The Press., 1893-07-20
pEGGoTY PL1MProNs CHOIR.

PEGGQIY Y PLIMPTONS CHOIR.
 There is a great deal written about New England churches and church. yards that belongs more truly to the realms of romance than reality. Those velyet-turf- ed and shadow-dimpled spots of beauty, those fvy-mantled and moss-grown towers the poet story y-tellers sing of, are few and far between, judging from my experience in the parts of New England have visit ed. Old England has them every where on her broad face, as Irving beautifully de- scribes them, and perhaps in some few vales of Massachusetts there may be some such sequestered spots, but they are not numerous.
 The village church that now wish to tell you of (the village church of Q-) was built years ago, and it's founders and framers seem to have selected for it 8 sort of citadel site, where it could look out on the country far and wide. alter nately to dry up and crack in in the broil- ing summer sun, and shiver and shake in the bleak winter winds. Hardly a live thing save few low lichens would grow on the hilly mound where it was placed, though the church-yard, protected little | from the wind by the church (for the rail fence around it gave but little protection) 1, sported a most superb display of briers and thistles.
 The church itself seemed to have been modelled from Squire Fosters barn, and | it's steeple always, from boy, made me laugh when I looked at it. It was most unreasonably shaped steeple. Fat and squat and dumpy, with an immense brass dragon on top, to show the farmers the drift of the wind. It was as though it had been built up straight and comely and towering, and then some tremendous hand had come down flat upon it, knock 1 ing timbers together against the solid foundation, leaving it half its height with all It's rotundity. The windows were large, with hanging, rattling blinds 1n- side, and steep flight of steps led up to the hungry-looking doorway. That the church had once been painted there can be not ghost of doubt, as Dame Heath, who, though old, is considered, as Goody Collins calls her, "a perfect parody of truth" remembers seeing the painters at work; and, in fact, if you will but exam inc the woodwork carefully, you can still sec traces:
 Inside, one can easily understand with what fervor the congregation must have sung, 70 give us, Father, warmth with imp Perfectly plain, wooden, stiff-back- ed pews, with no cushions save in favor ed few; gallery running across one end of the church and facing the low white pulpit-desk, which was adorned with a red velvet top, bordered with blue fringe, and supporting two melancholy-looking tassels. A black hair-cloth sofa and two chairs, with little stand for pitcher and tumbler, made up the furniture of the pulpit. A large iron stove flanked either side, and by wires from the ceiling the black stove-pipes ran along the whole length of the church, and disappeared ln the wall above the gallery.
 I have been thus precise about this re- markable edifice as it is herein of oul story lies. Years on years within this plain old place of worship had the worthy people of Q, old and young, farmers with their good wives, young men 1young women, and children, met fire Ii Sabbath to Sabbath and worshipped tht Father of all, who sent them the show CTS and sunlight Here had they heart Pun. Scriptures preached, and here mad' the crazy, creaking windows rattle ant ring again as they sung together thel grand old Congregational hymns. Plall and forbidding as was the place, like al such places on earth (thank Heaven ) lit had it's pleasant associations, and tAoubt not that on many a Sabbath morl more truly worship had gone up an' shaken the clear on that bleak hilltop than had risen through the lofty arche of much more pretentious places.
 But new feature had just now set al o. by the ears. Peggoty Plimpto1 had started the project of a church choir and in fact the congregation had now 10 some five Sabbaths listened in wondering amazement to the the singing of tn
 hymns from the throats of some doze or more stationed in the gallery. Ho1 Peggoty Plimpton ever got the head me
 to say she might try such an unheard thing 1 to this day have never been abl to clearly comprehend; but it seemed sh did, and the various comments and opin ions that the new music called fort
 were diverse in the extreme. For my read CTS must know that village like e
 has exactly as many opinions about sue
 momentous matters as there are inhab itants, men, women, and children an
 were they to choose of three things give say an earthquake, a plague, or an inne
 vation-it is, to say the least, quite doubt
 full which of the three they would agre
 to take the responsibility of trying.
 Squire Foster thought "no harm coul
 come out of trying it,' and his opinio
 went great way but Ann Head sai
 ''that was all very well no harm mlg1