There was, then, a merry side in the life at Litchfield Parsonage. Catherine wrote at one time, quite seriously, that her little sister was a very good girl, had been to school all summer and had learned to read very fluently, and that she had committed to memory twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible; that she had a remarkably retentive memory and would make a very good scholar. Still, considering the spirit of fun that races through every book Harriet wrote, we cannot believe she was always sitting still in a chair, learning to sew and knit well, and being a good girl in every particular. We think of her also as having something in her of the fascinating little Tina in “Oldtown Folks,” one of Mrs. Stowe’s most powerful stories of New England life. We can even believe it to have been as difficult in Harriet’s case as it was in Tina’s to get her to go to bed at the proper hour. As night drew on, the little one’s tongue no doubt ran on with increasing fluency, and her powers of entertainment waxed more dazzling. On a drizzling, freezing night when the wind howled lonesomely around the corners of the house, who could have the heart to extinguish the candle at exactly eight or even at nine? Then little Harriet was ballet and opera to the household group, mimicking the dog, the cat, the hens, and the tom-turkey, or talking and flying about the room in lively imitation of some member of the family. She stirred up butter and exclaimed, “Pshaw!” just like one of the grown-ups; she invented imaginary scenes and conversations and improvised unheard-of costumes out of strange old things she rummaged out of the garret, until nine o’clock sounded inexorably from the old family timepiece and put a stop to the fun for that night.
CHAPTER II
WORK AND PLAY IN THE BEECHER PARSONAGE
In the Beecher household there was naturally a necessity that every one should be up and doing: Monday, because it was washing day; Tuesday, because it was ironing day; Wednesday, because it was baking day; Thursday, because to-morrow was Friday, and so on through the week. Daily life began at four o’clock in the morning when the tapping of a pair of imperative heels on the stair and an authoritative rap on the door dispelled the slumbers of the children. On winter mornings the door was opened and a lighted candle was set inside. The sleepy eyes of little girl Harriet could then watch the forest of glittering frostwork made by her breath as it froze on the threads of the blanket. She saw rainbow colors on this frostwork, and she then floated off into dreams and fancies about it which would perhaps end in a doze. Very soon, however, her cold little fingers managed the fastenings on her own clothes as well as on those of her little brother, and she was at her breakfast with the large family circle.
The breakfast! It was not like the five-course banquet we have to-day. The bread was that black compound of rye and Indian meal which the economy of New England made the common form because it could be most easily raised on a hard and stony soil; but Mrs. Stowe in later life informed all whom it might concern that rye and Indian bread, smoking hot, together with savory sausage, pork and beans formed a breakfast fit for a king, if the king had earned it by getting up in a cold room, washing in ice-water, tumbling through snow-drifts and foddering cattle. The children in the Beecher home no doubt partook of this form of nourishment with thorough cheerfulness, dividing their portions with the dog and the cat of the establishment in a contentment pleasant to behold.
After breakfast came family prayers. They read the Bible through in course, without note or comment. At that time the very letter of the Bible was one of the forces that formed the minds of the children, since it was for the most part read twice a day in every family of any pretensions to respectability. It was also used as a reading book in every common school. If the children understood, well; if not, the mental stimulant of constant contact with the Book was left to make what impression it would. It was wonderful to hear the Doctor read the Bible at family prayers in the morning, for he read it in such an eager, earnest tone of admiring delight, with such an indescribable air of intentness and expectancy, as if the Book had just been handed him out of Heaven! The joy of his soul in every new ray of Heaven’s glory was manifest to each member of the home circle and had its effect on the impressionable children so that they could hardly fail to partake with him of that hunger and thirst after the knowledge of God. The reading of the chapter was followed by an earnest prayer by Dr. Beecher, and sometimes by what they called a “concert of prayer,” when every member of the family would offer an extemporaneous petition, long or short, according to ability and experience. These sacred hours were remembered by the children as long as life lasted.
After this ceremony, the first thing to do was to get the children off to school. It was not a small matter when the list included William Henry, Edward, Mary Foote, George, Harriet Elizabeth, Henry Ward and Charles. Later on were added the names of Isabella Holmes, Thomas Kennicut and James. Now the dinner for each child was packed in a small splint basket, and after much business was gone through all were away to Academy or Dame School, according to age and ability. In winter William and Edward had their sleds—not gayly painted ones from the emporium as modern boys have, but rude fabrics made on rainy days out of odds and ends of old sleigh runners and any rough boards that could be fashioned with saw and hatchet. Such as they were, they served the Beecher family well, and happy was the day when big brother William or Edward would take the little sister to school on the sled, drawing her swiftly over the snow, her little charge, the younger brother, closely clasped in her arms.
On Sunday mornings strenuous exertions were required, for besides going through the usual routine, Sunday clothes had to be donned; also, it was to be made quite certain that the catechism had been successfully and permanently drilled into the mind of each child. In her account of the life of her distinguished brother, Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs. Stowe records an early experience of hers in trying to teach him his grammar, and if she had equal difficulties in making him learn the catechism, she certainly had her hands full.
“Now, Henry,” she would say, “A is the indefinite article, you see, and must be used only with a singular noun. You can say a man, but you can’t say a men, can you?”
“Why, yes, I can say Amen, too,” was the ready rejoinder. “Father says it at the end of his prayers.”
“Come, Henry, now don’t be joking; now decline he.”