The Tupelo journal., 1908-03-06
A GIRL OF 1850.
And the Good Things and Good Timea
She Enjoyed.

rows of Lombardy poplars and ash
trees, and at the west was a stone
horseback, where you went some
mount your horse.
Great-grandfather built the house
more than 100 years ago, and NOW the
great halls and square rooms are all
the fashion, and we call them colonial.
The best plase "a the garnet with it's
stout beams and rafters. Old 1912 coats
and tr%aining-day suits hung there, ell
bowling the fint-lock muskets. Herbs
of all sorts, strings of dried apples,
and tables spread with dried buckle
berries, were in n sunny corner, for
canned fruit was never heard of in
those days.
Grandma had a swing put up there for
me. and on rainy days | used to read
and swing, and live in a little world
of my own There were but few books
and no children's magazines, but ! had
The Arabian Nights" "Fatser Bright
hopes Sketches by Boz" who, as L
afterwards found out. was Dickens;
Fanny Ferns stories; and imagined
the rest, just as you take a theme and
play variations on it. One day l
found an old stone lamp and rubbed it
for a genie to come, and though he
did not then appear he was none the
less real.
There was a good fairy in grandma,
who used to let me into the store
rooms, where there was delicious
pound cake from the brick oven.
currant jelly and pound for-pound pre-
serves. Then | would follow her int
the blue buttery," where there was
a jar of susar-gingerbread, and then
into "the dungeon" which was a dark
closet in al enormous chimney, but
being a gloomy place and holding
nothing for me, l would back out
quicker than | went in.
When the sabbath day came,
grandma had out the best carriage
and We went to meeting. No regis
ters in the pews then, and we carried
a foot stove. Our pew was back of
two old ladies, who always used to
look around and smile, and after the
minister had preached ever so long, 1t
seemed to me, they would give me a
bunch of caraway, which kept me busy
until the last hymn. How fine the
choir looked as they took the pitch
from fathers tuning-fork.
On the way home | was allowed to
drive up Potash hill, the steepest in
that region, and as the horses toiled
and | held the rein with little wrists
twisting, | was Aurora in her chariot.
How | did love the barn, and the
hayIeows, and the cows and the oxen,
rolling their great soft eyes and chew
ing their cud! One day | went to see
20 little pigs, tumbling over each other
into the feeding-trough, and not long
after that one was served at Thanks
giving dinner.
Grandma had a very long table, with
the blue dinner-set that was brought
from Liverpool on a sailing ship; no
ocean g~reyhounds" in those days. At
each end of the table was a pewter
cover, shining like silver, and big
enough for a baDy's bathtub, and when
the table was filled with everything
good and everybody was seated, grand
pa asked the blessing and the covers
were lifted.
Under one was a turkey, just as /
expected, but what could be under the
other? Nothing less than a little
crisp, brown pig, standing in a bed OF
parsley with a lemon in his mouth.
There was a funny old, red school
house where l went to school, with
benches hacked and battered, and in
itials cut everywhere. We little folks
sat on a low bench, and the big boys
sat directly back of us, on a high
one. When they wrote or studied
they turned their backs to the teacher
to face the wall, where there was a
desk that ran along one side of the
room. When they recited their les
sons they turned around again, and
sometimes put their dreadful boots on
the back of our bench for a footrest.
How l used to shake for fear they
might touch my shoulder!
There was always something de,
lightful to do on the farm; horseback
riding. lawmakers to watch, and then
a ride on the hayload; the tapping of
the sugar-maple and the setting of the
buckets; fishing for sinners in a little
brook, where the wild roses grew
against a messy wall, with it's mica
for diamonds and each moss cup a
fairy chalice.
Grandpa was not strong, and on
winter evenings he had his round
table by the fire, with milk porridge
and sugar cut from the tall, con
shaped sugar-loaves in the dining
room closet.
Then the candle and the silver snuff
fer-tray were brought in, the Bible
| placed beside them, and as he read 1
pointed to keep the place." After the
prayer, Joana, the maid, brought in
the brass warming pan and filled it
with live Goals, and grandma slowly
mounted the stairs, saw that my bed
was properly warmed, gaze me my
wooden dolly, tucked me up herself
as nobody else could do, heard the
NOW l lay me-" and away l went to
the Land of Nod.