CHAPTER VIII
HER RELIGION
The village church in the forties as described by her Sister Sue must have bred either mysticism or madness in a soul like that of Emily Dickinson.
It stood on the hill at the head of the village common, swept by the four winds of heaven. Architecture was never thought of or mentioned in those days. The old village church with its Grecian pillars was late in its life a target for any lazy wit, but that it survived beheading once, and lived bravely on in spite of jests, and stands to-day with little external change—rather Grecian in effect—defying its malefactors, bespeaks its integrity of composition.
The original interior was truly an odd picture. There were high pews painted white, with doors fastened securely by brass buttons, affording something of a sense of tribal ownership and comfort in the owner's sentiment of worship. These doors were too often carelessly slammed, but that only set off the noise made by the sexton just as the sermon ended, throwing open the doors of the two cast-iron box stoves with violence and hurling strange-looking geometrical wood, called felly wood, into their vast satanic depths, so that the farmers and their families, who remained for afternoon service at one o'clock, might warm their half-frozen members and refill their foot stoves. During the noon interval, as they sat about the red-hot stove on the circular seats, neighborly visiting was indulged in, with low sad tones. A meagre lunch was drawn from the large yellow muffs to stay them up for the long later service, while from the
