T ABBY'S 
 IGHBORS 
 
 ANNIE TRUMBULL 
 SLOSSON 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
AUNT ABBTS 
 NEIGHBORS 
 
AUNT ABBTS 
 NEIGHBORS 
 
 ANNIE 
 TRUMBULL 
 SLO S S ON 
 
 FLEMING HREVELL 
 COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 1902 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Published June, IQO2 
 
CONTENTS 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AUNr ABBY'S HERSELF . . 7 
 
 // 
 AUNT ABBT ON SECTS . . . 27 
 
 HI 
 AUNT ABBY'S HEAVEN . . . 49 
 
 IV 
 
 AUNr ABBY'S SCRIPTURE- 
 GARDEN 6s 
 
 V 
 AUNT ABBY'S TITHES . . . 87 
 
 VI 
 AUNT ABBY ON FRIENDSHIP 105 
 
 VII 
 AUNT ABBY'S "NEXT-DOORS" 125 
 
 VIII 
 AUNT ABBY'S FIRST EASTER 143 
 
 IX 
 AUNT ABBY'S PASTURE WITH 
 
 A ROCK IN IT. 161 
 
AUNT 
 
 ABBY 
 HERSELF 
 
/ AUNT 
 
 ABET HERSELF 
 
 ES, I was one of Abby 
 Coles's neighbors, her 
 that everybody called 
 Aunt Abby, you know. 
 I am Rebecca Owen, and I lived next 
 door to her a long spell in Factory- 
 ville and when she moved here I 
 followed, some months afterwards, 
 and was right across the street 
 from her house all the rest of the 
 time till she went away from us. 
 I mean to be close to her, when 
 my time comes, in the burying 
 ground there across the river, and 
 I hope I won't be very far away 
 from her mansion up above, in 
 that quiet, beautiful neighborhood 
 
lo AUNT ABET^ NEIGHBORS 
 
 she was always thinking about and 
 often speaking of. 
 
 " I suppose there 's nobody living 
 now that was a neighbor of hers so 
 long as me. And that's the princi 
 pal reason I've consented to tell you 
 about her, though there's many and 
 many other people that knew her 
 who could tell it in better words. 
 Another reason is that I took down 
 some of her talks and have them all 
 written out as near as can be in her 
 own words. That may seem sort of 
 queer to you, but it was this way. 
 My father was a great hand for 
 keeping account of things ; it seemed 
 to come natural to him. He kept 
 lots and lots of blank books and 
 wrote down what he called his rec 
 ords in them. He had one for the 
 weather and could tell you out of it 
 
AUNT ABET HERSELF n 
 
 just how the wind was on such a 
 day ten years before, whether it was 
 wet or dry, droughty or falling 
 weather. 
 
 " Another book was about the 
 deaths and births and marriages in 
 the town, and another about the crops 
 and gardens. And there was one 
 about the people and their doings 
 and sayings, and oh, I don't know 
 what all. And I kind of took that 
 taste from him and had my own lit 
 tle books full of records. And when 
 I came to know Abby Coles it was 
 pretty late in her life I first became 
 acquainted with her and I saw 
 what she was and how good and 
 helpful and appropriate her talks 
 were, why I begun writing them 
 down. 
 
 " Of course I didn't let her know I 
 
12 JUNT JBBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 was doing it ; it might have made 
 her talk a little stiffer, not so easy 
 and plain and natural if she felt 
 somebody was going to write it off. 
 And she never set anything by her 
 own talks, not a mite. She was 
 dreadful humble, and I've heard 
 her time and time again say, ' My ! 
 how much good I might have done 
 in this world if I'd only had book 
 learning and knew how to put things 
 so's to interest folks, learn them the 
 truth, help them, strengthen them, 
 chirk them up. Paul had that, you 
 know, but he said himself that lots 
 of folks didn't, that there was all 
 kinds of gifts, prophesying and 
 working miracles and all, but not 
 everybody had what he called the 
 gift of tongues but what we plain 
 folks here call the " gift of gab," the 
 
AUNT ABEY HERSELF 13 
 
 right kind of gab, you know.' Hers 
 was the right kind, the blessedest 
 kind of gab I tell you. I've got a 
 good memory, just as father had, 
 and after I'd heard Aunt Abby talk 
 on these occasions, I'd go home and 
 put it down on paper right off, just 
 as she had said it. And if I disre- 
 membered any part of it I'd sort of 
 lead her back to the subject next 
 time I saw her and that way I'd re 
 fresh my mind and get so I could 
 recollect the whole thing. 
 
 " As for describing her, picturing 
 her out just as she was, telling you 
 how it was she did so much good, 
 helped folks so, and is remembered 
 and set store by to this day as no 
 body else I ever knew was, why 
 that's a hard thing to do, not pos 
 sible it seems to me. I, for my part, 
 
i 4 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 can't begin to do it and I don't 
 think anybody can. And yet there 
 wasn't anything very wonderful or 
 surprising about her looks or her 
 ways. She was sort of undersize, a 
 short woman and kind of thin 
 and she always dressed real plain, 
 though as neat as a pin. 
 
 " When I knew her her hair was 
 turning gray and she wore a cap. 
 It's queer that well as I was ac 
 quainted with her I can't tell you 
 what color her eyes were. But I can 
 see them at this very minute as plain 
 as if I were looking into them. But 
 the look in them, the loving want- 
 ing-to-help, feeling-with-you look, 
 why that just covered up the color or 
 made you forget all about it. I 
 never saw such eyes; they just drew 
 you right close up to her, softened 
 
AUNT ABET HERSELF 15 
 
 you, mellowed you, and yet sort of 
 gave you strength and help too. 
 But you can't understand ; you 
 never knew Aunt Abby Coles. 
 
 " If I was asked what was the most 
 stand-out, rememberable thing about 
 her why I should say just what any 
 body else that ever knew her would 
 say, 'twas her interest in her neigh 
 bors. Now I don't mean her spying 
 on them, finding out about their 
 own affairs, preaching at them, gos 
 siping about them or anything like 
 that. I mean her real interest in 
 them and all that happened to them 
 in sorrow or in joy, her feeling with 
 them and for them and above all 
 wanting from the bottom of her 
 heart their real, best good, wishing 
 for it, praying for it and doing all 
 she could in her own quiet, pleasant 
 
16 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 way to bring it about. She never 
 meddled or pushed herself in where 
 she wasn't wanted. So she never 
 offended folks whatever she might 
 talk to them about. And yet she 
 wasn't all things to all men by any 
 means. Some folks called it tact 
 she had, but I don't think that's 
 just the word to use. It was her 
 feeling with people that did it all, not 
 just feeling for but feeling with 
 them and so knowing just what 
 would or wouldn't hurt or vex 
 them. ' It's real cheap and easy to 
 feel for folks,' she used to say, ' and 
 when you've done that or thought 
 you have, why you feel comfortable 
 and set-up and think you've done 
 all that could be expected of you. 
 But to feel with your neighbors 
 that's hard ; it hurts. But it's the 
 
AUNT AEBY HERSELF 17 
 
 only way to help folks, and as I look 
 back I see that's why I've failed so 
 in every duty to my neighbors.' 
 
 " She wasn't just talking for effect 
 when she ran herself down that way ; 
 she really conceited that, as a neigh 
 bor she hadn't been a success. For 
 you see the pattern she set up to try 
 and copy was so dreadful high and 
 difficult she felt she hadn't come 
 nigh it. As for her own life it was a 
 very plain, simple kind of life. She 
 was always busy but never fussed. 
 She moved about in a sort of still, 
 easy but quick way and so got 
 through a wonderful lot of work 
 without ever seeming to be hurrying. 
 And she always had time, plenty of 
 time for anybody that needed her, 
 but not a bit of leisure for idle, gos 
 siping talk. As I said before there 
 
i8 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 wasn't anything real striking or out 
 of the common about her or her 
 ways and so it's hard to make you 
 see why it is that she and her quiet, 
 plain, every-day life stands out to 
 every one of us that knew her as 
 something set on a hill that cannot 
 be hid, as a light that shone before 
 men so that they can never forget 
 how bright and comforting it was. 
 
 "Another thing, she was a real 
 Christian if ever there was one, but 
 I hope you won't misunderstand 
 me she didn't appear to pay much 
 attention to her own Christian life. 
 I mean she didn't cultivate what's 
 called self-examination, and medita 
 tion on different subjects at stated 
 times as is recommended, you know, 
 in the books. You see she hadn't 
 time. I've heard her say so myself 
 
AUNT ABET HERSELF 19 
 
 and she seemed sorry that 'twas so. 
 She'd say sometimes that it must be 
 real nice to shut yourself away from 
 everybody and all their troubles and 
 worries and think of yourself and 
 your own soul and of Him and of 
 heaven. ' But dear me ! ' she'd add, 
 ' that's what you might call a 
 luxury and I can't afford it. I 
 haven't time, with so many neigh 
 bors and all their troubles and cares 
 to think of. Why, I've scarcely time 
 to pray for myself. I'm most 
 ashamed to tell you that some nights 
 when I say amen and start to get up 
 off my knees I recollect I haven't 
 said a word about myself, much as I 
 need His help, and it hadn't been a 
 short prayer, neither.' 
 
 " No, I tell you her prayers were 
 not short nor few. She didn't stand 
 
20 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 at the corner of the streets nor make 
 1 vain repetitions ' as the Bible says. 
 But I couldn't help hearing and see 
 ing her, and though I didn't listen I 
 could hear the names of neighbor 
 after neighbor slip out, and know the 
 kind of things she was asking. The 
 light in her bedroom window burned 
 late most nights and I tell you 'twas 
 a dreadful comfort to look out at it 
 before we went to sleep and know 
 somebody was asking the best of 
 things for us, somebody that had a 
 good deal of influence too though I 
 mean to say that with reverence. 
 That was the thing we missed most, 
 I guess, when that little light went 
 out. It was dark and lonesome and 
 seemed to throw a big responsibility 
 on each one of us, the having to 
 pray for ourselves more now that 
 
AUNT ABBT HERSELF 21 
 
 she wasn't laying our wants before 
 the Lord every day and night. But 
 I think she'll find some way to let 
 Him know what we, her old neigh 
 bors need. 
 
 " The light went out some years 
 ago. She died just as she'd lived, 
 quietlike and easy. She took cold 
 watching with old Peter Binks, a 
 colored man at the poorhouse, and it 
 settled on her lungs. She was only 
 sick a few days. There wasn't any 
 thing remarkable or striking about 
 her last hours, no wonderful death 
 bed sayings and affecting last words. 
 Even then, when you might think she 
 had a right to a little rest and think 
 ing about herself and her future, she 
 had her neighbors on her mind to the 
 last. Mr. Bates, her own minister, 
 - she was a Congregationalist 
 
22 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 wasn't very well just then and she 
 wouldn't have him sent for. She 
 said Elder Slade, the Baptist, would 
 come, she knew. So they brought 
 him. But when he tried to ask her 
 some questions about her state of 
 mind and whether it was all peace 
 with her and so on, in his kind, 
 feeling way, she said, ' Please don't 
 be mad, Elder, but I've got so little 
 time left, you may skip all that. I 
 guess it'll be all right ; if it isn't it's 
 my own fault, and there's so much 
 to do now.' Then she went on Avith 
 her weak, tired voice which couldn't 
 much more than whisper and that 
 real slow, telling him about this and 
 that neighbor, their needs and their 
 dangers, yes, to the very last. She 
 spoke about little Billy Holmes's 
 throat and how she hadn't quite 
 
4UNT ABBY HERSELF 23 
 
 finished the comforter she was knit 
 ting for him to wear cold days. She 
 'guessed some neighbor 'd bind it 
 off and put tossells on the ends, for 
 she'd promised there should be tos 
 sells and Billy mustn't go without 
 his comforter/ Poor little fellow, 
 he had to go without a comforter 
 when she had gone away, but it 
 wasn't very long. And she asked 
 the Elder to call on Joel Fellows, 
 ' not a past'ral call/ she says, ' that 
 would scare him off, but a neigh 
 borly visit without any praying the 
 first time. Let him down easy, 
 Elder/ she whispers, ' and he'll come 
 out all right/ 
 
 " And then she asked him to re 
 mind Mr. Bates, her own minister, 
 what she'd said to him the other 
 day about Cap'n Hyde, not for the 
 
24 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 world to bring in anything about 
 falling from grace or the persever 
 ance of the saints when they were 
 talking together. * His head's ter 
 rible troubled about those things/ 
 she says, ' and there's lots of pleas- 
 anter and safer topics/ And so one 
 after another she went over her 
 neighbors and their wants to the last 
 breath. 
 
 " For when we thought she had 
 gone forever, the loving eyes shut 
 up, and the pale hands laying still 
 on her breast, all of a sudden we saw 
 her white lips move a little and I 
 put my ear close down to her face 
 and I heard her say, ' And Mary- 
 Wells is real sorry and ' She 
 never finished, but we all understood 
 and forgave poor wicked Mary Wells 
 that minute for the sake of her that 
 
AUNT ABET HERSELF 25 
 
 asked us and came back, I really be 
 lieve from the gate of heaven itself 
 to do it. 
 
 " It was a simple, quiet funeral as 
 she would have wanted it to be. 
 There was nobody there but her 
 neighbors, but every one in the vil 
 lage attended and many from other 
 places. For we had all learned to 
 use that word, neighbor, in her wide 
 meaning, which after all is the Bible 
 meaning too, though we mostly for 
 get it." 
 
AUNT ABBY 
 
 ON 
 SECTS 
 
// AUNT 
 
 AEEY ON SECTS 
 
 ES, I believe they do call 
 me a mite lax in religious 
 matters, church mat 
 ters, I would say. Only 
 last week Miss Butler told me to 
 my face I was time-serving and all 
 things to all men. And Deacon 
 Walker my ! he gave me up a 
 long spell back as lukewarm and 
 what he calls undenominational. 
 That's a dreadful sounding word, 
 isn't it? 
 
 Well, mebbe I don't know myself, 
 but seems to me I ain't time-serving, 
 nor lukewarm, nor all things to all 
 men, though I dare say I may be 
 
 sort of the other thing, undenomi- 
 29 
 
30 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 national. I'm a Congregational my 
 self, a " Congo," as we call it about 
 here, you know, for short. But 
 that's nothing to my credit nor my 
 discredit. I hadn't anything to say 
 about it. My folks were Congrega- 
 tionals, and so, as you might say, I 
 was born one. At any rate, I was 
 raised one by pa and ma. Well, as 
 long as I am one, elected to it, as you 
 might say, I'm going to be a good 
 one, a strong one. There's no harm 
 in that. But I am not going to think 
 that folks of every other denomi 
 nation are deluded, not to say wicked, 
 creatures. If that's what they call 
 undenominational, why, I'm it. 
 
 But I believe in sects, or denom 
 inations, whichever you may call 
 them. The way we're made, we 
 human creatures, they're really nee- 
 
AUNT ABET ON SECTS 31 
 
 essary, seems to me. There's so 
 many kinds of us, you see, with so 
 many sorts of ways and tempers and 
 feelings and natures, we've just got 
 to go different ways, different roads. 
 But, deary me ! as long as all those 
 roads bring up to the same place at 
 the end, what kind of matter is it 
 which folks take ? And it keeps up 
 interest to have these different so 
 cieties with different ways to them, 
 each one of the company belonging 
 to them thinking his folks' way the 
 best, and working zealous for his 
 own sect. I believe 'twas so, way 
 back from the beginning, when the 
 apostles and their followers started 
 the churches. I don't conceit that 
 when the vision appeared that time to 
 John on the island, and sent word to 
 the churches by him, I don't believe 
 
32 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 that all those seven societies were 
 run just exactly similar. Why, the 
 way the messages read shows they 
 were as different from each other as 
 the denominations are nowadays. 
 Ephesus church had its own way of 
 doing things, and Smyrny had an 
 other ; Pergamos learnt its members 
 one set of rules, and Sardis learnt 
 different ones, and so through the 
 whole seven. But they were all un 
 der one spiritual head, and took 
 their orders from the One that sent 
 them that time through John. 
 
 I'll go a little further, though this 
 time I don't expect many folks to 
 agree with me. It's my own idea, 
 one of those things that appear to 
 come into my head of themselves, as 
 far as I know, and come to stay. This 
 is it. I sort of believe there'll be dif- 
 
AUNT ABET ON SECTS 33 
 
 ferent churches, or societies, or com 
 panies, whatever you may call them, 
 up in heaven. You needn't look so 
 scared, that isn't as bad as it sounds. 
 They won't be run just as they are 
 down here, and there won't be so 
 much well, friction's a good word, 
 mebbe, not to use a stronger one. 
 Somehow, to me it's a real comfort 
 able, nice idea, the folks of the dif 
 ferent organizations, that used to 
 hold by each other, and love their 
 own church so, with its own ways, 
 down below on the earth, their meet 
 ing, once in a while, at any rate, all 
 by themselves up there, and talking 
 about the old days ; yes, even mebbe 
 singing some of the old hymns. 
 There are many mansions up there, 
 you know, and there are twelve dif 
 ferent gates to go in by. And there 
 
34 AUNT: ABBT^S NEIGHBORS 
 
 are all manner of different stones in 
 the foundation, but every one of 
 them's precious. 
 
 So you see I'm as denominational 
 and sectarian as anybody in the 
 world. But I know what people 
 mean, and why they call me lax, 
 and lukewarm, and all, and I'll tell 
 you. As I said before, I was born 
 and raised a Congregational. Now, 
 when I was young, I really thought 
 that was the only right and Chris 
 tian sect, and all the others Baptists, 
 Methodists, Episcopals, Presbyte 
 rians, and all were mistaken, de 
 ceived beings. You know how it is 
 with young folks. To them there's 
 one straight, even line running 
 along ; one side of it that's their 
 side, and their folks's is the right 
 side, and the other that's other peo- 
 
AUNT ABET ON SECTS 35 
 
 pie's is the wrong, and to them 
 there's nothing betwixt or between. 
 That's the way with these young, 
 unknowing creatures in politics, re 
 ligion, and everything. 
 
 There was a little girl that went 
 to school with me, a great crony of 
 mine, Fanny Mary Shaw. Now her 
 folks were Baptists, and every night 
 when I said my prayers, kneeling 
 before the trundle-bed in Aunt 
 Patty's room, I used to put in a re 
 quest about Fanny Mary, and ask 
 that she might be converted, mean 
 ing become a Congregational. Poor 
 little Fanny Mary ! She's been dead 
 forty year, and I'd be satisfied to be 
 received into the same mansion her 
 Master prepared for her. And so 
 'twas with other sects ; I didn't wish 
 them any harm, but I pitied them 
 
36 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 dreadfully, and prayed and hoped 
 they might reform. I had most 
 hopes for the Presbyterians, hearing 
 that they were nearest like the Con- 
 gos. But still I thought even they 
 were running a terrible risk. 
 
 Well, the change in me about this 
 didn't come all at once. One lesson 
 at a time was learnt me, till, before I 
 really knew what was coming, I had 
 it all by heart, and looked on each 
 one of these organizations as close 
 relations of my own society, and 
 learned to love them all. But, as I 
 said before and say again, I like my 
 own best. 
 
 The first lesson I got was in a 
 hard time, and 'twas one of the 
 hardest to learn. For it was about 
 the Episcopals. Now from the way 
 I'd been brought up, that denomina- 
 
AUNT ABBY ON SECTS 37 
 
 tion had always seemed to me the 
 most mistaken of any of them. Pa 
 was one of the strict, old-fashioned 
 sort, and he was dreadful set against 
 the Episcopals. He thought they 
 were all for forms, and not much for 
 the spirit ; said they didn't make up 
 their own prayers, but read them 
 out of books ; that they wore strange, 
 popish kind of clothes, and oh ! a 
 lot of things. And I'd sort of taken 
 it all in, as young folks will, and 
 never looked into the subject myself. 
 Well, there came a great sorrow into 
 my life ; my mother lay dying. 
 'Twas in the summer, and our min 
 ister was off on his vacation. So 
 was the Baptist, and there was only 
 those two churches in the village. 
 But there was a boarder at Mrs. 
 Lamson's that time, a minister, an 
 
38 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 Episcopal. I'd seen him time and 
 again go by the house in his queer, 
 straight-up-and-down coat, and Rom 
 ish-looking vest and collar, and 
 every drop of pa's Protestant blood 
 in me had risen up against him. To 
 be sure, his face was kind and 
 his ways friendly, and he was real 
 pleasant spoken. But he was one of 
 that mistaken denomination, and 
 looked it, and I disapproved of him. 
 But what was I going to do 
 now ? I couldn't let ma die without 
 a minister to pray with her, I just 
 couldn't. Mrs. Lamson came over 
 to see me ; she was a Congo herself, 
 and knew just how I felt. " But," 
 says she, " he's a real good man, if he 
 is an Episcopal. Mebbe he's only 
 been that way a little spell, and isn't 
 a very strong one yet. Anyway, 
 
4UNT ABET ON SECTS 39 
 
 he's good ; I know that from lots of 
 little things, and he's a minister, and 
 there ain't another one handy." 
 " But oh ! " I says, " suppose he 
 should read a prayer to her ! Seems 
 's if pa's spirit would come back to 
 prevent that." " Mebbe he won't," 
 says Mrs. Lamson. So I let her 
 speak to him, and he came over 
 right straight off. 
 
 Ma was pretty near the end, 
 feeble and helpless like, and sort of 
 drowsing most of the time. But 
 when Mr. Palmer that was his 
 name stooped over her, and took 
 hold of her hand, she opened her 
 eyes, and looked up at him. And 
 something she saw made her per 
 fectly satisfied, and she smiled back 
 to him, and let her hand lay just 
 where it was. To this day I don't 
 
40 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 know what it was he said to her, 
 whether it was something out of his 
 own head, or out of Scripture, or out 
 of the Prayer Book itself, and, what's 
 more, I don't care, and I didn't then. 
 It was a blessed thing, and just what 
 ma wanted, and a real peaceful look 
 came over her thin old face. 
 
 And then he knelt down, and I 
 knelt too, and he prayed. Seemed 
 to me I'd never heard such a prayer, 
 for it asked for just what I wanted 
 for ma, just what she wanted herself, 
 I know, but asked it a hundred 
 times better than we could say it 
 ourselves. " Did he read it out of a 
 book?" says Mrs. Lamson a week 
 afterwards. And I didn't know ! 
 When he finished and said Amen, 
 ma said it too, very soft and weak. 
 Then he leaned over her, and for a 
 
AEBT ON SECT'S 41 
 
 second I was afraid he'd undo all 
 the good by saying something po 
 pish. So I smoothed ma's white hair 
 off of her forehead, and listened 
 close. And oh ! what do you think 
 he was saying ? He 'most whispered 
 it, but I heard. " Now I lay me 
 down to sleep," he says ; and ma 
 says, so plain and clear, but softly, 
 " I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 
 And she turned her head a mite on 
 the pillow, shut up her eyes, and fell 
 asleep like a little child, never to 
 wake up in this world. Do you 
 think I didn't feel a mite different 
 after that about the Episcopals ? But 
 I like my own church best. 
 
 And so I went on, learning lesson 
 after lesson. One thing I'd had 
 against the Baptists was their in 
 sisting so on immersion. It seemed 
 
42 AUNT DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 so foolish. Sprinkling was our way, 
 and so I thought it must be the best 
 way, the only way. But one time, 
 of a Sunday noon, I happened to be 
 going by Blue River, and I saw a lot 
 of people on the bank. 'Twas a bap 
 tism going on, and I stopped to see 
 it. You've seen them, and I won't 
 describe it. But I tell you one 
 thing, it brought home to me the 
 baptizings in the Bible as I'd never 
 had them brought before. I could 
 understand about going down into 
 the water and coming up out of the 
 water, and being baptized in Jordan. 
 I didn't stand very nigh, and I 
 couldn't see the folks to know them, 
 but I saw the robes and the river, 
 and heard the singing. I forgot 
 where I was, and 'most thought I 
 was seeing John or Paul, or I'm a 
 
AUNT ABET ON SECTS 43 
 
 bit afraid to say it, but you know 
 what I mean mebbe our Lord Him 
 self, baptizing or being baptized. 
 And I went away sorrowful, like the 
 young man in the Bible, for I'd been 
 thinking hard thoughts for years of 
 that very thing which seemed to me 
 now so beautiful and good and scrip 
 tural. Then, after that, as I went 
 on associating with different Bap 
 tists, ministers and members, I saw 
 so many good things, true things, 
 amongst them, I can't tell you half. 
 I like my own church best, though. 
 Then there were the Presbyte 
 rians. I never saw any of them to 
 know them till I was more than 
 thirty years old. There wa'n't many 
 in New England, you know. But I 
 went visiting over to Hallsville, 
 where the factories are, and there 
 
44 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 was a Presbyterian church there, and 
 I went with Miss Starr, where I was 
 staying. Dear me ! it was just like 
 our own church, the long prayer, 
 and the hymns, and the doxology, 
 and the benediction. And the ser 
 mon couldn't have been bettered 
 even among the Congos; it was 
 sound right straight through, and 
 full of scripture truth. Seems queer 
 now that I should have been so sur 
 prised at this, but I was. To be 
 sure, I'd heard that the difference 
 betwixt them and the Congregation- 
 als was mostly in church govern 
 ment, but somehow I'd conceited 
 that would show even in their meet 
 ings. I go to a Presbyterian church 
 now ; it's the nighest, you know, 
 here in Factoryville. I love it, and 
 the minister is one of the best men 
 
AUNT ABET ON SECTS 45 
 
 that ever lived. But don't mistake 
 my meaning, somehow I like pa's 
 and ma's old church the best. 
 
 And so with the Methodists. I 
 was in the cars once, travelling down 
 to Vermont to see my cousin. There 
 was a gentleman sitting in front of 
 me, and I saw by his clothes or ways 
 or something that he was a minister. 
 Bimeby we fell into talk. I'll al 
 ways recollect that talk, though I 
 couldn't tell you just how it went 
 along. But it always seems to me 
 that once in my life, like Paul, I 
 was caught up into the third heaven, 
 and, if I didn't see the Master Him 
 self, I saw a man who'd talked with 
 Him, and walked with Him, and 
 knew Him as I'd never known Him. 
 And it was a Methodist preacher ! 
 That's how I first came to think tol- 
 
46 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 erant of them, but there's been a 
 great deal since to keep it up. Still, 
 I'm satisfied with our form of wor 
 ship, and to me it's the best there is. 
 
 You see now how I was brought 
 along, little by little, lesson after les 
 son, to see that there's something 
 better and higher than sects and 
 creeds, even though each man may 
 like his own and his father's best. 
 And I believe those lessons came 
 from above as much as that great 
 sheet did, let down by its four cor 
 ners, to learn a similar lesson to 
 Peter. So you see they've got a 
 right to call me undenominational. 
 
 There's another thing. You'll 
 take notice I haven't said anything 
 about the Catholics. Well, I could ! 
 But then you're a Protestant, and 
 so am I, and we're talking, just 
 
AUNT ABBT ON SECTS 47 
 
 now, about Protestant churches, and 
 haven't gone over all of them, either. 
 And then I don't want to scare you 
 more'n I can help. But I'll just say 
 one single thing, and that's this : 
 the very best and heavenliest man I 
 ever saw, to my notion, the one that 
 seemed to me wouldn't have looked 
 out of place in heaven, even if you 
 hadn't altered him a mite in soul, or 
 even body, his face was so shining 
 with love to God and man, well, that 
 man was a Catholic, and a bishop. 
 
 But that's neither here nor there. 
 We're talking to-day about Protes 
 tants. I'm glad I'm one, and just as 
 glad that I'm a good, strong High 
 Church Congregational. But I do 
 hope I've passed from death unto 
 life because, anyway, I love the 
 brethren. 
 
AUNT 
 
 ABBY'S 
 HEAVEN 
 
/// AUNT 
 
 ABBT'S HEAVEN 
 
 F course, I know well 
 enough, that folks in this 
 world haven't got any 
 right idee what heaven 
 really is ; it ain't in the natur' of 
 things they can have. Scriptur' 
 says right out plain that it hasn't 
 entered into the heart of man to 
 conceive what's up there. But see 
 ing as you and me have talked 
 over a good many things together, 
 I'm going to tell you what I don't 
 generally talk to folks about. I 
 found out a long time ago that, 
 however it might be with other 
 people, as for me myself, I'd got so 
 
 much of this world about me the 
 51 
 
52 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 dust of the earth, as you might say, 
 that I was made out of, that I'd 
 got, for a spell, to think about 
 heaven and its doings in a kind of 
 this-world way. I was so earthly 
 myself that was the only way I 
 could make it seem real and satis 
 fying, and what I wanted for myself 
 and my folks. So I took to sort of 
 making-believe, " playing," as the 
 children say, that this or that plain, 
 homey, folksy thing was what they 
 did up there. I knew all the time 
 that it was making-believe, and that 
 it wasn't a mite like the real heaven 
 being prepared for them that love 
 Him, and better than anything we 
 can make up or guess about. But to 
 me, just a poor, simple, country 
 woman, my way seemed a help, and 
 was a dreadful comfort anyway. I 
 
AUNT ABBY'S HEAVEN 53 
 
 didn't hold up these views of mine 
 to other folks as a general thing. I 
 was afraid of doing harm rather than 
 good, for it's a ticklish matter to 
 meddle with people's religious idees. 
 But a few times, when the folks 
 was just simple souls like me myself, 
 and I see they needed a little help in 
 some hard fight or dreadful sorrow, 
 why, I've given them a kind of hint 
 at what might be going on there I 
 was careful never to say it really was 
 and seems's if somehow it most 
 always helped 'em, for the time any 
 way. 
 
 Seems to me the first time I be 
 gun to do this way was when my 
 brothers, Elam and Horace, was 
 drowned. Pa and ma'd died before 
 that, about a year apart, and these 
 boys was almost everything I had to 
 
54 AUNT AEET'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 love in the whole world. They went 
 off one morning, laughing and whist 
 ling, full of their fun, and they was 
 fetched back at sundown cold and 
 stiff and still and dead. My heart 
 'most broke. I couldn't get a mite 
 of comfort all I could do. I was a 
 professor, and I tried to be resigned 
 and to think of the boys in heaven 
 and happy. They was good boys, 
 members of the church, and I felt 
 certain sure they was safe. And the 
 minister, Elder Leet, kept telling me 
 that I must think of them dwelling 
 in glory and chanting the praises of 
 Jehovah. I couldn't, I tell you, I 
 couldn't just then. They was great, 
 rugged, red-cheeked young fellers, 
 full of mischief and play, though not 
 a bit of harm in 'em, and just at first 
 I didn't even want to pictur' 'em all 
 
AUNT ABBT'S HEAVEN 55 
 
 changed and solemn, and so dreadful 
 good. Oh ! you understand, don't 
 you? I was sick with sorrow and 
 all broke down, so that I couldn't 
 just at once think the right thing, 
 and trust my boys to Him that 
 knew what was the very best for 
 'em. 
 
 I was sitting by the window the 
 afternoon they was buried. The 
 funeral was over, and the folks had 
 gone away, and I was all alone in 
 that still, dreadful, empty house. I 
 looked out at the sky, all pinky and 
 gilt-like after the sun going down, 
 and I thinks to myself, " Oh ! what 
 are my boys doing now ? If I only 
 knew just what sort of a place they're 
 in, I could bear it better." I was all 
 wore out with crying and sorrowing, 
 and mebbe I dozed a mite. Any- 
 
56 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 way, all of a sudden, I seemed to see 
 heaven. 'Twas just like a real home 
 down here, only big and light and 
 shining. There was a window 
 likely's not many windows, but I 
 only took notice of one, for my old 
 father was sitting at it and looking 
 out. And just behind him my 
 mother was sitting. And while I 
 was looking at 'em, I see pa start a 
 little, and lean out as if he thought 
 he see something, and then his face 
 all brightened up and his eyes looked 
 shining, and he turns 'round and 
 cries out, his voice a-shaking a little, 
 " Ma," he calls, " who do you think's 
 a-coming up the street? Why, the 
 boys, the boys, both on 'em, Elam 
 and Horace ! I see 'em, I see 'em, 
 there they be ; they'll be here in a 
 minute." To my dying day I'll 
 
4UNT JBBT'S HEAVEN 57 
 
 never forget how those old faces 
 looked just for the little minute I 
 was let to see 'em. For 'twas over 
 dreadful quick. But it left some 
 thing that's never got over yet, and 
 has helped me more'n I can tell you. 
 I knew in my own mind 'twas only 
 a kind o' dream, but I knew 'twould 
 come true in one sense, and there'd 
 be something up there just as good 
 and homey, and more so too. So I 
 went on dreaming that way when 
 ever I needed it. 
 
 When I lost my little boy, the 
 only child I ever had, little Danny, 
 it most killed me. I won't trouble 
 you, though, with that, except one 
 part. The thing that worried me 
 and most broke my heart was to 
 think that I never should have him 
 again as he was when I see him last, 
 
58 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 a little yellow-haired feller going 
 on two. The minister and every 
 body told me he would be watching 
 for me up there, and that he would 
 be the one to learn me all the 
 wonderful things they'd learnt him 
 there ; told me that " he knew 
 a'ready," as Elder Leet said, " a 
 thousand times more than I could 
 ever know here below." They 
 thought that would comfort me, 
 but it didn't. I thought I should 
 die, I wanted him to be a baby so, to 
 hold me tight, and be afraid with 
 out me. And yet somehow I wanted 
 him to grow up too, and not be a 
 stunted little thing, forever'n ever a 
 little baby boy going on two. I see 
 I must make believe again, and I 
 always think some one helped me. 
 For I saw myself dying and going up 
 
AUNT ABBT'S HEAVEN 59 
 
 there, and the very first one to come 
 and meet me was Danny. He wasn't 
 growed up at all, but the same little 
 curly-headed feller I'd buried, just 
 going on two. He stumbled along 
 with the very little steps I'd learnt 
 him myself and loved so, and he 
 stammered out the very same cun 
 ning little words I'd worked so to 
 learn him. And while I was hold 
 ing him tight and babying him as I 
 used to, he seemed to grow bigger 
 and older, and he went on, I don't 
 know how fast or how slow, but I 
 see him go on and on till a big boy 
 and a bigger, a lad, and a youth, and 
 a man. Just as any mother here 
 might see her boy grow up, only 
 without any worry or sorrow, scold 
 ing or punishing or mourning over. 
 'Twas a dreadful comfort, the ma- 
 
60 AVNr DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 king-believe about that, and I've 
 never stopped playing it was true. 
 
 Old Uncle Ezry Bouton was a 
 real good old man, you know, but 
 kind o' queer. Folks laughed at 
 him, and hardly anybody under 
 stood him or made allowances. He 
 thought he was a poet, and he 
 wa'n't. But, dear me ! that ain't 
 uncommon. He used to make up 
 verses, and go 'round reading 'em to 
 folks till they was tired to death. 
 And once he wrote a hymn, and set 
 it to a tune he composed himself. 
 'Twa'n't a very original tune ; 'twas 
 a little like " Dennis," and a mite 
 like " Naomi," and made you think 
 of " Marty n," in some parts. And 
 the words wasn't so great. But he 
 was real proud of it. He was a 
 Christian, if I ever see one, and I 
 
AUNT ABBT'S HEAVEN 61 
 
 really believe most of his pride 
 was on account of his thinking 
 he had got a real part of his own 
 in praising the Lord. But folks 
 laughed at it. I know part of it 
 run this way : 
 
 44 And all the angels flock around 
 To hear the joyful, pious sound," 
 
 and the tune he called " Wethers- 
 field," after his native town. He 
 tried to get the choir to sing it, but 
 they wouldn't. He went to Miss 
 West, that give music lessons, and 
 asked her to try it over for him, but 
 she put him off. One day he died, 
 and he 'hadn't ever heard his own 
 hymn sung. I was thinking about 
 that when I heard he'd gone, and all 
 of a sudden I see one of my made-up 
 pictures. Uncle Kzry was coming 
 
62 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 into his heavenly home. The light 
 and the whiteness, and, more'n all, 
 the music, sort of blinded him, and 
 took his breath away. He'd never 
 dreamt of anything like it, and he 
 stopped and trembled, and was 
 terrible scaret. All of a sudden the 
 music hushed down a minute, and 
 there seemed to be a kind of sign 
 give to the angels I never dast to 
 think who give it and they struck 
 up singing real soft and nice, 
 
 " And all the angels flock around 
 To hear the joyful, pious sound." 
 
 Twas Uncle Ezry's own hymn, and 
 they were singing it to " Wethers- 
 field." Seems's if I couldn't have 
 made up out of my own head the 
 look I seemed to see on Uncle Ezry's 
 face then, so dreadful surprised, 
 
AUNT ABBT'S HEAVEN 63 
 
 sort of bashful and ashamed, but oh, 
 so terrible, terrible happy ! 
 
 When the greatest sorrow of all 
 my life came to me, and I buried 
 my husband, there was one thing 
 kept coming up to me. Twas that 
 verse in scripture about there not 
 being any marrying or giving in 
 marriage up there. To think of 
 Thomas's not being my husband up 
 there, and that I couldn't be to him 
 more than anybody else, why, I 
 couldn't bear it ! Then one of my 
 made-up pictures come right up be 
 fore me, and I could see myself 
 coming into that home up there, and 
 Thomas a-meeting me. And as we 
 stood together a spell afterwards, 
 waiting, and me thinking whether 
 we were going to be parted and sent 
 to different mansions, some one 
 
64 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 come by again I didn't dast to 
 think who 'twas and I heard a 
 voice say, " Why, here's Thomas and 
 Abby together again. Well, let 
 them stay close by each other, 
 they'll be happier that way." And 
 I was satisfied. 
 
 I'm only telling you two or three 
 of my make-believes. There've been 
 hundreds more. Of course, they 
 don't take the place o' the greatest 
 hopes, the things we lot on most in 
 looking ahead to that place, I mean 
 our Father's being there, and our 
 Master always with them He's saved. 
 But sometimes they help me to 
 realize even those greatest things, 
 for, as I said before, I'm an unlearnt, 
 simple, country woman, and you 
 can see for yourself I'm dreadful 
 earthy. 
 
AUNT 
 
 ABBY'S 
 SCRIPTURE 
 GARDE 
 
IV AUNT ABETS 
 
 SCRIPTURE-GARDEN 
 
 OU see it was this way. 
 When I lived in Bartly 
 I was dreadfully worked 
 up about the children 
 next door. 
 
 Some folks don't appear to worry 
 about such things so long as they 
 don't have any particular responsi 
 bility. But somehow I do feel re 
 sponsible in a sort of way, and when 
 ever I say those words "children 
 next door," or " folks next door," 
 seems as if I was owning that it was 
 the next or nighest duty to take up, 
 the having an eye to them and their 
 best good. If those young ones next 
 
 to me in Bartly had had a mother 
 67 
 
68 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 it would have been different. But 
 they hadn't, and their pa didn't 
 trouble himself much about them, 
 and they were left to grow up by 
 themselves without much of what I 
 called the right sort of learning. 
 They didn't go to any church, they 
 nor their pa. He wasn't a bad man ; 
 he was sober and hard working, but 
 not religious. There were four chil 
 dren, two boys and two girls, run 
 ning from six, up to thirteen year 
 old, Janey, Martha, Nathan and Seth. 
 They were real nice children, pleas 
 ant to each other, polite to folks, 
 willing and busy and smart. But I 
 could see they wa'n't getting the 
 good they ought to get out of their 
 lives, nor the happiness neither. 
 For one thing they didn't know any 
 thing about the Bible, hadn't ever 
 
AUNT ABEY'S GARDEN 69 
 
 read it or heard it read, nor had the 
 good old stories told to them most of 
 us recollect best, told in kind of easy 
 but solemn words in our mother's, or 
 mebbe our father's, voice, when we 
 were mites of young ones. That 
 seemed a dreadful pity. I'd part 
 with anything sooner than that re 
 membering, now that those voices of 
 pa's and ma's have been still such a 
 long, long spell. 
 
 I got to knowing the children 
 pretty quick. I'm fond of young 
 ones and they're good for me. I 
 didn't want to scare them just at first 
 by preaching, or anything that ap 
 peared like it. But after a spell, 
 when we'd got to be real friends and 
 playfellows like, I begun to think 
 what I could do. In the first place, 
 I saw right off that I must put their 
 
70 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 going to Sabbath-school out of the 
 question. Their father wouldn't 
 have it. He wasn't exactly an un 
 believer, but he'd had some things 
 happen that gave him a feeling 
 against churches, both ministers and 
 members. I hoped that would wear 
 off some day, but meantime what 
 was I going to do with those chil 
 dren? I tried reading the Bible 
 to them, telling them about it, 
 and trying to make them read it, 
 but somehow for the life of me I 
 couldn't interest them. They liked 
 other kinds of stories and games, 
 but they seemed to have some of 
 their father's feeling about the scrip 
 ture ; 't any rate, it didn't interest 
 them a mite. 
 
 Well, thinking it over one day, I 
 said to myself, " What does interest 
 
AUNT ABBT'S GARDEN 7 i 
 
 them, then? " And the answer came 
 in a jiffy, " Why, posies." 
 
 That was nothing but the truth. 
 For some reason or other every one 
 of those young ones set everything 
 by posies. Seems their ma'd been 
 that way, too. Mebbe they'd copied 
 it from her, seein' how much she 
 liked such things, or perhaps it was 
 born in them, and they took after 
 her by nature. Any way they liked 
 all growing things, plants and trees, 
 posies and herbs. They'd always 
 take notice of them, bring them in 
 from the woods, plant them in their 
 yards or in boxes or tin cans in the 
 house, talk about them and ask their 
 names. But how was this liking of 
 theirs going to help me learn them 
 the good there was in the Bible? 
 Just telling them that God made the 
 
72 AUNT JBBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 plants and trees and took care of 
 them, and that they could read all 
 about Him and His ways in scrip 
 ture, why, that's sound doctrine, but 
 somehow I felt it wouldn't work 
 with that family just at first. I 
 must begin careful, or they'd think 
 I was preaching. 
 
 It took me quite a time to think 
 it out, and when I began I didn't 
 really know exactly how it would 
 work and how far I could carry it. 
 I don't recollect now exactly how I 
 put it to the children first-off, but I 
 proposed somehow at last that we 
 should start a scripture-garden. The 
 name struck them. Children like 
 queer, uncommon names, and they 
 wanted to know right off what that 
 was. I told them that there was 
 lots in the Bible about plants and 
 
AUNT AERY'S GARDEN 73 
 
 such things, and it would be real 
 nice to see how many of the posies 
 that book told about we could find 
 and set out. They were interested 
 right away. Young ones all like to 
 collect, if it's buttons or stamps or 
 horse-chestnuts, and they were in a 
 hurry to begin. We marked off a 
 corner of the yard, and the children 
 put up a sign, a stick with a board on 
 it and the name Janey printed it 
 Scripture-Garden. 
 
 They didn't have any Bibles of 
 their own, and I told them they 
 could come over and use my big- 
 print one, at first, anyway. I had 
 thought up a few plants to start with 
 till they should get interested enough 
 to hunt for themselves. 
 
 We begun with lilies, for I told 
 the children it seemed as if there 
 
74 AUNT ABET' 8 NEIGHBORS 
 
 was more about those flowers than 
 any other kind. I read to them 
 about building the temple, and the 
 lily-work put onto the pillars and 
 the porch and round the edge of the 
 molten sea. And I let them look up, 
 helpin' them a little, of course, 
 verses like " Israel shall grow as the 
 lily," and " feeding among the lilies." 
 Then I begun to repeat " as the lily 
 among thorns," and Martha struck 
 right in with, " That's another plant ; 
 we must have some thorns." I 
 praised her a mite for thinking of 
 that, but I said we must keep to 
 lilies now. And then I told them 
 about that beautiful verse, " Consider 
 the lilies, how they grow." And 
 when I'd spoken of that, why, it 
 came in natural you see, to tell them 
 a little about who said it. Not too 
 
AUNT AEBT'S GARDEN 75 
 
 much, just at first, for fear they'd 
 think I was preaching, but it was a 
 beginning, you see. Then we talked 
 about what kind of lilies we'd have. 
 I had a root of yellow day-lilies at 
 the corner of the house, and I let 
 them dig it up and set it out in their 
 own garden. Miss Susan Bowles let 
 us have some white ones, and I told 
 them that the next time I went over 
 to the north district I'd buy some 
 tiger-lilies from some of the folks 
 there that had plenty. I said that, 
 though I didn't really know whether 
 they had just that specie of lily in 
 Bible times, it always seemed to me 
 they were something the sort our 
 Lord was thinking of when He said 
 that King " Solomon in all his glory 
 was not arrayed like one of these." 
 They're so kind of gay and showy 
 
76 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 and striking with their bright red 
 flowers all spotty with brown. Then 
 Seth surprised me by speaking up 
 and saying, " Why, Aunt Abby, it 
 says ' the lilies of the field? and tiger- 
 lilies grow in gardens. But I know 
 a kind that's wild and grows all them 
 selves in the fields and the meadows, 
 and they're gayer and strikin'er than 
 tiger ones, I think." 
 
 To be sure ! I hadn't thought of 
 those wild ones, and I told the chil 
 dren they could go down the next 
 day, and dig up, careful, some of the 
 roots, and put them in the lily part 
 of their garden, so they'd bloom that 
 very summer, for 'twas May when 
 we started the scripture-garden. 
 Then I told them about a pretty 
 hymn we used to sing at Sabbath 
 school to a real nice tune : 
 
AUNT ABBT'S GARDEN 77 
 
 " By cool Si loam's shady rill 
 How fair the lily grows ! 
 How sweet the breath, beneath the hill, 
 Of Sharon's dewy rose ! " 
 
 And all together cried out, " Rose ! 
 There's another flower. Is it in the 
 Bible, Aunt Abby ? " I remembered 
 " I am the rose of Sharon," and after 
 a spell I thought of a verse about the 
 desert " blossoming like the rose." 
 It was easy enough to fix the rose 
 part of the garden, for there was a 
 clump of cinnamon roses right there 
 at one end of the patch of ground 
 I'd given them. 
 
 By this time the children had got 
 so interested they couldn't wait for 
 me to look up plants in the Bible, 
 but they'd spend hours, snuggling 
 close together over the big book on 
 the table, their heads almost touch 
 ing, they crowded so close. And 
 
78 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 they found so many things ! I can't 
 recollect them all myself just now. 
 They had mint, I know, with its 
 soft, fuzzy leaves and purply blooms, 
 sweet smelling and spicy. They got 
 leave to widen their garden a mite 
 so's to take in my old apple-tree. 
 They said they found lots about 
 apples in the Bible and they must 
 have one. They found briers talked 
 about, too, so they brought home 
 a sweetbrier with its pretty pink 
 flowers, from over by the pond. 
 
 By and by, as the scripture plants 
 almost ran out, and it was harder 
 work finding verses about them, 
 there was a great time looking for 
 more Bibles, so they could each have 
 one to use. Then I sent and bought 
 four nice ones, and gave each child 
 one of his own. How tickled they 
 
AVNr ABBY'S GARDEN 79 
 
 were ! They took them home, and 
 I suppose they were always a hunt 
 ing, and searching, and talking 
 about the plants and their garden, 
 for one day they came trooping in at 
 my gate, so excited and pleased, 
 bringing a little bush, roots and all. 
 It had little bits of pink double 
 flowers like teenty roses all over it, 
 and I saw it was a flowering-almond. 
 " Pa give it to us," they called out, 
 all at once. " He found about it in 
 the Bible last night after we'd gone 
 to bed, where it says ' the almond- 
 tree shall flourish.' So he went up 
 to General Billings's before breakfast 
 to ask for this one, and fetched it 
 home to surprise us." 
 
 Now I don't believe myself that's 
 the kind of almond the Bible means. 
 I guess that sort has the nuts we eat 
 
8o AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 with raisins after the pies on Thanks 
 giving days. But you may be sure 
 I didn't say so, nor discourage that 
 man in his first experiment with 
 scripture-gardening. So they set out 
 their pretty little bush, and that 
 day they found a lot more verses 
 about almond-trees and almonds. 
 They had a grape-vine running over 
 the fence between their corner and 
 the road, and they could say off ever 
 so many passages about vines and 
 grapes, and the blood of grapes. 
 They had a little border of soft green 
 grass all around their garden. " For 
 you know, Aunt Abby," said Nathan, 
 " there's most as much about grass 
 in the Bible as there is about grapes 
 and lilies." One day Martha came 
 in, her hands scratched and bleeding, 
 holding a big field thistle with its 
 
AUNT ABBY'S GARDEN 81 
 
 pricky leaves and stem, and purple 
 flowers. She said she had found 
 three verses about thistles. She was 
 a mite hurt and disappointed when 
 I told her she better not plant one, 
 for it would send its seed all over 
 the place and bring up lots of pricky, 
 hurting weeds to trouble the neigh 
 bors as well as ourselves. But Seth 
 dear little Sethy, even then, before 
 he went away from us, I thought 
 him the best, the thoughtfulest of 
 them all Seth chirked her up by 
 giving her a slip of myrtle with its 
 dark green leaves and blue flowers. 
 I had given it to him from my 
 myrtle bed, where it ran all about 
 and grew so thick. And we had 
 read the verses about " I will plant 
 in the wilderness the myrtle," and 
 " Instead of the thorn shall come up 
 
82 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 the myrtle-tree." He set everything 
 by that vine, but he gave it up, 
 cheerful, to Martha, and she was 
 dreadful pleased. 
 
 Well, before that summer was over 
 I had done what I'd hoped to do, 
 and a good deal more. Those chil 
 dren had all got some idea of what 
 the Bible was and how much there 
 was in it. When they were looking 
 up the plants they'd come upon 
 other things, and stop to read about 
 them, and I'd often hear them talk 
 ing among themselves about the 
 Bible stories and about those best 
 things I wanted them to think of 
 and know. Their pa he took an in 
 terest, too, seeing them so full of it, 
 and he studied up nights sometimes 
 to give them a surprise, and was so 
 set up when he could find something 
 
AUNT ABBT'S GARDEN 83 
 
 they hadn't noticed. 'Course I don't 
 mean to say that it made a full 
 grown Christian all at once out of 
 him or the children either, but it 
 gave them the first start in the right 
 way, and that's a big thing. As I 
 said before, Sethy was the best, the 
 thoughtfulest of all the four. He 
 was the most interested in the 
 scripture-garden, so in earnest in 
 finding out the plants and learning 
 all about them. But it worried him 
 dreadfully, there being so many 
 talked about in the Bible that he 
 couldn't get for his garden and no 
 body else could. He was set on 
 having a pomegranate-tree, and he 
 wanted aloes and cassia and olives 
 and figs, trees and plants that can't 
 be got in this part of the world any 
 wheres. Once he ran in and asked 
 
84 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 me, in his queer little old-fashioned 
 way, if I thought he could get an 
 almug-tree over at Sheldon that 
 was the biggest town near us. I 
 didn't even know there was such a 
 thing, and I thought mebbe he was 
 trying to say almond. But he said 
 it over again and spelt the name, 
 and told me they were real common 
 in Ophir, for the Bible said the ships 
 brought in a " great plenty " of them 
 from there. But most of all Sethy 
 wanted palms. He liked the story 
 of the people throwing palm 
 branches down before Jesus when 
 He was coming to Jerusalem, and he 
 was always wishing he'd been there 
 to throw just one. And he knew 
 about Deborah's palm and the place 
 that was called the city of palm- 
 trees, and oh, how much that boy 
 
AUNT ABBT'S GARDEN 85 
 
 could tell you about palms and what 
 was said about them in the good 
 book. "I'd like to go to Elim, 
 wouldn't you, Aunt Abby ? " he said 
 one time. " What for ? " I says. 
 " Why, don't you remember ? 
 there were seventy palm-trees there. 
 Just think of it, seventy whole ones, 
 and I've never seen one." 
 
 Somehow, of all the four children, 
 he was the one that seemed to learn 
 the real inside meaning of what he 
 found in the Bible and to take it 
 right into his little heart. And he 
 was the one to leave us. Before 
 the scripture-garden was dry and 
 shrivelled, the lilies of the field, the 
 rose of Sharon, the almond-tree that 
 flourished, the grass that God had so 
 clothed with green and softness, be 
 fore all these had gone to sleep for 
 
86 AUNT DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 the winter, little Seth had left us all. 
 Just a few days of fever and aching, 
 a few sort of wandering words, most 
 of them about his garden and the 
 lilies and Him that loved and talked 
 about them ; then just at the last a 
 little low, stammering whisper we 
 couldn't quite catch except that 
 'twas about palms and throwing 
 them down before Somebody, and 
 the little boy was at rest. 
 
 And I was dreadful glad to think 
 he'd had that scripture-garden with 
 all it learnt him. I knew he'd never 
 miss it where he'd gone. To the 
 rest of us that little posy patch meant 
 more than ever now, as it faded away 
 with the fall and winter and grew dry 
 and brown and dead looking. The 
 children wondered if it would wake 
 up in the spring. I knew it would. 
 
AUNT 
 
 ABBY'S 
 TITHES 
 
V 
 
 ABBT'S TirHES 
 
 FTER I joined the church, 
 and so put myself down 
 regular on the Lord's side, 
 I began to consider just 
 what I ought to do about my char 
 ities. I was born and raised sort of 
 free-handed, took it from both pa 
 and ma. So I didn't try to see how 
 little I could give away and keep up 
 appearances and satisfy my con 
 science, but how much I could spare 
 and yet get along. I never had a 
 head for figures. I was always at 
 the foot of the arithmetic class in 
 school, don't really know the mul 
 tiplication-table to this day, and 
 am forever getting mixed up and 
 
90 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 muddled over the bills at the store 
 or on the farm. 
 
 I knew I must be dreadful par 
 ticular in this matter, and, if I'd got 
 to make mistakes I must make them 
 on the right side; I mean I must 
 manage to give too much rather than 
 too little. One of pa's old sayings 
 was, "It's better to slop than to 
 skimp," and that's truer in giving to 
 the Lord than in anything else. I 
 didn't like to ask anybody about it. 
 I knew better than other folks about 
 what I owned, and, particular, how 
 much I'd had from the Lord to be 
 grateful for and pay back. But still 
 I really didn't know myself just 
 what my income was, nor how much 
 I could afford to part with. I 
 owned the place where I lived, a 
 little house with a few acres of land. 
 
AUNT ABBY'S TITHES 91 
 
 I had a little money in the savings 
 bank, and there were a few other 
 things that brought me in some 
 thing every year; but just how 
 much it all came to I didn't know. 
 And again, what part, how much of 
 it all, I ought to give back in char 
 ity, I wasn't exactly sure. But I 
 thought it over, and studied up the 
 Bible, and, of course, prayed over it 
 some, and by and by it seemed to 
 come to me. I found out from the 
 Bible that the least anybody ought 
 to give was a tenth of what he had. 
 It's called a tithe in some places, but 
 Deacon Blodgett said that was the 
 same thing, and meant a tenth part. 
 But, as I said before, I didn't know 
 how much property I had, so how 
 could I divide it by ten, and get a 
 tithe of it? 
 
92 AUNT AEEY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 Well, I soon saw that the only 
 way I could fix it and be certain 
 sure I wasn't skimping the Lord's 
 share was this : I must divide every 
 single thing as it came along by ten, 
 and when I'd got the answer to the 
 sum, I must give that away right off, 
 before I forgot about it, always add 
 ing a little to it, for fear I hadn't 
 divided right, knowing my bad head 
 for figures. You have no idea how 
 well that way worked, and works 
 still, for I always do it to this day. 
 I'll show you. 
 
 There were my hens, for one thing. 
 I had quite a lot, and they were 
 good layers most times. Well, say I 
 got fifteen eggs one day. As soon as 
 I'd counted them I'd divide them by 
 ten. It would go once and some 
 thing over, so, of course, I'd call it 
 
AUNT ABBY'S TITHES 93 
 
 twice. There'd be two eggs that 
 didn't belong to me, but to the Lord 
 or His people. Then there was the 
 allowing, as I call it, the adding on 
 for fear I hadn't divided right ; and 
 that made three. Of course, I 
 picked out the biggest, if there was 
 any difference, and in some ways or 
 other those three eggs went where 
 they belonged. Sometimes they 
 were sold, and the money paid into 
 the treasury ; sometimes they went 
 just as eggs to some of the Lord's 
 sick or poor, or to somebody doing 
 His work. 
 
 Then my garden : the vegetables, 
 and the fruit, and the flowers, they 
 were all divided the same way, as 
 fast as they came on. 'Twas hard 
 work for me, with my poor head for 
 figures, to find out just how much a 
 
94 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 tenth part of a bushel was, when I 
 had my roots dug, the potatoes 
 and turnips, carrots, and so on. I 
 couldn't do it on paper or the slate. 
 I just had to take each bushel itself, 
 and lay them out in ten parts, by 
 looks or counting. Then I'd allow, 
 of course, feeling pretty sure I'd 
 made some mistake, and generally 
 add a little from nine of the heaps 
 to the Lord's pile, and there it was, 
 you see, all done. 'Twas a good 
 deal of work, but real interesting. 
 Pumpkins were easy. They were 
 big, and counted quick. Beans and 
 peas were pretty difficult, but cab 
 bages plain and easy. 
 
 My posies didn't bring in any 
 money ; there wasn't any sale for 
 such things in the village, of course, 
 so they must be given away just as 
 
AUNT ABBT'S TITHES 95 
 
 they were. But there were always 
 sick people to send a little bunch to, 
 or poor folks that hadn't any gar 
 dens, and many, many times there 
 were the dead, with them they'd left 
 sorrowing, wanting to lay something 
 white and sweet and comforting on 
 their breasts or in their cold, still 
 hands. And there was the meeting 
 house to look out for Sundays with 
 the pitcher of Canterbury bells or 
 fox-gloves or poppies or pinks. 
 Congregationals I was always one 
 of them, you know didn't put 
 flowers in the meeting-house much 
 those days. But it seemed a good 
 thing to me, our Master having 
 made so much of posies, and they 
 themselves having so many little 
 kind of sermons in them. So I be 
 gun doing it, and somehow nobody 
 
96 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 stopped me, though there was some 
 talk at first, and the story got 
 around that Abby Coles that's me, 
 you know was going over to the 
 Episcopals. Then there was my 
 herb corner, where I raised thyme 
 and sweet-marjoram and mint and 
 summer-savory. I just admired to 
 do the dividing up of that, for it 
 made me think of the " tithes of 
 mint, anise, and cummin " the Bible 
 tells of. You wouldn't think there 
 was much use for such herbs in the 
 Lord's work, but there was. There 
 was stuffing for the tenth part of my 
 chickens I didn't keep turkeys to 
 have sage or sweet-marjoram or sum 
 mer-savory or all three in, as folks 
 chose ; and there were the sausages, 
 tithes of them to be seasoned up for 
 the minister and his big family, 
 
AUNT ABBT'S TITHES 97 
 
 he had quivers full of children, 
 and for old Captain Lee, Aunt Lois 
 Worthy, 'Lias Bates, and all the 
 rest of our poor folks. And there 
 was hardhack and boneset and 
 motherwort, and lots of other cur 
 ing, healing things for the sick and 
 ailing. Dear me ! my tenth part of 
 that herb-bed had to have lots of al 
 lowing to make it go 'round. 
 
 Well, so I did with everything, 
 you see. The interest I got from 
 the savings-bank I tithed each time 
 it came in, always allowing more on 
 that than on other things, because 
 of my poor head for figures, and my 
 being afraid I should do the sum 
 wrong. And so with the rent for my 
 pasture that John Walker hired for 
 his cattle. He didn't pay very reg 
 ular, sometimes not at all. But, of 
 
98 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 course, that didn't make any differ 
 ence ; I'd got to take a tenth of the 
 price he'd ought to 'a' paid, besides 
 the allowing. 
 
 Of course, I've only told you a 
 part of the story. 'Twould take me 
 a year to tell about everything, 
 how I measured the milk from my 
 cow when it was new, and then the 
 cream when it was skimmed ; how, 
 when my pigs were killed, I tithed 
 the meat, spareribs, hams, pork, 
 and all, each by itself. My calves 
 too, the veal, the liver, and the 
 head. I gave a tenth part of the use 
 of my horse old Jack to the sick 
 or poor, the minister or funerals. I 
 tithed my hay, my oats, my buck 
 wheat, and always every single time, 
 of course, I allowed, to make sure I 
 was right and honest. 
 
AUNT ABBY'S TITHES 99 
 
 This rule of mine worked sort of 
 queer sometimes, and turned out al 
 most comical. I recollect once I'd 
 been busy house-cleaning, and some 
 how I'd forgotten how near out the 
 victuals in the house was. I went to 
 set the table for tea, and I found 
 there wasn't hardly anything in the 
 closet but one huckleberry pie and 
 three doughnuts. I'd got into such 
 a habit of tithing I begun to divide 
 those provisions right off, though I 
 really had done it before on baking- 
 day, and sent out my tenth and the 
 allowing. I undertook to cut that 
 pie into ten pieces, but you know 
 how difficult huckleberry pie is. 
 The juice would run so and the ber 
 ries squeeze out till I couldn't tell 
 one piece from another, and, come to 
 the tenth, there didn't hardly seem 
 
ioo AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 to be anything to it, even with the 
 allowing. So I see I might as well 
 take the whole pie, and call it a 
 tithe, and I ran over to poor Miss 
 Randy Shaw's with it. When I 
 came back, I had another hard sum 
 to do, for there were my three 
 doughnuts to divide by ten ! I was 
 too tired to try to do that, so I eat 
 one with my cup of tea, and laid 
 away the others for little lame Billy, 
 down the west road. 
 
 There were lots of other things I 
 can scursely put into words, sums 
 you can't do by any rule of arith 
 metic, and yet must be taken into 
 account and tithed. There were the 
 kind things folks did for me, such a 
 heap of them; for everybody's al 
 ways so good to me, and I'm sure I 
 don't know why. Those things 
 
AUNT ABBY'S TITHES 101 
 
 must be divided somehow, and at 
 least a tenth part of them passed on 
 to them that needs them. There 
 was my Bible and all it holds ; that 
 must have its tithe sent to those that 
 haven't got it, the heathen here at 
 home and way off in distant lands. 
 And my church, I'm Congrega 
 tional, you know, some ways I 
 must give part of what I got out of 
 that. There was my minister, Mr. 
 Jessup, too. It made me smile for 
 a minute when I first thought of di 
 viding him by ten. He was dread 
 ful poor, as far as flesh goes, and 
 seemed as though a tithe of him 
 wouldn't go very far. But, dear 
 me ! the goodness and kind deeds 
 and faithful work for his people 
 made enough of him to divide by 
 a hundred. 
 
102 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 And then I mean to speak very 
 solemn and with great respect and 
 reverence about this there was the 
 greatest gift I'd had in all my poor, 
 selfish life, the Christmas present, as 
 I like to call it in my heart. I tried 
 real hard to give my whole share 
 and more of what I owed Him for 
 that, and help folks that hadn't my 
 privileges to get its peace and com 
 fort. I don't think there was any 
 need of stopping at a tenth part in 
 that matter. 
 
 Well, I've made a long story out 
 of my tithing, haven't I ? But you 
 asked me about it, you know. And 
 it does seem to me such a good way 
 to lay out your charities, and such 
 an easy one, too. For, as far as I 
 can see, it comes out just about right, 
 that is, if you divide every single 
 
AUNT ABBT'S TITHES 103 
 
 thing as it comes along by ten, and 
 don't wait or forget. But remember, 
 you must always allow, even if you 
 think you have a head for figures. 
 Seems to me each year, as I look 
 back and count up, that my allow 
 ance is about as big as my tithes, 
 though I don't see how that can be. 
 But I never was much at arithmetic, 
 that's the thing of it. 
 
AUNT ABBY 
 
 ON 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
VI AUNT ABET 
 ON FRIENDSHIP 
 
 HEN I was a girl I used to 
 think and talk a great 
 deal about friendship. 
 Most young folks do, I 
 guess. It's a kind of nice-sounding, 
 sentimental word, and lots has been 
 said and writ about it. There was a 
 book that always laid on ma's best 
 room table it had a red cover and 
 matched the carpet and curtains 
 called " Friendship's Offering," and 
 there were real pretty verses in it. 
 And there was a piece we used to 
 "sing to a tune named Friendship, a 
 sort of jumpy, up and down tune. 
 The words began, 
 
 "Friendship to every willing mind 
 Offers a heavenly treasure." 
 107 
 
io8 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 And there were ever so many stories 
 in different books about friends and 
 all they did for each other. I used 
 to think about the subject a good 
 deal and wish I had one of the kind 
 of friends that would die for me, and 
 things like that. And I'd sit by the 
 hour and think how fine 'twould be 
 to have somebody set so much by me 
 that she'd follow me to the ends of 
 the earth and give up everything for 
 me, and mebbe mourn herself to 
 death on my grave if I was taken 
 away first. Or I'd get thinking how 
 she'd save me from drowning or be 
 ing burnt up or run over, and how 
 she'd lose her own life by drowning 
 or burning or being run over, and be 
 glad to do it for me, her beloved 
 friend. I'd really cry hard about it 
 as I'd go all over it in my mind, 
 
AUNT AEBY ON FRIENDSHIP 109 
 
 it seemed so real and so dreadful 
 mournful and nice. 
 
 Well, I kept choosing friends, 
 one at a time, and each time I'd 
 think it was going to be one of the 
 friendships you read about. But 
 somehow it didn't turn out that way. 
 Mebbe she the friend would give 
 up to me and do things for me, first- 
 off, but it wouldn't last. She'd get 
 tired giving up and expect me to do 
 some of the sacrificing, and then I'd 
 be disappointed and discouraged, and 
 feel as if I was a kind of martyr. 
 And I'd write compositions about 
 this world's being a fleeting show, 
 and how nobody appreciated folks 
 whose hearts was crying out for a 
 friend, and all that silly stuff young 
 folks talk and write. 
 
 There was Jane Langworthy. I 
 
no AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 took her for my intimate friend one 
 time. We went to school together, 
 and we sat at the same desk and kept 
 together in our lessons and were al 
 ways whispering secrets and going 
 about with our arms 'round each 
 other. I asked her if she was will 
 ing to die for me, and she said she 
 was, and I believed her and was real 
 satisfied. But one time when I was 
 head of the spelling class and set on 
 keeping my place, Jane spelt a word 
 I missed and went above me, and my 
 faith in true friendship was shook 
 for a long spell. 
 
 Then I had Mercy Evans. That 
 lasted longer than most any of my 
 everlasting friendships, for Mercy 
 was a dreadful pleasant girl and real 
 unselfish. But once we were talking 
 together on the way to singing- 
 
AUNT AEBT ON FRIENDSHIP in 
 
 school, and I asked her if she would 
 be willing to be burnt at the stake 
 sooner than deny her friendship for 
 me. Well, I didn't suppose she'd 
 even stop to think, but she did. 
 She sort of colored up and looked 
 troubled, and I says, "Why, of 
 course, you'd go to the stake, cheer 
 ful, if you had to choose betwixt that 
 and denying me, wouldn't you ? " 
 And Mercy says, very low and stam 
 mering, " Oh, I hope I might, but 
 I'm so afraid I wouldn't. I ain't a 
 bit good about standing pain, you 
 know, and I might give in." I was 
 that disappointed I could hardly 
 speak, but as soon as I found my 
 voice, I just up and told her what I 
 thought of her and what a failure 
 she was as a real, true, self-denying 
 friend. 
 
H2 JUNT DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 So it went on, but I can't re 
 member all of my different friend 
 ships nor what broke each one up. 
 But I do remember plain just how I 
 came to see things different and to 
 know what friendship really means. 
 My friend that time was Maria 
 Anderson. She was real pretty to 
 look at, with heaps of shining 
 yellow hair, pink cheeks, and big 
 blue eyes. I guess it was her good 
 looks made me first think of taking 
 her for my intimate friend. She 
 wasn't much at studying and was 
 'most always near the foot of the 
 class, and she wasn't very well off, 
 her folks being about the poorest in 
 the village. But she talked beauti 
 ful about friendship and promised to 
 stand by me till death and give up 
 everything for me, even her life, if 
 
AUNT AEBT ON FRIENDSHIP 113 
 
 it was necessary. I thought this 
 time I'd found just what I'd been 
 looking for so long. But after a 
 spell I began to see faults in Maria. 
 Spite of all her talk about giving up, 
 I could see she managed to get her 
 own way, or tried to, at any rate. 
 She expected my help in her lessons 
 and writing compositions ; she 
 hinted at wanting my prettiest hair 
 ribbons and bows. She got me to 
 introduce my boy friends to her and 
 then sort of took them away from 
 me, she being so much nicer to look 
 at. Fact is, she didn't seem to do 
 anything for me in friendship's name 
 except to talk and promise. 
 
 'Twas just at that time when I 
 was seeing all this and was disap 
 pointed and discouraged, for about 
 the twentieth time in my life, that 
 
H4 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 something happened. 'Twasn't any 
 thing out of the common ; at least 
 it didn't appear to be at first. I was 
 turning over the leaves of my Bible, 
 looking for a good verse to say at 
 weekly prayer-meeting, when my 
 eye fell on the word " friend," and I 
 stopped to read what it said. It was 
 that beautiful verse, " Greater love 
 hath no man than this, that a man 
 lay down his life for his friend." 
 Well, in my narrow, selfish way of 
 looking at the subject, poor, silly 
 girl that I was, I says to myself, 
 " Oh, how true that is ! But where 
 shall I ever find such a friend, one 
 that would really and truly lay down 
 her life for me ? " 
 
 All of a sudden, for the very 
 first time in my life, if you'll be 
 lieve it, came into my mind the 
 
AUNT ABET ON FRIENDSHIP 115 
 
 question, " What about your doing 
 that for a friend?" I felt kind of 
 ashamed, even though I was all 
 alone by myself, but I tried to get 
 around it by saying, " We're not 
 talking about that side of it ; that's 
 another question." But I knew all 
 the time it wasn't another question, 
 but the same, only more important. 
 I tried to get it out of my head, so I 
 thought I'd look up some other 
 verses about friends and friendship, 
 thinking they might give different 
 views. I had a little leather-cov 
 ered book, Brown's Concordance, 
 and I began to look it over. I 
 found a good many verses about 
 friends, such as " A friend loveth at 
 all times," not only when things 
 go right, you see, and " Thine own 
 friend, and thy father's friend, for- 
 
n6 AUNr ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 sake not " not even if they're not 
 quite perfect and seem a mite selfish. 
 And then, turning over the pages, 
 I kept coming upon passages about 
 our dealings with our " brothers," 
 which must be about the same as 
 friends, the forgiving them, and 
 bearing with them, and giving up 
 for them, and doing for them, and 
 " by love, serving one another," 
 bearing each other's burdens, being 
 long suffering. And I struck by 
 chance (mebbe it wasn't chance) on 
 those verses about charity ; its never 
 failing, its suffering long, its bearing 
 all things, believing all things, 
 hoping all things, enduring all 
 things. Dear me, by that time I 
 almost crawled under the table, I 
 was so ashamed of what I had called 
 my friendships. 
 
AUNT ABET ON FRIENDSHIP 117 
 
 But all that was nothing when I 
 came, sudden like, upon this verse, 
 " Henceforth I call you not servants, 
 but friends." It was the Lord, our 
 Master, who said that, you know. 
 And He said it to them that were 
 weak and foolish and full of mis 
 takes, if nothing worse. He said it 
 to Peter who was going to deny Him 
 in the very first trouble that came ; 
 to Thomas, so full of doubtings and 
 unbelief, to all of them that, when 
 trials came, " forsook Him and fled." 
 He called them friends, with all 
 their sins and selfish ways, and was 
 going to lay down His life for them, 
 and He did it. I knew all this 
 before, but somehow I hadn't 
 thought of it in this connection, 
 when I was trying to find out 
 what friendship was and why I 
 
n8 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 hadn't ever got the right kind of 
 friend. 
 
 That was one of the great waking- 
 ups of my life, and I've had a good 
 many. I don't mean to say I'm the 
 right kind of friend now. I can see 
 such self-seeking, mean, uncharita 
 ble things in my friendships always 
 still, but I know now what they'd 
 ought to be. Maria Anderson is 
 about my most intimate friend still. 
 We kept on, you see, after that time. 
 I don't know as she's changed so 
 dreadful much, but I look at things 
 different. There's always two sides 
 to a friendship, and she's got the 
 side that lets me do for her, help 
 her, make allowances for her. That 
 seems to me the hardest side. I 
 could scursely stand it to have that 
 side, unless it was laid upon me so's 
 
4UNT 4BBT ON FRIENDSHIP 119 
 
 I could see I'd ought to take it. 
 And I've got the side of helping, 
 giving up, sacrificing, in a very 
 small way that hardly deserves the 
 name, seeing the happiness I can 
 give her and that she's willing to 
 take. Mine's the easiest side, you 
 see, but I didn't seek it out; it 
 seemed to come that way naturally. 
 And she does fit into her part real 
 well, and I love her for it. It al 
 most seems sometimes that she goes 
 out of her way to give ine chances 
 to do for and help her. There's 
 times when I am wishing for some 
 new way to show my friendship for 
 her, and all of a sudden she'll let me 
 know there's some one little thing 
 she wants and has set her mind on, 
 and that I could get for her. And I 
 do it, gladly enough, I tell you t and 
 
120 AUNT JBBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 she takes it so surprised and so 
 thankful, and there comes a little 
 more love for her in my heart 
 and a beautiful new thing into our 
 friendship. 
 
 Sometimes not very often, not 
 quite frequent enough to suit me 
 the thing I see she wants takes a 
 real sacrificing and giving up on my 
 part, and that's splendid and makes 
 my heart too full to hold. It was 
 that way about the little home of 
 her own she's got now, down the 
 street there. She let me see that 
 she just longed to own that place, 
 and I managed to surprise her with 
 it one birthday. I found I couldn't 
 quite do that without parting with 
 my wood lot that I'd sort of held on 
 to because pa left it to me. And the 
 letting that wood lot go so't I could 
 
AUNT ABET ON FRIENDSHIP 121 
 
 buy the little home for Maria was 
 'most the best thing that ever came 
 into our friendship, for it hurt a 
 little, and I was dreadful glad. 
 
 And there's lots of little bits of 
 things she lets me do. She never 
 liked preserving and pickling or ma 
 king jell. She always lets me do 
 them for her, and generally her cake 
 and pies too. And her posy garden 
 is prettier than mine now since I 
 took to taking care of it for her. I 
 don't waste my time now, pottering 
 over my own plants in the selfish 
 way I used to, and I'm so proud and 
 pleased when folks talk about what 
 a faculty for gardening Miss Ander 
 son's got, and kind of hint that she 
 beats me. And so as to the work 
 she takes home from the sewing 
 society. She has a queer trouble in 
 
122 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 her back that makes her nervy and 
 sort of weak if she sews, while I 
 really like to have a needle in my 
 fingers, so it works just right, her 
 part and mine. And, of course, 
 there's no need of talking about our 
 little ways outside, so I get a little 
 pride again in knowing folks think 
 my best friend is a good seamstress. 
 
 Oh, I get my full share out of this 
 friendship, you better believe. I'm 
 too selfish not to have that. It's 
 better to be a friend than have a 
 friend, I hold, but they come to the 
 same thing after all. Don't call 
 yourself a friend and be thinking 
 the everlasting time what the other 
 side of the friendship can do for you. 
 But be a friend for the sake of what 
 you can do for the other, what you 
 can give or give up, what sorrow 
 
ABBT ON FRIENDSHIP 123 
 
 you can bear for him, what sacrifice 
 you can make, what good to his 
 body or, more than all, to his soul. 
 
 How I do run on ! And I ought 
 to be home this instant minute, 
 steeping some wild valerian. Maria 
 Anderson feels as if she was going 
 to have a gone spell, and she always 
 thinks my steeping is a lot better 
 than any she can do, she's so partial 
 to me, for I'm her most intimate 
 friend, you know. 
 
AUNT 
 ABBY'S 
 XT-DOORS 
 
VII AUNT ABBT'S 
 "NEXT-DOORS" 
 
 I IS WAS telling you once 
 jf how I always felt about 
 folks that lived next 
 door, how it seemed to 
 lay a kind of responsibility on me as 
 a sort of next door or nighest duty. 
 Well, that notion of mine brought a 
 lot of queer things into my life ; 
 some of them pleasant, some funny, 
 and some real mournful. I always 
 called such neighbors " next-doors," 
 and I remember so many of them. 
 
 There was Miss Silvy Blow that 
 lived in the other half of my house 
 in Factoryville. I didn't get to 
 know her for quite a spell, though I 
 
 tried hard. She kept to herself and 
 127 
 
128 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 never would look up or speak when 
 we met on the steps or anywheres. 
 And she had such a sort of cross, 
 stand-off look on her face, a real un 
 happy expression too. I found she 
 was deaf and dreadful touchy about 
 it, and unhappy and suspecting and 
 unresigned. I felt terrible sorry for 
 her. Seemed as if I must do some 
 thing to help her and brighten her 
 up, and bimeby I got the chance 
 and I've always been so glad and 
 thankful. Dear me, how many 
 things I've had to be thankful for, 
 and more than anything else, the 
 lots of chances to help folks that 
 have been sent to me. There ain't 
 many people so blest. 
 
 I don't remember exactly how we 
 first got to speaking. But any way 
 after a spell Miss Silvy appeared to 
 
AUNTAKBT'S "NEXT-DOORS" 129 
 
 see I was friendly and interested in 
 her, and she wasn't so stand-off 
 with me, and before many weeks we 
 were good friends. One day she 
 showed how much she liked and 
 trusted me by letting out the whole 
 mournful story of her deafness and 
 how it was spoiling her whole life. 
 It cut her off, she said, from every 
 body, and she was so lonesome and 
 miserable. Folks avoided her, the 
 children wouldn't come nigh her, 
 and she was always thinking people 
 were saying things about her when 
 she saw them talking and couldn't 
 hear them. Poor, poor thing, how 
 I did pity her, though I saw plain 
 enough she was making a dreadful 
 mistake. I was 'most afraid to say 
 a word for fear it would be the 
 wrong thing, and so do more harm 
 
i 3 o AUNT DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 than good, but I just couldn't let her 
 go on in that dreadful way without 
 at any rate trying to help. So first 
 I let her see plain that I was real 
 sorry for her and felt for her and felt 
 with her. That never does a mite 
 of harm whatever you do afterwards. 
 Even if you feel you've got to find a 
 little fault or give a bit of advice or 
 point out some small mistakes or 
 wrong-doings, be sure to show your 
 liking and your sympathizing first, 
 and they'll take the other dose a 
 heap easier and better ; at least 
 that's the way it's been with me. 
 And after I'd done that done it 
 right from my heart too, for I did 
 feel terrible sorry for her, so that 
 my eyes got sort of wet and teary 
 and she saw it then I begun to 
 show her the other side. First place 
 
AUNT ABBT'S "NEXT-DOORS" 131 
 
 I made her smile a little by quoting 
 one of my old grandma's rhyming 
 proverbs she had one for every 
 occasion 
 
 11 Be but a little deaf and blind, 
 If happiness you wish to find." 
 
 Then I told her there seemed to me 
 lots of truth in that. There's so 
 many, many things in this world 
 we'd all be better off for not hearing, 
 but it's hard to shut our ears to them. 
 But as for her, I says to Miss Silvy, 
 why her ears were shut for her. So 
 she wasn't always hearing the gossip, 
 the ill-natured, spiteful things folks 
 said. For they was generally, not 
 always, said without stopping to 
 think and so was hardly ever spoken 
 out loud and plain and deliberate as 
 they must be said to a person a mite 
 hard of hearing. I'm sure you've no- 
 
i 3 2 AUNT DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 ticed that, yourself, how folks scursely 
 ever sit down and say out loud into a 
 deaf person's ear the hateful unkind 
 things about other people that they'd 
 soon enough say, sort of under their 
 breath, or in hintings and shakes of 
 the heads and half said meanings. 
 That was one thing, I told Miss 
 Silvy, that had made me most wish 
 I was a mite hard of hearing myself. 
 And another was the being able to 
 shut yourself up any time and think 
 of those great subjects that always 
 seem to need a still time and a shut- 
 in place for thinking about. Other 
 folks that hear every little disturb 
 ing noise have to enter into a closet 
 and shut the door with their own 
 hands. But with deaf people, there 
 it is all done for them by Somebody 
 else. And as for the suspecting part, 
 
AUNT ABBY'S "NEXT-DOORS" 133 
 
 the being afraid folks are saying 
 something bad about you when you 
 see they're speaking and can't hear 
 them, why seems's if 'twould work 
 the other way. Why not get into 
 the habit of suspicioning they're say 
 ing something so good of you they're 
 afraid to let you hear ? For lots of 
 times, that's the truth. And I told 
 Miss Silvy two or three kind, pleas 
 ant things I, myself, had heard folks 
 say about her, when I could see by 
 her face at the time she'd thought 
 they were talking against her. 
 
 And as for the children's not li 
 king her and their keeping out of 
 the way, why, was it all their fault ? 
 I didn't want to blame it on her, 
 but I just sort of hinted that she 
 hadn't given the boys and girls in 
 that district much reason to think she 
 
134 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 wanted them around, and I was so 
 glad I could tell her what little Sarah 
 Ann Mills said the other day. She'd 
 been over there on an errand and she 
 said she see a rag baby up on the 
 shelf and she did want so to take it, 
 but she was afraid of Miss Silvy. 
 Then the little thing went on, " I 
 wish't I wasn't so 'fraid of her, for 
 she looks's if she wasn't very com- 
 for'ble and I'd like to amuse her." 
 Miss Silvy's eyes got a mite damp 
 and she says, " That was Mary's doll 
 baby, my little sister that died. 
 Sarah Ann looks a mite like Mary, 
 now I think of it, and she can come 
 and play with that doll any time 
 she wants to ; you tell her so." 
 
 Dear me, I can't tell you all I said 
 to her. You would have said it bet 
 ter and thought of more of those con- 
 
AUNT ABBT'S "NEXT-DOORS" 135 
 
 soling things. But I recollect one 
 thing I dwelt on was that deafness 
 seemed to bring your friends so close 
 up to you. They had to look right in 
 your face and speak right into your 
 ear, so that everything they said 
 seemed meant just for you alone and 
 nobody else, kind of confidential, you 
 know. You see my talk was all 
 plain, common truth that everybody 
 knows and told in my poor way. 
 But Somebody blessed it and made it 
 take effect, and Silvy Blow got to be 
 a different kind of woman before 
 long. Her face lost that unhappy, 
 fretful look and got a real peaceful, 
 sweet expression, and folks went to 
 see her a great deal, particular when 
 they were in trouble and they told 
 their sorrows right into her ears and 
 she was never tired of hearing and 
 
136 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 trying to help. And the children, 
 my ! the house was full of boys and 
 girls from morning to night. Come 
 to find out Miss Silvy was a great 
 hand at making rag dolls and paint 
 ing up their faces, and the young 
 ones said her cookies and turnovers 
 couldn't be beat and she knew more 
 games and stories then anybody else 
 in Factoryville. 
 
 The children's shrill, clear voices 
 made her hear real easy. But there 
 were two or three sort of bashful 
 young ones that liked best to get 
 close up to her and talk right into 
 her ear, and she loved that. Sarah 
 Ann Mills was one of them and it 
 was pretty to see her snuggling up 
 to Miss Silvy her little pink mouth 
 close to her ear while she told her 
 things. I heard her one time say- 
 
AUNT ABBr$ "NEXT-DOORS" 137 
 
 ing softly that way, " I'm real sorry, 
 Miss Silvy, if it hurts you being 
 deaf, but I can't help loving you 
 best that way, it's so nice to tell 
 things right into your inside where 
 your heart is." " Bless you, deary," 
 says Miss Blow, " you always looked 
 like my little sister, Mary, and you 
 favor her more every single day." 
 
 I've made a long story out of that 
 one next door neighbor. I was go 
 ing to tell you about a lot of them 
 but I haven't time for much more 
 to-day. There was poor Martha 
 Merrit that thought she wasn't 
 elected and so couldn't be saved and 
 did nothing else from day's end to 
 day's end but mourn and lament 
 over her lost condition. I had such 
 a time with her. For a long spell I 
 argued with her and tried my best 
 
138 AUNT ABBT*S NEIGHBORS 
 
 to convince her that there was hope 
 for her and for all of us poor sinners 
 and to show her where that hope 
 lay. But it was wasted breath, 
 time thrown away. And bimeby I 
 got tired and I took another way. 
 I asked her if she was certain sure 
 she was going to be lost and she said 
 she was, for she hadn't been elected 
 and she knew she should be doomed 
 to everlasting woe. " Well, then," I 
 says, " if it's sure and certain why 
 there ain't any use in trying to do 
 anything about it. But there are 
 lots and lots of folks that there's 
 hope for still and they need some 
 body to learn them what's right and 
 to help them and comfort them. 
 So," I says, " as there's not a bit of 
 use doing anything for your own 
 soul why you're just the very one to 
 
AUNT ABBrS "NEXT-DOORS" 139 
 
 work for others, having plenty of 
 time, you see. And I'll tell you 
 some things you can do right off." 
 Well, I don't know why, but it 
 seemed to strike her as something 
 new and right too. She was a kind- 
 hearted woman and a sensible one, 
 get her off that one idea that she 
 was almost crazy over. She took up 
 the work I picked out for her and 
 she did it, did it well and kindly, 
 and I gave her more. She got terri 
 ble interested in it, and a little at a 
 time she forgot herself and her not 
 being elected and oh, she came out 
 all right and is a cheerful, busy little 
 woman now. 
 
 And there was Humpy Bill as the 
 folks called poor little Billy Jordan 
 with the dreadful back so bent and 
 bowed that his head leaned over and 
 
140 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 his eyes were always turned to the 
 ground. He was real unhappy till 
 it was put into my head to remind 
 him how many things there was on 
 the ground to look at and learn 
 about and watch. As soon as he be 
 gun he went way beyond me. He 
 learned all about the flowers and the 
 grass and the flies and bees and bugs 
 and caterpillars, even the stones 
 themselves, and he got to be a 
 happy, busy little chap, friends with 
 everybody, not only folks but all 
 creatures and to love them and Him 
 too that made them all. 
 
 And there was John Long and his 
 wife that got so far apart and wor 
 ried me so till I found they really 
 were dreadful fond of each other 
 but had let things come between 
 them. And of course, when I knew 
 
Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson has added 
 lustre to the name of a family distinguished 
 in statesmanship, scholarship, art, science 
 and letters. She is a sister of Dr. H. Clay 
 Trumbull, Editor of The Sunday School 
 Times, and of the late Dr. J. Hammond 
 Trumbull the noted philologist. Mrs. 
 Slosson is herself a naturalist being one of 
 the highest American authorities on the 
 moths and butterflies. Her entomological 
 collection is extensive and practically all 
 of her own gathering. She is at home 
 among the plants also. Hence we find 
 her stories betraying exceptional famili 
 arity with nature, and turning upon its 
 similitudes and symbolism as influences on 
 human life and character. With superb 
 art Mrs. Slosson intimates rather than 
 directly stating, profound spiritual truths 
 through the quaint self-revelation of her 
 characters. Her art is thoroughly original, 
 delighting in the felt powers of the intan 
 gible and the shadowy, while yet moving 
 in an atmosphere of rustic simplicity. 
 
AUNT ABBY'S "NEXT-DOORS" 141 
 
 that, I was able to bring them to 
 gether never mind how without 
 their knowing I did it. And dear 
 me, I won't say another word. I've 
 got to run in next door at three 
 o'clock to take care of little Reuben 
 while his mother goes to the doctor's. 
 He's a fretty, naughty little next- 
 door, but he likes me pretty well and 
 I can generally manage him. 
 
UNT 
 ABBY'S 
 FIRST 
 EASTER 
 
VIII AUNT ABBT'S 
 FIRST EASTER 
 
 WASN'T brought up to 
 keep Easter. To tell the 
 truth, I didn't know any 
 thing about it, or what 
 'twas for, till I was a 
 woman grown. You know there 
 was a feeling, those days, against all 
 such things, even Christmas itself, 
 as Roman Catholic, or, anyway, 
 Episcopal seasons, and not to be kept 
 by other denominations. Why, pa 
 used to tell how he sent a big, fat 
 turkey, one time, on Christmas Day, 
 to Parson Roe. The old man sent 
 it back, with a note that said that 
 any other day he'd take it, thankful, 
 but not on a popish feast day. He 
 didn't get turkey real often, neither, 
 
146 AUNT DEBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 so it must have been hard work to 
 return it. 
 
 So, as I said, I don't believe I'd 
 ever heard of such a time as Easter 
 till I was grown up. Then Dr. 
 Watkins came to the village to 
 practice, after old Dr. Ashby died. 
 He was an Episcopal, and he wanted 
 a church of that sort. He found a 
 few other folks that felt the same 
 way, English Bill, the rope-maker, 
 and Miss Viney Lee, whose father 
 had been a Tory, and some young 
 folks that wanted something new 
 and . queer, and they started an 
 Episcopal church. They used to 
 have their meetings in a house way 
 up at the north end of the village, 
 not far from the burying-ground. 
 
 Well, I was spending the biggest 
 part of my time, those days, in that 
 
AUNT ABBY'S FIRST EASTER 147 
 
 burying-ground ; for my little 
 Danny, my only child, the only one 
 I ever hftd, was laying there. I guess 
 I've told you about him, the cutest, 
 prettiest little yellow-haired fellow, 
 taken away from me so sudden, 
 when he was hardly more than a 
 baby. He died just at the beginning 
 of winter. Maybe you know some 
 thing about what that means. To 
 lay down the little body you'd al 
 ways kept so warm and careful, 
 covering it with soft blankets, 
 cuddling it close to you away from 
 drafts or the least mite of cold air, 
 holding its cunning little feet in 
 your own warm hands, so's they'd 
 never be chilled, to lay down that 
 soft, pretty baby, I say, in the cold, 
 outdoors, and under the very snow 
 itself, -oh, how can we ever, ever 
 
148 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 bear to do it ! But we have to, so 
 many, many of us mothers have to. 
 It 'most broke my heart. ? X I was a 
 member of the church, a believer, 
 and I tried to bear my trouble right. 
 I knew it was only the body, and 
 not the soul, that I was putting 
 away there. But I loved that little 
 body with all my heart and soul and 
 mind. In a mite of a child like 
 that, only going on two when he 
 died, it's the body part we love, al 
 most more than the soul, seems to 
 me. The soul in a baby is so little 
 and hid up, you 'most overlook it. 
 I loved the yellow curly hair ; the 
 blue eyes ; the soft, pinky cheeks ; 
 the little bit of a mouth, just as red 
 and sweet as one of my cinnamon 
 roses; the pretty baby fingers; the 
 helpless little feet, every single 
 
FIRST EASTER 149 
 
 speck of that child's body that I'd 
 held in my arms night and day for 
 'most twenty months. And now I 
 must put it out in the cold, and 
 leave it there. I tell you, even 
 thinking of the happy little soul up 
 in heaven didn't make up, just then, 
 for losing and leaving all alone, out 
 there, that blessed little body. 
 
 But I tried to take it right. I 
 said, time and time again, from the 
 very first, "Thy will be done." I 
 told the Lord I knew it was all 
 right, that He doeth all things well, 
 that He only gave and took away 
 again, and I said, over and over and 
 over again, " Blessed be the name of 
 the Lord." But as long as I felt 
 that way, didn't complain or rebel 
 against God's will, it didn't seem 
 to me there was any harm in ma- 
 
150 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 king much of that little bed where 
 my baby's body laid. Seemed to me 
 it was the best thing to do, making 
 one think of God and His chastening, 
 of heaven and the many mansions 
 and the little children up there that 
 always behold the face of their Fa 
 ther. So day after day, and week 
 after week, I passed my time, the 
 biggest part of it, there in the 
 burying-ground, by Danny's little 
 grave. I kept the snow away, and 
 laid sweet-smelling fir balsam 
 branches over it. Of course, there 
 wasn't any flowers in bloom at that 
 time of year, but I found pretty 
 moss under the snow, and running 
 pine, and I had everlastings, pearly 
 white, that I'd picked and dried in 
 the fall. So I kept that little bed 
 sweet and pretty, and as warm as I 
 
AUNT ABBrS FIRST E4STER 151 
 
 could. And there I sat hours and 
 hours of every day. I wrapped up 
 warm, so's not to take cold, and 
 somehow kept from getting real sick, 
 though I don't see now how it was. 
 
 Folks talked about it, said they 
 never saw such sorrow, such mourn 
 ing, in a mother before ; and some 
 how I liked to have them say it. I 
 liked to see them come to the win 
 dows as I went by in my gloomy 
 black clothes, with my white, 
 mournful face, and to know they 
 were saying, " Did you ever see such 
 a crushed, broken-hearted woman? 
 Here it is two months, or more, 
 since her child was taken, and still 
 she just lives by his grave. " You 
 know what I mean. I didn't do it 
 for that. I didn't even know I 
 liked to hear them talk that way, 
 
i 5 2 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 but I see now that I did. I gave up 
 everything else for the sake of that 
 grave. I'd been interested in a good 
 many things before Danny died. 
 I'd belonged to the sewing society, 
 and was one of the busiest workers 
 in getting up the box of things we 
 sent off every year to the home mis 
 sionaries out West. I had a class of 
 little boys in the Sabbath-school, and 
 I used to go out a good deal among 
 the poor and sick in the town. But 
 I gave all those things up now. It 
 would be too hard to make or mend 
 clothes for the missionary children 
 when my own little boy would never 
 need my sewing again. And how 
 could I talk to those boys in my 
 class, remembering my baby, who 
 would never grow up to be a little 
 lad like them ! And I just could 
 
AUNT ABBrS FIRST EASTER 153 
 
 not go out among the sick and 
 sorrowful, and try to comfort them, 
 when my own heart was sore and 
 aching, and 'most broke. I didn't 
 even go to meeting very often. 
 Wasn't the little grave a more 
 solemn, sacred spot than any earthly 
 temple? I said to myself. Wasn't 
 it good to be there, better for my 
 poor hurt soul than all the preach 
 ing and hymn-singing, and that kind 
 of worship ? 
 
 I don't see now how I could have 
 got so wrong and mistaken. There 
 was plenty of things to show me my 
 errors. Some one told me one day 
 that Eddie Freeman, one of my 
 Sabbath-school boys, was getting 
 into bad ways. He'd left the class 
 because he didn't like the new 
 teacher, and he was going with a 
 
154 AVNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 wild set of bigger boys, had learnt 
 to swear and to do other bad things. 
 "But my little boy is safe," I says 
 to myself, "safe here in his little 
 quiet bed, with his mother watching 
 over him day in and day out." 
 There was a good deal of suffering 
 that winter, sickness about and 
 poverty. But hearing of it only 
 made me keep closer to my grave, 
 and think, " No sickness or sorrow 
 can come here, to touch my baby in 
 this blessed spot." 
 
 Well, it came spring. I was 
 dreadful glad to see the first signs of 
 it, the little pinky-white buds of 
 the mayflower showing when you 
 brushed the snow away, and the 
 soft, furry mouse-ears peeking up at 
 the foot of the trees. I picked all 
 I could find of the earliest, weak, 
 
AUNT ABBY'S FIRST E4STER 155 
 
 soft little blooms that made me think 
 of my helpless little baby, and 
 strimmered them all over his grave. 
 I sowed some grass-seed there, and 
 watched and watered it, and I loved 
 that little heap, and stayed by it 
 more and more, and forgot every 
 thing else in the whole world. 
 
 One Sunday in April I got up 
 very early, it wasn't quite light, 
 and started for the burying-ground. 
 I'd found some white anemones the 
 day before, and dug up a lot, and I 
 wanted to set them out about my 
 baby's bed. I didn't know it was 
 anything particular that day, though 
 I recollected it was the Sabbath. 
 But I remember it was a beautiful 
 morning, soft and bright, with a 
 pinky light over everything as the 
 sun came up. And somehow, as I 
 
156 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 got to the burying-ground and set 
 down my basket of plants, there 
 came into my mind the verse in the 
 Bible about the women coming 
 " very early in the morning at 
 the rising of the sun " to the 
 sepulchre of our Lord. And just 
 then I heard music. It came from 
 the building where the Episco- 
 pals held their meetings, right close 
 to the burying-ground. 'Twas sing 
 ing, and though it was soft and 
 sweet, I could hear every word plain. 
 The first thing that came to my ears 
 was, " He is not here, not here ; He 
 is not here." I don't know myself 
 why those words struck me so. 
 They're in the Bible, and I'd read 
 them dozens of times. Maybe it 
 was because everything was so still, 
 and I had thought I was all alone, 
 
AUNT ABBT'S FIRST EASTER 157 
 
 the only person awake in all the 
 place, but anyway those words 
 seemed to be spoke, or sung, to me 
 myself, and nobody else, and they 
 seemed to have a terrible meaning. 
 I started up, and I says to myself, 
 I don't know but I said it out loud, 
 "Not here! the Lord is not here!" 
 And soft, soft, but real clear and 
 sweet, I heard the words again in a 
 sort of chant like, "He is not here, 
 not here. Why seek ye the living 
 among the dead ? " 
 
 I dropped down again on the 
 ground by my baby's grave, and 
 covered up my eyes. In one quick 
 minute I seemed to see the truth, and 
 to know what I had been doing, and, 
 more, what I had been leaving un 
 done. 'Twas just as if some big 
 stone had been rolled away that had 
 
158 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 hid the truth, and I could see, 
 could see something, but not all. 
 " Not here," I says to myself, " not 
 where I have spent these long 
 months, not in this solemn place I've 
 set so much by and made so fair and 
 sweet. Then where, oh, just tell me, 
 where is the Lord ? For you have 
 taken Him away, and I don't know 
 where you have laid Him." And the 
 sweet singing went on chanting-like 
 again, " He is risen, He is risen." I 
 looked up, way up, as far away from 
 that little heaped-up grave as I could 
 look, into the blue sky with the sort 
 of pinky light over it, and it seemed 
 so far away. I cried out, " Oh ! 
 what shall I do ? " And right away 
 I heard the voices chanting out the 
 answer, " Go, tell My brethren, Go, 
 quickly," they were singing, " Go, 
 
AUNT ABBT'S FIRST EASTER 159 
 
 tell My disciples." I understood. 
 How could I help it ? What notice 
 had I taken of His disciples, His 
 brethren, all these last months? 
 They'd gone hungry, untaught, un- 
 comforted, for all me. And now, 
 oh ! was it too late ? And the voices 
 went on, " Behold, He goeth before 
 you into Galilee, there shall ye 
 see Him." And the tears such 
 ashamed ones, but almost glad too, 
 as I heard those words, and felt there 
 was another chance for me yet came 
 a-streaming down my face. I took 
 that chance. I say it very humbly. 
 I took up my work again, leaving 
 my Danny and his little grave to the 
 Lord's care. I learnt my boys in 
 Sabbath-school again, I worked for 
 the missionary box, I visited amongst 
 the poor and the sick and the sorry, 
 
160 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 and I can tell you, very humbly, as 
 I said before, but very thankful, in 
 the Bible words, as I "went 'to tell 
 His disciples, behold, Jesus met " me. 
 I found afterwards it was Easter 
 Sunday, and I learnt all about the 
 day and what 'twas kept for, and, 
 Congregational as I am, you know, 
 I've kept it ever since. I found out 
 too that the singing that morning 
 was the children chanting, as they 
 call it, the story of that first rising, 
 the Lord's resurrection. It wasn't 
 the regular anthem the Episcopals 
 use that day, but one the minister 
 had got up and learnt them, and 
 they were using that day for the first 
 time. Do you think I don't know 
 why they were led to sing it that 
 morning? Do you think I hold 
 that it only just happened so ? 
 
AUNT ABBY S 
 PASTURE 
 
 WITH A ROCK 
 
ix AUNT: ABBT>S 
 
 PASTURE WITH 
 A ROCK IN IT 
 
 O, I don't go away sum 
 mers. Oh, yes, I know ; 
 most folks do, the best of 
 folks, ministers and all. 
 And they tell me I'd ought to go ; 
 say it's refreshing and wakening and 
 lifting and broadening. The church 
 at the Hollow, and the one at the 
 East road, and Mr. Edwards's, all 
 shut up for three weeks at a time in 
 warm weather ; and we don't have 
 any Sunday-school at all nowadays 
 in July and August. 
 
 Mr. Edwards says he gets more 
 strength of body and mind, more 
 help for his work and points for his 
 
 sermons, in his vacation at the sea- 
 163 
 
164 AUNr ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 shore or the mountains than in all 
 the year besides. I dare say. But I 
 don't exactly see my way to going ; 
 there are things to see to here, and 
 it costs something even at the 
 cheapest places. And I've got a 
 way of my own of having a vaca 
 tion. I don't know but after all I'm 
 lifted and broadened and strength 
 ened as much, and get as many 
 points out of it, as the rest with all 
 their travelling. Maybe you'll smile 
 when I tell you where I go, and 
 what kind of a place it is. It's 
 nothing in the world but a pasture 
 with a rock in it. 
 
 It isn't half a mile from my house, 
 though I'm right in the busiest part 
 of Factoryville, you know. You go 
 down to the bobbin-mill, and then 
 along north as far as Giles's store ; 
 
AUNT ABBT'S PASTURE 165 
 
 then you turn to the left, and keep 
 right straight ahead. And there 
 'tis, a good bit of pasture-land, and 
 a big bowlder about the middle of it. 
 
 I came upon it two years ago. I 
 hadn't lived here long, and wasn't 
 used to a big, bustling town like 
 this ; and when hot weather came I 
 did just ache for fresh air and grow 
 ing things and woodsy places. 
 
 I went out one day, and walked 
 and walked, trying to find big trees 
 and bushes and such things. By 
 and by I saw something green 
 ahead, and 'twas this. I stopped at 
 the rail fence, and looked over. 
 Just at first it didn't seem very in 
 viting when I thought of the woods 
 at my old home, all dark and cool, 
 with soft, wet moss for your feet to 
 step on, and brooks running along ; 
 
166 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 and I says to myself, but out loud, 
 " It's nothing in the world but a 
 pasture with a rock in it." 
 
 Well, do you know I hadn't more 
 than spoke those words than I 
 seemed to see a wonderful meaning 
 in them. I forgot all about the heat 
 and the dusty road, and I crawled 
 through the rails and went over to 
 the bowlder and sat down on the 
 grass, and I began to think. 
 "Why," I went on to myself, 
 " what's religion when you think of 
 it, or, come to that, what's heaven 
 itself, any more than that, a pas 
 ture with a rock in it ? " I began to 
 love that place right then and there. 
 I can't tell you what it's been to me, 
 and all the thinking and help and 
 brand-new light I've found there. 
 Points for sermons ! Why it's just 
 
AUNT JBBT'S PASTURE 167 
 
 bristly with them. I find a fresh 
 one every time I go, and I haven't 
 near come to the end yet. 
 
 Some days I'll be so tired I can't 
 do a mortal thing but just stretch 
 myself full length out on the grass 
 and keep still, and then'll come into 
 my head that verse out of mother's 
 favorite psalm I guess 'twas your 
 mother's too, 'tis most folks's moth 
 er's about " He maketh me to lie 
 down in green pastures." Deary 
 me ! I don't want a better sermon ; 
 and again I'll get to looking at the 
 grass. There's red-top, and timothy, 
 and a little herd's grass there, and it 
 looks so pretty shaking in the wind. 
 And I recollect how our Lord took 
 notice of all such little things. " If 
 God so clothe the grass of the field," 
 you know ; and, before I know it, 
 
168 AUNT ABBY'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 that's led me off into the most com 
 forting, beautiful thinking. 
 
 And then there's the rock ; I can't 
 hardly talk much about that, but 
 you know what I mean. " Green 
 fields beyond the swelling flood," as 
 mother used to sing, is all sightly 
 and beautiful ; but, after all, it's the 
 Rock up there that's such a thing to 
 lean on and look to. And down 
 here in this world, too, lying down 
 in green pastures and watching the 
 grass, is nice and comforting in fair 
 days ; but come to storms and rough 
 weather, a rock is what we want 
 the most after all. 
 
 I believe I get more points out of 
 that bowlder than I do out of the 
 pasture. In a hot afternoon I get on 
 the east side of it in the shade, and 
 then I think of the " man that shall 
 
AUNT ABBT'S PASTURE 169 
 
 be the shadow of a great rock in 
 a weary land." Sometimes there 
 comes up a storm with such pouring 
 rain, and I creep under the lee of 
 that bowlder, and keep safe and dry. 
 And then I'm sure to get thinking 
 of the " strong rock for a house of 
 defense," and of father's hymn, 
 
 " Hock of ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee." 
 
 Sometimes it's Moses hiding away 
 in the rock to watch the Lord pass 
 by ; again it's the rod bringing 
 water out of the rock ; and lots of 
 times it's about that tomb hewn out 
 of a rock, that new sepulchre in a 
 garden wherein was never man yet 
 laid. Or by spells I think of David 
 keeping his father's sheep, and lead 
 ing them out in the pastures ; or 
 Isaac going out into the fields at 
 
170 AUNT ABBT'S NEIGHBORS 
 
 eventide, and that beautiful story of 
 the shepherds abiding in the fields 
 around Bethlehem. 
 
 But after all, I come back most 
 times to the thing itself, just as it 
 struck me the first time I ever saw 
 it, a pasture with a rock in it. So 
 I don't go away in warm weather, 
 and I never expect to now. For I'm 
 getting on in years, and there's 
 plenty of things in my own little 
 watering-place here to last as long as 
 I shall for points to think about, and 
 for strengthening and lifting and 
 widening. It won't be long, at the 
 most, before I go away for good 
 some summer. I shall be satisfied 
 when I wake up there ; but I can't 
 help hoping the place will be a little 
 like a pasture, and I'm certain sure 
 there'll be a Rock in it. 
 
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 Aunt Abby's neighbors. A9 
 
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