1858
1858
February24, 1858.—The boarders at the Seminary had some tableaux last evening and invited a great many from the village. As we went in with the crowd, we heard some one say, “Are they going to have tableaux? Well, I thought I smelt them!” They were splendid. Mr. Chubbuck was in nearly all of them. The most beautiful one was Abraham offering up Isaac. Mr. Chubbuck was Abraham and Sarah Ripley was Isaac. After the tableaux they acted a charade. The word was “Masterpiece.” It was fine. After the audience got half way out of the chapel Mr. Richards announced “The Belle of the Evening.” The curtain rose and every one rushed back, expecting to see a young lady dressed in the height of fashion, when immediately the Seminary bell rang! Mr. Blessner’s scholars gave all the music and he stamped so, beating time, it almost drowned the music. Some one suggested a bread and milk poultice for his foot. Anna has been taking part in some private theatricals. The play is in contrast to “The Spirit of ’76” and the idea carried out is that the men should stay at home and rock the cradles and the women should take the rostrum. Grandmother was rather opposed to the idea, but every one wanted Anna to take the part ofleading lady, so she consented. She even helped Anna make her bloomer suit and sewed on the braid for trimming on the skirt herself. She did not know that Anna’s opening sentence was, “How are you, sir? Cigar, please!” It was acted at Mrs. John Bates’ house on Gibson Street and was a great success, but when they decided to repeat it another evening Grandmother told Anna she must choose between going on the stage and living with her Grandmother, so Anna gave it up and some one else took her part.
March.—There is a great deal said about spirits nowadays and a lot of us girls went into one of the recitation rooms after school to-night and had a spiritual seance. We sat around Mr. Chubbuck’s table and put our hands on it and it moved around and stood on two legs and sometimes on one. I thought the girls helped it but they said they didn’t. We heard some loud raps, too, but they sounded very earthly to me. Eliza Burns, one of the boarders, told us if we would hold our breath we could pick up one of the girls from the floor and raise her up over our heads with one finger of each hand, if the girl held her breath, too. We tried it with Anna and did it, but we had such hard work to keep from laughing I expected we would drop her. There is nothing very spirituelle about any of us. I told Grandmother and she said we reminded her of Jemima Wilkinson, who told all her followers thatthe world was to come to an end on a certain day and they should all be dressed in white and get up on the roofs of the houses and be prepared to ascend and meet the Lord in the air. I asked Grandmother what she said when nothing happened and she said she told them it was because they did not have faith enough. If they had, everything would have happened just as she said. Grandmother says that one day at a time has always been enough for her and that to-morrow will take care of the things of itself.
May,1858.—Several of us girls went up into the top of the new Court House to-day as far as the workmen would allow us. We got a splendid view of the lake and of all the country round. Abbie Clark climbed up on a beam and recited part of Alexander Selkirk’s soliloquy:
“I’m monarch of all I survey,My rights there are none to dispute:From the center, all round to the sea,I’m lord of the fowl and brute.”
“I’m monarch of all I survey,
My rights there are none to dispute:
From the center, all round to the sea,
I’m lord of the fowl and brute.”
I was standing on a block and she said I looked like “Patience on a monument smiling at Grief.” I am sure she could not be taken for “Grief.” She always has some quotation on her tongue’s end. We were down at Sucker Brook the other day and she picked her way out to a big stone in the middle of the stream and, standing on it, said, in the words of Rhoderick Dhu,
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base, as soon as I.”
“Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
From its firm base, as soon as I.”
Just then the big stone tipped over and she had to wade ashore. She is not at all afraid of climbing and as we left the Court House she said she would like to go outside on the cupola and help Justice balance the scales.
A funny old man came to our house to-day as he wanted to deposit some money and reached the bank after it was closed. We were just sitting down to dinner so Grandfather asked him to stay and have “pot luck” with us. He said that he was very much “obleeged” and stayed and passed his plate a second time for more of our very fine “pot luck.” We had boiled beef and dumplings and I suppose he thought that was the name of the dish. He talked so queer we couldn’t help noticing it. He said he “heered” so and he was “afeered” and somebody was very “deef” and they “hadn’t ought to have done it” and “they should have went” and such things. Anna and I almost laughed but Grandmother looked at us with her eye and forefinger so we sobered down. She told us afterwards that there are many good people in the world whose verbs and nouns do not agree, and instead of laughing at them we should be sure that we always speak correctly ourselves. Very true. Dr. Daggett was at the Seminary one day when we had public exercises and he told me afterwards that I said“sagac-ious” for “saga-cious” and Aunt Ann told me that I said “epi-tome” for “e-pit-o-me.” So “people that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Sunday.—Grandfather read his favorite parable this morning at prayers—the one about the wise man who built his house upon a rock and the foolish man who built upon the sand. He reads it good, just like a minister. He prays good, too, and I know his prayer by heart. He says, “Verily Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us not,” and he always says, “Thine arm is not shortened that it cannot save, or Thine ear heavy that it cannot hear.” I am glad that I can remember it.
June.—Cyrus W. Field called at our house to-day. He is making a trip through the States and stopped here a few hours because Grandmother is his aunt. He made her a present of a piece of the Atlantic cable about six inches long, which he had mounted for her. It is a very nice souvenir. He is a tall, fine looking man and very pleasant.
Sunday, July4, 1858.—This is Communion Sunday and quite a number united with the church on profession of their faith. Mr. Gideon Granger was one of them. Grandmother says that she has known him always and his father and mother, andshe thinks he is like John, the beloved disciple. I think that any one who knows him, knows what is meant by a gentle-man. I have a picture of Christ in the Temple with the doctors, and His face is almost exactly like Mr. Granger’s. Some others who joined to-day were Miss Belle Paton, Miss Lottie Clark and Clara Willson, Mary Wheeler and Sarah Andrews. Dr. Daggett always asks all the communicants to sit in the body pews and the noncommunicants in the side pews. We always feel like the goats on the left when we leave Grandfather and Grandmother and go on the side, but we won’t have to always. Abbie Clark, Mary Field and I think we will join at the communion in September. Grandmother says she hopes we realize what a solemn thing it is. We are fifteen years old so I think we ought to. No one who hears Dr. Daggett say in his beautiful voice, “I now renounce all ways of sin as what I truly abhor and choose the service of God as my greatest privilege,” could think it any trifling matter. I feel as though I couldn’t be bad if I wanted to be, and when he blesses them and says, “May the God of the Everlasting Covenant keep you firm and holy to the end through Jesus Christ our Lord,” everything seems complete. He always says at the close, “And when they had sung an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives.” Then he gives out the hymn, beginning:
“According to Thy gracious word,In deep humility,This will I do, my dying LordI will remember Thee.”
“According to Thy gracious word,
In deep humility,
This will I do, my dying Lord
I will remember Thee.”
And the last verse:
“And when these failing lips grow dumb,And mind and memory flee,When in Thy kingdom Thou shalt come,Jesus remember me.”
“And when these failing lips grow dumb,
And mind and memory flee,
When in Thy kingdom Thou shalt come,
Jesus remember me.”
Hon. Francis GrangerMr. Gideon Granger
Hon. Francis Granger
Mr. Gideon Granger
Deacon Taylor always starts the hymn. Deacon Taylor and Deacon Tyler sit on one side of Dr. Daggett and Deacon Clarke and Deacon Castle on the other. Grandfather and Grandmother joined the church fifty-one years ago and are the oldest living members. She says they have always been glad that they took this step when they were young.
August17.—There was a celebration in town to-day because the Queen’s message was received on the Atlantic cable. Guns were fired and church bells rung and flags were waving everywhere. In the evening there was a torchlight procession and the town was all lighted up except Gibson Street. Allie Antes died this morning, so the people on that street kept their houses as usual. Anna says that probably Allie Antes was better prepared to die than any other little girl in town. Atwater hall and the academy and the hotel were more brilliantly illuminated than any other buildings. Grandfather saw something in a Boston paper that a minister saidin his sermon about the Atlantic cable and he wants me to write it down in my journal. This is it: “The two hemispheres are now successfully united by means of the electric wire, but what is it, after all, compared with the instantaneous communication between the Throne of Divine Grace and the heart of man? Offer up your silent petition. It is transmitted through realms of unmeasured space more rapidly than the lightning’s flash, and the answer reaches the soul e’re the prayer has died away on the sinner’s lips. Yet this telegraph, performing its saving functions ever since Christ died for men on Calvary, fills not the world with exultation and shouts of gladness, with illuminations and bonfires and the booming of cannon. The reason is, one is the telegraph of this world and may produce revolutions on earth; the other is the sweet communication between Christ and the Christian soul and will secure a glorious immortality in Heaven.” Grandfather appreciates anything like that and I like to please him.
Grandfather says he thinks the 19th Psalm is a prophecy of the electric telegraph. “Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.” It certainly sounds like it.
Sunday.—Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is staying at Judge Taylor’s and came with them to church to-day. Everybody knew that he was here and thought he would preach and the church was packedfull. When he came in he went right to Judge Taylor’s pew and sat with him and did not preach at all, but it was something to look at him. Mr. Daggett was away on his vacation and Rev. Mr. Jervis of the M. E. church preached. I heard some people say they guessed even Mr. Beecher heard some new words to-day, for Mr. Jervis is quite a hand to make them up or find very long hard ones in the dictionary.
August30, 1858.—Rev. Mr. Tousley was hurt to-day by the falling of his barn which was being moved, and they think his back is broken and if he lives he can never sit up again. Only last Sunday he was in Sunday School and had us sing in memory of Allie Antes:
“A mourning class, a vacant seat,Tell us that one we loved to meetWill join our youthful throng no more,’Till all these changing scenes are o’er.”
“A mourning class, a vacant seat,
Tell us that one we loved to meet
Will join our youthful throng no more,
’Till all these changing scenes are o’er.”
And now he will never meet with us again and the children will never have another minister all their own. He thinks he may be able to write letters to the children and perhaps write his own life. We all hope he may be able to sit up if he cannot walk.
We went to our old home in Penn Yan visiting last week and stayed at Judge Ellsworth’s. We called to see the Tunnicliffs and the Olivers, Wells, Jones, Shepards, Glovers, Bennetts, Judds and severalother families. They were glad to see us for the sake of our father and mother. Father was their pastor from 1841 to 1847.
Some one told us that when Bob and Henry Antes were small boys they thought they would like to try, just for once, to see how it would seem to be bad, so in spite of all of Mr. Tousley’s sermons they went out behind the barn one day and in a whisper Bob said, “I swear,” and Henry said, “So do I.” Then they came into the house looking guilty and quite surprised, I suppose, that they were not struck dead just as Ananias and Sapphira were for lying.
September.—I read in a New York paper to-day that Hon. George Peabody, of England, presented Cyrus W. Field with a solid silver tea service of twelve pieces, which cost $4,000. The pieces bear likenesses of Mr. Peabody and Mr. Field, with the coat of arms of the Field family. The epergne is supported by a base representing the genius of America.
We had experiments in the philosophy class to-day and took electric shocks. Mr. Chubbuck managed the battery which has two handles attached. Two of the girls each held one of these and we all took hold of hands making the circuit complete. After a while it jerked us almost to pieces and we asked Mr. Chubbuck to turn it off. Dana Luther, one of the Academy boys, walked up from the post-officewith me this noon. He lives in Naples and is Florence Younglove’s cousin. We went to a ball game down on Pleasant Street after school. I got so far ahead of Anna coming home she called me her “distant relative.”