But five heads of caraway, though each contain many
score of seeds, and the whole number be slowly nibbled and eaten one seed
at a time, will not last through the child's eternity of a long doctrinal
sermon; and when the umbels were all devoured, the young experimentalist
began upon the stalks and stems, and they, too, slowly disappeared. She
then attacked the sprays of southernwood, and in spite of its bitter,
wormwoody flavor, having nothing else to do, she finished it, all but the
tough stems, just as the long sermon was brought to a close. Her waking
mother, discovering no signs of green verdure in the pew, quickly drew
forth a whispered confession of the time-killing Nebuchadnezzar-like feast,
and frightened and horrified, at once bore the leaf-gorged child from
the church, signalling in her retreat to the village doctor, who quickly
followed and administered to the omnivorous young New Englander a bolus
which made her loathe to her dying day, through a sympathetic association
and memory, the taste of caraway, and the scent of southernwood.
An old gentleman, lamenting the razing of the church of his childhood,
told the story of his youthful Sabbaths in rhyme, and thus refers with
affectionate enthusiasm to the old custom of bringing bunches of esculent
"sallet" herbs to meeting:--
"And when I tired and restless grew,
Our next pew neighbor, Mrs.
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