The Litchfield County post., 1828-02-28
THE WIDOW AND HER SON. From Rlackwond,s Mapazine.

Not more beautiful vale ever inspired pastoral poet in Arcadia, nor did Scilian shepherds of old ever pipe to each other for prise of oaten reed, in a loveler nook than where yonder cottage stands, shaded, but scarcely sheltered by few birch trees. 1t is in truth not cottage-but shieling of turf, part of the knoll adhering to the side of the mountain. Not another dwell ling-even small as itself-within mile in any direction.-Those goats, which seem to walk where there is no footing along the side of the mountain, go of themselves to be milked at evening, to house beyond the hill, without any barking dog to set them home. There are many footpalhs, but all of steep ascent except one leading through the coppice-wood to the distant kirk. The angler seldom distunbs those shadows, and the heron has them to him sell, watching often with motionless neck all day long. Yet the shIeling is inhabited and has been so by the same person good many years. You might look at it for hours and yet see no one so much as nov ing to the door. But little smoke hov- CTS cer Ike mist and nothing else tells that within is life.
 It is inhabited by a widow, who once was the happiest wives, and lived far a. down ,he glen, where it is richly cultivated in house astir with many children. It SO happened, that in the course of nature, without any extraordinary bereavements, she outlived all the household, except one, on whom fell the saddest affliction that can befall human being-the utter loss of his reason. For some years after the death of her husband and all her other children, this son was her support; and there was no occasion to pity them in poverty, where all were poor. Her natural cheerfulness never forsook her and although fallen back in the world, aud obliged in her age, to live without many comforts she once had known, yet all the past gradually was Softened into peace, and the worthy wid- ow and her son were happy in that shiel- ing as any family in the parish. He work ed all kinds of work without, and she sate spinning from morning to night within--a constant occupation soothing to one before whose mind past times might otherwise have come too often, and that creates con- tentment by its undisturbed sameness and visible progression. If not always at meals the widow saw her son an hour or two ev- cry night, and throughout ;he whole Sab bath-day. They slept too under one roof and she liked the stormy weather when rain was on, for then he found some in- genious employment within the shieling, or cheered her with some book lent by friend, or with the wild and plaintive mus ic of his native hills. Sometimes in her gratitude, she said she had SO many other causes to be so; and when occasionally an acquaintance dropped in upon her solitude her face welcomed every one with smile that spoke more of resignation nor was she averse to partaking of the sociality of other huts. and sat sedate among youthful merriment when summer or winter festival came around, and when happy poverty re- joiced in the riches of content and inno- cence.
 But her trials, great as they had been, were notyet over; for this her only son, was laid prostrate by fever, and when it left his body, he survived hopelessly strick- en in mind. His eyes so clear and intelli- gent were now fixed in idiocy or rolled a. bout unobservani of all objects living or dead. To him all weather seemed the same-and if suffered, he would have lain down, like creature void of under standing, in rain or on snow, mot being able to find his way back for many paces from the hut. As all thought&feeling had left him, so had his sPeech-all but moaning as of