A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Scoville Samuel
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morning, service had begun, and said, in a very solemn and low tone, ‘Boy! boy! you little devil you!’ and much more, I presume, but I did not wait for it, but cut round to the other door and sat all church-time trembling and wondering whether he would ‘tell my pa’; and if he did, what he would say, and more especially what he would do. I called up the probable interview. I had numerous precedents on which to found a possible experience, and afflicted our little soul all meeting-time with needless punishment by the imagination.
“But ordinarily we escaped into the minister’s pew without special temptations. Imagine a boy of eight years old, round as an apple, hearty and healthy, an hour and a half in church with nothing to do! We looked at the galleries full of boys and girls, and wished we might go into the galleries. We looked at the ceiling, traced all the cracks back and forth. We looked at the dear old aunties all round the church, fanning themselves with one hand and eating fennel-seed or a bit of dried orange-peel out of the other. We gazed out of the window high above our heads into the clouds, and wished we could only climb up and see the trees and horses and dogs that abounded around the church on Sunday.
“Gradually these died out and we dropped asleep. Blessed liberty! the child’s gospel! All trouble fled away. For a half-hour paradise was gained. But then an unusual thump on the pulpit Bible, and the ring and roar of a voice under full excitement, that went on swelling like a trumpet, and that no one, not the most listless, could hear without catching its excitement, waked us, blushing and confused that we had been asleep in church! Even on the serene and marble face of mother the faint suggestion of a smile came, as we clutched our hat, supposing meeting to be over, and then sheepishly dropped it and sank back in dismay. But even Sunday cannot hold out for ever, and meetings have to let out sometime! So, at length, a universal stir and bustle announced that it was time to go. Up we bolted! Down we sat as quick as if a million pins were sticking in our foot! The right leg was asleep! Limping forth into the open air, relief came to our heart. The being out of doors had always an inexpressible charm, and never so much as on Sunday. Away went the wagons. Away went the people. The whole Green swarmed with folks. The long village streets were full of company. In ten minutes all were gone, and the street was given up again to the birds!
“Little good did preaching do me until after I was fifteen years old—little good immediately. Yet the whole Sunday, the peculiar influence which it exerted on the household, the general sense of awe which it inspired, the very rigor of its difference from other days, and the suspended animation of its sermon time, served to produce upon the young mind a profound impression. A day that stood out from all others in a hard and gaunt way might, perhaps, be justly criticised. But it left its mark. It did its work upon the imagination, if not upon the reason. It had power in it; and in estimating moral excellence power is an element of the utmost importance. Will our smooth, cosey, feeble modern Sundays have such a grip on the moral nature? They are far pleasanter. Are they as efficacious? Will they educate the moral nature as much?”
The cold of Litchfield Hill and the exposure of his old home were always remembered.
“You may think you know something about winter; but if you never spent a winter on old Litchfield Hill, where I was brought up, you do not know much about it. It was before the days of stoves. There were what we called ‘box-stoves,’ but they were a very small power for generating heat. The idea of a furnace was not born. It was not even within the reach of a prophet to predict it.
“My father’s house was a great barn of a structure, with rooms scattered about here and there. Mine was the west and north room—on the corner; so that I had the full benefit, without any subtraction or discount, of everything that was going on out of doors; for double windows were not known, and the carpenters did not care about making a tight fit. Therefore the wind found no trouble in coming in, and on many and many a morning the snow had blown from the window to my bed and across the foot of it; and if anything inspires alacrity of step on a winter morning when the feet are bare, it is a drift of snow. Walking on it is like walking on wasps.
“To go back to the frigid houses of New England in winter, without furnaces or hard coal, or air-tight stoves or steam, would make our dainty skin tingle. What a pother is made to ascertain the exact position of the North Pole, the very centre and navel of cold! Why, I could have pointed to the exact spot sixty years ago. It was on the northwest angle of my father’s house in Litchfield, Connecticut, in the room where I slept.”
Not only did the severity of the elements affect him, but their uproar as well, especially in the night-time.
“The war of winter winds to our young ears was terrible as the thunder of waves or the noise of battle. All night long the cold, shelterless trees moaned. Their strong crying penetrated our sleep and shaped our dreams. At every waking the air was full of mighty winds. The house creaked and strained, and at some more furious gust shuddered and trembled all over. Then the windows rattled, the cracks and crevices whistled each its own distinctive note, and the chimneys, like diapasons of an organ, had their deep and hollow rumble.”
And now comes an influence that we should have passed by, if he himself had not given it place and elaborate notice:
“Next to the winds our night experiences in early boyhood were much affected by rats. The old house seemed to have been a favorite of this curious vermin. There is something in the short, hot glitter of a rat’s eye that has never ceased to affect us unpleasantly. We could not help imagining them to be the mere receptacles of mischievous spirits, and their keen eyes had always a kind of mocking expression, as if they said, ‘You think we are rats, but if we get hold of you you will know that we are a good deal more than that.’ We never could estimate how many populated our old house. The walls seemed like city thoroughfares, and the ceiling like a Forum or Roman theatre. We used to lie in bed and marvel at what was going on. Sometimes there would be a great stillness, as if they had all gone to meeting. Then again they would troop about with such a swell of liberty and gladness that it was quite plain that the meeting was out. But nothing ever scared and amused us so much as their way of going up and down the partitions. At first up would come one, then another, and finally quite a bevy, squeaking and frolicking, as if they were school-boys going up-stairs, nipping each other and cutting up all manner of pranks. Then came a stillness. Next a premonitory rat would rush down, evidently full of news, and immediately down would pour after him a stream of rats, rushing like mad, and apparently tumbling heels over head. By and by some old sawyer would commence where he left off the night before, cutting the same partition. To this must be added nibblings, rat-nestled paper, an occasional race of rats across the bed, the manipulation of corn in the garret, the foray with cats and kittens, the rat engines—‘steel traps,’ ‘box-traps,’ ‘figure-four’s,’ and all manner of devices, in spite of which the rats held their own, and, if allowed suffrage, would have outvoted the whole family, dog and cats to boot, four to one.”
He was early taught to work and endure what now might be called hardships.
“It was my duty, after I got to be about eight years old, to go down-stairs and build a fire. Ours was a house in which, when the weather was cold, if water was left in any vessel it would freeze and split the vessel asunder; and of course crockery had no chance. Our well used to choke up with ice so that we had to cut it out in order to get the bucket down; and sometimes, when the cistern was frozen up so that we could not get water from it, I have gone, on washing-days, two miles, and dipped water from a brook into barrels, and brought it home. Therefore you see that, however dainty I may be nowadays, I started on a very different pattern.”
But he came in after-years to be glad of this experience:
“I am thankful that I learned to hem towels—as I did. I know how to knit suspenders and mittens. I know a good deal about working in wood—sawing, chopping, splitting, planing, and things of that sort. I was brought up to put my hand to anything; so that when I went West, and was travelling on the prairies and my horse lost a shoe, and I came to a cross-road where there was an abandoned blacksmith’s shop, I could go in and start the fire, and fix the old shoe and put it on again. What man has done man can do; and it is a good thing to bring up boys so that they shall think they can do anything. I could do anything.”
The greatest trial of those days was the catechism. Sunday lessons were