The Coconino weekly sun., 1895-10-31

SN parents in an old pontist church in Peoria. My legs were short and the pew was high, and while listened to the sermon and swung my feet, shackled by the unwonted and cruaI shoon of the Sabbath day, often wondered how many hundred years it ,ould be ere could reach the floor with my feet as my father did. There were two footstools in the pew, but it was considered wicked for boy to put his feet on one of them. They were made exclusively for grown-up people who did not need them. They were also used to trap the unwary stranger who came sliding softly and sideways into the pew without an invitation. He fell .oyer one and kicked the other. That notified the worshipers in the front pews that there was a stranger within our gates and they could turn around and look at him. But for this automa- tic system of signaling, many devout woman would have gone home without knowingthe particular kind of clothing the stranger wore.
 Straight across the rear of the church, high above the congregation, ran long gallery. Here was the me lodeon, which was the pipe-organ of our day; here sat the choir, literally and muscally out of sight" l re- member we had an odd custom, origin ating in some idea so old that nobody could remember it, and the rest of us never knew it. When the congregation rose to sing the closing hymn, it about faced and looked at the choir. Then at the end of the hymn we faced about once more and received the benedic. ton. supposed this was done to give the congregation opportunity to see who was in the choir and what they had on, and also to enable the singers to complete their inventory of the con gregational adornments. It must have been tantalizing to look at the backs of heads all through the service and guess at the face trimming of every new bon net in the house. Because in those days you had to walk all the way around a bonnet to take in the entire pattern. Your mother, dear, did not wear post age stamp with two horns on it, and call it bonnet. Men talk about the big hat you wear in the opera house. I wish your critic might have stood be- hind your grandmother at baptisIi put in Peoria back in the fifties. He couldn't have seen the lake, nor very much of the woods on the opposite shore. He might have caught glimpse of the sky if the day was fair and your grandmother stood still. But when she rose on her tip-toes to reach "E' in "COronation," he could see her bonnet and that was all. And that was enough, In that day a bonnet was built to cover the wearer's head. And neck. And a section of the shoulders. And to oyer- shadow the face. And flower-garden in full bloom blazed and shone and clustered around, above and beneath il. None of your buds and grasses in those days.
 And our choir! Well, now, there was choir that could sing! When they felt in good voice, which was every time they stood up, you couldn't hear the melodeon. They read music at Sight as a proof-reader reads print. And they sang in a way that made everybody else sing. Everybody would sing anyhow, therefore it was useless for the leader-nobody called him the chorlster then-to select new tunes and spring them upon the audience sudden 'y. The congregation would join in with all confidence just the same, on the sec ond word, and sing right along, only n syllable or two behind. If the hymn was of the usual length, by the time they sang through the third stanza