Ir was about five o'clock on a morning late in July that I started on horseback to ride to town, from a village about twenty miles from New York, on the old Boston road. It was the cool morning of what I knew would be a hot day. The dews of the midsummer night had laid the dust of the roads. The time was gone for roses, and few flowers were to be seen in the gardens as I passed along. The blinds of the houses were shut, the inmates not being awake yet. One of the agreeable peculiarities of horseback riding is that in this way of getting about one learns the points of the compass, and obtains some notion of the geographical relation to each other of the various regions traversed. We know that, if we walk along a certain road or pavement, it will take us to a place one, two, three, perhaps four miles away. But to reach a point thirty miles off, there is but a single method known to the experience. This is to buy a ticket and take a seat in the railway car. The ticket is punched a few times, and the traveler arrives at his destination, all the while having had no more notion of north, south, east or west than a sultana, who, sewn up in a bag, is shot from the window of the seraglio into the Bosphorus. The traveler by railway only knows that he leaves one familiar spot, and in a little while finds himself at another. It gives him a novel sense of liberty and independence to discover that, by following a certain beautiful road, his horse will surely carry him the distance between the two places. "A good man on a good horse is servant to no man," says the Portuguese proverb. He mounts when he likes, rides at dawn, noon, evening, or by moonlight, and no conductor calls the names of the villages as he passes.

The morning was so beautiful and the air so pleasant that I did not hurry. But presently the sun became too strong. It was after seven when I reached a hill-top which looked down upon a cluster of houses about a stream crossed by a bridge. Here I said I would rest for the hot hours of the day; and I thought how pleasant it would be if I should find a pretty church, in which I might sit and look out of the window, and listen to a discourse punctuated by the monotonous stamping of the horses tied without to the palings.

I had in mind the rectangular, very white VOL. XIV.―30.

| church with green blinds and a white steeple, which is to be seen everywhere in New England and in the adjacent regions. It is, so far as I know, the one contribution which this country has made to public architecture. It belongs to and has well suited the New England landscape and history. Set in some high place, it is seen from all the lorn, round hill-tops of its native region; its spire is the one white object in that drear and narrow landscape, lifted close into the chill and dun sky of the later summer. That edifice is most expressive of the piety and the virtuous poverty of its early builders, of the silent life of the successive societies which, scattered and concealed, their poor homes unmarked even by the smoke of their hearthstones, have spread themselves throughout those melancholy hills. I like, too, the village steeples, with the ornaments in which the aesthetic feeling of the Puritans found humorous vent. Was there ever such utter extravagance of wire and gilt? Cupola succeeds cupola, and the cock succeeds the ball and arrow, and there is always another ball, and always another arrow. It will be a sad day for the New England landscape when these charming and truthful monuments will be replaced by foolish stone structures which have no meaning or beauty.

Suddenly I looked to my right and there rose, not a hundred yards away, what was perhaps the most beautiful church I had ever seen in this country. It was an old black and red brick building with a tower and an extremely pretty belfry, and stood in the midst of some acres of thickly studded tombstones. With an agreeable sense that the deserts of a man must be considerable who should come upon such a piece of good luck, I began to look for an inn. I was directed to a little place not very far off. It was a low whitish house close by the road-side with a narrow porch, and with no gate or fence before the door. The house had a shabby and sinister appearance. It might have been the scene of a murder which should get into all the papers, and the fame of which should bring throngs of people to stare at it on Sunday afternoons. Though this was the impression which the outside of the house gave me, I have never found a better tavern. France cannot supply a better dinner nor England a pleasanter landlord than Odell's tavern. I discovered

that the place had a history of its own. The oldest part of the house had been standing for more than a hundred and fifty years. In the days before railways it had been a great stopping-place for travelers. Two hundred horses had once been stabled where now my own horse champed his oats side by side with the solitary filly of the landlord. Dinner had been served there to many eminent persons, very much thought of in their day, but whose names are now scarcely known even to their descendants. The landlord told me that on a mantel-piece which stood in a part of the house now torn down, there was the name of each of the Presidents of the United States, carved thereon with his own hand. But I should doubt the truth of this. John Quincy Adams would not have been likely to cut his name on a mantel-piece. The railway has since left the place some miles to one side. It is now known only to people who drive out from town.

The hall was rather wide and was covered with a well-worn oil-cloth. It contained a table set against the wall, on which there was a large brass dinner-bell. A small and very old black-and-tan trotted through the hall and sat about the porch. It was an extremely high-bred dog, the landlord informed me, and very old and shriveled, so that his nose had receded from his teeth and was turned violently upward. I supposed he was snarling at me, until I saw that the little wits he had left were perfectly well disposed to me. But during the whole morning, I could not quite reconcile the ominous and fixed grin of the little creature with the mild and feeble expression of his half-blind eyes. In company with this aged black-and-tan, I sat upon the porch for an hour or two, feeling the first heats of the day. The dust of the road before the door was not disturbed by the passing of a single wagon, and not a sound came from within the house. I read a history of Westchester County. This book contained a story of Washington which was new to me. During the time of the Revolution there lived in the neighborhood in which this tavern stood, a Mr. Lyon, who was a blind man. Washington was once dining at the house of this gentleman, when Mr. Lyon said to him: "General, I am a blind man myself, but the ladies tell me that you are a very handsome man." Washington said: "Sir, I fear the ladies are as blind as yourself." This appears to me to have been a very rude remark on the part of the Father of his country.

I was at the church half an hour before the service began, and learned from the sexton or bell-ringer, something about the history of it. It appeared that the building was more than a hundred years old. The church was used through the Revolutionary war by the British as a hospital, and served as a court-room during the years immediately following. Hung up in the vestry there was a subpoena signed with the name of Aaron Burr. The bell which still summons the people to church was the same which had been buried at the approach of the English troops. A prayer-book which had been in use since 1715, and which had also been hid during the Revolution, was shown me. The congregation was very much older than this building, a frame church having long stood upon the site opposite. This frame church was broken up and burned for firewood by the British inside the brick church. A former rector and zealous benefactor of the church lay with his wife under the chancel of the frame edifice. The rector, who had devoted himself with great energy to the erection of this little brick cathedral, requested in his will that his body and that of his wife should be buried in it. He died, however, before its completion, his body was buried in the frame church, and his request was neglected until some boys, in playing about the old site, came upon the good man's bones. The rector and his wife have now long been laid under the chancel of the church to the erection of which he devoted himself with such zeal, and looked forward with such hope and wonder.

The Sunday-school was held upstairs in a chapel attached to the back of the church. The room was small and by no means full. In one corner a young lady taught two or three of the larger girls. I saw her several times during the day. She appeared to enter into pretty much every religious equation of the neighborhood. She taught in the Sunday-school; I saw her in the choir, and it was she whom, at the close of the service, I observed in consultation with the rector. The school had an unmistakable amateur and ineffective look. The boy who took up the collection had no basket, but used his felt hat instead. This he shook in a hopeless sort of way before each company of scholars; his want of faith in the willingness or ability to pay of any one present must itself have had a paralyzing effect upon the generosity of the company. He quickly took the hat to the

I was sitting in the church before the bells had begun to ring. But I soon heard behind me the rustling of dresses in the aisles. The rustling quickly became more frequent. The prayer-books were noisily let fall in their receptacles. As the various companies of village maids came up the aisles and sat in the pews, odors of heliotrope, anenome, lavender and new-mown hay began to diffuse themselves through the building. I was offered many prayer-books which I was unable to take. For how could I accept the book of the ladies on my left when I had already declined that of some ladies who sat just behind me? For the same reason I was compelled to decline the proffered volume of some very pretty girls who sat in the next pew to my right. In the pew just in front of me there were two little girls who were, I think, not more than ten years old. One of them, looking back, saw that I was without a book. There soon began a low whispered conversation between them. One nudged her little friend and said: "You; " the other whispered: "No, you." At length one, barely looking round, held out a book in a very timid way, and this, of course, it was necessary that I should take.

The service over, the people stayed a considerable time under the trees by the church door, standing on the grass and cool stone walks, shaded from the hot summer weather without. It was long before the sociable

assembly had finished their greetings. The carriages waited, drawn up before the door, while the people chatted. Indeed, it is by no means easy to get safely away from church one of those large families which take up two pews to themselves. Not to speak of the little girls in blue boots, there are three boys very near of a size, and the whole have to be marshaled by the two tall girls in white hats and red sashes. Young mammas, who had not met for a week, perhaps a fortnight, stood by the gate and pecked each other with many inquiries and many expressions of delight.

Afterward I walked back to the tavern, and the landlord gave me such a dinner as I did not suppose an American tavern could supply. It was not French, of course; but an appetite which the morning's ride and the sermon had made eager was met by a sound and fresh repast. The dinner was from the landlord's own garden, the lobster even, it was said, having been caught in the little bay which approached the foot of it. Later in the day I set out for New York, and, after an hour's riding, soon met barouches and phaetons containing people with town faces. I passed the Jerome race-course, with its gilt and yellow gate-way. I passed many roadhouses, and met on my way caravans of rapid drivers, looking madly unhappy. I soon reached the well-kept woods of the Park, and saw before me, in the advancing sundown, the roofs and towers of the town, the hewn fragments of rising cathedrals, and the scattered structures of the newer city. The sky beyond the bay and the town was of a cold and faint red. It was a scene of bronze which I now looked over, most unlike those quiet villages, unconscious of the nearness of a great city, which I had left but two hours before.

SMETHURSTSES, mum-yes, mum, on accounts of me bein' Smethurst an' the waxworks mine. Fifteen year I've been in the business, an' if I live fifteen year more I shall have been in it thirty; for wax-works is the kind of a business as a man gets used to and friendly with, after a manner. Lor' bless you! there's no tellin' how much company them there wax-works is. I've picked a companion or so out of the collection. Why, there's Lady Jane Grey, as is readin' her Greek Testyment; when her works is in

order an' she's set a-goin', liftin' her eyes gentle-like from her book, I could fancy as she knew every trouble I'd had an' was glad as they was over. And there's the Royal Fam'ly on the dais all a settin' together as free and home-like and smilin' as if they wasn't nothin' more than flesh an' blood like you an' me an' not a crown among 'em. Why, they've actually been a comfort to me. I've set an' took my tea on my knee on the step there many a time, because it seemed cheerfuller than in my

own little place at the back. If I was a talkin' man I might object to the stillness an' a general fixedness in the gaze, as perhaps is an objection as wax-works is open to as a rule, though I can't say as it ever impressed me as a very affable gentleman once said it impressed him.

"Smethurst," says he, " you must have a blamed clear conscience (though, bein' rather free-spoken, blamed' was not the precise word employed)-you must have a blamed clear conscience or I'm blamed if you could stand so many blamed pair of staring eyes gimleting you year in an' year out. An' as to them with works," says he, "they're worse than the others, for even if they turn away a minute they always turn back again, as if they wouldn't trust you out of their sight."

But somehow, I never thought of it in that way, an' as to not liking the quiet, why shouldn't I? In a general way I haven't got no more to say than they have, and so it suits me well enough. I will own though, as I've never felt particular comfortable in the Chamber of Horrors, an' never wouldn't have had one, but even in a small collection like mine the public demands it, an' wouldn't hear of bein' satisfied without one, "for" says they, "what's the use of a wax-works without Manning an' them, an' the prisoners in the dock an' the knife as the young woman was cut up in pieces with ?" So I was obliged to have the little back room hung with black, like Madame Tussaud's in a small way, and fitted up with murders and a model of the guillotine and two or three heads of parties as come to a untimely end in the French Revolution. But it aint my taste for all that, and there's always a heaviness in the air as makes me low-like an' I'm glad to turn the key on 'em at night an' leave 'em to have a rest from the stares an' talk an' stirrin' up of their sin, an' the shame an' agony of their dreadful deaths. Good Lord! it turns me sick to think of them havin' been real livin' creatures with mothers an' wives an' friends, some of 'em perhaps livin' to-day all crushed an' blasted with the horror they've went through.

But that aint the story as I've half-way promised to tell you. If you really want to hear it, mum, I don't mind tellin' it, though I don't know as it will be interestin'-I've often wondered if it would be as interestin' to outsiders as it was to me, bein' as it's the story of a friend of mine as was something like me an' likewise had a wax

works. Would you mind settin' there, mum, next to the Japanese party? This lady's works was broke an' her bein' absent at the cleaner's leaves the chair vacant most convenient.

His name it was Joe-this acquaintance of mine, an', as I said, he was somethin' of my build an' temper. He was a quiet chap an' a lonely chap, an' London was his native place-leastways, I don't see as it could have been no nativer than it was, bein' as he was laid at the door of a London foundlin' when he wasn't no more than a few days old, and London fed him and clothed him until he was big enough to take care of hisself. He hadn't a easy

life of it as you may be sure. He wasn't handsome nor yet sharp, he couldn't answer back nor yet give cheek; he could only take it, which he had to do frequent.

There was plenty of folks as give him the character of a nat'ral born fool, an' they may have been right. They said as no chap as had his right senses could be as good-natured an' ready to forgive a injury an' above all as slow to suspect as one was bein' done him. I think they thought his bein' slow to suspect harm a-goin' on was the best proof of his bein' a fool,—an' he wasn't ready enough with his tongue to argy the point. He wasn't never good at a argyment-Joe wasn't.

Well, he growed up, an' he did first one thing an' then another, until at last he was picked up by a travelin' wax-works showman as had just such a collection as this here of mine-havin' in it just such a Lady Jane Grey, and likewise a sim❜lar Royal Fam❜ly.

"Well," says the wax-works man, when Joe first goes to ask for work, "what can you do?"

"Not much, perhaps," says Joe; "leastways, I've not been in the business before; but if you'll give me a job, Mister, I can do what I'm told."

The showman gives him a look from head to foot.

"Well," says he, " at all events, you're not one of them blarsted sharp uns as knows everything an' can't dust a figger without knockin' its head off. I've had enough of them sort"-savage like-"a-ruinin' my Richard Cure the Lion, an' a-settin' Mary Queen o' Scottses insides all wrong" (which was what his last young man had been adoin').

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No," answers Joe, slow an' serious, "I don't think as I'd do that."

The showman gives him another look, an' seems sort of satisfied.

"Go inside an' get your dinner," he says. "I'll try you just because you haven't got so much cheek."

And he did try him, an' pretty well they got on together, after a while. Slowness is not a objection in a wax-works as much as in a business as is less delicater. I've thought myself as p'r'aps wax-works has their feelin's, an' knows who means respec'ful by 'em an' who doesn't, an' this Joe meant respec'ful, an' never took no liberties as he could help. He dusted 'em reg'lar, an' wound 'em up an' set 'em goin' accordin' to rules; but he never tried no larks on 'em, an' that was why he gets along so well with his master.

"That other chap was too fond of his larks," says the showman, kind of gloomy whenever he mentions the first young man. He never forgave him to the day of his death for openin' the collection one day with Charles the Secondses helmet on Mrs. Hannah Mooreses head, an' Daniel in the Lions' Den in William Pennses spectacles, with some other party's umbrella under his

arm.

But Joe weren't of a witty turn, an' not given to jokes, which is not suited to waxworks as a rule, collections bein' mostly serious. An', as I say, him an' his master got along so well that one day, after they had been together a year or so, the showman, he says to him, "Joe," says he, "I'm blessed if I'd mind takin' you in as a partner." An' that very mornin' he has the reg'lar papers made out, an' the thing was done without no more said about it. An' partners they was till he died, which happened very unexpected-him a sayin' sudden one night when they was a-shuttin' up together, "Joe, old chap, I'm blessed if my works aint a runnin' down," an' gives one look round at the figgers, an' then drops-which the medical man said as it was dropsy of the heart. When his things was looked over, it was found he'd left everythin' to Joe except one partic'lar ugly figger, as turned his eyes with a squint an' couldn't be done nothin' with, an' him he'd left to a old maid relation as had a spite agin him; "for," says the will," she'd ought to have him, for he's the only chap I ever see yet as could match her-let alone stand her, an' it's time she was takin' a partner, if she's goin' to." They did say as it was nearly the party's death, for, though they'd quarreled reg'lar for twenty-five years an' hated each other deadly, she'd always believed as she'd come into his belongin's if

she outlived him, thinkin' as he wouldn't make no will.

Well, havin' had company for so long, it was nat❜ral as Joe should feel lonely-like after this, an' now an' then get a trifle downhearted. He didn't find travelin' all alone as pleasant as it had been, so when he was makin' anything at all in a place, he'd stay in it as long as he could, an' kind of try to persuade hisself as it was kind of home to him, an' he had things to hold him to it. He had a good many feelin's in secret as might have been laughed at if people had knowed 'em. He knew well enough as he wasn't the kind of chap to have a home of his own-men as has homes has wives, an' who'd have wanted to marry him, bless you

he wasn't the build as young women take to. He weren't nothin' to look at, an' he couldn't chaff, nor yet lark, nor yet be ready with his tongue. In general, young women was apt to make game of him when their sweethearts brought em' into the collection, an' there was times when a pretty, lighthearted one would put him out so as he scarcely knew the Royal Fam❜ly by name, an' mixed up the Empress of the French an' Lucreecher Borgiar in the description.

So he lived on, lonesome enough, for two or three year, an' then somethin' happened. He went up to London to stay while the races was goin' on, an' one day, when the collection was pretty full, there comes in a swell party with a girl on his arm. The swell, as was a tall, fine-lookin' chap, was in high sperits, an' had just come in for the lark of the thing, Joe sees plain, for he were makin' his jokes free an' easy about everythin', an' laughin' fit to kill hisself every now an' then. But the girl were different; she were a little rosy thing, with round, shinin' eyes, an' a soft, little timid way with her. She laughed too, but only shy an' low, an' more because she was happy an' because the swell laughed. She wasn't the kind of young woman as the swell ought to have been a-goin' with. She was dressed in her best, an' was as pretty as a pictur'; but her clothes was all cheap, an' Joe could see as she belonged to the workin' class, an' was out for a holiday. She held close to the gentleman's arm, an' seemed half frightened, an' yet so glad an' excited that she would have minded you of a six-year-old child. It were the first time she'd ever been into a waxworks, an' things looked wonderful to her. When they come to Lady Jane Grey she was quite took with her, an' begun to ask questions in the innocentest way.