A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Scoville Samuel

remained a few days at Walnut Hills, and then took the little steamer with a free pass to Lawrenceburg. We were to board for the present, as we did not think that eighteen cents in pocket and three hundred dollars a year prospective salary would enable us to begin housekeeping. Lawrenceburg was a small place on the Miami.

      “Mr. Beecher was obliged to take charge of that part of the building in which he was to preach. Together we went every Saturday afternoon, swept and dusted the room, filled the lard-oil lamps, and laid the wood and kindlings ready for him to start the fire the next morning before service, when needed; for the members of the church were all, except a few families, poor laboring people, with all they could attend to at home.

      “But curiosity to hear the young preacher filled the room the first Sabbath, and from that time it continued to be filled—crowded. The Methodist church had always been the fashionable church, where the wealthy and more refined part of the population worshipped. This little Presbyterian church had almost died out, and, when first requested to preach there, neither Mr. Beecher nor the people had any thought of his coming for more than that one Sabbath. But his manner of preaching was so very different from what they had been accustomed to—so original—that they wanted to hear him again, and after that they gave him a call to settle there. The Home Missionary Society were to give $150, and the little band who composed the church thought they could manage to raise $150—in all $300—and the call was accepted, notwithstanding the remonstrance of friends in Cincinnati. They were more ambitious for him than he was for himself, knowing that he could doubtless, in a short time, get a better settlement. They knew, also, he intended to marry as soon as his theological course was finished, and thought him wild to think of bringing a wife out West and expect to be able to live on three hundred dollars a year. But from the first he acted up to the advice he always gave in after-years to young graduates from theological seminaries: ‘Don’t hang round idle, waiting for a good offer. Enter the first field God opens for you. If He needs you in a larger one He will open the gate for you to enter.’ And so he did.

“From his first sermon^[4] in Lawrenceburg that little room was crowded. He did not extemporize so entirely, at first, as in later years—at least he wrote more copious notes—but those who knew him can well imagine that when warmed up by his subject his notes did not hold him very closely.

      4. “See Appendix A.”

      “How vividly I recall that first Sabbath! How young, how boyish he did look! And how indignant I felt, when some of the ‘higher classes’ came in out of simple curiosity, to see the surprised, almost scornful looks that were interchanged!

      “He read the first hymn, and read it well—as they had never heard their own ministers (often illiterate, uneducated men) read hymns. I watched the expression change on their faces. Then the first prayer! It was a revelation to them, and when he began the sermon the critical expression had vanished, and they evidently settled themselves to hear in earnest.

      “The next Sunday the interest was still more strongly marked. His preaching was to them something unusual. It was evident the hearers were not quite at ease. He woke them up, and they were not quite prepared to decide whether they were anxious to be so thoroughly aroused. They were not exactly comfortable, and some went away, after the services were over, a little irritated and half-decided never to hear him again.

      “The next Sabbath they concluded it would not hurt them to go just this one time more, and from that time were constant attendants. The satisfaction with this young preacher increased, and many from all sects came regularly.”

      On his return from the East with his young wife, not feeling that they could afford to undertake housekeeping, he accepted the hospitality of one of his elders, who had offered him a room in his house. There they lived for some little time, when the sudden death of a member of the family and the necessity of a change in the good elder’s domestic arrangements required the use of this room.

      At this time Mr. Beecher was attending a synodical meeting at Cincinnati. Mrs. Beecher set to work at once to get board elsewhere. Failing in this, she sought to hire rooms. After hunting until nearly exhausted she secured the refusal of two rooms over a stable down by the banks of the Miami, which had been occupied by the hostler, rental forty dollars per annum.

      She immediately took the boat to Cincinnati, and then, being too poor to hire a wagon, she walked to Walnut Hills, four miles from Cincinnati—which was then the home of the Beecher family—to report on the state of affairs to her husband. A hasty examination of his finances showed just sixty-eight cents. As they had no household furniture of any kind, the prospect was not alluring. But an ability to get along somehow was a characteristic of those days. Friends, though not over-rich themselves, were able each to furnish something. One supplied half of an old carpet, another some knives and forks, a third a few sheets and pillow-cases, then a bedstead, a stove; and little by little, before they returned home that night, there was gathered together enough to meet the absolute requirements of living. Later the sale of Mrs. Beecher’s cloak realized thirty dollars. The salary, though nominally $500 per annum, was in fact but $300, of which one-half was paid by the Home Missionary Society, and neither half paid with great regularity. Any industrious day-laborer of modern times would have been ill-content with either income or home possessions.

      Returning from Walnut Hills, the next thing was to cleanse the rooms and settle down. Mrs. Beecher gives a graphic account of their first housekeeping: “When we reached our former boarding-house we found our good friends with whom we had boarded very blue because their pastor and wife could find no better rooms; but the lady was a true New England woman and knew how soon a little hard labor would change the looks of the rooms. Old Toby, their colored man, brought round, the next morning, two pails and scrub-brushes and plenty of soap, and Henry and I went to work with great energy. Think of father with sleeves rolled up, a big apron on, scrubbing the floors! But I confess I never had known anything so hard to clean. Tobacco-stains and all manner of dirt that might have been looked for from the former occupants was so soaked into the floor that it seemed impossible to remove the stains. I asked the landlord if we might get some paint and paint the floors. ‘Oh! no. That would injure the wood!’

      “In a day or two the rooms were as clean as faithful, hard work could make them, and after our last breakfast with our kind friends we bade them good-morning, with thanks and a blessing, and went to get our furniture, which the good captain of the steamboat had stored until we were ready. With it came some groceries, wash-tubs, and a nice painted dining-table, and a husk mattress, and husk pillows.

      “ ‘Where did these last things come from?’ said your father.

      “ ‘Part of my cloak,’ I replied, ‘but not all of it.’

      “The kitchen-window looked out on a large back-yard that could be made a fine one with a little care, but among the rubbish I espied an old three-legged table and something that looked like the remains of small hanging shelves. I ran down stairs and asked the landlady if they had been thrown aside as worthless. ‘Oh! yes. They are good for nothing.’ ‘Then may I have them?’ ‘Certainly. But on examination you will find them of no use.’

      “I washed and cleaned them well, and called to Henry to take them up-stairs to our rooms. By the table I found the broken leg. With very little trouble the table was repaired, the hanging shelves put up, and both varnished. They proved to be mahogany, and when the varnish was dry they looked quite nice. Among your father’s very scanty wardrobe was an old coat past any mending. I took the skirt, cleaned it, and put it on the top of the table, and fastened the sides and ends with some strips of kid that I had brought from home. It did look quite fine, and you can hardly imagine how much pride and pleasure your father had with his writing-table.

      “The long boxes made in Amherst expressly to pack his books in when he came West were well made of planed boards. These we set one atop of the other, open side out, and filled with books bought by his own labors while in college, teaching school, and making speeches. These made quite a fine addition to the room which was to be