ld women's seats, on the
opposite side; the elevated row of pews round the sides of the church,
and the envied position of certain little children who had an
extensive prospect through the open pew-top within doors, and a view
of the hay-scales and the town-pump through the window besides. Those
windows, in a double row, with the gallery between,--how regularly I
counted the small panes, always forgetting the number, to make the
same weary task necessary every Sunday! The singing-seats, projecting
from the central portion of the gallery, furnished me with another
hebdomadal study, in large gilt letters of antique awkwardness, which
so impressed themselves on my mind that I see them now. This was the
golden legend: "BUILT, 1770. ENLARGED, 1795." I remember hearing a wag
propose to add as another remarkable fact, "SCOURED, 1818."

Opposite to the singing-seats towered the pulpit, from which the
clergyman looked down upon us like a sparrow upon the house-top. He
seemed in perpetual danger of being extinguished by a huge
sounding-board. Very earnestly I used to gaze at the slender point by
which it hung suspended, and wished, if it _must_ come down, that I
might make the gilt ornament at the apex, resembling a vase turned
upside down, my prize. Under the pulpit was a closet, which some one
veraciously assured me was the place where the tithingman imprisoned
incautiously playful urchins. The terrors of that dark, mysterious
cell had little effect on my conduct, however, as I was not entirely
convinced of the existence of any such lynx-eyed functionary.

The largest church in the county, it was, however, well filled, many
of the congregation coming five and some even six miles, and remaining
there through the noon intermission, which, on their account, was made
as short as possible. But in winter the vast airy space had a peculiar
and searching chill. No barn could be colder, except that the numerous
footstoves made some little change in the air during service. The
minister stood upon a heated slab of soap-stone. I used to watch this
in its progress up the broad aisle and the pulpit stairs, under the
arm of the boy from the parsonage, and the irreverent way in which he
made his descent, in view of the assembly, after depositing his
burden, was thus rebuked by an old lady who was always droll and
quaint. "Why, Matthew, when you come down the pulpit stairs of a
Sunday, you throw up your heels like a horse coming out of a
sta