USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Amherst > Around a village green; sketches of life in Amherst > Part 4
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Mr. Jenkins prepared a little covenant for the children of the Sun- day school to sign of their own free will. This was before the day of Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls.
To treat my mates unselfishly and courteously.
To show in word and act becoming respect for the aged.
To honor and obey my parents and teachers.
To refrain from profane and vulgar speech.
To offer the Lord's Prayer daily.
To attend habitually upon the Sabbath service in the church.
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To contribute (if able) something to each service.
To belong to the Sabbath School, and faithfully study the pre- scribed lessons.
I do heartily engage to keep this Covenant and do all the good I can.
An evening prayer composed by Mr. Jenkins was printed at the time of his retirement from the State Street Church in Portland, Maine. He used a similar prayer at evening service in Amherst.
AN EVENING PRAYER
Almighty and most merciful father : Accept our thanks for the good gift of this Thy day and for the services in this Thy house. Through riches of grace in Christ Jesus, may we go hence at peace with one another, at peace with the world, at peace with ourselves and Thee. Be Thou the keeper of the dwellings where we sleep. Be Thou the keeper of all the dwellings in the city. May all the people lay themselves down, sleep and awake because Thou who keepest the city neither slumbers nor sleeps. Out of the defencelessness of the night bring us to the light and duties of a new day. If it be Thy good pleasure bring us to the light and opportunities of another of the days of the Son of Man on earth, and with each recurring day may Thy grace be sufficient. Grant that through the knowledge of Thy Truth, the discipline of life and the gracious inspirations of the Holy Spirit, there may be accomplished in all of us a meetness for the Heavenly kingdom, into which administer to all of us an abundant entrance through Jesus Christ. And now may the grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen.
It seems impossible to portray adequately the influence Mr. Jen- kins had in the life of the village, bringing good fellowship and spir- tual inspiration wherever he went. He had a rare quality of simplicity and charm, an inheritance of culture and scholarship coupled with elegance of manner. He was a most eloquent preacher, with a great gift of imagery, and there was always a human side to his sermons that gave them force and made them remembered by children. In society he was joyous and witty. It used to be said in Amherst that all that was necessary to make an evening company a success was to have Mr. Jenkins in one room and Mrs. Jenkins in the other, for she was also a brilliant conversationalist and the comrade of her hus- band in every intellectual pursuit. She spoke with a beautiful intona- tion and a scrupulous precision of diction.
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In recalling his ten years in Amherst Mr. Jenkins later said, " The memory of my life here is the memory of a long, pleasant day with bright skies overhead and its hours filled up with delightful com- panionships." He was a pastor beloved indeed, and one who finely accepted the opportunity to study and grow from strength to strength in the quiet atmosphere of village and college sheltered by the Pelham Hills.
Downstairs in the church building, entered by a door from the side street so that we never called it a basement, was the ladies' parlor, where the Sewing Society met, and there also was the large supper room and the well-equipped kitchen.
The Ladies' Sewing Society invited the gentlemen to supper fre- quently in the ladies' parlor. The ladies sewed all the afternoon, especially industrious when they were to send a box to the missionaries. They made shirts of unbleached cloth for the missionaries in Montana, the buttons sewed on so tightly that they would never come off unless the cloth came with them, and the buttonholes marvels of perfection. These missionary boxes had good garments contributed - clothing and books were the chief articles. One lady brought a stew pan of modern make as a useful article. There was some doubt if a stew pan would be acceptable, but it was, after much discussion, finally packed in the crowded box. When the letter of thanks came it was read out in meeting, " Please thank the lady who sent the stew pan " - a good deed justified.
A member of the parish had made a small cart to convey the dishes and food from the kitchen to the ladies' parlor. Now this cart was not an ordinary toy cart that could be purchased in a store, but one of hard wood, strongly fashioned. It came to the door laden with cups and saucers and plates; another trip and it brought raised biscuits - such tall, evenly-browned affairs, and buttered beforehand - and such slices of cold boiled tongue and such pungency of home-made mustard as can never be imagined now. Raised cake and sponge cake, gold and silver cake, and big pitchers of steaming, fragrant coffee came next. The cups were of heavy china, but they kept the coffee hot, and peo- ple were warm and had a cheerful feeling, and the coffee never kept one awake in those days longer than for the sociable that followed up- stairs after the supper. When a gorgeous tea-cart in our modern life makes its appearance laden with heirlooms of silver on a silver tray and slices of lemon adorned with cloves, and sandwiches of magic decoration, I seem to see those slices of marble cake and stout pitchers of steaming coffee that Aladdin's lamp had glorified in a child's vision.
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It was plain living and high thinking and, best of all, they did not know that it was so.
A point of rivalry at the Sewing Society suppers was always who could make the best sponge cake. I recall once passing a plate of sponge cake to a minister who was visiting in town. He refused it. With hospitable intentions I said, "It will not hurt you." "That," he said, " is the kind I do not like." I was crestfallen. It was Mrs. -'s premium sponge cake, flavored with lemon that I had offered.
After supper we all went up to the lecture room for a "social," as it was called, re-enforced by late arrivals who could not attend the supper. The children played decorous games like "Fox and Geese " or "Going to Jerusalem," and the elders often joined in, especially in games and charades.
Many in Amherst had heard Jenny Lind sing at Northampton in 1851, and her rendering of "My Country, 'tis of Thee," "Home Sweet Home," and "The Last Rose of Summer " was never to be forgotten. It was cherished in memory as an inheritance to hand down to children's children. The new American hymns that were coming into use in church service brought an atmosphere that was not found in the "Church Psalmody " used in the Meeting House - Holmes's " Lord of All Being Throned Afar," Whittier's " Dear Lord and Father of Mankind," E. H. Sears's "Calm on the Listening Ear of Night" and "It Came upon the Midnight Clear," Julia Ward Howe's " Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord."
When the Fisk Jubilee Singers first came to Amherst, Mr. Jen- kins invited them to sing on Sunday in the village church, replacing the regular choir. This was a distinct innovation, for never before had the choir been superseded. The singers took their places in front of the pulpit and sang just before the sermon. The deep, sweet voices in the Southern melodies touched the springs of emotion in the Puri- tan congregation almost as soon as the singers began. But when they sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," first one gray head and then an- other was bowed to the pew rail in front and tears were in the staunch- est eyes. The congregation had never before heard spirituals sung in church, and probably not elsewhere. The singers before them had been slaves only a little while before. They were free now because Amherst and every Northern town had sent the best of its young manhood to the war, some never to return. The thought of all this, accompanied as it was by those heart-stirring voices, spoke to the souls of the men and women gathered there. It was " the touch divine of noble natures gone."
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THE CONGREGATION ENTERS
E VERY New England child retains indelibly one common memory: the Sabbath day in a New England church. How well I recall the families that occupied the pews near ours ! Their very appearance was an education to the young people, or at least so it seems to me now as I look back on the portraits still clearly etched in my mind.
Those were the days when one wore one's best clothes to church and the ladies' bonnets were carefully trimmed on the " congregational side." Elaborate hair jewelry - bracelets, rings, and earrings - was fashionable. But the adornments worn to church were few and simple : a black onyx breast pin set with pearls, a large amethyst also in a pearl setting, or a pale yellow topaz, these were considered appro- priate.
I should like to portray to you some of the friends who sat near us and tell you some incidents about them that are purely personal recollections.
One Sunday morning I chanced to arrive at church before the others, because I had been sent early to take some delicacies to Mr. Zebina Montague and his sister, Miss Harriet. They lived with their brother, Mr. George Montague, on Main Street, and I must pass their door on my way. Both had been active in their early years, but were now known as " the invalids " and so were special objects of neighborly attention.
As I entered the house, Mr. Zebina sat in a gay-flowered dressing- gown, his bright eyes aglow. Miss Harriet was on crutches as she greeted me. I gave the message entrusted to me in the stereotyped formula that always accompanied the gift of a dainty viand : " This is not as good as usual, but my grandmother hopes that you will enjoy it." Miss Harriet, a person of devout piety in the old New England fashion, was apt to improve all occasions for religious conversation and never missed an opportunity to impress upon the young the im- portance of leading a Christian life. I left her seated at the window to watch the people passing on their way to church, no doubt to indulge in delicious speculation regarding any absentees. The window was partly raised so that she might speak a moment to her special friends. She knew everyone who passed. Many of them she had seen grow up and her affection for them was genuine.
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Being early at church, I took my seat at the foot of our pew and watched the congregation enter. Soon Miss Vinnie Dickinson slipped in quietly through the tower entrance. She was a slight figure and moved with a quick, graceful step. As always when she went out, she wore a little shawl thrown over the shoulders of her black silk dress like a cape and carried a small parasol that she raised when walking. Going to Mrs. Cooper's pew next to ours, she arranged a bunch of English violets in the hymnal rack just where Mrs. Cooper would sit. The flowers were a silent message from Miss Emily to a loved friend, and the attention was complete if the dear sister her- self placed them in the pew. After Miss Lavinia had arranged the violets with her slender fingers, she glided into the aisle and took her seat in the Dickinson pew, just in front of Mrs. Cooper's. Then her father, the distinguished Edward Dickinson, gray beaver in hand, and her gentle mother in black silk and with bonnet tied with broad black ribbons, came in and took their accustomed seats.
In the pew in front of the Dickinsons sat Mr. and Mrs. L. M. Hills. They were always early at church. Mr. Hills was a sturdy man to look upon, his fine character revealed in his strong face. He was a pioneer manufacturer of palm-leaf hats in Amherst, and from ample means acquired in this way gave most generously to the build- ing of the new church. His son, Henry F. Hills, who succeeded Presi- dent Stearns as a trustee of Amherst College, and his charming wife often sat in the same pew. They lived in New York, but spent the summers in their Amherst home, the twin house on the Hills prop- erty. Sometimes, too, the Hills brought with them Miss Blymyer (later the wife of General Charles E. Dawes) and her sister Miss Ella of Marietta, Ohio. These attractive young ladies were cousins of Miss Laura Fearing, a granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hills. When they came on a visit, they joined happily in our parties and took excur- sions with us in the old yellow stage-coach. Miss Blymyer's voice rang out clearly and sweetly from the top of the coach in " There's music in the air," a favorite song on these trips.
The Hills house stood next to Edward Dickinson's on Main Street, with only a narrow road between its grounds and Miss Emily's gar- den. It was along this road - Triangle Street - that the circus cara- van would pass when it arrived in town by the railroad and went to the circus grounds near the Massachusetts Agricultural College. After Mr. L. M. Hills, his son Dwight, who succeeded his father as presi- dent of the bank, occupied this house. The entire property was be- queathed by Mrs. Dwight Hills to the Amherst Woman's Club.
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Often I have spent the day at " Grandma Hills' house " with Laura Fearing. First we would go up in the cupola - a rare thing in pri- vate homes then - and look out at the world through the blue and yellow glass windows. Then we would sit in the high front parlor and look out through the long lace curtains on the lawn that sloped down to Main Street. Victorian styles were just coming in - there was a new decorative iron settee on the lawn. Then we would read stories aloud until dinner time. Grandma Hills sat very straight in her handsomely carved mahogany chair. She believed that little girls should play quietly. But in spite of her formality she made us feel welcome.
But now to return to the Sabbath scene from which these memories have called me. A little later there entered the church a lady of rarest charm, Miss Mary Ingersoll Cooper. Her father had come to Amherst in 1866 and had shortly afterward died, but his family remained and soon became the center of a cultured circle in the social life of the town. To the day of her death Mrs. Cooper wore a quilled white mourning cap with immaculate organdie strings falling far down upon her shoulders from beneath the black mourning bonnet. Miss Mary Cooper was a born aristocrat, descended from the Tudors, the Sewalls, and the Savages, and accustomed to all the elegancies and formalities of society. In her beautiful and dignified drawing-room gleamed the harp upon which her mother used to play. She gave herself to the interests of the church with all her inborn refinement and graciousness of her nature. Whenever trouble came to a member of the parish, she seemed to know that help was needed and she saw to it that help was given. Her pastor never went to her in vain for a subscription, and both the Missionary Society and the Ladies' Benevolent Society felt her genuine interest in the welfare of others. Her large contribu- tions to the church were always placed in the contribution box in small bills so that there need be no comment or curiosity as to the giver.
Miss Mary Cooper was my friend from my very earliest years. In fact, when I was only three years old, my mother sent me across the common with a note, and the maid who answered my ring said, " There is something so tiny at the door that I do not know how it ever rang the bell." From Miss Mary I learned rules of conduct which I have followed all my life. Always to speak to those present when enter- ing a room, was one. Even her cat was well-mannered and always spoke as he came through the door of the sitting-room. Another was, never to change a plan on account of the weather. Miss Cooper did not believe in bowing to the elements. She drove a horse most skill-
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fully. Once going down a steep hill when I was riding with her in a carryall, I grasped the reins in fright. She taught me gently but firmly never to touch the reins unless I was driving, a wise piece of advice for the journey of life.
I can picture Miss Cooper now in her sitting-room, reading. Perhaps it was a new book that she held in her hand, perhaps the latest number of Littell's Living Age or The Atlantic Monthly. So memory recalls her under the student lamp with its green shade. All the Coopers were inveterate readers, and the manner of life in their home was one of studious purpose. One son was studying to be a doctor. An- other, Mr. James Cooper, had read all of Boswell's "Life of John- son," an unusual feat in those days. He was a wit and a wag, a most entertaining companion, ever ready with an anecdote or an apt illus- tration drawn from his wide reading.
One might also see in the Cooper pew Miss Elizabeth, whose early marriage took her away from Amherst society, and Miss Alice, who as Mrs. Frederick Tuckerman remained in town until her death. Miss Elizabeth greatly enjoyed the singing of hymns on Sunday night by the fireside, her fine voice carrying the tune truly without accom- paniment. Mrs. Tuckerman possessed a natural gaiety of spirit that with her culture and graciousness made her a delightful hostess. A gathering of friends in her home always proved to be an occasion long remembered.
Her husband, Dr. Frederick Tuckerman, a nephew of Dr. Edward, kept the old English tradition of a gentleman and a scholar alive in his own person. He came of distinguished ancestry and took pride in his name. His father was the poet, Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, whose sonnets have recently been edited by Witter Bynner. When one talked with him in his well-filled library, one could see his delight in a fine book or a well-written article. He loved mountains too, and had tramped all over the Mount Washington region in New Hamp- shire. His wide view of affairs made him a valued adviser in all the intellectual problems of a college community.
Well to the front of the church, on the north center aisle, sat the Sweetsers. Deacon Luke Sweetser was Amherst's staunch citizen, prominent in every matter that concerned the life of the village, a sage counsellor both in town and in church matters, where his opinion was law. His wife seemed like a being from another world in the elegance of her beautiful laces and rustling silks. She wore purple kid gloves. Perhaps the children who sat behind her in church sometimes coughed on purpose during the long sermon for the distinction of having her hand over the pew little pink and white peppermints from her well-
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stocked reticule. Her fingers were much too short for the gloves and the empty finger tips flapped on the pew rail.
An interesting person who belonged to an earlier generation was Mrs. Mack, the widow of General David Mack, whose memory was still held in honor. He had been a state senator from his district, a member of the executive council, a trustee of Amherst College, and auditor of Amherst Academy. Mrs. Mack was too frail in advancing years to attend the village church, but her sister, Mrs. Williams, and her niece, Miss Mary Williams, who made their home with her, sat near us. Several generations of Amherst seemed to center in Mrs. Mack. She was the daughter of Doctor Parsons, the widow of Rev- erend Royal Washburn, and she had married a second time a man who took a leading part in village affairs. General Mack was a major in the War of 1812, and was promoted to the rank of brigadier gen- eral in 1821. It is of interest that he bought the house made famous as the birthplace of Emily Dickinson in 1840 and lived there until his death in 1854. Mr. Dickinson then bought back the family homestead.
Mrs. Mack lived latterly on the west side of Sellen Street (now Prospect Street), the third house from Amity Street. As a child I often went to her house. Once I broke a punch-bowl over two hundred years old while playing battle-dore and shuttlecock in her sitting-room. She did not reprove me. In that house was the largest wing chair I have ever seen, big enough for her niece and me to sit curled up in, one on either side. Miss Williams had the quaintness and wit of the Parsons family, and as she taught me to make my sampler, she would tell me stories about her Parsons ancestors, of whom she was very proud. Naturally I was often confused in childhood regarding the three ministers who had borne the name of David Parsons, and she taught me to tell them apart by various distinguishing incidents.
The first David Parsons was chosen pastor of the Malden church " by loving agreement " after nine candidates had been heard. They heard more than one candidate a Sunday. Miss Williams thought this was a very thrifty way to manage, and besides that it would reveal a candidate's ability to preach a brief sermon. Brevity, of course, was never openly desired by Puritan church-goers, and this was the period of the interminable prayer in the morning service; nevertheless Miss Williams thought that brevity may have been something of a drawing card.
David Parsons, Jr., was famous in Amherst for his consumption of firewood. " One hundred good loads a year " was thought sufficient in 1751, but those old-fashioned fireplaces were of generous proportions and the great stone chimneys had a strong draft. So the minister regu-
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larly exceeded his allowance. When reproached for his prodigality, he merely remarked that he didn't want to wait until the hereafter to be warm. Mr. Parsons was also suspected of Tory leanings at the time of the Revolution. An article in the town warrant read: " To have the minds of the people whether they will improve the Rev. Dr. Par- sons as their minster for the future.". Evidently he was " improved " to the satisfaction of his congregation, for he retained his office.
His son, the third of the name, who succeeded him as pastor of the meeting house, was most celebrated of all for his droll sayings. Once when he was expostulated with for saying witty things in the pulpit, he replied, " I know it all, Brother Howard, and it has been my burden through life, but I suppose, after all, that grace does not cure squint- eyes." Miss Williams said, quoting from Holmes's "The Height of the Ridiculous," that this David Parsons never dared be as funny as he could. Two of his favorite anecdotes were of a farmer who remarked, while helping to build the second meeting house, " a mule can't kick when pulling," and of a deacon who, when asked why he groaned as he awoke from a nap, said he was “ groaning with satis- faction."
A fourth David Parsons was still keeping a carpenter shop on the corner of Amity and Prospect Streets, next to the old Academy build- ing, when I was a girl. He too talked in a quaint, witty way, some- times so brusque and pointed that my elders said he had inherited the Parsons wit. Next to him lived John S. Adams, who in company with Samuel C. Carter established the first printing press in Amherst and kept the town bookstore.
Two grandsons of Reverend David Parsons, 3d., used to visit Mrs. Mack, Mr. William Ives Washburn and Reverend Charles H. Wil- liams. The latter was well known in Hartford and New Haven, where he had often served as acting pastor. Though a favorite preacher and many times called, he steadfastly refused to be settled over any church. He was quoted as saying that " the first two pastors of the First Church were born Parsons, but several of their descendants by the gift of God and the call of God's people have become parsons."
I have wandered a long way from the small girl who arrived at church early and sat interested and observant while Miss Vinnie Dick- inson arranged a handful of violets and one by one the families of the First Parish assembled. Because of that early arrival the service seemed unusually long. I am sure that pins and needles were pricking that little girl's thin legs before the last amen reached her ears. My conscience too is pricking at these many ramblings in recollection, as I sit by my open fire in a large rush-bottomed rocker that the Parsons
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children were rocked to sleep in, a gift from Mrs. Mack to my grand- mother.
With the chair came a copy of "Pilgrim's Progress." The image of the wayfaring and warfaring Christian had not faded in my girl- hood. It was lived by the people about us. Incidents in their spiritual progress were told as friends and kinsmen gathered about the hearths of Amherst. Conversation was then the chief form of entertainment, and it was like a spark to tinder to speak of this or that well-known personage of the past. Their lives were scanned from the four points of the human compass like a landscape viewed from the belfry of an old church with its windows looking to the north, south, east, and west. Those that I have mentioned here were only a few of the com- pany of men and women whom we "looked up to." They had kept the faith. They had taught by their lives how to do one's duty. To these staunch spirits might be applied Lucy Larcom's words: "It would be worth while to live long, to suffer much, to struggle and to endure, if one might have such spiritual beauty blossom out of fur- rows and wrinkles as has been made visible in aged human faces. Such countenances do not perish, they are poetry and music and irresistible eloquence."
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