[Manchester—Tuesday, 21 August 1866]
Tuesday August 21st Cool and cloudless. The sky was like chrystal. I did not go out very early for the previous evening we had walked to the beach in the moonlight. The waves were beating and breaking with a slow calm earnestness; we watched them draw back with dark power, gather up and rise and curl, then burst into white flowers of foam on the sands and as we watched they seemed to gather something of us up into themselves. We could easily have yielded to these seductions but the silence and weird beauty were counterbalanced by the thought of our mortality & the dampness which was stalking abroad at that hour.
Because of this walk and the really clear cold day I was abroad much later than usual. Miss E.B. Greene came last night and was good enough to bring with her some exquisite flower paintings in water-color by her cousin one with the motto “Some are fallen asleep” with dead daisies, was beautiful enough to be the architrave of a Greek tomb. Miss Greene herself has talent, few people are working better on flowers now but portraits are her desire, she wishes to try me—at eight oclock we started in an open wagon for Hamilton, the trees shone in the clear air and a fresh sea breeze made the whole scene redolent of perfume. It was joy enough to live we thought, and decay became a thing one could not contemplate. Well—so we came to Mary Dodge’s little house where her mother lay ill, stricken a fortnight ago with paralysis. Her sister responded to our knock at the front door. I knew it was her sister from the resemblance yet she is a much quieter and less expressive person but with a sweet expression of countenance. She asked us in cordially and left us immediately in the little parlor to go and call her sister. For a few moments we were alone in the small room somewhat darkened to be sure but not enough to prevent us from observing the interesting pictures, books and mementoes of friendship which adorned it. Two or three years ago while Gail Hamilton was a name unknown this little room was plain enough, now however, without removing the quaint sampler (of her mother’s work probably) now the facsimile of the Declaration of Independence which hangs over the mantle-piece she has contrived to find room for some of her many tributes—among them I saw a portrait of Longfellow pinned up with some verses written upon his birthday near by it. Mary did not keep us waiting long but we soon heard a quick girlish step and a moment after she came running in with a short dress, full waist, & without hoops. She looked as bright and fresh as a girl of 20 and said she thought after doing more work than she had ever done in her life that she ought to look the worse for it or in some form delicate; on the contrary however she seemed to be better in health than ever before. She had just come from the garden where she had been picking “a mess of beans”—“Have you come to spend the day,” she said presently “or only to make a call?” We told her we had come only for a call and had brought her mother some peaches. “I am glad of that” she answered “for she had a basket sent her from Philadelphia last week but those have about gone so yours will just fit in at the gap. But wouldn’t you like to see mother she added I think she would like to see you and perhaps it would do her good for she is getting on right well and we even think of going to Minnesota in a fortnight as we had planned.” We told her something of the gladness we felt at this good news, for the poor child’s sorrow at the prospect of her mother’s death had been a sorrow of our own. We agreed to go up to her mothers room for a few moments and in the meantime she was to make up her mind if it would be well for her to go to the Camp meeting with us which is just now in full blast in that town. While she ran up stairs to ask her mother Jamie with the sensitiveness which is native to him said to me, “you go up, I will wait here” but her cheery voice from the top of the stairs saying, “She wants to see you both” left no alternative and he as well as I was delighted that it was so in the end. We found the old lady lying in bed to be sure but with a healthy happy smile on her face and not at all with the expression of a conquered woman. She was glad to see us with a right hearty gladness said, “I would get used to Mary’s nonsense if I had as much of it as she did—that she must go to the Camp meeting with us it would do her good to go out because, poor children! they never did so much work in their lives as since I have been sick. I have always done everything for them in that way” and good motherly talk of that kind without a complaint or thought of herself or a word to show us she had been ill except to say how much better she was, and how happy it made her to be better the day we came. While Jamie went away in a few moments for the horse Mary changed her dress in order to accompany us and I prepared one of the basket of peaches and gave it in small bits to the old lady,—by chance too some wild cherries had proved too irresistible to prevent carry[ing] them with us and it was delightful to see how beautiful they looked to the invalid when put up over her looking glass and on the table. We were soon on our way to the Camp meeting. Mary told us one of the physicians who came to consult about her mother when standing at the foot of the bed told her her mother was very like the pictures of Ben. Franklin (which is indeed true) and it comforted her greatly with regard to her mother’s condition when she replied as she told her of this after the doctors had gone. “O sho!” in quite a natural way. ’Tis amusing too to hear Mary talk of her sister as “Gusty.” Her mother would not understand if she called her anything else I can see that plainly.
It was my first experience of a camp-meeting. This is a meeting of Methodists which takes place yearly at Hamilton. The railroads make an especial stop for the benefit of this meeting during the week and as we crossed the track a number of cars had just arrived with a crowd of enthousiasts. Here were many booths full of secular goods, eatables and amusements through which we drove for a quarter of a mile perhaps to the camp-ground. It was near noon and the day had preserved its unspotted loveliness yet too cool for a hint of discomfort from the sun. We alighted from our wagon and passed through an avenue of tents where was a dining-tent to seat 800 persons a small one devoted to “clam chowder,” “God is our Righteousness Clam Chowder” being over the door way. A little farther on we came to a fine amphitheatre of tall pines, large tents for sleeping surrounded the circle nestling among the denser foliage of the wood and small family tents peeped out from still remoter deeps behind; the centre was filled by a semi-circle of seats under which a large audience was already assembled and a small kind of cottage with a broad piazza on the second story and a kind of sounding board which served as pulpit for the preacher. An old man of 73 years was speaking in stentorian voice. We stopped at the entrance of one of the tents and asked a man who was sitting there alone with his wife and child the name of the speaker. “Father Merrill of Lyme,” was the reply. “He used to be called the son of thunder, for he had a very loud voice which they said could be heard a mile, and a mile is a great way to have a voice heard ain’t it.” We responded that we agreed with him and past [sic] on, though I could well have lingered to know something of the history of the pale ascetic woman, full of intellectual fire by his side, of the strange child which looked half Italian and of the man himself who had eyes so fierce they actually seemed to shoot sparks in common talk. (What they might do when lighted by the fire of anger was hard to say and unpleasant to think of). They did not appear to be listening to the discourse but were apparently taking care of the tents which it seems good Methodists are allowed to hire and then let out again to the faithful who come to pray. We walked quite round the circle of the tents. They were for the most part empty except for the one or two who were keeping guard. Many of them had mottos in leaves over the entrance and square lanterns were hung upon the branches of trees at intervals, to give light should the moon be veiled by the clouds any night during the week. Everybody was silent or spoke in whispers and the discourse of the old man was heard wherever we went—he was working upon the feelings of some as he talked of his own experiences in religion, his approaching death, and his joy at being allowed to speak here once again. It was poor twaddle enough but religious excitement ran high among the listeners and the women wept while many of the men looked grave. Behind the speaker sat a long row of clergy stretching the length of the piazza. Father Taylor was among them and at the end sat a young man full of spirit and evidently itching “with desire to have a chance” at this impressible audience. It seemed however as if the old man would never stop, he told us of the death of a daughter, of his own sleeplessness during the past two nights and days until nothing seemed to remain untold of a private nature in his experience. I began to fear that his grief was so tight that he would never be taken off alive. An end did come at length and then they sang a hymn.
There was something in the power of that hymn which caused us to forget the tricksters in the tents, the vanity of the preacher, the vagrancy of the young people round about, we could only see the beauty of the heavens, and hear the waving of the pines while below the vast, worshipping company sent up a divine hallelujah to One who has said, “Where two or three or [sic] gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them.” I felt sorry of those who had said these meetings are bad and should not be countenanced by decent people—indeed we had come here half under protest from Mr Bartol, but I knew there was a purpose in the coming when I found myself “remaining to pray”—that one psalm borne up so melodiously to the great white throne and all that yearning longing weary congregation of mortals, what mattered the articles of their creed then. They were all at prayer together and God heard them.
Far be it from me to advocate “Camp Meetings” but since they exist by the demand of a certain class of our people; since it depends upon their free-will whether they go or stay I was smitten with divine joy to see that the Holy Spirit was indeed with them.
How touching that hymn was, echoed by the great warm arms of the pines and borne upward by them.
It was time to turn homeward. We carried Mary back to her door and at one o’clock were in Manchester. The trees appeared burnished with gold and green as we rode through them, gay golden rod nodded by the road-side and we rejoiced in the season’s magnificence and our own household companionship. It was a rare day.
Afternoon soft and cloudy, precursor of rain, rowed up the creek with Mr Bartol and afterward went to walk together.
