Life Unveiled, by a Child of the Drumlins — Chapter 4 Part I - In the Old Paths

IN THE OLD PATHS

Does one ever outgrow one’s early religious training?

Though he outgrow his credulity, his faith, his observance of rite and ceremony, and though he wander far from the paths he followed when being trained “in the way he should go,” still must the religious influences shed round him in those early, plastic years have their permanent bearing upon his after life, even though sometimes so transformed as to be traceable only to the keen student of personality.

“Back to the Old Paths” was a gospel hymn I heard in the days when those paths were traversed by my childish feet; and back to the old paths I now turn, seeking to retrace the steps which time and disuse have almost obliterated.

Being Methodists, we children had been baptized in infancy, and our childhood and youth had been divided into three-year periods, diminutive dynasties, marked by the reigns of the different ministers, events being referred to as “during Brother Gregg’s stay,” “in Brother Carrier’s time,” “when Brother Browne was here.

” What excitement toward the close of one of those “dynasties” to see what the new minister would be like!

Father was one of the church trustees, Mother had a class in Sunday School.

Although we children regularly attended church and Sunday School, and often prayer-meeting and class-meeting, we showed little of the early piety which our Sunday-school books set forth.

When there was no one to leave us with at home, Mother usually took us to prayer-meeting.

All would kneel during the seasons of prayer--each consisting of about three prayers--then would rise and sing; then kneel for another season, and so on.

I remember once awaking in shame and confusion, still on my knees while the others stood round me singing.

Crouching there, a miserable heap on the floor, I waited for them to kneel again, hoping no one but Mother had noticed me.

But as it proved the last season that evening, when the hymn ended and all took their seats, the little heap on the floor had to creep up and seat itself shamefacedly by its mother, its discomfiture unrelieved until they rose and sang “Blest Be the Tie that Binds,” and the meeting closed.

Sometimes Mother put us to bed when she went to evening meetings.

It was a hardship to be locked in the house those spring twilights with the church bells tolling and the boys and girls calling us to come out and play “I-Spy.

” Everything called us out of doors.

What was there about that time of day that seemed made for frolic?

How we pitied ourselves when the “All free” of our playmates floated to us on the twilight air!

Once we climbed out of the window and played in the street--bare-footed, too!

Oh, the delight of our bare feet on the soft, cool grass!

But we had to climb in again soon, gloating guiltily over the stolen liberty.

We thought Mother unfeeling to leave us locked in the house, but if we objected to the prayer-meetings she sometimes had no alternative.

We rather liked the class-meetings; there were only two or three prayers then, and all gave their “experiences.

” We knew by heart some of the stereotyped speeches.

Sometimes we would signal to one another when it was about time for certain expressions that amused us; and again would giggle if the good brethren and sisters varied their remarks and failed to repeat the queer things we expected.

One man at a certain stage in his prayer always rubbed his palms together, then as his voice got louder, he would rub faster and faster;

his straggling hair would fall over his face; the veins would swell in his forehead; and he would reach a climax of frenzied petition from which he would gradually subside, tapering to a breathless “Amen!

” Sister could repeat this prayer and his manœuvres to perfection: “Oh, Lord-ah, we have come here to night-ah, to crave thy mercy-ah”--thus regaling us with reproductions of “Brother Aaron” and other eccentric ones--when Mother was not near.

Mother herself, though quiet in testimony and prayer, would not let us ridicule those who were not.

There were three or four of the brethren and sisters of the old-fashioned kind of Methodists, who were a boon to sleepy children;

but as I grew older I wearied of their stereotyped speeches, and felt a repugnance to their emotional storms.

In the home, at seasons of special religious fervour, we had family prayers.

There was something peculiarly satisfying to me in all of us kneeling together while Father prayed.

His prayers were controlled and rational; I never felt uneasy when he prayed; while with Mother there was always the fear that her voice would tremble, as it did when she read touching passages in our Sunday-school books.

I could not bear to hear the tears come in her voice, for it meant we would all ultimately break down and cry.

Mother loved the Bible.

How well she knew it!

It was history, poetry, and all literature to her.

How interesting she made the stories when telling them in her own words--the story of Ruth, of Queen Esther, of Joseph and his coat of many colours--how inseparably these are linked with Mother’s interpretations!

She loved music, too, but none of her family could carry a tune, except one brother who died in his youth.

She would try so hard to sing, “Hush, My Dear, Lie Still and Slumber,” usually getting the first two lines pretty well, then would flounder around, unable to get the rest.

In church she would start out bravely to sing the “Doxology,” or “By Cool Siloam’s Shady Rill,” or “There is a Land of Pure Delight,” but would falter and have to stop entirely before the end of the first stanza.

I have seen her almost weep because she wanted so much to sing.

At first we laughed at her--it seemed so funny, and so easy to catch a tune--but with her it was so serious a matter that I learned to pity her.

Unless Sister was watched throughout the church service, she would excite the risibilities of all around by her antics and imitation of the minister.

Quick as a flash she would jump up on the seat, tiny mite that she was, and flourish her arms as the speaker was doing.

Mrs. R----, the wife of a certain pastor who made very awkward gestures, used to say it was bad enough to see the gestures themselves, but to see them so perfectly reproduced was much too much; still she would laugh about it till the tears ran down her cheeks.

Kate would imitate the twisting gait and fidgety manner of a sister of Father’s so well that a neighbour seeing her would say, “There goes your Aunt Lucinda, boiled down.

” I learned early to while away the long sermons by reading Sunday-school books, Mother remonstrating, but often ignoring the practice, for it lightened her duties--she was thus sure of one of us being quiet during services.

If not reading, Arthur and I were bound to titter at Kate’s pranks.

“Who is this?

” she would whisper, then pull down her face like old Aaron Wilson in the side pew, or again like Brother Schermerhorn, or saintly Sister Brown, or lugubrious Sister Stiles.

She could look like any of them in a jiffy, and we would nearly explode, while she was tickled to get us in such an uncomfortable plight.

Mother was often on pins and needles lest we laugh outright in church.

Sometimes it would please the minx to assume a demure, reverential air throughout the entire service.

Then we almost went into spasms.

She would turn the leaves of the Bible, rise, bow her head, and sing;

would place a hymn-book behind her, as the good sister in front of us did, halfway through the sermon, to ease her back; would use her handkerchief in a grown-up way--all apparently unaware of her giggling brother and sister, except when she would turn upon us a pained, reproving glance--usually the last straw for the poor camels.

I kept up the habit of reading during services till the pastor mentioned it so pointedly in Sunday School that I had to stop.

When the sermons interested me, I no longer cared to read.

I recall three of our ministers who were liberally educated for pastors in small churches.

One, in particular, a Scotch-Irishman, was an original thinker, emotional, with a tumultuous Carlylean eloquence.

He preached remarkable sermons.

Father and I followed his thought, I think, more closely than any one else in the congregation.

He seemed to feel this, too, addressing us almost personally, sure of sympathetic attention.

Many of his stolid hearers had no idea “what he was driving at.

” Sometimes he would labour so to bring forth his thought that it was painful to watch him--it was as though his mind was laid bare.

Carried away with the grandeur of a conception, he would wrestle with it, conquer it, and finally unfold it.

His influence on my mental and religious nature (I was seventeen then) was unquestionable, but unsettling, seeming to increase the chaotic state of my mind; at least, it was during his “dynasty” that I became so unsettled--doubting and trying to think a way out of the inconsistencies I was continually coming upon.

But earlier wanderings in the old paths claim their share in this backward glance.

Tenting at camp-meeting (Auburndale), perhaps four times in all--not four years in succession, for that would have been too great a boon--was a keen pleasure of our childhood.

How we felt the deprivation of the blank years!

What a homesick longing for our tent in the woods when the August days came round!

The woods were perhaps five miles away.

It seemed a long journey.

What fun to see the wagon piled with bedding, furniture, and tinware; to see kettles dangling below;

to hear the rattle as we sat a-top of the heterogeneous array!

Then the ride along the sunny country road to the camp-grounds!

I wonder if a part of my fascination for gypsy wagons and the life of the Romanys isn’t due to our own gypsying in the camp-meeting woods.

Mother usually shared a tent with a certain good sister, an old-fashioned fat countrywoman who was very devout and who made good cookies.

We liked her best for the last quality.

How our hearts swelled as we neared the grounds and saw the high board fence enclosing the sacred woods!

Going nearer, we heard the singing as the sound rose through the trees.

The preacher’s stand, and the tents, were down a steep hill from the road along which we came.

Jumping from the wagon, we would go in at the little gate, for the team had to go a long way farther to enter the big gate.

Wild with delight we bounded down the hill, shouting a greeting to the lame gatekeeper and taking care not to trip on the long roots extending into the path.

Our exuberance was always checked, partly by admonitions from our elders, partly by the spirit of the place--there was something in the sight of those white tents among the trees and the voices of song and prayer floating up to us that in themselves held us in check--but ah, the smell of the woods, and the realization that we were to dwell there for ten blissful days!

Did ever children have a more beautiful experience?

Then the hunting for our tent-site, the scrutiny of its surroundings--its relation to the various places of interest; the fun of getting settled; of seeing the stove put up; the tent raised on its wooden platform; Mrs. Van Aiken’s queer little cord-bedstead set up;

and the funny makeshifts of housekeeping that Mother and her tent-mate would devise.

The mere sight of a familiar kettle or a “spider” hung on a tree at the back door, the improvised wash-bench with leaves from the beech trees falling on the soap-dish and into the water as we washed--these simple things provoked the most delightful sensations and made us so happy, so happy!

It is a delight just to stop and think how happy we were.

In the morning there were the walks after milk to a neighbouring farmhouse, and the smell of the breakfast cooking under the trees as we returned.

Mrs. Van Aiken’s fried pork and warmed-up potatoes made our mouths water; we liked her best when she was doing these things.

As the day wore on she got absorbed in sermons and religious experiences, and became “teary” and lugubrious, making us feel our unregeneracy at the bubbling of our spirits; it was bad enough at dinner time, but at supper--_Whew!!!

_ At breakfast, however, she was livable and human.

Mother was sufficiently zealous, often uncomfortably so, but not unbearably so, as was Mrs. Van Aiken when the religious leaven leavened the whole lump (and she weighed near two hundred).

But she did make good fat cookies, bless her heart!

She scowled if we lingered on the way with the milk, and there was so much to make us linger, even with breakfast at the end!

Ah!

the smell of the woods in the early morning!

There were the places deep in the woods where we were not supposed to wander, but where we did sometimes wander later in the day in quest of mandrakes (they made us sick, but we never ceased to seek them, the sickish yellow things!

).

There were the yellow-jackets’ nests, our especial bane--one year a troop of us, Sister in the lead, while exploring forbidden territory, suddenly plunged into one of those miniature hells and were beset by those flying fiends.

Such howling as arose from our savage breasts--the Methodist shouting was for once in the shade!

Six tortured little beings ran screaming to their tents, half-blinded from swelling faces.

Pandemonium reigned.

Sister and the Presiding Elder’s boy were stung the worst; her eyes were swollen shut;

her face was unrecognizable; she was frightful to behold, and her hands looked like Mrs. Van Aiken’s fattest cookies.

I was stung only a little, but enough to know why the others howled so.

We liked to jump from bench to bench in the large circle in front of the preachers’ stand, when it was not sermon time, but some pious brother or sister would usually come along and tell us to stop.

Sometimes Willie Ives, the Presiding Elder’s son, would creep up to the pulpit and exhort us eloquently, but such pleasures were quickly curtailed, and we were made to feel the meaning of the formidable word “sacrilege.

” It was the custom of some to sing the blessing at breakfast.

Hurrying along with our milk-pail past the tents, we would hear men’s, women’s, and children’s voices mingled as the family gathered around their tables singing to the tune of “Doxology”: We thank thee, Lord, for this our food, But more because of Jesus’ blood;

Let manna to our souls be given-- The Bread of Life sent down from heaven.

This usually had a subduing effect, as did the voices at family devotions which issued through the tent-openings.

But we were little pagans after all, and many a time did not resist the temptation to pluck at a woman’s skirt, or punch a foot, as we caught sight of them under the half-rolled tent folds, while the occupants knelt in prayer.

Not compelled to listen to the long morning and afternoon sermons, except on Sundays, we had to attend evening services or go to bed.

But there was much to make them endurable, especially if a certain woman “got the power.

” And, anyhow, the scene was impressive out there in the night, the tents gleaming in the distance, and the hymns and petitions echoing under the trees.

We went willingly to the Children’s Meetings, held after dinner in a huge tent with its carpet of straw.

Certain brethren and sisters would address the children.

Many an infant convert would “go forward” amid great rejoicing.

The singing and childish “experiences” were interesting, though then our religious natures were fortunately but slightly aroused.

I would choke up and cry softly sometimes, but was not deeply moved--the woods being a powerful rival at that early age.

But one dear old lady (she seemed old even then) I always loved to hear.

She would come in at the side of the tent, Bible and camp-chair in hand, stoop under the tentfolds, wade through the straw, which would cling to her black skirt (the smell of straw always reproduces this scene), place her blue Brussels camp-chair in front of us, and open the meeting with, “Now, Children.

” I can’t remember what else she used to say, but that “Now, Children” was so intimate and confidential--not sanctimonious like many who addressed us.

Her voice was rich with emotion, but controlled, so as not to make her listeners uncomfortable.

(Those good sisters whose voices were on the ragged edge of tears used to irritate me; it seemed indecent; even in my most devout days I never overcame my repugnance toward those who “went to pieces” when giving testimony.

) What she said to us day after day I forgot years ago, but her face, her kindly comprehensive glance, and the inflections of her voice became a part of my consciousness, deeply fixed in memory.

Years later, soon after entering the hospital where my work has since been, the poor soul was brought here as a patient.

Going on the wards one morning, note-book in hand, eager to take the history of the patient admitted the previous night, I found dear old Sister Mifflin, the same who had exhorted us at Children’s Meetings years before--no older, it seemed to me, only more broken, pitiably broken.

How the scene at Auburndale came back at the sight of her face, the sound of her voice!

She was just a feeble, whimpering old woman to the others, but to me she was those dear, dark woods with the white tents, the holy songs, Mother, Sister, Brother--Childhood!

Such a flood of recollections surged through me that I could only attempt a few words of consolation and postpone my case-taking till under better control.

But I told her where I used to know her, and she brightened pathetically at the word “Auburndale.

” And here she was now, a child among other gray-haired children who had lost their way, while the Drumlin Child, whose feet she had tried to lead in the old paths, was henceforth to guide her faltering steps to the journey’s end!

I remember the last time we tented at Auburndale an instance of Mother’s watchful care that humiliated and incensed us then, but for which I am grateful now: We were probably fourteen and fifteen years old when, one evening, Sister and I and some other girls and boys stole up through the little gate and outside the grounds to some willows a short distance away.

We knew it was wrong; the boys were new acquaintances, unknown to Mother (sons of a man who later became our pastor); besides, we were not supposed to go beyond the grounds without permission.

But with many misgivings we set out, feeling quite like young ladies walking out with young men--a very delectable stolen sweet we were nibbling!

Sitting under the trees while the boys made willow canes for us, tracing fantastic designs on them, we enjoyed ourselves for a brief period.

Presently an uncle of ours went by and, greeting us, passed on to the camp-ground.

The chatting and cane-making continued.

Twilight deepened, but it was still light enough to see that which filled Sister and me with consternation and chagrin--Mother coming down the road, bare-headed (in those days betokening great haste) coming rapidly toward us, and--_with whips in her hand!

_ With one accord we all arose and meekly followed her back to the camp-ground.

Something very like hatred stirred within us at the course she had taken to show us before our new acquaintances that we were still children and subject to her authority.

Not that we questioned her right to require us to return, but it seemed needlessly humiliating to come after us with whips.

I think we rebelled at her carrying the whips, and that she finally dropped them.

How crestfallen we all looked, the boys whittling the canes, and the other girls probably seeing in ours a fate similar to their own!

We got a vigorous talking-to before we were sent to bed.

Our uncle, it seems, had alarmed Mother by saying that we were lounging under the willows with a “lot of strange fellows.

” This was a favourite trysting-place for the young people whose devotion led them into these by-paths rather than to the evening meetings.

I can laugh now at our discomfiture and at Mother’s wrath, but it was no laughing matter that August night so long ago.