Little Grandmother Part 8

He might have heard, or might not; but he soon got off the fence and limped away.

"Israel bears a good character," said Mrs. Lyman; "I will not suspect him, unless I see better reason than I have ever seen yet."

The loss of the silk pocket continued to be a great mystery. Everybody hunted for it from garret to cellar; but summer pa.s.sed, and it did not come.

Patty's grief wore away by degrees; still she never heard the word "pocket" or the word "dollar" without a pang. And every time she saw Mrs. Chase or Mrs. Potter, she could not help wondering if her money didn't fly away just to punish her for trying to "show off" before them?

At any rate, she would never, never "show off" again.

CHAPTER VIII.

PATTY'S SUNDAY.

But we must give up hunting for a little while: Sunday has come. Let us forget that "live dollar" (_perhaps_ it's a dead dollar now), and go to church with Patty.

When she was "dressed for meeting," she went into the nicely sanded parlor and stood alone before the looking-gla.s.s a minute or two to admire herself. Look at her! She had on a blue cambric frock, and a blue cambric jockey, or hat, turned up a little at the sides, and tied under the chin with a blue ribbon; and on her little brown hands were a pair of white cotton gloves. Don't laugh, little city folks! This was all very fine, sixty years ago, in a backwoods town. But look at her feet, and you _must_ laugh! Her shoes were of the finest red broadcloth, and Mrs. Lyman had made them herself out of pieces of her own cloak and some soft leather left in the house by Mr. Piper, the shoemaker. He went from family to family, making shoes; but he could not make all that were needed in town, so this was not the first time Mrs. Lyman had tried her hand at the business. She used a pretty last and real shoemaker's thread, and Mr. Piper said she was "a dabster at it; no wonder her husband was well off when he had such a smart wife."

For, strange as it may seem to you, Squire Lyman _was_ "well off,"--that is, he had one of the best farms in the county, and more money than any one else in Perseverance, except Mr. Chase and Dr. Potter; those two men were much wealthier than he was.

All the Lymans walked to church except the squire and his wife and the two little boys; they went in the chaise. Dr. Potter rode horseback, with a great show of silk stockings. His wife was propped up behind him on a pillion. She was a graceful rider, but of course she had to put one arm around the doctor to keep from falling off. This would be an odd sight now to you or me, but Patty was so used to seeing ladies riding on pillions that she thought nothing about it. She looked down at her red shoes twinkling in and out of the green gra.s.s, and might have been perfectly happy, only the soles wouldn't squeak.

"Patty! Patty!" called sister Mary, "come back here and walk with me."

Patty did not know till then that she was _hopping_. She went and took Mary's hand, and walked soberly along, thinking.

"I hope Deacon Turner didn't see me. I guess he's 'way ahead of us. I want to run and swing my arms; but I won't, because it is G.o.d's holy day."

On the way they overtook Sally Potter, whose jockey was dented and faded; and Patty said, "Good morning, Sally," with quite an air. But when Linda Chase came along, and her new red bosom-pin shone out in the sun, Patty's heart died within her.

"S'pose Linda don't know some folks don't like to see little girls wear bosom-pins," thought she.

When they reached the meeting-house Mrs. Potter was just alighting upon a horse-block. "Good morning, Linda," said she; "and how do _you_ do, Patty, my dear?"

"H'm! She didn't say '_Linda_, my dear.' Guess she don't like bosom-pins," thought Patty; and her silly heart danced up again.

"O, but I know why Mrs. Chase says 'Patty, my dear;' it's because I--well, she s'poses I gave that dollar to the girl that her father was drunk."

And I am glad to say Patty blushed.

The meeting-house was an unpainted building with two doors. As they walked in at the left door, their feet made a loud sound on the floor, which was without a carpet. There were galleries on each side of the house, and indeed the pulpit was in a gallery, up, up, ever so high, with a sounding-board over the preacher's head. Right in the middle of the church was a box stove, but you could see that it was not half large enough to heat the house. Of course there was no fire in it now, for it was midsummer; but in the winter ladies had to carry foot-stoves full of live coals to keep their feet warm in their pews.

Squire Lyman's pew was very near the pulpit, and was always pretty well filled. Like the rest of the great square boxes,--for that was what they looked like,--the seat was so high that Patty's scarlet shoes dangled in the air ever so far from the floor.

At precisely ten o'clock, Elder Lovejoy walked feebly up the aisle, and climbed the pulpit stairs. Patty watched him, as if he had been one of Jacob's angels ascending the ladder. He was a tall, thin man, with a fair complexion and long features. He wore a large turned-down collar and a white neckerchief, stuffed round the throat with what was called a pudding, and the ends of the neckerchief were so very long that they hung half way down his vest. Everybody loved Elder Lovejoy, for he was very good; but Patty thought him more than human. He seemed to her very far off, and sacred, like King Solomon or King David; and if he had worn a crown, she would have considered it very appropriate.

After a long prayer, during which all the people stood up, Elder Lovejoy read a long, long psalm, and the people rose again to hear it sung. They turned their backs to the pulpit, and faced the singers.

But there was a great surprise to-day. A strange sound mingled with the voices singing; it was the sound of a ba.s.s-viol. The people looked at one another in surprise, and some with frowns on their faces. Never had an instrument of music of any sort been brought into that little church before; and now it was Deacon Turner's brother, the blacksmith, who had ventured to come there with a fiddle!

Good Elder Lovejoy opened his eyes, and wiped his spectacles, and thought something must be done about it; they could not have "dance music" in that holy place. Deacon Turner and a great many others thought just so too; and at noon they talked to the wicked blacksmith, and put a stop to his fiddle.

But nothing of this was done in church time. Elder Lovejoy preached a very long sermon, in a painfully sing-song tone; but Patty thought it was exactly right; and when she heard a minister preach without the sing-song, she knew it must be wrong. She could not understand the sermon, but she stretched up her little neck towards the pulpit till it ached, thinking,--

"Well, mamma says I must sit still, and let other people listen. I won't make any _disturbment_."

Mrs. Lyman looked at her little daughter with an approving smile, and Deacon Turner, that dreadful t.i.thing-man up in the gallery, thought his lecture had done that "flighty little creetur" a great deal of good--or else it was his dollar, he did not know which.

Patty sat still for a whole hour and more, counting the bra.s.s nails in the pews, and the panes of gla.s.s in the windows, and keeping her eyes away from Daddy Wiggins, who always made her want to laugh. At last the sermon was over, and the people had just time enough to go to their homes for a cold dinner before afternoon service, which began at one o'clock.

Sunday did seem like a long day to little folks; and do you wonder? They had no Sabbath school or Sabbath school books; and the only part of the day which seemed to be made for them was the evening. At that time they had to say their catechisms,--those who had not said them the night before.

Did you ever see a Westminster Catechism, with its queer little pictures? Then you can have no idea how it looks. After supper Mrs.

Lyman called the children into her bedroom, shut the door, and had them repeat their lessons, beginning with the question, "Who was the first man?"

Patty supposed the Catechism was as holy as the Bible, and thought the rhyme,--

"Zaccheus he Did climb a tree, His Lord to see,"

was fine poetry, of course, and she never dreamed of laughing at the picture of dried-up little Zaccheus standing on the top of a currant-bush.

Little Solly could answer almost all the questions, and sometimes baby Benny, who sat in his mamma's lap, would try to do it too. They all enjoyed these Sunday evenings in "mother's bedroom," for Mrs. Lyman had a very pleasant way of talking with her children, and telling interesting Bible stories.

The lesson this evening was on the commandment, "Thou shalt not covet."

When Patty understood what it meant, she said promptly, "Well, mamma, _I_ don't do it."

For she was thinking,--

"What you s'pose I want of Linda Chase's bosom-pin? I wouldn't be seen wearing it!"

CHAPTER IX.

MRS. CHASE'S BOTTLE.

You see Patty knew as much about her own little heart as she did about Choctaw.

One Wednesday morning, early in September, Mrs. Lyman stood before the kneading trough, with both arms in dough as far as the elbows. In the farthest corner of the kitchen sat little Patty, pounding mustard-seed in a mortar.

"Mamma," said she, "Linda Chase has got a calico gown that'll stand alone."

"I've heard you tell of that before," said Mrs. Lyman, taking out a quant.i.ty of dough with both hands, putting it on a cabbage-leaf, and patting it into shape like a large ball of b.u.t.ter. A cabbage-leaf was as good as "a skillet," she thought, for a loaf of brown bread.