And "Galilee"I understood as a mispronunciation of "gallery.""Going up into Galilee"I interpreted into clattering up the uncarpeted stairs in the meeting-house porch,as the boys did,with their squeaking brogans,looking as restless as imprisoned monkeys after they had got into those conspicuous seats,where they behaved as if they thought nobody could see their pranks.Idid not think it could be at all nice to "go up into Galilee."I had an "Aunt Nancy,"an uncle's wife,to whom I was sometimes sent for safe-keeping when house-cleaning or anything unusual was going on at home.She was a large-featured woman,with a very deep masculine voice,and she conducted family worship herself,kneeling at prayer,which was not the Orthodox custom.
She always began by saying,--
"Oh Lord,Thou knowest that we are all groveling worms of the dust."I thought she meant that we all looked like wriggling red earthworms,and tried to make out the resemblance in my mind,but could not.I unburdened my difficulty at home,telling the family that "Aunt Nancy got down on the floor and said we were all grubbelin'worms,"begging to know whether everybody did sometimes have to crawl about in the dust.
A little later,I was much puzzled as to whether I was a Jew or Gentile.The Bible seemed to divide people into these two classes only.The Gentiles were not well spoken of:I did not want to be one of them.The talked about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the rest,away back to Adam,as if they were our forefathers (there was a time when I thought that Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were our four fathers);and yet I was very sure that I was not a Jew.When I ventured to ask,I was told that we were all Christians or heathen now.That did not help me for I thought that only grown-up persons could be Christians,from which it followed that all children must be heathen.Must I think of Myself as a heathen,then,until I should be old enough to be a Christian?It was a shocking conclusion,but I could see no other answer to my question,and I felt ashamed to ask again.
My self-invented theory about the human race was that Adam and Eve were very tall people,taller than the tallest trees in the Garden of Eden,before they were sent out of it;but that they then began to dwindle;that their children had ever since been getting smaller and smaller,and that by and by the inhabitants of the world would be no bigger than babies.I was afraid Ishould stop growing while I was a child,and I used to stand on the footstool in the pew,and try to stretch myself up to my mother's height,to imagine how it would seem to be a woman.Ihoped I should be a tall one.I did not wish to be a diminishing specimen of the race;--an anxiety which proved to be entirely groundless.
The Sabbath mornings in those old times had a peculiar charm.
They seemed so much cleaner than other mornings!The roads and the grassy footpaths seemed fresher,and the air itself purer and more wholesome than on week-days.Saturday afternoon and evening were regarded as part of the Sabbath (we were taught that it was heathenish to call the day Sunday);work and playthings were laid aside,and every body,as well as every thing,was subjected to a rigid renovation.Sabbath morning would not have seemed like itself without a clean house,a clean skin,and tidy and spotless clothing.
The Saturday's baking was a great event,the brick oven being heated to receive the flour bread,the flour-and-Indian,and the rye-and-Indian bread,the traditional pot of beans,the Indian pudding,and the pies;for no further cooking was to be done until Monday.We smaller girls thought it a great privilege to be allowed to watch the oven till the roof of it should be "white-hot,"so that the coals could be shoveled out.
Then it was so still,both out of doors and within!We were not allowed to walk anywhere except in the yard or garden.I remember wondering whether it was never Sabbath-day over the fence,in the next field;whether the field was not a kind of heathen field,since we could only go into it on week-days.The wild flowers over there were perhaps Gentile blossoms.Only the flowers in the garden were well-behaved Christians.It was Sabbath in the house,and possibly even on the doorstep;but not much farther.The town itself was so quiet that it scarcely seemed to breathe.The sound of wheels was seldom heard in the streets on that day;if we heard it,we expected some unusual explanation.
I liked to go to meeting,--not wholly oblivious to the fact that going there sometimes implied wearing a new bonnet and my best white dress and muslin "vandyke,"of which adornments,if very new,I vainly supposed the whole congregation to be as admiringly aware as I was myself.
But my Sabbath-day enjoyment was not wholly without drawbacks.
It was so hard,sometimes,to stand up through the "long prayer,"and to sit still through the "ninthlies,"and "tenthlies,"and "finallys"of the sermon!It was impressed upon me that good children were never restless in meeting,and never laughed or smiled,however their big brothers tempted them with winks or grimaces.And I did want to be good.
I was not tall enough to see very far over the top of the pew.Ithink there were only three persons that came within range of my eyes.One was a dark man with black curly hair brushed down in "bangs"over his eyebrows,who sat behind a green baize curtain near the outside door,peeping out at me,as I thought.I had an impression that he was the "tidy-man,"though that personage had become mythical long before my day.He had a dragonish look,to me;and I tried never to meet his glance.
