Part 7

"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.

_August_ 17.--There was a celebration in town to-day because the Queen's message was received on the Atlantic cable. Guns were fired and church bells rung and flags were waving everywhere. In the evening there was a torchlight procession and the town was all lighted up except Gibson Street. Allie Antes died this morning, so the people on that street kept their houses as usual. Anna says that probably Allie Antes was better prepared to die than any other little girl in town. Atwater hall and the academy and the hotel were more brilliantly illuminated than any other buildings. Grandfather saw something in a Boston paper that a minister said in his sermon about the Atlantic cable and he wants me to write it down in my journal. This is it: "The two hemispheres are now successfully united by means of the electric wire, but what is it, after all, compared with the instantaneous communication between the Throne of Divine Grace and the heart of man? Offer up your silent petition. It is transmitted through realms of unmeasured space more rapidly than the lightning's flash, and the answer reaches the soul e're the prayer has died away on the sinner's lips. Yet this telegraph, performing its saving functions ever since Christ died for men on Calvary, fills not the world with exultation and shouts of gladness, with illuminations and bonfires and the booming of cannon. The reason is, one is the telegraph of this world and may produce revolutions on earth; the other is the sweet communication between Christ and the Christian soul and will secure a glorious immortality in Heaven." Grandfather appreciates anything like that and I like to please him.

Grandfather says he thinks the 19th Psalm is a prophecy of the electric telegraph. "Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world." It certainly sounds like it.

_Sunday_.--Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is staying at Judge Taylor's and came with them to church to-day. Everybody knew that he was here and thought he would preach and the church was packed full. When he came in he went right to Judge Taylor's pew and sat with him and did not preach at all, but it was something to look at him. Mr. Daggett was away on his vacation and Rev. Mr. Jervis of the M. E. church preached. I heard some people say they guessed even Mr. Beecher heard some new words to-day, for Mr. Jervis is quite a hand to make them up or find very long hard ones in the dictionary.

_August_ 30, 1858.--Rev. Mr. Tousley was hurt to-day by the falling of his barn which was being moved, and they think his back is broken and if he lives he can never sit up again. Only last Sunday he was in Sunday School and had us sing in memory of Allie Antes:

"A mourning class, a vacant seat, Tell us that one we loved to meet Will join our youthful throng no more, 'Till all these changing scenes are o'er."

And now he will never meet with us again and the children will never have another minister all their own. He thinks he may be able to write letters to the children and perhaps write his own life. We all hope he may be able to sit up if he cannot walk.

We went to our old home in Penn Yan visiting last week and stayed at Judge Ellsworth's. We called to see the Tunnicliffs and the Olivers, Wells, Jones, Shepards, Glovers, Bennetts, Judds and several other families. They were glad to see us for the sake of our father and mother. Father was their pastor from 1841 to 1847.

Some one told us that when Bob and Henry Antes were small boys they thought they would like to try, just for once, to see how it would seem to be bad, so in spite of all of Mr. Tousley's sermons they went out behind the barn one day and in a whisper Bob said, "I swear," and Henry said, "So do I." Then they came into the house looking guilty and quite surprised, I suppose, that they were not struck dead just as Ananias and Sapphira were for lying.

_September_.--I read in a New York paper to-day that Hon. George Peabody, of England, presented Cyrus W. Field with a solid silver tea service of twelve pieces, which cost $4,000. The pieces bear likenesses of Mr. Peabody and Mr. Field, with the coat of arms of the Field family. The epergne is supported by a base representing the genius of America.

We had experiments in the philosophy class to-day and took electric shocks. Mr. Chubbuck managed the battery which has two handles attached. Two of the girls each held one of these and we all took hold of hands making the circuit complete. After a while it jerked us almost to pieces and we asked Mr. Chubbuck to turn it off. Dana Luther, one of the Academy boys, walked up from the post-office with me this noon. He lives in Naples and is Florence Younglove's cousin. We went to a ball game down on Pleasant Street after school. I got so far ahead of Anna coming home she called me her "distant relative."

1859

_January_, 1859.--Mr. Woodruff came to see Grandfather to ask him if we could attend his singing school. He is going to have it one evening each week in the chapel of our church. Quite a lot of the boys and girls are going, so we were glad when Grandfather gave his consent. Mr. Woodruff wants us all to sing by note and teaches "do re me fa sol la si do" from the blackboard and beats time with a stick. He lets us have a recess, which is more fun than all the rest of it. He says if we practise well we can have a concert in Bemis Hall to end up with. What a treat that will be!

_February_.--Anna has been teasing me all the morning about a verse which John Albert Granger Barker wrote in my album. He has a most fascinating lisp when he talks, so she says this is the way the verse reads:

"Beauty of perthon, ith thertainly chawming Beauty of feachure, by no meanth alawming But give me in pwefrence, beauty of mind, Or give me Cawwie, with all thwee combined."

It takes Anna to find "amuthement" in "evewything."

Mary Wheeler came over and pierced my ears to-day, so I can wear my new earrings that Uncle Edward sent me. She pinched my ear until it was numb and then pulled a needle through, threaded with silk. Anna would not stay in the room. She wants hers done but does not dare. It is all the fashion for girls to cut off their hair and friz it. Anna and I have cut off ours and Bessie Seymour got me to cut off her lovely long hair to-day. It won't be very comfortable for us to sleep with curl papers all over our heads, but we must do it now. I wanted my new dress waist which Miss Rosewarne is making, to hook up in front, but Grandmother said I would have to wear it that way all the rest of my life so I had better be content to hook it in the back a little longer. She said when Aunt Glorianna was married, in 1848, it was the fashion for grown up women to have their waists fastened in the back, so the bride had hers made that way but she thought it was a very foolish and inconvenient fashion. It is nice, though, to dress in style and look like other people. I have a Garibaldi waist and a Zouave jacket and a balmoral skirt.

_Sunday_.--I asked Grandmother if I could write a letter to Father to-day, and she said I could begin it and tell him that I went to church and what Mr. Daggett's text was and then finish it to-morrow. I did so, but I wish I could do it all after I began. She said a verse from the Tract Primer:

"A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content And strength for the toil of to-morrow, But a Sabbath profaned, whatever be gained, Is a certain forerunner of sorrow."

_Monday_.--We dressed up in new fangled costumes to-day and wore them to school. Some of us wore dresses almost up to our knees and some wore them trailing on the ground. Some wore their hair twisted in knots and some let theirs hang down their backs. I wore my new waterfall for the first time and Abbie Clark said I looked like "Hagar in the Wilderness." When she came in she looked like a fashion plate, bedecked with bows and ribbons and her hair up in a new way. When she came in the door she stopped and said solemnly: "If you have tears prepare to shed them now!" Laura Chapin would not participate in the fun, for once. She said she thought "Beauty unadorned was the dorndest." We did not have our lesson in mental philosophy very well so we asked Mr. Richards to explain the nature of dreams and their cause and effect. He gave us a very interesting talk, which occupied the whole hour. We listened with breathless attention, so he must have marked us 100.

There was a lecture at the seminary to-night and Rev. Dr. Hibbard, the Methodist minister, who lives next door above the Methodist church, came home with us. Grandmother was very much pleased when we told her.

_March_ 1.--Our hired man has started a hot bed and we went down behind the barn to see it. Grandfather said he was up at 6 o'clock and walked up as far as Mr. Greig's lions and back again for exercise before breakfast. He seems to have the bloom of youth on his face as a reward. Anna says she saw "Bloom of youth" advertised in the drug store and she is going to buy some. I know Grandmother won't let her for it would be like "taking coal to Newcastle."

_April._--Anna wanted me to help her write a composition last night, and we decided to write on "Old Journals," so we got hers and mine both out and made selections and then she copied them. When we were on our way to school this morning we met Mr. E. M. Morse and Anna asked him if he did not want to read her composition that Carrie wrote for her. He made a very long face and pretended to be much shocked, but said he would like to read it, so he took it and also her album, which she asked him to write in. At night, on his way home, he stopped at our door and left them both. When she looked in her album, she found this was what he had written:

"Anna, when you have grown old and wear spectacles and a cap, remember the boyish young man who saw your fine talents in 1859 and was certain you would add culture to nature and become the pride of Canandaigua. Do not forget also that no one deserves praise for anything done by others and that your progress in wisdom and goodness will be watched by no one more anxiously than by your true friend, E. M. Morse."

I think she might as well have told Mr. Morse that the old journals were as much hers as mine; but I think she likes to make out she is not as good as she is. Sarah Foster helped us to do our arithmetic examples to-day. She is splendid in mathematics.

Much to our surprise Bridget Flynn, who has lived with us so long, is married. We didn't know she thought of such a thing, but she has gone. Anna and I have learned how to make rice and cornstarch puddings. We have a new girl in Bridget's place but I don't think she will do. Grandmother asked her to-day if she seasoned the gravy and she said, either she did or she didn't, she couldn't tell which. Grandfather says he thinks she is a little lacking in the "upper story."

_June._--A lot of us went down to Sucker Brook this afternoon. Abbie Clark was one and she told us some games to play sitting down on the grass. We played "Simon says thumbs up" and then we pulled the leaves off from daisies and said,

"Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,"

to see which we would marry. The last leaf tells the story. Anna's came "rich man" every time and she thinks it is true because Eugene Stone has asked to marry her and he is quite well off. She is 13 and he is 17. He is going now to his home in St. Paul, Minn., but he is coming back for her some day. Tom Eddy is going to be groomsman and Emma Wheeler bridesmaid. They have all the arrangements made. She has not shown any of Eugene Stone's notes to Grandmother yet for she does not think it is worth while. Anna broke the seal on Tom Eddy's page in her mystic book, although he wrote on it, "Not to be opened until December 8, 1859." He says:

Dear Anna,--

I hope that in a few years I will see you and Stone living on the banks of the Mississippi, in a little cottage, as snug as a bug in a rug, living in peace, so that I can come and see you and have a good time.--Yours, Thos. C. Eddy."

Anna says if she does marry Eugene Stone and he forgets, after two or three years to be as polite to her as he is now she shall look up at him with her sweetest smile and say, "Miss Anna, won't you have a little more sugar in your tea?" When I went to school this morning Juliet Ripley asked, "Where do you think Anna Richards is now? Up in a cherry tree in Dr. Cheney's garden." Anna loves cherries. We could see her from the chapel window.

_June_ 7.--Alice Jewett took Anna all through their new house to-day which is being built and then they went over to Mr. Noah T. Clarke's partly finished house and went all through that. A dog came out of Cat Alley and barked at them and scared Anna awfully. She said she almost had a conniption fit but Emma kept hold of her. She is so afraid of thunder and lightning and dogs.

Old Friend Burling brought Grandfather a specimen of his handwriting to-day to keep. It is beautifully written, like copper plate. This is the verse he wrote and Grandfather gave it to me to paste in my book of extracts:

DIVINE LOVE.

Could we with ink the ocean fill, Was the whole earth of parchment made, Was every single stick a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could that scroll contain the whole Though stretched from sky to sky.

Transcribed by William S. Burling, Canandaigua, 1859, in the 83rd year of his age.

_Sunday, December_ 8, 1859.--Mr. E. M. Morse is our Sunday School teacher now and the Sunday School room is so crowded that we go up into the church for our class recitation. Abbie Clark, Fannie Gaylord and myself are the only scholars, and he calls us the three Christian Graces, faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these is charity. I am the tallest, so he says I am charity. We recite in Mr. Gibson's pew, because it is farthest away and we do not disturb the other classes. He gave us some excellent advice to-day as to what was right and said if we ever had any doubts about anything we should never do it and should always be perfectly sure we are in the right before we act. He gave us two weeks ago a poem to learn by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is an apostrophe to God and very hard to learn. It is blank verse and has 85 lines in it. I have it committed at last and we are to recite it in concert. The last two lines are, "Tell thou the silent sky and tell the stars and tell yon rising sun, Earth with its thousand voices praises God." Mr. Morse delivered a lecture in Bemis Hall last Thursday night. The subject was, "You and I." It was splendid and he lent me the manuscript afterwards to read. Dick Valentine lectured in the hall the other night too. His subject was "Prejudice." There was some difference in the lectures and the lecturers. The latter was more highly colored.

_Friday._--The older ladies of the town have formed a society for the relief of the poor and are going to have a course of lectures in Bemis Hall under their auspices to raise funds. The lecturers are to be from the village and are to be: Rev. O. E. Daggett, subject, "Ladies and Gentlemen"; Dr. Harvey Jewett, "The House We Live In"; Prof. F. E. R. Chubbuck, "Progress"; Hon. H. W. Taylor, "The Empty Place"; Prof. E. G. Tyler, "Finance"; Mr. N. T. Clark, "Chemistry"; E. M. Morse, "Graybeard and His Dogmas." The young ladies have started a society, too, and we have great fun and fine suppers. We met at Jennie Howell's to organize. We are to meet once in two weeks and are to present each member with an album bed quilt with all our names on when they are married. Susie Daggett says she is never going to be married, but we must make her a quilt just the same. Laura Chapin sang, "Mary Lindsey, Dear," and we got to laughing so that Susie Daggett and I lost our equilibrium entirely, but I found mine by the time I got home. Yesterday afternoon Grandfather asked us if we did not want to go to ride with him in the big two seated covered carriage which he does not get out very often. We said yes, and he stopped for Miss Hannah Upham and took her with us. She sat on the back seat with me and we rode clear to Farmington and kept up a brisk conversation all the way. She told us how she became lady principal of the Ontario Female Seminary in 1830. She was still telling us about it when we got back home.

_December_ 23.--We have had a Christmas tree and many other attractions in Seminary chapel. The day scholars and townspeople were permitted to participate and we had a post office and received letters from our friends. Mr. E. M. Morse wrote me a fictitious one, claiming to be written from the north pole ten years hence. I will copy it in my journal for I may lose the letter. I had some gifts on the Christmas tree and gave some. I presented my teacher, Mr. Chubbuck, with two large hemstitched handkerchiefs with his initials embroidered in a corner of each. As he is favored with the euphonious name of Frank Emery Robinson Chubbuck it was a work of art to make his initials look beautiful. I inclosed a stanza in rhyme:

Amid the changing scenes of life If any storm should rise, May you ever have a handkerchief To wipe your weeping eyes.

Here is Mr. Morse's letter:

North Pole, 10 _January_ 1869. Miss Carrie Richards,