Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1892-03-17
HEBRON.
From Christian LEADER

Dunn, and he taught his elias
on alternate Tuesday evenings il
the schoolhouse that stood il
corner OF my fathers meadow
Memory recalls the first school
mouse, though it was not so conspicuou,
on the landscape as the church two
miles up the hill where the other Tues.
DAY evenings sang themsel away.
Inc church was painted white; the
schoolhouse rejoiced in a coat of weather.
beaten boards. The church stood on a
slope of long hill. The schoolhouse
nestled restfully in a smiling valley, full
OF well kept homes. Near to each was
the place where, latter life's fitful fever''
tne plain farmers and their wives and
children slept.
down to the valley, and the valley Youths
sought the hill on the nights of the
singing school. 1t was union singing
school in more than one sense, and an
event in the two communities.
These communities came together oc-
casionally in social ways, and for a de-
Datlng CLUB or singing school, but re-
ngiously they were as far apart as the
poles. The hill people were Baptists !;
tne valley folk were nearly all Univer-
salists. Two of the leading families
mad formerly been Baptists, but the re-
1usal OF the hill people to let the Lake
Erie association meet in their church
had impressed them as an act not
characterized by Christian love, and the
sermons preached in Ferris Rundell,s
barn, where the association met. fell
upon soil just plowed by righteous in
dlgnation, and they were converted to
the faith which holds the world-full of
Gods children.
Inere were good voices in each COM
munity, and each had profited by pre-
vlous singing schools. The parts could
De well sustained if each neighborhood
met by itself. But on this remembered
year they came together, and the chorus
was large and strong. Some of the
members OF the singing class had drive
OF three or four miles. This meant a
swifter motion with axe and saw in the
lumber fields, that the accustomed work
might be finished in good season. The
young men came in to an early sumner
on Tuesday night. They hurried the
evening chores,-the feeding of the |
stock, the milking, the preparations for
to-morrow's early fire. They slicked up |
more than usual and put on their Sundav
clothes. II they had chopped and sawed
lumDer all day, you never would have
suspected it by step or motion. They
were upborne by pleasant anticipations.
A bright evening lay before them, time
when the heart would grow little in
the ''sweetness and light' of love and
devotion.
The singing books contained only
psalm tunes. Such thing as song
was never sung except perhaps at inter
mission. If some youth had learned
the music of new song he sang il TO
The others then and they caught it bv
hearing and joining with the singer.
The old tunes which sacred association
has sanctified and time will never let die
were the tunes written in the long mar.
row books which the young men carried
under their arms.
The schOol-bouse was packed when its
urn came for the singing. Many came
20 listen, who embraced this occasion, as
q sparse neighbOrhoods they gather at ,
he Fare advents of the circuit rider. It'll
vas church and worship to the fathers
md mothers. 1t was church and wor-
hip to the singers, though often the {
had an earthly centre. The
'oung men from the hill saw the valley l.
iris that they were com, ly and bright as ,
heir own. They heard stories of their |
the homework, the spinning. t
he straw-braiding. Their voices har-