done the same thing, as
_they_ were by parents even more strict, if that were possible; until
not religious persons peculiarly, but everybody--not churches alone, but
society itself, and all its population, those who broke it as much as
those who kept it--were stained through with the color of Sunday. Nay,
until Nature had adopted it, and laid its commands on all birds and
beasts, on the sun and winds, and upon the whole atmosphere; so that
without much imagination one might imagine, in a genuine New England
Sunday of the Connecticut River Valley stamp, that God was still on that
day resting from all the work which he had created and made, and that
all his work rested with him!

Over all the town rested the Lord's peace! The saw was ripping away
yesterday in the carpenter's shop, and the hammer was noisy enough.
Today there is not a sign of life there. The anvil makes no music
to-day. Tommy Taft's buckets and barrels give forth no hollow, thumping
sound. The mill is silent--only the brook continues noisy. Listen! In
yonder pine woods what a cawing of crows! Like an echo, in a wood still
more remote other crows are answering. But even a crow's throat to-day
is musical. Do they think, because they have black coats on, that they
are parsons, and have a right to play pulpit with all the pine-trees?
Nay. The birds will not have any such monopoly,--they are all singing,
and singing all together, and no one cares whether his song rushes
across another's or not. Larks and robins, blackbirds and orioles,
sparrows and bluebirds, mocking cat-birds and wrens, were furrowing the
air with such mixtures as no other day but Sunday, when all artificial
and human sounds cease, could ever hear. Every now and then a bobolink
seemed impressed with the duty of bringing these jangling birds into
more regularity; and like a country singing-master, he flew down the
ranks, singing all the parts himself in snatches, as if to stimulate and
help the laggards. In vain! Sunday is the birds' day, and they will have
their own democratic worship.

There was no sound in the village street. Look either way--not a
vehicle, not a human being. The smoke rose up soberly and quietly, as if
it said--It is Sunday! The leaves on the great elms hung motionless,
glittering in dew, as if they too, like the people who dwelt under their
shadow, were waiting for the bell to ring for meeting. Bees sung and
flew as usual; but honey-bees have a Sunday way with them all t