The boy remembers how his mother's anxiety was divided between the
set of his turn-over collar, the parting of his hair, and his memory
of the Sunday-school verses; and what a wild confusion there was
through the house in getting off for meeting, and how he was kept
running hither and thither, to get the hymn-book, or a palm-leaf fan,
or the best whip, or to pick from the Sunday part of the garden the
bunch of caraway-seed. Already the deacon's mare, with a wagon-load
of the deacon's folks, had gone shambling past, head and tail
drooping, clumsy hoofs kicking up clouds of dust, while the good
deacon sat jerking the reins, in an automatic way, and the
"womenfolks" patiently saw the dust settle upon their best summer
finery. Wagon after wagon went along the sandy road, and when our
boy's family started, they became part of a long procession, which
sent up a mile of dust and a pungent, if not pious smell of
buffalo-robes. There were fiery horses in the trail which had to be
held in, for it was neither etiquette nor decent to pass anybody on
Sunday. It was a great delight to the farmer-boy to see all this
procession of horses, and to exchange sly winks with the other boys,
who leaned over the wagon-seats for that purpose. Occasionally a boy
rode behind, with his back to the family, and his pantomime was always
some thing wonderful to see, and was considered very daring and
wicked.

The meeting-house which our boy remembers was a high, square
building, without a steeple. Within it had a lofty pulpit, with
doors underneath and closets where sacred things were kept, and where
the tithing-men were supposed to imprison bad boys. The pews were
square, with seats facing each other, those on one side low for the
children, and all with hinges, so that they could be raised when the