ich were
on sale in one of these square pews fitted up as a small shop, boards
being laid on the top rail, and the high seats forming shelves for the
display of eatables. I recall only the buns with distinctness, buns with
three large plums sticking out of their shiny red tops, which afforded
the greatest return to a hungry boy for the trifling sum he had to
expend. These plums deceived me into the belief that there were more
inside and sometimes I did find one lost in the air holes of the
sponge-like cake. But the bun was sweet and that was enough, sweetened
with white sugar too, a rare flavor in those days. I write white sugar
but its current name was loaf sugar. It came in cone-shaped packages
wrapped in heavy chocolate colored paper, and this paper was used by
women for dyeing. These packages were hung up over the counters of all
country stores. The sale was small as it was expensive and limited in
use, chiefly to the sick room, wedding and funeral feasts. A trader
would buy enough to last him for a long time; consequently the packages
hung in their places year after year, becoming dirty and fly specked.
But the inside was well protected with soft white paper, and, when
opened, revealed its dazzling crystals. I liked it almost as much as
candy and I rarely had a bit of the precious article. Brown sugar and
molasses were the common household sweets; bread and molasses an
excellent lunch for hungry boys always crying for something to eat and
never filled.

The town meeting bun is a thing of the past. When I ventured into the
town house I stepped very softly and felt an exceeding awe. It was a
strange sensation to be moving about among men whose legs were as long
as I was tall, and, generally, as unnoticed as if I did not exist.
Sometimes a kindly old man would look down, put his hand on my head and
say: "You'll be a man before you know it;" or another would vary the
expression with, "you'll be a man before your mother." Both meant the
boy had grown since the last town meeting. I have, since those days,
known town meetings from the standpoint of a man and voter and have even
taken part in their counsels; yet I have had always more interest in
them as an observer than as an active participant. Perhaps this was
because I was not an office seeker. I have revolved schemes for town
improvements a whole year and taken them into the March meeting only to
have them smashed in a moment. In general at the meetings in rural
dist