Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-08-22

the mother is, there will the children be
also"
But it was not of the mother we began to think
but of the dear, old fashioned grandmother, whose
thread of love "by hand" on life's little wheel
was longer and stronger than they make it now,
wound around and about the children she cav
PLAYING in the children's arms, in a true love
knot that nothing but the shears of Atropos
could sever for Go we not recognize the lambs
sometimes, when summer days are over and au-
tumn winds are blowing, as they come bleating
from tho yellow fields, by the crimson thread we
wound about their necks, in April or, May and 30
undo the gate and let the wanderers in
Blessed be the children who have an old fash
toned grandmother. As they hope for length Of
days let them love and honor her, for we can tell
them they will never find another.
There is a large old kitchen somewhere in the
past, and an old fashioned fireplace therein, with
its smooth old jambs of stone-smooth with ma
ny knives that had been sharpeued there-smooth
with many little fingers that have chung there
There are andiroDs, too-the old andirons, with
rings in the top, wherein many temples of flame
have been builded, with spires and turrets of
crimson. There is q broad worn hearth, by
feet that have been torn and bleeding by the way
or made 'beautiful," and walked upon floors Of
tasselated gold. There are tongs in the corner,
wherewith we grasped q coal, and "blowing for a
little life," lighted our first candle there is a SHOW
ell, wherewith were drawn forth the glowing en-
bers in which we saw our first fancies and dream
ed our first dreams the shovel with which we
stirred the sleepy logs till the sparks rushed up
the chimney as if a forge were in blast below, and
wished we had so many lambs. so many marbles,
or 80 many something's that we coveted and so it
was we wished our first wishes.
There is a chair-a low, rush.bottom chair
there is q little wheel in the corner, a big wheel
in the garrett, a loom in the chamber. There are
chests full of linen and yarn, and quilts of rare
pattern, and samplers in frames.
And every where and always the dear old wrin-
kled face of her whose firm, elastic step mocks
the feeble saunter of her children's children-the
old.fashioned grandmother of twenty years ago.
She, the yery Providence eff the old homestead
she who loved us all, and said she wished there
was more Of US 70 love, and took all the school in
the Hollow for grandchildren beside. A great
expansive heart was hers, beneath that wooden
gown, or that more stately bombazine, or that sole
heirloom of silken texture.
We can see her to-day, those mild blue eyes,
with more of beauty in them than time could
touch or death do more than hide-those eyes that
held both smiles and tears within the faintest call
of every one of us, and soft reproof, that seemed
not passion but regret. A white tress has escaped
from beneath her snowy cap she has just restored
a wandering lamb to it's mother She heightened
the tether of a vine that was straying over a win
dow, as she came in, and plucked a four-leaved
clover for Ellen. She sits down by the little
wheel-a tress running through her fingers from
the distaf's disheveled head, when a small voice
CITIES -NTuuuIlut lTulu Nv Olu q CIhOlO II
Grandma !" Tommy shouts from the top of
the stairs. Gently she lets go :he thread, for
her patience is almost as beautiful as Eer charity,
and she touches the little red bark in a moment,
till the young voyager is IN q dream again, and
then directs Tommy's unavailing attempts to har-
ness the cat. The tick of the clock runs faint and
low, and she opens the mysterious door, and pro-
ceeds to wind it up. We are all on tip-toe, and
we beg in a breath to be lifted up one by one, and
; look in the hundreth time upon the tin cases of the
II ---- ls.I
goes to and fro by its little dim window. and new
err comes out in the world, and our petitions are
all granted, and we are lifted up, and we all touch
e with a finger the wonderful weights, aud the mu
j sic of the little wheel is resumed.
Was Mary to be married, or Jane to be wrapped
in a shroud ? So meekiy Gid she fold the white
hands of the one upon her still bosom, that there
seemed to De a prayer in them there and sc
sweetly did she wreathe the white rose in the hail
of the other, that one would not have wondered
had more roses budd ed for company.
How she stood between US and apprehendeG
harm how the rudest of US softened beneath the
gentle pressure of her faded and tremulous hand
From her capacious pocket that hand was ever
withdrawn closed, only to be openened in our own
Q with the nuts she had gathered, the cherries she
had plucked. the little egg she had found the ''turr
over" she had baked, the trinket she had purchas
ed for US as the product of her spinning, the bless
ing she had stored for us-the offspring of hei
heart.
What treasure of story fall from those old lips
of good FAIRIES and evil, of the old times wher
she was a girl and We wondered if ever-bu'
then she couldn't be handsomer or dearer-but
that she ever was little" And then, when W.
begged her to slug !" ''Sing US one of the ole
songs you used to sing mother, grandma"
"Children 1 can't sing" she always said and
mother used to lay her knitting softly down, and
the kitten stopped playing with the yarn upor
the floor, and the clock licked lower in
the corner, and the fire died down to a glow, like
an old heart that is neither chilled nor dead, and
grandmother sang. To be sure, it wouldn't do fol
the parl0r and the concert room nowadays bu'
then it was the old kitchen and the old fashioned
grandmother, and the old ballad, in the dear ole
times, and we Gin hardly see to write for thu
memory of them, though it is a hands breadth tt
the sunset.
Well, she sang. Her voice was feeble and wa
vering, like q fountain just ready to fall, but ther
how sweet-toned it was and it became deepel
and stronger but it couldn't grow sweeter. VIVA
'joy.of grief" it was to sit there around the fire
all of us, except Jane, that clasped a prayer to he
bosom, and ner thoughts we saw, when the hall
door was opened a moment by the wind but ther
we were not afraid, for wasn't it her old smile sh,
wore ITO sit there around the fire, and weel
over the woes of the BABES in the Woods :" win
lay down side by side in the great solemn shad
ows; and how strangely glad we felt when tn
robln-redbreast covered them with leaves, and las
of all when the angels took them out of the nigh
, into day everlasting.
We may think what we will of it now, but tn
song and the story heard around the kitchen fir
tI have cOlored the thoughts and lives of most of us
r ~ have given us the germs of whatever poetry bless
2 es our hearts whatever memory blooms i'm On
~ yesterdays. Attribute whatever we may to tn
~ school and the school master, the rays which make
that litter's day we call life, radiate from the Go,
10 swept circle of the hearth-stone.
Then she sings an old lullaby she sang to moth
~ er-her mother sang to her but she does not sin,
~ it through, and faltcrs ere tbs done. Sh
rests her head upon her hands, and it is silent i,
Id the old kitchen. Something glitters down betweel
ed her fingers and the freight, and it looks like rail-
en- in the soft sunshine. The old grandmother i
or thinking when she first heard the song, and of tn,
N. voice that sang it when a lght-haired and light
hearted girl she hung around that mothers chair
To nor saw the shadows of the years to come. o
oy tho days that are no morel What spell can W,
he weave to bring them back again ? What word
L. can we unsaY. what deeds nndn 10 scr haaL e.