The religion which
they had endured such bitter hardships to establish, did not, in their
minds, need any shielding and coddling to keep it alive, but thrived far
better on Spartan severity and simplicity; hence, it took two centuries of
gradual and most tardy softening and modifying of character to prepare the
Puritan mind for so advanced a reform and luxury as proper warmth in the
meeting-houses in winter.
IX.
The Noon-House.
There might have been seen a hundred years ago, by the side of many an old
meeting-house in New England, a long, low, mean, stable-like building, with
a rough stone chimney at one end. This was the "noon-house," or "Sabba-day
house," or "horse-hows," as it was variously called. It was a place of
refuge in the winter time, at the noon interval between the two services,
for the half-frozen members of the pious congregation, who found there the
grateful warmth which the house of God denied. They built in the rude stone
fireplace a great fire of logs, and in front of the blazing wood ate their
noon-day meal of cold pie, of doughnuts, of pork and peas, or of brown
bread with cheese, which they had brought safely packed in their capacious
saddlebags. The dining-place smelt to heaven of horses, for often at the
further end of the noon-house were stabled the patient steeds that, doubly
burdened, had borne the Puritans and their wives to meeting; but this
stable-odor did not hinder appetite, nor did the warm equine breaths that
helped to temper the atmosphere of the noon-house offend the senses of the
sturdy Puritans.
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