“We took up a good collection, though, last Sabbath! eight dollars and fifteen cents, clear!”

“Yes, Deacon,” responded the minister, with as much heartiness as he could muster, between the pushings, puffings, and pressings at the carpet-bag; “a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose its reward, we’re told.—­These carpet-bags stretch well!”

“Them poor, dear heathen!” groaned the Deacon.

“Oh, dreadful!” chimed I; “give me that biggest shawl, will you?—­no, the other,—­Ursula Drury’s!  Shall we ever finish packing?”

“S’pose ye’ll see th’ A.B.C.F.M.!—­Lucina Rand’s put in ’the avails of a hen,’—­and Semela Briggs sold the silver thimble her aunt gin her.  ’T all helps the good work.  I told the Widow Rand she’d ough’ to do somethin’ for the heathen, so she’s gone to raisin’ mustard.  She said she hadn’t more ‘n a grain o’ that to spare, she was so poor; but I told her ’t would be blest, I guessed.  Widow Rand’s rather worldly-minded, I’m afraid.”

A minute more and we should have had Hindostan, Harriet Newell, and Juggernaut.  Happily, somebody came for the Deacon, and we were left to our packing again.

II.

This was the second week in May, in the year 1830.  We were a promising country, but had not yet performed.  Neither railroads, telegraphs, nor cheap postage had been established.  Enthusiastic inventors yet sucked their fingers in garrets, waiting for the good time coming; and philanthropic statesmen aired their vocabularies in vain, in Congressional halls, built in defiance of acoustics.  Their words rose, their fine sentiments curled up and down the pillars of the temple of eloquence, and fell flat to the floor.  Meanwhile human nature travelled by stage-coaches; and postage for over a hundred miles rose to eighteen cents.  Not a lover’s sigh for a cent less; and it took a fortune for persons of sensibility to exchange sentiments.

The consequence to country-people of this last-mentioned fact was, that everybody who went anywhere took everybody’s letters, and, as there were no expresses, added, of course, everybody’s packages and messages.  And the consequence of this was, that everybody made everybody’s purchases, whether gowns, books, bonnets, or what not.  It mattered little who did errands, so only they were done.  Generally, the one store-keeper bought our bonnets when he went to Boston for his yearly stock of goods, and our one bonnet lasted in those days a year, being retrimmed for winter weather.  I remember, too, when our one store-keeper, mingling in the aesthetic conversation at one of our parties, where Art was on the tapis, made a comical mistake, but one natural enough, too,—­stating that he could buy, and had bought, Vandykes for ten dollars.  We were not thinking of exactly the same kind of Vandyke that he was.

Many a time have I carried in my trunk more letters than the mail-bag did to Boston, and conscientiously finished all the parish’s business before touching my own.