Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/748

740 So, blest is he, from peaks of human ice

Lit on this Paradise;—

Who 'mid the jar of tongues hears music sweet;—

Who in some foreign street

Thronged with cold eyes catches a hand, a glance,

That deifies his chance,

That turns the dreary city to a home,

The blank hotel to a dome

Of splendor, while the unsympathizing crowd

Seems with his light endowed.

Many there be who call themselves our friends.

But ah! if Heaven sends

One, only one, the fellow to our soul,

To make our half a whole,

Rich beyond price are we. The millionnaire

Without such boon is bare,

Bare to the skin,—a gilded tavern-sign

Creaking with fitful whine

Beneath chill winds, with none to look at him

Save as a label grim

To the good cheer and company within

His comfortable inn.

ATHER sits at the head of our pew. In old Indian times they say that the male head of the family always took that place, on account of the possible whoops of the savages, who sometimes came down on a congregation like wolves on the fold. It was necessary that the men should be ready to rise at once to defend their families. Whatever the old reason was, the new is sufficient. Men must sit near the pew doors now on account of the hoops of the ladies. The cause is different, the effect is the same.

Father, then, sits at the head of the pew; mother next; Aunt Clara next; next I, and then Jerusha. That has been the arrangement ever since I can remember. Any change in our places would be as fatal to our devotions as the dislodgment of Baron Rothschild from his particular pillar was once to the business of the London Stock Exchange. He could not negotiate if not at his post. We could not worship if not in our precise places. I think, by the fussing and fidgeting which taking seats in the church always causes, that everybody has the same feeling.

It was Sunday afternoon. The good minister, Parson Oliver, had finished his sermon. The text was—well, I can't pretend to remember. Aunt Clara's behavior in meeting, and what she said to us that afternoon, have put the text, sermon, and all out of my head forever. That is no matter; or rather, it is all the better; for when the same sermon comes again, in its triennial round, I shall not recognize an old acquaintance.

The sermon finished, we took up our hymn-books, of course. But the minister gave out no hymn. He sat down with a patient look at the choir,