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The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Pages
about 49
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
53 min at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 30 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Transcribed from the 1907 Archibald Constable & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

To a certain handful of dear New England women of names unknown to the world, dwelling in a certain quiet village, alike unknown:--

We have worked together to make our little corner of the great universe a pleasanter place in which to live, and so we know, not only one another's names, but something of one another's joys and sorrows, cares and burdens, economies, hopes, and anxieties.

We all remember the dusty uphill road that leads to the green church common. We remember the white spire pointing upward against a background of blue sky and feathery elms. We remember the sound of the bell that falls on the Sabbath morning stillness, calling us across the daisy-sprinkled meadows of June, the golden hayfields of July, or the dazzling whiteness and deep snowdrifts of December days. The little cabinet-organ that plays the doxology, the hymn-books from which we sing "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," the sweet freshness of the old meeting-house, within and without--how we have toiled to secure and preserve these humble mercies for ourselves and our children!

There really is a Dorcas Society, as you and I well know, and one not unlike that in these pages; and you and I have lived through many discouraging, laughable, and beautiful experiences while we emulated the Bible Dorcas, that woman "full of good works and alms deeds."

There never was a Peabody Pew in the Tory Hill Meeting-House, and Nancy's love story and Justin's never happened within its century-old walls; but I have imagined only one of the many romances that have had their birth under the shadow of that steeple, did we but realize it.

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