The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-07-28

cestors had to endure in winter in
their bare, bleak. bitter cold old
meeting housesl
"Ye sacramental bread was frozen
hard and ratified sadly in ye plates,
wrote Judge Sewall in his diary
after a Sunday in the church at
Newbury, with the thermometer
near zero. And it was not uncom-
mon, not only in the days of the
grand old justice, but many years
later, for women to faint from sim
ply cold or to become SO chilled as
to be unable to rise or move when
it came to hymn time and to have
TO be carried out of church and
thawed at the nearest neighbours.
Little wonder, poor things
We have only TO imagine how a
girl of today would feel if after get
ting her feet thoroughly wet and
half frozen she wrapped herself in
heavy cloak-omitting, however,
her warm fannels and her close fit
ting outside jacket-and, retiring to
an unheated barn, sat up straight
on hard board for three hours
with drafts from every crack and
knothole playing freely about her.
We should expect consumption or
pneumonia as the natural result,
and they were the natural result,
and carried many of our shivering
ancestresses TO an untimely grave.
Yet, with all that they had to en-
dure, women sometimes voluntarily
increased their misery at the de-
mand of fashion-at least, the win
ter brides did So 1t was long the
custom for brides on first attending
church after marriage to wear no
outside garment, whether merely
to let the folks see their new gowns
or as relic of traditional ceremony
akin to unveiling is not known, but
in the depths of January or Decem-
Der they would come to. meeting,
with heroism worthy of a better
cause, in all the unconcealed finery
of a glossy silk or satin, with not so
much as scarf across the shoulders
for warmth.
A characteristic story of the re-
venge of a Puritan suitor upon a
fair maid who had married his rival,
relates that-he being the sexton of
the church and she a December
bride-he purposely managed so
that bitter wind should blow upon
her from deftly unstopped chink
when she arrived the Sunday after
the wedding in the customary mad
equate array.
He would bring down the saucy
hussy s pride, he declared. Though
whether he intended to do SO ludi-
crously through influenza and red
nose or tragically by means of lung
fever and an early death, the story
does not relate. But in either case
she survived the ordeal.
There were often among the
tougher and more rigid members
of the church few who believed all
this hardship to be good thing
and who opposed even the popular
little foot stoves as luxury, while
when stoves were introduced which |
attempted to heat the whole church !
they fought them with disgust and
bitterness.
One old woman, Aunt Judy Jones,
made point of sitting near the new
stove for several successive Sun
days, throwing off or finging open |
one layer of wraps after another and
finally lying back in state of con-
spicuous exhaustion, gasping family |
and tanning herself with an i'm
mense turkey feather fan. But the
stove continued to glow and the |
congregation to be comfortable, and |
before the season ended it was quiet
ly observed that Aunt Judy did not
seem to feel the heat more than 9th
or people and had even been known
to go up and warm her feet at the
redhot thing itself be-
fore settling down in her pew for
the sermon. Companion.
,xa 49, xx nal.