Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 31

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Lovey married Samuel Harwood. They built their home on Chestnut Hill, where they raised a fine family. Monroe was their youngest son, who figured very seriously in the catastrophy I am about to relate.

Uncle Sam and Aunt Lovey were both strictly religious, but did not agree as to the mode of procedure. She threw her whole religious weight on the sixth verse of the sixth chapter of Matthew, while he was a roaring Methodist. Together they attended church on Sunday, but Lovey never attended the weekly home prayer meetings, neither would she allow the church to have one at her home, and so they worshiped for years until Sam's grey locks and the children's clamor induced her to try it just once. Such an unusual event caused the whole church to turn out in mass for a real good spiritual uplifting.

Their house, which my wife and I rode by last time we were in Connecticut, is of the old dominion style. Kitchen, dining and living rooms all in one, and very commodious. Under the stairs to the second story were the stairs to the deep, dark cellar below, of which there was no broad stair at the top, and the cellar door opened into the cellar.

On that memorable evening the room was crammed to suffocation when the meeting opened with the hymn, "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand." Then Abner Dimock, who always prayed so loud as to be heard a mile, and several others, led in prayer, which was followed by inspiring testimonials, to all of which Uncle Sam chimed in Amen, amid the shouts of halleluiah, while Aunt Lovey sat in dreamy silence, with her nose turned just a trifle askance.

The pinnacle was reached when Anise Ladd arose to testify, for every one knew Anise poured forth her feelings without reserve.

"I," she began, "was born peevish and as my neighbors can here testify, was, to say the least, irritable through my maiden and middlehood earthly career, but last winter at our revival meetings, I experienced a genuine halleluiah wave of godliness, and now I coo like a turtle dove and fret or scold no more."

To Uncle Sam, who was tipping back in his chair, this wonderful halleluiah testimony so coincided with his desires toward Lovey, that he shouted, "Glory to God," as in the expansion of his joy he lost his balance, his chair striking the cellar door, which flew open, causing him, still in the chair, to start, head downwards, on his perilous journey into the dismal region below. He did not swear, neither did he shout halleluiah, but fresh grunts followed in rapid succession as he pounded from stair to stair.

During the excitement all trying with lighted tallow candles to ascertain if he was still alive, his son, Monroe, continued roaring and laughing until some one said, "Why, Monroe, it might have killed your father," to which he replied between spasms, "I should have laughed just the same, if I had known it had killed him."

During the excitement Aunt Lovey pressed her hand to her heart, but did not speak until urged by the pastor, when she said: "Well, really, you were all talking so much about going to heaven that when I witnessed Samuel's sudden departure, I wondered, yes, I really wondered, whether my halleluiah husband had started for heaven or for the other place."

Uncle Sam survived and lived on the old place until he was 94 years old, but that was the first and last prayer meeting up to Uncle Sam's.

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ANISE LADD'S HALLELUJAH TESTIMONY. UNCLE SAM LOSING HIS BALANCE. AUNT LOVEY, NONCHALANT, UNDER THE PICTURE ON THE WALL.