Sunday, March 6, 2011

Battledore and Shuttlecock...

Edward Waldo Emerson tells this story of his father and the Sabbath...

"Father always expected that Sunday should be observed in the household, not with the old severity, but with due regard for a custom which he valued for itself as well as for it's association, and also for the feelings of others. We could read and walk...but were not expected to...play games or romp or go to drive or row...One rainy Sunday when we could not go to walk we got permission from our mother to play Battledore and Shuttlecock for a little while, but no sooner did the sound of the shuttlecock on the parchment bathead ring through the house than we heard the study door open and our father's stride in the entry. He came in and said: "That sound was never heard in New England before on Sunday and must not be in my house. Put them away..."

Have a blessed Sabbath

1 comment:

David G. Markham said...

God the Patriarch has spoken. So much for enlightenment.

David Markham