The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-18
EAST HAVEN DAYS OF TORE
sOYH0OD SCENES IN THE OLD TOWN
 RECALLED.

 He Pointed With His "sabba Day" Cane The Quaint old Nee ing House-its Bird Cage puipit-Its straight Backed fsws- Sermons That Were Sermons" Deborah Stream n"-Lonotononkst Mountain. To the Editor of tho JOURNAL AND COURIER T love to think of East Haven Town,
 With it's old stone church in the East
 'countrie.'
 Where Deborah's stream goes winding
 down.
 Through the tall sedge grass to the
 murmuring sea-"
 East Haven, Dec. l7.The above misquo- tation fairly nushes my mind with the scenes of a glorious boyhood. With what surprising details the events of our morning life come back to us at the evening hour. The old church. with its successive rows of stones. is a fund of never-ending memories.
 Often at the meetings nooning would the old Mortality of the town, in his quaint stuttering style, pointing with his "sabba' day" cane. give the history of this eill or that stone. How this sill, slipping from Its sling. broke the back of its nigh neighbor, and that row O stun toppied over and killed one man and broke up others so they never did days work arter.
 In fact, he claimed to have had 8 handling acquaintance himself with ev- cry stone in the church.
 Before the interior of the house was changed, "slicked up." 1t was truly a colonial meeting house, with Its wide door at the front, its door at the back and its small door at the end, bewil- dering the colonial youth as to which of the doors his coy girl would make her exit. My grandmother told me that girls in her day and time" were mar vous about taking a beaus arm at the meetings door.
 Its high pews, fts galleries, right side for girls, left side for boys; Its pagan and negro pews built high at each cor ner, nigh side pue for Indian and ne- gro bucks and off side for wenches and squa."
 The most interesting feature of the house was its bird-cage pulpit perched half way to the roof, with a cup-shaped sounding board for all the world like a candle extinguisher, and a narrow winding stairs upon which were seated "ye aintient and hard CT hearing folke dignifying ye meeting" and up which the parson waddled his ponderous body, filling the pulpit when seated as an "egg Is full of meat"
 The most uninteresting feature to us boys was the sitting two and a half hours in the straight-backed pews, tor tured with stiff store clothes and Sabba' day meeting shoes, eagerly watching for the hour glass on the parsons desk to run out its last sands, and how our hearts would sink into those same shoes to see the parson as the sands were running low, calmly take from his pocket a package of broken loaf sugar and with great deliberation and solem- nifty refresh himself, then, turning over the glass, go on with (another hour of torture to the wretched youths) his last ly, finally and in conclusion amen. There were usually enough of the au- dience awake to arouse the rest when they arose to hear the benediction.
 As they walked down the aisle those who had done the most sleeping could be heard saying, Wonderful sermon" |" Powerful discourse" Went right to the marrow CT things" Meat and drink fur hull weeke" But grief and woe was the lot of the larger boys in the gallery. if they slept. And who of us old boys do not remember the little old tithingman, with his short bow legs and his long body; "you would laugh when you saw him in spite of your- self;" his swallow tailed brass button ed blue coat and his white bell-crowned "top hat" with the fur worn off the brim (where it had rested upon his ears and the high coat collars for fifty years) and Latest Fashion printed in bold re- lief in its crown. When seated in meet ing he always kept his arm around it, as tradition said 1t was once stolen by some wicked boys and put on top of the whipping post How suddenly he would bounce down upon the shoulders of the sleeper and from the cracking of the bench or the boys bones you would think the Seven Sleepers ot Christendom" were being aroused. Said an unfortunate Caught in the act" af- ter being bounced up and down on the bench, He's small of his age, but he's strong enough to lick Goliarh of Gath"
 Good old Uncle Leddy, kinder hearted man (to the boys upon a week day) never shook a chestnut tree or dug out a pumpkin eater, but through fear for his own and their spiritual and eternal welfare there must be no "fooling around the meeting on Sab- baday." f.
 There was then, as now, Sunday saints and Monday devils, but Leddy was a week day saint and g. Sunday Brutus. I hope to clasp palms with him some time in the Sweet bye and bye" where no thieves will kill his cosset sheep or steals his matching geese and when he can catch his mess of clans, without 'the pesky tide gunning him clean out to the upland with aaalf @ bait"
 Jess 50. It did. It did. 'pon my eoul it did" Leddy and his type has passed on. "He lived where his fathers lived. died where they died. Lived happy, died happy and is blessed" /" Then there was that great mystery, the meeting bell, as it hung in the open belfry. The village boy was not con- eideYef7 fine neAr of hia no5,o,sa dos ,,,,Hsl