s. Beecher and she said that Mr. Beecher had not sold this woman
twice, so far as she knew, but that she recalled distinctly the sale
in the Plymouth Church. I remember standing up on tip-toes to look
for that woman that was being sold. After he had finished, after the
singing of the hymn, he said "Brethren, be seated," and then said,
"Sam, come here." A colored boy came up tremblingly and stood beside
him. "This boy is offered for $770.00; he is owned in South Carolina
and has run away. His master offers him to me for $770.00, and now if
the officers of the church will pass the plates the boy shall be set
free," and when the plates were returned over $1700.00 came in. As we
went our way home I said to my elder brother: "Oh, what a grand thing
it must be to preach to a congregation of fifteen hundred people." But
my elder brother very wisely said: "You don't know anything about it;
you do not know whether he is happy or not." "Well," I suggested,
"wasn't it a strange thing to introduce a public auction in the middle
of a sermon," and my elder brother again said that if they did more
of that in a country church they would have a larger congregation.
Afterwards I was quite fortunate to know Mr. Beecher and frequently
reported his sermons. I often heard him say that the happiest years
he ever knew were back in Lawrenceville, Ohio, in that little church
where there were no lamps and he had to borrow them himself, light
them himself, and prepare the church for the first service. He told
how he swept the church, lighted the fire in the stove, and how it
smoked; then how he sawed the wood to heat the church, and how he went
into carpenter work to earn money to pay his own salary, yet he
said that was the happiest time of his life. Mrs. Beecher told me
afterwards that Mr. Beecher often talked about those days and said
that bye and bye he would retire and they would again go back to the
simple life they had enjoyed so much.

When he had built his new home near the Hudson, Robert Collier and I
visited him. We found in the rear of an addition that clap-boards had
been put up in all sorts of adjustment. Mr. Collier asked him: "Where
did you find a carpenter to do such poor work as that?" and Mr.
Beecher said humorously: "You could not hire that carpenter on your
house." Then he said: "Mr. Collier, I put those boards on that house
myself. I insisted that they leave that work for me to do. I have been
happy putting on these boards an