It rained on Barrington History Day, but spirits were not dampened. A display at the Green Hill Chapel featured facts and artifacts from the town’s history. I bought A History of Barrington, NH by Morton Wiggin. The book was actually composed by three Wiggin generations. Elmer compiled notes. His son Morton shaped a book, but died before it was finished, so his daughter, Joan, completed it. She signed my copy!

Colleen Swain, holder of the Boston Post Cane, demonstrated rug hooking. Her husband, Calvin Swain, counts ten generations in the ground in Barrington. The Swains stayed put.

I told stories under a tent beside the Pine Grove Cemetery, which reminded me of the old saying, “It was not the cough that carried him off, it was the coffin they carried him off in.” Which raised the specter of my favorite morbid story. Seems Mother was a little hard to get along with, so when she died the family had mixed feelings. They laid her out in the coffin and the boys loaded it onto the sledge for transport to the bone yard. Unfortunately, the sledge got away from them, slid fast down the hill and banged into a big pine tree. The coffin popped open and Mother sat up, alive and sputtering.

She lived another fifteen years, even harder to get along with than before. Well, death comes to us all, and once again it came for Mother. They loaded her into the coffin, loaded the coffin onto the sledge, and started out for the cemetery. At the top of the hill, Father cautioned: “Hold tight, boys, and mind that big pine tree.”

Since this is the Troubadour’s last ride down the hill, I offer this story of Mrs. Brown’s going-away party. Mrs. Brown had moved to the village 45 years earlier, raised her children, and now was leaving to live closer to them and her grandchildren. Ruth said to Esther, “I’ll see you at Mrs. Brown’s going-away party.”

Esther said, “No, you won’t.”

Ruth said, “She was your next door neighbor for 45 years, course you’ll go and say goodbye to Mrs. Brown.”

Esther replied, “I never said hello to her.”