THE STORY OF

A BOY,

A VERMONT COMMUNITY,

AND ROTARY

By PAUL P. HARRIS

[text and photographs scanned from a 1948 copy of "My Road to Rotary"]

Foreword

builded better than you knew.” Very true, my friend, and yet while in the very beginning the road was not all clear all the way ahead there was an objective which led me on. The genealogy of my contributions to the movement goes back to my Valley, the friendliness of its folks, their religious and political tolerance. In a way, the movement came out of the valley. So I propose to tell you something about my boyhood in my Valley in Vermont.

Nearly all that I know of New England folks and New England mountains and valleys is the result of observations made through the eyes of a boy. The boy, of course, is myself but so many years have passed since the period of the young boy that the old boy can think of him as a personality apart from himself. Naturally I know the little fellow very well. Yes, I well know of the dreams, mysticisms, impetuosities and rascalities of which he was made. They were peppered with impudence and sweetened with love of the beautiful world in which he found himself and with love for his aged grandparents who made for him a home.

Some folks go to the mountains for inspiration; some for rest. Learned men write of the mountains, poets sing of them and artists paint them. The boy takes them all in his stride. Why should he not? Were mountains made for his restless feet to climb? High though they may be, his spirit is still higher. They are his to triumph over. He is exuberant; he is exultant and his heart over flows with the ecstatic joy of living. The boy is king of all creation, but, however pitiable it may be, boys must grow to be men. It is sometimes said that the boy is father to the man; he leads the man along pathways which his feet have trod. The man can
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never get far away from the boy. What the boy loved, the man loves. Gleanings of the boy shape the course of the man. The writer of this book has e special reason to be grateful for what the boy taught him. Love of life in the country; the blessings of a well regulated New England home; the importance of education and devotion to high ideals.

What is Rotary? Thousands have made answer each in his own way. It is easier to note what Rotary does than what it is. One
recently has said, “If Rotary has encouraged us to take a more kindly outlook on life and men; if Rotary has taught us greater
tolerance and the desire to see the best in others; if Rotary has brought us pleasant and helpful contacts with others who also
are trying to capture and radiate the joy and beauty of life, then Rotary has brought us all that we can expect.”

Chicago, October, 1945

Paul P. Harris.

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A Tribute to the Author

* The appendix, created by RI General Secretary Philip C. Lovejoy only exists in rare first edition copies of "My Road to Rotary," the Rotary International Archives and on The "History of Rotary" Project. You will find it here, at the end of this online version, and also the actual pages, at the link just above.

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Chapter 1 "Our Arrival in The Valley"

ONE SUMMER NIGHT of the distant past, three of us, father, brother Cecil, five years old, and I, two years younger, got off the train at Wallingford, Vermont. All was darkness except as it was broken by the flickering light of a lantern held by a tall man I had never seen before. On the delicate film of my consciousness the scene was etched so deep and clear that it can not be obliterated or dimmed while life lasts.

The tall man took my clenched fist in his warm, strong hand which was ever so much larger than father’s, with enormous thumbs which made excellent handles for little boys to hold to when going over rough places and so we walked up the street, father and Cecil following. This tall man was my grandfather. It was a solemn procession and the solemnity was emphasized by the awesome stillness and darkness of the night.

Grandfather, father, Cecil and I turned north at the first corner, crossed the road and grandfather opened a gate and we entered a yard. As we approached the side veranda of a comfortable looking house, a door opened and a dark-eyed elderly lady stepped out into the darkness holding a kerosene lamp above her head and peering out into the night. She was father’s mother and was destined to be mine as well. Grandmother weighed precisely eighty-nine pounds; never more; never less. It is said that fine goods come wrapped in small packages and grandmother was certainly fine goods.

On that summer night she greeted her son and his two children affectionately but quietly. We gathered in the dining room and grandmother and father talked matters over. I was not conscious of what they were saying but I can plainly see them through the
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mists which have been slowly gathering for more than seventy years.

Eventually grandmother arose and went into a big pantry, (buttery, she called it) adjoining the dining room and soon re turned with three yellow earthen bowls, a large one for father and smaller ones for Cecil and me. A generous loaf of bread, possessed of virtues beyond any I had ever tasted, soon made its appearance together with a pitcher of sweet, rich milk fresh from the udders of the benevolent old family cow, with which I was soon to become acquainted. Oh yes I nearly forgot the heaping dish of blueberries plucked from tangled bushes which lifted their heads between the rocks on mountain sides, triumphantly offering to hungry humans the luscious harvest which they, in spite of long cold winters, had succeeded in extracting from sour and sterile soil.

Three chairs were drawn to the table; one, a high-chair, survivor of previous generations, was manifestly intended for me, and the feast began. Father and grandmother continued their conversation as we ate while grandfather listened. We boys were hungry and had but one matter to attend to—the matter of filling up.

The banjo clock, hanging on the north wall was amazed at the unusual happenings and pointed its long, scrawny finger warningly at the passing numerals until it finally succeeded in attracting grandmother’s attention, with the result that she arose suddenly and said, “For the Land Sake, Pa Harris, it’s nearly twelve o’clock!” The banjo clock was in no way responsible for the remission; being both deaf and dumb, it could do nothing further than to point its warning fingers and that duty, as heretofore related, it performed.
There was another clock hanging above the mantel-piece in the adjoining sitting-room. It also was deaf but it was not dumb. While the best that the banjo clock could do in the way of giving audible expression to its thoughts was to emit an entirely meaningless tick-tock, the sitting-room clock could make itself heard throughout the house and it unhesitatingly did so whenever it had
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anything worth while to say. The sitting-room clock, working in complete harmony with the dining-room clock, had been making a rumpus each and every hour during that eventful evening.

The truth was that grandmother had been preoccupied with the distressing troubles of her son, my father, and in the multitudinous problems which confronted her as a result of them. After her startled announcement, we boys were taken to a bedroom henceforth to be known as our own.

The most conspicuous object which confronted us in our new quarters was an enormous something which had the appearance of a very sick and swollen bed. After having been undressed and put into clean nighties, one after the other, we were lifted high and launched smack into the middle of the distended stomach of the very sick bed and the next thing we knew it was morning and we were wondering how to get out of the predicament in which we found ourselves, almost submerged in the yielding folds of the mattress which, in honor of our coming, had been stuffed with clean, fresh straw, sufficient to provide restful and cooling comfort until the cold nights of autumn would proclaim the coming of winter and the necessity of providing the amazing bed with an entirely new stomach, composed of downy, homegrown feathers to keep us warm during the long, cold nights when winter winds would be howling like wolves around the corner.

How it happened that we three, father, Cecil and I, had so disturbed the serenity of the home life of our early-to-bed paternal grandparents, and how it happened that the most important personage of all young families, our mother, was not of the group, calls for explanation. To satisfy those interested, I will state that economic considerations had made it necessary to divide our family. In other words, father, having failed in business in the West, had taken us boys to his paternal home as a refuge, just as thousands of fathers bad done, and still do, during periods of financial extremity. As our sister, Nina May, was still an infant in arms, our mother felt that it would be too much of an imposition on our grandparents were she to come along. She preferred to carry on
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as best she could in Racine, a beautiful little Wisconsin city on the shores of Lake Michigan, where we children were born. Mother was a Bryan and the Bryans were proud.

 

Father had been given a drug store and a house of his own by grandfather Harris, a thrifty New Englander, whose indulgence of his son was one of the reasons why my father found it so difficult to keep income up and expenses down. Having been given so vigorous a boost at the beginning, it was quite natural for father to assume that other boosts would follow as a matter of course. They did for a time, but eventually, grandfather found it necessary to liquidate father’s business and to establish a new base nearer his own home where the books could be frequently audited by one familiar with “double-entry” bookkeeping—grandfather himself. His books, such as they were, were always in balance. No entries ever had to be made in red. Little as our elders realized it at the time, all of the events above related, even including the liquidation and closing of father’s drug store, proved to be fortunate for us boys. Cecil was to realize temporary benefits and I was to have the benefit of a well regulated, permanent home where nothing was ever either over- or underdone; where ideals were of the highest and education the supreme objective.

While some of the Bryans were disposed to view grandfather Harris’ family from what they were pleased to consider a higher plane, they would, I fancy, have freely admitted that there was not the slightest danger that grandfather Harris would ever convert his possessions into cash, leave his family to shift for itself, and fly away to parts unknown in search of gold, pearls, diamonds or other so called valuables as my maternal grandfather had done. It may also as well be stated that it was my frugal, hard-working New England grandfather Harris who made the last days of my more brilliant but less provident grandfather Bryan and his self-sacrificing wife comfortable; and that it was this same grandfather Harris, who, encouraged by his own sympathetic and hard-working helpmeet, Pamela Rustin Harris, spread his mantle of helpfulness
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 over the needy of all his descendants. Even to this day the estate of grandmother still stands open in the records of Rutland county’s probate court, one of our family still being a beneficiary of the small remaining income.

There must have been great doings, much confusion and some weeping when our family broke up housekeeping in Racine. It is always a sad piece of business to break up housekeeping, even in cases where the gloom is not deepened by a sense of defeat. In the case of our family, the grief must have been particularly poignant. Everything had been done for my parents and still they had failed. The future held no bright promise; there was nothing to fall back upon except the supporting hands of grandfather and grandmother Harris. It must have been especially humiliating to my father to return to his native village vanquished and with only dim hopes to sustain his drooping spirits.

Father, Cecil and I constituted the vanguard of the refugees; the other members of the family were to come to Vermont after suitable provision had been made for them.

The incidents above related were beyond the understanding of Brother Cecil and myself. No defeatism tortured our souls. So long as we were fed, clothed, kept comfortable and permitted to do very much as we pleased, all was well.

However, we were now in our new home, and sad to relate mutiny broke out the very next morning. She, who soon proved to be Skipper-in-chief, happened at the moment to be lacing my shoes. Not knowing her exalted position in the family, I naturally sup posed her to be one of the crew and refused to do her bidding when she told me to lift my foot. Thinking it high time to put her where she belonged, I said, “You are not my Mamma and I won’t mind you.” The Skipper forthwith called my father to straighten things out which he did with lasting effect, and I did not question further the authority of the little elderly lady who, after all, seemed to have matters well in hand.

Cecil and I promptly and industriously proceeded to explore the wonders of our new home. What I discovered and experienced
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as the days, months and years went by will appear in the chapters which follow.

Soon after our arrival in Wallingford, grandmother saw that the clothes we were wearing were not suitable for the lives we were to lead and the family seamstress, Margaret McConnell, was soon at work on a hurry-up order. Margaret was the personification of patience, otherwise she would never have succeeded in inducing wriggling, squirming boys to stand still long enough to have their clothes “tried on.”

The entire outfit for everyday summer wear consisted of waists and pants which were neither long nor short; how far the latter extended below the knee depended on how much material there was on hand; the idea being that if they didn’t fit this year, maybe they would next when, presumably, our legs would be longer. Half way between knee and ankle was considered a safe place to leave off, high enough to allow for wading in mud and long enough to bag at the knee according to the prevailing mode. To make suitable allowance for the fact that next year’s boy might be anatomically different from this year’s boy, called for something in the nature of prophetic vision, and that quality of mind Margaret undoubtedly possessed. Only once did she fail. On that occasion the extension of my legs was shocking and the expansion was also considerable. Had I ever succeeded in getting into Margaret McConnell’s creation, nothing but a corkscrew would have pulled me out again.

Our summertime costume of those days included, in addition to our waists and our nondescript panties, broad-brimmed, some times badly torn straw hats. Shoes there were none nor should there have been. I pity the small boy to whom the joy of wading in mud puddles and twisting his toes in the long, cool grass in the early morning hours is unknown. Grandmother knew these things and forthwith emancipated us from the restrictions of city life. Every evening, of course, we had to have our feet bathed in hot water before we were permitted to insert them between the clean, crisp sheets of our beds but that was a small price to pay for the infinite satisfaction of being bare-foot boys.
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Whittier must have had a warm spot in his heart for such boys else bow could he have written:

Blessings on thee, little man Barefoot boy, with cheeks of tan, With thy turned up pantaloons And thy merry whistled tunes.   John Greenleaf Whittier

Chapter 2 "Our Farm and Mr. Wynne"

THE HARRIS ORCHARD, garden and hayfield were all within one enclosure. The apple trees, currant bushes, etc., respected the territorial rights of the potatoes, beans, peas, lettuce, radishes, turnips, cabbages, beets, etc., and never once overstepped their bounds. The other occupants of the enclosure reciprocated; in short, they were all good neighbors.

The garden demanded far more of the attention of my grand father and his helper, Mr. Wynne, than both of its neighbors put together. It required plowing, planting, fertilizing, hoeing, weeding and potato bug picking all to satisfy the garden. The orchard uncomplainingly suffered neglect. It could have stood a lot of spraying and pruning but the best it could get was having the worm nests burned off when they became too pestiferous for en durance. The hay field gave bountiful crops of sweet timothy and clover for which it got nothing in return but a few wheelbarrow loads of cow manure from the barn yard. The droppings of the hen house, because of their high nitrogen content, were reserved for the garden, and they were not distributed lavishly but just so much to each hill in keeping with good New England husbandry.

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Chapter 3  "Our 14 Room House"

ALTHOUGH GRANDFATHER’S house was not large, there were fourteen rooms in it beside pantries and sundry nondescript ells used mostly for storage and a large attic. Of the fourteen rooms only seven were in regular use. There were four guest chambers, three of which were seldom occupied; the fourth, to my knowledge, never. The south parlor was used when we had guests; the north parlor being thrown open but twice during the eighteen years I lived in the house. The first opening occurred during the visit of distinguished relatives from the West, and the second, for grandfather’s funeral.

Evidences of good housekeeping were to be seen everywhere about our house. The table linen was always spotlessly clean, and here and there on the surface, a neatly laid patch was to be seen, mute but eloquent testimony to New England thrift and loving care. I never see such patches on table linens without an accompanying flood of tender recollections. They are indicative of the presence of the spirit that counts; the memory of which, cannot be obliterated by the passage of years.

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Chapter 4  "Mr. Webster Makes a Dive"

ACCORDING TO MORE or less reliable authorities, the fire which destroyed the house and store came about in the following manner. It seems that grandfather’s store had its quota of town loafers who gathered evenings, and not infrequently also in the day time. Gossip was most generally on their agenda and almost anyone from the minister down was likely to come in for his panning. These cuspidor artists were no respectors of persons nor was their conversation elegant or edifying; raucous laughter and ribald remarks were quite in order and when there was no one else to play jokes upon, they played them upon each other.

The yarns related were not distinguished for their originality; in fact, the same story was frequently told over and over again, sometimes on one person and sometimes on another. The truth was sometimes accidentally spoken but the practice of speaking the truth was looked down upon. If no one else laughed at one’s story, the man who told it always could and did, and that helped some; funny stories sound forlorn and hopeless if no one thinks enough of them to laugh.

Mr. Asa Webster, grandfather’s aged clerk, differed from the others; under no circumstance would he laugh at his own story; he stood so straight that he leaned backward in this respect. He generally looked lugubrious and sad when he told a story, very much as if he had a suspicion that someone might doubt his veracity.

Asa Webster was considered the most distinguished liar in Wallingford, a position of which he was justifiably proud. His reputation drew about him a school of embryonic liars very much as Plato and Socrates drew about themselves the budding philosophers of Athens; Wallingford was in fact the Athens of liars. They used

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to gather evenings at grandfather’s store for practice and to profit from Asia’s words of wisdom. He, like many other great artists, was temperamental; he could brook no rivalry. Whenever his supremacy seemed threatened by the younger element, it was his custom to cram more wood into the stove until the smoke, or rather until the heat, drove the pretenders out. On the occasion in question, he overdid it; the store and then the house caught fire.

When he was asked how he escaped from the terrible conflagration, Asa is said to have replied that he put on his stovepipe hat and his long-tailed coat and then, after having run a few steps to gain momentum, he dived through the smoke and flame and through a pane of glass out into the open. When some doubting Thomas asked, “How big was the pane of glass, Mr. Webster?” he unhesitatingly answered, “seven by nine inches.” Some of Asia’s best lies were extemporaneous. He was a natural.

Grandfather never rebuilt his store but Asa Webster built a house and store across the street. His emporium was the progenitor of the modern five-and-ten cent store, though his patronage consisted mostly of boys whose maximum expenditures were one cent, not five.

Mr. Webster entered the merchandising field against stiff competition. Beside the general store, the dry-goods store, and the hard ware store, there were several merchants who like himself were specialists. Luther Tower dealt in sweets—candy and honey mostly. George Tower sold lemons, crackers and dried herring. George Edgerton specialized in soda-water, licorice, nuts of sundry kinds and ages, and all-day suckers. Obadiah Makepeace sold a highly specialized line of household necessities.

These merchants were all fine gentlemen and Obadiah Make- peace was a genius in the art of salesmanship. If he ran out of one of his specialties, he generally managed to get his customer to buy another, even though the two commodities might be entirely unrelated. For instance, it was said that one of Obadiah’s customers called at his emporium one day for some kerosene oil, and, having run out of that household necessity, Obadiah is said to have answered,

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“I am sorry, I have no kerosene oil this morning, but I have some excellent New Orleans molasses.”

Obadiah had a habit of bowing, smiling and wringing his hands as he made such remarks which had hypnotic effects on prospective customers making them want to buy whatever was offered. Even such a switch as that from kerosene oil to molasses seemed not so very remarkable to those who knew Obadiah.

In an emergency such as that above described most salesmen would have run up the white flag; not so Obadiah. Any man, woman or child entering his emporium with a coin in his pocket, was en titled to a run for his money and that is exactly what Obadiah gave them. Not until the door was closed behind the departing customer was the battle given up, or rather, postponed.

It seems a pity that such a gentleman should have had to suffer from so grievous a malady as epileptic fits and it was also unfortunate that they had the effect of transforming this mild, gray- haired gentleman into something resembling a head-hunting Igorot of the Philippines. To us boys, Obadiah’s reversion to the elemental constituted an interesting break in the current events of the day.

I remember seeing him running down the street once upon a time apparently in hot pursuit of a fleshy French-Canadian woman, a respectable citizen of our town. It was a torrid day and the fat lady was wholly unprepared for the kind of marathon in which she found herself inadvertently entered but she managed to cover considerable ground in an increditable short period of time after she discovered Obadiah in pursuit. For every masculine yell Obadiah emitted, Angelina let out a feminine scream. If this episode caused me or my playmates anything in the nature of heartbreaking grief, it has escaped my memory. I do remember that we were deeply interested in the race. Angelina was a few steps in the lead; could she hold it? Some imps of Satan manifested their partisan ship by yelling “Go it, Obadiahi”, while others manifested theirs by adjuring Angelina to “Shake a leg, for the love of Mike.”

As I am writing of times which preceded the invention of the cash register, I have no means of knowing what the average daily

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take of these specialty stores of Wallingford was; on high days and holidays, perhaps a dollar; perhaps two. On the Sabbath day, everything was locked tighter than a drum.

Illustrative of the occasional prodigality of Vermont young man hood, I remember hearing a farmer boy from Sugar Hill, some what boastfully perhaps, exclaim to George Tower, the purveyor of crackers, lemons and dried herring, “What do I care about expense to-day; it’s the fourth of July, give me another dried herring.” George, in seeming approval of the patriotic sentiment expressed, affected the desired exchange and the one-cent piece was deposited in the cracker box which served as a cash drawer.

Measured in terms of dollars and cents the little specialty stores of Wallingford were failures but their social advantages were beyond price; they afforded their aged owners something to occupy their minds. Tending store was better than moping about the house, nuisances to everyone, even to themselves. Such stores were also of value to the other old men who visited them because they afforded them social outlets. The labor of tending store was negligible; in fact, George Edgerton used to lie on a couch all day long and into the evening, and, if the unexpected happened and someone wanted to make a purchase, George waited upon him as soon as he recovered from his surprise.

Hours meant nothing to such merchandisers; their stores were connected with their houses and the store bell could be heard day and night. No New England storekeeper, aspiring to create a cultural center, needed to languish long in vain desire. A circle of comfortable chairs surrounding a base burner stove and a sizeable cuspidor or coalhod within firing range of the tobacco juice sharp shooters, who took pride in their marksmanship, would lure a coterie of gentlemen of leisure during the winter months as certainly as molasses would draw flies in summer.

There being various stores in which one could loaf without being expected to spend money it was customary for each loafer to make his selection and become one of the dependables. Lee Simonds, for instance, owed allegiance to Edgerton’s a then prevalent

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type of drugless drug store; Alonzo Canfield to Sabin’s tin and hardware shop. Alonzo was a man of exceedingly few words; in fact, I cannot remember of his having said anything, except when someone asked, “How are you to-day, Lon?”, he answered that inquiry with one word and one word only, “bilious,” accompanied by a wry look and by an expectoration without visible results. I always thought that Lon was trying to spit his billiousness out; he had plenty of powder but no shot. It seemed to me that it would have been better for him to have learned to chew tobacco, then he would have had something to show for his efforts. I think it would have been more satisfactory to his fellow citizens to have seen something coming when Lon went through the motions of expectorating.

My grandfather was never known to spend an hour at any other store than Webster’s. Ephraim Hewlett was an habitue of the store of his son Danforth, of whom he was very proud. Roz Sherman was an experienced loafer as were also his nondescript and hungry hounds, although their interest was centered more on the cracker barrel, from behind which they were frequently and unceremoniously kicked. Wallingford boys scattered their patronage about visiting several stores and factories during the course of an afternoon or evening, drinking in the words of wisdom so liberally scattered about. Calvin Townsend’s drug store; Luther Tower’s candy shop; George Tower’s emporium; Ben Crapo’s dry goods store; the sash and door factory, big and rambling and redolent of the odor of pine; Harshie Ensign’s grocery store; Obadiah Make- peace, sundries, all had their following.

Then there was Charlie Clag horn’s livery stable; William Ballot’s grist mill; Martin Williams’ cheese factory; John Misfire’s ox bow shop; Frank Hadley’s snow shovel factory; the cider midi; one- legged Mr. Pratt’s shop, where “wooden overcoats” guaranteed to fit and to give wearers perfect satisfaction (sometimes called coffins) were made; “Polite” Johnson’s harness shop; Johnnie Adair’s tombstone factory; Jim Dolan’s barber shop with the shoemaker’s shop adjoining; Dr. Eddy’s photographic studio and dental laboratory

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where boys had their teeth extracted without gas; the Wallingford Hotel, run successively by Horace Earle and Lyle Vance for the accommodation of commercial travelers who seldom came and soon went; Joe Randall’s and old man Clark’s blacksmith shops; Jerome Hilliard’s wagon shop, and last and by far the most important of all, the Batcheller pitchfork factory.

All of the above named stores and places played major or minor parts in the economic and social life of Wallingford.

The first building of the fork factory is said to be the oldest of its kind in the United States. For more than one hundred years, it has been known as the “Old Stone Shop.” It has housed many successive industries since it was used by the Batchellers. During my day, it was known as the oxbow factory. In recent years, it has been converted into the “Old Stone Shop Tea-room” and is admired and patronized by many tourists traveling along the Ethan Allen Highway.

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Chapter 5 "Church Reveries"

GRANDMOTHER USUALLY took Cecil and me to church with her and well do I remember the prim tidiness of the interior of the old Congregational Church. Grandmother dressed in a lace- trimmed silk gown of a somber color suited to New England Sabbath days. Townspeople, men, women and children alike, walked softly down the broad aisles, slipping unobtrusively into their pews and settling themselves on the drab cushioned seats for whatsoever the minister and choir might have in store for them, or, for a long period of reflection, and, in some instances, sleep.

Whatever else the members did they could not have been guilty of certain of the improprieties of the present day. They would not, for instance, have turned around in their seats and nodded to friends or neighbors. They had to bear ever in mind that they were in the house of God.

Saturday nights we were given scrubbings in the wash tub in the kitchen and on Sundays we had to dress up and go to church and Sunday school. Upon our return, we could throw off unnecessary impediments, put on fresh, clean waists and enjoy ourselves within prescribed limits. We could walk in the orchard and eat apples, currants, black raspberries or such fruits as were in season. We could read books but we could not run and play unless we did so in remote parts of our premises beyond the reach of grand mother’s eyes. We could not leave home nor were our friends permitted to come to see us. The latter provision was hardly necessary because our usual playmates were also prohibited from going beyond the confines of their yards.

When our cousins from Rutland were visiting us we could, of course, enjoy each other’s company. All New England children

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were expected to be little grown-ups on the Sabbath Day; the ecstatic joys were for other days. I cannot, however, remember having been bored by New England Sabbaths; they afforded me an opportunity to plan my campaign for the coming six days.

The Reverend Aldace Walker was the minister of our church and his long white beard seemed to qualify him for his saintly role. To this day when one speaks of “the prophets of old,” there comes to me a vision of Reverend Aldace Walker in flowing dressing gown, pitcher in hand, going to the village pump for his supply of cold spring water. He was loved and revered by the members of his congregation.

Reverend Aldace Walker was eventually succeeded by Reverend Elija Huntoon and he by the Reverend Gamaliel Dillingham, who must have been a very holy man if one were to judge by the length of his prayers and sermons and his solemn appearance. It was the Reverend Camaliel’s custom to begin his Sunday morning prayer by asking blessings on all those occupying positions of authority. Beginning with the President of the United States and continuing down through the entire directory of federal and state officials; he even threw in a few kings and queens for good measure. I used to be surprised at the number of notables on his list and at his lavish prodigality in the bestowal of the Lord’s blessings. If anyone was overlooked it was no fault of the Reverend Gamaliel, and maybe the Lord would make up for it somehow.

An apostate by the name of Dannie Foley, manservant of Mrs. Ranney and her son, Willie, of New York, who summered in Wallingford, put it in his own way when he said, “Why in the name of Heaven don’t the Reverend Camaliel say, ‘God bless them all, black, white, green and yellow’ and let it go at that?” If left to his own initiative, Dannie would seldom, if ever, have found his way to the Ranney pew, but attendance at church being part of his job, he had to sit and take it with as good grace as possible. He would gladly have collaborated with the Reverend Gamaliel in the abbreviation of his sermons had he been called upon to do so. I know from what I heard Dannie say that he thought long sermons

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threatened to wreck the country we all hold dear and that they were more devastating by far than storm or flood.

My own position as I remember it, was a compromise between the e of the Reverend Gamaliel’s and Dannie’s views, with a gentle leaning toward Dannie’s. I cannot say that I remember very much that was said by the ministers of our church during my childhood days. I think their sermons were “over my head,” but I did enjoy the singing of our mixed quartette who did far better than might have been expected, and, in the quiet and refined atmosphere of that old New England Church, my thoughts may have been raised to a higher plane than would have been the case had I spent my time elsewhere. There was something peaceful about it all and a sense of propriety and well-being.

At times my thoughts rose to exalted heights as I pondered the heroic battles of Frank Nelson, as related in “Frank on a Gun Boat,” and my heart went out to the good old slave, Cudjoe, in the hair-raising predicaments in which he found himself as related in the thrilling story, “Cudjoe’s Cave.” My only regret was that Providence had, for some inexplicable reason, cast me upon unromantic shores. However, I would make the best of matters for the time being; perhaps someday I would become either a soldier, sailor or a locomotive engineer. I might some day enjoy the privilege of fighting battles and sailing tempestuous seas and then returning to Wallingford all dressed up in clothes with brass buttons to dazzle the eyes of Wallingford’s pretty girls, while I appeared to be supremely indifferent and confined myself strictly to the business of being a hero. Indulgence in such mental journeys was in no respect interfered with by the Reverend Gamaliel’s sermons; in tact, my flights of fancy seemed stimulated by them, and at times the Reverend Gamaliel played his part in my world of dreamland. In the twinkling of an eye, I could convert our solemn parson into a wild man of Borneo, or into whomsoever else I chose. On the whole the church was a very helpful influence.

Possibly at infrequent times something in the nature of a spirit of reverence possessed me as I sat in the family pew between

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grandfather and grandmother, although my thoughts more frequently flew away to the hills and my eyes were more frequently fixed on a tree just outside the window than upon the face of the preacher. Sometimes birds came and sat upon the branches of the tree and there made love to each other or quarreled, as their moods might be. They seemed entirely oblivious of the fact that it was the Sabbath day and that the Reverend Camaliel was turning the searchlight of the spirit into the dark recesses of the souls of the members of the Congregational Church of Wallingford; little pagans were they.

There was something distinctly New England in the crisp rustle of the clean, prim dresses of the women, and a fragrance of perfume, sparingly used, was in the air. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then New England women must be among the elect.

Grandmother’s dress was always suitable for the day. Her black silk gown and the few simple ornaments that went with it, seemed especially appropriate on Sunday mornings. It served many years as did grandfather’s Sunday suit and overcoat, his “Sunday-go-to meetings,” so to speak. Did grandmother have a Paisley shawl? She certainly did. So did Aunt Mel and all other women whose husbands could afford them. Paisley shawls were badges of gentility. Aunt Mel also had a sealskin coat; it was given to her by grandfather. I think Aunt Lib also had a sealskin coat which was later given by her to Cousin Mary. That made two sealskin coats in one family. How is that for high?

Grandfather’s every day clothes were well sponged and mended though they bore evidences of wear and were faded. His every day overcoat was a familiar sight about town. An older and bigger boy once sneeringly remarked, “Here comes old Harris with his mouse colored overcoat.” Had I been big enough to do so, I would have smitten him down. No one knew better than I why grand father made his clothes last so long. No one knew better than I that the frugality that characterized his life had a purpose back of it—the purpose of serving them whom he loved.

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Grandmother made herself responsible for the tidy appearance of both grandfather and myself on Sunday mornings. One of the familiar and homely sights early in the morning in those days was grandmother giving grandfather’s ears and neck a scrubbing with a well soaped cloth and greasing his boots with chicken fat to make them clean, soft and pliable. One of her wrists was permanently lame due to an injury in former years and such tasks must have been difficult, but never once did I hear her complain and grandmother’s lame wrist came in time to mean to me a badge of honor.

When I happened to cough during church service, grandmother would hand me a slice of sweet flagroot prepared by her own hand. The sugar coating was a bit too sweet and the root itself a bit too bitter but her kindness left its impression. I have never gotten over my habit of coughing. Spells continue to come at inopportune times, especially in church, and now it is another kind hand that plunges into a reticule and emerges with a soothing lozenge, the hand of my Scotch wife, “Bonnie Jean,” fourth in order of the balms of John and Annie Thomson of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Toward the latter part of grandfather’s life, he frequently fell asleep during the sermon and the droning voice of the minister seemed to aggravate his infirmity. It therefore became my self- imposed task to keep him awake during the service. I could best accomplish this purpose best by folding my legs in such a manner as to bring my toe into proximity to his foot which also was ex tended. My toe frequently touched his a score of times during the course of the long-drawn out sermons and it seems to me now that my toe must have acted from force of habit rather than from any deep-seated conviction that grandfather could find more stimulation in the sermon than in the lovely little catnaps from which I so frequently awoke him.

There were two semi-sacred days, if that term can be used, Thanksgiving Day and Fast Day. Church services were held in the morning on both days at the customary hour. We were told at the Thanksgiving Day service how thankful we should be and why;

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no mention being made however, of the prospective turkey dinner, the very heart’s core of Thanksgiving Day. I thought that at least a passing mention should have been made of the “Turkey and Chicken Shoot” going on almost within hearing distance.

For the benefit of those who have never seen a New England “turkey and chicken shoot,” I will say that in my day, it cost ten cents for a shot at a chicken and twenty-five cents for a shot at a turkey; the birds going to those who succeeded in drawing blood. Certain thrifty Vermont farmers, not hampered by church-going habits, made it a business to market their flocks in this manner and they saw to it that it required exceptional marksmanship to bag a bird. The birds were tied to stakes on a hill side which seemed to me to be miles away. Exceptional marksmen were sure of their birds but they were not permitted to repeat. Others seldom drew blood and it was their dimes and quarters that made turkey and chicken shoots profitable to their sponsors.

Fast Day had slipped considerably from the rigors of Colonial times; in fact, the feasts of Fast Day had become their distinguishing feature. Owing to the fact that Fast Day dinners were served after church service, they were usually good. I heartily believed in Fast Days and thought that their observance should be kept up. Church going on Fast Day was elective in our household and I did not elect to attend.

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Chapter 6 "The Bells of Wallingford"

NOTHING was permitted to disturb the serenity of our Sabbath day except for the clanging of the church bell high up in the belfry synchronizing with vigorous pulls by Captain Johnson on a dangling rope. Just who Captain Johnson was, who his progenitors were, or how he happened to be called Captain, I do not know. All that I can with assurance state is that whenever the Congregational church bell rang on Sunday morning, the Captain could always be seen in the vestry pulling a rope which writhed and twisted into serpentine folds and coils and at times almost disappeared through a small hole in the ceiling. The Captain never let it get entirely away although it was sometimes difficult to determine whether Captain Johnson was pulling the rope or the rope was pulling Captain Johnson. In any event, he always made a gallant fight every Sunday morning in the vestry. Just as all seemed lost, he would make a mighty tug on the all but disappearing rope and back it would come again. The Captain’s singlehanded encounters with his writhing rope were as thrilling as the legendary maneuvers of the Laocoon Group with their writhing serpents. In fact to little boys they were one of the compensations for going to church.

There is nothing more likely to cause a church bell to crack up than getting mixed in its theology but the theology of our bell was sound; that is to say, it was a Congregational bell. Its resonant voice rang out twice