rye-and-Indian bread, the traditional pot of beans, the Indian
pudding, and the pies; for no further cooking was to be done
until Monday. We smaller girls thought it a great privilege to be
allowed to watch the oven till the roof of it should be "white-
hot," so that the coals could be shoveled out.

Then it was so still, both out of doors and within! We were not
allowed to walk anywhere except in the yard or garden. I remember
wondering whether it was never Sabbath-day over the fence, in the
next field; whether the field was not a kind of heathen field,
since we could only go into it on week-days. The wild flowers
over there were perhaps Gentile blossoms. Only the flowers in the
garden were well-behaved Christians. It was Sabbath in the house,
and possibly even on the doorstep; but not much farther. The town
itself was so quiet that it scarcely seemed to breathe. The sound
of wheels was seldom heard in the streets on that day; if we
heard it, we expected some unusual explanation.

I liked to go to meeting,--not wholly oblivious to the fact that
going there sometimes implied wearing a new bonnet and my best
white dress and muslin "vandyke," of which adornments, if very
new, I vainly supposed the whole congregation to be as admiringly
aware as I was myself.

But my Sabbath-day enjoyment was not wholly without drawbacks.
It was so hard, sometimes, to stand up through the "long prayer,"
and to sit still through the "ninthlies," and "tenthlies," and
"finallys" of the sermon! It was impressed upon me that good
children were never restless in meeting, and never laughed or
smiled, however their big brothers tempted them with winks or