510 
the nursing of the sick and the burial 
of the dead. These experiences could 
come to him in no other way than as 
the natural result of the poverty in 
which he lives. They fit him as no 
other education could for a useful, self- 
sustaining, vigorous manhood. 
It may well be believed that to the 
influence of poverty may be ascribed 
much of the sturdy religious belief 
which always held sway among the 
New England people, and that a sud- 
den influx of wealth, while it might 
and probably would have resulted in a 
more costly house of worship, might 
also have witnessed a departure from 
the simple faith which helped them in 
their hours of trial. 
The frequently cited “New England 
conscience’ was no myth. It was the 
natural product of a time when “a 
working religion,” founded upon sim- 
ple standards of honesty and charity 
and fraternal feeling, was a common 
possession and in daily practical use. 
It is always a cheering retrospect 
which discloses such naive conscien- 
tiousness as that shown by one of the 
forefathers of the hamlet who, when 
measuring the corn he was selling in 
one of the “scarce” years, impulsively 
put in two additional quarts after the 
bargained bushel. He explained it by 
saying he was tempted by the Devil to 
take two quarts out of each bushel and 
determined to “resist” or “cheat” Satan 
by adding two quarts instead! 
The religious spirit was distinctly 
reinforced and given actual expression 
_ by the necessity for mutual helpfulness 
which always exists in such a com- 
munity. To be a good neighbor is a 
cardinal virtue among the poor; and 
this means not so much the contributing 
of your substance as the giving of your- 
self in time of need. Only the past 
summer in the hamlet of which I have 
spoken the men and boys, obedient to 
this kindly impulse, gathered on an 
appointed day, leaving their own work 
by common consent, to hoe the growing 
crops of a neighbor upon whom illness 
had suddenly fallen; and this without 
RECREATION 
any thought of putting upon the bene- 
ficiary an unusual sense of obligation. 
January 19, 1810, was the “Cold 
Friday” and a memorable date in New 
England history. From the mild tem- 
perature of 43 degrees above zero, at 
sunset of the evening before, the mer- 
cury dropped to 25 degrees below zero 
in sixteen hours! This change was 
accompanied by a violent wind which 
overthrew buildings and trees and 
worked havoc over a wide area. In 
the hamlet before mentioned, upon a 
mountain road, there lived, among 
other settlers, a man named Ellsworth, 
his wife and their three children. In 
the violent gale which swept upon their 
house on that terrible night the win- 
dows were blown in and the house itself 
tottered as if in momentary danger of 
destruction. Mrs. Ellsworth and her 
youngest child sought refuge in the 
cellar while her husband, covering his 
two other children in bed, started for 
his nearest neighbor’s, David Brown’s, 
for assistance. Though he had to go 
but a hundred rods, Ellsworth’s face 
and feet were badly frozen and he was 
unable to stand when he finally gained 
his neighbor’s house. Mr. Brown 
hastened to the Ellsworth house with 
his horse and sleigh and found the in- 
mates as left by their father, save that 
the wind had blown off the bed-clothes 
from the older children. He placed 
mother and children in the sleigh, 
covered them with the bedding and 
started for his own house. Twice the 
sleigh was overturned by the terrific 
susts of wind which swept the bleak 
hillside. The first time Mr. Brown 
urged the mother to try and reach his 
house as her limbs were beginning to 
fail. She did so, crawling much of the 
way upon her hands and knees; while 
he, having a second time loaded the 
half-dressed children into the sleigh, 
soon found them again scattered upon 
the snow and his sleigh broken. Cov- 
ering the youngest under a log, he 
started with the two oldest on foot 
toward his house. Their cries urged 
him to the most heroic exertion; but 
