After I had left my native town for some twenty years, I returned and paid it a visit. Among the monuments that stood high in my memory was the West Lane school-house. Unconsciously carrying with me the measures of childhood, I had supposed it to be thirty feet square; how had it dwindled when I came to estimate it by the new standards I had formed! It was in all things the same, yet wholly changed to me. What I had deemed a respectable edifice, as it now stood before me was only a weather-beaten little shed, which, upon being measured, I found to be less than twenty feet square. It happened to be a warm summer day, and I ventured to enter the place. I found a girl, some eighteen years old, keeping a ma'am school for about twenty scholars, some of whom were studying Parley's Geography. The mistress was the daughter of one of my schoolmates, and some of the boys and girls were grandchildren of the little brood which gathered under the wing of Aunt Delight, when I was an abecedarian. None of them, not even the schoolmistress, had ever heard of me. The name of my father, as having ministered to the people of Ridgefield in some bygone age, was faintly traced in their recollection. As to Peter Parley, whose geography they were learning, they supposed him to be a decrepit old gentleman hobbling about on a crutch, a long way off, for whom, nevertheless, they had a certain affection, inasmuch as he had made geography into a story-book. The frontispiece picture of the old fellow, with his gouty foot in a chair, threatening the boys that if they touched his tender toe he would tell them no more stories, secured their respect, and placed him among the saints in the calendar of their young hearts. "Well," thought I, "if this goes on, I may yet rival Mother Goose!"
I hope the reader will not imagine that I am thinking too little of his amusement and too much of my own, if I stop a few moments to note the lively recollections I entertain of the joyousness of my early life, and not of mine only, but that of my playmates and companions. In looking back to those early days, the whole circle of the seasons seems to me almost like one unbroken morning of pleasure.
I was of course subjected to the usual crosses incident to my age, those painful and mysterious visitations sent upon children – the measles, mumps, whooping-cough, and the like; usually regarded as retributions for the false step of our mother Eve in the Garden; but they have almost passed from my memory, as if overflowed and borne away by the general drift of happiness which filled my bosom. Among these calamities, one monument alone remains – the small-pox. It was in the year 1798, as I well remember, that my father's house was converted into a hospital, or, as it was then called, a "pest-house," where, with some dozen other children, I was inoculated for this disease, then the scourge and terror of the world.
The lane in which our house was situated was fenced up, north and south, so as to cut off all intercourse with the world around. A flag was raised, and upon it were inscribed the ominous words, "☞ Small-pox." My uncle and aunt, from New Haven, arrived with their three children. Half-a-dozen others of the neighborhood were gathered together, making, with our own children, somewhat over a dozen subjects for the experiment. When all was ready, like Noah and his family, we were shut in. Provisions were deposited in a basket at a point agreed upon, down the lane. Thus we were cut off from the world, excepting only that Dr. Perry, the physician, ventured to visit us.
As to myself, the disease passed lightly over, leaving, however, its indisputable autographs on various parts of my body. Were it not for these testimonials, I should almost suspect that I had escaped the disease, for I only remember, among my symptoms and my sufferings, a little headache, and the privation of salt and butter upon my hasty-pudding. My restoration to these privileges I distinctly recollect: doubtless these gave me more pleasure than the clean bill of health which they implied. Several of the patients suffered severely, and among them my brother and one of my cousins.
But although there is evidence that I was subject to the usual drawbacks upon the happiness of childhood, these were so few that they have passed from my mind; and those early years, as I look back to them, seem to have flowed on in one bright current of uninterrupted enjoyment.
CHAPTER III
RIDGEFIELD SOCIETY – TRADES AND PROFESSIONS – CHIMNEY-CORNER COURTSHIPS – DOMESTIC ECONOMY – DRAM-DRINKING – FAMILY PRODUCTS – MOLLY GREGORY AND CHURCH MUSIC – TRAVELLING ARTISANS – FESTIVAL OF THE QUILTS – CLERICAL PATRONAGE – RAISING A CHURCH – THE RETIRED TAILOR AND HIS FARM.
Let me now give you a sketch of Ridgefield and of the people, how they lived, thought, and felt, at the beginning of the present century. It will give you a good idea of the rustic life of New England fifty years ago.
From what I have already said, you will easily imagine the prominent physical characteristics and aspect of my native town: a general mass of hills, rising up in a crescent of low mountains, and commanding a wide view on every side. The soil was naturally hard, and thickly sown with stones of every size. The fields were divided by rude stone walls, and the surface of most of them was dotted with gathered heaps of stones and rocks, thus clearing spaces for cultivation, yet leaving a large portion of the land still encumbered. The climate was severe, on account of the elevation of the site, yet this was perhaps fully compensated by its salubrity.
Yet, despite the somewhat forbidding nature of the soil and climate of Ridgefield, it may be regarded as presenting a favorable example of New England country life and society at the time I speak of. The town was originally settled by a sturdy race of men, mostly the immediate descendants of English emigrants, some from Milford. Their migration over an intervening space of savage hills, rocks and ravines, into a territory so uninviting, and their speedy conversion of this into a thriving and smiling village, bear witness to their courage and energy.
At the time referred to, the date of my earliest recollection, the society of Ridgefield was exclusively English. I remember but one Irishman, one negro, and one Indian in the town. The first had begged and blarneyed his way from Long Island, where he had been wrecked; the second was a liberated slave; and the last was the vestige of a tribe which dwelt of yore in a swampy tract, the name of which I have forgotten. We had a professional beggar, called Jagger, who had served in the armies of more than one of the Georges, and insisted upon crying, "God save the king!" even on the 4th of July, and when openly threatened by the boys with a gratuitous ride on a rail. We had one settled pauper, Mrs. Yabacomb, who, for the first dozen years of my life, was my standard type for the witch of Endor.
Nearly all the inhabitants of Ridgefield were farmers, with the few mechanics that were necessary to carry on society in a somewhat primeval state. Even the persons not professionally devoted to agriculture had each his farm, or at least his garden and home lot, with his pigs, poultry, and cattle. The population might have been 1200, comprising two hundred families. All could read and write, but in point of fact, beyond the Almanac and Watts' Psalms and Hymns, their literary acquirements had little scope. There were, I think, four newspapers, all weekly, published in the State: one at Hartford, one at New London, one at New Haven, and one at Litchfield. There were, however, not more than three subscribers to all these in our village. We had, however, a public library of some two hundred volumes, and, what was of equal consequence, the town was on the road which was then the great thoroughfare, connecting Boston with New York; and hence we had means of intelligence from travellers constantly passing through the place, which kept us acquainted with the march of events.
If Ridgefield was thus rather above the average of Connecticut villages in civilization, I suppose the circumstances and modes of life in my father's family were somewhat above those of most people around us. We had a farm of forty acres, with four cows, two horses, and some dozen sheep, to which may be added a stock of poultry, including a flock of geese. My father carried on the farm, besides preaching two sermons a-week, and visiting the sick, attending funerals, solemnizing marriages, &c. He laid out the beds and planted the garden; pruned the fruit-trees, and worked with the men in the meadow in hay-time. He generally cut the corn-stalks himself, and always shelled the ears; the latter being done by drawing them across the handle of the frying-pan, fastened over a wash-tub. I was sometimes permitted, as an indulgence, to share this favorite employment with my father. With these and a few other exceptions, our agricultural operations were