“He went away kind of quick, and told about her over in the store, and they looked out, and sure enough out she come, limping along (she had the rheumatism bad) and dragging that old mattress with her. She drug it out in front to a bare place, and poured some kerosene on it and set fire to it; and I guess by that time every family in the street was looking out at her from behind the window-shades. Then she went back in, leaving it there burning up, high and smoky, and in a minute out she came again with her dustpan full of trash. She flung that on the fire as if she’d been waiting all her life to have the chance to get it burned up, and went back for more. And there she was, bobbing back and forth all the fore part of the morning. Folks from the Lower Street that hadn’t heard about it would come up for their mail, and just stop dead, to see the bonfire blazing and Aunt Almera limping out with maybe an old broken box full of junk in her arms. She’d always speak up just as pleasant and gentle to them—that made ’em feel queerer than anything else. Aunt Almera talking so mild! ‘Well, folks, how are you this morning?’ she’d say. ‘And how are all the folks at home?’ And then slosh! would go a pail of dirty water, for as soon as she got it swept out, didn’t she get down on her creaking old marrow-bones and scrub the floor! All that afternoon every time anybody looked out, splash! there’d be Aunt Almera throwing away the water she’d been scrubbing the floor with. Folks felt about as big as a pint-cup by that time, but nobody could think of anything to do or say, for fear of what Aunt Almera might say back at them, and everybody was always kind o’ slow about trying to stop her once she got started on anything. So they just kept indoors and looked at each other like born fools, till Aunt Almera crawled back home. It mighty nigh killed her, that day’s work. She was all crippled up for a fortnight afterwards with rheumatism. But you’d better believe folks stirred around those two weeks, and when she was out and around again there was this room all fixed up just the way ’tis now, with furniture, and the floor painted, and white curtains to the windows, and all. Nobody said a word to her about it, and neither did she say a word when she saw it—she never was one to do any crowing over folks—once she’d got her own way.”
The hassocks in our pew began to look shabby, and my aunt brought them home from church to put fresh carpeting on them. They suggested church, of course, and as she worked on them a great many reminiscences came to her mind. Here is one: “I used to love to ride horseback, and grandmother always made father let me, although he was afraid to have me. Well, one summer evening, right after supper I went for a little ride, and didn’t get home till about half-past seven. As I rode into the yard I looked through the open windows, and there was grandmother putting her bonnet on; and it came to me in a flash that I’d promised to go to evening prayers with her. I was a grown-up young lady then, but I was scared! You did what you’d promised grandmother you would, or something happened. So I just fell off my horse, turned him out in the night pasture, saddle and all, and ran into the house. Grandmother was putting on her gloves, and, although she saw me with my great looped-up riding skirt on and my whip in my hand, she never said a word nor lifted an eyebrow; just went on wetting her fingers and pushing the gloves down on them as though I was ready with my best hat on. That scared me worse than ever. I tore into my room, slipped off my skirt, put on another right over my riding trousers, slammed on a hat, threw a long cape around me, and grabbed my gloves. As the last bell began to ring and grandmother stepped out of the house, I stepped out beside her, all right as to the outer layer, but with the perspiration streaming down my face. I’d hurried so, and those great thick riding trousers were so hot under my woolen skirt! My! I thought I’d die! And it was worse in the church! Over in our dark, close corner pew there wasn’t a breath of air. It must have been a hundred by the thermometer. I was so hot I just had to do something or die! There weren’t but a few people in the church, and nobody anywhere near our corner, and it was as dark as could be, back in our high pew. So when we knelt down for the General Confession I gathered the cape all around me, reached up under my full skirt, unbuttoned those awful riding trousers, and just cautiously slipped them off. My! What a relief it was! Grandmother felt me rustling around and looked over sharp at me, to see what I was doing. When she saw the riding trousers, she looked shocked, and frowned; but I guess I must have looked terribly hot and red, so she didn’t say anything.
“Well, I knew it was an awful thing to do in church, and I was so afraid maybe somebody had seen me, although old Dr. Skinner, the rector, was the only one high enough up to look over the pew-top, and he was looking at his Prayer Book. But I felt as mean as though he’d been looking right at me. Well, he finally got through the prayers and began on the First Lesson. It was something out of the Old Testament, that part about how the Jews went back and repaired the broken walls of Jerusalem, each one taking a broken place for his special job, and then how they got scared away, all but a few, from the holes in the walls they were trying to fix up. Dr. Skinner always read the Lessons very loud and solemn, as though he were reading them right at somebody, and he’d sort of turn from one to another in the congregation with his forefinger pointed at them, as if he meant that just for them. What do you suppose I felt like when he turned right towards our corner and leaned ’way over and shook his finger at me, and said in a loud, blaming tone, ‘But Asher continued and abode in his breaches!’ I gave a little gasp, and grandmother turned towards me quick. When she saw the expression on my face (I guess I must have looked funny), she just burst right out into that great laugh of hers—ha! ha! ha! She laughed so she couldn’t stop, and had to actually get up and go out of church, her handkerchief stuffed into her mouth. We could hear her laughing as she went down the walk outside!
“You’d have thought she’d be mortified, wouldn’t you? I was mortified almost to death! But she wasn’t a bit. She laughed every time she thought of it, for years after that. It was just like her! She did love a good laugh! Let anything happen that struck her as funny, and she’d laugh, no matter what!”
Later on, as we carried the hassocks back to the church and put them in our pew, my aunt said, reflectively, looking round the empty church: “I never come in here that I don’t remember how grandmother used to say the Creed, loud and strong—she always spoke up so clear: ‘From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost: The Holy Catholic Church: The Communion of Saints: The Forgiveness of sins—’ and then she’d stop dead, while everybody went on, ‘The Resurrection of the body;’ and then she’d chime in again, ‘And the Life everlasting, Amen.’ You couldn’t help noticing it, she took the greatest pains you should. But if anybody said anything about it she always said that she didn’t believe in the resurrection of the body, and she wasn’t going to say she did. Sometimes the ministers would get wrought up, especially the young ones, and one of them went to the bishop about it, but nobody ever did anything. What could you do? And grandmother went right on saying the Creed that way to the day of her death.”
On the hundredth anniversary of the organization of our parish there were, of course, great doings in the way of centenary celebrations. Many of the old rectors came back to visit, and to make after-dinner talks and to preach at special services. One of the most interesting of these old men was the Reverend Mr. Jason Gillett, who had been rector for a year shortly after the Civil War, when he was a young man just out of the Theological Seminary. He had since become well-known, one might say famous (in church circles at least) for his sermons of a fervor truly evangelical (so it was said), delivered in a voice noted for its harmony and moving qualities. We had often read about his preaching, in the Church papers. He had brought up from decay several old parishes and had founded one of the finest and most thriving in Chicago.
There was a stir when his return for a day was announced, and the morning when he preached, the church was crowded to the doors. He proved to be a spiritual-faced, white-haired, handsome old man, equipped with fine eyes and beautiful hands as well as his famous voice. He preached a sermon which held every one in the church breathlessly attentive. I noticed that his stole was exquisitely worked in gold thread, and after the service, when the Altar Guild were putting things away, we saw that his surplice was of extremely fine material, with a deep band of embroidery about the hem. “Loving lady-parishioners,” conjectured one of the Guild, holding it up.
“They say the women are always crazy about him, everywhere, and no wonder!” said another. “Such a fascinating, attractive personality.”
“How did you like his sermon?” I asked. Personally I had found it rather too dramatic for my taste. It rubs me the wrong way when I feel that somebody is trying to work my feelings up, although I always feel a little ashamed of this natural ungraciousness, which is labeled in the talk of the old people of our locality as “Canfield cussedness.”
One of my companions answered me, “Why, the tears ran right down my cheeks, towards the end of that sermon!”