Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1859-04-02
Selett Tale.
lFfom Blackwood's Magazine
THE ERICKSONS.
CHAPTER I.

| never had home like other children
when | was q child. l was early left without
father or mother, and almost without kith or
kin. was left poor, too, without enough,
baby as was, even to keep me from being q
burden on those who were forced to take the
charge Of NE. | was in the world simply
and solely little, desolate, useless child.
The home, such as it was, that fell to my
lot, was in the house of an aunt of my fa-
theirs, an old lady who took me to live with
her from a feeling rather Of duty than Of
love, and into whose formal household my
childish advent made, l am afraid, no very
welcome nroad. Yet my aunt was kind to
me, if she was cold; and |, who had never
known more genial home, was content with
the one that had fallen to my share. We led
peaceful, quiet life. There wac no poetry
in it, bat We did without that there was lit
tie beauty in it, too, but we do not feel the
want Of what We have never known. was
housed and fed, and clad and if the world
that during those years hedged me iu was
narrow Que. did not feel its narrowness for
had never seen what lay beyond its limits.
This existence endured for me until was
eighteen; then my grandaurt died. recol-
lect that parting vivdly still, as the first sor.
row and the first glimpse Of the hidden things
outside our dayy life that ha6 ever had.
My aunt had lsft ME ell she was possessed
Of, and after her death, ] lived alone for
few months. At the end oG that time was
surprised ore day by letter from my god
mother, Mrs. Erickson, which asked if
would come and live with her. Mrs. Erick-
son had been a cousin Of my mothers
Long ago, when had been a little child, she
had shown me some kindness that / had not
| forgotten. Her proposal was pleasant to
]
order and obtained tenant for it then, one
autumn day, when the sun shone bright on
harvest fields, bade farewell to the village
where | had lived, and set forth upon my
journey to my new home.
That journeys end brought me TO quaint
! old town. dark with long narrow streets
whose stones time had impressed with his
seal OF solemn coloring, whose gloomy dim
ness only here ard there stole into sudden
! light at some unlooked.for opening, where
the sun shoDe upon the grass growing around
the pavement Of an untrod square, or gliated
on the bend of the bright silent river, or lin
gered lovingly upon the tall, grey halfde-
caying towers of some old time-eaten church
saw it linger so for the first time on that
autumn evening, and the light, new to me at
that time, quickly grew familiar, for in the
! opening before one such old church my god
mother had her house, and summer and win
| ter, between her windows and the rivulet,
there stood an eternal screen OF blackening
stone-a moulderng pile, all rich with antique
devices upon wall and capital and archVault,
and delicate traceried windows, through whose
narrow lights there came to US all that we
ever saw Of the gold and crimson of the ives.
tern sky.
1t was change from the village aud house
that | had left There all had been fat,
clear, open as q sea neither brick nor stone
obscured our yew-neitber tree nor tower
darkened US; unGulating fields and hedge.
rows there shut cut no prospect all was
bright and sunny there, from zenith to hori-
zon. This new confinement, at its first sight
was strange and painful to me. / recollect
on the night | came that | stood by one OF
those west windows and drew my travelling
cloak around me with an inyolsntary shiver.
The sun had set, and the sky above was grey
and the black decaying walls, in that cold
twilight, looked strangely sorrowful-stsrn,
too, and p!tiless-a black cold shadow, whose
beauty could not see, and whose solemn
age-grim mouldering memorial Of the vanish.
ed centuries-only chilled me.
l had not seen my grandmother for eleven
years. When We last met she was an active,
bright.looking woman, of FIVE unG thirty
When she greeted me at her threshold now,
| did not recognize her: she had grown faded
and pale, and old.
81 was stronger and younger when saw
you last, Ruth" she said, gently, when /
spoke of the change in herr but there was a
real and anxious look in her face that
thought must be set there by other causes
than advancing years or failing strength.
"And my cousin, NoelY"
He was her only son-a man ten years OF
older than was | had seen him once
those eleven years ago-and had one day
been carried in his strong arms through ha
eel copse, when long wandering amid Taller
autumn leaves had wet my fsst-a small kind
ness that had remembered faithfully.
She answered "You will scarcely remem