family cat with a number of kittens. These he placed with the hen, and then with a very straight face asked his father to come and see the chickens.

The controversy as to the scriptural limitation of the Sabbath, whether it began at sunset on Saturday or at midnight, was then very active. When Dr. Field was questioned as to which evening was the one to be observed, he always advised those in doubt to keep both.

Once in speaking of the curious texts that he had known clergymen of his generation to choose, he instanced: “Parbar westward, four at the causeway and two at Parbar”; but he failed to give the lesson that was drawn from the words.

In those old days in western Massachusetts cooking-stoves were unknown. The pots were hung above the fire, the meats were broiled over the coals or before them, and the baking was done in a brick oven. Neither were there ice-closets nor travelling butchers. The winter’s stock of meat was laid in with the first cold weather; the chickens were killed and packed in snow in the cellar, to be brought out as they were needed; and pies were made in large quantities, and frozen and put away for future use; and the foot-stove was taken down from the shelf. This was a small iron box with holes in the top, and into it were put live coals. The box was carried in the hand, and used in place of a footstool in “meeting”; but even with this mitigation the cold was felt intensely.

The conflict in a conscientious pastor’s mind between his sense of duty and his kindness of heart was often severe and painful. Mrs. Field used to say that the most difficult act her husband was ever called upon to perform was to refuse church membership to those who had accepted Dr. Channing’s views. She was naturally more pitiful than he. A revivalist who had come to the village in the course of his mission took occasion at a service publicly to arraign one of the prominent men of the town for drunkenness. Mrs. Field strongly disapproved of the time and place chosen for the rebuke, and on her way home from the meeting expressed her disapproval, and when she reached her gate said, “Wait, Cyrus, and when Mr. —— passes bring him to me and I will pick his bones for him” (Micah iii. 2). She would not have approved of the method adopted, according to a story current in her son Cyrus’s family, by a pious man in Connecticut who, when he thought himself imposed upon by his neighbors, would say, with a long drawl, “Leave them to the Lord, leave them to the Lord—he’ll smite them hip and thigh.”

Her son always remembered, as one of the strongest impressions of his childhood, the deep and lasting grief of his mother at parting with her eldest daughter, who married and went to Smyrna, Asia Minor, as a missionary, when he was but ten years old.

An old lady in Stockbridge tells to his niece this story of him at about the same age. “Your grandmother had been very ill. I watched with her; many of us watched. I thought to keep her from talking by coming up behind her to give her medicine, but she found out who I was and talked a great deal. After she was better she still needed some one to sleep in her room, keep up the fire and give her medicine. Your uncle Cyrus did this one whole winter when he was a little boy, I should think not ten. It was lovely of him.” And it was just like him. He always remembered that during this same illness his mother called him to her and said, “Cyrus, the doctor says I am very ill, but I shall be up to-morrow.” And he would add, “She was.”

By all Stockbridge tradition he was the hero of another tale, although he himself always gave the credit of it to one of his brothers. A certain rat-trap (perhaps of new and efficient style) had been lost. After much search and questioning the minister gave orders that whenever found it should be brought at once to him. So one day at a service, when the sermon was in full progress, there came a clanging noise up the aisle, and the missing article was set down in front of the pulpit with the words, “Father, here is your rat-trap!”

Another laughable reminiscence occurred at the burning of the parsonage, which took place about 1830. In 1822 or 1823 Dr. Field had bought a small house in the village and had moved there. The fire was first seen as the children were coming from school, and very soon after it was discovered all hope of subduing it was given up, and the first thought was to save the study furniture and books, and the study table was thrown from the window. Imagine the surprise of the crowd and the consternation of their pastor as the drawers of this, his private repository, came open, and a shower of playing-cards fluttered forth and whitened the grass. They had been found in the possession of his children and confiscated.

It is remembered of Cyrus Field as a child that his dealings with his playmates were most exact. He paid punctually all that he owed, and required the same punctuality in return. He was the chosen leader in all the games, and he was the victor in a race around the village green, one of the stipulations being that a certain amount of crackers should be eaten on the way.

His half-holidays were passed in roaming over the country-side, and he has often said that the meal he enjoyed the most in his life was one gotten on a Saturday afternoon when he had stopped, tired and hungry, at a farm-house, and was given a plate of cold pork and potatoes. He was obliged to be at home before sunset on Saturday, as every member of the family was required to be in the house by that time, and all work to cease; and as the children entered their father greeted them with the words, “We are on the borders of holy time.” Sunset on Sunday was watched for most anxiously, for they were then again quite free to come and go.

THE PARSONAGE, STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.
(As rebuilt after the fire)

The simple life of the Massachusetts village was not without its pleasures. There lies before me a yellow programme, printed sixty years ago, which commemorates what was very likely at once the first appearance of Cyrus W. Field on any stage and his last appearance in his native village, and forms a fitting conclusion to the story of his childhood.

EXHIBITION.—STOCKBRIDGE ACADEMY,

MARCH 26-27, 1835.

THURSDAY EVENING.

ORDER OF EXERCISES.