

Tory Hill holds its own among the others for peaceful beauty and fair
prospect, and on its broad, level summit sits the white-painted Orthodox
Meeting-House. This faces a grassy common where six roads meet, as if
the early settlers had determined that no one should lack salvation
because of a difficulty in reaching its visible source.

The old church has had a dignified and fruitful past, dating from that
day in 1761 when young Paul Coffin received his call to preach at a
stipend of fifty pounds sterling a year; answering "that never having
heard of any Uneasiness among the people about his Doctrine or manner of
life, he declared himself pleased to Settle as Soon as might be Judged
Convenient."

But that was a hundred and fifty years ago, and much has happened since
those simple, strenuous old days. The chastening hand of time has been
laid somewhat heavily on the town as well as on the church. Some of her
sons have marched to the wars and died on the field of honour; some,
seeking better fortunes, have gone westward; others, wearying of village
life, the rocky soil, and rigours of farm-work, have become entangled in
the noise and competition, the rush and strife, of cities. When the
sexton rings the bell nowadays, on a Sunday morning, it seems to have
lost some of its old-time militant strength, something of its hope and
courage; but it still rings, and although the Davids and Solomons, the
Matthews, Marks, and Pauls of former congregations have left few
descendants to perpetuate their labours, it will go on ringing as long as
there is a Tabitha, a Dorcas, a Lois, or a Eunice left in the community.

This sentiment had been maintained for a quarter of a century, but it was
now especially strong, as the old Tory Hill Meeting-House had been
undergoing for several years more or less extensive repairs. In point of
fact, the still stronger word, "improvements," might be used with
impunity; though whenever the Dorcas Society, being female, and therefore
possessed of notions regarding comfort and beauty, suggested any serious
changes, the finance committees, which were inevitably male in their
composition, generally disapproved of making any impious alterations in a
tabernacle, chapel, temple, or any other building used for purposes of
worship. The majority in these august bodies asserted that their
ancestors had prayed and sung there for a century and a quarter, and what
was good enough for their ancestors was entirely suitable for them.
Besides, the community was becoming less and less prosperous, and church-
going was growing more and more lamentably uncommon, so that even from a
business standpoint, any sums expended upon decoration by a poor and
struggling parish would be worse than wasted.

In the particular year under discussion in this story, the valiant and
progressive Mrs. Jeremiah Burbank was the president of the Dorcas
Society, and she remarked privately and publicly that if her ancestors
liked a smoky church, they had a perfect right to the enjoyment of it,
but that she didn't intend to sit through meeting on winter Sundays, with
her white ostrich feather turning grey and her eyes smarting and
watering, for the rest of her natural life.

Whereupon, this being in a business session, she then and there proposed
to her already hypnotized constituents ways of earning enough money to
build a new chimney on the other side of the church.

An awe-stricken community witnessed this beneficent act of vandalism,
and, finding that no thunderbolts of retribution descended from the
skies, greatly relished the change. If one or two aged persons
complained that they could not sleep as sweetly during sermon-time in the
now clear atmosphere of the church, and that the parson's eye was keener
than before, why, that was a mere detail, and could not be avoided; what
was the loss of a little sleep compared with the discoloration of Mrs.
Jere Burbank's white ostrich feather and the smarting of Mrs. Jere
Burbank's eyes?

A new furnace followed the new chimney, in due course, and as a sense of
comfort grew, there was opportunity to notice the lack of beauty. Twice
in sixty years had some well-to-do summer parishioner painted the
interior of the church at his own expense; but although the roof had been
many times reshingled, it had always persisted in leaking, so that the
ceiling and walls were disfigured by unsightly spots and stains and
streaks. The question of shingling was tacitly felt to be outside the
feminine domain, but as there were five women to one man in the church
membership, the feminine domain was frequently obliged to extend its
limits into the hitherto unknown. Matters of tarring and water-proofing
were discussed in and out of season, and the very school-children imbibed
knowledge concerning lapping, overlapping, and cross-lapping, and first
and second quality of cedar shingles. Miss Lobelia Brewster, who had a
rooted distrust of anything done by mere man, created strife by remarking
that she could have stopped the leak in the belfry tower with her red
flannel petticoat better than the Milltown man with his new-fangled
rubber sheeting, and that the last shingling could have been more
thoroughly done by a "female infant babe"; whereupon the person
criticized retorted that he wished Miss Lobelia Brewster had a few infant
babes to "put on the job--he'd like to see 'em try." Meantime several
male members of the congregation, who at one time or another had sat on
the roof during the hottest of the dog days to see that shingling
operations we're conscientiously and skilfully performed, were very
pessimistic as to any satisfactory result ever being achieved.

"The angle of the roof--what they call the 'pitch'--they say that that's
always been wrong," announced the secretary of the Dorcas in a business
session.

"Is it that kind of pitch that the Bible says you can't touch without
being defiled? If not, I vote that we unshingle the roof and alter the
pitch!" This proposal came from a sister named Maria Sharp, who had
valiantly offered the year before to move the smoky chimney with her own
hands, if the "men-folks" wouldn't.

But though the incendiary suggestion of altering the pitch was received
with applause at the moment, subsequent study of the situation proved
that such a proceeding was entirely beyond the modest means of the
society. Then there arose an ingenious and militant carpenter in a
neighbouring village, who asserted that he would shingle the
meeting-house roof for such and such a sum, and agree to drink every drop
of water that would leak in afterward. This was felt by all parties to
be a promise attended by extraordinary risks, but it was accepted
nevertheless, Miss Lobelia Brewster remarking that the rash carpenter,
being already married, could not marry a Dorcas anyway, and even if he
died, he was not a resident of Edgewood, and therefore could be more
easily spared, and that it would be rather exciting, just for a change,
to see a man drink himself to death with rain-water. The expected
tragedy never occurred, however, and the inspired shingler fulfilled his
promise to the letter, so that before many months the Dorcas Society
proceeded, with incredible exertion, to earn more money, and the interior
of the church was neatly painted and made as fresh as a rose. With no
smoke, no rain, no snow nor melting ice to defile it, the good old
landmark that had been pointing its finger Heavenward for over a century
would now be clean and fragrant for years to come, and the weary sisters
leaned back in their respective rocking-chairs and drew deep breaths of
satisfaction.

These breaths continued to be drawn throughout an unusually arduous
haying season; until, in fact, a visitor from a neighbouring city was
heard to remark that the Tory Hill Meeting-House would be one of the best
preserved and pleasantest churches in the whole State of Maine, if only
it were suitably carpeted.

This thought had secretly occurred to many a Dorcas in her hours of pie-
making, preserving, or cradle-rocking, but had been promptly extinguished
as flagrantly extravagant and altogether impossible. Now that it had
been openly mentioned, the contagion of the idea spread, and in a month
every sort of honest machinery for the increase of funds had been set in
motion: harvest suppers, pie sociables, old folk's concerts, apron sales,
and, as a last resort, a subscription paper, for the church floor
measured hundreds of square yards, and the carpet committee announce that
a good ingrain could not be purchased, even with the church discount, for
less than ninety-seven cents a yard.

The Dorcases took out their pencils, and when they multiplied the surface
of the floor by the price of the carpet per yard, each Dorcas attaining a
result entirely different from all the others, there was a shriek of
dismay, especially from the secretary, who had included in her
mathematical operation certain figures in her possession representing the
cubical contents of the church and the offending pitch of the roof,
thereby obtaining a product that would have dismayed a Croesus. Time
sped and efforts increased, but the Dorcases were at length obliged to
clip the wings of their desire and content themselves with carpeting the
pulpit and pulpit steps, the choir, and the two aisles, leaving the floor
in the pews until some future year.

How the women cut and contrived and matched that hardly-bought red
ingrain carpet, in the short December afternoons that ensued after its
purchase; so that, having failed to be ready for Thanksgiving, it could
be finished for the Christmas festivities!

They were sewing in the church, and as the last stitches were being
taken, Maria Sharp suddenly ejaculated in her impulsive fashion:--

"Wouldn't it have been just perfect if we could have had the pews
repainted before we laid the new carpet!"

"It would, indeed," the president answered; "but it will take us all
winter to pay for the present improvements, without any thought of fresh
paint. If only we had a few more men-folks to help along!"

"Or else none at all!" was Lobelia Brewster's suggestion. "It's havin'
so few that keeps us all stirred up. If there wa'n't any anywheres, we'd
have women deacons and carpenters and painters, and get along first rate;
for somehow the supply o' women always holds out, same as it does with
caterpillars an' flies an' grasshoppers!"

Everybody laughed, although Maria Sharp asserted that she for one was not
willing to be called a caterpillar simply because there were too many
women in the universe.

"I never noticed before how shabby and scarred and dirty the pews are,"
said the minister's wife as she looked at them reflectively.

"I've been thinking all the afternoon of the story about the poor old
woman and the lily," and Nancy Wentworth's clear voice broke into the
discussion. "Do you remember some one gave her a stalk of Easter lilies
and she set them in a glass pitcher on the kitchen table? After looking
at them for a few minutes, she got up from her chair and washed the
pitcher until the glass shone. Sitting down again, she glanced at the
little window. It would never do; she had forgotten how dusty and
blurred it was, and she took her cloth and burnished the panes. Then she
scoured the table, then the floor, then blackened the stove before she
sat down to her knitting. And of course the lily had done it all, just
by showing, in its whiteness, how grimy everything else was."

The minister's wife who had been in Edgewood only a few months, looked
admiringly at Nancy's bright face, wondering that five-and-thirty years
of life, including ten of school-teaching, had done so little to mar its
serenity. "The lily story is as true as the gospel!" she exclaimed, "and
I can see how one thing has led you to another in making the church
comfortable. But my husband says that two coats of paint on the pews
would cost a considerable sum."

"How about cleaning them? I don't believe they've had a good hard
washing since the flood." The suggestion came from Deacon Miller's wife
to the president.

"They can't even be scrubbed for less than fifteen or twenty dollars, for
I thought of that and asked Mrs. Simpson yesterday, and she said twenty
cents a pew was the cheapest she could do it for."

"We've done everything else," said Nancy Wentworth, with a twitch of her
thread; "why don't we scrub the pews? There's nothing in the orthodox
creed to forbid, is there?"

"Speakin' o' creeds," and here old Mrs. Sargent paused in her work,
"Elder Ransom from Acreville stopped with us last night, an' he tells me
they recite the Euthanasian Creed every few Sundays in the Episcopal
Church. I didn't want him to know how ignorant I was, but I looked up
the word in the dictionary. It means easy death, and I can't see any
sense in that, though it's a terrible long creed, the Elder says, an' if
it's any longer 'n ourn, I should think anybody _might_ easy die learnin'
it!"

"I think the word is Athanasian," ventured the minister's wife.

"Elder Ransom's always plumb full o' doctrine," asserted Miss Brewster,
pursuing the subject. "For my part, I'm glad he preferred Acreville to
our place. He was so busy bein' a minister, he never got round to bein'
a human creeter. When he used to come to sociables and picnics, always
lookin' kind o' like the potato blight, I used to think how complete he'd
be if he had a foldin' pulpit under his coat tails; they make foldin'
beds nowadays, an' I s'pose they could make foldin' pulpits, if there was
a call."

"Land sakes, I hope there won't be!" exclaimed Mrs. Sargent. "An' the
Elder never said much of anything either, though he was always preachin'!
Now your husband, Mis' Baxter, always has plenty to say after you think
he's all through. There's water in his well when the others is all dry!"

"But how about the pews?" interrupted Mrs. Burbank. "I think Nancy's
idea is splendid, and I want to see it carried out. We might make it a
picnic, bring our luncheons, and work all together; let every woman in
the congregation come and scrub her own pew."

"Some are too old, others live at too great a distance," and the
minister's wife sighed a little; "indeed, most of those who once owned
the pews or sat in them seemed to be dead, or gone away to live in busier
places."

"I've no patience with 'em, gallivantin' over the earth," and here
Lobelia rose and shook the carpet threads from her lap. "I shouldn't
want to live in a livelier place than Edgewood, seem's though! We wash
and hang out Mondays, iron Tuesdays, cook Wednesdays, clean house and
mend Thursdays and Fridays, bake Saturdays, and go to meetin' Sundays. I
don't hardly see how they can do any more 'n that in Chicago!"

"Never mind if we have lost members!" said the indomitable Mrs. Burbank.
"The members we still have left must work all the harder. We'll each
clean our own pew, then take a few of our neighbours', and then hire Mrs.
Simpson to do the wainscoting and floor. Can we scrub Friday and lay the
carpet Saturday? My husband and Deacon Miller can help us at the end of
the week. All in favour manifest it by the usual sign. Contrary minded?
It is a vote."

There never were any contrary minded when Mrs. Jere Burbank was in the
chair. Public sentiment in Edgewood was swayed by the Dorcas Society,
but Mrs. Burbank swayed the Dorcases themselves as the wind sways the
wheat.




CHAPTER II


The old Meeting House wore an animated aspect when the eventful Friday
came, a cold, brilliant, sparkling December day, with good sleighing, and
with energy in every breath that swept over the dazzling snowfields. The
sexton had built a fire in the furnace on the way to his morning work--a
fire so economically contrived that it would last exactly the four or
five necessary hours, and not a second more. At eleven o'clock all the
pillars of the society had assembled, having finished their own household
work and laid out on their respective kitchen tables comfortable
luncheons for the men of the family, if they were fortunate enough to
number any among their luxuries. Water was heated upon oil-stoves set
about here and there, and there was a brave array of scrubbing-brushes,
cloths, soap, and even sand and soda, for it had been decided and
manifested-by-the-usual-sign-and-no-contrary-minded-and-it-was-a-vote
that the dirt was to come off, whether the paint came with it or not.
Each of the fifteen women present selected a block of seats, preferably
one in which her own was situated, and all fell busily to work.

"There is nobody here to clean the right-wing pews," said Nancy
Wentworth, "so I will take those for my share."

"You're not making a very wise choice, Nancy," and the minister's wife
smiled as she spoke. "The infant class of the Sunday-school sits there,
you know, and I expect the paint has had extra wear and tear. Families
don't seem to occupy those pews regularly nowadays."

"I can remember when every seat in the whole church was filled, wings an'
all," mused Mrs. Sargent, wringing out her wascloth in a reminiscent
mood. "The one in front o' you, Nancy, was always called the 'deef pew'
in the old times, and all the folks that was hard o' hearin' used to
congregate there."

"The next pew hasn't been occupied since I came here," said the
minister's wife.

"No," answered Mrs. Sargent, glad of any opportunity to retail
neighbourhood news. "'Squire Bean's folks have moved to Portland to be
with the married daughter. Somebody has to stay with her, and her
husband won't. The 'Squire ain't a strong man, and he's most too old to
go to meetin' now. The youngest son has just died in New York, so I
hear."

"What ailed him?" inquired Maria Sharp.

"I guess he was completely wore out takin' care of his health," returned
Mrs. Sargent. "He had a splendid constitution from a boy, but he was
always afraid it wouldn't last him.--The seat back o' 'Squire Bean's is
the old Peabody pew--ain't that the Peabody pew you're scrubbin', Nancy?"

"I believe so," Nancy answered, never pausing in her labours. "It's so
long since anybody sat there, it's hard to remember."

"It is the Peabodys', I know it, because the aisle runs right up facin'
it. I can see old Deacon Peabody settin' in this end same as if 'twas
yesterday."

"He had died before Jere and I came back here to live," said Mrs.
Burbank. "The first I remember, Justin Peabody sat in the end seat; the
sister that died, next, and in the corner, against the wall, Mrs.
Peabody, with a crepe shawl and a palm-leaf fan. They were a handsome
family. You used to sit with them sometimes, Nancy; Esther was great
friends with you."

"Yes, she was," Nancy replied, lifting the tattered cushion from its
place and brushing it; "and I with her.--What is the use of scrubbing and
carpeting, when there are only twenty pew-cushions and six hassocks in
the whole church, and most of them ragged? How can I ever mend this?"

"I shouldn't trouble myself to darn other people's cushions!"

This unchristian sentiment came in Mrs. Miller's ringing tones from the
rear of the church.

"I don't know why," argued Maria Sharp. "I'm going to mend my Aunt
Achsa's cushion, and we haven't spoken for years; but hers is the next
pew to mine, and I'm going to have my part of the church look decent,
even if she is too stingy to do her share. Besides, there aren't any
Peabodys left to do their own darning, and Nancy was friends with
Esther."

"Yes, it's nothing more than right," Nancy replied, with a note of relief
in her voice, "considering Esther."

"Though he don't belong to the scrubbin' sex, there is one Peabody alive,
as you know, if you stop to think, Maria; for Justin's alive, and livin'
out West somewheres. At least, he's as much alive as ever he was; he was
as good as dead when he was twenty-one, but his mother was always too
soft-hearted to bury him."

There was considerable laughter over this sally of the outspoken Mrs.
Sargent, whose keen wit was the delight of the neighbourhood.

"I know he's alive and doing business in Detroit, for I got his address a
week or ten days ago, and wrote, asking him if he'd like to give a couple
of dollars toward repairing the old church."

Everybody looked at Mrs. Burbank with interest.

"Hasn't he answered?" asked Maria Sharp.

Nancy Wentworth held her breath, turned her face to the wall, and
silently wiped the paint of the wainscoting. The blood that had rushed
into her cheeks at Mrs. Sargent's jeering reference to Justin Peabody
still lingered there for any one who ran to read, but fortunately nobody
ran; they were too busy scrubbing.

"Not yet. Folks don't hurry about answering when you ask them for a
contribution," replied the president, with a cynicism common to persons
who collect funds for charitable purposes. "George Wickham sent me
twenty-five cents from Denver. When I wrote him a receipt, I said thank
you same as Aunt Polly did when the neighbours brought her a piece of
beef: 'Ever so much obleeged, but don't forget me when you come to kill a
pig.'--Now, Mrs. Baxter, you shan't clean James Bruce's pew, or what was
his before he turned Second Advent. I'll do that myself, for he used to
be in my Sunday-school class."

"He's the backbone o' that congregation now," asserted Mrs. Sargent, "and
they say he's goin' to marry Mrs. Sam Peters, who sings in their choir as
soon as his year is up. They make a perfect fool of him in that church."

"You can't make a fool of a man that nature ain't begun with," argued
Miss Brewster. "Jim Bruce never was very strong-minded, but I declare it
seems to me that when men lose their wives, they lose their wits! I was
sure Jim would marry Hannah Thompson that keeps house for him. I
suspected she was lookin' out for a life job when she hired out with
him."

"Hannah Thompson may keep Jim's house, but she'll never keep Jim, that's
certain!" affirmed the president; "and I can't see that Mrs. Peters will
better herself much."

"I don't blame her, for one!" came in no uncertain tones from the left-
wing pews, and the Widow Buzzell rose from her knees and approached the
group by the pulpit. "If there's anything duller than cookin' three
meals a day _for_ yourself, and settin' down and eatin' 'em _by_
yourself, and then gettin' up and clearin' 'em away _after_ yourself, I'd
like to know it! I shouldn't want any good-lookin', pleasant-spoken man
to offer himself to me without he expected to be snapped up, that's all!
But if you've made out to get one husband in York County, you can thank
the Lord and not expect any more favours. I used to think Tom was poor
comp'ny and complain I couldn't have any conversation with him, but land,
I could talk at him, and there's considerable comfort in that. And I
could pick up after him! Now every room in my house is clean, and every
closet and bureau drawer, too; I can't start drawin' in another rug, for
I've got all the rugs I can step foot on. I dried so many apples last
year I shan't need to cut up any this season. My jelly and preserves
ain't out, and there I am; and there most of us are, in this village,
without a man to take steps for and trot 'round after! There's just
three husbands among the fifteen women scrubbin' here now, and the rest
of us is all old maids and widders. No wonder the men-folks die, or move
away like Justin Peabody; a place with such a mess o' women-folks ain't
healthy to live in, whatever Lobelia Brewster may say."