Were lunatics all, and yet died of carbuncles.
Within this grave do lie,
Back to back my wife and I.
When the last trump the air shall fill—
If she gets up, I’ll just lie still.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
During my youth, public entertainments were rare in Plymouth, especially in the winter. During that season, with unlighted streets and the houses lighted for the most part with oil lamps, the town, more particularly in a storm of rain or snow was gloomy, indeed. Families gathered around their wood fires and here and there groups of men would sit on the counters and boxes in the stores until the nine o’clock bell called them home. When any of the housewives ventured to have a party, candles with their candlesticks and snuffers were brought out and scattered about the parlors on mantels and tables. Occasionally instead of a formal evening party a lap tea was the entertainment, the guests arriving at half past six or seven. Those lap teas were glorious times for us boys, for there was something exciting in the preparation. An extra supply of cream was to be bought, the sugar loaf was to be divested of its blue cartridge paper covering, and chopped into squares, and sandwiches and whips and custards were to be made, of which we were sure to get preliminary tastes. And better than all we were permitted to carry around waiters loaded with cups of tea and plates and cream and sugar, and the various articles of food.
Music at these entertainments was uncommon. There were as long ago as about 1828 or 1830 only four pianos in town, and these were owned by Mrs. Pelham W. Warren, Mrs. Nathaniel Russell, Jr., Miss Eliza Ann Bartlett and my sister Rebecca. My sister’s was given as part pay for a Chickering piano; Miss Bartlett’s was sold to Joseph Holmes of Kingston and is now owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. H. M. Jones of that town; Mrs. Russell’s is still owned by her daughter, Mrs. Wm. Hedge, and Mrs. Warren’s went I know not where. The Russell piano is, as I remember the others were, of mahogany, ornamented with brass and with a scale of five and a half octaves. It was made by Alfred Babcock of Philadelphia, probably before 1825, for R. Mackey of Boston, who was not a manufacturer, but probably an agent for the maker. I say that it was probably made before 1825, because it is stated in histories of piano making that Mr. Babcock invented in that year the iron string board, which this one does not have.
At a party in a house where either of the above pianos was owned, one of the guests, probably a visitor from Boston, favored the guests, by request, with a song. I recall one occasion when a lady was invited to sing who was unable to pronounce the letter “s.” She unhesitatingly consented, and taking her seat at the piano sang the song beginning with the words, “Oh ting tweet bird, oh ting.” Though more than sixty years have elapsed I am often reminded when I hear a lady sing at the piano of the polite invitation of that lady to the tweet bird to ting.
Aside from the parties the entertainments were chiefly lectures by Rev. Chas. W. Upham on “Witchcraft;” by Rev. Chas. T. Brooks on, “Education in Germany,” by Mr. Emerson on “Socrates;” or lectures by other prominent men; exhibitions of ledgerdemain by Potter or Harrington, or of a mummy which walked “in Thebes’ streets three thousand years ago”; or if nothing better offered an evening book auction. Occasionally a debating society would be formed of which Timothy Berry was always the organizer and patron, a man always ready to encourage the oratorical efforts of young men. I was permitted as a boy to attend the meetings of the society, and I remember the debaters well. As young as I was I could not help being amused at the seriousness with which the grandest subjects were attacked as if then and there their settlement depended on the merits of the debate. There was one gentleman who every evening, when the nine o’clock bell rang, rose impressively and said, “Mister President, many subjects not been teched on to-night, move we journ.” The club accordingly adjourned, and the impressive gentleman left the hall, evidently feeling that he had been an active participant in the debate.