Village Life in America, 1852 – 1872, by Caroline Cowles Richards

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 Hansom 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 Melchisedek, 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.

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.”

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.

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.

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 favourites. 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.

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 once 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.

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, 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 honour, 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.

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 ravelled 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 favourite 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 parlour 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 coloured 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 Bly 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.