Chapter III: Part 3

_April_ 30.--Rev. Henry M. Field, editor of the _New York Evangelist,_ and his little French wife are here visiting. She is a wonderful woman. She has written a book and paints beautiful pictures and was teacher of art in Cooper Institute, New York. He is Grandmother's nephew and he brought her a picture of himself and his five brothers, taken for Grandmother, because she is the only aunt they have in the world. The rest are all dead. The men in the picture are Jonathan and Matthew and David Dudley and Stephen J. and Cyrus W. and Henry M. They are all very nice looking and Grandmother thinks a great deal of the picture.

_May_ 15.--Miss Anna Gaylord is one of my teachers at the seminary and when I told her that I wrote a journal every day she wanted me to bring her my last book and let her read it. I did so and she said she enjoyed it very much and she hoped I would keep them for they would be interesting for me to read when I am old. I think I shall do so. She has a very particular friend, Rev. Mr. Beaumont, who is one of the teachers at the Academy. I think they are going to be married some day. I guess I will show her this page of my journal, too. Grandmother let me make a pie in a saucer to-day and it was very good.

_May_.--We were invited to Bessie Seymour's party last night and Grandmother said we could go. The girls all told us at school that they were going to wear low neck and short sleeves. We have caps on the sleeves of our best dresses and we tried to get the sleeves out, so we could go bare arms, but we couldn't get them out. We had a very nice time, though, at the party. Some of the Academy boys were there and they asked us to dance but of course we couldn't do that. We promenaded around the rooms and went out to supper with them. Eugene Stone and Tom Eddy asked to go home with us but Grandmother sent our two girls for us, Bridget Flynn and Hannah White, so they couldn't. We were quite disappointed, but perhaps she won't send for us next time.

_May._--Grandmother is teaching me how to knit some mittens now, but if I ever finish them it will be through much tribulation, the way they have to be raveled out and commenced over again. I think I shall know how to knit when I get through, if I never know how to do anything else. Perhaps I shall know how to write, too, for I write all of Grandmother's letters for her, because it tires her to write too much. I have sorted my letters to-day and tied them in packages and found I had between 500 and 600. I have had about two letters a week for the past five years and have kept them all. Father almost always tells me in his letters to read my Bible and say my prayers and obey Grandmother and stand up straight and turn out my toes and brush my teeth and be good to my little sister. I have been practising all these so long I can say, as the young man did in the Bible when Jesus told him what to do to be saved, "all these have I kept from my youth up." But then, I lack quite a number of things after all. I am not always strictly obedient. For instance, I know Grandmother never likes to have us read the secular part of the _New York Observer_ on Sunday, so she puts it in the top drawer of the sideboard until Monday, but I couldn't find anything interesting to read the other Sunday so I took it out and read it and put it back. The jokes and stories in it did not seem as amusing as usual so I think I will not do it again.

Grandfather's favorite paper is the _Boston Christian Register._ He could not have one of them torn up any more than a leaf of the Bible. He has barrels of them stored away in the garret.

I asked Grandmother to-day to write a verse for me to keep always and she wrote a good one: "To be happy and live long the three grand essentials are: Be busy, love somebody and have high aims." I think, from all I have noticed about her, that she has had this for her motto all her life and I don't think Anna and I can do very much better than to try and follow it too. Grandfather tells us sometimes, when she is not in the room, that the best thing we can do is to be just as near like Grandmother as we can possibly be.

_Saturday, May_ 30.--Louisa Field came over to dinner to-day and brought Allie with her. We had roast chickens for dinner and lots of other nice things. Grandmother taught us how to string lilac blossoms for necklaces and also how to make curls of dandelion stems. She always has some things in the parlor cupboard which she brings out on extra occasions, so she got them out to-day. They are some Chinamen which Uncle Thomas brought home when he sailed around the world. They are wooden images standing in boxes, packing tea with their feet.

Last week Jennie Howell invited us to go up to Black Point Cabin with her and to-day with a lot of grown-up people we went and enjoyed it. There was a little colored girl there who waits on the table and can row the boats too. She is Polly Carroll's granddaughter, Mary Jane. She sang for us,

"Nellie Ely shuts her eye when she goes to sleep,
When she opens them again her eyes begin to peep;
Hi Nellie, Ho Nellie, listen love to me,
I'll sing for you, I'll play for you,
A dulcet melody."

She is just as cute as she can be. She said Mrs. Henry Chesebro taught her to read.

_Sunday, June_ 1.--Rev. Dr. Shaw, of Rochester, preached for Dr. Daggett to-day and his text was: "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." He said by this water he meant the pleasures of this life, wealth and fame and honor, of which the more we have the more we want and are never satisfied, but if we drink of the water that Christ can give us we will have happiness here and forever. It was a very good sermon and I love to hear him preach. Grandmother never likes to start for church until after all the Seminary girls and Academy boys have gone by, but this morning we got to the gate just as the boys came along. When Grandmother saw five or six hats come off and knew they were bowing to us, she asked us how we got acquainted with them. We told her that almost all the girls knew the Academy boys and I am sure that is true.

_Tuesday, June_ 8.--We are cleaning house now and Grandmother asked Anna and me to take out a few tacks in the dining-room carpet. We did not like it so very well but we liked eating dinner in the parlor, as the table had to be set in there. Anna told us that when she got married we could come to visit her any time in the year as she was never going to clean house. We went down street on an errand to-night and hurried right back, as Grandmother said she should look at the clock and see how long we were gone. Emma Wheeler went with us. Anna says she and Emma are as "thick as hasty pudding."

_June._--Rev. Frederick Starr, of Penn Yan, had an exhibition in Bemis Hall to-day of a tabernacle just like the children of Israel carried with them to the Promised Land. We went to see it. He made it himself and said he took all the directions from the Bible and knew where to put the curtains and the poles and everything. It was interesting but we thought it would be queer not to have any church to go to but one like that, that you could take down and put up and carry around with you wherever you went.

_June._--Rev. Mr. Kendall is not going to preach in East Bloomfield any more. The paper says he is going to New York to live and be Secretary of the A.B.C.F.M. I asked Grandmother what that meant, and she said he would have to write down what the missionaries do. I guess that will keep him busy. Grandfather's nephew, a Mr. Adams of Boston and his wife, visited us about two weeks ago. He is the head of the firm Adams' Express Co. Anna asked them if they ever heard the conundrum "What was Eve made for?" and they said no, so she told them the answer, "for Adam's express company." They thought it was quite good. When they reached home, they sent us each a reticule, with scissors, thimble, stiletto, needle-case and tiny penknife and some stamped embroidery. They must be very rich.

_Saturday Night, July._--Grandfather was asking us to-night how many things we could remember, and I told him I could remember when Zachary Taylor died, and our church was draped in black, and Mr. Daggett preached a funeral sermon about him, and I could remember when Daniel Webster died, and there was service held in the church and his last words, "I still live," were put up over the pulpit. He said he could remember when George Washington died and when Benjamin Franklin died. He was seven years old then and he was seventeen when Washington died. Of course his memory goes farther back than mine, but he said I did very well, considering.

_July._--I have not written in my journal for several days because we have been out of town. Grandfather had to go to Victor on business and took Anna and me with him. Anna says she loves to ride on the cars as it is fun to watch the trees and fences run so. We took dinner at Dr. Ball's and came home on the evening train. Then Judge Ellsworth came over from Penn Yan to see Grandfather on business and asked if he could take us home with him and he said yes, so we went and had a splendid time and stayed two days. Stewart was at home and took us all around driving and took us to the graveyard to see our mother's grave. I copied this verse from the gravestone:

"Of gentle seeming was her form
And the soft beaming of her radiant eye
Was sunlight to the beauty of her face.
Peace, sacred peace, was written on her brow
And flowed in the low music of her voice
Which came unto the list'ner like the tones of soothing Autumn winds.
Her hands were full of consolations which she scattered free to
all--the poor, the sick, the sorrowful."

I think she must have been exactly like Grandmother only she was 32 and Grandmother is 72.

Stewart went to prayer meeting because it was Wednesday night, and when he came home his mother asked him if he took part in the meeting. He said he did and she asked him what he said. He said he told the story of Ethan Allen, the infidel, who was dying, and his daughter asked him whose religion she should live by, his or her mother's, and he said, "Your mother's, my daughter, your mother's." This pleased Mrs. Ellsworth very much. Stewart is a great boy and you never can tell whether he is in earnest or not. It was very warm while we were gone and when we got home Anna told Grandmother she was going to put on her barege dress and take a rocking-chair and a glass of ice water and a palm leaf fan and go down cellar and sit, but Grandmother told her if she would just sit still and take a book and get her mind on something else besides the weather, she would be cool enough. Grandmother always looks as cool as a cucumber even when the thermometer is 90 in the shade.

_Sunday, August._--Rev. Anson D. Eddy preached this morning. His text was from the sixth chapter of John, 44th verse. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him." He is Tom Eddy's father, and very good-looking and smart too. He used to be one of the ministers of our church before Mr. Daggett came. He wrote a book in our Sunday School library, about Old Black Jacob, and Grandmother loves to read it. We had a nice dinner to-day, green peas, lemonade and gooseberry pie. We had cold roast lamb too, because Grandmother never has any meat cooked on Sunday.

_Sunday._--Mr. Noah T. Clarke is superintendent of our Sunday School now, and this morning he asked, "What is prayer?" No one answered, so I stood up and gave the definition from the catechism. He seemed pleased and so was Grandmother when I told her. Anna said she supposes she was glad that "her labor was not in vain in the Lord." I think she is trying to see if she can say Bible verses, like grown-up people do.

Grandfather said that I did better than the little boy he read about who, when a visitor asked the Sunday School children what was the ostensible object of Sabbath School instruction, waited till the question was repeated three times and then stood up and said, "Yes, sir."

_Wednesday._--We could not go to prayer meeting to-night because it rained, so Grandmother said we could go into the kitchen and stand by the window and hear the Methodists. We could hear every word that old Father Thompson said, and every hymn they sung, but Mr. Jervis used such big words we could not understand him at all.

_Sunday._--Grandmother says she loves to look at the beautiful white heads of Mr. Francis Granger and General Granger as they sit in their pews in church. She says that is what it means in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes where it says, "And the almond tree shall flourish." I don't know exactly why it means them, but I suppose she does. We have got a beautiful almond tree in our front yard covered with flowers, but the blossoms are pink. Probably they had white ones in Jerusalem, where Solomon lived.

_Monday._--Mr. Alex. Jeffrey has come from Lexington, Ky., and brought Mrs. Ross and his three daughters, Julia, Shaddie and Bessie Jeffrey. Mrs. Ross knows Grandmother and came to call and brought the girls. They are very pretty and General Granger's granddaughters. I think they are going to stay all summer.

_Thanksgiving Day._--We all went to church and Dr. Daggett's text was: "He hath not dealt so with any nation." Aunt Glorianna and her children were here and Uncle Field and all their family and Dr. Carr and all his family. There were about sixteen of us in all and we children had a table in the corner all by ourselves. We had roast turkey and everything else we could think of. After dinner we went into the parlor and Aunt Glorianna played on the piano and sang, "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes," and "Poor Bessie was a sailor's wife." These are Grandfather's favorites. Dr. Carr sang "I'm sitting on the stile, Mary, where we sat side by side." He is a beautiful singer. It seemed just like Sunday, for Grandmother never likes to have us work or play on Thanksgiving Day, but we had a very good time, indeed, and were sorry when they all went home.

_Saturday, December_ 20.--Lillie Reeve and her brother, Charlie, have come from Texas to live. He goes to the Academy and she boards with Miss Antoinette Pierson. Miss Pierson invited me up to spend the afternoon and take tea with her and I went and had a very nice time. She told me about their camp life in Texas and how her mother died, and her little baby sister, Minnie, lives with her Grandmother Sheppard in Dansville. She is a very nice girl and I like her very much, indeed.

1857

_January_ 8.--Anna and Alice Jewett caught a ride down to the lake this afternoon on a bob-sleigh, and then caught a ride back on a load of frozen pigs. In jumping off, Anna tore her flannel petticoat from the band down. I did not enjoy the situation as much as Anna, because I had to sit up after she had gone to bed, and darn it by candle light, because she was afraid Grandmother might see the rent and inquire into it, and that would put an end to bobsled exploits.

_March_ 6.--Anna and her set will have to square accounts with Mr. Richards to-morrow, for nine of them ran away from school this afternoon, Alice Jewett, Louisa Field, Sarah Antes, Hattie Paddock, Helen Coy, Jennie Ruckel, Frankie Younglove, Emma Wheeler and Anna. They went out to Mr. Sackett's, where they are making maple sugar. Mr. and Mrs. Sackett were at home and two Miss Sacketts and Darius, and they asked them in and gave them all the sugar they wanted, and Anna said pickles, too, and bread and butter, and the more pickles they ate the more sugar they could eat. I guess they will think of pickles when Mr. Richards asks them where they were. I think Ellie Daggett and Charlie Paddock went, too, and some of the Academy boys.

_March 7._--They all had to stay after school to-night for an hour and copy Dictionary. Anna seems reconciled, for she just wrote in her journal: "It was a very good plan to keep us because no one ever ought to stay out of school except on account of sickness, and if they once get a thing fixed in their minds it will stay there, and when they grow up it will do them a great deal of good."

_April._--Grandfather gave us 10 cents each this morning for learning the 46th Psalm and has promised us $1 each for reading the Bible through in a year. We were going to any way. Some of the girls say they should think we would be afraid of Grandfather, he is so sober, but we are not the least bit. He let us count $1,000 to-night which a Mr. Taylor, a cattle buyer, brought to him in the evening after banking hours. Anybody must be very rich who has all that money of their own.

_Friday._--Our old horse is dead and we will have to buy another. He was very steady and faithful. One day Grandfather left him at the front gate and he started along and turned the corner all right, down the Methodist lane and went way down to our barn doors and stood there until Mr. Piser came and took him into the barn. People said they set their clocks by him because it was always quarter past 12 when he was driven down to the bank after Grandfather and quarter of 1 when he came back. I don't think the clocks would ever be too fast if they were set by him. We asked Grandfather what he died of and he said he had run his race but I think he meant he had walked it, for I never saw him go off a jog in my life. Anna used to say he was taking a nap when we were out driving with Grandfather. I have written some lines in his memory and if I knew where he was buried, I would print it on his head board.

Old Dobbin's dead, that good old horse,
We ne'er shall see him more,
He always used to lag behind
But now he's gone before.

It is a parody on old Grimes is dead, which is in our reader, only that is a very long poem. I am not going to show mine to Grandfather till he gets over feeling bad about the horse.

_Sunday._--Grandmother gave Anna, Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" to read to-day. Anna says she thinks she will have to rise and progress a good deal before she will be able to appreciate it. Baxter's "Saints Rest" would probably suit her better.

_Sunday, April_ 5.--An agent for the American Board of Foreign Missions preached this morning in our church from Romans 10: 15: "How shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach except they be sent." An agent from every society presents the cause, whatever it is, once a year and some people think the anniversary comes around very often. I always think of Mrs. George Wilson's poem on "A apele for air, pewer air, certin proper for the pews, which, she sez, is scarce as piety, or bank bills when ajents beg for mischuns, wich sum say is purty often, (taint nothin' to me, wat I give aint nothin' to nobody)." I think that is about the best poem of its kind I ever read.

Miss Lizzie Bull told us in Sunday School to-day that she cannot be our Sunday School teacher any more, as she and her sister Mary are going to join the Episcopal Church. We hate to have her go, but what can't be cured must be endured. Part of our class are going into Miss Mary Howell's class and part into Miss Annie Pierce's. They are both splendid teachers and Miss Lizzie Bull is another. We had preaching in our church this afternoon, too. Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, of Le Roy Female Seminary, preached. He is a great man, very large, long white hair combed back. I think if a person once saw him they would never forget him. He preached about Melchisidek, who had neither "beginning of days or end of life." Some people thought that was like his sermon, for it was more than one hour long. Dr. Cox and Mrs. Taylor came to call and asked Grandfather to let me go to Le Roy Female Seminary, but Grandfather likes Ontario Female Seminary better than any other in the world. We wanted Grandmother to have her picture taken, but she did not feel able to go to Mr. Finley's, so he came up Tuesday and took it in our dining-room. She had her best cap on and her black silk dress and sat in her high back rocking chair in her usual corner near the window. He brought one up to show us and we like it so much. Anna looked at it and kissed it and said, "Grandmother, I think you are perfectly beautiful." She smiled and very modestly put her handkerchief up to her face and said, "You foolish child," but I am sure she was pleased, for how could she help it? A man came up to the open window one day where she was sitting, with something to sell, and while she was talking to him he said, "You must have been handsome, lady, when you were young." Grandmother said it was because he wanted to sell his wares, but we thought he knew it was so. We told her she couldn't get around it that way and we asked Grandfather and he said it was true. Our Sunday School class went to Mr. Finley's to-day and had a group ambrotype taken for our teacher, Miss Annie Pierce; Susie Daggett, Clara Willson, Sarah Whitney, Mary Field and myself. Mary Wheeler ought to have been in it, too, but we couldn't get her to come. We had very good success.

_Thursday_.--We gave the ambrotype to Miss Pierce and she liked it very much and so does her mother and Fannie. Her mother is lame and cannot go anywhere so we often go to see her and she is always glad to see us and so pleasant.

_May_ 9.--Miss Lizzie Bull came for me to go botanising with her this morning and we were gone from 9 till 12, and went clear up to the orphan asylum. I am afraid I am not a born botanist, for all the time she was analysing the flowers and telling me about the corona and the corolla and the calyx and the stamens and petals and pistils, I was thinking what beautiful hands she had and how dainty they looked, pulling the blossoms all to pieces. I am afraid I am commonplace, like the man we read of in English literature, who said "a primrose by the river brim, a yellow primrose, was to him, and it was nothing more."

Mr. William Wood came to call this afternoon and gave us some morning-glory seeds to sow and told us to write down in our journals that he did so. So here it is. What a funny old man he is. Anna and Emma Wheeler went to Hiram Tousley's funeral to-day. She has just written in her journal that Hiram's corpse was very perfect of him and that Fannie looked very pretty in black. She also added that after the funeral Grandfather took Aunt Ann and Lucilla out to ride to Mr. Howe's and just as they got there it sprinkled. She says she don't know "weather" they got wet or not. She went to a picnic at Sucker Brook yesterday afternoon, and this is the way she described it in her journal. "Miss Hurlburt told us all to wear rubbers and shawls and bring some cake and we would have a picnic. We had a very warm time. It was very warm indeed and I was most roasted and we were all very thirsty indeed. We had in all the party about 40 of us. It was very pleasant and I enjoyed myself exceedingly. We had boiled eggs, pickles, Dutch cheese and sage cheese and loaf cake and raisin cake, pound cake, dried beef and capers, jam and tea cakes and gingerbread, and we tried to catch some fish but we couldn't, and in all we had a very nice time. I forgot to say that I picked some flowers for my teacher. I went to bed tired out and worn out."

Her next entry was the following day when she and the other scholars dressed up to "speak pieces." She says, "After dinner I went and put on my rope petticoat and lace one over it and my barege de laine dress and all my rings and white bask and breastpin and worked handkerchief and spoke my piece. It was, 'When I look up to yonder sky.' It is very pretty indeed and most all the girls said I looked nice and said it nice. They were all dressed up, too."

_Thursday_.--I asked Grandfather why we do not have gas in the house like almost every one else and he said because it was bad for the eyes and he liked candles and sperm oil better. We have the funniest little sperm oil lamp with a shade on to read by evenings and the fire on the hearth gives Grandfather and Grandmother all the light they want, for she knits in her corner and we read aloud to them if they want us to. I think if Grandfather is proud of anything besides being a Bostonian, it is that everything in the house is forty years old. The shovel and tongs and andirons and fender and the haircloth sofa and the haircloth rocking chair and the flag bottomed chairs painted dark green and the two old arm-chairs which belong to them and no one else ever thinks of touching. There is a wooden partition between the dining-room and parlor and they say it can slide right up out of sight on pulleys, so that it would be all one room. We have often said that we wished we could see it go up but they say it has never been up since the day our mother was married and as she is dead I suppose it would make them feel bad, so we probably will always have it down. There are no curtains or even shades at the windows, because Grandfather says, "light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun." The piano is in the parlor and it is the same one that our mother had when she was a little girl but we like it all the better for that. There are four large oil paintings on the parlor wall, De Witt Clinton, Rev. Mr. Dwight, Uncle Henry Channing Beals and Aunt Lucilla Bates, and no matter where we sit in the room they are watching and their eyes seem to move whenever we do. There is quite a handsome lamp on a mahogany center table, but I never saw it lighted. We have four sperm candles in four silver candlesticks and when we have company we light them. Johnnie Thompson, son of the minister, Rev. M. L. R. P., has come to the academy to school and he is very full of fun and got acquainted with all the girls very quick. He told us this afternoon to have "the other candle lit" for he was coming down to see us this evening. Will Schley heard him say it and he said he was coming too. His mother says she always knows when he has been at our house, because she finds sperm on his clothes and has to take brown paper and a hot flatiron to get it out, but still I do not think that Mrs. Schley cares, for she is a very nice lady and she and I are great friends. I presume she would just as soon he would spend part of his time with us as to be with Horace Finley all the time. Those boys are just like twins. We never see one without being sure that the other is not far away.

_Later_.--The boys came and we had a very pleasant evening but when the 9 o'clock bell rang we heard Grandfather winding up the clock and scraping up the ashes on the hearth to cover the fire so it would last till morning and we all understood the signal and they bade us good-night. "We won't go home till morning" is a song that will never be sung in this house.

_June_ 2.--Abbie Clark wrote such a nice piece in my album to-day I am going to write it in my journal. Grandfather says he likes the sentiment as well as any in my book. This is it: "It has been said that the friendship of some people is like our shadow, keeping close by us while the sun shines, deserting us the moment we enter the shade, but think not such is the friendship of Abbie S. Clark." Abbie and I took supper at Miss Mary Howell's to-night to see Adele Ives. We had a lovely time.

_Tuesday_.--General Tom Thumb was in town to-day and everybody who wanted to see him could go to Bemis Hall. Twenty-five cents for old people, and 10 cents for children, but we could see him for nothing when he drove around town. He had a little carriage and two little bits of ponies and a little boy with a high silk hat on, for the driver. He sat inside the coach but we could see him looking out. We went to the hall in the afternoon and the man who brought him stood by him and looked like a giant and told us all about him. Then he asked Tom Thumb to make a speech and stood him upon the table. He told all the ladies he would give them a kiss if they would come up and buy his picture. Some of them did.

_Friday, July._--I have not kept a journal for two weeks because we have been away visiting. Anna and I had an invitation to go to Utica to visit Rev. and Mrs. Brandigee. He is rector of Grace Episcopal church there and his wife used to belong to Father's church in Morristown, N. J. Her name was Miss Condict. Rev. Mr. Stowe was going to Hamilton College at Clinton, so he said he would take us to Utica. We had a lovely time. The corner stone of the church was laid while we were there and Bishop De Lancey came and stayed with us at Mr. Brandigee's. He is a very nice man and likes children. One morning they had muffins for breakfast and Anna asked if they were ragamuffins. Mr. Brandigee said, "Yes, they are made of rags and brown paper," but we knew he was just joking. When we came away Mrs. Brandigee gave me a prayer book and Anna a vase, but she didn't like it and said she should tell Mrs. Brandigee she wanted a prayer book too, so I had to change with her. When we came home Mr. Brandigee put us in care of the conductor. There was a fine soldier looking man in the car with us and we thought it was his wife with him. He wore a blue coat and brass buttons, and some one said his name was Custer and that he was a West Point cadet and belonged to the regular army. I told Anna she had better behave or he would see her, but she would go out and stand on the platform until the conductor told her not to. I pulled her dress and looked very stern at her and motioned toward Mr. Custer, but it did not seem to have any impression on her. I saw Mr. Custer smile once because my words had no effect. I was glad when we got to Canandaigua. I heard some one say that Dr. Jewett was at the depot to take Mr. Custer and his wife to his house, but I only saw Grandfather coming after us. He said, "Well, girls, you have been and you have got back," but I could see that he was glad to have us at home again, even if we are "troublesome comforts," as he sometimes says.

_July_ 4.--Barnum's circus was in town to-day and if Grandmother had not seen the pictures on the hand bills I think she would have let us go. She said it was all right to look at the creatures God had made but she did not think He ever intended that women should go only half dressed and stand up and ride on horses bare back, or jump through hoops in the air. So we could not go. We saw the street parade though and heard the band play and saw the men and women in a chariot, all dressed so fine, and we saw a big elephant and a little one and a camel with an awful hump on his back, and we could hear the lion roar in the cage, as they went by. It must have been nice to see them close to and probably we will some day.

_August_ 8.--Grandfather has given me his whole set of Waverley novels and his whole set of Shakespeare's plays, and has ordered Mr. Jahn, the cabinetmaker, to make me a black walnut bookcase, with glass doors and three deep drawers underneath, with brass handles. He is so good. Anna says perhaps he thinks I am going to be married and go to housekeeping some day. Well, perhaps he does. Stranger things have happened. "Barkis is willin'," and I always like to please Grandfather. I have just read David Copperfield and was so interested I could not leave it alone till I finished it.

_September_ 1.--Anna and I have been in Litchfield, Conn., at Father's school for boys. It is kept in the old Beecher house, where Dr. Lyman Beecher lived. We went up into the attic, which is light and airy, where they say he used to write his famous sermons. James is one of the teachers and he came for us. We went to Farmington and saw all the Cowles families, as they are our cousins. Then we drove by the Charter Oak and saw all there is left of it. It was blown down last year but the stump is fenced around. In Hartford we visited Gallaudet's Institution for the deaf and dumb and went to the historical rooms, where we saw some of George Washington's clothes and his watch and his penknife, but we did not see his little hatchet. We stayed two weeks in New York and vicinity before we came home. Uncle Edward took us to Christie's Minstrels and the Hippodrome, so we saw all the things we missed seeing when the circus was here in town. Grandmother seemed surprised when we told her, but she didn't say much because she was so glad to have us at home again. Anna said we ought to bring a present to Grandfather and Grandmother, for she read one time about some children who went away and came back grown up and brought home "busts of the old philosophers for the sitting-room," so as we saw some busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in plaster of paris we bought them, for they look almost like marble and Grandfather and Grandmother like them. Speaking of busts reminds me of a conundrum I heard while I was gone. "How do we know that Poe's Raven was a dissipated bird? Because he was all night on a bust." Grandfather took us down to the bank to see how he had it made over while we were gone. We asked him why he had a beehive hanging out for a sign and he said, "Bees store their honey in the summer for winter use and men ought to store their money against a rainy day." He has a swing door to the bank with "Push" on it. He said he saw a man studying it one day and finally looking up he spelled p-u-s-h, push (and pronounced it like mush). "What does that mean?" Grandfather showed him what it meant and he thought it was very convenient. He was about as thick-headed as the man who saw some snuffers and asked what they were for and when told to snuff the candle with, he immediately snuffed the candle with his fingers and put it in the snuffers and said, "Law sakes, how handy!" Grandmother really laughed when she read this in the paper.

_September_.--Mrs. Martin, of Albany, is visiting Aunt Ann, and she brought Grandmother a fine fish that was caught in the Atlantic Ocean. We went over and asked her to come to dinner to-morrow and help eat it and she said if it did not rain pitchforks she would come, so I think we may expect her. Her granddaughter, Hattie Blanchard, has come here to go to the seminary and will live with Aunt Ann. She is a very pretty girl. Mary Field came over this morning and we went down street together. Grandfather went with us to Mr. Nat Gorham's store, as he is selling off at cost, and got Grandmother and me each a new pair of kid gloves. Hers are black and mine are green. Hers cost six shillings and mine cost five shillings and six pence; very cheap for such nice ones. Grandmother let Anna have six little girls here to supper to-night: Louisa Field, Hattie Paddock, Helen Coy, Martha Densmore, Emma Wheeler and Alice Jewett. We had a splendid supper and then we played cards. I do not mean regular cards, mercy no! Grandfather thinks those kind are contagious or outrageous or something dreadful and never keeps them in the house. Grandmother said they found a pack once, when the hired man's room was cleaned, and they went into the fire pretty quick. The kind we played was just "Dr. Busby," and another "The Old Soldier and His Dog." There are counters with them, and if you don't have the card called for you have to pay one into the pool. It is real fun. They all said they had a very nice time, indeed, when they bade Grandmother good-night, and said: "Mrs. Beals, you must let Carrie and Anna come and see us some time," and she said she would. I think it is nice to have company.

_Christmas_.--Grandfather and Grandmother do not care much about making Christmas presents. They say, when they were young no one observed Christmas or New Years, but they always kept Thanksgiving day. Our cousins, the Fields and Carrs, gave us several presents and Uncle Edward sent us a basket full from New York by express. Aunt Ann gave me one of the Lucy books and a Franconia story book and to Anna, "The Child's Book on Repentance." When Anna saw the title, she whispered to me and said if she had done anything she was sorry for she was willing to be forgiven. I am afraid she will never read hers but I will lend her mine. Miss Lucy Ellen Guernsey, of Rochester, gave me "Christmas Earnings" and wrote in it, "Carrie C. Richards with the love of the author." I think that is very nice. Anna and I were chattering like two magpies to-day, and a man came in to talk to Grandfather on business. He told us in an undertone that children should be seen and not heard. After he had gone I saw Anna watching him a long time till he was only a speck in the distance and I asked her what she was doing. She said she was doing it because it was a sign if you watched persons out of sight you would never see them again. She does not seem to have a very forgiving spirit, but you can't always tell.

Mr. William Wood, the venerable philanthropist of whom Canandaigua has been justly proud for many years, is dead. I have preserved this poem, written by Mrs. George Willson in his honor:

Mr. Editor,--The following lines were written by a lady of this village, and have been heretofore published, but on reading in your last paper the interesting extract relating to the late William Wood, Esq., it was suggested that they be again published, not only for their merit, but also to keep alive the memory of one who has done so much to ornament our village.

When first on this stage of existence we come
Blind, deaf, puny, helpless, but not, alas, dumb,
What can please us, and soothe us, and make us sleep good?
To be rocked in a cradle;--and cradles are wood.
When older we grow, and we enter the schools
Where masters break rulers o'er boys who break rules,
What can curb and restrain and make laws understood
But the birch-twig and ferule?--and both are of wood.
When old age--second childhood, takes vigor away,
And we totter along toward our home in the clay,
What can aid us to stand as in manhood we stood
But our tried, trusty staff?--and the staff is of wood.
And when from this stage of existence we go,
And death drops the curtain on all scenes below,
In our coffins we rest, while for worms we are food,
And our last sleeping place, like our first, is of wood.
Then honor to wood! fresh and strong may it grow,
'Though winter has silvered its summit with snow;
Embowered in its shade long our village has stood;
She'd scarce be Canandaigua if stripped of her Wood.

Stanza added after the death of Mr. Wood

The sad time is come; she is stript of her Wood,
'Though the trees that he planted still stand where they stood,
Still with storms they can wrestle with arms stout and brave;
Still they wave o'er our dwellings--they droop o'er his grave!
Alas! that the life of the cherished and good
Is more frail and more brief than the trees of the wood!

1858

_February_ 24, 1858.--The boarders at the Seminary had some tableaux last evening and invited a great many from the village. As we went in with the crowd, we heard some one say, "Are they going to have tableaux? Well, I thought I smelt them!" They were splendid. Mr. Chubbuck was in nearly all of them. The most beautiful one was Abraham offering up Isaac. Mr. Chubbuck was Abraham and Sarah Ripley was Isaac. After the tableaux they acted a charade. The word was "Masterpiece." It was fine. After the audience got half way out of the chapel Mr. Richards announced "The Belle of the Evening." The curtain rose and every one rushed back, expecting to see a young lady dressed in the height of fashion, when immediately the Seminary bell rang! Mr. Blessner's scholars gave all the music and he stamped so, beating time, it almost drowned the music. Some one suggested a bread and milk poultice for his foot. Anna has been taking part in some private theatricals. The play is in contrast to "The Spirit of '76" and the idea carried out is that the men should stay at home and rock the cradles and the women should take the rostrum. Grandmother was rather opposed to the idea, but every one wanted Anna to take the part of leading lady, so she consented. She even helped Anna make her bloomer suit and sewed on the braid for trimming on the skirt herself. She did not know that Anna's opening sentence was, "How are you, sir? Cigar, please!" It was acted at Mrs. John Bates' house on Gibson Street and was a great success, but when they decided to repeat it another evening Grandmother told Anna she must choose between going on the stage and living with her Grandmother, so Anna gave it up and some one else took her part.

_March_.--There is a great deal said about spirits nowadays and a lot of us girls went into one of the recitation rooms after school to-night and had a spiritual seance. We sat around Mr. Chubbuck's table and put our hands on it and it moved around and stood on two legs and sometimes on one. I thought the girls helped it but they said they didn't. We heard some loud raps, too, but they sounded very earthly to me. Eliza Burns, one of the boarders, told us if we would hold our breath we could pick up one of the girls from the floor and raise her up over our heads with one finger of each hand, if the girl held her breath, too. We tried it with Anna and did it, but we had such hard work to keep from laughing I expected we would drop her. There is nothing very spirituelle about any of us. I told Grandmother and she said we reminded her of Jemima Wilkinson, who told all her followers that the world was to come to an end on a certain day and they should all be dressed in white and get up on the roofs of the houses and be prepared to ascend and meet the Lord in the air. I asked Grandmother what she said when nothing happened and she said she told them it was because they did not have faith enough. If they had, everything would have happened just as she said. Grandmother says that one day at a time has always been enough for her and that to-morrow will take care of the things of itself.

_May,_ 1858.--Several of us girls went up into the top of the new Court House to-day as far as the workmen would allow us. We got a splendid view of the lake and of all the country round. Abbie Clark climbed up on a beam and recited part of Alexander Selkirk's soliloquy:

"I'm monarch of all I survey,
My rights there are none to dispute:
From the center, all round to the sea,
I'm lord of the fowl and brute."

I was standing on a block and she said I looked like "Patience on a monument smiling at Grief." I am sure she could not be taken for "Grief." She always has some quotation on her tongue's end. We were down at Sucker Brook the other day and she picked her way out to a big stone in the middle of the stream and, standing on it, said, in the words of Rhoderick Dhu,

"Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
From its firm base, as soon as I."

Just then the big stone tipped over and she had to wade ashore. She is not at all afraid of climbing and as we left the Court House she said she would like to go outside on the cupola and help Justice balance the scales.

A funny old man came to our house to-day as he wanted to deposit some money and reached the bank after it was closed. We were just sitting down to dinner so Grandfather asked him to stay and have "pot luck" with us. He said that he was very much "obleeged" and stayed and passed his plate a second time for more of our very fine "pot luck." We had boiled beef and dumplings and I suppose he thought that was the name of the dish. He talked so queer we couldn't help noticing it. He said he "heered" so and he was "afeered" and somebody was very "deef" and they "hadn't ought to have done it" and "they should have went" and such things. Anna and I almost laughed but Grandmother looked at us with her eye and forefinger so we sobered down. She told us afterwards that there are many good people in the world whose verbs and nouns do not agree, and instead of laughing at them we should be sure that we always speak correctly ourselves. Very true. Dr. Daggett was at the Seminary one day when we had public exercises and he told me afterwards that I said "sagac-ious" for "saga-cious" and Aunt Ann told me that I said "epi-tome" for "e-pit-o-me." So "people that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

_Sunday._--Grandfather read his favorite parable this morning at prayers--the one about the wise man who built his house upon a rock and the foolish man who built upon the sand. He reads it good, just like a minister. He prays good, too, and I know his prayer by heart. He says, "Verily Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us not," and he always says, "Thine arm is not shortened that it cannot save, or Thine ear heavy that it cannot hear." I am glad that I can remember it.

_June._--Cyrus W. Field called at our house to-day. He is making a trip through the States and stopped here a few hours because Grandmother is his aunt. He made her a present of a piece of the Atlantic cable about six inches long, which he had mounted for her. It is a very nice souvenir. He is a tall, fine looking man and very pleasant.

_Sunday, July_ 4, 1858.--This is Communion Sunday and quite a number united with the church on profession of their faith. Mr. Gideon Granger was one of them. Grandmother says that she has known him always and his father and mother, and she thinks he is like John, the beloved disciple. I think that any one who knows him, knows what is meant by a gentle-man. I have a picture of Christ in the Temple with the doctors, and His face is almost exactly like Mr. Granger's. Some others who joined to-day were Miss Belle Paton, Miss Lottie Clark and Clara Willson, Mary Wheeler and Sarah Andrews. Dr. Daggett always asks all the communicants to sit in the body pews and the noncommunicants in the side pews. We always feel like the goats on the left when we leave Grandfather and Grandmother and go on the side, but we won't have to always. Abbie Clark, Mary Field and I think we will join at the communion in September. Grandmother says she hopes we realize what a solemn thing it is. We are fifteen years old so I think we ought to. No one who hears Dr. Daggett say in his beautiful voice, "I now renounce all ways of sin as what I truly abhor and choose the service of God as my greatest privilege," could think it any trifling matter. I feel as though I couldn't be bad if I wanted to be, and when he blesses them and says, "May the God of the Everlasting Covenant keep you firm and holy to the end through Jesus Christ our Lord," everything seems complete. He always says at the close, "And when they had sung an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives." Then he gives out the hymn, beginning:

"According to Thy gracious word,
In deep humility,
This will I do, my dying Lord
I will remember Thee."

And the last verse:

"And when these failing lips grow dumb,
And mind and memory flee,
When in Thy kingdom Thou shalt come,
Jesus remember me."

Deacon Taylor always starts the hymn. Deacon Taylor and Deacon Tyler sit on one side of Dr. Daggett and Deacon Clarke and Deacon Castle on the other. Grandfather and Grandmother joined the church fifty-one years ago and are the oldest living members. She says they have always been glad that they took this step when they were young.