Little Hope did sit down and listen. She did not even turn around when the kind lady behind them dropped a peppermint over the high-backed pew for her. She was very much afraid of the tithingman, who sat on a high seat. He had a long rod with a hard knob on one end and a squirrel's tail on the other.
When he saw a lady nodding during the sermon, he stepped around to her pew and tickled her face with the fur end of the rod. She would waken with a start and be, oh! so ashamed. She would be very glad the pew had such high sides to hide her blushing face.
Perhaps you think the boys who sat on the other side of the church had a good time. But there was the tithingman again. When he saw a boy whispering or playing, he rapped him on the head with the knob end of the rod. The whispering would stop at once, for the rod often brought tears and left a headache.
Besides keeping the boys from playing and the grown people from going to sleep, the tithingman must turn the hourglass. In those days very few people could afford clocks, but every one had an hourglass. It took the fine sand just one hour to pour from the upper part of the glass into the lower part.
When the sand had all run through, the tithingman turned the glass over and the sand began to tell another hour. The glass was always turned three times before the minister closed the service. Then the men picked up their muskets and foot stoves, the women wrapped their long capes closely about them, and all went home.
At sunset the Puritan Sabbath ended. The women brought out their knitting and spinning, or prepared for Monday's washing, and the children were free to play until bedtime.
—MARGARET PUMPHREY.