[Gutenberg 1902] • The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church

From a literary point of view Wiggin's childhood was most distinctive for her encounter with the novelist Charles Dickens. Her mother and another relative had gone to hear Dickens read in Portland, but Wiggin, aged 11, was thought to be too young to warrant an expensive ticket. The following day, however, she found herself on the same train as Dickens and engaged him in a lively conversation for the course of the journey, an experience which she later detailed in a short memoir, A Child's Journey with Dickens (1912). The Dorcas society of the little church has set its collective mind to the task of re-dressing the floors -- which means cleaning the pews, too -- and if they cannot have it done by Thanksgiving, why, then, let it be by Christmas. Nancy Wentworth, at thirty-five the most vivacious of them, with her youth undimmed by her work as teacher, throws herself into the work, even the dirty business of scrubbing. She begins to clean the Peabody Pew, which starts Mrs. Sargent into the subject of that worthless Peabody son, long missing. -I know there's a Peabody still alive and doing business in Detroit, - Mrs. Burbank says then, -for I got his address a week ago, and I wrote asking if he would send a few dollars toward repairing the old church.- Nancy turns her face to the wall and silently wipes at the paint of the wainscoting. The blood that has rushed into her cheeks at Mrs. Sargent's jeering reference to Justin Peabody still lingers there, for anyone at all to read.