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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

PENNSTATE

UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

PIULPIT OY THE (WA) WH ITE CHt-RI( H BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

KATHARINE HENRY 1 S'Z COTRIGHT 1987 DO1ROCE S COMPANY. na.

EANWHAO'TMLD IN TEN UNITED STATRS 0 AMDRIOS I

I I I i 'I I Ii

To THIE BoY ORGANIST

of THE OLD WHITE CHURCH

I Certain of these stories have appeared in The Co Gentleman, The Philadelphia Public Ledger, an( Farmer's Wife. The Author and Publishers wi thank the Editors for the privilege of reprinting. CONTENTS

PAGE A PENNSYLVANIA GIRLHOOD ...... 7 THE FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN ...... 14 HERE COME THE PEDDLERS ...... 25 WE ACHIEVE A LOCKUP ...... 33 THE FAIR ...... 37 SCHOOL DAYS ...... 48 GETTING READY FOR SANTA CLAUS ...... 59 THE UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL ...... 68 THE EXHIBITION ...... 76 THE CELEBRATION ...... 85 OUR FEARSOME NEIGHBORS-THE MOLLY MA- GUIRES ...... 94 MY PIONEER GRANDMOTHER ...... 102 MY ACADEMY IN THE COVE ...... 109 HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM ...... 123 GRANDMA HENRY ...... 139 GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE ...... 151 TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB . 166 OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN .. 179 THE OLD WHITE CHURCH .. 194 UNCLE JOHNNY . 210 "FOR THERE WE LOVED, AND WHERE WE LOVED IS HOME; HOME THAT OUR FEET MAY LEAVE, BUT NOT OUR HEARTS." A PENNSYLVANIA GIRLHOOD

The Home under the Pines Molly was going away! That much my little brain grasped. Why she was going, or where, did not concern me. I only knew that Mother's friend Molly, who had been a part of our home, was going away. I took my stand close to the door through which she would pass. As she stopped to tell a neighbor goodbye I noticed, and still recall distinctly, the dress she wore -a fawn-colored print, with a slender chain of black. Yielding to the atmosphere around me, I slid to the floor and gave audible expression to my feelings. Im- mediately Molly was on the floor beside me with com- forting words, as she brought forth from somewhere more chestnuts than the pocket of my pinafore could hold. Then she picked up her box and was gone! That is, I think, the earliest picture on the walls of my memory. Close beside it hangs another. It was a sultry afternoon in August. Suddenly great clouds, black and threatening, rolled and tumbled over each other in the west; thunder began to growl. Mother sent my sister Stella to close all windows, my brother John to bring in the frames of fruit set out to dry in the sun, while she hurried to shut in the hens with their baby chicks. I kept very close beside her. As the first big drops began to fall we reached the shelter of the porch. Once inside the house, she closed the door securely, drew the shades, and gathered her own chicks around her. The lightning flashed, the thunder cracked and rolled above our little home in a terrifying way; but Mother 7 I

_ m 8 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA was with us. We huddled close to her in the stifling room. Several times we thought the worst was over- only to hear it crack harder than ever, until I felt that if there was one more flash, one more deep roll that made the earth tremble, I must scream. Then, almost as suddenly as it came, the storm passed. But I still clung to Mother's hand as she raised the shade. "Now we can open the door; the storm has gone down the valley" were welcome words. The moist, cool air refreshed us as we stood in the doorway; the beautiful scene before us rested our fev- ered eyes. Stretching away from our door, for miles down the sparkling valley were happy gardens, hillsides shimmering with corn, soft green fields, trees whose every leaf glistened in the clear atmosphere. The parched earth had been revived and purified. Over all arched a rainbow. "Oh, this rain can't be paid for," Mother said fervently. And my little brain was perplexed. Paid for? How could a woman and three children pay for such a big, cooling rain? Why even Uncle Joe, with all his fields, and barns, and horses, wasn't rich enough to pay men with watering pots to give the whole valley such a big-drink. And I wasn't sure we could pay for the rain even if we were rich enough. From Mother came part of the answer: "Now we must pick up the apples under the early tree. We'll take some to Mrs. Faust, and see if we can do something for her. I hope the storm didn't make her worse." Probably it was that same summer that Mother hur- riedly called us from play and said "Old Mr. Brown's coming along the street and he might wander in here. He's been drinking all week; and he has the poker." We scurried to cover like chickens when - hawk is near. We children helped lock doors and draw the shades to the very bottom of the windows. Then we A PENNSYLVANIA GIRLHOOD .9 sat down together, quiet as mice. Listen! That was the gate ! Uncertain steps on the walk! Hesitating feet on the porch, with a cane trailing along! A hand fumb- ling at the door! My heart thumped uncomfortably, and I suspect mine was not the only one. I imagined Mr. Brown standing outside the door, poker in hand. Every moment I expected to hear a crash, and to see glass flying into the room, as, annoyed because no one opened the door, he used his poker on the window. No such crash came. Only the pathetic groping at the latch. Loud ticking of the clock. An attempt to turn the doorknob. Labored steps, with a cane trailing. The click of the gate. Mother drew aside the shade a tiny crack, and we all peeped out. When the old man, still showing traces of the gentleman he once had been, turned the corner and was well on his way home, we raised the shades, un- locked the door, and once more talked in normal tones. Not until years afterward did I learn that 'poker' did not mean the tool we use around the fire, but delirium tremens. The houses along the village streets were not numbered, and were designated to strangers by some special feature-"The house next to the shoemaker's"; "The one with a new hitching post"; "The house with the iron fence." - Ours was "The house with the two pine trees." To us children those friendly trees were as much a part of the home as the cottage itself. We lived with them so intimately they developed a distinct personality. On guard between us and the street, they screened us from too much publicity; they tempered the North Wind as it came down with a great wo-o-o, threatening to carry off the little cottage or us little cottagers as we came round a corner; they sheltered us from the blazing 10 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA sun in summer; and not only us, but occasionally a weary traveler, and many "little brothers of the air." Under their sheltering branches we played and worked and visited. We wove the long needles into hats for our dollies, and tiny baskets for our playhouses. We gathered the cones for our winter fires, and fastened the ropes of our swing to a convenient branch. In summer each of these trees wore "a nest of robins in her hair," often more than one nest. After every storm we looked out to see if any of the little birds had come to grief. I remember particularly one hail storm. As soon as the worst was over we went to the windows, and there on the icy lawn we saw part of a nest, and a huddle of tiny birdlings, while the helpless parents flew round and round, with pitiful cries. John put on storm clothes and gathered the wreckage into a basket. The old birds seemed to understand, and did not harry him. We packed the babies in cotton and set their box near the stove, having first shut Tabby in the woodhouse. When the storm was well over John mended the nest as best he could, lined it with soft wool, and took the little family back home. Then we girls dug earth worms to help the busy parents. That is, I dug worms, while my sister stood by, shivering every time one wriggled out of the soft earth, groaning every time I scooped him up in the tin can. The nest held together, the little brood thrived, and probably by the next year they, too, wove a nest for some tree's hair. Those same pine trees sometimes served as a convenient ladder to and from my brother's room, when there was interesting mischief going on at night, after he was supposed to be safe in bed. One of the dearest friends who came through the gate and passed under those trees was our beloved Great Grandfather. No wonder our little Jean said, when we A PENNSYLVANIA GIRLHOOD 11 were in danger of missing a train: "But I tan't hurry; I must tiss Gampa fest." Staff in hand, he always brought with him an atmosphere of serenity and good will. His memories went back to the time when all the cabins in the Upper Valley could be counted on the fingers of one hand. It was deliciously creepy to sit up late and listen to his tales of timber wolves, of Indian raids, close-ups with bear, or the story of Negro Hollow. He always came to us during "Fair" week, and he it was who pro- tested so unsuccessfully against a ride on the "flying coach."-But I must not anticipate. Trees, and birds, and gardens enter largely into my early memories. There were the old-fashioned cherry trees-immense trees, tiny cherries. Apples were the only fresh fruit to be had during the long winter, and as mere were no cola storage nouses, even tnese couIlc not be kept until the first cherries came. April and May were the "seven hungry weeks," when everyone was tired of the winter fare, and the first vegetables and fruits were not yet available. There was a weary Sahara between the last apple in April and the first cherries in June. Down in the fruit lot, where we could see it every time we opened the kitchen door, stood our favorite among the fruit trees. From the time there was "the first faint flush of leaves that are to be," it was a source of interest and pleasure. When its great expanse was one mass of white bloom, hope began to bloom in our hearts, hope and expectation. Many times a day we wandered to it to listen to the bees, to look at the blossoms, and enjoy their tangy fragrance. For some time Mother would not let us break branches of the flowers to-set in vases in the house. No, God made the blossoms in order that cherries might come. If we broke them 12 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA we destroyed that many cherries, which was a sin. 0: day, with childish audacity, I reasoned with her: "But Mother, don't you think God meant us to enj the blossoms too, or why did He make them pretty She looked thoughtful. Then, slowly, "Ye-e-s, I suppose He did. And every year there a more cherries than we can use. But don't take mar And cut them,- don't make a ragged break." When the petals had fallen we inspected the tiny fri every day. When it began to take on a slight tinge yellow, then pink, we were devoted in our attention "The ripest peach is highest on the tree," and so, to c vexation, were the ripest cherries. The tree began take on a warm glow at the top, increasing and exter ing downward day by day. But the cherries around 1 bottom, those within our reach, remained a grassy grc or a sickly yellow. Mother said, "You must not pick any cherries ur I say you may"; and Mother's word was law. Bu am sorry to confess that some of her children were I breakers. One day when she was not at home St( and I wandered too near temptation. We went unt the tree and looked. Then we climbed to the fence decide at close range which were nearest ripe-a petted them with our hands-and tasted one. TI we ate. And having broken the law we kept on eat -until we broke something else. That old fence | jected to upholding two such sinners, and I toboggai down the rough side of that tree. My conscience I pricked me all the time. It was no circumstance to prickings of that uncivil cherry bark. As I gathe myself up and tried to deal tenderly with the affec parts, I looked at my sister, who had chosen her re more happily, and said, "Well, it just seems to se me right." A PENNSYLVANIA GIRLHOOD 13

Then one happy day, Saturday afternoon it probably was, Father went up into the tip and gathered the first cherries of the year. We enjoyed the wonderful bloom of that tree; we ate its fruit in one form or another throughout the year; we climbed all over it, even when there were no cherries. We built playhouses in its shade, we gave tea parties there, we lived many a childish romance under its green canopy. Beneath its shelter a neighbor boy and I exchanged apples for plums, cookies for cherries, 'by the light of the moon'. When a dear little brother was about a year old I often took him up the ladder and sat with him in the green tent, while he played and crowed with delight. When the cherished sister, who came later, was old enough to be carried into a tree we lived far away from that village home. The cherry tree was cut down years ago, to make room for a higher grade of fruit. The pines had to yield to modern progress. Great Grandfather sleeps near. the Old White Church. The memories remain. THE FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN Mother could not live without a garden. If she had been shut up in a tiny city apartment I am sure she would have found space for a window garden. And-she would have managed to grow a bit of lettuce, or parsley, or a stalk of peppers among the flowers. During the Great War, when everyone was- urged to grow all the food possible, she cut her flower space to a minimum. But near the house and in borders she used such decorative vegetables as carrots, with their feathery tops; peppers whose dark leaves and bright fruit gave color; beets with their red-veined leaves. Potatoes and cabbages were grown behind a screen of garden peas. Mother had what is often called a 'growing hand'; everything she planted grew if it had half a chance. But I have noticed that these so-called growing hands are backed by a knowledge and a love of plants that results in little extra attentions and pettings almost daily. The monks planned the ancient monastery gardens with systematic care. The first section was devoted to flowers, for the altars and the sick. The second was planted with medicinal herbs, to be used in their minis- trations as physicians. The vegetable garden came next; then the fruit trees. Mother planned her garden in the same pattern, unconsciously, no doubt. Our garden was the subject of thought throughout the year. In the fall seeds, bulbs, and tubers were labelled with care and stored away. We always put a bit of dried blossom or a dress print with them, to give a hint as 14 FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN 15 to color. Then, on some dreary winter day the seed boxes were brought out-one box for flowers, one for vegetables-and as Mother and her small daughter sat by the table they lived for an hour in the summer garden.- Mother made almost a rite of these hours of fore- thought. She would take up a packet of seed and talk it over with me, while the older two were in school: "I wonder what this is? Oh yes, silver leaf (lunaria). I'll plant that on the sunny side of the grape arbor. That took a premium at the Fair, and the bouquet in the parlor is still pretty. I'll tie up a few little packages of seeds, somebody'll be sure to want them. "This? This is petunia. Those look pretty along the lower border; and they don't take much care. "Yes, these are seeds, even if they are so tiny. They're those poppies that Stella likes so much. We'll sow these below the pump. They'll hide the drain. I wonder whether Mrs. Stein would put a few flowers around her house if I gave her seeds. Well I'll tie some up for her anyway. "No, these are cucumber. Cantaloupe seeds are thicker,< and more yellow. Put some of these into a paper for Mrs. Kantner. And some popcorn. I want her to plant that for the crippled boy." As I look back I can see that Mother was in fact the president and the distributing agent for an unorganized garden club. Silver leaf, ice plant, portulaca, quilled aster, curly parsley, and many others, reached the valley gardens by way of her seed box. Many, many times I heard her friends follow an old custom and say, "Well I daren't thank you for these, or they won't grow. But sometime when I pass your garden I'll throw a stone in it for you"-their way of saying they would do her a return service when the opportunity came. During these winter days we plotted the entire garden. In imagination we sowed every packet of seed, 16 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA and even lived among the future flowers, the while that same garden was buried deep under the snow of a northern January. Mother's inventory grew longer and more interesting every year, as new plants were added. About February, if my memory serves me right, the mail brought a catalogue bearing the name Henry A. Dreer, and another from Landreth's. We opened them with more eagerness than any story paper, and took delicious peeps into them at odd times. Then one evening when Father was home we all sat around the lamp and gave whole- hearted attention. Father would run his eye down the page. If anything new was catalogued he read the full description of the plant, and its care. I can still hear him: "Sow in a sunny spot as soon as the frost is out of the ground, in a furrow half an inch deep. When two inches high, transplant into rich soil." If the illustrations and descriptions were sufficiently interesting that item was checked. And the next page was examined. When all had been gone over with care the final list was prepared and sent on in due time. Then when the parcel came ! - The new seeds were sowed strictly according to directions, and watched over faithfully. If we lacked rain the bed was kept moist by means of the watering pot. If the sun was too hot we stuck leafy branches around the tender seedlings. Each year we bought several rare plants, at least they were rare to us. One spring a moss rose and a Jac- queminot were set on either side of the 'stone porch'. Again it was Pampas grass that we experimented with. I often wonder if the feathery plumes really were so much more beautiful than any I saw later, or whether it is only my childhood memory that paints them so exquisite. I do recall that a neighbor who came to our well for drinking water looked long at the plume spark- FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN 17 ling with dew, and said, "I can't see how anything so pretty can grow out of black earth." - And he was considered a most prosaic man. Ice plant looked like it sounds. It was low and spreading, with soft-green leaves and stems, covered with blisters that looked like tiny globules of sleet. Silver leaf was so named for the inner partition of its seed pod, a silvery disk about the size of a half dollar. This was popular for winter bouquets. 'Red hot poker' describes itself. As the flower spike developed it glowed with all the gradations of color in hot iron, from pale yellow to lurid red. Occasionally a passer-by stopped to ask its name of us children, and invariably said it was well chosen. Mother was a great lover of roses, and there was one special bush that always received just a little more pet- ting than any other. When she was a little girl, in a sparsely settled country, one of her mother's dearest friends was Old Rachei, who lived in a cabin on the edge of the woods. Mother grew up and left the valley; Old Rachel passed away. Many years afterward Mother and Father drove by the spot where Rachel had made a home for herself. All trace of the log cabin had disappeared. Trees and brambles filled the cellar. A tumble of field stones was all that was left of the spring house. No hint of garden or orchard. But in the -fore- ground was a great mass of roses, blooming on a bush that had been strong enough to hold its own against the brambles. Mother took several roots, and in doing so found the red field-stone still in its position as doorstep. She planted the young bushes in her own garden. I, in turn, far away from that Pennsylvania cabin, cherish an Old Rachel. A few medicinal herbs were grown-thyme, horehound, bitter buttons. These were supplemented with what New England calls 'simples', gathered from wood 18 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA and meadow and countryside. I loved the fall excur- sions when we searched out these herbs, washed and dried them with care, and put them into small bags to hang from the attic rafters. When some childish ail- ment developed Mother gave a dose of castor oil, un- camouflaged in cake or wine or candy. Then she and I journeyed to the attic, if I wasn't the sick one, where she would press one of the odorous little bags and say, "Yes, that's pennyroyal; and here's horehound. They're both good for colds." And the poor little victim was dosed with bitter teas until he broke out in a good per- spiration. Sometimes the horehound was boiled in homemade candy-then suddenly we all developed colds. If we ate too much of the candy, upset stomachs were treated to brews of camomile, rue, tansy. Sore throats were anointed with turpentine and lard, wound round with a strip of flannel, and regaled with more teas. In fact, castor oil, bitter teas, and a mustard plaster or mustard footbath were part of the treatment for almost every ill. A sizable hop bag was on the medicine shelf of every good housewife, for hot applications. Chapped hands were treated with an ointment that Mother made by boiling the resinous buds of the balsam tree in unsalted butter or tallow. If baby's mouth was inflamed it was bathed with tea steeped from the roots of gold thread. A camphor bottle-brandy and camphor-had a place on every respectable bureau. Spring medicines and tonics were used freely. Any- one who has ever swallowed the appalling but effective dose of sulphur-and-molasses knows what that is like. We took it three times a day, for three days. Then peace reigned for three days. Then we did it again for three days, and rested; until we had swallowed twenty- seven spoonfuls of the atrocious smear. We liked the spicewood tea that followed. But the brew made from FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN 19 yarrow, burdock roots, and wild cherry bark was as bad as it sounds. A popular tonic for grown-ups was made by putting the seed-head of the cucumber tree, or wild cherries, into a bottle and filling it up with brandy. Mother always kept one of these tonics, but used it sparingly. One day she gave me a bottle from which the tonic had been drained, and told me to empty the cherries into the chicken trough. Sometime later we heard queer noises, and I went to investigate. My pet duckling was evidently sick. When she tried to walk she stumbled and fell, with a helpless "qua-a-ack!" I set her on her feet, but she fell over on the other side. "Qua-a-ack !" I ran to the pond to let her drink. But she reeled forward, her little bill plowing into the mud, while she gave another mud- choked cry. I was thoroughly scared, and myself quacked loudly for Mother, as I ran with my beloved duck for the chicken yard. But there I saw another sight! Our pompous old rooster stood leaning against the henhouse, while he tried valiently to flap his wings and crow. "Coo ker e-" it ended in a helpless flop. I placed my duckling in a safe- corner, where she made heroic efforts to negotiate a step or two, only to roll over with an appealing "qua-a-ack !" "Cook-er" Voice and wings failed him, then his legs, as he tumbled about making Spartan efforts to be dignified. "Qua-a-a-" "Coo ker-" "Qua- a-" Mother leaned on the fence helpless with laughter. The other chickens had heard the commotion and came from the fruit lot to investigate. But at the yard fence they stopped. The hens cocked their heads on one 20 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA side and looked. Then they cocked them on the other side and looked. The young rooster craned his head forward and looked. Then he made one dash for the old fellow. But Mother had closed the gate. Partly to satisfy me, Mother forced some decoction down the crazy gullets, then we shut them into separate coops, to sleep it off. Meantime we will go back to the vegetable garden. This was almost as interesting as the flower garden. Here, too, we tried new things. One day Father brought home three ears of popcorn and a popper. Mother selected the choicest kernels for the garden, and the remainder we popped. Then in the spring we planted the seeds, and were much interested as the dwarf corn developed. We planted broom corn; we grew the first cauliflower and the first cantaloupe I ever saw. We tried watermelon, but the green nubbins that our soil produced could not be called anything in particular. Curly parsley was popular from the first summer of its debut. Catalogue descriptions of egg plant were interesting. When the half dozen purple-tinted plants arrived we set them out with care. One came to grief by way of a slug, but five grew sturdily. When the purple fruit came we did not know how to use it, so Father wrote to Dreer's, and back came a courteous letter of directions. Father went to some pains to get unroasted peanuts, and we planted them according to instructions. When the yellow blossoms came we covered them with care, all through the sumnier. Then, one day in the fall we started out with basket and hoe and searched diligently for the increase. We had planted a pint. We dug up a handful of unclassified shapes, not one of which could, with any degree of honesty be called a peanut. But we had seen how they grow; and when, years afterward, a FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN 21 party of us saw a field of them, I was the only one who was quite sure the field was not growing clover. I have wondered why we never experimented with tobacco. Perhaps it was because Father- disliked the weed. Red, yellow, and black raspberries grew on the edge of the garden. So did as many kinds of currants, and quantities of grapes. But my pets in that garden were two dwarf apple trees that were truly dwarf. They were only switches, about thirty inches high, yet we gathered as many as fifteen sweet yellow apples, about the size of a tangerine, from those Paradise treelings in one season. The "sure enough" fruit trees were down in the lot. In our neighborhood fruit trees were set near the line fences, and there was an unwritten law that all fruit belonged to the owner of the tree, no matter where it happened to fall. I still agree with the small maid who thought this an unwise rule that worked unnecessary hardship on little girls. Some of our early baking apples fell into Mrs. Martin's lot; some of her delicious harvest apples dropped into ours. And so on, around the three sides of the lot. I always felt that if each one took the apples that fell inside his fence we would all have had more variety. Then there was the old pear tree, kin to the one near the Old White Church, that bore the most delicious pears I have ever tasted. And nearby was the apple tree that we invariably called by its full name, "Thompkins County King." And the Rhambo, that bore so generously every year for our winter cellar. I loved the autumn days of storing. Like chippies hoarding nuts we gathered apples and pumpkins, cabbages and popcorn, potatoes, beans, nuts, dried herbs; then snuggled down for winter. 22 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA On the edge of the fruit lot stood the barn, where -we sometimes played on rainy days. It was great fun to lift a plank in the floor and pry around below in the chaff and litter for hen's nests. Once Stella and I found four eggs, and as we were not ready to go to the house, we put them into our pockets. Then we ran a race- and fell! Another day John and I explored, and some of the, chaff caught in my hair. That gave him an idea. I confess he and I were open to ideas of this sort. He threw more chaff into my hair, then bran. That was fun, so I lifted the thick mop in my outspread fingers while he shook bran into it until I resembled the pictures of Fiji Islanders in his geography. Then we went to show Mother. I wonder she did not annihilate us. She managed a weak frown, hard pressed by a smile, and imposed sentence; John must brush every bit of that bran out. He shook the wild mop, not too gently, then he brushed. Then he brushed, and shook. Then I shook. Then we did it all over again, until I felt as if I had been scalped. Finally Mother came, as mothers do, and cleared up the tangle. One day John showed me a tunnel he had burrowed under the hay in the loft. I watched him wriggle into the mouth of this secret passage, then, at intervals he would call, to indicate where, under the big mound he was located; and directly he emerged from another hidden mouth. From my earliest memory I tried to do whatever this idolized brother did, so, at my first opportunity I stole up to that loft, drew the concealing hay aside, and with a delicious creepy feeling, headed into the tunnel. All went well until I ran a splinter into my hand. In trying to bind it with my handkerchief I wriggled about, and got myself wedged in so that I couldn't go backward or forward. FRAGRANCE OF MOTHER'S GARDEN 23

Tears. Then to my joy I heard John come whistling -down the walk. I put my face close to a crack and called. But he didn't hear me. Then I shrieked, "John! John!" He stopped whistling. "Katie,, where are you?" I tried to tell him, but blub- bered so he couldn't understand. "Listen Katie. Stop crying so I can understand you. Then I'll come get you." "I'm under the ha-a-ay !" Soon he was with me, and under his guidance, and shoving, I crawled out. Then he plugged those tunnel ends tight, and made me promise I'd never try that again. One summer day when Stella and I had been left to ourselves, we conceived the idea of having a real playhouse, not only a spot under a shady tree, or a corner of the living room. Looking round we saw one ready to hand, the empty coal house. We went to the attic and selected armsful of discarded rugs, pictures, and disabled china. But when we opened the door of our proposed dwelling, we discovered that a bit of dusting and brushing was desirable. We placed our furnishings in the back lawn and went in search of broom and cloth. All unmindful of our hair and pinafores we sent clouds of dust out of that would-be cottage door. We brushed, and swept, and coughed, and choked. Those walls seemed to ooze black dust, and at last we felt rather discouraged. Then Stella got a brilliant idea; we would paint those dark walls white, like Mother did the inside of the cupboard. Forthwith we brought the paint pot from the barn and set to work. The thick white paint and the black dust did not mix very happily, and the result was not like Mother's cupboard; but we took turns with the brush, and went bravely on. In the midst of it we heard carriage wheels, and there was Mother! 24 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

For the first time I realized how Stella looked, and knew that I did not look any better; like a coal miner that had been caught in a light shower of paint. Hands, pinafore, faces, even shoes! I wonder how Mother ever got us to look like human beings again. But we had not labored in vain. Mother and Father talked it over that night, and the result was a neat playhouse in a corner of the fruit lot. Next to it a tiny garden was enclosed with lath for pickets, and a clever little gate. Into this garden we planted a bit of everything Mother grew in hers. Then she held us to faithful care of it. The soil was rich, and our crop a success. In the fall two men came from a mining town across the mountain where a shut-down had caused poverty and distress, and asked Mother for a few vegetables for their needy children. While she gathered from her garden we ran to ours. Each man unfolded a clean white pillowcase into which went beets, carrots, cabbages, potatoes. Mother explained that the small pile that we girls brought came from our own garden, and one of the men held his hand over Stella's head and said, "God bless the little girls." In Mother's garden she and Father cultivated so much more than they realized. There grew friendships, happiness, cheer for the passerby, memories for us children. "We are nearer to God in a garden Than anywhere else on earth." HERE COME THE PEDDLERS! King Winter reigned long in that northern land, and allowed small diversion except such as the village in- vented for itself. Every break in the even routine was welcomed, especially by a little girl who was too young to go to school. Her share in the school activities was as yet vicarious-pressing her nose against the cold window pane as she watched the children at play; and listening to the older sister who brought her accounts of the interesting happenings. So when she heard a peculiar Stomp ! Stomp! on the side orch she peeped eagerly between the flower pots at te window. Yes, it was Tohn, the Peddler. He lived in town, and made his rounds here When the weather was too bad to go far afield. After a great shaking of the snowy cap, and a great slapping of the snowy coat, he took the broom to the heavy shoes. A few more stomps, and he opened the door slightly, calling in Pennsylvania German, "Un seidt ihr dehame?" (And are you at home?). It was an unnecessary question; but a proper formality. Mother left her housework to welcome him at the door. Even before he had taken a chair he would say: "Little girl (Glay madel), can you bring me a doormat or an old rug, so that my shoes won't soil your mother's nice carpet?" He did not ask for an old newspaper, as they were not so inconveniently plentiful in those days as they are now. The "glay madel" gladly did his bidding. Then, his feet carefully placed on the doormat, he took off the great gloves and laid them behind his chair. Next came 25 26 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA the heavy cap, turned upside down on the gloves. From his neck he unwound great lengths of scarf, folded it deliberately, and laid it on the cap; all of which was a long drawn out time of anticipation for the little girl who had perched herself near him. Now he drew the black satchel-shaped like a great suitcase-toward him and unfastened the various buckles as deliberately as he had released himself from his own impedimenta. All this time there was a slow dispensing of friendly gossip: "It's a hard winter we're having, yes." "I heard that the Roaring Creek road was blown shut for more than a week." "And now the side of the mountain is very icy." "Yes, the Doctor's horse fell, and broke a shaft." "Uh huh, he had to go over to see old Mother Hinter- leiter." "Yes, she's bad." Finally the last buckle was unfastened, the last strap disposed of. Then the lid was put back carefully, un- covering the simple wares, simple but interesting to the housebound child. Out of that opened case floated the most delicious perfume! It fairly made one's nose wrinkle as one kept drawing in deep draughts of it as quietly as possible. Quite unmindful of the fragrance, John would begin at one end and go systematically through the case, the while he kept up a running mixture of business and gossip: 0 "Needles, do you need them?" (Nodla, breicht ihr sell?)" I hear Mr. Zimmerman's better." "Pins, you ought to take some of these. My sister says they're the best she ever saw. She uses them in all her sewing. And did you know about Nate Foose?" "Oh, he hasn't been out of bed for five weeks, yes," the while Mother shook her head at threads, buttons, HERE COME THE PEDDLERS 27 tape. At last he reached the source of the grateful odor -a cake of pink soap. "'Now here's a nice Sunday soap. If you use this on your face and hands before you go to church you'll give pleasure to people three pews away from you." But to the great regret of the inhaling child, Mother put aside the pink joy, and took Castile. And I never liked the odor of Castile, especially by comparison. In the second layer John came to coarser goods: "Now here's a pair of galluses you ought to buy for the boy. These wear like iron-and do you know old man Boone? He tried to- drive across the river and the ice broke. Every time the horse stepped on it it went down, yes, but he kept on jumping and dragging the sleigh after him. And they got across. Yes. His daughter was nearly scared to death. She jumped up every time the ice broke, and when they got safe over she had dropped her baby. Yes. She was like wild. But they found it in the bottom of the sleigh, asleep. Yes." Mother always bought a small pile of laces, ribbons, and the like. Then came the most profound_ labor in mathematics for John. Finally he agreed that Mother's total was right and counted out the change with care. The black case was repacked, delicious soap and all, the straps were buckled once more. The lengths of scarf wound round and round the neck, all the winter gear put on, and with a parting bit of gossip the heavy -feet stomped a goodbye on the porch. Before John reached the gate a little face watched as he made his way through the falling snow to the next house. There was the same stomping of feet, the same brushing of coat and cap. Then the door closed on him, and the little face at the window slowly turned away. 28 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

He was only a simple peddler, with simple wares. But he was a welcome diversion for the little girl, and probably for the Mother. Another one of these traveling merchants sometimes called; but when he came the little girl stayed very close to Mother. This was Old Ochs (Ox), and he was as gruff as his name. No pleasant memories come back to me when I recall him. His conversation was always pessimistic-either a chronicle of woes, or criticism of men and things, especially children. Perhaps his pack was as interesting as John's, though I do not remember any scented soap, but the little girl could not enjoy it. There was relief in the sound of his departing steps, and as the face at the window watched him disappear into the next house she wondered whether the children over there were afraid of him too. The Peddler, par excellence, came with the spring. On some mild day, when the roads were dry and pass- able, a shout would be heard on our street-"The Donkey Peddler! The Donkey Peddler !" Every youngster within sound of that welcome summons scampered to the end of the village. Sure enough! The interesting outfit was climbing the hill where the boys coasted in winter. The sturdy little donkey took the steep grade with deliberate placing of small feet, much flopping of large ears. When he reached the top we children enjoyed the thrills of a three-ring circus. There was the smallest beast of burden we had ever seen, much smaller than Uncle Johnny's mules. Then there was the man. He did not peddle donkeys at all, nor was he a donkey of a peddler. He took his cognomen from the faithful animal that daily carried him miles and miles over his route. Sitting in the cart, he looked like a man of nearly medium size. But we all knew that the warped HERE COME THE PEDDLERS 29 legs were smaller than those of a ten-year-old boy, and useless. We could see one tiny foot stick out of the bottom of the cart at a peculiar angle. We had never seen another such man, nor another such donkey, nor yet such a cart. - It had 'been built expressly for that one passenger. The well-padded seat was shaped for his comfort. The box holding his mer- chandise was placed at the proper height and distance to enable him to delve into the farthest corner. On either side of the black box was painted, in white letters,

S. WILLIAMS Dealer in dry goods notions, etc.

He might as well have left the name off. No one called him Mr. Williams.' He was "The Donkey Peddler." As the unique outfit and its volunteer escort approached the first house the man rang a good-sized dinner bell. That summons brought out every housewife as far as Miller's lane. They surrounded him almost as eagerly as did we children, and the small beast stopped of his own accord. With wide-open eyes we youngsters watched the merchant lay back the hinged top, remove his driving gloves, wipe the dust from his hands with care, then spread a muslin cloth on the opened top, for the display of his wares. The women examined laces, compared notes on ribbons, estimated the amount of material needed for curtains, and had a good time generally. It was a pocket edition of a bargain counter. The articles the small man drew from the depths of that magic box were little superior to those'of the other peddlers. But to us children these were surrounded with a glamour, a romance, that the others lacked. To our mothers they meant not 30 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA romance, but pathos-so they bought as liberally as they could. When the little store on wheels moved on we children acted as guard of honor. But Mother would not allow Stella and me to go beyond Miller's lane, a source of great disappointment. Brother John had more freedom, so he would help convoy the merchant to the very door of the hotel. In the evening he would tell us how the little man unbuckled the straps that held him in place, how some stocky man carried him into the hotel, how everyone looked out for the tiny foot. Then he would describe the ways of that donkey with the hostler. A first glance at the stolid face of the animal made one think he was entirely indifferent to the world and those that dwell therein." But closer inspection revealed a cynical smile at the doings of that same world, and a malicious twinkle about the eyes, that boded mischief. When the stable boy tried to unhitch the owner of the long ears there suddenly seemed to be a dozen pairs of flying heels, a dozen heads jerking at the halter, a dozen snapping, braying muzzles. The boys, at a safe distance, were in entire sympathy with the bucking bronco performance, and did not hesitate to give generous advice to the unwilling ringmaster. Sometimes a hotel lounger joined the group, or tried his hand with the little animal. One day the proprietor himself came out to show the hostler how the thing ought to be done.... When he had picked himself out of a mudhole near the pump he limped into the house by the back door. From this peddler's magic box came the pretty scarf that Mother wore for a number of years. Three of these scarfs were sold in the village; but Mother put some fine needlework on hers, and years afterward John told HERE COME THE PEDDLERS 31 me how proud he always was that hers was prettier than the others. Out of that same box came the crochet needle with which Stella mad1e lace for our dolly clothes (I could never sit still long enough to draw a loop); and the ruby shirt-studs for John. On one trip this merchant prince displayed a delectable set of jewelery, a pin and two earrings, mounted on a white card. EIhad hoarded a few pennies and, pulling Mother's skirt, I whispered her to buy them for me. When I heard the price my spirits fell. My account was not equal to the draft. But Mother decided to subsidize me. Then another difficulty arose. Mother was impartial to us children, and there was no set of jewels for Stella! This was the last card left in the little man's store. They had sold very well. He searched patiently all round the bottom of that box. No jewelry. I wished he would let me look. It must be that, among all those rolls and boxes one could find just one more set. Seeing my disappointment he promised to bring two sets when he came again. But that would be several months later. I wanted them now. When I went to bed I thought long and regretfully of those jewels. I did not care so much for the pin, I had other pins. But the earrings! They were made of the usual "gold" ear piece, from which hung an oblong "cameo" of black glass adorned with a white figure. I could not quite decide whether the figure represented an angel, a fish, or a tree; but that was of minor importance. The ornament was the little gilt ball at the bottom. I could imagine how gracefully that would bob hither and yon as one moved one's head about. The handsome wife of Captain Raub, our foremost towns- man, wore earrings with gilt balls! I went to sleep watching those bobbing jewels. 32 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

WWhen I woke next morning my first- thought was regret for those unattainable earmarks of fashion. Before I had finished my breakfast John came running into the house: "Mother, mother! The Donkey Peddler's out here! And he wants to see you !" There he was. In laying out his wares for the wife of the hotel proprietor, he had come across another set of jewelry! In a few minutes Stella and I were each holding a precious card in our hands. I had not had my ears pierced, and did not intend to; but the fact that I would never wear the gems troubled me not at all. I never took either pin or earrings from that card. But it was wonderful to hold it in my hand and set those gilt balls bobbing in harmony with the toss of my head from side to side-and to think of Mrs. Captain Raub! WE: ACHIEVE A LOCK-UP Our quiet town seldom needed the services of the constable or her arm of the law. The maternal slipper, the teadher's voice, or a warning from the "Squire" ust fled for any occasion. But there were times-when the Mollie Maguires crossed to our side of the mountain, or during the week of the County Fair-when the village fathers felt the need for some safe deposit vault in which to take care of those whose energy ran too ardently to their fists, or those whose genial spirits kept the night vocal with song. At a neighborhood meeting it was decided to put up for this purpose a two-story building beside a country lane, just across a field from our home. We children watched the work with almost as much interest as we did that on the new schoolhouse. But the town guest- house was not nearly so long in building as was the schoolhouse. On it no time or money was wasted for beauty, or even comfort. When the building had been put up we waited im- patiently for its first tenant. Great excitement when, one Saturday afternoon, my brother John rushed into the house long enough to call, "Girls, girls! They're taking somebody to the Lock-up !" We dropped work and play to run to our favorite peeping place behind the lilac bushes. To our little minds the approaching group was most imposing. First marched the Squire, head up, rotundity impressive, keys jangling conspicuously in his hand. At a respectful distance behind him came a group of five. At one end walked the town constable, at the other end a tavern keeper. Between them were--the three culprits. 33 34 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

Two of them were unshaven, repellk t-Ikcing men, evidently intoxicated, who shambled along, muttering threats and curses. The third was a pale, slender boy of about seventeen. He plodded on wih drooping head and' listless manner. He did not look as if he could do much harm if he tried, and I felt even then that he was the victim of his older associates and of the officer with "a little brief authority." His thin wrists were not handcuffed, for which I was glad. Behind the official group trailed a rabble made up of every town idler and every' boy who could evade the watchful eye of his mother. Two of the boys began to scuffle, and jostled the tavern keeper. One glance from the constable-they shrank back subdued. Just as they passed by our gate one of the boys forgot himself so much as to push up ahead of the entire A-~ .. ~. __A A1;-pOA Tm-v +1, , rrn r~f procession. IA. rap on the heIaI , deivere y'the arm of the law, via the arm of the Squire, sent the crestfallen lad to the rear. When the motley group turned into the lane, Stella and I ran down to the fruit lot and climbed on the fence to see the end of the performance. But the door to the Lock-up was in the opposite side of the building. So we went back to our playhouse. But dolls and tea things had lost their interest. I could not forget the white face of that boy. At supper time I wondered what he had to eat. When I went to bed I wondered if he had to lie on the rough, cold floor. Thereafter, whenever John gave the signal, "The Lock-up" we ran to the window or behind the lilac bushes to peep. Sometimes the central figure in the comedy, or tragedy, stopped in his tracks and began to wrangle. A stern word from the officious Squire, a prod from behind, and he walked on again, grumbling deliciously. WE ACHIEVE A LOCKUP 35

One red letter evening "Gineral," a mental weakling from across the hill, having imbibed too freely, became troublesome and was marched to our new hall of fame. No, he was not marched, he was led, pushed, manip- ulated forward, the while he bellowed threats, and roars, and language.; After he had been duly installed he vocalized in various keys, pounding out an accompaniment on the plank walls of his abode by means of fists, boots, and the bench supplied for purposes of re- pose. Sometimes there was a lull, and we left the window to prepare for bed; but just as we were dropping off to sleep Gineral once more serenaded his soul, and ours, far into the night. Long afterward my brother John told me why Gin- eral, whose family had named him Gineral George Washington, gave so many encores. After John had been sent safely to bed he had slipped out again by way of the porch roof and the pine tree, and joined the group of boys who were listening to Gineral, from the parquet, as it were. Every time he came to a stop the boys ap- plauded by means of stones and clods of earth thrown against the building. And Gineral would begin caroling all over again. He scolded, he used language, he sang; at times he coaxed piteously to be released. Then he would use the bench on the stout planks more vigorously than ever. Once he made a speech, only one sentence of which I remember: "I wass in de war, and I went srough more dan any of you went srough," which was truth. Though how he ever got himself accepted is more than I know. Probably some officer took him on as lackey. It was great fun listening to his antics, and talking about it next morning-until Mother asked Father whether Gineral had been given any supper, or a bed. Yes, a loaf of bread and a tincup of water had been left 36 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA in the place with him. And there was a bench, if he hadn't pounded it to pieces. "And the men who sold the stuff to the poor fellow were in their comfortable beds," said Mother, her cheeks glowing. "I wonder when we will be civilized enough to put the right men to jail !" THE FAIR September was a red-letter month to us children. Somewhere about the twentieth we experienced THE FAIR, one glorious week of thrills. Indeed, faint, fore- running thrills began way back in May, when Mother worked on the early fruits. A dozen, of the choicest jelly glasses were set aside, and as each succeeding fruit came to the jelly pot one of these favored glasses was filled and put on a special shelf with its fellow aristo- crats, for the Fair. One day I heard Father tell Mother about an extra quality sugar that the store in the Mansion House was selling, and I was despatched -for sorme, to be used in making Fair jelly-the first granulated sugar I ever saw. I paid seventeen cents a pound for it, and in after years frequently quoted the price, until war prices put my seventeen cents out of the running. Some evening, probably as early as June, Father would come home from a meeting of the Board, and tell Mother, "The Fair will be held the week of Septem- ber twenty-first." From that time on all our actions, decisions, work, visiting, were considered with reference to the Fair. If Mother was doing a piece of specially pretty needlework she tried to finish it in time for the Fair. If we had a new vegetable, a branch bearing an unusual number of apples, a rare plant, "We must take it to the Fair." When the grapes began to ripen we children were warned not to take any of the choicest clusters, they must go into the "best collection of grapes." Then one day the mail, or a small boy, brought Mother the catalogue containing the premium list. That eve- 37 38 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA ning we all gathered round the table and Father read some of the departments word for word: "Best specimen peaches canned in glass Best specimen cherries canned in glass Best specimen beets canned in glass." Whenever Mother said, "Yes," he checked that item with his pencil. Our vegetable garden lay alongside the public road, and Mother would have been deeply mortified if it had not been in ship-shape for the Fair. The flower garden, the house, the fruit lot, even the barn, came in for a thorough overhauling. And how she did re-invigorate our wardrobes! It took some managing to dress up the entire family for a week straight, with no time for repairs. Occasionallv came the haunting fear that it might be a rainy week. But we seldom had much rain at that season. The Board held meetings more and more frequently, and Father always came home from them with a pocketfull of news and suggestions. Billboards were stuck up on country trees and fences, an advertisement appeared in the newspaper. Long before I knew the meaning of the words, I would look at "Ringtown Agricultural and Industrial Association," and think with pride that it took all those big words to tell about our Fair. I always loved the home behind the two big pines, but once a year I was specially glad we lived on that street. Everything that went to the Fair had to pass our way. "Grave and reverend seignors" drove by pompously, on a trip of inspection. Followed a procession of sand carts, repair men, and scavengers. Then one morning a cry rang through the house, "A race horse! A race horse !" and we ran to see him and his trainer go by, THE FAIR3 39 followed by every urchin in town. It was hard to keep one's mind, impossible to keep one's eyes, on the work, as these exciting events multiplied. Yet we must be ready. One thrill followed another in rapid succession, until the great week arrived. That Monday morning the favorite jellies were brought forth from their exclusive shelf, glass and lid were given a final rub, and packed' carefully into a basket. Needlework was arranged in the prettiest boxes that we had collected during the year. The clusters of grapes-Delaware, Concord, Croton- that Mother had marked with a white string were cut, laid on a tray, and set in a cool place. In the evening Father helped arrange them on a three-decker wire stand, from which the clusters were suspended "each according to his kind." On Tuesday morning, when the last vegetable had been gathered, the last flower cut, we all dressed and set out, carrying the daintiest of our treasures. After these had been duly "entered" and delivered to the custodian, we were free to enjoy the remainder of the day. Everything was in the most exquisite confusion. Gate keepers yelled at drivers, drivers yelled at men, men yelled at boys, boys yelled at dogs, dogs barked at everybody. Mothers called frantically to wandering children, stubborn cows refused to be led, calves ran about bleat- ing; colts, horses, pigs, chickens, ducks-all contributed of their best to the delicious melee that slowly wound its way through the big gate. The stream at the passenger entrance was fully as interesting. Fakirs with their packs, mothers with untamed children, country swains with their best girls, showmen, exhibitors, officious officials, the cultured, the unlettered-each added something to the tumult that surged and broke around that narrow entrance.' 40 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA Once inside, the stream spread itself out over the extensive grounds. The cattle were led to stalls along the outer boundaries; the showmen busied themselves setting up their wares; exhibitors unburdened tired arms; wide-open childish eyes watched the shouting, hammering, hurrying confusion gradually take on the aspects of a Fair. Life at home was equally fascinating, as I watched the endless stream go by. Beginning in the early morning, all day and into the night, that changing picture moved, like a huge reel. I usually managed to get down early enough to see the race horses pass. I never could understand how such lean, crooked-legged beasts could possibly outrun nice, fat, respectable horses, like our Colonel, or the Doctor's beautiful Princess. Among the earliest visitors to pass were the poor. To them the admission price sometimes meant sacrifice, so they made their holiday as long as possible. This part of the picture is more pathetic than interesting. Here comes a widow with three children, all so young that they will go in free. I have barely finished my breakfast-they have walked two miles. She stops at the gate and asks for a drink from the well. Busy as Mother is, she insists that they come in and have a cup of hot coffee. Old women go by, shrunken and white-haired; old men, some still wearing the fancy satin vest and stock of their youth, a few in their faded coats of blue; wagon loads of jolly farmer folk; lovers in single carriages; groups of lads and lasses on foot; and among the late- comers the carriages of "The Quality" from the city, across the mountain. At the ticket window this happened one day: A boy of about seventeen, under-nourished and unkempt, laid down ten cents for a ticket. THE FAIR 41

"Twenty-five cents," said a gruff voice inside the window. "But twelve's all I got," said the boy, with a dazed look. "Then you can't go in. Get out of the way of other people." A pompous man elbowed the boy, and he moved out of the line, only half comprehending. He couldn't go in? And he had come four miles! A woman in the line had been watching him. When her turn came at the window and her work-knotted hands laid down twenty- five cents she said timidly. "Can't you let that boy go in for half price?" "He's too old. Is he your son?" "No, I never saw him before." Then she took courage to add, "But I pity him." "All right. Here's a half-price." The woman fished three nieckels for.om her flLat purse; when the happy boy offered her his twelve cents she said, "Keep that, and spend it inside." I have always admired the resourcefulness of one woman who achieved the Fair in spite of a handicap. Her husband worked in the mines across the mountain, and had plenty of money to spend on himself. She was never allowed to handle a cent. He would not take her to the Fair with him, nor give her money to go by herself. On this particular morning, as soon as he had turned the corner on the way to town, she put the "store book" into her pocket and took the babies to her mother for the day. Then she walked to her grocer in town, told him the circumstances, and asked his co-operation. Knowing her husband, the grocer agreed. Into her account book he put an entry, "1 Ham, $2.14." But no ham went into her basket. Instead, the good old man counted two dollars and fourteen cents into her hand. She had one good time! She

'3SSI2 ~ s t j ,;.

3 ' X2 t 1 S : B 3 2 . 42 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA treated herself to all the pleasures that appealed to her, and bought generously for the little ones at home. When she met her astonished husband she greeted him very jauntily. But all that month she kept the store book hidden. A short time ago I was told of a woman who is allowed an account in three department stores, but can never get hold of ready money. She of the ham would be equal to the situation. I have seen cartoons showing the expressions on the face of a young man at Delmonica's or Florian's as his companion ordered, and ordered, far past his purse. A young fellow at the Fair did not let a similar situation worry him. Years after it happened he told me: "I asked Emma if she would go with me Thursday; then I asked Charley Rush for his new horse and buggy. He wanted to take his own girl on Thursday, but he was a little short of money, so I paid him in advance, and he took Lucy on Wednesday. Emma and I started in good time, and saw about everything there was to see. That was the year the big clock was there, and the calf with two heads. We paid to go on top of the building, and bought paddles at the pool wheel, and threw rings for canes. I don't remember all of it, but when we were ready to go home we passed the tent where the trained dogs performed, and of course we had to see those. When I got to the window I had only eighteen cents left, and the tickets were twenty-five." "Oh," I said, "It's a pity you had to miss those. Trained dogs are so interesting." In the most matter-of-fact way he said, "We didn't miss them. She paid." Let me attempt to describe a typical Thursday at the Fair: J On Wednesday evening we watch the sky and the sunset. No rain in sight. Next morning we children

... ,. , S.. *~~. ~~ ... I... .. I

*~~ ~~ ~~ ~ ~~ *~~~ St* *~~~~~~~~~~~~ St<~tI r .5 4.~~~4 * s *..sf *j THE FAIR 43 need no urging to get through with our tasks; we need watching lest we slight them. We tingle with eagerness to get into the delicious confusion-and are soon a part of it. Having survived the line at the ticket window, and the crush at the gate, we work our way to the imposing main biulding, where we look at long tables of jelly and canned fruit, bread, cake, butter. Mother lingers over the tables of fine needlework, with a keen eye for new ideas. We pay our compliments to the rows and rows of table covers, tidies, laces, quilts. Each year we stop before the half dozen beautiful dresses of luster silk, made in the style even then forty years old, waists very narrow, sleeves close-fitting, with a full puff at the top. Mother and Grandma know the woman who wore them. The pendulum of her life has swung far away from silks and satins. Grandma is with us today, and she buys me a red balloon. It is fun to feel it tugging at my fingers, when I know it can't get away. But it does get away; and sails serenely up above our heads, up-up, until it is lost in the haze. If I had only tied the string to my wrist! Grandma looks around for another, but the balloon man has vanished. She fixes it up by saying, "Come, we'll rest awhile, and eat ice cream." Above the counter of the crude "stand-" hangs a big bunch of yellow things that must be nuts. Grandma buys one. I wish she would let me lift it before she cracks it. She doesn't crack it at all. She gives a tug, and one side of the heavy skin comes off ! It isn't a nut at all. It is some kind of fruit. She breaks a piece of the round pulp and gives it to me: "Eat it with your ice cream." But I don't like it. It is soft, and sweet, and slippery. And now the races are announced!, We never miss those. We take our places early; but already there is a movement toward the wires that fence off the track, and 44 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA soon both sides are lined with a restless, neck-craning crowd. I slip between the grown-ups, and stand in the front line. There is the usual tendency to run to the other side, but no boy tries that twice if George Knecht, the CHIEF MARSHALL sees him. The Marshall's appearance is enough to subdue the most fool-hardy boy on the grounds. As he comes up the track, glaring right and left, I make myself as small as possible. He carries a long buggy whip, that snaps viciously at any boy who shows the remotest inclination to encroach on the Marshall's domain. One unfortunate near me is so interested in watching his pals on the other side, that he does not see the man of the hour approaching. He starts across. Midway of his passage he hears a sharp "Crack!" and looks behind him! He sees a typical Mexican bandit. big hat, fierce drooping mustache, and all. "Get back there, you rascal!" booms out at him. It doesn't take him long to decide that he never did want to cross, anyway. As the horses are warming up I watch my favorite, selected long ago as they were led by our house. After a few false starts they pass under the wire, and the judges in the tall stand say "Go!", though my horse Nellie is far behind. I can't understand it. It isn't fair! I watch her until she disappears round the bend. It seems a long time to wait, but after a while I see a dark nose come round the upper bend. It's a brown one! But not Nellie. One by one they come on, and pass us. Mine is almost as far behind as she was at the -start. They are lost again, and this time it seems longer still before a nose comes round the curve. Brown again, but not Nellie. But she's gaining! Two men above me are interested in my horse and I hear them: "See, she's reaching out! Jack's letting her go now !" "She'll pass the gray before they get here!" "Now she has only two more to pass !" THE FAIR 45

"Yes, but they're nearly home. Jack waited too long." Every muscle in my little body is tense. Directly in front of us Nellie pushes ahead of the black, but there is still the brown. Oh, why didn't 'Jack' let her go sooner! I am not tall enough to see more, so I listen again: "Ah, she'll make it !" "No, she can't. It's too late." "Yes sirree! There she goes! Jack knew-" but a wild cheer drowns whatever it was that Jack knew. Now the music of the barrel organ at the "Flying Coach" starts out with renewed energy, and I, with renewed energy, try to steer Mother in that direction. She has grave doubts about the rickety affair, and it takes a deal of coaxing to negotiate a ride. At last she says " All right, but just one," and I am lifted to a coach that creaks with age at every hinge and joint. The thing is so wobbly that I am a bit timid myself, but very soon we have enough passengers for a trip, and away we go I Round and round plods the old horse near the center, round and round we fly at the outer edge! It is grander than the grandest merry-go-round that the coming years can ever bring. More thrilling than the loftiest ride in an air ship. It is over all too soon. I promised not to coax for another ride; but I linger. While Mother is visiting with a friend I see two men approach with my dear, unsuspecting Great Grand- father, ninety-one years old. Having inveigled him to the place they lift his protesting body into a seat, and hold him there until the horse is well started. Mother's feelings are torn between amusement at the sight, and fear that the entire outfit will collapse with the dear old man. I have no time to think of danger. I am consumed with surprise that anyone should object to a free ride. 46 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

Before we go home we take one more turn through the main building. The judges have been busy, and the rows of exhibits are dotted here and there with blue cards for "First Premium," yellow cards for "Second Premium." How many did Mother get? We cannot tell definitely until tomorrow. But so far she has fared well. Few of our exhibits ever reach home again. The fruits are divided among the office force, one glass of jelly goes to an aged friend, another to a city guest, one to a poor woman. Occasionally some exhibit is sold. I remember especially a beautiful set of parlor ornaments that were made from the leaves of pine cones-two vases, a picture frame, and a card basket. A city visitor bought them for his wife's birthday. One year a stray pumpkin seed found its way into the toy garden that Stella and I owned, and soon a sturdy vine crept through the fence and roamed the fruit lot. Large and stocky as it was, it bore only one pumpkin, but one that early promised to do big things. When Mother saw it she clipped the end of the vine, and cut off the leaf nearest the pumpkin, at the top of its hollow stem. Then, every morning she gave us a glass of sweet milk and with a funnel we poured it into this tube. That pumpkin grew and it grew and it grew. As Fair time approached we girls were dreadfully afraid something might happen-cows, boys, a hail storm- there were so many possibilities. But every morning we found it safe. Then, on Monday afternoon of Fair week Father had it put into a straw-lined cart and taken with great care to the right place in the building. That evening he told us there were loads of pumpkins, but as yet none so large nor so glossy as ours. When we went with Mother and saw it there, so superior to all the others, THE FAIR 47 we loved it more than ever. Then, the next day, we walked around and read, on a blue card,

FIRST PREMIUM GROWN BY ESTELLE AND KATIE STOVER!

And then came Father to tell us that a grocer from the big city across the mountain wanted to buy the pumpkin for his show window. He had offered two dollars for it! All the way home I held one of those shining silver dollars in my hand. I ran and put it in my new red purse upstairs. Then I went down to the fruit lot and looked- long at a gash in that empty vine, and a bare spot in the lush grass. SCHOOL DAYS Great was the day, in the history of our village, when the High School was opened. It marked an epoch. And this, that we had, was no ordinary, four-year high school, like those in cities. This' was a Township High School, one of the first in Pennsylvania. And it had a six-year course,-at least some of us took six years for it. While the new school was building the village pupils were parcelled out among the surrounding country schools. John, Stella, and I were sent to one about a mile out of town. One autumn evening as we trudged along, my brother was surprisingly gallant to us. In addition to the lunch basket he offered t carry our books, even our coats. He cut us thin, cracky switches by the roadside, and was as attentive as a lover. When we were nearly home he said, "Girls, don't tell Mother that I was kept in at noon." Stella looked at him: "Why you don't think Katie and I'd tattle, do you?" We teased each other in about as many ways as children usually do; but we never carried tales. One happy day we were invited to enter the new seat of learning. We pupils promptly named the two rooms the High School, and the low school. Why not? If the upstairs room was High, surely the downstairs was low! John and Stella were at once classed "High"; but I fell short, not only in wisdom and knowledge, but in years. I was low, very low. And great was the class distinction! We all entered the building by the same door, but we of low degree crept in as quietly as possible, and scarcely talked when any of the "Highs" were in the entrance 48 SCHOOL DAYS -A9 hall. We cast longing and adoring glances up the stairs that led to Fame; and once in a while, when there was no teacher and no High in sight, some daring low would venture as far as the first landing, and slide down the sacred bannister ! Then how we'd run! Once beyond the entrance hall, in our own domain, we made up in mischief for what we had lost. Many and varied were our behaviors. One bright winter's day we had three visitors, and even I became conscious that we were deporting ourselves rather informally. The next morning, first on the program, the teacher told us what she thought of us; then she started at the right- hand row of desks to square accounts. She did not call the culprits forward; she passed down the aisle from desk to desk, separating the goats from the sheep, and "fleecing" them under their own vine and fig tree as it were. And great was the proportion of goats! Down the first row. Then down the second. I was near the end of the fifth row, and had all that time to think about it. Never, never again, would I let my little tongue gabble and gabble as it had done yesterday. I reviewed my long and troubled life as rapidly as a drowning man is said to do. Now she walked solemnly to the head of the fifth row-and drew out the first pupil! And the second! When she passed me by I nearly collapsed. Even now I wonder if I escaped because her arm was tired. One of the overgrown boys in the low room was always in trouble; not because he was innately bad, but because he never had a chance. There was little in his life to help him be good. But his grandfather's fruit lot adjoined ours in the rear, and at various times and sundry he and I traded apples for plums, grapes for peaches, under the shelter of the old cherry tree. In school Bill delighted to tease the pupil in front of him. Many a time I saw him punished for it. But the 50 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA teacher somehow discovered that he and I were pals, and from that time forth I was given the seat in front of him. Sometimes he tied my long black braids to the desk frame; more often he got on the floor and held my feet when my class was called; but he was never cruel in any way. One day he -slipped an old slate frame over my head and drew it back, to make me -sit up straight. Miss Smith saw him. In vain I told her he hadn't hurt me. He had to come forward and sit on the platform with the frame-yoke over his head all afternoon. One icy morning Bill lingered round a specially bad part of the street and whenever a little girl had a hard time he helped matters to a crisis by giving her a push. Then when she fell he laughed. Mother saw, and was worried for me. My brother had gone early, to play ball. So mother took me to the gate anid called Bill. I think he expected a scolding, and was surprised when she said, "Bill, I'm afraid Katie'll fall. Won't you take her over the bad places for me ?" As she placed my hand in his she said, "Now you're all right. Bill's big and strong, and he'll take care of you." My own brother could not have been more watchful of me; and I don't recall that he ever again pushed the other girls. Bill left the village when he was about fourteen, seek- ing work. In time he came under the influence of a "Big Brother," who, by the simple process of confidence and encouragement, made a man of him. He found his place in the world. Today he could buy and sell that low school, the teacher, the trustees, and the whole village, including even the High School. Best of all, he is a splendid man. When I recall the names of those long-ago schoolmates I find that few of the boys who had the best oppor- tunities have achieved the most. The three whose fathers could give them the best start are three near SCHOOL DAYS 51 failures. The three who now lead. the group, profes- sionally and financially, were boys with apparently nothing to help or encourage them. They worked their way up "purely by the might of their own maneuvers." But I have wandered, and I want to tell you about our play, as well as work, and mischief, and about the playground. There the line between High and low was not as clearly drawn, probably because neither group was large enough to play by 'itself. We played tag, honk-a-dee (spelling not guaranteed), and ring-around- a-rosey, until we had worn them threadbare. Then one of the older girls visited her cousin and, on a red-letter day, brought home a folk song, "words and music." Under her instruction we sang it many times, but as I have never seen it in print I am not sure of some of the words, even now. This is the way it sounded to me, and this is the way I sang it: Sir William was King James's son And upon a rye-an-a-race he run; And upon his breast he wore a star, Choose the next one to your heart. (Great bliss if you were chosen.) Down on this carpet you must kneel As sure as the grass grows in the field; So loose your bride, and kiss so sweet, Rise again upon your feet. All these years that second line has puzzled me. Last summer a playground teacher told me that it is "And from a royal race he sprung." "So loose your bride," does not seem right, but I have found no one to suggest the correct line there. When spring came there was always great activity among the girls in the home-making line. The end of 52 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA the playground was given over to brown stone (red shale) mansions, elaborately designed, with walls two or three stones high. Bits of pretty china, colored bottles, acorns, dandelion blossoms, adorned the inter- iors. All week the builders wrought, and by about Friday the mansions were models of design and order. Before Monday some of the boys played that they were "Vandals from the north" and left not one stone upon another, in all that village. Then the girls patiently set to work again. These domestic labors seldom interested me. I enjoyed sitting in some corner that my brother considered safe, to watch the boys play ball. Many a time I helped John coax Mother for a ball of yarn, which we rewound carefully over a small stone, a cork, or a piece of rubber if we were so fortunate as to find an old overshoe. Then we went through all his pockets, and sometimes through mine, and I trotted at his heels to the old cobbler who, for our pennies, put a leather cover on the ball. If the old man asked us which we wanted done first, our shoes or the ball, we looked at him in surprise. Shoes could wait. In spite of careful drying at night, under the kitchen stove, these balls were short-lived. It was a great day when the boys achieved a black "gum ball"-solid rubber through and through. How they ever caught that ball in their bare hands I don't see. Years afterward John said he could still feel the sting. We girls never shared in ball except vicariously; but I knew that my brother was the best ball player in school. Hadn't I heard him tell about it? Hadn't I seen him send that black speck through space over our heads and beyond the school fence? And coasting! The schoolhouse stood near the end of the village, at the top of a long hill. Every icy afternoon and evening found a group of boys there, having SCHOOL DAYS 53 great sport. There were races, an occasional collision, upsets, bruises, and much shouting. The old woman who lived on the edge of the hill allowed herself to be annoyed by the voices of these happy children, and sometimes took the trouble to go out early in the morning and pour hot ashes over the best tracks. How the boys did love her! And annoy her! The sleds were of many sizes, and all conceivable styles. A few were factory made, and painted. The majority were homemade, John's first one belonged to the majority. Then one day, after careful saving, he went to the County Seat with Father, and they brought back a bright and shiny new sled, strong but dainty and graceful. The slender framework was reinforced with steel, the runners curved up in front, mounted with metal swansheads, painted white. But the crowning feature was the name, Dexter, for the famous racer, lettered in white on the red seat. I-can still feel the thrills I had as I stood on the side lines at recess time and saw John outstrip all the others as he and Dexter sailed down the white hill, scarcely touching the glistening track. Is it because "Memory's geese are always swans" that I invariably think of him as leading? I had implicit faith in John's ability to take care of himself; but every time he was in a collision my heart nearly stopped until I saw that the precious sled was safe. When we turned homeward I rode in state; then, before Dexter was put away for the night we looked carefully for scars or scratches. After the paint had been rubbed down tenderly and the runners securely dried, the sled was put in its corner. In their boyish thoughtlessness the happy group on the hill took little notice of a handsome dark-eyed boy, lithe and strong, but less fortunate than they. Oc- 54 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA casionally he was invited to take a ride behind some other boy, but mostly he stood on the side lines, longing with all his soul for a sled of his own. One day he went home to the barn determined to make one. He selected two strong staves from an old barrel, then he drew nails from waste boards and boxes, and set to work. The next afternoon, and the next, while the other boys were coasting, he worked patiently. He scraped the bottom of the staves with his knife, and polished them with a stone. He worked, and worked, until he thought they were perfect; then he took two treasured pieces of twine and twisted them into a rope. And went proudly out to the hill! But the boy had not managed his crooked old nails well. -As the contraption wriggled from side to side on the slope it scraped and rasped the smooth glaze. He was ruining the track, and before he had gone more than a few yards one of the boys pushed the offending craft to the side of the road, broken. I think that was the only sled the boy ever owned. But hard circumstance never made him bitter. Life has been kind to him since, and he laughs as he tells the story. One happy day the teacher called at our home and told Mother that I should report "High" next morning. I do not think we were ever really promoted, on a stand- ard of ability. I think we were simply pushed up by pressure of overcrowding from below. That troubled me not at all. I asked not the reason why. Sufficient that at last I too, was of the elect! Nothing that life brought me in later years ever equaled the joy and satisfaction that was mine as I entered that schoolhouse door and walked, with an effort at ease, up the sacred stairs. I tried not to be patroniz- ing to any "low" I might meet on the way; but I am not sure I succeeded. ---

SCHOOL DAYS 55

I. had. imagined that in the rare atmosphere of that upper hall of learning all were dignified, studious, quiet. I was surprised to hear Stella and a group of friends chatting and laughing in a scandalous manner over in one corner. When the bell rang the boys scrambled in with fully as much confusion as the "lows" made. But when the school had settled down to work I was conscious of a difference. Class periods were longer; pupils were not so restless; subject matter was more interesting. I could not study. I wanted to look, and listen. When my brother went to the board and spoke glibly about X square, and Y square, I was fascinated. I longed for the day when I might study algebra. And I am glad to say that when the happy day came, I was not disappointed. At first I was deeply impressed by my High station. But all too soon my new honors rested very lightly on my shoulders. 0 that little tongue! One of my first escapades resulted from a lack of appreciation, by the teacher, of the importance of something my seatmate and I were discussing. He bore down on us, led us up front, and seated us on a rickety little bench that had seen many years of service. He put one of us at either end, back to back, with about three feet of bench between us, a most impossible situation for sociability. At first I was slightly embarrassed. My big brother and his friends were all there, and I was afraid he would feel humiliated. But I stole a glance at him, and he smiled! It was lonely business, sitting there looking into space, with nothing to do-and so many nice things to talk about. I shifted a bit. The feeble-jointed old bench gave out one complaining groan-"Aw-w-eh." Naomi, my backmate stirred: "Aw-w-eh." Then, by the tele- pathy born of mischief, we braced our feet and shoved alternately, in perfect time: "Aw-w-eh! Aw-w-eh! 56 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

Aw-w-eh!" the bench groaned to the four corners of the room. I peeped my brother's way and saw that we were entertaining the whole school. I still wonder how we escaped the rod. All that teacher did was to say, "Girls, go to your seat; and talk. Talk just as much as you can. But let the rest of us do our work !" -And do you remember how we used to speak "pieces" on Friday afternoons? And how we twisted the words, and our bodies? "Shoot if you must, this old gray head"; "We are lost the Captain shouted"; "Slowly England's sun was setting"; "Paul Revere was a rider bold" Can't you hear them? And see them? One day I was amazed to find that Stella, my quiet, well-behaved sister, was in trouble. She and her seatmate were laughing uncontrollably. The teacher swooped down on them and demanded to know what it was all about. They couldn't tell. Finally he threatened to whip them. Stella looked at him and said, as steadily as she could, "Then we'll take the whipping" -and burst out again. He wisely dropped the matter. It was only a trifle, but it takes little to give two girls the giggles. My sister's seatmate was the oldest of a large family, and when she had unfolded her supposed handkerchief she found herself holding out to plain view her baby brother's tiny muslin shirt ! How I escaped the rod of discipline all those years I cannot conceive. t am sure it hovered perilously near more than once. There was the day when my seat-mate interrupted my labors on a hated History lesson by saying, "Wouldn't you like to see General Hooker?" Of course I said yes. "Here he is," and she drew her hand from under the desk. "He" was a long black button hook, dressed in a bit of red flannel! When the teacher bore down on us Naomi quieted down; I was helpless. Finally I was sent from the room, to laugh it off. When I thought I had done so I opened the door to go back;

M SCHOOL DAYS 57 but the moment I saw Naomi I went off again. After two attempts I went home. Free textbooks were unknown in those days. Every pupil bought his own, "to have and to hold." Many and interesting were the threats by which the boys pretended to hold their property. I studied many of these marginal notes in my brother's books (carefully concealed from Father, who taught us never to mar a book). The name page was apt to contain some such admonition as this:

Steal not this book, for fear of shame For here you see the owner's name.

Or it might be in a sterner tone:

Steal not this book, for fear of life For here you see my butcher knife. (Drawing of a fearsome blade.)

My favorite was a serial:

Steal not this book, my honest friend For fear the gallows shall be your end, (Look page twenty)

IZ -rl,~v-hy T 4-vsA f^ vnean In

And on that day the judge shall say Where is that book you stole away? (Look page 47)

But 47 did not help the culprit:

And if you say you do not know He will send you down BELOW! 58 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

One of the grandest performances I ever saw sta in that school happened when Myer, one of my broth pals, left for a lengthy stay. He entered the room d ing the session, collected his belongings, and wat to the front of the room. There he bowed and s; in a most oratorical manner, "As I am about to lea I bid my teacher and my schoolmates all farewell,"; extended his hand to the teacher. How I envied h and wished that I too could leave, that I might foll his grand example. But glory came to me by anot route. A friend of my father's, from a distant city, i elected County Superintendent of schools. During campaign he visited us a number of times, and Fat was able to do him slight service in the way of promptu maps and letters of introduction. Thereafi when he made his annual visit to our school he wo walk in in his brusque manner, shake hands with teacher, and take a swift survey of the room. Sudde he would say, "Why here are two little girls I knot and pounce down to shake hands and inquire abi Father and Mother before the whole school! I longer envied Myer. That evening when we told Mother she questioned diligently as to our deportment under the circumstarx At last came the happy day when I took up Algeb and enjoyed it to the full. But History! I could ne remember the dates, and that was the part we were si posed to learn. I detested it. One October morninj boy from one of the township schools entered the Hi School. His desk was near mine; we stood side by s at the blackboard. From that day I had no more trou with dates in history. GETTING READY FOR SANTA CLAUS

When the Fair became a receding memory, our thoughts sped forward across the intervening months to the next great event, Christmas. As early as October we would say to each other, "Only a little more than two months till Christmas." The first active tingle came early in November, when Mother said, "Girls, if you want teaberries for Christ- mas you must get them soon." Then Stella and I went over our social register with care, and selected those who should be invited for the trip. "There's Celia, of course." She always came first. "And let's ask Mat. She's so full of fun." "But if we ask Mat we ought to ask Ida too." "No. Ida's always pouting about something." "That's so. How about Clara? And Lucy?" "Mother doesn't want us to go with Lucy; but Clara's all right." "So is Caroline." "Yes, but if we ask her her mother'll make her take Jim; and he's so mean." "We nearly forgot Myra. That makes six. That's enough." On a clear Saturday morning we set out betimes for the barren hillside down by the old mill. This stony ridge had been left to grow as Nature willed. And Nature, thinking of some of her human children, willed to cover it with a carpet of wintergreen. The dull bronzes and greens of the foliage were undershot with the red of thousands of berries, so that the entire slope glowed with a dull flame of color. When we turned the 59 60 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA bend of the road and saw the waiting harvest our fingers pulsed, and we unconsciously walked faster. We always began at the foot of the hill, and worked up. As we picked, and -saw everywhere around us, and above, the pretty berries twinkling in and out among the leaves, we made our fingers fly. For once there was little talking except as each girl felt her own spot was best. "Myra, if your place isn't good come here." "Celia, here's a patch next to me. They're as big as your white beads." "I can't help it if they are. I've got more than I can pick here." "Well, I'll bet none of you can beat my corner; only it's awful steep." Clinging to that hillside was hard on muscles, and the cold air was hard on hands. By the time we had worked our way to the top, we were stiff and awkward. I remember how hard it used to be to make the cold fingers tighten our cap strings or button up our coats. But scrambling down the stony ridge limbered our cramped bodies, and wakened our drowsy senses. "Lookout, Stella, don't come down on me!" "Clara, if you begin to run you can't stop, and you'll land in the mill dam." Sometimes, in spite of all our care, a foot tripped and a girl and basket went rolling. Then all effort went toward saving the berries. Knees might be bruised, elbows wrenched-no matter, so long as the basket was safe. Only once did a basket really come to grief. Then we gathered up what berries we could, and each girl gave from her store to help make up the loss. It was hard to come away, leaving all those shining berries still ungathered. Each separate one seemed to coax to be taken, and all the way down the hill we GETTING READY FOR SANTA CLAUS 61 lingered to pick "just this handful." Then, with one final resolve, we tore ourselves away and trudged home. That evening the berries were sorted, put into jars, and set in a dark corner of the cellar. It seemed like a dreadfully long time before we did anything else toward helping Santa Claus; but our thoughts reached forward in happy anticipation. Grad- ually the atmosphere around us grew more and more stimulating. In school we were learning Christmas verses; in Sunday School we practiced Christmas hymns; at home Mother's fingers were busy with new curtains that "must be up for Christmas" or dresses to be worn "when you say your Christmas piece." When we came home -from school we were met, even out on the street, by savory odors of spice cake and mince pie, pickle and doughnuts. We carried tempting loads to cellar and attic and pantry, the while we willingly ate for our supper odd bits and left-overs that had crumbled or were a shade too brown. Oh, it was delicious to watch the store of good things that filled the shelves so full that we were obliged to contrive extra space. We were most obedient and helpful at this season. And I am persuaded that our behavior was not all "a lively sense of favors to come." It was the foreglow of the Christmas spirit that was making itself felt, not only in us, but in those who were dealing with us. I still believe in Santa Claus. If there is no Santa Claus, what is it that gets into all of us at Christmas time and makes us less critical, more willing to forget, more generous, than any other time of the year? We counted the weeks before Christmas, and slowly the number wore down. Then we counted the days, and checked them off on our fingers every night. Stella was patient and controlled. I-I sometimes felt that I simply couldn't wait. 62 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

About the time when we could count the days on the fingers-of one hand, Father took a sharp hatchet and went down to the woods, and we were not allowed to go with him. Then Mother sent John up to the attic to bring down the tree block, and fix it spic and span for Santa Claus. Then she brought out the carefully- stored tree trimmings, and set my sister and me to dusting them, and seeing that each had a fresh string conveniently fastened. You see we had to get some things ready ourselves. Mother explained that Santa Claus had to travel long distances and was pressed for time, so when he came to a house where nothing was laid ready he simply had to pass on. The ornaments that we refurbished year after year were designs made of some sort of paste or plaster, not tempting to sweet teeth. A heart, a star, an angel -whatever the design happened to be-was decorated after the manner of a fancy cake, only that some of the trimming was red, some blue, yellow, pink. These precious pieces were used year after year, as long as they could be made presentable for even the most hidden corner of the tree. After the ornaments had been brought to their very best we went to the cellar and selected a panful of apples, small and bright-cheeked, polished them to the Nth degree, and tied strings to the stems. Sometimes a few hickory nuts had a cord tied around their middle and were laid beside the apples. Then we brought up the teaberries, as fresh as the day we gathered them, and strung them on long threads, to be festooned over the tree. A goodly portion of our berries always went into the basket that Mother filled for some unfortunate. During the autumn months we had helped Mother save all the rags, every scrap, and assorted each after its kind-silk, white, colored, woolen. Now, several evenings before the great day, Father carried them to GETTING READY FOR SANTA CLAUS 63

Uncle Dan's store for us, where each lot was duly weighed, and the amount credited to us on a slip of paper. Silk rags brought the best price, with white next. Now came the exciting responsibility of selecting the pieces of "clear toy" that our ragbag pennies could negotiate. We did not buy at random, at so much a pound. No, indeed! Each separate piece was selected with greatest care, and laid in a row on the counter in order of preference. I still marvel at the patience of Father and Uncle Dan. Those momentous decisions took time. Which should we take, a big red horse that John would like, or a pair of little yellow rabbits? A haughty Indian chief, or a bird and a lamb and a tiny rake? Big pieces were more showy; but they weighed more, and we could have fewer. And little pieces were just the right size for little mouths. When we felt we had made the best selection possible, Uncle Dan came, adjusted the scales to our finances, and put one piece after another into the yellow pan. He followed the row on the counter until our credit had been consumed; then laid an extra piece for each of us on top of the little pile. It was hard to tear one's self away from that fascinating store. To us it represented the acme of Holiday importations, though all the Christmas goods it con- tained could have been put into two small barrels. With one last look at the display on the front shelf, we gathered up our precious parcels and hurried home to Mother. Father stayed for a visit with Uncle Dan. Then came the happy task of fastening strings to these new purchases. After we had made sure of every string and had, for perhaps the twentieth time, tried to improve the arrangement of our treasures on the table in the side room; when we had done all our night chores -locked the inner cellar door with care, put paper be- 64 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA hind the plants at the windows,- set things handy for breakfast; when we had cleared our litter from the table and dutifully picked up every stray toy, and mit- ten, and overshoe; when in fact we could find no excuse for staying up any longer, we took our reluctant way to bed. Aside from all the weighty responsibilities at home, we worked hard studying and rehearsing for the Christ- mas program in Sunday School. There were the new hymns, to which we gave vigorous, if sometimes un- musical support. And our individual "pieces" ! How many times Stella and I "heard" each other, to be sure we were letter perfect. How many times we went up to the attic or out to the barn, and walked gracefully( ?) forward, bowed, and recited in precise tones to the imagined multitude-in reality to the indifferent hens. We studied our lines at home, we went to rehearsals in the Sunday School room. Sometimes I rebelled at all this drilling, but Stella knew how to meet that: "All right! don't say it over to me; then you'll get stuck, the way Susie Eisemann did last year. And you can run off the stage crying, like she did." That always brought me most dutifully to the firing line. On the evening of the twenty-third of December our hair was brushed and moistened and then braided so tight we could scarcely blink. Around the face it was wrapped in wire curlers that pressed into the skin every time we put our heads on the pillow. But we knew we were suffering in a good cause, so we endured in silence, turning our heads this way and that, sometimes whis- pering words of encouragement to each other, until we finally found a position that was not too uncomfortable, and fell asleep. All the next day we had to wear our caps, to hide the curlers. On Christmas Eve there was a delicious bustling about, putting on the red-and-white striped stockings GETTING READY FOR SANTA CLAUS 65

Mother had knit, and the new shoes with the adorable squeak; tying sashes and hair ribbons; tucking a handkerchief into the hidden pocket, then trying to find it again. After we had passed inspection we went forth bravely to do our part, becurled and befrizzed so that it was a lucky father who recognized his own daughter. We sang lustily, we spoke breathlessly, we listened patiently. Then, when the last piece had been said, the last hymn sung, came the treat. The dignified Secretary of the Sunday School carried a basket from class to class, and each child took from it a big red popcorn ball. The Treasurer followed with another basket, from which each one took a small paper bag. When we peeped into it we saw a few pieces of French candy, a few of clear toy, and a handful of filberts. One year, when the weather was mild, there was an orange instead of the popcorn ball. Then, one red letter year, there was a large chromo in bright colors for each child. John's was a group of deer; Stella had two white kittens doing mischief with a ball of yarn; mine was a beautiful girl in a red dress and a vivid blue hat. Being a child, I thought only of my own pleasure. I realize now what that Christmas program meant, especially to several neglected children who came and were welcomed. Every child learned, by word and picture, the story of Bethlehem. Every child had some part, somewhere, in the program. Every child had a Christ- mas treat. Tired as we were, it wasn't easy to go to sleep that Christmas Eve. It was impossible to stay asleep, or even pretend to stay asleep in the morning. Finally Mother allowed us to go downstairs. We were only half dressed, our slippers came off, but I don't believe little bare feet ever take cold on Christmas morning. I know ours didn't, as we tippie-toed down, and with in- 66 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA creasing awe approached the parlor door. It was Johr who had the courage to open it. There, in the cold room, stood the TREE, all trimme( and sparkling. It must have been snowing when Sant; brought it in, it was all dotted-no, he had used somi of the corn we popped yesterday. He had glued little specks and dots of it all over the tree. Right up in fron hung the angel I had dusted so carefully. Near it peepe( out the little iron Stella chose in the store. And nex to that John found a candy engine! Away up in the top was a bright new star, of the kind that would las from year to year. Here was a red rooster; there, los, together, sat the two little rabbits on a twig. We had promised Mother not to take the lamp of the table, so we peered and felt into the dark places Stella brushed aside a branch and in the shadows hung a candy horse just like the one we couldn't take in th store because the scales swung down before we got ti that piece. There were no oranges this year because i was too cold for Santa Claus to bring them but "Here's a big-" "Oh, look! look !-" "Did you ever see-" "Come quick-" Nobody waited for the other to complete a sentenc each exclaiming into the general confusion. If we ha ever found a tree with some of the glittering ornament that can be bought for five cents now, or electric light! or mechanical toys, I think we would have gone clea daft. It was hard, no it was impossible, to attend to tb business of dressing as one should, or to the businec of breakfast. With "one shoe off and one shoe on, I ran to see if the cord was stout enough to hold tl candy horse; then I discovered a clear toy gun, an had to show it to John. While we looked at that Stell GETTING READY FOR SANTA CLAUS 67 found two little sewing baskets and a shining pocket knife far back under the tree. In the midst of my toast I wanted to prove to myself that Santa really had brought a new star, and that I hadn't dreamed it; but Mother was strict about our leaving the table, and the best thing to do was to tend to business and get it over as soon as possible. That tree! That wonderful TREE! It was the center of our interest and attention all the holiday season. In fact the coming event had cast its radiance before, and had shed an increasing glow of anticipation over the weeks just past. And the memory of it, even after it had been cleared away! How we looked back, and talked about it, and began to look forward! How we look back now! And talk about it! THE UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL

The Old White Church and The Church on the Hill, were built when the settlers were scattered over a wide territory. When, about midway between them, a number of houses clustered themselves into a village, the churches were still used for weekly service, but the children could not walk so far. Out of this need grew the Union Sunday School, union in practice as well as in name. Into it were gathered the children of the community, no questions asked. New-comers in town were lured to the Sunday School, then given some share in the work, and straight- way became members. Anyone who could be interested was welcome-orthodox or heterodox, Jew or Gentile, bond or free. I suppose every creed to be found between the two mountains was represented there. A few years ago one of the old-time boys said to my brother, "We were Union, weren't we? Look at our class: The teacher was a Methodist; your people were Luth- erans; Will's were Reformed; Myer's were Catholic, mine Jewish. I don't know that Fred's parents were members of any church. The old Treasurer was an Episcopalian, and the teacher of the Bible class was Evangelical." In all this diversity I know of no clash over creeds. We argued about the size of the grape clusters that the spies brought from the Promised Land; the construction of the Ark; the behavior of Jacob and Esau; but no member questioned another's faith. We were not sectarians. We were members of the Union Sunday School. 68 THE UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL

The school was a community center in which not or religious but civic and patriotic interests were foster One of these was the proper observance of Memoi Day, which we called Decoration Day. For weeks ahead we watched our flowering shri with anxiety. Would lilacs come too early? Wo snowball and bleeding heart come too late? Could find dogwood and azalea? One year when the seal was exceptionally late, a committee went to the woi and gathered a wagonload of evergreens which w broken into twigs to help out the few flowers our g dens could yield. Into these simple decorations w more love and patriotism than if we had been able go to a florist and order hundreds of dollars worth choice blooms. On the appointed morning we children reported the Sunday school room, bringing our bunches 14 flowers, some of them pathetically small, which w loaded into a wagon. Every child was given a li flag, then, led by the local band, we marched throt 4 the village and along the warm, dusty country road the cemetery at the Old White Church. Here, al appropriate speeches and music, flags and flowers w placed on the graves of veterans, while all joined singing a hymn which the Superintendent had foi somewhere on his trips. He had copied words; 4, music and patiently taught them to us during the win

Cover them over with beautiful flowers, Deck them with garlands, these brothers of ours; Lying so silent by night and by day, Sleeping the years of their manhood away. Once their hearts glowed with affection and love Now their great souls have gone soaring above; Bravely their blood to the nation they gave '4 Then in her bosom they found them a grave. 70 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA Cover them over, yes cover them over, Parent and husband, brother and lover; Crown in your hearts these dead heroes of ours Cover them over with beautiful flowers. After all the stanzas had been sung and the ceremon- ies concluded, we walked back over the dusty road to our homes. The remainder of the day was spent in quiet pleasures. The band gave a short concert, but all the music was kept in harmony with the occasion. It was a holy day. The Superintendent was one of those people who have the art of finding something, and the right thing, for every member to do. In its palmiest days the roll- book never recorded more than a hundred and twenty- five names, but in all undertakings this small band made a good showing, because of the leadership. When, one sunny morning, a friend induced the quiet old cobbler to come in, he was at once seized upon to be the Treas- urer, the very place for him. The task of taking care of the funds was not an arduous one, but the old man was made to feel that he was needed, that he could help, and was at his post regularly for many years. A sad faced widow was persuaded to take the primary class, and soon gathered around her a group so large that a special corner was curtained off for what was always referred to as "The Primary Department." The librarian, the secretary, the teachers, were all selected with care. The young people who had any gift in music were organized into a choir, and in time the school even boasted an orchestra. That Superintendent always kept us working for something. He required us to memorize the Twenty- third Psalm, the books of the Bible in their order, hymns, and quotations. He called on us to recite them in unison, by classes, individually; and no one ever ob- THE UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL 71 jected for conscience' sake. We studied the Bible, not creeds. By way of stimulation a series of rewards for individual work was introduced. Every child present was given a blue "ticket" for attendance. If he or she could repeat the Golden Text there was another blue ticket; and another for every five scripture verses memorized. How patiently Stella labored during the week with her scatter-brained sister to induce several verses to stick until the test on Sunday morning! Two blue tickets were exchanged for a red, two reds for a purple. At the proper time the librarian passed around a variety of colored cards representing Scrip- ture scenes, flowes, pets, which could be bought with these tickets. One purple bought a small picture, five bought a much larger one. I believe every house in the village had a collection of these works of art. After Stella and I had a number of them we joined forces, or funds, and by hard and patient labor achieved forty purples, which bought us one of the new Bibles. And the fact was announced to the entire school! Trifles? These were anything but trifles in our lives. They were events. Our leader kept us working with our hands too. Every member of the school was a member of the ways and means committee, and he saw to it that they were active members. When, after all kinds of money-making entertainments the building had been bought and paid for, he set about having the place renovated and made attractive. The dun-colored walls were covered with a soft-toned paper, the woodwork was repaired and painted, the furniture likewise, and a new set of lights installed. The central chandelier was a joy to behold- six oil lamps with ground glass shades, and below the center a larger one, that could be raised or lowered at pleasure! 72 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

An organ, new hymnals, more library books-he always had us working for something. And just when we felt we could sit back and take our ease he conceived the idea that a permanent stage added to the rear of the building would be so much more satisfactory than the temporary one put up every time we gave an entertainment. Then we set to work all over again. I marvel as I think of the varied interests and the amount of happiness that handful of busy men and women made possible for us children. Every child had a part in the Christmas program if only to memorize and help sing "Silent Night," "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." And each one received gifts, simple we would consider them now, but they brought a bit of Christmas joy into some lives that otherwise would have been cheerless on that day of all days. I doubt if any one of that band of Sunday school workers had ever read Mark Twain: "It is not the little minority who are already saved that are best worth lifting up, I should think, but the mighty mass of the uncultivated who are underneath! That mass will never see the old masters-that is a sight for the few; but the chromo maker can lift them all one step upward toward appreciation of art; they cannot have the opera, but the singing class can lift them a little way toward that far height." Those men and women had never read it, but they lived it. Every holiday occasion was so planned that there was some treat or gift for every pupil. Even at the Exhibition, where an admission was charged, the unfortunates were provided for. When we, in that village, wanted entertainment we did not import it ready made, at so much a reel, or entice it from the air. Out of the scant material at hand we evolved our own. In the early summer we united THE UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL 73 the products of our strawberry patches and our spring- houses, and gave a festival which was patronized by the whole town. -Even from the distant mining town lads and lasses drove to the valley and came to the festival. My brother's music teacher came, and was most gracious. Not so all of them. One year half a dozen of them came into the hall in a superior way, amused at everything they saw. When they sat down at a table the girls in white who were serving took no notice of them. The Superintendent saw the impasse. He picked up a tray, to take their order. The girls could not allow that, so two of them served the group, but with all the hauteur they could command. A successful festival netted about twenty dollars, and twenty dollars went far in those thrifty hands. One winter when there was special expenditure we held a "fair" for an entire week. Booths were con- structed all round the room on Saturday night, and we youngsters thought it great fun to assemble in this queer place for the lesson on Sunday. By Monday evening all was in readiness with various articles to tempt the silver from fortunate pockets. At this fair my brother bought Stella and me each an autograph album, quite the latest thing, at least in our experience. After the fashion of the day I filled the first page myself, rather pertly.

Kind friends I invite In my album to write But to tear out its pages I deem impolite.

Stella, more ladylike, wrote in hers

Friends, if this book should chance to roam Please write in it, and send it home. 74 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

Then followed the dignified pleasure of circulating the albums among our friends for a selection of poetry, or sentiment. The result was little poetry, much sentiment.

'Tis sweet to be remembered 'Tis sad to be forgot; Deep indeed the anguish To be remembered not.

I wager the boy who wrote that has "remembered not" in ten years; yet I feel no anguish.

I pant for the music that is divine My soul in its thirst is a dying flower; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine Loosen the notes like a silver shower.

So wrote another. But I was not musical, I could not send the silver shower to the dying flower.

Be a woman! On to duty! Raise the world from all that's low. Place high in the social heaven Virtue's bright and radiant glow!

The swing and the ring of that appealed to me. But I was not sure that I understood it all. Nor that a girl of ten could carry out so large an order. This one was more on my level:

May you always be happy And live at your ease Get a good husband And do as you please. THE UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL 75

I liked the sober-minded boy who wrote

Paddle your own canoe. But the longer you row The surer you'll know It is easier to row with two.

But he never invited me into his canoe. I have wandered from the affairs of the Sunday school that dotted the year with happy experiences. The long winter was saved from dullness by preparations for the annual "Exhibition" which was one of the events of the year, also one of the sources of income for our treasury. This exhibition loomed so large in our lives that I think it deserves a chapter by itself. THE EXHIBITION I do not know where the name originated, but looking back I think the term was well chosen. We gave an Exhibition.. As soon after Christmas as we children had calmed down to something like normal, the Superintendent appointed a committee of Sunday school members, and active work began. It was no easy task to find suitable material for a two-hour program each winter. That committee searched every book of poetry in the village; they scanned the few magazines with eagle eye; they wrote appealing letters to friends; they bought paper- bound "choice selections"; and at last, after much labor, they assigned the parts. Excitement among us children, increasing excitement! Who had the greatest number of parts? Who had a "piece" all by herself ? Who was leading lady in the dialogues? Did your special chum have a part in the same dialogue with you? Every boy and girl had to have some part-had to be given the opportunity of appearing on the stage at least once. To be left out would have been heart-breaking. A number of the children could take any part on the program; a large middle group could be used comfortably; then there was a pathetic handful who had to be sandwiched in where they could do least harm. I had little patience with their blunders. Now I realize that they were as fond of pieces, and attention, and proper clothes, as were the more favored ones, and were impossible only because they had never had a chance. Life had denied them the things that bring "The wondered breathless gladness In the heartbeats of a child." 76 THE EXHIBITION 77

One of these unparented children later came under happier influences, and today is one of the industrial men of America. Oddly enough, his business is designed to give pleasure to thousands, especially children. The unearthing and assignment of material was a job, and one year the committee tried to evade it by asking some of the children to find their own. They never tried that again! When a tall, large-featured girl blundered forward at the first rehearsal and recited A little child I am indeed, And little do I know the inaptness of the first line, the aptness of the second, was too apparent for comfort. When a boy whose home could give him no help, gave a prose selection from the old school reader that everyone knew by heart, the committee had a problem on its hands. How to per- suade that boy to change? For when these youthful performers once had their clutches on a part it required no little tact to induce them to let go. There were always a number of dialogues and tableaus with red fire. They took care of problem children. When every part had been assigned, every child included, rehearsals began. I am often filled with wonder at the amount of work and patience that committee spent on us. They drilled and corrected and explained and encouraged; then they encouraged and explained and corrected and drilled. Then they did it again, and again. On the Monday and Tuesday night before the big Saturday night, the older boys and the men put up the stage. They had to carry all the lumber from the cellar, which was no easy job. But "many hands make light labor." The necessary stage property was collected from the various homes. Mother's marble-top table, 78 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA her beaded bag, and an old dressing-table were called on very often. When I was in my teens we gave a play which required old-fashioned dresses. We knew that the wife of our Treasurer had exactly what we wanted-but we had reason to stand in awe of her tongue. Knowing how fond she was of our Superintendent, we sent him to interview her. He brought back the dresses. But at the entertainment some one was not sufficiently respectful to the old lady, and we knew what awaited the one who returned the gowns. So we sent them by an innocent young school teacher, a stranger in our town. When he came back he looked somewhat dazed, and his breath came double quick, as if he had been running. I entered on my stage career early. My first play centered about the fact that a farmer thought since his wife was in the house all day she had an easy time. She offered to trade jobs with him, and he accepted. She put on her sunbonnet, picked up his hoe, and went to the field. He sat down for another cup of coffee. But the smoke from the stove blew back into the kitchen, even into his eyes; from the window he saw that the cows were in the corn; and the bell to the little store in the front room kept jangling. By the time he came back to the kitchen the cat had upset his coffee, the rice had swelled and spread all over the stove; and I came in crying because my stage brother had cake and I had none. Luther, the brother, showed me, when our father's back was turned, where I too could find cake. Then, according to directions, we children played about, backstage. I wore a new dress for the occasion-turquoise blue flannel, trimmed with tiny bands of black satin. Little girls and their mothers wore the same styles in those days, at least in our village, so I had a tight-fitting basque and skirt (and I was four!). I have reason to re- THE EXHIBITION 79

member that dress. Mother finished it late at night, and as she did not want to disturb everyone in the house by running the noisy Howe sewing machine, she basted the sleeves into the armseye, expecting -to stitch them the next day. But the next day was crowded with other duties, and she forgot. When she dressed me for the play she looked at the sleeves and said, "They're well basted; they'll do for tonight, and next week I'll stitch them." As my actor brother and I played about, we wanted to clasp hands and swing. But my hand was moist and slipped from his, so he grabbed me by the sleeve! When I stopped rolling I found myself at the front of the stage, a bit disheveled by the trip, one bare arm sticking straight up out of the little blue basque. Luther picked himself up, ruefully rubbing one knee, and looking at the small blue sleeve in his hand. Down in the audience sat Mother, her face crimson. But my stage father was equal to the occasion. He boxed Luther's ears, put the sleeve back on the frightened arm, and sent us to the wingsi;-all so naturally that the audience thought it was part of the play. The older we grew, the more serious this exhibition business became. As the great evening approached, our time was divided between rehearsals and the haunting fear that at the crucial moment we forget our lines. This fear was keener if possible than the mid-summer fear that it might rain on Celebration Day. Rain on picnic day brought bitter disappointment; but failure in your part brought public humiliation on you and all -yours. This fear became increasingly acute. I repeated my parts over and over after I had been tucked into bed; I said them on my way to school; I went to the barn and said them to the cow; in order to guard against stage fright I stood on a box and imagined the chickens

U I 80 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

around me were a large audience, as I made my besi bow and gave my little performance. In spite of drill and rehearsal the real thing was at ordeal. There was the business of being curled an( dressed, brushed and polished. Big hair ribbons, new dresses, and tight, squeaky shoes, are not conducive tt grace or comfort. For all that, they give a certain mora support that is a great asset in the crises of life. We had no printed programs, but written copies wern tacked up in each wing, and as I went in and out I couk locate my periods of stress. Dialogues and tableau! were easy; there the interest was divided, also the re sponsibility. But when you had a number all by your self, when for a minute or two you were the whole ex hibition,-that was truly serious. As the progran moved down toward your big part you crumpled you: hankie tight in your hand, you smoothed out your sash you patted the bows on your sleeves, you polished you: new shoes on your stockings. You repeated your open ing lines to yourself, all the time keeping close water on the lady who gave the signals. At last her eye sought you out and she nodded. Perhaps you succeede( in appearing calm, but your heart behaved queer, an( so did your spine. As in a -fream you heard a voic, announce your subject and your name. Another voic whispered, "Now walk to the center, and don't forge to bow. And talk loud." The distance from the side to the center of the stag was very very great for stiff shoes and trembling knees but at last they achieved it and you bobbed your bow There, you hadn't forgotten that. But as you raise your eyes, oh, that dreadful sea of faces! All the prac tice before your barnyard friends hadn't prepared yol for this! Partly from force of habit your lips begai to move; you could feel a queer throbbing in your heae and your voice sounded strange and far away. Yo THE EXHIBITION 81 kept on saying words, and gradually grew more comfortable. But now you began to distinguish faces in the blur before you. There, right in the center, sat a group of young people from the big city across the mountain. Then you met your Mother's anxious eyes, and nearly forgot your line. When you saw your brother making faces at you-that was the time you had to marshall all your forces of self control. You looked away from him if you could, but his mischievous eyes seemed to hold you. Suddenly you thought, "I'll show you that you can't make me laugh," and you looked calmly at him and went on with your part. Just at the close, as you made your bow, you looked again at Mother. All the anxiety was gone, and a happy smile spread over her face as the applause began. But her hands were silent. In dialogues you didn't have so much to do, but you felt responsibility for the entire group. You never could tell what might happen. There was the time when each one was given a verse to speak and a big letter to display at the proper time, to form the word WELCOME. Mary Ulander picked up the wrong letter in the ante- room, and we gravely bade the audience HELCOME. One year a group of us represented flowers, each holding her flower behind her until she had recited her verse. Nellie, just above me, was a red Vose. Her sisters spent much time and thought on her outfit, even knitting a pair of red stockings because they could not find the right shade in the store. But those new woolen stockings itched! Right there on the platform Nellie stood on one foot while she rubbed an itching leg with the other. When the girl above her began to recite she could stand it no longer. To my utter consternation she laid down her rose, flexed one knee, and with both hands gave that leg one good, thorough scratching, supposed to last 82 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA until her turn was over, and she could attend to it again. Just as she raised the other foot for a similar operation I gave her a sharp nudge that nearly sent her sprawling. Of all people, Nellie! Nellie, who was always so well behaved! She was too busy with her double duties to notice the mortified color on the faces of her sisters down in the audience. One year the committee found a folk-song, "The Merry Workers," that took care of a large group. Twelve girls and twelve boys represented different occu- pations, and each sang of his work:

I am a little blacksmith, I'll set your horse's shoe; And I'm a little carpenter, I'll build a house for you; And I'm a little painter, Don't let your house get gray; And I'm a little dentist, Don't let your teeth decay.

(Chorus)

I teach the little children To read and write and spell; The sick I go a-nursing, And help them all get well; I visit all the poor folks, And give them bread to eat; And I my house keep keeping As a little wife so neat. (Chorus) THE EXHIBITION 83

In that chorus every worker tried to out-sing his neighbor, and plied his trade with gusto: We all are Merry Workers, We'll keep in pleasant mood; No matter what our trade is, If we're but doing good. The world is wide and needy And if we all are true The world will be the better For what we workers do.

Imagine the volume of sound as the twenty-four childish voices pierced the air, while the tinner, the carpenter, the blacksmith with a real anvil, pounded out an accompaniment, the man in the dentist's chair howled, and the teacher's class shouted into the general din. But twenty-four fathers and mothers thought it was grand. After your last number was over you were somewhat free to enjoy the remainder of the evening. You early learned that

"Speeches are things we chiefly bless When once we've got them over."

But even now you could not give yourself entirely to pleasure. You had attended so many rehearsals that you knew nearly the entire program by heart; so when some little comrade was "stuck," and shifted from one foot to the other, desperately twirling the side of her dress between agonized fingers in the effort to recall the lines, you had to close your lips very tight to keep the words from popping out. The seconds before the prompter came to the rescue were like hours, your heart pounding them out one by one. You were not really off 84 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

duty until the last piece had been spoken, the last tableau posed. From somewhere out of the confusion your Father came and carried you home. When your tired Mother tucked her tired baby in bed, it was hard to tell which one was the more relieved. THE CELEBRATION The day on which the Sunday school decided on the date for the Celebration, was always an exciting one, for us children at least. We sat with eyes and ears open, probably lips too. After the lesson, the collection, announcements, and such trivial matters had been disposed of, the Superin- tendent would say, in a manner that, to my mind, was entirely too commonplace for such a momentous occasion, "Now there is one more matter that I want to bring up today: When shall we hold the Celebration ?" After waiting for a moment a dialogue something like this would follow: Supt.-"What do you think of the twelfth of Au- gust ?" S. S. Member-"I don't think that will do. The Lindner School (two miles up the valley) has voted for the twelfth, and some of our members like to go there." Supt.-"All right. What about the next Saturday, the nineteenth? Is that open? Who knows when Mount Zion (four miles away) holds theirs ?" Member-"Theirs comes on the twelfth, same as Lindner's." Another Member-"I guess the nineteenth is all right. The Upper Valley school holds its on the twenty-sixth." Supt.-"Very well, then let us say the nineteenth." From that hour THE NINETEENTH was never long out of our minds. On the way home we girls planned, and counted the weeks; and how we hoped it wouldn't rain! The Celebrationwas the annual Sunday school picnic, 85 86 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA but we never called it by any name so common as that. We said "band picnic," and "Lodge picnic," but "Sun- day school Celebration." In Uncle Dan's old day-book I find an entry as far back as 1865, where the store charged an account to the "Union Sunday School Cele- bration." We children seldom achieved more than two picnics a year, by whatever name they were called, and for weeks we watched the weather. Every time it rained I was glad, and hoped it would rain long and hard, so there would be less water in the sky, to come down later. Perhaps Stella felt equal concern; but she was fond of dress, and from the time the day was set her interest was divided between the weather and our wardrobes. I trusted to luck-and Mother. This same Mother did her share of thinking too, mostly about the basket of good things to eat. No respectable family took anything smaller than a clothes basket. If the family was large there was a second basket. Mother and I were great pals, especially in periods of stress like this, and she would talk it over with me: "We'll have fried chicken, two nice big ones, and a boiled ham (there were four of us usually); and two pans of biscuit, and raisin bread. No, Aunt Lucy always takes very nice slaw; we'll take filled peppers, and eggs pickled with beets. Father likes those, and he may be home that day. I looked at the big plums today, I believe some of them'll be ripe. And we'll bake nut cookies, and sponge cake, and-Don't let me forget to take currant jelly, and that big goblet of strawberries. I filled that specially -" Do you wonder that we used the clothes basket? Or that we were busy for days? If it rained on the twelfth I was very sorry for the Lindnerites; but I couldn't help feeling glad that they had kept us from selecting that day. THE CELEBRATION

- On the last Sunday we always began counting- the days, and when we could say "the day after the-day- after-tomorrow," the time was coming deliciously near. All that last week the newest clothes basket occupied a corner in the store room, and every day something was put into it-a tablecloth, a cake knife, a jar of pickles, a box to hold the cake. I don't believe I ever carried a piece to that precious basket but what I prayed, oh so fervently, that it might not rain on Friday night or Saturday, at least not before sunset. I used to tell the Lord, in reverent but childish familiarity, that this was the day in the year that I wanted bright and sunny. Fortunately it seldom rained. "The last Sunday before" was immensely interesting in Sunday school too. There were so many things to arrange, so many important committees to appoint. We numbered about a hundred and twenty, all told, and the committees changed little from year to year; but they were always appointed with suitable formality. There was a Stand Committee, Ice Cream Committee, Parade Committee, Grove Committee, and a number of others. As soon as he was in his teens my brother was a member of the basket committee-three boys who went from house to house with a team, gathering up the baskets and taking them to the grove. I could never see why he liked to serve there, when it kept him from marching in the Parade. On that last Sunday, after all the committees had been appointed, the chairman for the ice cream would rise and ask for donations of cream, to be delivered at his house on Friday afternoon. An abundance of cream was always pledged, and once it was my good fortune to see this committee at work. Mother sent me to the house on an errand. As I entered the gate I met the most heavenly smell my little nose had ever smelled. John-the-peddler's soap could not compare with it. They 88 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA were boiling vanilla beans, in order to get the flavoring! On the porch several men and women were cracking ice, packing it, churning the freezers, and doing the other things that go with hand-made ice cream. I liked to help Mother pack the basket. It required care to arrange everything so that one piece wouldn't crush the other; but she went on the assumption that there was a snug and fitting place for each item-if one had patience. "The night before" I said my prayers more faithfully than usual, and if I happened to wake up in the dark, I crept to the window and looked at the sky. The next morning everything was excitement. There were the usual chores to do, and the last things to put into the basket. Chicks must be fed for the day, and safely housed; we must be groomed from head to foot. Windows must be closed, doors locked with special care, and the two gates securely fastened. It was all great fun-if the sun was shining. - Ten o'clock found us in the street in front of the Sunday school Hall, where there was the most delightful bustle and confusion as we formed for the Parade. 'Pupils were lost from their teachers, class pennants were mislaid, the man who was to carry the big banner was late, one teacher had a sick horse and couldn't come, and so on, and on. A very brusque man was the chief marshal, in fact he was chief marshal wherever he was, and everyone stepped round when he gave orders. Finally we unscrambled ourselves and started, only a few minutes late. At the head was carried the pale blue satin banner, bearing the name UNION SUNDAY SCHOOL, in gilt letters, to match the bullion fringe and the cords held by the pages. I used to feel that if ever I were selected to help carry those cords, life would have little more to offer me. But alas! golden locks THE CELEBRATION on were always selected to go with that blue banner, and mine were raven. Following the banner came the Minister and invited guests, solemn and dignified, as befitted the occasion. If we were fortunate enough to have a band, a bugle band, or even a kettle drum, that was up head somewhere. Then came the primary class, walking by twos, holding on to a rope between them. Followed the other classes, the leaders proudly carrying the class pennant. Each girl wore her best white dress and sash, her hair curled and frizzed with care. Every boy was scrubbed until he was shiny, unless he had evaded his mother. We "Paraded" the entire length of the village, to Uncle Johnny's grove. When there was no band we sang several hymns along the way, and everyone who was still at home came out to hear and see. Invalids and the aged were led out, or placed by a window. Sometimes I saw women, and even men, brush a quick tear aside. That was strange! Why should anyone brush tears today? The Grove committee had arranged a raised platform for the speakers and board seats for the children. There was music and speeches, sometimes alas! loud and long. The speakers, to paraphrase a bit

"Too deep for their hearers, Still went on refining; They thought of converting While we thought of dining."

At last even the longest speech was ended, and we were marched to the table, which thoughtful fathers had built low at one end, and thoughtful mothers had piled high at both ends. That day every child, however poor and friendless, was filled to the limit of capacity. 90 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

The afternoon was ours, to play, to wander through the woods, or patronize the "stand." In that little village, long ago, there were no ice cream parlors, no fruit stands, no drug stores. We got these treats only on rare occasions. This was one of them. The stand sold ice cream, slices of temptingly red watermelon, peanuts, candies, and a wonderful pink beverage called raspberry. The committee had enclosed a space with hemlock boughs, in which they had put up tables and seats. This was the Ice Cream Parlor, where youthful swains and maidens sat down in elegance, to enjoy their cream-and each other. Less exclusive folk sat in groups on the benches outside. To me the thought of entering that Parlor with a beau was delightfully ro- mantic, and I often wondered if, when I grew up, I would be so fortunate as to be invited to enter its en- chanting portals. Alas! when I was old enough to have a beau I was far away from that fascinating parlor; and neither he nor I cared for ice cream! The little fund tied into the corner of my handkerchief could not possibly encompass all the luxuries that stand afforded, and it was a serious problem to decide which would be the most satisfactory investments. Stella and I always held grave council before we com- mitted ourselves. When, in later years, my big brother and I took Billy with us to the Celebration, I saw to it that he had the wherewithal to enjoy every form of indiscretion that stand offered. I even sent him and a small friend into the ice cream parlor. Late in the evening as we were driving home to the city, my arm around the sleeping boy, I said, "Well, Billy's had one full day." "Yes, and I guess he has one full tummy too," said John. "I saw to it that he had all the money he wanted." THE CELEBRATION 91

"You did! Why I gave him some every time I saw him I" We compared notes, and found the little chap had spent a really unwise sum. We wondered how he did it. Then we began to be afraid for the little tummy. But children can stand a lot of happiness. He still remembers that day, and has told me that when he couldn't find a small friend to treat, or anything better to do, he trotted the short distance to town and patronized a cripple who sold prize packages. But I have wandered into by-paths. In the middle of the afternoon of Celebration day, at the booming of the big drum, all the children assembled on the benches. Then each one was given a paper bag filled with peanuts, popcorn, and candy; and a dish of- ice cream. In those days our little minds were not troubled to make a selection from a long line of flavors. Ice cream meant vanilla, and it was a distinct advance, just a bit disconcerting, when we added chocolate to the list. Needless to say, there was always a great addition in members shortly before the picnic. And who can blame the little schemers? Twice a year at least, the most unparented child in the valley could achieve a treat by making his way for a few Sundays to the Sunday school. At dusk Mother rounded up her brood and took us home. I could not understand, in those days, why she objected to our staying out till ten or eleven o'clock; playing kiss-ring, as so many of our schoolmates did. Once I tried to reason with her about it: "Mother, why must Stella and I come home at dusk, when so many of the others stay?" "Celia doesn't stay late either. Her mother feels like I do, that it won't help your manners any for you to run loose all hours of the night." 92 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

"But Mary, and Alice, and Julia stay, and their manners are as good as ours." I think she met that thrust diplomatically: "I know. But it keeps me busy holding you to any manners at all, even if you don't run loose." Since I am older I have thanked her many times for gathering us around her when night came. We went home tired, our pretty dresses soiled, our shoes scuffed, our hearts overflowing with a joy that would spread out over the coming weeks-and years. It had been a wonderful day. I, too, "Look back with gratitude unspeakable, to a happy childhood, and bless the memory of those who made it so." After we had moved far away, Stella and I always tried to make our annual visit at Celebration time. I recall one such visit especially. Mother had bought us each a new outfit for the occasion-shade hats, white dresses, cardinal sashes, strap slippers, and, I must nol forget, white lace mitts. We travelled to Grandmother'E by train, by stagecoach, by carriage, our trunk to follow by wagon. But the trunk didn't come! We had to gc to the Celebration in duncolored traveling clothes That took all the joy out of the picnic. Late in the afternoon an aunt met me and said, "I should think yot would want to unpack your trunk. Your dresses wil be dreadfully wrinkled." That precious trunk had beer standing in her house, half a block from Grandma's, fol two whole days! We wrote Mother, telling her of our great misfor tune, and asked if we might stay over another week. end, and go to the Celebration at Lindner's. So wo stayed. Mother wasn't there, and Uncle Jerry didn't chap erone very strictly, so we made up in full for all th4 disappointment of the week before. We played Copen hagen, Jolly Miller, Bingo, to our hearts content. We THE CELEBRATION 93 were strangers, "town girls," and for once we tasted the delights of being "the belles of the ball." That grove committee had not done its work very thoroughly, and in the catch-and-kiss games we encountered stones, roots, brush piles; but we did not allow that to interfere with the fun. When the day of bliss was over and we took inventory of stock, we found our strap slippers almost ruined, the lace on our dresses full of small breaks, our lace mitts soiled and stretched. Fortunately we had time to explain before Mother saw the wreckage, what a dismal day we had had at the first picnic, what a glorious time at the second, and how rough those woods were. In her heart she sympathized with us, I know, and she patiently showed us how to wash and stretch the mitts into shape, how to darn the lace, how to emery and polish the scuffed slippers. I suppose catch-and-kiss games are, and ought to be, taboo; nevertheless I am glad I had that one, blissful, unchecked, undisciplined, unforgetable Celebration. OUR FEARSOME NEIGHBORS-THE MOLLY MAGUIRES

The village that, in spite of wanderings, we still call "home" nestles among the foothills of the mountain that separates it from the anthracite coal regions a few miles distant. Occasionally on a Saturday afternoon a group from the mining city would come over to our fair grounds, ostensibly to try out a horse or a team of runners on the track. By late afternoon the men and boys would spill out over the village and neighboring farms, and we country folks were decidedly uneasy. We kept close at home. The majority of the men were members of a secret organization called Molly Maguires, whose methods were similar to those of the racketeers of our day. Their name struck terror into every heart. The unwelcome visitors helped themselves to fruit, to corn, even to garden flowers and vegetables. And brave was the man or woman who dared raise objection. As time passed the intruders became more and more bold; and reports from the coal fields showed that there, too, the Mollies were in the saddle. Every time Father came home he and Mother talked of the latest outrages. A breaker boss was shot down in broad daylight. A storekeeper was shot from a ladder as he was extinguishing his porch lamp, while his wife stood in the doorway with their baby in her arms. Defiance of law and order was going unpunished. One night our good doctor was stopped on the mountain by three ruffians and was accused of being a mine boss who was under the ban. Only by showing his medicine case and surgical instruments could he induce 94 OUR FEARSOME NEIGHBORS 95 them to let him go to the house where he was so much needed. At another time two men sprang out of the dark and stood on either side of his horse, while one shouted "Halt !" and fired a shot; Princess was not accustomed to such orders, and instead of halting, she bolted. This put the Doctor between two dangers. If he gave Princess her head, the men would be sure he was their party; if he checked her he would be the target for a dozen shots before he had a chance to say a word. Al- together he agreed with Princess, and they went at "double quick." But going down the steep mountainside he would be obliged to slow up, and the men, by taking short cuts where the road zigzagged, could over- take him. He had to think quickly. At the fork of the road he swerved Princess to the little-used branch that took him past the Henry farm. This was an instance where the longest way round was the safest way home. Father had several adventures on that same mountain. One night his train was delayed and he arrived in the mining town too late to secure a conveyance, so he started home on foot. He found the woods full of men hunting for a mine foreman who had discharged a Molly. Father knew this mine boss, and knew that he did not resemble him in the least. But excitement ran high, and there was danger of the snap judgment of men wrought up by anger and drink, who would shoot at anything, and investigate later. He was stopped a number of times, was questioned, searched, and cussed; but he reached home in safety. Father served on the grand jury that indicted the first members of the gang in our county, and Mother was afraid he would be made to pay for it. I often wonder that he escaped. One night when he was crossing the mountain all alone three burly men stopped him: 96 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA "Are you Mr. Stover ?" "Yes, sir." "Mr. Andreas Stover?" "That is my name." "Did you serve on the jury that tried "Yes, sir, I did." "Well, here's a petition asking for another trial. Sign." He signed. And confessed afterwards that never before, in all his life, had he written his signature with such happy alacrity. On another night he found the mountain woods literally full of people, out on a man hunt. A Molly had shot a foreman and had escaped to the mountain. It would not be safe to take the shortcut and be seen hurrying along among the trees, so he followed the winding road. A number of men spoke to him, thinking he was on the same errand as they, but he was not molested. Long afterward when he confessed these adventures to Mother he was surprised to find they were not news to her. His actions, village gossip, and her woman's intuition had kept her informed. I sometimes wonder whether he had any hint of the detective work that was going on at the time. When Mother would say, "Is there no way to punish the guilty men? Can nothing be done to protect innocent people?" he would reply, "They'll be made to pay the price; but it can't be done in a day." One great source of anxiety for Mother was the fact that our neighbor, the constable, always did his duty fearlessly, and so incurred the enmity of the Mollies. His house was next to ours, and was painted the same color, so an excited mob might easily have taken revenge on the wrong place. We always felt that this mistake was made by two men who called at our home one night. I had been

4 OUR FEARSOME NEIGHBORS 97 allowed to stay up later than usual because Aunt Kath- arine and Uncle Jerry were visiting us. As I sat on Father's knee I felt sure I saw someone peeping in between the plants at the side window, the same window from which I used to watch for John the peddler. I saw it again, and this time I was sure, so I quietly told Father; and presently there was a knock at the door. As he rose to answer, Mother picked up the oil lamp and took her place beside him. "Good evenin'" said a voice with a foreign accent, "we want to go to the Mansion House. Please show us the way." "Don't go out," said Mother to Father quietly, in Pennsylvania German, which the men could not understand. So he gave his directions from the doorway: "Go straight out the road two blocks. The large building on the corner is the Mansion House. You can't miss it." "Sure, that's what everybody be sayin', but we've missed it several times. Come out and show us." "Don't go out," again warned Mother. I had slipped between Father and Mother, and the men's hands, heavy and coarse, were nearly on a level with my eyes. One of them had a leather thong wrapped around his wrist, and on the end hung a pear- shaped lump of lead, which I learned later was called a billy. Into the right sleeve of the other had been slipped a heavy blackthorn, the gnarled end of which rested in his hand. Even I sensed danger. The men continued to urge Father to come out. When he moved to do so Mother said, "Hold this," and gave him the lamp. Then she took my hand in hers, stepped out to the end of the porch, and pointed to a lighted window, saying, "That is the Mansion House." Her voice was calm; but my hand ached in her tight grasp. --

98 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

By the time we were back indoors Aunt Katharino was peeping from the dark windows of the parlor. The two men lingered at the gate, arguing. I think it wa only the presence of Uncle Jerry that kept them fron coming back. One afternoon in late August a crowd of them cam over from the mining city to have some sort of carouse at the fair grounds. A small group stopped at our gat and one of them asked Mother, very courteously, for; drink from the well. It was McParlan, the noted de tective; but we could not know it at the time. As th afternoon wore away the usual thieving and pillagin began. Gradually the crowd milled restlessly aroun the drinking places. The more drinking, the more ir solence. No one knew how it started, perhaps a child three a stone, but suddenly there was a free for all fight o between the villagers and the Mollies. Fists were use at close quarters, bricks and stones flew through the aii a pile of firewood in Grandfather's lane melted away i a few minutes. Even the pickets on his garden fenc were wrenched off as the enraged villagers drove tf mob up the dusty road toward the mountain. Forti nately there were few revolvers in the crowd; but sei eral barked viciously. *It was all over in a short time, and out of the clot of dust came straggling our disheveled men and boy One had a gash in his forehead from which the bloc trickled over his face and shirt; another waved a ba: arm from which the sleeve had been torn. One limp( back on a twisted ankle, helped along by a man who eyes were rapidly swelling. There were bruised fis and torn coats, but no serious injury to any of the hon men. Out of the trampled dust of the road the picked up lost hats, and coats, and even a shoe. OUR FEARSOME NEIGHBORS 99

As the air cleared they saw, up the road, something that was larger than a coat. There, with his head on the soft green sod, a fair-haired Irish boy lay dying. Among the first to reach him was our constable. As the boy recognized him he raised slightly, summoned all his strength, and aimed his pistol. Snap! It was empty. The blue eyes closed. The limp hand fell back. That evening in the soft moonlight an undertaker's wagon drove out of the village and took the road across the mountain. In the wagon lay a quiet form, covered with a blanket. Beside it sat the gentle, kindly father. Every time he wiped his own cheeks he raised the white cloth that covered the face of the boy, and wiped those cheeks too. "Oh, Jimmie was a good lad, a good lad." "How can I tell Maggie? An' her thinkin' it's only a wee scratch!" "Oh, Jimmie, me boy! me boy! You were a good lad to your mother and me. But you got in the wrong company !" My father had served on the Coroner's jury, and he sat beside the old man as far as the fork in the road. The undoing of the Mollies had begun before this riot, but very secretly. When Frank B. Gowan, President of the Philadel- phia and Reading Railroad found that the constituted authorities were not able to cope with the situation, he called Allan Pinkerton to Philadelphia, and asked him to handle the job. Pinkerton, who had made his reputation in secret service during the War between the States, agreed to take it over on a definite salary, successful or not. He further stipulated that the man who was assigned to the work should not be required to testify, nor his name be divulged. Pinkerton studied the problem, and went over the list of men in his employ. He could not decide on a 100 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA man with the necessary qualifications whom he could ask to undertake so dangerous an assignment. One day as he was riding in a street car in Chicago he noticed the conductor, and thought, "That's one of our men, trying to find out something on this line. Why wouldn't he do? He's young, Irish, Catholic, clever, unmarried." He called the young man into his office and put the case to him, frankly telling of the need, the opportunity, the risk. When they had talked it over Pinkerton said in effect, "Now you don't have to do this. You can refuse, and keep your job with me, and I'll respect you just the same as ever." Young McParlan-he was only twenty-nine-accepted. He secured an outfit that was a wonderful ag- gregation of clothes, and worked in a coal yard for a few weeks, then entered the Schuylkill region via Port Clinton. His reception was not over cordial. The hotel keeper refused to give him a room as he had lately been relieved of a cow, and was suspicious of tramps. McParlan made his way to the mines and, under the name of McKenna, secured a job. Mingling freely with the men, drinking with them (often slyly getting rid of the stuff without swallowing it), he won his way into their secret organizations. The entire Molly mem- bership was only about five hundred strong; but five hundred lawless men can terrorize a large district. Under the direction of his Chief, McParlan did heroic work. If the Mollies with whom he chummed had found him out in time, his life would not have been worth the price of the bullet. Bravely, skilfully, cau- tiously, he wove his web, and when he was ready, caught the ringleaders in the net. Fear was expressed of a general uprising if any were executed, so a number of County Seats decided on the same day for the hangings, on the theory that re- OUR FEARSOME NEIGHBORS 101 sistance, spread over so large an area, would thin out. There was no resistance. Their leaders gone, the organization collapsed. Perhaps I was too young to notice, but I have always felt that the courage, risk, and marvelous piece of work done by McParlan received scant recognition at the time, by the community. Probably the people were so interested in the trials and executions, so relieved at the prospect of peace and security, that the majority of the citizens neglected to express the gratitude that they felt, to the man who so richly deserved it. His work done, McParlan left the region, and was not molested. But my Father always felt that the life of Frank B. Gowan was forfeit to the cause. MY PIONEER GRANDMOTHER The most cherished visitor of my childhood home was our gentle Grandmother. To us children she was the acme of womanly grace and lovable character. There was no other Grandmother to compare with her. I realize now that she was only one of the many women who quietly, skillfully, patiently, bent over the cradle and the sick-bed, the hearth and the distaff, and were just as truly Builders of the Nation as were the men whose names and achievements were heralded abroad. Beloved by everyone who came in contact with her, she trod her path through life, smooth or rough, with the calmness and serenity of the quiet forest that surrounded her during those first years in The Valley. When Grandfather came up from Tuscarora to shape the forest trees into a shelter for his young wife and babies he matched himself against the sturdiest oak in the wilderness; single-handed he defied the untamed land-and won. It would be interesting to know what Grandmother thought when she first saw that little cabin under the towering trees. The sun had set, the air of early May was chilly, her four little ones were tired and fretful. She was tired too. They had started at four in the morning, and the last third of their journey had been over rough mountain cart tracks. The heavy wagon carried also the household things with which she was going to transform the bare, unfinished cabin into a home. The arms that held the little sleeping daughter ached. Grandfather guided the horses between the stumps of the dooryard and stopped. Then he helped her and 102 I

MY PIONEER GRANDMOTHER 103 the two smaller boys to the ground, while Dan and the dog scrambled over the side, and they all went into the cabin. There was no delay in unlocking the door- there was no lock; there wasn't even a door. As they stepped inside there was a commotion in one corner and a deer bounded out with her fawn. Dan, eight, and Joe, six, grabbed tight hold of their mother's skirt; Ben, on Grandfather's arm, set up a howl that nearly waked the baby sister. Before Grandfather had left the partly built cabin to go for his family, he had arranged lightwood and dry logs on the hearth, and now, with the aid of his tinderbox he soon had a bright fire going. By the time he came in from the brush shack where he had put the horses, Grandmother had laid the sleeping babies on a pile of skins and homespun blankets in a corner. Then he improvised a table before the hearth by placing a rough plank on chunks of firewood. Grandma covered this with the snowy linen cloth from the top of the lunch basket her mother had thoughtfully filled, and soon the four were seated on logs, doing full justice to the homely fare. Little Dan and Joe did not whine because the rye bread had a crust; they did not whimper because their milk was served in a tincup; nor complain because there was no cushion on the log. They behaved. And ate. Tired as the parents were, they unloaded the wagon, and set up the beds. Then they fastened skins and some of Grandma's pretty quilts over the openings for the door and two windows, to keep out the raw night air, and wild night prowlers. The next morning Grandfather set out to bring the two cows by easy stages from the old home to the new. Grandmother and the boys, with Tippie, took their first good look around. 104 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA If Grandmother's heart sank when she saw the crude- ness of her surroundings, she uttered no word of complaint. This was the spot Grandfather had selected on which to build their house; this was the place where she would rear her family. He had built the cabin; she would build the Home. The cabin had as yet no floor but the earth, no ceiling but the roof. The crevices between the green logs had not yet been chinked. There was no attempt at a dooryard; but as she walked between the roots and stumps her eyes were already busy searching out the possibilities of the spot. The bake-oven should be built here; in this open space she would have a garden; there, on the sunny side of the cabin she would plant the yellow lilies she had brought from home; over that stump she would train the blush rose. Around the doorway she would leave an open space where the children could play near her, and in this spot she would put the box with the little chickens. This oak must not be cut down. It would shade the springhouse that Grandfather had promised to build as soon as he could find time. At a little distance, trickling out of the hillside, was the spring that had helped Grandfather decide where to locate the cabin; beyond that was the brush shelter for the cattle. In this cabin, gradually made as comfortable and complete as Grandfather could fashion it, Grandmother lived for six years. Here three more children were born, here one of the baby twins died. Here, when the attic had been floored, she welcomed her father-in-law. At the end of the six years the big log-house was built up on the hill, which became the permanent home site. In providing for her family Grandmother drew on the forest, the stream, and the few fields. The forest gave her maple sugar, wild honey, game, nuts. Grand- father was too busy to go hunting for the pleasure of MY PIONEER GRANDMOTHER 105

it, but he gathered many a tubful of honey, brought home many a deer, or even bear. The boys gathered berries, and the streams were full of fish. Store groceries-sugar, coffee, spices-were sparingly used. Every fall several hogs and a beef were butchered, and to this game was added all during the year. The meat was cured in brine, then smoked over a smudge fire of maple, with sassafras, birch, and spicewood for flavoring. The lard was rendered and stored away for use, or sent in exchange for groceries; the tallow was run into moulds for the best candles, while others were simply dipped. Then all refuse fats were put into the great kettle and boiled into soap. The hides of the game, of sheep, calves, beeves, supplied many needs. Sheepskins and calfskins, tanned with the fur on, made warm caps, soft chaircovers, blankets for the cradle, rugs for the cold floors, shoes for the baby Some skins were tanned into leather, and every fall the traveling shoemaker came and established himself in the crowded cabin while he cobbled shoes for the family and harness for the horses. In the spring, when the sheep had been sheared, the wool was sorted carefully, then it was washed, pulled, carded, and spun. The hanks were washed again and dyed with such dyes as were available-walnut bark or hulls, spruce bark, copperas, indigo, chinchilla. Then the cloth was woven, on Grandfather's loom, and was at last ready for the scissors and needle. Linen went through even more processes. The seeds were sown among the stumps of the clearing and the young plants carefully kept free from weeds. When they were in, full bloom the flax-bed was one beautiful slope of blue. Then the petals fell, and when the stalk was ripe Grandfather pulled it, set it in shocks to season, then threshed out the seeds. Now it was spread out to weather, turned, bound into sheaves, and put

- 106 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA through the flax-brake; then it was passed over to Grandmother. Under her hands it was heckled, coiled, spun, and reeled into small skeins. These were boiled in lye, thoroughly rinsed in the brook, and bleached in the sun. After it had been reeled into large skeins it was ready for the loom. The finest cloth went through another long period of bleaching before it was used to make company table-linen, Grandfather's Sunday shirts, or finery for Grandmother and her babies. How in the world did this busy mother find time to go through all the processes with wool and flax? To make her own thread and buttons? To sew all the gar- ments, with no sewing machine to help? To knit socks and gloves? To care for her constantly growing family? To fondle and mother every member of her brood, in a way that they never forgot? There was no physician within miles and miles of the cabin and of course no drug store. When very serious illness came a doctor was brought from beyond the mountains; but ordinary ailments like a mild fever, sprains, cuts, colds, were simply endured, or treated with home remedies. The camphor bottle was a part of the bureau furnishings of every well-regulated household. As part of each winter's supplies Grandfather bought a pint of castor oil, a bottle of peppermint, and a box of mustard, for the medicine shelf. Grandmother supplemented this with aids from her herb garden and nature. Grandfather was more than busy with the farm and the cattle during the summer. For the late fall and winter he set himself the definite goal of clearing five acres a year, and reducing it to the plow. This was no easy task in that dense forest, with none of our modern aids. Then too there was threshing to do, wood to bring from the forest and cut, harness to keep in condi- MY PIONEER GRANDMOTHER 107 tion, sledges to build. During severe winter days, and the long evenings, he made shingles, axe helves, splint brooms, baskets, which he sold to bring in money for taxes and payments on the big tract of land. Very little money passed through his hands in those days. This quiet, gentle Grandmother had great strength of character. It shows in the placid brow, the firm mouth, the calm, penetrating eyes, that give the impres- sion of having always looked duty calmly in the face, resolute and unafraid. If there was any disappointment in the forest cabin, or discontent with the hard and lonely life; if there was ever impatience with her thoughtless, restless brood, it was but momentary-too fleeting to leave its impress on the sweet lips that still, at seventy, retained their Cupid's bow. I have read of old faces "where every wrinkle was the footprint of a smile." That does not describe Grandmother's face. There were very few footprints in her tranquil face; and those few were written there by something far stronger, gentler, than a smile. I once asked my Father if she ever punished her children. He looked surprised, and after a thoughtful moment said, "Why no! We were taught to obey!" Grandmother came to this wilderness with Grand- father, and there endured without a murmur all the privations that he endured; she reared her large family and took care of her father and her father-in-law in their declining years; she planned, and economized, and worked, as faithfully as her husband, and did it with a song. Yet in all financial transactions she was the silent partner, as was the custom in those days. When- ever, in the later years, a slice of the original tract was sold, no matter what the price, when Grandmother affixed her signature to the deed she was given a silver dollar by the purchaser-a tip as it were. The hundreds, or the thousands, were taken by her husband and 108 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA stowed away in the secret compartment of the old ches or put out at interest without in the-least consulting he This was not because he was unkind; in those days wi men had no voice and were supposed to have no judl ment in these affairs. She could have whatever sl wanted; but the money for it did not go through hi hands. No one ever heard her object; but she must have hz her own thoughts about it. When Grandfather di( and some of the ready money was divided among tl children, she told each son to go home and give his wi a twenty-dollar gold piece. Emil Ludwig says that the greatest women of all a known probably only to the man they love. I great doubt whether even these men know them. As the ten babies grew to manhood and womanhoo and the fund in the old chest became a comfortable pi] Grandmother could have some of the pretty china at furniture she craved; and leisure for reading. But think it was the old days, the days of toil and sel denial, the nights of lonely watching beside her sic that gave us the beautiful face of the portrait, so gent] so full of heroic womanhood. The old cabin is gone; so is the springhouse, t] spring, the forest, even the woodland brook. But ti yellow lilies she planted still bloom by the roadsii every summer, dispensing fragrance and beauty to; who pass that way. MY ACADEMY IN THE COVE All that last winter in the village high school the boy who had come in from the country helped me diligently with my history and geometry and Latin. It was well that he did. The next summer my brother took me to one of those dreaded "teachers' examinations." Perhaps you have suffered one, and know how I felt. Every idea I ever had, hid behind some corner of my brain, and there it stayed-just around the corner. I tried and tried to think of rules in grammar, dates in history. I remembered what color tie "the boy" wore the day we studied the battles of the Wilderness, but the examiner was not interested in ties; he wanted dates, and other unimportant facts. When I coaxed my little brain to give a rule in grammar, it gave instead a de- tailed picture of the short bench where we sat when we studied together. But I knew I could not get a certificate on that. Oh, I was no longer a happy high; after this day I would once more feel low, very low. Fortunately algebra and civics were more in accord with what I thought an examination ought to be like, and when we drove home I was the proud possessor of a pale blue teachers' certificate (the certificate was pale blue), and an appointment to teach a school somewhere back in the hills. My brother at once dubbed my school, "The Academy in the Cove." Wasn't I proud! And scared! Some weeks later John and I drove through the beautiful October woods toward the place where I was to teach a little and learn much, during the coming winter. We drove on, and on, up hill and down dale, farther and farther into the barrens. 109 110 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

I thought "Where on earth, or beyond, is he taking me ?" but I said never a word. Just as I had resigned myself to driving all night, we turned into the dooryard of a comfortable looking farmhouse. As soon as he had seen me fairly settled he took the back track. I drove with him to the first curve in the road. Then he set me down. After all these years I could walk to the exact spot where his carriage disappeared beyond the next bend. That very first evening the family went to a festival in the village several miles away. I had to choose between going with them, without a chance to change my dress, or stay at home alone. The choice was soon made. We all piled into the farm wagon-the carriage was rarely used except for funerals and weddings-and drove to town. At the festival I was introduced as "the new teacher," and stared at from a distance. Presently a grand march was announced. A man "all unshaven and unshorn" sidled up and asked me to be his partner. And my brother had said I must be sociable! I looked round for Allie, the daughter of my host. She and a married sister were watching me from a safe distance. It was very funny-to them. I was only a slip of a girl, a stranger, alone, yet it never occurred to them to help me. The gentleman and I conversed after this fashion: "I come fer to march with you." "Oh,-I thank you but-I am-very tired, and I'm afraid I. wouldn't-march well." "That's all right. I don't march too good myself; so we'll make a team. Cum on." I could hear Allie titter. -"No, you must excuse me. I'm a stranger, and I'm - not going into the games tonight." MY ACADEMY IN THE CAVE ill

"Aw now, cum on. I got it paid aready, ten cents for each of us. An' if you don't march with me I know nobody else will. Cum on!" A gentleman who had lately come to the village saw the situation, and took a hand in it: "I'm "Aw~~~~C_afraidnow cum you'll haveI'-P go to getit -npai another aray partner,te centsJim. Miss Stover is to be one of the judges for the march," and he offered me his arm. Jim shuffled away, Mr. Morgan introduced himself, and took me to another part of the room. The more I beheld Jim, the more my gratitude went out to Mr. Morgan; especially after I saw Jim's wife and three children. Early Monday morning I started out for what I knew might prove my Waterloo. But I must have looked more like a peddler than a soldier as I trudged up the road. Books, pencils, dusters, erasers, clock, lunch box, pointers, pictures, dictionary, and a brave attempt at dignity, stuck out all over me. At the edge of the first woods I nearly dropped everything, including the dignity. I had never before heard a covey of pheasants rise, and their thundering, booming whirr-r-r brought Waterloo ever nearer. It was easy to obey directions: "Follow your nose till you see the schoolhouse ahead of you, at the bend of the road." Sure enough, there it sat, blinking in the sun, its new roof staring into space as if it had suddenly waked up. The shingles from the old roof lay wherever they had happened to fall, completely covering the small playground. Scattered over the shingles stood objects that didn't look like anything I had ever seen before. They were the school furniture, clumsy, heavy, home-made, the desks long enough to reach half-way across the room. A cloud of dust came out of the open door. Two men inside were breaking away loose plaster and filling the 112 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA space with a muddy brown mixture. When they saw me coming, one of them picked up broom and hoe and began to shove the rubbish out of the door. The other took a rake handle and opened a path for me through the old shingles from the doorstone to the road. All this repair work might have been done weeks ahead, and the building been in habitable condition; but it was left till long past the eleventh hour. The morning was chilly, and the plaster spots made the room damp; so while the men carried the heavy benches indoors, I tackled the stove. Last year's dust lay thick on the outside, last year's ashes filled the inside. But there was plenty of kindling lying loose about me. I filled the stove and applied a match from those I had providently brought in my peddler's pack. The shingles were wet from last night's rain, and directly I had hidden myself in a smoke screen; from somewhere outside of which I heard a voice say, "I'll take care of this for you, Miss. You might open the windows." More and more like Waterloo. In the weeks when I had looked forward to this day, half in hope, half in fear, I had determined on one thing -my schoolroom should be attractive. I had set myself a task! This weatherbeaten house by the side of the road had only one boxlike room, no entrance hall, no cloak rooms, no teacher's room, "no nothin'," but the foursquare room. The stained, cobwebby walls were not improved by the inlays of brown mud; the homemade teacher's desk looked as if its planks and spikes could outlast generations of children whose grand- fathers had not yet been born. The one and only aisle led straight from the door to this desk, with the stove in the center. On either side the children's desks, uncomfortable, inconvenient, battle-scarred, reached to the wall. Eight unshaded windows turned their dirty, bespattered faces toward MY ACADEMY IN THE CAVE 113 us. There was not, and never had been, a brushful of paint on the whole outfit, with the exception of the blackboard. That was truly black board-three boards nailed together and painted a glossy black, eyesight not taken into consideration. In the hummocky little yard a coal shed leaned drunkenly against a stump, close beside the schoolhouse door. The first child to come was Flora. She was shy, but gradually came nearer and nearer. When I arranged a handful of blackeyed Susans on my desk, she said, "What er you stickin' them up for?" "To make the room look cheerful. Don't you think they're pretty?" and I talked about the many flowers I had seen in the fence corners along the way. She listened patiently for a minute, then she turned her big, unchildlike eyes on me and said, "Ef you saw them kind o' things every day of your life, an' never saw nothin' else, you wouldn't think 'em so purty." That was her version of Kipling's

What can they know of England Who only England know !

When I rang the silver-toned call bell my brother had given me, Flora looked at it in surprise; then she said in a breathy voice, "May I do that?" From that first morning the pleasure of ringing the bell was passed around. When the older pupils came they pretended to be above such trifles, but now and then one of them would say, "Miss Stover, it's almost time. I'll ring the bell if you're busy." In response to Flora's ringing that first morning seven little "Primers" and "First Readers" climbed into the ponderous seats and stretched their necks to 114 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA stare at me over the tall desks. In the High School we had always begun with a song, so we tried that; but the hammer-and-saw orchestra outside was too much for our weak effort, so we decided that one stanza must suffice. All day long those men ripped and pounded on the outside, while indoors we tried to grow in wisdom and knowledge. As soon as school was dismissed the men came in and began on the plaster again. After about a week of this the work was finished, and we were left in peace, buried to the neck in rubbish; so we gave part of our play time to bonfires and "lawn parties." By the first snowfall we had dug ourselves out. Then we joined forces on the schoolroom. We almost covered those cracked and stained old walls with pictures, mostly advertisements. A beautiful lady in a red satin dress held in her lily-white hand a package of "Rising Sun Stove Polish"; an old salt carrying a big fish on his back appropriately announced "Scott's Emulsion"; a prancing horse proved the merits of cattle powder. Reapers, lightning rods, drain pipes, all were gratefully advertised on our walls. One evening I worked late, and among the pictures I put up in the fad- ing light was a group of jolly burghers around a table. The next morning when I looked with pride on my work I was amazed to see that the old chaps held foam- ing cups, in praise of a special brew. The boys took ii down for me at once, and asked no questions. We went into the woods and potted small evergreen for bare corners, and the boys staged a surprise by setting two hemlocks in the yard to screen the coal shed I was fortunate in having a very comfortable home but the farmhouse hanging to the side of the hill was not a highly exciting place for two fun-loving girls. We were not exactly "in society." The family consisted ol an old couple, their youngest daughter, and a grandson There were only two other houses within a mile of us MY ACADEMY IN THE CAVE 115 in any direction. In one of these lived a farmer, his wife, and four children; in the other a deaf old man and his lame wife. With us Whitman's words were more true than poetic: "I inhale great draughts of space. The East and the West are mine, And the North and the South are mine." When the snow came it often lay smooth and unbroken on the public road before the house for a week at a time. At first I was amused to see everyone run to the window whenever a wagon was heard; before many weeks I ran as eagerly as anyone. Among the people of that community it was unusual for a girl to reach the age of seventeen and not have a beau; to do so was to reflect on her popularity. I was urged to mend my ways; it would be so convenient if we had someone to bring us home from the village after evening affairs. I wanted to go to the parties, any young girl would, but I failed to see a Romeo to whom I was willing to play Juliet. Besides, I was still studying history, by correspondence, from the country boy, who was now in college. Near the close of a December day a young man "from the land" came to visit the school. I had seen him before, but had never spoken to him. Today his hair was as slick as a fresh-cut lawn, and he was groomed beyond anything I had ever seen in the Cove. I was surprised at his visit; I didn't know he was interested in the school. Then-it must have been my good fairy that whispered to me, "Here's where you go home with the children; you put no work on the board tonight." The same fairy whispered to Etta one of the bright- est girls. She came to ask me a question about tomorrow's work, and when she stood quite close she said quietly, "Shallw weait for you?" "Yes, please." 116 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

While Robert attended to the fire I put on my wraps, then we all trooped out-the guest had no choice-and locked the door. I bade a formal goodbye to the gentleman, no invitation to call again, and marched off with the children; he wended his way to his abode at the other end of the Cove. Etta made no reference to the matter, and after she left me at the foot of the lane I wondered whether both of us had read too much into the young rustic's visit. However, a few days later one of my self-appointed advisers took me to task for being "too slow to see what it means when a nice young fellow visits the school." Allie was more successful than I. One evening after church, when we climbed into the big sleigh a boyish- looking chap climbed in after her. Now we had a beau, and could go to soirees in the village! Alas, our fun was short-lived! The evening we came from our first Party the boy, who was really a fine young chap, had a sore throat and fever, and Allie's mother put him to bed and gave him hot herb tea. The next morning he had mumps! A former beau of Allie's, whom she de- spised, sent her a bottle of soothing syrup. That settled it. The poor boy was never allowed to show his face around our diggings again. Old Ochs, the peddler whom I feared in childhood, was still on the road, and managed his travels so as to land at our place for the night. He was much exercised over our beauless condition and was serious in his efforts to remedy the situation. On a certain evening he suggested one swain after another; but Allie always found some objection. Finally the old man threw up his hands in despair: "Drum, do bist zu particlar !" (Pshaw, vou're too particular!) After the last fruit and the corn had been gathered, the older pupils came to school, and we needed more board space. My brother sent me a roll of Manila paper, MY ACADEMY IN THE CAVE 117 a package of lamp black, and a paint brush. One of the girls brought sour milk to mix with the lamp black; the boys gave the paper three coats of the slippery looking mess, and we had all the blackboard we wanted. We needed a globe. But no such foolish expenditure of public money could be thought of, and my own purse was very slender. One afternoon when the children had gone I stood by the window puzzling over some problem. Gradually my eyes became conscious of the yellow pumpkins in the field beside the schoolhouse. An idea flashed through my mind. On the way home I stopped at that farmer's house and asked if I might have one of the pumpkins. At first he thought I was joking, as pumpkins were almost as plentiful as acorns. When I convinced him that I was serious he said, "You send the boys in there to get you all the pumpkins you want. And be sure you take nice ones." A pumpkin is flattened at the poles, has natural meridian lines, the Equator and small circles can easily be cut into the shell. With the aid of a ball I explained the earth's relation to the sun in a most scientific ( ?) way. Then we cut up the pumpkin in the fractions class. The second one we used at hillowe'en. That farmer had always been unfriendly to the school and the children. But when I told him how much we had learned from his pumpkins he said, "Any time I have something that you need, come get it." If I were teaching in the richest school in this country, I would try to find something to ask from the parents. One afternoon, when the road was smooth with ice and walking very difficult, William, eleven, met me at the top of the long hill and offered to take me down on his sled. I knew it was risky business, but I was tired and thought I might as well break a bone riding as walking, so I took my seat and we started. We "went some" down that hill. We bounced over water courses 118 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA so that I was afraid the sled would be gone before I landed back on it. We shot around curves, we skirted the rim of a rocky ledge, we sped across the bridge and far out on the level, almost to my home. That evening the old farmer, sitting on the woodbox behind the stove took the pipe out of his mouth long enough to say, "Miss Stover, today I saw something I never want to see again. I was on the ridge and saw you come down that hill! What if you had met a log team? As it was I expected to see you hit the rocks or a tree any second. I held my breath till you had crossed the bridge." I did not tell him that I held mine even longer. One of my fellow teachers also had an experience on this hill later in the winter. The stove in his school broke down, so he came to spend a day with us. During the forenoon he asked me whether we had any rule about snow-balling. I told him the boys and I had talked it over and had decided there must be no balls thrown at or near the building. He asked whether the boys kept the rule, and when I said yes he didn't believe it. During the noon hour I turned from the work I was putting on the board, to find he had filled a pail with firm snowballs behind the house, come in, and was throwing them at my boys from the open window. One of the balls had struck a little girl who was crying. The boys looked at him in amazement. They were real, red-blooded boys, and I expected to see them break our rule before I could stop the coward inside. But they didn't break it. They didn't even crack the rule. They cracked something else. That evening after school, as Mr. Blank walked down the long, slippery hill, he came into his own. A ball suddenly shot out of space and knocked off his derby. When he stooped to pick it up a rocket landed in the small of his back and another struck in front of him, sending a shower of snow and ice into his flushed face. Before he got his hat placed two balls met it, one travel- MY ACADEMY IN THE CAVE 119 ing east, the other west, and one barely missed his nose. By this time he was telling the boys, in most unorthodox language, what he thought of them. But snowballs soon ended the eulogy, as they still sought his presence. They hit him in the stomach, they sent snow down inside his collar, they pared a strip of skin from his nose, and wrecked his derby. But I believe they taught him that there is a rebound to foul balls. Fortunately I was never supposed to know. The father of one of the ringleaders told me the next day, ending with "I daren't let George know, but I think they did a good job." One terribly cold morning Robert, the oldest boy in school, frosted his feet on the long walk. As soon as he came into the warm room he suffered very much, and something had to be done. The older girls thought that cold water was the best remedy; so right there in the schoolroom Robert had a cold foot bath. We told his brother to change the water often, then we took up our regular work. As soon as the worst pain was over Robert took part in the lessons, remaining at his desk, feet in bath. At recess we held another consultation and decided that the feet were ready for the second treatment, so Carrie was sent to the nearest neighbor for the "coal oil can." WQ filled the basin and gave the feet an oil bath until Robert pronounced them cured. Nobody was embarrassed. Our only thought was to relieve Robert, and the children took the bare feet and the kerosene odor as a matter of course, like the falling snow or the ticking of the little clock. At noon we made a paper funnel, carefully poured the kerosene back to the can, and returned it with thanks. We never inquired how the lamps behaved. I have been told that our treatment was enough to take the skin off Robert's feet. I don't know about 120 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA that. I only know that he said it relieved him, and that he never limped or complained. Another experience with Robert threatened for a while to end less happily for me. From his first day in school he took entire charge of the fire. All I ever did was "Put a little coal on it before you leave." This went on happily for several months. Then one evening I found the scuttle empty, the fire neglected. Robert had forgotten. That was strange. When, the next morning he did not go near the stove, I began to do some thinking. He wasn't chatty and pleasant as usual, and I recalled that he had been very quiet the day before. I could not imagine what had happened. But I thought to myself, "I've never asked you to tend the fire, and I won't ask now." When I picked up the empty scuttle and started for the door he weakened: "Don't go out into the snow, Miss Stover," and he took the bucket from my hand. He tended the fire as usual, but he was sulky, and he would not bring the second letter I had asked his class to write, I was only seventeen, with no older teacher to give me advice, and I was troubled. On the third day I asked him to stay and help me put up some mottoes my brother had sent. When all the others had gone I stopped work and asked him what the trouble was, and why he wouldn't write the letter. At first he stood quiet, with his head down, and I thought I wouldn't get a word out of him. But after another question he pulled himself together, looked past me to the window, and blurted out, "Miss Stover, when you asked us to write that first letter I went home and did the very best I could for you. I worked on it two whole evenings, and when I thought it was pretty good I bought a sheet of white paper and wrote it all over again, just as near like you showed us as I could. Even my father was pleased with it and MY ACADEMY IN THE CAVE 121 said after you'd seen it we'd send it to my aunt. An' when you gave it back to me it was as full of marks as if a lot of blue-toed chickens had been scratching on it. If the very best I can do is as poor as that, there's no use trying. And I'll tell you right now, you needn't waste time asking me for another! You'll never scratch up another letter of mine, not if you teach this school ten years !" That came straight from the shoulder, and it hit so squarely that my head swam. We were both quiet for a long long minute. Then, because I had to say something, I ventured the first thing that came into my mind: "Robert, have I been unkind to you in other ways this winter ?" "No'm, you've always been kind." "Even when you made mistakes ?" "Yes'm" still defiantly. "And you've been kind to me too, Robert. I've tried to show you that I appreciate it. Don't you think you can overlook this once, and be kind now, when I need it most of all?" Perhaps I took a risk, but I knew the kindly spirit of the boy. I told him that he had made me see my mistake, and that I did -not blame him for feeling as he did. Then I explained frankly what it would mean to me in the school and the community if he, the leader, refused to obey; and that I could not afford to lose out. Then I asked him how we could fix it all up. It seems like a trivial matter now, but to us two children it was very serious. I was tired and worried, and my voice began to tremble a bit. That knocked him as squarely as he had knocked me a few minutes ago: "Don't, Miss Stover, don't worry anymore. I didn't think of your side of it. I'll write you a letter tonight, and you can scratch it up all you please. I couldn't get 122 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA my mind on my lessons that evening I didn't fix the fire. I'll never make trouble for you again." He grabbed his hat and bolted. I watched him trudge down the lane. Then I picked up that blue pencil and threw it into the fire. As it slowly burned to ashes I thought "Robert couldn't spell the word chivalry; he doesn't know there is such a word. But he knows the thing itself." Never will I forget the kindness of Robert and the other boys. They took care of me and of the school. They came early in the morning and had the room warm when I arrived. They did all the janitor work. When the snow lay deep on the unused road they came to meet me in single file, dragging their feet to open a path for me. When we met they took my books, lunch box, and peddler's pack generally. Half a dozen of them were taller than I, two were older. Yet they never took the bit in their teeth and bolted. They helped and watched over me. When I attempted that first school Father and John told me many helpful and needed practices in teaching. Mother said, "I don't know the latest methods, nor school management. But I know that community; and I want you to be kind to the children always; and to put as much happiness into their empty lives as you can." Father's and John's professional advice has long been made obsolete by newer methods. Mother's advice holds good as long as there are children in schoolrooms. HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM Having served my apprenticeship in the Cove, I was appointed to the Valley School, not far from the village where I had studied as a "low", and graduated as a- "high". The matter of a boarding place was soon settled; Uncle Joe and Aunt Rae gave me a home. As my brother and I drove across the valley we could see the old farmhouse a long way off, perched on a broad hill, surrounded by the fields Grandfather had wrested from the forest, and subdued to the plow. Sometimes as we skirted a wood, or wound through the valley, the home was lost for a while; but soon it was back again, peeping from its setting of trees. We turned from the road into the great open square, tied the horse to one of the hitching posts, and passed through the gate, into the dooryard. Uncle Joe's was a typical Pennsylvania farmhouse-roomy, well-built, with a wide porch across the entire front, a generous doorway. The pump stood at the end of the porch, and beyond that was the summer kitchen and the springhouse, its row of milk crocks airing on the picket fence. Beyond, on the edge of the orchard, were the bee hives, framed by trees weighed down with fruit. The grassy square in which we had left the horse served as an entrance hall as it were, for every department of the farm. Into it guests drove and left their horses, then came through the gate to the house-yard proper. Ranged along one side of the square was the great fragrant woodpile, the icehouse, the sheds, tool- house, carriage house, and stable. At the lower end rose the hub around which all the farmlife centered- the big red barn that belongs peculiarly to Pennsylvania. 123 124 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

Into this square I saw many a four-horse team swing with a wagonbox filled with potatoes or apples for thc cellar, golden corn for the cribs, wood for the-woodpilk that was never allowed to dwindle, feed from the mill pumpkins from the field, or great wains of hay foi the yawning jaws of the red barn. Out of that square I can still see the team of foui grays prance, each wearing a gay cockade on his ear strap, drawing the wagon that was to carry the "Silvei Cornet Band" of the village to some picnic or festival Out of that square drives Uncle Joe with Black Prince kept for his personal use. Many a time I rode behinc that restive horse when I felt sure that all that stoo( between me and instant destruction was Uncle Joe's tw( capable hands. Into that square I walked after a teachers' meeting one evening when this had been my home for severa weeks, to find that the house was dark, and I had taker no key. I tried every door and window. I knocke lightly. Then I called in a low voice. All was quiet My experience in another home made me hesitate to wake Uncle Joe out of a first sleep. If I could onl' reach the second story porch! I took off my hat an; shoes and hid them behind the flower plants on th porch. Then I stepped from the pump bed to th fence, and from that to the big walnut tree. Ver slowly and carefully I made my way out on the lim' that ran alongside the second story porch until I coul lay hold of the bannister. After I had drawn mysel up and tip-toed to my room I breathed again. It wa all over! Next morning when we had finished break fast Uncle Joe called me to the porch. He had gone t look for his pipe-and had found my hat. "Katie, what does this mean? How did you get i last night?" I had to tell him. HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM 125

"Little girl, don't you ever do that again. I'm never too sound asleep to come down and let you in. That tree's very old, and the limb streches far. Suppose it had broken! Or you had fallen when you pulled yourself up to the porch! We wouldn't have heard you, way off on the other side of the house. Or suppose John (the farmer) had seen you in the moonlight, and had come up here with his gun! Wake me up the next time, if you have to break a window pane to do it."

"The kitchen is the heart of the farmhouse" was surely true at Uncle Joe's. It was a large room, airy, clean and comfortable, with ample cupboards built into the wall, a wide table stout enough to hold an abundance of good things, and large enough to seat one more atra moment's notice. When one came home in the twilight of a raw winter's day the glowing fire, the singing kettle, the good smells on the air, held a welcome that was most human. Its very oldness made the place homey. The uneven floor; the places around doorknobs and latches where many hands had worn away the paint and even the wood; the worn steps of the stairs; the time-stained rafters, all spoke eloquently of "the lingering romance of vanished lives." In the cozy sitting room the tall lamp sent its rays down on the table and those sitting near it in a well- defined circle of light, leaving the remainder of the room in mellow twilight. There sat my gentle Grandmother, in the low rocker made soft and warm by the pelt of sheepskin, reading her Bible or the worn Prayer Book in an audible aspirate; the invalid cousin with her patch- work or the mending basket; Aunt Rae with her sewing; Uncle Joe with his pipe and the "Jefferson Demo- crat"; or if it was early he might be studying the Lancaster Almanac, deciding on the times and seasons for his planting. In this room, ranged in the beautiful 126 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA old cupoard, stood the "blue set," that Uncle Joe earned with his violin when he was a young man. About nine o'clock he would lay aside his paper and go to the cellar for a pan of apples. That was the signal for all work to stop, for a period of sociability. Then the evening table was cleared, night lamps were lighted, the dog and the cat were sent to their beds, doors were bolted-more against the storm than against a possible intruder-fires were banked, and we went upstairs with more sense of security than one can ever have in a large city, even if there is a policeman on every corner.

Sometimes neighbors came in to spend the evening. Then there was talk about the weather, sick friends, the price of horses, the weekly paper, usually ending up with stories of the past. That was the period I liked best-when the men retold wonderful tales of the days when Uncle Joe and other young teamsters drove across the mountains with timber for the canal boats. They would live again, over their pipes, the day when an axle broke on the steep mountain road; when old man Clarke cracked his blacksnake whip into a hornets' nest just before Jim Shay, who had never been known to run in his life, came along; or when a bull ran away with old Boone, who shouted a mixture of excited Eng- lish and Pennsylvania German that was side splitting. And each time they chuckled just as heartily as the first time they told it.

The school was large, with many grades, which meant a heavy program. But there were the restful evenings, the Sundays and holidays, and all outdoors to enjoy. I had strict orders never to go into the deep woods by myself, as we lived near the anthracite mining region, nor to go where there was nobody in sight; but there HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM 127

was usually a wood chopper, a plowman, or a fence builder near one of my favorite haunts. Woven into the tissue of my being are some of the joys of those- Saturday mornings in the woods, "knee-deep in October," gathering nuts, fox grapes, cocoons-anything that looked interesting. Aunt Rae was kind-Uncle Joe was indulgent. After I had been a part of this household for several months I went to the attic one morning to put something into my trunk. I had formed the prankish habit of skipping down the stairs, taking one step very lightly, the next with a good staccato thump! landing at the bottom on both feet with an extra-super thud! When I came downstairs that morning I said to Aunt Rae, "I'll bet you didn't know I was up!" "Didn't I though," trying hard to look stern. "Uncle Joe was in here just now when you did your circus trick up there," pointing to the guilty part of the ceiling, "and I said 'Joe, listen! If that girl is in this house six months this ceiling'll come down.' And what do you think he said? 'Rae, she's the only one in this house that can jump, let her jump. This ceiling'll never come down from any jumping that you or I or Grandma do. If she jumps it down we'll put it up againj!' You see I can do just about as much with Uncle Joe as I can with you," and she ended with a smile that chased away even the attempt at severity. My walk to school led through a lane that was deep with snow part of the time, and after that deep in mud. Uncle Joe advised me to wear rubber boots and change to shoes at the schoolhouse. But my brother John, who knew more about school boys and girls than either my uncle or I, vetoed the idea: "They'll make fun of you; and when they once do that you might as well resign." One raw November evening I came home sans overshoes, having left them in the stiff mud, my

§1000 128 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA shoes wet and grimy to the top. The next day Uncle Joe came home from market bringing a pair of beautiful satin-finished rubber boots: "These are a present; and if any boy makes fun of you I'll take him in hand."

It was during this winter that I got my brother John into a tight corner. One Saturday I went shopping in the village, and when my money was nearly gone I saw a hat that I felt I must have. Uncle Joe was at a board meeting, so I couldn't go to him for first aid. As I stood looking at the hat I felt a tap on the shoulder, and there was John, come to the village unexpectedly. He liked the hat, so we went in and bought it. He was going home with me for the night, when I would return the loan; but on the way we met Will, one of his village friends, and John went with him. That evening after Will's father had made his nightly round of the stables, the two boys quietly 'borrowed' old Jim, the mule, put him in the buckboard, and drove four miles up the valley to an ice cream festival. The two "town" boys were popular, and as the evening waned, their funds waning with it, they were attending two pretty sisters. When the auctioneer began selling the few remaining wares, one of the girls bid on a bag of peanuts, and it was sold to her for seven cents. John was getting very uncomfortable. One nickel represented his cash assets, and he knew that Will was in about the same state of ex- haustion. He never could let that girl step up and pay for her ill-timed purchase. But what to do? At the critical moment, as the two girls leaned forward to talk, John felt a nudge at his elbow and Will's hand very quietly and carefully put four pennies into his willing palm. He went forward and paid for the purchase, his head up as if he could buy the whole place. 13ut when he came back he suggested that, as he and Will had left HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM 129 their "carriage" in a friend's barn, they ought to go, if the girls were ready.

During the winter I received a letter that at first puzzled me-postmark, handwriting, contents. The writer declared that when he saw me last Saturday it was a case of love at first sight. Would I overlook the fact that we were strangers, and allow him to call the coming Saturday? And would I meet him at the train? He paid high compliment to my face, my hands, my silvery laugh, using adjectives that were new in my experience. As I read I wondered where he had seen me, and gotten such ideas. I hadn't been farther than the village in weeks. But when he spoke of my eyes of heavenly blue, my hair like spun gold-and I with locks like the raven's wing-I understood. In the village near us lived a girl who was also sometimes called Katie Stover, after her foster parents. She was "fair as a lily, graceful as a swan,"-the Juliet of this Romeo's fever. I told Uncle Joe of my mistake in opening the letter, and he advised me to forward it to Goldielocks, with a note of explanation. Later in the day he said, "Katie, write and tell that fellow to come. I'll go to the station with you. I want to have a look at his face when he sees this black head instead of the spun gold'; advice which he knew I could not follow. For years I have lived in town, where we buy our food in small quantities from day to day, as we need it and can store it-a peck of potatoes, a loaf of bread, a pound of chops. But I do not like it. In a previous existence I think I must have been a squirrel or a beaver. I love to help gather abundance for winter, to have a hand in storing away the plenty on a farm in autumn. The fattest bank book I can think of, with large groceries located nearby, could not give me the comfortable 130 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA feeling of plenty that hovers round the well-manage( Pennsylvania farmstead about November. The grea red barn is packed to the roof, overflow stacks of hal and straw and fodder cluster round the cattlepen like; village of Indian wigwams; the corncribs bulge; sleel cows and heifers chew the cud in the autumn sunshine the hog pen, the noisy chicken yard, the row of bee hives, all promise good things; and the great woodpile is just so many cubic feet of solid comfort.

I never see one of these rich farmsteads but what' recall the words that a Confederate Veteran said to ml in Fredricksburg some years ago: "Oh, it was not th military defeat that took the heart out of us at Gettys burg. You know we thought you all in the North wer just as poor as we were down here-at least we private thought so, perhaps the officers knew better-and whei we saw the fields dotted with fat cattle and horses whei there wasn't a beast to be seen for miles in our poo country; and hundreds of acres of corn and grain, wher our fields were bare, we saw what we were up against Why we boys were glad to get what those farmers threi to their cattle. On the first evening, as we trailed b one of the farms near Chambersburg, we met a woma carrying two big pails of buttermilk. We limped alonE hot and dusty, hungry eyes on the delicious milk. Whe she saw that look she set the pails down and said, "Boy. if you like buttermilk help yourselves. I was taking to the chickens." Her pails were large, too large for woman to carry, but they were too small to go roun( It was that buttermilk, and such other signs of plent] that took our soldiers' spirit."

Do you remember the delicious appley smell of tl old farmhouse ? That odor stays a whole summer long when there isn't an apple near the place. I believe HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM 131 would stay ten years, it is in the very walls and timbers of the house. In the late fall the cellar windows are all banked with straw and earth to keep the cold out, and this helps keep the smells in. The potatoes are stored in bins, the apples are poured on a light layer of straw on the ground, to keep them plump and firm. These round fellows are Fallawalters, that Grandfather planted fromn the old stock at Tuscarora; these yellow, with the pretty pink cheeks, are Belleflower; beyond are Pippins; and the thinskinned ones are Rhambo. In that corner, under the loose soil, are beets and carrots and celery; then there is the vinegar barrel, the cider keg, and the big vats where spareribs, pork tenderloins, and such good things are kept against the day of use. And do you remember how spooky the shadowy, dark corners were? The big attic is almost as interesting. In the low corners under the rafters are wonderful treasures in old furniture, lamps, chests filled with quilts, and finery of other days. The bitter herbs hanging from the rafters give a tang to the air that is quite different to that in the cellar. Then there are the bags of chestnuts, dried apples, pears, lima beans, and dried corn, sweeter and "cornier" than the best canned corn that was ever put on the market. The big earthenware crocks on the cross- beams are filled with applebutter. You who have lived on a Pennsylvania farm know how we made that applebutter. After the cider press had been going for several days Uncle Joe selected great bushel-baskets of second grade apples, and Aunt Rae invited her friends to a "snitzing." On the appointed evening neighbors and friends, armed with knives and dishes, filled the big kitchen. My three young uncles each brought an apple-paring machine, and kept up a lively whir-r-r as they pared the apples and threw them into the basket in the center of the circle, from which I 132 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA filled the pans for those who "snitzed". The paring machines gained on the hand workers, and when they had finished their part of the task my youngest uncle struck the tuning fork he always carried in his pocket, and gave the pitch. Then rich young voices filled the old house with "Sounds of a Summer Night," "Joy to the World," "Little Brown Church in the Vale." I can still hear Uncle Will's deep bass roll out, "No spot is so dear to my childhood As the little brown church in the vale." When the last apple had been cut, the last note sung, we passed around great plates of doughnuts, and cookies. and gingerbread. The cider pitcher was refilled, and there was leisurely conversation before the friends separated. At an hour that city folks would have considered ridiculously early, lanterns were lighted-so were pipes as Uncle Joe's tobacco box went round-shawls were handed out, goodnights said, and the friends walked home through the beautiful, quiet country night. As we went upstairs we could hear my uncles singing, "Tell me the old old story," while walking up the ridge that lay between us and the village. The next morning, long before I started for school, out in the washhouse the apples were boiling in great copper kettles over a hearth fire, with cider gradually filled in. All day long those fires and kettles were tended. and after supper neighbors came in to take turns at the immense wooden ladle that was kept going round and round, round and round, to prevent the mass from scorching. Late in the evening sugar was added. After many testings in a saucer, Aunt Rae pronounced the welcome "done" and the heavy kettle was swung free of the embers. Spices were added, and the hot mass was dipped into the big crocks. HAPPY DAYS ON-UNCLE JOE'S PARM 133

I never see a dish of applebutter but I am reminded of an evening during my first year at Uncle Joe's. A new school building was to be dedicated in the village, and Dr. Schaeffer, the State Superintendent of schools, had promised to come. One day I got my courage up to the proper point and asked Aunt Rae if I might invite him to take supper with us. She looked at me in a puzzled sort of way: "To supper! The State Super- intendent!" then she found full voice. Never! She was only a plain farmer's wife; she wasn't used to grand folks; she didn't know how to prepare a fancy supper, and so on, and on, to an encouraging degree. I told her he wasn't "grand folks," that he would enjoy our family table after days and days at hotels. I tried coaxing: "Aunt Rae, if you let me invite him this once, I'll never ask you again. I'll not need to; you'll like him so well you'll invite him yourself next time." It was no use. Hotels were the place for big folks. Uncle Joe did not help me one little bit, not until Aunt Rae thought she had the State Superintendent settled in his proper place, once for all. Then he asked me a few questions: Where had I met Dr. Schaeffer? When was he coming? Did I say he was a farmer's son? Well, when we both began to coax, Aunt Rae had to give in: "But don't ever ask such a thing of me again !" When I arranged the table on that auspicious evening I put on it a dish of applebutter. Aunt Rae whisked it into the pantry with scorn. Applebutter! For the State Superintendent! She brought out her most aristo- cratic mold of jelly-the Liberty Bell, showing the his- toric crack. After a little coaxing I was allowed to bring my plebeian applebutter, but she kept it at her end of the table, behind the cake plate. 134 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

Our genial guest was not in the house five minutes before he and Uncle Joe were laughing together in the sitting room; we had not sat at table ten minutes before Aunt Rae had forgotten that she was entertaining "big folks"; she was having a delightful time with a new friend. As the meal progressed she offered him the Liberty Bell jelly. He hesitated a moment; then he peered around the cake plate and said, "I believe I see applebutter, and if you don't mind I'll take some of that. I don't get applebutter often now." When Aunt Rae took leave of her guest at the end of the short hour she said, "Doctor, whenever you travel this way come and have supper with us; and try to stay all night."

One of the fall events on the farm was butchering. Somewhere early in November Uncle Joe saw that the butcher knives, scalding vat, the scrapers, cross-tree, were in readiness. Aunt Rae sent every available tub and pan and crock to the washhouse. Then one dreadful morning I was awakened by a great squealing of two or three pigs at a time. I used to creep under the covers and put my fingers into my ears. The minute the last squeal had been squealed Uncle Joe called me, and I hurried down to have a hand in it all. One year the butchering was done on a Saturday, so that I might enjoy the whole program. As soon as the first porker had been cut up some of us were set to work dicing the sausage-meat for the grinder, the pile growing as each succeeding hog was dispatched. Then it was run through the grinder into tubs. These were raised to the washbench and two of the men mixed the herbs and seasonings into the mass, Don't you remember how strong and graceful their bare arms looked as they reached deep into the tubs and turned over the glistening pulp? Then came the most

- HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM 135 interesting time of all-making the sausages. I loved to tend the funnel and let the curly lengths slip through my hands. In spite of the utmost care, the frail casings sometimes broke. By evening one of the long tables was covered with nicely trimmed fresh hams, bacons, shoulders, spare ribs, roasts, that, would be put into the big brine vats as soon as they were thoroughly cool. A second table held a crock of mince meat and dozens of pans of scrapple, scrapple that would have blushed at being considered even distant kin to the thing that is sold in the markets under that name today. The benches almost groaned under their burden of tubs filled with sausage and liver pudding, and cans of sweet smelling lard. I said that tending the funnel for the sausage was the most interesting time of all. Perhaps it was-but then there were the baskets to be filled for friends. This was a beautiful survival of pioneer times, when fresh meat was not available, and neighbor shared with neighbor. Into each basket went a nice length of sausage, a ring of pudding, and a pan of scrapple. A special friend often got a roast. And the poor were not forgotten. Soapmaking followed close after butchering. Then came the quiet winter, saved from monotony by quilt- ings, spelling bees, carpet-rag parties, hu!king bees, and an occasional barn raising. And there was the Old White Church for Sundays and Holy Days.

One New Year's Eve, having made the necessary preparations for tomorrow's holiday, and holiday guests, we read our sleepy papers around the evening lamp, eased our consciences by doing a little needlework, a few rounds of knitting. Then Uncle Joe knocked the ashes from his pipe, locked the heavy doors, banked the fires,' and we betook ourselves to the chilly bedrooms. Soon the whole house was quiet, and dark, and a cosy 136 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA warmth began to conquer the shivering cold of the beds. Thump! Thump! Thump! I waked up, startled, and looked out of the window. The yard below was dark with moving objects, showing against the white snow. Could they be drunken marauders from the coal region? Before I had time to be really alarmed I heard Uncle Joe's low voice at my door: "Katie, get up and dress; but don't light a lamp, or make any noise. These are New Year's Waits." First Footers I believe they are called in some countries. There was another loud thump, and a voice called, "Is anyone at home?" Uncle Joe answered in a full, oratorical voice, "Yes, I and my wife, and all my household." This was in the nature of courteous procedure. Then the rich voice of a young uncle intoned a New Year's wish in musical German, which loses both rhythm and beauty in the translation: "I wish you and your honored housewife, Your sons and your daughters, maid servants and - men servants, And each and every one who goes into or out of your house, A bountiful and benevolent New Year." The Wisher went on to desire for us a four-square table with a platter of well-browned fish on each corner, a dish of solid gold in the center, a cask of ruby wine, jewels, lands, and great wealth; all in quaint and poetic German, ending with a reference to the salute of guns. Then bang! bang! bang! we heard a volley. All this time we, indoors, lighted no lamp but crept about making preparations as quietly as possible. We put the draughts on stoves, set the kettle on, measured coffee into the coffee pot, set lamps ready, spread the cloth, and began to fill plates. HAPPY DAYS ON UNCLE JOE'S FARM 137

When the last gun had banged, suddenly the house glowed with light, the door was flung open, and in trooped about twenty-five uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, come to greet the New Year in the great house that Grandfather built years ago. Such handshaking! Such chattering! Such laughing when we discovered that the entire "volley" we had heard had been fired from one lone revolver, supplemented by heavy sticks pounding on the porch floor, and by our imaginations. Aunt Rae and I were kept busy refilling plates of nut bread, cinnamon rolls, spice cake, doughnuts, cookies. We circulated pitchers of cider, baskets of apples, dishes of chestnuts. Then the men drew out their pipes, and reminiscing began. Gradually the merriment grew more subdued. Uncle Frank looked at his watch. Coats and wraps were put on. Then the tuning fork, and

"'Mid pleasures and palaces Though we may roam."

Every voice joined in; but some were husky. All the older ones had lived here; some had been born here. Now their homes were scattered far and wide.

Uncle Joe could not live without teasing. He poked fun at my school garden, at my attempts on the violin, and at my immense school register, which he claimed was larger than the doorway, and that I carried it back and forth in order to impress my pupils and their mothers. But it was the kindest sort of teasing; and more and more I became conscious of his thoughtful protection. One day as we were driving home from town together he said: "Katie, do you see much of the other teachers in the district?" They were all men but two of us. 138 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

"Only now and then, at the meetings, or sometimes at parties." "Is the man who walked up the street with you today one of them?" "Yes, he's new. That was Mr. W- who teaches the Miller school. He gave me this book to read, and says it's very good." "Ye-e-s? I thought it was W-. Well, don't let him give you any more books. Buy your own; and don't have much to say to him." He had seen W only a few times; but he was right in his judgment, as we knew before the winter was over. Uncle Joe was never too busy to be interested in my affairs, however small. I was free to go to him at any time. And so, for the three years that I needed it most. I had the benefit of the finest friendship and guidance that can come to a girl-that of a good, elderly man. GRANDMA HENRY Long before I spent my vacations on the farm of my- husband's people I had heard of his Grandma Henry. She was one of the most forceful influences in the early life of the wilderness community. She and my own pioneer Grandmother were friends in the days when the miles between their homes were unbroken forest. When Uncle Joe, then only a boy, split his knee-cap while chopping in the woods, the wound refused to heal and the boy was threatened with lameness, or.something worse. When the two women met at the Old White Church and talked of their gardens, their spin- ning, and the children, the report about the knee was always unfavorable. Just then a supervisor of the railroad that was building came to board at Grandma Henry's, and of course heard the neighborhood news. He had some knowledge of medicine, and the very first Sunday Grandma sent him to see the suffering boy. The stranger examined the inflamed knee, consulted his book of directions, opened the little medicine chest that he carried with him, and compounded washes and ointments. Under his amateur but watchful care the knee steadily improved, and was entirely cured. Grad- ually it came about that almost every Sunday this skilled man and Grandfather could be seen making their way through forest roads to some sufferer that Grandma had heard about. Thus came relief and new courage to many a one that lay helpless, with twenty-five miles of mountain trail between him and the nearest physician. In Grandma's girlhood a young woman had little opportunity to earn her own money, less choice in the way in which she earned it. If she could be spared at 139 140 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA home she might work in a neighbor's fields during harvest time, do menial tasks as servant or housekeeper, go into homes as seamstress by the day, occasionally as nurse. Some few women were weavers, but that required muscle. Lack of a "sphere" neiter troubled Grandma. Wherever she was she created her own sphere. She was deft with the needle, and as her girlhood home was in a settled community, she did sewing in the various homes at twenty-five cents a day, the day by no means limited to eight hours. In course of time a young cabinet maker met the little seamstress. During the courtship the young man spent spare evenings building a desk, a case for the wall clock, a table, and other pieces now prized posses- sions of his descendants. The little sweetheart was not idle. She spun the flax grown in her father's fields, and when the linen came back from the weaver, with even stitches she made it into pieces for the hope chest fashioned for her by the young cabinet maker. On a tablecloth and a sheet made for this chest- a hundred years ago, one can see her girlhood initials, V. D., worked in cross stitch. One gift from the lover was a lace veil, large enough to serve as an evening shawl in our day. Again, a great Staffordshire teapot, in black decalcomania. Her future father-in-law went on a trip to Washington and brought her a dozen silver spoons, just as he did for his wife and his own daughter. Her father, observing the signs. selected a few cherry boards that had been seasoning in the shed ever since the tree had to be cut down to make room for the new kitchen, and had a drop-leaf dining table made for her, as he had done for her older sisters. Gradually the hope chest filled, a roll of rag carpet was brought home from the weaver, a great kettle of soap GRANDMA HENRY 141 was boiled and cut into squares to dry, candles were moulded, hams cured. A quiet wedding. A new home. The young cabinet maker was often employed to do fine work on boats that were building at The Landing. This gradually led to an interest in timber, and in a tract of forest that stretched over valley and hill. beyond the mountains. And so, one day, the cherished linen and furniture were packed on stout wagons, a comfortable seat was devised for the young matron and a maid, and the family trecked across the mountain to the new home at the cross roads, the home I later knew. I have wondered what Grandma thought as the wagons jolted their way down the mountainside and she caught glimpses through the trees, of the new country. The road near the end of the trail was at best only a cart track, that wound its way around rocks and stumps. Sometimes the wagons had to stop while a tree was cut down, or a sink hole filled. The forest stretched on, and on, and on, to the distant mountains. She could see smoke rising from cabins set in tiny clearings that looked as if they might be swallowed over- night by the impinging forest. I do not know how she felt when she looked forward; but I know that her courage almost failed her when she looked back, back to her cottage in the fertile valley, back to the grave of Baby Victoria, that she had put in her mother's special keeping. Fortunately the present was packed with plans and God's good gift, work. The new home was large, to accommodate the workmen. The maid was untrained. There was little leisure in which to be homesick. An occasional traveler found his way over the mountain, and gradually Grandma's big house took on, besides its other functions, those of an inn. These diversified businesses meant work and responsibility for the homemaker, and Grandfather arranged 142 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA everything as convenient as possible. Water from the mountain spring was piped to the kitchen door and into the springhouse. There was a large summerhouse, with dining room, kitchen, pantry, storeroom. This with the bakeoven, smokehouse, woodhouse, clustered conveniently, gave an indescribable sense of security and charm. As the needs grew, the buildings grew, until the original house and barn were simply the nucleus for a small village. Of this village Grandma was City Manager, with Grandfather president of the works. The maids were selected with care, then, in a tactful way, put through a course of training that was the best possible preparation for homes of their own. In her kitchen, dining room, sewing room, she conducted un, consciously, a school of domestic arts that had its effect on the whole farflung community. She had the tact, the sympathetic understanding, that was so large an element in the success of Alice Freeman Palmer in her school of a quite different sort-the gift of calling out the best in a girl. She encouraged too,

". through all the poor details And homespun warp of circumstance, A golden woof-thread of romance" and almost every year one of her girls graduated, re- ceiving her diploma at the altar. This resulted in a constant succession of pupils through her school, and some of the new ones had to be started at the very a, b, c of household management. "One of the hardest things to teach them," she told me, "was that twelve o'clock meant twelve o'clock. With us dinner was served on time, and on the stroke of the clock in the dining room things had to be ready. So many of the girls had been taught to ring the big bell on the pole anytime their table was ready. And GRANDMA HENRY 143 another thing that took a while to learn was that every day had its job, one week the same as another. Monday meant washing, Tuesday ironing, and so on." The uncouth boys who were hired for outside work also came in for training. "I never could abide having the boys hang around all Sunday in their working clothes. Whenever Grandpa hired a new boy he bought him a suit of Sunday clothes from head to foot, white shirt and all. Then on Sunday morning, when the work was done, every man had to get dressed and go to church if we had a service. If there was no church he could go off with his friends; but he had to get dressed." She found a way to improve the boys' table manners, and something of the art of mingling with people. She was never satisfied until she had wheedled a boy, by one method or another, into reading at least the newspaper. She herself read the weekly from cover to cover, the later daily with care; and no matter how busy, she changed her dress every afternoon. One channel for her influence was through Grand- father's store, which stood at the end of the living porch. Grandma lived at a time when women were supposed to stand silent, in the background. But Grandma was neither a silent nor a background woman. Grandfather was decidedly the head of the house, but he did not place her at the foot. She stood by his side. When he went to Philadelphia to buy supplies for their store she went with him, and her judgment was relied on when purchases were made for woman's work and woman's needs. In this way she exercised a censorship on the dress of the women in the valley. She allowed very little gaudy material to find its way to the shelves of the store, no cheap tinsel. She helped the women make selections, cheerfully copied patterns for them. She even cut out dresses for them on her drop-leaf table, and gave a 144 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA pinned fitting, the while the tired women drank a cup of hot coffee. If a woman brought poor butter to the store Grand- mother tried to find out where the trouble lay, and to induce the woman to give more attention to milk crocks, butter churn, or springhouse. She encouraged the less thrifty to make soap, carpetrags, moulds of wax, or anything they could achieve, in order to exchange them for the chintzes and the lawns they craved. Many a brown-cheeked lassie had cause to bless Grandma for help in obtaining a coveted dress, a bonnet, or silk mitts. I remember hearing my Mother tell how, when she had walked weary miles to exchange a basket of farm produce for such homely things as salt, candle-wicks, tobacco, powder and shot, Mrs. Henry brought forward a piece of dressgoods that made the girl's eyes dance. Then a dialogue somewhat like this took place: "Mary, here's a dress pattern that would look well on you. I thought of you when I chose it." "But I have no butter money left to pay for it; and father never lets us put anything on the books." -"Can't you earn the money some way?" "I'm afraid not," as she fingered the merino long- ingly. "Mother has a baby, so I can't leave home." While they were speaking old Ann, whom no one liked, came along the counter and put her claw on the soft material. When she asked the price the girl winced. Grandma to the rescue, saying, as she drew it away, "This isn't for sale. I got it for Mary, and there's only one length." When Ann had gone Grandma turned to the girl: "I'll tell you what we'll do, Mary. I'll put this away in my own bureau drawer, and when you have a chance to earn something you come and get it. I'll keep it six GRANDMA HENRY 145 months if necessary." And a light hearted girl walked that long way home. Fortunately an order came in for shirts for the men on the railroad that was being built, and in a short time Mary walked home from the store with the prized dressgoods on top of the basket. This was not intensive salesmanship. Grandma did these things in the interests of the girls. She bought many a skein of yarn, many a ball of carpetrags, that Grandfather had to sell at a loss. But what could she do? She had been a girl herself, and when she saw the longing in the eyes of the girls whose lives were so full of hard work, so empty of the pretty things every girl wants, she cast prudence to the winds. Some of these girls walked six miles to the store, carrying a heavy basket. She often took them into her cool dining room for a cup of coffee and a bit of lunch before they started back. And she tried to help them achieve something for themselves in that homeward basket, once more heavy. Few of us are born without a strong blend of laziness in our makeup somewhere. Grandma was, I believe, one of the exceptions. Her frame was small, but her energy seemed boundless. On the farm, in the garden, the milkhouse, store, kitchen, church, social affairs, she, was not only a leader but a worker. Her day often included such a program as this, especially on Monday, when the maid was washing: Prepare breakfast for eight; set out tomato plants; prepare a second breakfast, for the minister; serve behind the counter; trim a bonnet; bake cookies; serve some of them to a weary customer; select drygoods for motherless children; sit half the night with a sick neighbor, or do last offices for the dead. Yet she did not demand anything like this from her maids. I think there were two reasons for her endurance, her good health, and good spirits, at least 146 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA two primary reasons. The whole place, indoors and out, buzzed not only with industry, but with fun. "The costliest thing in all creation is mental friction," and the homestead over which Grandmother and Grandfather presided wasted little energy in "fricting." The ma- chinery was kept well oiled by kindness and fun and story. Grandma governed her house beneficently, but she governed it. Mice, flies, and varmints of all kinds led a short and troubled life in her domains. Chickens were early taught that the houseyard and garden were re- stricted property; dogs learned her manner of discipline -and sometimes how to evade it. The garden received the same careful attention that was bestowed on the house. The different seeds and plants were assigned their places with'the precision of a landscape garden. Grandma considered soil, slope, sun, appearance; and all her planting was done according to certain relation of mooff and stars, certain signs of the zodiac. Pole beans were planted when the horns of the moon turned up, so they would climb. The sign of the crab was avoided for all such -vegetables as tomatoes, cucumbers, beets and the like. If they were planted on "crab" days they were sure to be scallopy and gnarled, not smooth and round as they ought to be. Butchering, soap boiling, planting, were all done during the increase of the moon, that they might increase in production, and not decrease too rapidly in the using, Meat that was dressed during the decrease of the moon was sure to shrink rapidly in the pan; soap that was boiled during this off season wasted in the water. The decrease of the moon was the time to attack weeds, dirt, and nuisances in general. Grandma scorned any idea of ghosts and witches, but she firmly believed in these stellar signs. We sometimes twitted her about it; but we disturbed her not at all. GRANDMA HENRY 147

One day she said to my brother-in-law, "Don't you teach, in your college that the moon causes the tides? If it is strong enough to make a change in anything as big as the ocean, don't you think it can have its effect on my little garden ?" She was a great talker. Her tongue worked nearly as fast as her hands. But I have never heard of a single instance where she was involved in a neighborhood quarrel, or a case where she made an enemy. She was specially patient with young housekeepers, and when the produce they brought showed the slightest improve- ment she was generous with words of approval. Many a time when the young store clerks wanted to refuse some woman's butter in exchange, Grandma would say, "No, she's doing better all the time. Take it, and I'll work it over in sweet milk tonight. I'd rather lose a little than let her get discouraged." Then she would edge in another lesson on butter making. The building of the railroad, one of the first in the country, was a great event in the valley, and speeded up its development. Somewhere in the eighteen-thirties a charter had been obtained and the roadbed levelled. Then, because the bank in Philadelphia failed, the pro- ject rested for eighteen years. Suddenly activities began again. The settlers were encouraged to cut their timber into railroad ties, the roadbed was relevelled and repaired, ties and rails were laid. As fast as they were put down, the train, carrying supplies and the boarding house, moved forward. Sometimes the women in this house on wheels had their bread in the oven, their washing hung out, when orders came to move. Clothes and line were brought in, the hencoop and the dog house loaded on the truck, and the whole establishment jolted along to the end of the newly laid track. There the clothes line was fastened to other 148 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA trees, the hencoop found a new location, and life went on as before. The coming of this road was an awesome event in the lives of the isolated woodfolk. When the whistle of the supply train was heard the children clambered up trees, on roofs, into attic windows, to see it, or ran behind a stump or their mother's skirt, according to tem- perament-or mother's temper. Even grown people stood in awe of it, and when passenger service was installed some refused to ride. There was much talk about the sin of defying the Almighty by such con- traptions. I suppose the lumbering, snorting engine, with its black wood smoke, its ten candle power light, and its thunder, did justify the old man who said he would nqt ride where his Satanic Majesty was hitched up. The railroad passed within a short distance of Grand- ma's house, and four of the supervisors applied to her for board. She loved to recall those days, and to tell how she arranged matters. She set the supervisors' table in the "big house" and brought out her best china, her choice linen for them. But the four men, dining in state, heard many a hearty laugh coming from the table of the summer dining room, and before long they persuaded her to let them join the jolly group of farm hands and store clerks. However she still managed to use her gold-banded dishes from Philadelphia at their end of the table, and the silver spoons from Washington. All her life Grandma said little about her religion. She lived it. One evening when the clerks had gone and she was helping Grandfather with last things in the store, Joe came in, Joe who had lately married a splendid young woman of the valley. He had been to a barn raising and his talkative self-assurance showed that the demijohn, of which he was too fond, had circulated freely. In his old age he told me about it: "She GRANDMA HENRY 149 asked me to help them, and kept me there lifting nail kegs and opening boxes, and piling heavy goods on the shelves till nearly midnight. Then she went out and brought a pot of strong coffee and some doughnuts. By the time I got home I was sober enough to understand it. She kept me there so that she wouldn't see me until I had worked it off. That was fifty years ago. It has never happened since that day." Social life in the early days of the valley was largely the outgrowth of work-a barn raising, a quilting party, a moving, church work, even a funeral. Grandma and her big Staffordshire teapot traveled to many of these gatherings. Many were also celebrated in her hofre. She loved beautiful quilts, with short, even stitches in the fancy design. Yet when she gave a party she did not want to slight those who were poor quilters. They were nearly always the very ones who most needed a party. So, as her home was large, she would put two quilts into frames and invite everybody. One would be an ordinary nine-patch, quilted in squares, to be used on the workmen's beds. The other would be a "Philadel- phia Pavement" or perhaps an "Easter Flower" carefully appliqued, to be quilted in the "double feather." Contriving to get the right women to work on the right quilt did not require as much diplomacy as one might think. They mostly found their level naturally, both as to quilt and companions. If some of the work on the nine-patch was past allowing, nothing was said. But in the evening, when all the quilters were gone and there was no one to see, the labored stitches were picked out, and the work done over. One kindly custom that Grandma had, must have brought a bit of cheer to many an isolated cabin child. When the baking for her party was being done, one batch of cookies was always cut into horses, dogs, stars -and stowed away with care. Then when the women 150 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA began to put on their shawls to go home she brought out the treat and put a generous share into each woman's "visiting basket" for the little ones at home. Round cookies were added for the aged and the sick. Let me change one word in Woodworth's lines and say that her days were filled with "That best part of a good woman's life- The little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love." Such was Grandma Henry. Such are the stories I heard about her long before I knew her. Such were the deeds I saw her do when I spent happy summers at the farm. The memory of them lingers like a tender fragrance. Is it any wonder that I write in loving prejudice, and perhaps do not see quite straight where Grandma is concerned? She was kind to the poorest and lowliest pioneer that ever stepped over the threshold of the cross-roads store. She was at ease with the big merchant in Philadelphia, the impressive railroad official, the college president that, in time, came to her home. She was our adored and beloved Grandma Henry. GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE From the time Grandfather Henry's store was established, in the early 1840's, it was the center around which the work-a-day life of the community radiated. The nearby clearings and farms were parcels cut from his original timber tract. All were bound together, the fields as well as the neighbors, by a common history, a common experience, a common purpose. It was not imposing, inside or out, the wooden building that was the center of so much activity. Two windows at the front and two at the side, blinked at the winding, dusty road. The heavy double door was wide open all day in summer; and few indeed there were in that sparsely settled valley, who could pass by without stepping over the threshold to make a small purchase, exchange gossip with other settlers, or, on rare occasions, to have a letter read. The porch to that store has been renewed and rebuilt several times; but the door is the same that Grandfather put there more than eighty years ago. It still wears the latch and bolt that the blacksmith forged, the H and L hinges, the handwrought nails with the big, octagonal heads. Below the latch is a well-worn curve, the signature of sturdy hands that have long since been folded. The heavy oaken sill is worn almost in two, and as I listen to stories of old days I can see the people whose feet thinned that stout plank-farmers in cowhide boots bringing in on a hand-riven shingle the reckoning of timber they have brought for exchange; teamsters with backs bent under great sacks of grain, to be bartered for flour, a Sunday suit, a plowshare, or a butter churn; young farmhands awkward in their best clothes, stop- 151 152 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA ping in on a Saturday evening to buy a supply of tobacco, a silk handkerchief, or possibly a small paper of mint lozenges to carry to some roundcheeked girl waiting under the trysting tree. The sill was worn too, but more lightly, by the feet of patient farmwives who came in from the scattered clearings, came as far as seven miles through woodland paths, carrying their modest supply of butter, eggs, cheese, tallow, wax-whatever they could find in the house or the field or the woods. Shy, redcheeked children crossed the doorsill, usually holding on tight to mother's hand or her skirt; but they wore the doorstep very little. They seldom came in winter, and in summer the chubby feet were bare. Many a sore toe, with a dusty rag around its middle, stepped hesitatingly across that threshold. Occasionally came the gentlewoman of the wilderness, seated beside her husband on the heavy farm wagon. He wore the stout boots and clumsy homespun of his day, but he helped her down from the farm wagon as carefully, if not as gracefully, as your gentleman of today hands his lady out of the limousine. If her basket was heavy he carried it at least as far as the doorstep. This woman came from a one-room cabin on the edge of a small clearing; she attended to her garden and her babies just as the other women did; her little feet were shod, like theirs, in calfskin, made by the same traveling shoemaker who set up his workbench in other cabins. But she wore her shoe and her linsey woolsey with a difference. Her foot bore down lightly on the oaken sill, her step was quiet on the worn floor. The low voice, the calm face, the sweet but firm mouth, that at sixty still wore its Cupid's bow, bespoke her gentle breeding. When the rolls of yellow butter had been weighed from the basket, the eggs counted out, she refilled it with GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE 153 her modest purchases. The linen bags she brought to hold her groceries were as white as the soft frill at her throat. Although the family was large, she afforded only two pounds of sugar, but a good supply of salt for the butter, madder and alanetta for dyeing, castile soap to use with the baby, a bottle of peppermint, one of castor oil, two milk crocks. She looked hesitatingly at the candy jar, then selected two sticks with a broad red stripe, and tucked them with care in a place where they would not be broken. Great would be the glee at home when she took a table knife and cut the two sticks into as many pieces as there were eager heads surrounding the table. On the drygoods side she bought only a few small articles. Her brown eyes lingered over a piece of calico spread on the counter near her; but she had already bought more than the butter and eggs would pay for, and she turned from it without even a sigh. As she waited, however, her eyes caressed it more than once. Her husband walked over the threshold, tall, spare, almost severe; but as his eyes met hers it was as if a softening hand had passed over his features. After he had bought his powder and shot, and the usual dole of tobacco, he spoke a few words quietly to her. He had gotten a good price for his load, and if she wanted to buy something more he could spare a little from the tax money. For a moment her eyes went back to the calico. Then she walked to the other end of the counter and bought soft things for the babies. The husband was known among his neighbors as being rather dour, a close bargainer, and critical. But likewise it was known among their intimate friends that, on the rare occasions when his gentle lady looked at him calmly and said, "We're not going to have any more talk about it, Father. This is what I am going to do," there was no more talk about it. 154 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA Over that same oaken doorstep came sunbrowned daughters of pioneers, mostly by twos, each with a big basket on her arm. The basket was heavy, but often not heavy enough to provide for the urgent needs of the cabin home, and many a young brow was puckered as the girl tried to follow her mother's directions: "Get the bullet form first, and salt for the butter; and laud- unum for Bennie's ear. Then get four yards of muslin, and two needles. And if there's anything left bring a little sugar, and a spool of thread. This homespun thread is all right to work into buttons, but it's dreadful knotty to sew with. We can get along with rye coffee this week; and maybe by next Friday there'll be more eggs, or a little honey, then we can get coal oil." Once or twice in a lifetime a mother said, "If there's anything left you can spend it for yourself." One sunny morning came Mary"-tall, slender, well- formed, her foot and hand shapely in spite of the heavy work that every day brought. By her side, carrying a roll of leather, trudged Seth, an awkward, barefoot boy. At the last turn of the unfinished and abandoned railroad bed on which they had walked, the girl had stopped to put on the Sunday shoes she had carried in the basket beside the eggs, meanwhile hiding her old shoes in a hollow tree. Now, in the store, as she waited her turn, her eyes rested often on a gingham parasol open on the counter. She looked at the tag. Twenty- five cents. When she had bought every item her mother had charged her with, she found to her surprise that she had twenty-eight cents to her credit. She could get the parasol! Grandma Henry opened one parasol after another for her, and each seemed prettier than the last. It was hard to make a choice. Seth nudged her and whispered, "Take the red and green one," but she felt that would look too gay on the quiet country road. Finally, with GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE 155

Grandma's help, she chose a soft gray, with purple crossbars. When it was all over and she was ready to start home, Grandma showed her a beautiful silk one, of changeable red and green, that fairly made her eyes dance. But that was for grand folks. All the way home Mary carried that parasol with tender care. When they stopped to rest she unwrapped it and admired every stripe and rib and curve. She spread it over her head and walked about on the soft pine straw, all the while looking forward to the pleasure of showing it to her mother. But the next day saw Mary and Seth walk once more through the wide doorway of the store. On her arm she carried the usual basket, in her hand the new parasol, carefully wrapped. Seth shouldered a bundle of splint brooms. On the day before, when they were nearly at home they had met their mother, coming from a neighbor's clearing. She took the heavy basket from the slender arm, and Mary eagerly told her of the twenty- eight cent balance, and the parasol. They stopped long enough to open and display it. The mother said little; and all the way home the set of her lips made the girl uncomfortable. When the two women were seated at the table preparing supper the mother said, "Mary, you ought to see the silk parasols Lizzie and Rachel have. Lizzie's is blue, with a heavy ribbed edge, and Rachel's is fawn, with a green vine running through the border. They're awful pretty. The girls didn't want you to know till you all went to church on Sunday, but their mother-" She did not get any farther. Mary's head was down on her arms, as she sobbingly told of the beautiful one she could not afford. A toilworn hand was laid tenderly on the drooping shoulder as the mother said, with the protective fierce- ness of the female, "Don't cry, Mary. Listen to me. I made up my mind coming across the field that if there 156 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA was another silk parasol on this side of the mountain those snips shouldn't get ahead of you. Tomorrow morning you go back and get that silk parasol ! I don't know yet what you'll take, but we'll find something. We're not as poor as they are, and I'll show them. For one thing you can take the roll of butter in the springhouse. We can get along with honey and applebutter for a week." The tears had already stopped falling, and the two started on a tour of the henhouse, the barn, the springhouse, the cellar. And that is the reason Mary and Seth trudged the fourteen miles two days in succession:

"For the Colonel's lady And Judy O'Grady Are sisters, under the skin."

One warm August afternoon Grandfather heard a commotion in front of the store and went to investigate. He found a half-grown girl, from a farm two miles away, surrounded by a swarm of children. In the fore- ground was a cow. Grandfather didn't want to buy a cow, especially that cow, sorry as he felt for the family. and he tried to think of some way to break the news to the girl. In the meantime Effie took her basket of produce from the two larger boys, sent them to the water-trough with the cow, and after final warnings to the rest of the brood, entered the store, the heavy baby still on her arm. She exchanged her wares for the usual necessities, and turned to leave without men- tion of the livestock outside. Grandfather was relieved, but curious: "Effie, what did you bring the cow for?" "I had to. I had no other way. Pap an' mam's gone to Aunt Liza's funeral and I just had to come to the store. The cow jumps fences, an' the young 'uns fight, GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE 157 So I made 'em drive her along, then I can manage 'em all." "Why didn't you put the cow in the barn?" "I will when I get home. I thought if I wore her an' them out maybe they'd give me a little peace." The old store was the clearing-house for many transactions, as is illustrated by this account of Emanuel Foose, whose name is spelled seven different ways on as many pages of the ledger: Emanuel Foose, Dr. To cash for hisself ...... $0.75 Paid for having his shoos repared. ... .25 Paid his road tax ...... 1.22 Paid his school tax ...... 1.00 Paid Sheider to make his coat ...... 1.75 and on a day in February, '65

Cash for his bounty money ...... $25.00

On the credit side Emanuel gave:

2 lbs. candles ...... $0.25 1 wolf scalp...... 65 61/2 lbs. colored rags ...... 13 6 qts. tar ...... 37Y2 1500 shingles ...... 6.00

The old store books are neat, carefully kept, but the spelling often parted company with old Noah Webster somewhere in the offing:

1 racer ...... $0.621½ 1 whoop skurd ...... 8712 158 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

1 plock tobacco ...... 15 ½/2 doz. tea cubs ...... 1.00 zinnamont...... 05 empty berl ...... 12 2 neatles ...... 02 1 juck ...... 40 1 pk. uneans ...... 25 citrence seat ...... 05 2 yd. wailing ...... 622

Prices quoted during the War between the States average nearly as high as those during the Great War:

1 lb. sugar ...... $0.20 2 yds. calico ...... 70 1 gravy bowl ...... 2.00 1 pr. gum shoes ...... 2.00 1 spool cotton ...... 15 1 glass dish ...... 1.25 1 glass dish with feet ...... 2.00

With coal oil (kerosene) at thirty cents a quart, a lamp chimney fifteen cents, and a wick five, our electric lights do not seem so expensive after all. But in the early 1850's many articles were cheaper than we shall ever have them again.

9 lbs. bacon ...... $0.99 3 lbs. strong Rio ...... 371½ 1 -turkey ...... 75 3 gals. whiskey ...... 1.35

I thought I must be mistaken about the last item, but I looked through the ledger and found the same price in a number of places. GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE 159

Interesting, long-forgotten articles are recorded: Kentucky jean, regatta shirting, hickory stripe, shoe tacks, pulse warmers, shoe black, shaker bonnet, sun- down (shade hat), Jenny Lind shoes, Jenny Lind baskets, gum braid (elastic). The name of the person for whom the purchase was made, was put at the top of the entry, the name of the person by whom it was made, was put at the bottom. But sometimes the full name was not known by the salesman, so he wrote as definitely as he could: "To Widow Sechler"; "Per Irish"; "To Miller, lame one"; "To red-headed Irishman at sawmill"; "Per Girard's Irishman, fetcht by Neichwender." When business was not brisk-Monday mornings or stormy days-the clerks sometimes left lame Uncle Reuben in charge of the store, while they worked over accounts in the office. Then one might see a bright- eyed boy of four come in from the house and ask to buy a candy. No candy without a penny! So the little fellow would go to the cash drawer, take a penny, and carry it to the old man. Then he climbed on a chair and selected his candy from the jar. Next, to save the lame steps, he solemnly carried the penny back to the cash drawer. These transactions were limited strictly to two investments a day. In those early days everyone was "neighbor" to the one in need, especially the widow. Old Judy, whose cottage nestled close to Grandfather's farm village, was not specially in need, but she was a widow. In all the forty-five years that she and Grandma Henry were neighbors, there was never a ripple of misunderstand- ing. They helped each other in sickness, they laughed together in joy. They exchanged garden seeds and quilt patterns; they went to funerals, weddings, welfare trips, together. In their old age they sat and talked of the 160 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA time when there was still an occasional bear on the mountain, when deer came to the wheatfields to graze. When the water was piped down from the spring Judy was provided for; in the summer she had a corner in the cool springhouse; there was always some boy available to pick her cherries. Not far from her house, on railroad property, grew a vine of lucious wild grapes. Those were, by an unwritten law, Judy's grapes. She could not go far afield. When I spent happy summers on that farm I carried many a bowl of soup, or dish of potpie, or plate of shad, to Judy's door. But the giving was not all on one side. Judy, too, was a "neighbor." When sickness and sorrow overtook a family she sat up night after night to smooth the pillow and cool the brow, allowing those who had worked hard all day to get needed rest. She knew the virtues of home remedies, and many a young mother with a teething baby had cause to bless her name. When Grandfather and Grandmother Henry planned a "pole raising" at their cross-roads store, the entire community was invited. Grandma was especially eager that the children might enjoy it: "John, bring Katie and the children. There's going to be a band. That'll be something new for them, something they'll remember." Katie could not go, but John took the children, Mary and Joe, and they did remember, and loved to talk about it when both their heads were gray. Let me try to draw that picture, as Mary drew it for me years afterward: A log cabin. A little girl of ten, dressed in homespun, carries her candle up the uneven stairway, up to her room under the eaves. She kneels by the window and turns a wishful face to the stars. If only, only, it will be clear tomorrow! By the dim light she lays out her Sunday dress of blue figured calico, her hat with the red cabbage rose, her best calfskin shoes. From the bottom of her "bandbox" she brings forth a GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE 161 handbag that she contrived from the best parts of her mother's flowered waist, and opening the drawstring, puts in her new handkerchief. Then from that same treasure-box she takes a roll of old ribbon that was once a bonnet string, and slowly unfolds it. A single glass bead, large and red, strung on a cord of flax, is laid beside the hat. The bonnet ribbon is unwound further. From the very last fold the plump hand takes a shining half dollar. It is the precious piece that the man from the city gave her last winter when her father helped him track a deer. She folds it in the ribbon again, and thoughtfully tucks it into her handkerchief bag. She may need it tomorrow. She slips out of her homespun dress and into an old calico one that serves as nightie. She blows out the candle. Then she kneels once more by the window, and prays that there be no rain tomorrow. Next morning! And sunshine! The little girl in the blue calico dress is trudging with her father and Joe on the abandoned bed of the proposed railroad. The father swings his hickory cane, Joe shies an occasional pinecone at a bird or an insect, the girl carries a parcel wrapped in green grape leaves. Near a spring they stop and sit down on the dry pine straw. The girl lays her little bag on a clean stump, then she unwraps the grape-leaf parcel and, with housewifely air, hands out slices of bread and venison, doughnuts and pickles. She watches in amazement as the last crumb disappears. She had supposed it would be enough for the day. But she says nothing. The father cups his hands and drinks from the spring. Joe does the same. But the girl takes one of the grapeleaves and deftly shapes it into a cup, from which she drinks. She dips her hands into the spring run, then, with a glance at the father and brother already swinging along at a safe distance, she lifts her skirt and wipes her hands on the clean white petticoat. 162 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

As they'come near the end of their journey she tries to groom Joe's unmanageable shock of hair, and flecks the dust off her shoes with a leafy twig. She smoothes down her new dress, and fingers the silk bag once more to be sure that the silver piece is still safe. She puts her hand to her hair to arrange it-but the hand forgets its task. Music! Beautiful beyond description! The three stop without a word, while the glory of it floats gently down, until all the air is filled with bliss. The girl looks into the sky. It must be that the angels are playing their harps, the way they do in the picture in the big Bible at home. Not a word. Scarcely a muscle moves. The sweetness enfolds them. One sharp pang-if only Mother were here! She wonders why her father brushes his cheek with the back of his hand. After the music stops she draws one deep breath; then they walk on again, faster now. When they reach the open road they can hear men calling, and the whinny of horses. At the next turn they see the fringe of the gathering crowd. They arrive just in time. Music again! Much nearer now. Almost before they have found a place by the side of the garden fence, four horses and a wonderful wagon swing around the turn, and into the farmyard with a grand flourish. It is only Mr. Henry's farm wagon decorated with spruce and a few yards of bunting; but to the girl in the blue calico dress it is a royal chariot. And the men who climb down from this chariot! They are all dressed alike-buff coats with bands of black velvet and gold braid; blue pants with the same trim down the seam; visored caps to match, with buff cock- ades. The shining instruments gleam as bright as the silver half dollar that she has polished so often. Some dignified men assemble on the porch of the store and make grand speeches. She understands little, GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE -163 and cares less. She has tried to keep close watch on Joe, as the mother charged her, but has given it up, and yields entirely to pleasure. She tries to count the people, so she can tell mother. It is impossible. Peeping through the picket fence she can see long tables built between the trees of the Henry yard, and women under Mrs. Henry's direction hurrying back and forth, from springhouse and cellar and pantry, carrying dishes that fill one with longing. And all the lunch in the grape leaves gone! The band plays again, and she sees the dignitaries march to the tables. Mr. Henry does not sit down with them, but moves about inviting everybody to come-old and young, fine gentleman and backwoods boy. Her practical mind is vexed with a problem: Where did Mrs. Henry get so much table linen? And so many dishes? But of course there is the store. A voice sounds above her: "Little girl, come, there's a place for you at the table." It is Mr. Henry himself! Soon she finds herself seated on a bench among strangers. The little blue calico child has seldom eaten a meal outside a log cabin; but she cannot yield to timidity; things are too interesting. She must tell mother about the vases of flowers on the tables; the pink eggs that take their color from the beets with which they were pickled; the butter shaped in fancy molds. That on the dish nearest her has the outlines of a beautiful ear of corn; the one farther on is like an apple, framed in its leaves. A sprig of parsley drops from the meat platter to her plate. She wonders whether she ought to eat it. She does not know, so she gradually edges it off, into her lap, and so to the grass. She watches Mrs. Henry as she goes from group to group with a pleasant word, from table to table seeing that there are no empty platters. As the crowd thins out 164 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA she watches for her father. She wonders whethi he has paid for her dinner. She takes- the precious half dollar out of her bag, unwraps it, and goes to Mrs. Henry. "For my dinner," she says. The busy woman pauses, the kindly eyes look into the upturned face: "I believe you are Katie's Mary. Did you have enough dinner? Did you have jelly? And raisin pie? Take a piece of this cocoanut cake." "I can't. I've had more than I can eat." "That's good. Put your money in your pocket. There's nothing to pay." Mrs. Henry takes a handful of cookies from a nearby plate: "Put these in your little bag to eat on the way home." As the grateful child tucks away the cookies, to take to mother, she knows that the angels with their harps can not be more beautiful than Mrs. Henry! With the development of the valley, other stores sprang up, and as Grandfather's time was claimed more and more by new interests, his trading post went out of existence. But the building remained, and became -a real "Country Club," where the men of the neighborhood assembled, regardless of creed or coin. On winter evenings the front door and shutters were tight barred against the north wind; the old cylinder stove glowed a welcome; two kerosene lamps in green paper shades burnt two holes into the darkness, and sent out rays enough to show dimly the background of shelves, the row of overcoats on pegs, the old safe and desk. One or two of the younger men usually lounged near the lamps, reading the day's papers. The group around the stove needed little light. As they puffed their pipes the men discussed the weather, old man Miller's continued illness, Barton's new team, and perhaps one or two items from the paper. But always, before the evening was over, they went back to the past, probably to their hunting days, and the old store was filled with GRANDFATHER'S CROSS-ROADS STORE 165 the jolly laugh of the young fellows, the no less jolly chuckle of the older men. The brown tavern pitcher held fresh water from the spring, there was always tobacco for the man whose pouch was empty, there was a chair and a welcome for everyone; provided, he kept his conversation clean. A newcomer to the group usually sensed the situation. If he did not, and overstepped by word or story, he probably noticed the silence. To make sure that it would not happen again, some man of the group, probably Joe, walked home with him and, in laughing over the evening's stories, found opportunity to say "Yes, we have good times together these winter evenings. But I guess you saw that there was no swearing, and no low talk. Mr. Henry won't stand for that. I've known him since I was a little shaver, worked for him for years, but I've never heard him say anything worse than "By cracky"; and I've seen him pretty cross." On summer evenings the men assembled on the porch overlooking the beautiful valley where

"Out of the sky, out of the sod, There looks the conscious face of God."

As they glanced over the foothills that they loved so dearly if unconsciously, their eyes often wandered to a green hill not far away, a hill dotted with white stones. Today nearly all of them rest on that peaceful hill. TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB The old storeroom had been almost deserted for two evenings, while the March snow fell and the March winds blew. But on the third night Mr. Henry, Junior, laid in an extra supply of coal, trimmed the two lamps with care, split lighters from old shingles and laid them beside the tobacco box. The storm was over, some roads were open, and he hoped one or two of the men would come around. "Stomp! Stamp! Stomp! Flap, flop, flap !" The door opened and in walked Joe, still beating snow from his clothes with his cap. "Hello! I thought I'd have to come see whether you were still here; or whether the storm had blowed you down to the sand spring." "We're here; but you're the first man's come since Monday. And I guess you'll be the only one tonight." "No, I saw somebody coming up the road. I believe it's Mike." "Well if it's Mike, Lizzie had to shovel him out He'd never do it." "Oh yes he would-to come up here. He-" "Stomp, stomp, stomp!" and the swish of a broom outside, while snowy boots were cleaned. "Hello Mike! We thought we'd have to send a committee to dig you out. Old Shider said your chimney was almost-" More stamping and brushing on the porch. Dan and Amos. The men threw their great coats across the far counter so that any lingering snow might dry, and settled them- 166 TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB 167 selves around the stove. Between puffs they discussed the storm and the depth of the snow. "The men on the repair've had a hard time." "Yes, I heard they worked all night. An engine was stuck up in the cut." "Sandy won't come out tonight. I'll bet as soon as he had his supper he . . ." Great commotion outside, and Sandy's jolly face lighted up the doorway. "Hello Sandy !" "Hello Sandy !" in chorus; "We heard you were stuck up here at the turn, and we were coming to pull you out." "Sure I was stuck, me wid me short legs. But Presi- dint Gowan kem along in his private car an''e says, says 'e, 'An is it to the crossroads you're goin', Mister Pat- terson? 'Op in, an' I'll tek ye.' So 'ere I be." The sturdy little Irishman needed only a gray wig and beard to make him look like his own brother to Andrew Carnegie or Santa Claus. He had fought with the storm almost day and night to keep the railroad track open, yet he ploughed through half a mile more of it to join the friendly group around the old cylinder stove. Sandy was doubly welcome in the group. He was likable and witty; and being a newcomer he gave the men an excuse for retelling once more their favorite stories. His comments went uncensored. They were a part of Sandy. He had been shouting to fellow workmen all day, and unconsciously did it now. "Slow down, Sandy, we ain't deef," said Dan. "You remind me of the trick my grandfather and old Lorah played on, their wives. Did I ever tell you that?" No, he had never told Sandy, so the others had to hear it once more. "Grandmother and Lorah's wife were neighbor girls down in Tuscarora but after they were married they didn't see each other for twenty years or so. Then one 168 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA time when grandfather took a load of timber down and stayed over night at Lorah's tavern, Mrs. Lorah made him promise to bring grandmother down for a visit, So the two men planned a trick. "Grandfather warned grandmother that Mrs. Lorah looked old, very old, and dressed very plain. He told grandmother not to put any combs in her hair, nor wear her best bonnet and dress. She could take them along if she wanted to visit anyone else. And she must be sure to remember that Mrs. Lorah didn't like anyone to talk about her being deef. "When they got to the tavern old Lorah took grandmother into the parlor and then sent his wife in. He and grandfather listened at the door. The two women ran to each other and nearly yelled their heads off: 'MY, MY, BECKY, IS THIS YOU?' 'JANE! I'M SO GLAD TO SEE YOU!' 'YOU SHOULD'VE COME WITH JOHN LONG AGO.' 'I DIDN'T KNOW YOU LIVED HERE.' And that way they hollered at each other about their children and their gardens till their ears and their throats nearly cracked. Grandmother said Mrs. Lorah's eyes fair stuck out, and I guess hers did too, so she yelled. 'YOU NEEDN'T STRAIN YOURSELF TO TALK SO LOUD. I HEAR GOOD,' and Mrs. Lorah said, 'Why, ain't you deef?' 'No, ain't you?' "They looked at each other, then they ran for the door. But the men had cleared out. "Lorah had told his wife that she should carry a pipe around with her, and to have plenty of tobacco handy for grandmother; and that she should limp a little because grandmother had rheumatism so, and all such stuff, TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB 1699

"They laughed about it a while, then they went upstairs and combed right, and put on their best dresses. And after supper they went for a ride in Lorah's fine carriage. I heard my grandmother tell it a hundred times." "Lorah?" said Sandy. "A young Lorah works on the repair with me." "That's young Bill, from the Upper Valley." " 'e told me a tale about two graves up there in the woods; something about a deer path." "He's kiddin' you. There ain't no graves up there in the woods." "Hold on, Dan. He's talking about the Zimmerman graves. I know just where they are. Saw them many a time when we were out hunting." "Zimmerman graves it is. That's what 'e called em. "Yes, old Zimmerman, Roly's grandfather, lived in a log house this side of the tunnel. He was a great hunter, and on his deathbed he made them promise to bury him in the pine woods close to the path, so he could hear the pad of the deer's feet when they went to the crick to drink." "But Lorah said there be two graves." "His wife's buried there too. There's a red field stone at the head of each grave. Least there was the last time I saw them." Sandy reflected a minute, pipe arrested in transit: "'Ard on the ole woman. Mebbe she didn't care to be afther huntin' still." "Well I know I wouldn't want to be buried there, in Nigger Holler." "Nigger Holler? An' why do you be callin' any place by that name?" That was Mike's story, by long custom, and no one interfered. H4e knocked the ashes from his pipe and 170 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA laid it on the bench near him. Then he settled in his chair: "Old man Gilbert named that. I heard it from my father. He lived to be ninety-four, that is, old Gilbert did; you can see it on his tombstone down by the Old White Church. But he was young, and there weren't many cabins in that end of the valley when he named Nigger Holler (Negro Hollow). "One evening he came back from hunting and told the men that he had seen a black man standing by a big oak tree near Girard Manor. They didn't believe him. No black man had ever been seen in the valley. They told him he had seen a black stump; but he kept to it that he saw a man. "Then Snyders began to miss apples and cabbage from their ground cellar; and old Peiffer said somebody was taking bran from his feed box. He thought of it too, that in the fall all the potatoes had been dug in one corner of his field. Somebody, I forget who that was, lost sheepskins from a wagon in the shed. Then one night woolen clothes were stolen off a clothes line. So they began to think old Gilbert might be right, and they made up a searching party. "They found some strange tracks near Peiffer's barn, and when they followed them into the woods, they came on several poorly set-up rabbit traps Marks in the snow showed where saplings had been dragged along, and down in the bottom of the hollow they found a hut built of windfalls and pine branches. "They sneaked along as quiet as they could-that wasn't necessary, if they'd known it-but the minute old Gilbert got into the hut the black man grabbed a heavy club. They knocked it from his hand and told him they wouldn't hurt him. But he made signs that he couldn't hear." TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB 171 "Poor divil I" from Sandy. "They made friendly signs, and when he saw he was safe he fell orx his knees and tried to kiss their hands. He took an old iron shovel without a handle off the fire and wanted to give them some of the rabbit he had stewed in it,. and cakes of milk and bran that he had baked on hot stones." "Kin ye beat the loikes of that now!" "He had made his bed of leaves and sheepskins on top of the potatoes and turnips to keep them from freez- ing. He had sheepskins wrapped round his feet too, that's what made the queer tracks. He had some honey in a broken dish, and salt that he had scraped up in the deer licks. He showed them, with a tin blickie, how he used to go into the fields and take milk from the cows. "They motioned him to eat his dinner, but he wouldn't until each one of them took a bran cake. Then he came away willingly; but first he took a little bundle of rags from the corner of his bed and stuck it inside his clothes." "An' what was he afther doin' that for ?" "He showed it to old Gilbert in the evening. He peeled off the rags, and a little clean corn husk, and there he had a framed picture of a little white boy with long curls. He made the motions of carrying him in his arms and trotting him on his knee." "The men got some clothes together for him, and old Gilbert took him down to the poorhouse. I remember my father used to tell that mother Gilbert didn't know what to do with him when mealtime came. But he helped her out. He gave her a plate to fill for him, then he went off to the chimney corner by himself. "That, Sandy, is why it's called Nigger Holler." Amos walked to the door and looked out: "I thought it might snow again, but the moon's shining. The fence 172 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA posts look like ghosts, like those down at the covered bridge." "Ghosts? Ye don't be believin' in ghosts ?" and Sandy looked in surprise from one to the other. "Nobody but Joe here. He helped catch one once," and Mike began to chuckle. "Tell Sandy about Shiner's ghost." Joe took a parting pull at his pipe, and passed his hand over his lips. His very eagerness made him slow to begin. He allowed himself the pleasure of anticipation. "We-e-ll, Sandy, you never knew my father. He was a man of few words, but what he said he meant. We didn't ask questions, or talk back, the way lots of young ones do now. "One evening when I was a chap of about ten he and I went over to Breich's to get some seed corn-I don't believe I ever get seed corn that I don't think of it. When we got there he and old John went to the barn and left me sitting in a corner of the kitchen. Old Moll was their maid, and she and Granny sat by the table peeling apples. They told each other one spook story after another, till my hair stood on end. Moll looked like a witch anyway, with her thin face and crooked nose. She put up her bony finger and pointed it at Granny and said, 'You know I was born on Sunday, at midnight, so I can see more than common."'" "An' who would be believin' that now?" "I did, Sandy, and it nearly raised me up from my chair. I heard my mother say, just the week before, that Uncle George and I were both born on Sunday, at midnight. "I tell you I was glad when my father came back, and I could get away from those croaking old women. I ran all the way down the lane, just to work it off. But down at the turn my father took the old wagon track TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB 173 through the woods and over the log bridge. That took us past three spook places that I knew of." "Over the Dark Run, for one." "Yes, where a ghost flew through the air and grabbed Will Foose's cap off his head." "I heard say that it blew a cold breath in his face, and the next morning he couldn't comb his hair, it stood straight up." "I guess it stood straight up most of the time," continued Joe, "and the limb that brushed his cap off had nothing to do with it. "Well, anyway, you just bet I kept as close behind my father as I could. At the big pine he stopped so short I nearly bumped into him. He told me to listen; see what I could hear. There wasn't anything but what you could hear in any woods at night; but he told me some of the old women said when the moon was in the quarter, like that night, you could hear a baby moan." "But ye heard niver a moan, eh Joe ?" "Never a moan, Sandy. I heard my heart pounding against my ribs, but I didn't tell him that. When we got to the old mill I could just see Moll's face, and hear her croak, 'They say it looks like a g-r-e-a-t b-i-g man with a g-r-e-a-t b-i-g bundle on his back; and he's a-a-li white. Sometimes when anybody goes past he stretches his neck t-e-n feet, and runs toward the mill. I believe it's old Howie, carrying back the wheat he stole." "An' did ye have the pleasure of makin' Mister 'Owie's acquaintance?" "No, I watched with all my eyes, but we got by that mill all right; then we had only one more spooky place- the graveyard. I wasn't so much afraid of that. They did say Lucy Glane had to dance on her own grave just because she danced the night before she died; but I didn't care how long she danced if I didn't have to dance with her." 174 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

"Weren't you afraid old Miller 'd come out to hunt for his money bags ?" "I didn't know anything about him then; but I was glad when we were past. I felt easier, and began to think of a piece of pie, and my bed. But down there where the road from Bahl's comes into this one, there used to be a rickety old house they called Shiner's. When we were nearly in front of it my father stopped and put up his finger. I heard a rap-tap-tap several times; then it was quiet. I wanted to go on, but he stood still; and soon we heard it again. When he said, 'Come on, Joe, we'll see what old Shiner's doing,' my knees began to shake so I could hardly walk. By the time we got to the rotten old porch we heard it again, inside the dark house, and he said, 'You stand here by the door and watch. I'm going to clear this spook out.' I don't believe he'd been scared if he had met the devil himself in that doorway. "Sandy, I wasn't a white-livered boy, but I'll tell you now, no money could've bought me to stand there. But my father had said so. I thought I heard whispers in the dry grass, and saw a spook behind every bush in the yard. There was just light enough to make me see things everywhere I looked. There was no door, only a hole as black as pitch, and smaller holes where the windows used to be. I could hear the crick behind the house and I thought it moaned and groaned like an old man. There was one rap when my father stepped on the stair, then every thing was quiet except his heavy foot. I smelt something, too, and I wondered what brimstone smelled like. I tell you I lived a whole week in the time my father took to stalk up there. I wasn't much afraid for him. He was a big man, with his hickory stick in his hand; but I was only a little boy, born on Sunday, at midnight." "Ah, the poor likes o' ye !" TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB 175

"I remember I looked up at the light in Ludwig's house and wished I was there. But all at once things broke loose upstairs and there was a thundering and a rolling and a tumbling as if the spook had pulled the whole stone quarry over on my father. That was too much for me! I started for home! But my toe caught in the rotten porch and I fell my length. And with that the thing was on top of me. I had always thought spooks were light, floating around like clouds, but this thing had sharp hoofs, and about a thousand of 'em, and it jumped on me with every one. I remember I put my arms over my face as well as I could, so I wouldn't be marked for life. "It seemed to me like an awful long time before that jumping and kicking stopped and I could sit up; and just as I did, a big black thing gave a ba-a-a! from the dark hole and knocked me down harder than ever. Then I was sure my end had come. I lay quite still, afraid to stir; and thinking that I ought to go look for father, when I heard a chuckle and he said, 'Hey, Joe, did the old buck knock you down?' "I tell you that was music in my ears. I ached all over, but I got up and limped along. He told me that Bartles had left a little of last year's hay in the old place and the sheep used to go in there cool nights. Then when they scratched themselves their hoofs tapped on the floor. "But I got some satisfaction out of it anyway. After my black and blue spots had gone away I made up a spook story about it and bragged to the boys that I could see more than common because I was born on Sunday, at midnight." Mr. Henry poked the fire and put on a bit more coal; the men knocked the ashes from their pipes and refilled them. Then the "lighter" was passed from hand to hand. When they had all settled back Amos said,

- 176 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

"Mr. Henry, while I was sitting here I looked at those deer horns your hat's hanging on. I haven't seen many, and never one with a prong growing backward like that." "And you never will," said Mike, as he lifted the lamp to show the odd prong more plainly. "Tell him about them," and although he and Joe had heard the story a dozen times at least, they leaned forward as expectantly as the younger men did. Mr. Henry looked at the antlers a minute, and set the draft in the stovepipe: "When Joe and Mike here and I were young fellows there was a sly old deer around here that nobody could get. We named him Old Buck. We sent the dogs after him, and we stalked him without dogs, and we tried salt licks. But he was too smart for us. He liked to give the dogs a run across the valley and then double on his tracks and wear them out. One day I had my gun and was walking on the railroad track up here above Rattling Run when I heard him coming. The woods was very thick there but I knew about where he'd cross, so I got behind a bush and waited. He didn't come where I thought he would, and the first thing I knew he was by the rail fence, ready to jump. But he saw me and was as much surprised as I was; so there we stood looking at each other. It was the best chance for -a shot I ever had in my life, and I jerked my gun to my shoulder and aimed straight between his eyes. Snap! The gun hung fire! The first time it ever happened with that gun. He ran down by the fence a little way and jumped over in plain sight. I knew it was too far but I sent a shot after him anyway. "That same winter my father got a letter from Phila- delphia that five of the railroad inspectors were coming up this way, and they'd like to have a day's hunting. So we got the dogs together and planned to give them TOLD IN THE COUNTRY CLUB 177 the best time we could."' He chuckled to himself: "Mike, you remember how those fellows were dressed -all kinds of fine hunting clothes. And they had the latest in guns-that's where I saw my first hammerless. But they didn't know more about handling a gun than Fido here, and not as much about a deer, and he's never seen one." Mike was nodding reminiscently. "We told them just what we were going to do, and what they should do, and sent them up the path along Blue Head, to stand about a hundred yards apart. Then we took the dogs and tramped through the valley till we were tired; but the dogs couldnt' pick up a scent. Then Mike started them up toward the big poplar, and in a few minutes we could tell they had raised something. He said, 'I'll bet they've got Old Buck,' and we both fired in the air to drive him toward the men and to give them warning too. "But those city chaps weren't used to hunting, and when they heard the camp meeting coming straight for them every last one of 'em got buck fever. You don't know what that is, Sandy. It means that a hunter gets so excited he just ain't got any sense. Well, those five men got that way, and when Old Buck came along, the first fellow blazed away into the sky, and so did the rest. It's a wonder they didn't shoot each other. We heard bang, bang, bang, till we'd counted six shots; then everything was quiet. We were sure they had him, and nearly ran our legs off up that hill. "And there they stood, looking like fools. He'd run along close to the five of 'em, and they never touched him. Only one thought of it that his gun had two barrels. The others fired only one side. And we couldn't raise another thing all day. "Mark Bitler was hauling for my father, and that evening he stuck to it that when Old Buck crossed the mountain road just ahead of him, the big fellow looked 178 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA down toward Blue Head and wrinkled his muzzle and laughed." "But in the end you and Joe got him, eh ?" "No, Sandy, he was too smart for us. That winter we saw another buck, nearly as big as the old one, and nobody could get him either. He must have come from across the mountain. Then for a long while nobody saw either of them. The next winter Mark went to the big pine swamp to look for a special piece of timber for the boat builders at Pottsville, and when he came home he had these antlers, and another pair. He had found two skeletons lying with their heads together, horns locked. It must be that the two bucks fought, and couldn't get their horns apart, and died there. He had a hard time getting them apart, even then." The men relighted dead pipes, drew on their great coats, and said goodnight. Walking home with the younger man Joe stopped on a little rise of ground, Joe, who so seldom gave anyone a glimpse into his inner self: "Sandy, I like to stand here and look over to that hill, 'specially on moonlight nights, when you can see the white stones. Over there lie the fellows that used to be with us, those we talk about. Mark lies there; and old Mr. Henry, the best friend I ever had. Jake Croll went through the war with me-as far as Cold Harbor. We sent his body home. "Old Culp gave me the first ten cents I ever earned in my life; and near his grave is Rumble, that used tc live neighbor to me. Just below the big oak tree lies my Henry, that went to France." OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN With the ink scarcely dry on his diploma from the University of Pennsylvania, he came to the village in the valley. No need for him to buy a practice. The practice was reaching out appealing hands from village homes, from comfortable farm houses, from lonely cabins. Before the young Doctor had time to unpack his slender store of medicines or arrange his office they came-one with a hacking cough; another suffering night and day with a deep-seated pain; an old woman with the appealing look that said, "Oh, tell me I am not going blind !" Mothers carried him their blue- faced babies, starving from malnutrition; husbands brought wives who were making a desperate fight for life that they might stay with their little ones. One evening, before the Doctor had been in the valley two weeks, a woodsman rode to the hotel door on a horse flecked with foam. He begged the young physician to come as fast as he could, to a cabin far up the valley, where a wood chopper- lay slowly bleeding to death. While the Doctor gathered the necessary equipment into his bag, willing hands hitched the small black horse to the carriage and brought it round to the door. Then physician and woodsman started up the valley. They made good time on the country road; then they turned into a cart track. They cut across fields, opening and closing the bars by the light of a lantern. Once they lost their way, and lost precious minutes groping along a stump fence, looking for the bars. Finally they left their horses in a logger's shelter, and made the rest of 179 180 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA the way on foot. The woodsman carried the instru- ment bag with almost reverent care as they climbed the hill toward a guiding candle that flickered in the window. A young woman met them at the door, and, with one imploring look, led them to the bed where her man lay. She and the old woman with her had gathered spider webs and matted them over the wound before they bound it up as best they could; they had held cloths of cold water on it; the old woman had used all her magic arts; then they had sent for old man Snyder, who claimed he could "quiet blood"; but his conjury had helped as little as hers. The red stain grew always larger. Now the old woman sat quiet in a corner; but the wife moved restlessly, fixing the covers, placing a chair, bringing a cup of fresh water-and always watching that stain. She paid no heed to the baby crying in its hooded cradle. To the anxious wife the Doctor said, "Light half a dozen candles and set them in -saucers all around here, to give me good light." To the older woman, "Take up the baby and walk with it, so it won't disturb him." A few questions, then, to spare the wife, and give her an outlet for her nervousness, he said, "Take the lantern and get a bucket of water from the spring. It must be very clean, so you had better dip it up carefully with the gourd." He asked the woodsman to help him; but after a very few minutes the hardy young fellow staggered to the door, limp and faint. It was the old herb woman who helped with the dressing, and removed all unsightly traces before the wife could see. Then the Doctor turned to the petulent baby. As gently as a woman he went over the little body with his skillful fingers. "Your baby is tired out, and has a cold in its bowels. Keep it wrapped in flannels, and give it warm catnip tea every two hours. And you must get OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 181 some rest." To Granny he said, "You ought to come and help me. I need somebody that can do things the way you do them." High praise, from a great person- age! It kept her happy for months. By the flickering light of the lantern, the two men made their way back to the waiting horses. Inside the cabin all was soon quiet. The injured man breathed regularly, the baby slept in the cradle. The old woman rested on a bench covered with sheep pelts, hugging to her heart the compliment she had received. Close by the bed sat the young wife dozing, a smile on the face where there had been distress. Her man was safe. All up and down that valley the worried mother, the troubled wife, learned to look to "The Doctor" for help, and never looked in vain. Even when there was no hope, and he told her the truth, he helped her see that death was kinder than life if life meant only misery and suffering. Many of the settlers spoke Pennsylvania German, and especially when they were tired or worried, it was hard for them to think or speak in English. The Doctor could speak the dialect, and always took time to explain, in language they could understand, the nature of the illness and the necessary treatment. Hearing it all in the familiar tongue was in itself a comfort. He discouraged all forms of pow-wow and conjury; but he did not frown on the simple home remedies on which they had relied in the early days. He was a psychologist. When he knew there was no hope for Katharine Ru- pert's baby he still allowed her to fry a salve of balsam buds and sweet butter to use when the little one was stronger. The Doctor came to the valley during the early days of the War between the States, and as he saw one man after another leave wife and children, or father and mother, to follow the Flag, his mind was troubled. He wanted to go, or at least he felt he ought to go. But 182 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA who would take care of his sick? He thought of writing to his father for advice, or to one of his old professors; but he was accustomed to think things through for himself. One moonlight night he went out to Uncle Johnny's woods on the edge of town, and walked slowly back and forth, back and forth, over and over again. Sud- denly he turned and walked home with a firm step. Late as it was he went to the home of Samuel Linden- muth, who was leaving for the front next morning, and called him to the porch: "Sam, for weeks I've been wondering what I ought to do, go with you fellows or-" "Oh Doctor," interrupted Sam, "you mustn't leave our families-" "I'm staying. I made up my mind a few minutes ago. And I came to tell you that while you're out there I'll look after your wife and children, and your old folks, just as well as I can. Tell the other fellows out there too." Sam tried to answer. No sound came from his lips. His hand grasped that of the other man until it hurt. Then he went to the barn. By staying at his post the Doctor lessened the worry and homeward pull for every man who went, and so made of each a better soldier. Like the boys at the front, he endured many forced marches in all kinds of weather; he too was on lonely picket duty many a dark hour; more often than the soldier he battled hand to hand with the enemy. No charges were entered on the books for attendance on a soldier's family. Some of those who came back grew prosperous, accumulating more than the Doctor did. If they came to pay their bills a moderate charge was made; if not, no bill was ever sent them. OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 183

Mile and weary mile the Doctor drove in the night, through the snow and sleet of Pennsylvania winters, often to hovels far from the main road. Many a time I heard Father say to Mother at breakfast. "Did you hear a horse gallop past during the night? Someone must have gone for the Doctor.', "Yes. And I heard his carriage go by a little later. I hope he didn't have to go far. It was a bitter night." On one such night my Grandfather, out in the country, heard shouts and calls: "Hello! Hello! Who lives here? Can you bring me a lantern ?" "Yes, Doctor, I'll be out in a minute." The spirited horse, Princess, was fagged with the night's work, ice and snow clinging to the arched neck and the proud head. The harness was tangled, the carriage lanterns had gone out, the robes were piled with snow. In helping the horse through a drift the Doctor had lost cap and gloves. He too, was worn out. Yet he saw to it that Princess was properly stabled before he went in to the bright fire and hot coffee waiting in Grandmother's kitchen. On another wild night the Doctor accepted the invitation to stay at the home of a farmer whose wife was ill. He was put into a northwest bedroom, seldom used, leagues away from any stove. The bed was biting cold, with a cellary dampness; but there was a fat feather- bed. Gradually the Doctor's body warmed a spot for itself, and he fell asleep. A smart sting on his ankle half waked him, and he sent down an investigating hand -which promptly got a similar sting. He lost no time getting out of that bed. In trying to find his match case he walked into various pieces of furniture. At last he gave it up and called, "Bill! Bill! Bring a light. The witches are in this bed!" 184 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA When Bill came they found the bed crawling with wasps that had been thawed from their winter sleep by the warmth of the Doctor's body. Busy as he was, the Doctor took an interest in all forward looking movements in the valley. In his early days he helped organize a dramatic club, and took the part of Powhatan in a pretentious performance. He was the first secretary who kept minutes of the proceed- ings of the schoolboard, and afterwards for many years its President. His tact and his position in the community prevented many a trying situation for the teachers. One day a hotel keeper and his son stopped him on the road and began a tale about the local teacher. He broke in on the recital: "Tommy, I'm in a hurry. Will you run up the lane and leave this bottle of medicine for Mrs. Schell ?" When the boy had gone he turned to the father: "Reilly, with my own children I've found it best to stand by the teacher, and never say a word against her in their hearing. She's got a pretty hard job. Tom, have you ever thought how you'd like to be penned up ,with forty children, from different homes, five days every week?" "Ugh !" groaned Tom, at the very thought, "me own near sets me crazy. Many an evening I says to the wife, 'Maggie, if ye can't keep them young uns quiet it's to the barn I'm goin', or to the store.'" When the Doctor had driven on, Tom held converse with his son-who was not a little surprised to notice a decided change in his father's attitude. The Doctor was President of the "Agricultural and Industrial Association" of the valley. When the bank was established in the village, his was the only name proposed for the Presidency. To these, and many other offices, he brought a dignity and a poise that were an elevating, if unconscious, influence throughout the OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 185 valley. The tribute of Senator Hoar to an associate might well be paid to our physician and friend: "He was, in the first place, always a gentleman; and a true gentleman gives tone to any company in which he is found, whether it be among the rulers of -states, or the humblest gathering of friendly neighbors." The Doctor joined these "humblest gatherings of friendly neighbors" at the Celebration in Uncle Johnny's grove, the Exhibition in the hall, the county fair, whenever he could snatch an hour from his duties. He mingled freely with the men, and always had a fund of jolly stories. Yet there was that about him which re- strained familiarity. He was The Doctor. Three horses were kept for his work, but he never thought of sparing himself. During thirty years he took only two days' vacation-at the Philadelphia Cen- tennial. Night and day, summer and winter, in snow or hail or blistering heat, he drove up and down and across that valley, always listening to complaints, always giving of himself in order to put fresh courage into the invalid and the family. Sunday, the day of rest for others, was the hardest day of the week for him, the day on which the farmers took time to bring their ailing to his office. Rugged as his body was, one wonders how he endured, how his spirit kept its poise. At least half his life-work was done before the day of anti-toxin, of the X-ray, of sanitary and health education, before the time of the automobile. Graduate nurses were unknown in his territory. I doubt if a soul could be found in all that valley who could take a temperature, or know what it meant when it was taken. During a scourge of diphtheria he worked night and day for three weeks, with only snatches of sleep, most of them in his carriage while another man drove. One family lost five children in two weeks. When their last 186 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA one was taken ill he visited it in the morning and, after a hard day, returned to fight all night. A losing fight he knew it was; but he thought of the mother. Ignorance and superstition interfered with his work many a time, especially in the early days. He might have a patient well on the way to recovery, then suddenly face a relapse, only to find that in his absence his treatment had been displaced by a neighborhood "pow-wow" whose mumblings and passes healed the body not at all, and had a depressing effect on the mind. Another handicap was the habit of visiting the sick. In pioneer days this was necessary, one woman often going long distances through the forest to help another. But in the Doctor's time it had developed into a vice, just as funeral feasts had. No matter how strict his orders, they were seldom obeyed. "It's a bad sign if they're better on Sunday" was a superstition that proved true all too frequently because on Sunday the sick were literally visited to death. A man near the Henry home, who had been seriously ill, turned the corner and was much improved at the end of the week. Passing by the cottage on Sunday Mr. Henry was amazed to see the two rooms crowded with visitors, the overflow spilling to the porch and yard. They were chatting, joking, smoking, oblivious of the fact that they were robbing the patient of the air, the strength, the quiet, he so much needed. He died during the night. One day a boy galloped to the office and sputtered breathlessly that a woman in the upper end of the valley had, in coughing, lodged a pin in her throat. Hurrying to her relief, the Doctor found her surrounded by a flock of women, each more excited than the other, each with a more ridiculous remedy than the other's. He could find no trace of a pin in her throat, no scratch, no mark; yet she could feel it distinctly. As he stooped OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 187 over her he noticed a pin lying in the folds of her waist. It was like the one she so gaspingly described-long, thick, yellow. The Doctor's suspicions were aroused. Had she really swallowed the pin, or had she frightened herself into thinking so, and into feeling pain? He searched the throat again, most caretuily.carefully. No sign oxof a pin. Yet he had to do something. Suddenly he announced that he could see the point of it, which was quite true, and if she kept very quiet he could relieve her. He called for a basin of water, a towel, the camphor bottle, and laid out impressive instruments. Then he requested that, as this was an ex- tremely delicate task, requiring good light and perfect quiet, he and the woman he left alone. Curiosity longed to stay. But the Doctor was the type of man who said, "Go! and she goeth." He placed the woman in strong light, which naturally made her close her eyes. Then he quietly picked the pin from her dress, the while he worried her throat with the forceps, gave a quick pinch, threw pin and forceps, stained with a bit of blood, into the basin. "There, we've got itit!" !" "Oh Lord! Doctor you've saved my life. Oh what a relief! Now I can breathe again." The women flocked in, and looked at the pin as at a miracle. One venturesome soul fished it from the water, wiped it carefully, and laid it in a covered glass dish, to be shown to astonished friends. Oh, what a relief to them all! The deliverer gave- solemnsolerrm directions about rinsing and resting the throat, and went his way, promising to stop when he passed that way. The Doctor frequently called on a semi-invalid of the Henry family, and his hearty "Well William, what's been happening to you?" was in itself tonic. Then, 188 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA after listening to the trouble-"I guess we can stop that; I've got something new here, and you'll -feel better before night.' How's that horse you' bought from Brown? I'll bet he can't beat Princess." He told a bit of news, called out a hunting story, and was gone. Probably he had been out of his carriage only ten minutes; but he had radiated efficiency and cheerful- ness that brightened the whole day, often the wakeful night. The Doctor was often called to the rapidly growing mining town across the mountain, and during Mollie Maguire times this was risky business. Several weeks after the riot in which the Irish boy was killed the Doctor's horse was stopped just after he had left the town. By the light of his carriage lanterns he could make out the forms of three burly men. One held the horse, the two came to either side of the buggy. They flashed a dark lantern in his face: "You're Dr. R- I'm thinkin'." "Yes, that's my name." "You're the doctor what held the meetin' over young Lavelle when he was shot over in your-town?" "Yes, I'm the coroner, and that was my duty." "Here's a subscription we're gettin' up for his mother." He gladly emptied his pockets into the waiting hands, without making any effort to prove that the money would really go to the mother. Many an encounter the Doctor had with the lawless band, so many that a record of them would be monotonous; but the encounters were far from monotonous. The men grew bolder and bolder. If Pink- erton's men had long delayed their exposures the Doctor would have shared the fate of other Mollie victims. He knew it. Yet night or day, he went wherever duty called him. OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 1899

As his family grew up the Doctor enjoyed having their friends at the home, where, from his busy office he could hear their music, their fun, and see them dotted over the lawn. One holiday afternoon a group of us, now living far from the loved village, gathered on the lawn to take snapshots. Although the waiting-room was filled with patients, we asked the Doctor to spare us a few moments. He was as happy to be included as we were to have him. When the group was ready he stole out by the side door, posed with us, was snapped three times, and hurried back to his duties. When we checked up with our mothers later we found that, of the nineteen young people in the group, the Doctor had watched over seventeen of us, not only at birth, but through all our childish diseases. He had vaccinated us, fished buttons out of throats, beans out of nostrils, relieved green-appleitis, and more serious ailments. Late in life the Doctor sat one day with a group of younger men who fell to discussing old man Shaler. Sorrow and disappointment had come to the old farmer, and he had grown careless about some things, including his bills. The Doctor listened to the boys, smoking quietly, until someone ventured. "You've got a good big bill on your books, I have no doubt." "Boys" said he, ignoring the implied question, "let me tell you something. You don't know John Shaler. When I came to the valley, with no experience, and little courage, John was a prosperous young farmer-and he was one of my first friends. When I needed sound advice I went to him. When I found a soldier's family without potatoes, or firewood, I told him. We two are the only Masons in the valley; we joined at the same time. 190 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

"After I had been here a number of years I was elected County Coroner. But that was during the hard times of the late seventies, just after several banks in this county had gone under and carried three out of every four of our big farmers with them. Everybody was shy about signing papers; and I had to find three bondsmen. That Coronership meant more to me than you can realize; but I couldn't bring myself to ask the first bondsman. One day I met John near Hart's mill -I could show the spot in the road today. He shook hands and said he was proud for me, and proud for the valley. I told him I was pleased too, pleased and worried; that I had to get three good men's names to my paper, and with so few farmers left who were not in trouble. I didn't know whether I could do it. 'Doctor,' he said in his quiet way, 'I've made it a rule of my life never to sign another man's paper. But have you got it with you?' Right there in the road he signed it, without asking a question. And after that it was easy to get the other two. "I haven't forgotten that. And nothing that John Shaler can evef do wnll make me forget it." All too thoughtlessly three generations of us accepted the public service, the friendship, the untiring labor, of our beloved physician. We were surprised when he installed a young assistant in his office; and when we sent a call we said, "Tell the old Doctor to come himself." We noticed that he was growing thinner; that his hair was white, come to look at it; that he spent more time at home on the porch. Then one day he laid him down, and he who had ministered so faithfully to others, now needed minis- tering unto. The funeral procession passed between lines of school children, come to pay tribute to the man OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 191 who, more than any other, had worked always to open new doors of opportunity for them. Out of the valley there passed the physical being, the presence, the voice we had known so long. But

"For years beyond our ken The light he left behind him Lies upon the paths of men."

We sometimes glimpsed a fraction of the Doctor's hardships; we seldom realized that a generous share also fell on the slight shoulders of his gentle wife. While he was battling with disease, floundering through snowdrifts, outwitting the Mollies, where was she? Cosily and unconcernedly sleeping? Those nights were often longer for her than for him, sometimes nearly as hazardous. He tried to keep from her all knowledge of his adventures and narrow es- capes; but intuition, and an occasional remark over- heard, were sufficient to keep her wakeful and anxious. Watching over her little ones, she spent the night sleeping, waking, peering into the storm, listening for his carriage, answering a midnight call at the door. The home life was of necessity adjusted to the de- mands of the office. Meals had to be kept hot; personal pleasures, trips, visiting, an evening at home together, all had to give way before the call of duty. The word vacation was as foreign to the wife as it was to the Doctor. When a patient fainted in the office, when an emer- gency case came in, or a woman needed a cup of hot coffee before she faced the long journey home, it was to the wife he turned. Gentle and refined, she disciplined her children in a quiet but effective way. One day when she had a caller the sturdy boy on her knee got stubborn, and - -- - l -

192 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA struck out with vigorous arms, legs, and voice. She made no scene. She simply laid the youngster on the floor, drew the dark shades, and invited her caller to another room. As she closed the door on the little fellow she said, "Bumping his head on the floor won't be any fun when there's no one to see." It was not long before a thoroughly subdued little boy came looking for his mother; but he had to apologize to both women before he could be again taken on her knee. Sitting on the porch in the late afternoon of life with a friend, she talked of the Doctor's early experiences and hardships. "But Mrs. Rt , what about yourself? Those must have been hard nights for you too?" "Yes," she admitted, "sometimes they were. I was always afraid of burglars and of the Mollie Maguires." "Did they ever come?" "I saw men prowling around at different times, but nothing ever happened, so I guess they were either drunk or scared off by somebody. The thing I dreaded most of all was to answer the door when someone rang the bell or pounded. The office boy went home in the evening, and I never woke the maid." "Couldn't you take night messages from your window ?" "I tried sometimes, but I nearly always had to go down in the end. And after that I had to keep awake to tell him before he unhitched the horse. I used to wrap up in a blanket and sit by the window. If I got too sleepy I walked in the hall, where it was cold." "Why -didn't you arrange a signal with a light, and put a note beside it? Then you could have gone to bed." She smiled. "You see, I wanted to tell him what they had said about the case; and fix hot coffee."

., OUR BELOVED PHYSICIAN 193

"One cold night, just after I had sent him off for the second time, and had gone back to bed, there was a loud pounding on the door. I tried to talk from the window, but the air blew in on the crib, so I went down. There stood a great big miner, and I saw in a minute that he was drunk. He wanted to see the Doctor, and wouldn't believe me when I said he wasn't home. He told me he knew he was in the house, but that I didn't want to call him. The more I said, the crosser he got. We were in the outer office and I stood with my back to the door, so I slipped the key to the outside. When he struck his fist on the table till the lamp danced, I stepped to the hall and locked hinm in. Then I ran to mv room and waited. I was afraid he would set fire to the house, or get at the medicine shelves. When the Doctor finally did come the man lay on the floor by the stove, fast asleep." The Doctor's days were filled with variety, adventure, meeting and mingling with the world. The wife's days, and nights too, were so much alike that the story of those fifty years is soon told. Watching over the babies, making home a happy, restful place, teaching the growing children to spare their father by anticipating his wishes and his needs-these do not make a thrilling story. Yet it was the solicitous care of this gentle wife that made it possible for the Doctor to render the un- stinting service he gave to humanity for more than half a century. THE OLD WHITE CHURCH From my earliest memory it was called old, though it is not very old, even as American churches go. My Grandfather helped hew the timbers that went into its framing, my Mother saw the laying of the cornerstone when she was five. I think the word old was first used as a term of affection, rather than one of description. The Old White Church evokes reverent and tender memories in the minds of all who have come under its influence. It was established and built by our pioneer forefathers, and the devoted sacrifices that went into its construction helped to create an atmosphere about the place that will outlive the timber of its walls. Tradition says that in the days of my great-grandfather, when the surrounding hills and valleys were dense forest, dotted here and there with a pioneer's clearing, a baby died in a cabin near the present site of the church. The mother was not willing to let her little one be taken miles and miles away to a cemetery, so they laid it within sight of the house, under an oak tree on the edge of the woods. When another baby died, farther up in the hills, its little body was placed beside the first one. It seemed less lonely that way. Then an old grandfather was laid to rest beside them. Grad- ually the trees were cut back, and the spot became a burying ground. The forest paths that led past "God's Acre" slowly developed into forest roads, and later into the present crossroads. Teamsters crossing the mountain with their loads of timber looked down on an increasing number of gashes in the wilderness-clearings cut by new settlers. The 194 THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 195 tiny columns of smoke arising from fireplaces were growing in number. And before each one of these wide hearths played groups of children, also growing in number. These children must not be allowed to grow up in ignorance, so "someone with the love of God in his heart" started a movement which resulted in a log schoolhouse set up close to the place where the cart tracks crossed. Whenever a teacher could be secured the children had a school. Funerals were conducted in the schoolhouse. And soon it came about that whenever a preacher could be induced to come across the mountain, there was a Sunday service. Year by year new settlers came into the forest; year by year the older settlers became more comfortably established, less bound by necessity. The congregation outgrew the log schoolhouse, and a meeting was held, looking toward the building of a church. The congregation was about equally divided, Lutheran and Re- formed, and the church was to be built and used "Union". A committee of three was appointed to secure infor- mation and present plans. These men visited older churches, in the vicinity of Reading and York-an arduous journey-and rendered a report. A minority group felt that a simple log house was all they needed and all they could afford. The majority, especially the committeemen, were in favor of a "board" church, carefully designed, to be a credit to the community. One Sunday pledges were solicited for the new church. Very little money found its way into the remote valley, and very little money was pledged. Yet the settlers gave liberally. And this was the manner of their giving: 196 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

"I'll haul the stones for the foundation; and give two loads of the finest boards I have, for the pulpit and Altar." "Joe and I'll bring all the sand for the mortar and plaster." "I can give ten days' work, and a load of shingles- and two dollars." "I'll bring half the heavy timber, and pay for the door latches and hinges." "I'll come ten days, and help anywhere I can." This from a very lame man. "Joe Foose's widow told me to say she'd give one dollar, and her ox team for five days' hauling." Then they went home; and from forest and field each man selected of his best, to be used in thehallowed building. - In like manner, when the men assembled to dig the trenches, to build the foundation walls, to raise the framework, each man gave himself at his best. The rough woodsman tempered his language while he hauled stones for the sacred foundation; the master builder controlled his feelings when a volunteer carpenter bungled a job. The farmer who had a reputation for being close, offered seed-grain to the struggling newcomer who worked by his side. When the building stood complete the congregation had cause for rejoicing. This beautiful house was their church, far more truly than if they had gone down into their pockets, or to a check book, and paid strangers to draw the plans, buy the materials, and do the work. Every stone in the foundations had been gathered in their own fields, by their own hands, and brought in their own wagons. Every foot of lumber had been cut within sight of the church, some almost within calling distance. It had been sawed in the mill by the brook where they went fishing; the horses that hauled it were THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 197

the same that brought them to the completed church. Every great wooden pin in the framing, every dowel in the woodwork, had been shaped by their own hands. Something from every farm, something from every home, had, been wrought into the fabric of the building. It was their House of God. Ladies' Aid societies were not known in those days, but Grandma and the other women of the community had a hand in the furnishing and plenishing of the church, probably even in its building. They made the silk pouches with bells that were on the long collection poles; they provided the altar cloths and pulpit covers. In the fulness of time they procured the pretty green- and-red carpet in the chancel. They saw to the cleaning and care of the building, especially when a christening, a -wedding, or a confirmation was to be celebrated. A Lutheran preacher came once a month, a Reformed the same, so there was a service every two weeks. Both these men rode miles and miles through the forest in the performance of this duty, and their salary was very small. But when they rode away on Mondays their saddlebags were filled with the best produce available. The services were attended by the members of both congregations, and by the few members of other de- nominations who lived in the valley. Only on Com- munion Sunday could one tell who was Lutheran, who Reformed. I doubt whether, even at that sacrament, a member of the other denomination had been denied, had he presented himself. At one service a little boy followed his father unnoticed. When the wafers were passed the whitehaired Minister placed one in the chubby, outstretched hand, saying as he did so, "Who among you is more worthy than this child?" The church is a monument to the good taste and self-denial of those who reared it. It is a simple, dignified building. Three doors, one on the east side, one mmmm

198 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA on the south, one on the west, open directly into the body of the church. The aisles meet in front of the Altar, and divide the pews into four distinct sections. A tier of seats rises in the gallery that occupies three sides, the cathedral windows and tall pulpit on the fourth side. The congregation was seated strictly according to age and sex. One of the downstairs divisions was occupied by the older men; across the aisle sat the old women. Then the married women; and to the preacher's right, the girls. But careful as the old church fathers were, in one detail they were caught napping; they put the young men in the gallery on the preacher's left. Now what demure damsel, however well behaved, could resist looking past the preacher, to some sturdy young woodsman in the gallery, right in her line of vision? What young fellow, with eyes to see, could keep them on the old man when just beyond was-paradise? Promotion from the girls' to the married women's pews was often the occasion for a bit of friendly teasing. When my Mother tried to make her advent into the married section as quietly as possible, the women for a time refused to admit her, while the congregation smiled. This division into sections resulted in a scattered household. My husband's people all came to church in the family carriage; but at the gate they separated. Grandfather went to his appointed place, Grandmother to hers. Father, mother, sister, brother, each went to a different section; while he went to the organ loft. The seven persons went to seven corners of the church. I recall, as a child, hearing of a near scandal when a young man and a young woman, strangers, entered the church together, and sat side by side in the women's section, THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 1,99

These hard-working pioneers attended services faithfully; but mingled with the idea of worship was a strong social urge. Many of them spent the entire week working alone in field or in cabin. The church was a social center. Toward it moved, on a fair Sunday, a varied assemblage. Let us watch a few of the groups. Down the public road comes one of the early settlers, now prosperous, his wife beside him on the seat of the light-weight spring wagon, the smaller children sitting on straw in the wagon box. The older children prefer to walk, joining friends on the way. The wagon over- takes a young mother carrying her baby, and the children move closer to make room for her. Down the rough mountain road bounces a heavy cart carrying a young husband and wife with their first baby. They live to see the day when they drive down that same road, well-graded now, behind a fine span of horses. Through forest paths come men carrying stout canes, even an occasional gun, and women leading children. Sometimes, not often, two young people, not yet married, have the temerity to walk to church together. More frequently they join a group. One such group starts in the Upper Valley, where a brother and his sister take the path across the fields to the nearest neighbors. Each is dressed in "Sunday" clothes, except shoes, which are old. Sunday shoes are carried for the present. At the next cabin they are joined by two girls and a boy, and all follow the cart track through the woods. At the dead pine a rosy- cheeked girl is waiting for them, her skin pink and white in spite of hard work and coarse food, or because of it. She carries the only pair of shoes she owns. She doesn't know how pretty she is; but one of the boys, at least, knows. 200 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA By the time they reach the public road the party numbers eight, and they trudge along merrily until they reach the last hill, almost in sight of the church. Here they slip through an opening in the stump fence, to their "beauty parlor," under a large oak tree. The old shoes are removed and the Sunday ones put on. Dust is shaken from clothes, stray locks are pinned under bon- nets, and a general grooming takes place. The old shoes are hidden in a hollow stump. Meantime the boys have changed their shoes, or dusted them with branches of leaves. They wash their hands in the stream that trickles from the spring. Then the less bashful ones fashion big leaf-cups to offer a drink to the girls. One boy in the group suffers agony trying to muster courage to offer a drink to the rosy- cheeked girl of the dead pine. He can't do it-and sees her smile at the boy who can. Some of the girls bathe their hands in the cool spring run. There are no towels. They simply turn their backs to the crowd and use their petticoats. At the churchyard gate the boys and girls separate. They have come early, but already the benches on the shady side of the church are filled with women and their babies, talking about their gardens, the winter's spin- ning, the report that Sallie and John are going to be married. The girls go into the church and take their places. Occasionally a lone woman passes into the adjoining cemetery, making her way straight to a small mound. She clears away any weeds that have sprung up, dry leaves, or rubbish. Her strong, work-inured hand smoothes the green sod. She knows just what kind of stone she will put there with the small savings from her butter-and-egg money. In the shade of the great tulip tree the men discuss crops, the rich bee-tree old man Brobst found, Laben- THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 201 berg's barn raising. Old Eisenhauer, the postmaster, arrives and from his hat takes three letters and a tiny newspaper, which he distributes to the proper men. (It would be little short of a scandal for a woman to get a piece of mail.) A saddle-bag postal route has lately been established, arriving twice a week provided the weather does not interfere; and this is a convenient distributing center. Someone sees the old white horse of the old white minister approaching, so the women move inside, careful not to wake their babies. The older men linger to greet the minister, then form a trailing escort into the church. When all are settled the old song leader reads the first line of a hymn, then the line is sung in solemn meter. Another line is intoned, and sung. So on, through the long hymn; during which time the preacher slowly ascends the flight of steps to the high pulpit. * If his droning voice sends a few heads nodding, no one is disturbed, at least not ordinarily. But one warm day when Mrs. Kuhl is dozing peacefully, a series of mishaps befall the minister. A breeze blowing through the open window gently rolls his handkerchief off the reading desk. As he leans forward to watch it flutter to the floor below his glasses slip from his nose and follow the piece of linen. He grabs for them, but only succeeds in shoving the great red Bible from the desk. It falls to the floor, bang! Mrs. Kuhl, disturbed so suddenly in her pleasant oc- cupation, jumps to her feet and shrills, "Oh, my Lord, the Preacher! !" She has been startled into thinking he has fallen from his high perch. Grandma Henry, who sits beside her, jerks her back into the pew. Two Elders carry the preacher's errant belongings up the narrow flight of steps; and everyone tries to behave as if nothing had happened. 202 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

One day there came a change in the slow, hesitant singing-the day that Mrs. Dahl walked into the married women's section, Mrs. Dahl, the pendulum of whose life swung from one extreme to the other, and back again. From her home far back in the hills she and her husband drove to church behind a pair of oxen, the cart filled with children. Surrounded by them she walked into the church and took her place in the front pew. Mother and children were dressed in homespun of their own growing, shoes made -from the leather of their own cattle. Hard work and privation had put their stamp on a face that still bore traces of beauty and culture, on the slender shoulders, the small, calloused hands. Presently the hymn was announced. When the audience rose Mrs. Dahl laid her baby in the arms of an older child, then stood transformed, and led the singing in a way that thrilled her audience. No need for choir leader or organ when she was in church. With a voice of rare quality and beauty she sang, "Ehr sei dem Vater und dem Sohn" in a way that stimulated to their best all who had the slightest ability to sing. For a brief period she was the peer of them all. What lay behind the strange contrast? Back in the days of her childhood this woman had lived in a city, the cherished daughter in a home of refinement and culture. Her father was a man of means, with various business interests. He took into his employ a young man of character and ability, who soon became manager of one department. When he asked for the hand of the accomplished daughter, the father accepted him not only as a son-in-law, but as a business partner. There were a few happy years. Then the snake entered Eden. The young husband died. THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 203

When the widow married the man whom we have seen bringing her to church in an ox cart, her family disowned her. She was, however, allowed to take with her the beautiful wardrobe and the chest filled with silks and other fine fabrics which her first husband had delighted to bring her when he made business trips to Philadelphia. Velvet evening dresses, satin slippers, lace scarfs, were not in keeping with life on a stump-dotted clearing; but she always found a safe corner somewhere in the crowded home for the carefully packed chests. Once each year she exhibited exquisite old gowns at the county fair. On the lean and stony farm, far from neighbors, her life was given to childbearing and unceasing toil. Did she ever, on a dreary winter day, when her husband was safe in the barn at his threshing, turn the key to those chests, and look at the beautiful clothes? One night came a messenger to tell her her father had died. She walked a mile to ask a neighbor for his horse, on which she put the side saddle her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. By the light of a candle she opened the chests, selected rich black materials and such things as she would need, and rode half the night to a dressmaker and milliner. Then she rode to the home of her girlhood. When the funeral services were over, knowing that she had been disinherited, she asked of her people one privilege-to be allowed to go to the piano. To her own accompaniment she sang, "Home, Sweet Home," as no one in that house had ever heard it sung before. When she rose, all eyes were dim-all but her own. Then she mounted her horse, and rode back to the home in the hills. Toiling, perhaps rejoicing, sorrowing, she reared her children to manhood and womanhood, buried some 204 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA of them, and her husband. Hard work and strict economy had improved the farm, but it was still isolated. One day mining engineers came over the shoulder of the mountain and asked her permission to make tests on the farm. They set diamond drills to work that bit down, down, through layer after layer of soil and rock, sending up specimens of what they found. The men studied the smooth cores sent up by the drill; the old woman went about as usual, looking to the care of her cattle and her fields. More men came. Then two automobiles made their way up the winding road. After they had spent hours around the drills and in the nearby fields they called her from her garden. Her stony farm covered rich de- posits of anthracite coal. Once more she was wealthy. Time brought changes in the White Church. One by one vacancies occurred in the pews, mostly in the old peoples' sections. After a respectful period of time had passed these vacancies were filled by men and women from other pews, whose own dark hair was turning gray. In spite of vigorous opposition from a few conservatives, an organ was set up in the rear gallery. On the first Sunday after it was installed, as young Mrs. Henry and her four-year-old son stepped through the door beneath the gallery, someone began playing the new in- strument overhead, all stops open. The child evidently belonged to the conservatives. He clutched wildly at his mother's skirt and sang out, for all to hear, "Mother, we better go ho-o-ome !" She hurried him out of doors, but he refused to be comforted. No, no, he would not go in there. He wanted to go ho-ome. His understanding father took his hand and they walked home together. Gradually, as on following Sundays the little fellow sat on his mother's footstool during the service, munch- THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 205 ing cookies or mints his sensitive soul learned to enjoy the music. When he was only eleven he played that same organ for the services. Occasionally, however, there was a German service, and he did not know the old tunes. One day the minister brought him a German hymnbook, weith -notes. Now he felt he was safe. But when he examined the book he found that it used the ancient buckwheat notes, difficult to translate! He made a trip to the old song- leader, who gave him the key, and from that he worke4 ct~ neat1W"I.L h61c&11OW r11KxM VJYVLJL colvt~nQ LV UL.ILJI, U40 LO1fas: CLO LJLAL%..EVt AL%'..' ^>+nn*-c"chr~w o 1. concerned. For four years the boy walked to this church every Sunday, often through rain and sleet and snow. At last the thought came to one man that there should be some expression of appreciation. Accordingly the Reformed minister delivered an oration concerning the faithful services of the young musician and, in a soul-stirring appeal, announced that two weeks from that day a collection would be taken, a gift to the organist. But the appointed day was stormy, and the noble tribute amounted to nineteen cents. The Lutheran group, profiting by this mischance, circulated a subscription paper, and one Sunday the boy walked home proudly jingling eight silver dollars in his pocket! The church was heated by means of wood stoves, whose pipes took a straight course up into the vaulted ceiling. One little girl worried her small head during many a sermon with the fear that the tall, tall stovepipes might topple, dropping themselves and their soot on the dressed-up congregation. When she grew too worried over her stovepipes she tried to fix her attention on the big windows beside the pulpit, the block- and-space trim around the gallery, the Altar, and the pulpit. She loved the pulpit especially. To her it was a 206 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA beautiful, tall-stemmed tulip, with its sounding board to shelter it from the wind. The canopy with its graceful curves and tiny spires became, to her imagination, a protection for the tulip against the snows of winter. One day when she and her mother had come to church early, she whispered her stovepipe fears to the little boy in the next pew. He was sure they were safe; didn't she see the wires that were strung out from the gallery to help support them ? His great concern was the canopy she so much admired. That was Heaven, he was sure it was. Now what if the iron bar that held it to the wall should break, and Heaven fall on the minister! Having opened communication, the children would glance at each other whenever something special happened, serious or ludricous. At one part of the service they always had a hard time-when the "penny men" performed their office. On each side of the pulpit hung a long black pole with a black silk pouch shirred to a ring in the end. At the proper time two of the deacons stepped gravely forth from their special pew, each took his pole, and began the solemn journey through the church. A small tassel at the bottom of the pouch concealed a tiny bell, and as there was no music during the offering, the only sounds in the tranquil church were the squeaking boots of the two men, the jingle of the pennies as they were dropped in, and the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, of the bells. The little girl had an almost irrepressible desire to give that silk pouch a good punch from below, to hear the surprised clatter of the well- behaved pennies and the silver bell. She never did it. But once the long pole collided with a pillar. Then there was a wild sunburst of protesting tinkles. That was one of the times when it was safest not to look at the little boy. A trip to the old church with Mother was always a treat. There were the friends she met on the way, THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 207 whose newsy chatter made one forget the dusty road and the long hill. There was the spring at the foot of the hill where, in summer, everyone stopped for a drink from the smooth-worn cocoanut shell. There, a few steps inside the field was the pear tree that still bore fruit, though it was an old tree when Mother attended catechetical class. There was the solemn burying ground where we went on Decoration Day. And the church. The first time my sister and I went to the church without Mother we suffered confusion. As we walked along we reasoned that, as Mother was not with us, we must sit in the girls' section. Stella was sure she knew where to go. She had been there once with a cousin, and they had sat right behind the door. We walked sedately in and did the same. Alas! We had not remembered that there were three doors. We found ourselves in the old ladies' pews! Lacking courage to walk across to our proper place at the opposite side, we huddled in the corner through the entire service. I imagined every eye was turned on us in censure. I expected to see the kind old minister peer at us over his spectacles and say, in tones of disapproval and sorrow, "I cannot go on with the service until those two girls are in their proper place." But he did not. After hours and hours, it seemed to us, we were free to steal quietly out of the church. I do not believe that half a dozen people had noticed us. Surely the gentle old soul who sat next to me gave us no cause for alarm. One sermon that I heard in this church comes back to me with special clearness. The congregation was made up almost entirely of farmers who sold their produce in the mining cities across the mountain. The visiting preacher spoke on the relative importance of the creed we profess, and the life we live. He used this illustration: 208 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA "When you take your goods to market across the mountain the people do not ask, 'Did you come by the mountain road? Or the valley road? Or by the Henry road?' They ask, 'What have you brought?, " In the early days the church was the heart, almost the soul, of the community. Here the pioneers met and mingled, rejoiced and wept, together. Here many of them were confirmed and married. Here they brought their children for baptism, sometimes for burial. The outdoor benches are crumbled and gone. The grass grows freely where once the teams wore it down. The men who talked in the shade of the tulip tree have long ago taken their last journey, and rest almost beneath its shade. For them the silent church is still a community center, a faithful sentinel, keeping watch by day and by night, in sunshine and in storm. It has always been painted white, yet the words written of another church are singularly appropriate: "There's a church in the valley by the wildwood, No lovelier spot in the vale; No place is so dear to my childhood, As the little brown church in the dale. * * * * * From this church in the valley by the wildhood, When day fades away into night, I would fain from this church of my childhood, Wing my way to the mansions of light." Memory paints the places we knew in childhood much larger and more imposing than we really find them when we come back later in life. We cannot believe that this small cottage, this tiny lawn, is the same place as the big, big one where we used to play. Yet there is the familiar doorway, the low step where we sat behind the stove, the blister in the window pane. The lawn of THE OLD WHITE CHURCH 209 our memory spread out on all sides; the fruit lot was immense. Yet all of it is only half an acre ! The church of my memory is larger and more imposing than any cathedral I have ever seen. Its pulpit is more beautiful, its service more impressive, its wor- shippers more reverent. And I cherish this church of my memory. UNCLE JOHNNY Everyone in the community called him Uncle Johnny; and everyone loved him. I doubt if the meanest man in the entire valley ever harbored an unkind thought against the gentle old man. ' Uncle Johnny started out as a farm hand, with a monthly wage about half as large as the average brick- layer now gets for a day. Out of this sum he managed to lay aside a few dollars month by month. When he bought his first small farm he could pay in cash only a fraction of the price. But he had the best of collateral -sterling character. In his later years, when he had acquired a com- petency, he lived a semi-retired life on the edge of the village, with a cheerful word, a helping hand, for everyone. He was rather slight, quiet in his movements and voice, with always the trail of a smile lingering about his mouth. He usually wore gray; and had the clean look, through and through, that one occasionally sees in people, as if nothing could soil him, rough work or vulgar speech. For years he was treasurer of the Sunday School and of the church. When there was work to be done, material to be hauled, a subscription list to be passed around, Uncle Johnny stood ready to do more than his share; but always in the background. He, was no front row man. When there was a change of ministers in the church it was Uncle Johnny's house that sheltered the out- going family during the last few days; Uncle Johnny who took care of the new-comers until their parsonage was habitable. His carriage bore the departing family 210 UNCLE JOHNNY 211 to the train; and brought the arriving family to his home. Old or young, stranger or lifelong friend, sick or in trouble or even in disgrace, he was "Uncle Johnny" to us all. And we loved him. His neighbor, the Doctor, loved him. When the busy man found time for a quiet smoke in the twilight, no more welcome guest came to his porch than Uncle Johnny. The old man was so cheering, so understanding, so restful. Men stopped on the street to chat with him, and went on their way heartened. Children were pleased when his merry eyes twinkled at them; those who knew him well took hold of his hand. The slight stoop of his shoulders gave exactly the right pose for patting a touseled head or a ruddy cheek. In the village lived several old men of the type that children hurry past, holding their breath, and so learn to be afraid of all old men. But they were never afraid of him; he wasn't an old man, he was Uncle Johnny. Every child in town had reason to be grateful to him. Year after year the Sunday Schools held their "celebra- tions" in Uncle Johnny's woods, a beautiful grove to the rear of his home. They used his private lane, they wore out his pump, they scared his chickens; the boys sometimes did mischief in the fields, or even in the barn. Yet no one ever heard a word of complaint. Year after year he gave the grove to a growing number of Sunday Schools without money and without price. When someone bethought him that a fee should be offered there was a quiet smile: "No, no. Spend it on the children, to give them a treat. Some of them are poor." Quiet and unobstrusive in his life, so in his death. One evening, just after Christmas, when he had seen that every creature in the stable was well cared for, he went to the house, and peacefully fell asleep. 212 BACK HOME IN PENNSYLVANIA

The church was not-a depressing place on the day of the funeral. The Christmas decorations were still up- the wreaths, the red bells, the tree with all its glittering ornaments. When I first saw it I felt something of a shock. Christmas was past, some days ago. Why had not someone taken away the gay trimmings! But as I sat there in the quiet, softly lighted church and thought of the friend we were to honor in that place for the, last time, my thoughts found the Christmas trimmings more and more in harmony with the day. It was fitting that they should be there. That tree, and those greens, had come from Uncle Johnny's own woods, as they had done for years. Perhaps he had helped gather them, to give joy to the children he loved. Yes, it was appropriate that on this, his last hour in the church, he should be surrounded with emblems of happiness, of kindness, of Christlikeness. The tolling bell announced that the funeral procession had arrived. Muffled footfalls sounded on the stair, then a black-robed train moved slowly up the aisle. They placed the casket before the Altar, a few feet from the spot where, only last Sunday, he sat in his accustomed place among the Elders. In our village we retain the custom of a funeral sermon. When the white-haired minister announced his text, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill toward men," a look of surprise passed over more than one face. But when he applied the text phrase by phrase to the life of Uncle Johnny, it proved as fitting as the Christmas wreaths. In that sermon the old minister reached his high level. He reminded us how our friend had made his simple life a glory to God; how he had been an influence for peace; how he knew nothing but goodwill toward all men. At first the preacher was careful to speak of him with the formal "Mr." But as he dwelt on the beau- UNCLE JOHNNY 213 tiful life he unconsciously used the beloved and familiar "Uncle Johnny." As -the assemblage of friends came out of the quiet church into the winter sunshine, their faces reflected, not the gloom and melancholy that is usual at a funeral, but the peace, and goodwill, and the glory that had shone from Uncle Johnny's face all his three-score years and ten. THE END /v" 263 5

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