Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1859-03-12
THE OLD KITCHEN.

"You will find the old house greatly chang
ed, Cousin Millie, when you come to see US in
the fall," wrote Mrs. Rood, the pretty, lively
wife of whole half year. "Were having all
the back part torn down, and we're having a
new sitting room and a new bedroom, and a
real new fashioned kitchen, and we shall have
the house heated with furnaces, and all the
modern improvements. We shall retain the
front, because it is built of stone, but we're
to have long windows, and new portico, and
dear old grandpa would hardly recognize his
old home, if he could sit down on his favorite
seat under the old cherry tree, and see it
again. It does seem SO sacrilegous to 60 to
tearing down and pulling up SO soon after
his death, but Harry wants everything ready
for winter, so we have had to commence at
once; and dear Millie, you'll find everything
so new, so nice and comfortable when you
come to see US, that, I'm in hopes you won't
know how to leave us at all |"
| And Mildred Race closed up the letter of
her lively cousin with sigh, and leaning back
in her chair, old memoriesscame throbbing up
through the old halls of her heart, and filled
her eyes with tears, those eyes like the eyes
of a spring hidden in the deep woods, when
the summer moonshine flutters down in its
deep blue heart. ar a.."
"I don't mind the rest of the house, mur-
INJURED sweet Mred Race, "but the old kitch-
en- with its great old-fashioned fireplace,
don't know how to spare that
"Ah me; what brave times used to have,
away down in my childhood, on those visits to
Grandpa's l can nit all now, just as
thought had been there last night; the group
gathered in the long autumn evenings round
the chimney. There were the CRATE and irons,
with their lions feet, and tssir brass tops and
the pile of birch sticks built up almost to the
jamb, and all our faces would glow in the light
of that fire, that beat in the ruddy SCOT of the
black chimney.
"Grandpa always sat IN the corner, and his
hair white as the year is when it settles in De-
cember. The great silver-bowed spectacles
rested low on his nose as he slowly read the
newspaper, and shook his head and said:-
"Things didn't use to 60 ON so when l was a
young man." And grandma sat on the other
side with one of the whitest caps and the plea
santest smile, toeing off woolen stocking and
pausing to show some of her grand children
how to count apple seeds, just as they did at
the frolics when she was girl.
The frost was at work at the windows, mar.
velous and cunning artist that frost was; etch.
ing with silent, mysterious fingers all sorts Of
landscapes and figures, which we should read
in the morning with as much eager curiosity
and interest, as travellers read this day, on old
stones and ruined palaces, the hierog1yphics
of Ninevah and Egypt. There would be sug
gestions of wondrous landscapes, of noun
tains and valleys and rivers; of gardens, too
fair as the hanging gardens of Babylon.
There would be Westminster, Versailles, and
St. Peters, all done in single night. There
would be fountains of running waters and
palms of India, and somewhere in the corners
some of us would find the old barn and long
well-pole at grandpa's. or = y sTe..rs -.E~.
4 "Oh, repeat it, they were brave times new
er to return, round an old kitchen fire, thai
hung in crimson flags over the birch logs
while we pared apples and counted seeds and
poor Charlie cracked walnuts-poor Charlie
the stars look down on his lonely grave in Cal
ifornia But see him now with the great
brick on his lap, with his hammer going crack
crack, but somehow it didn' disturb one of the
sallies of fun and routbursts of Laughter
around that temple. T .e-.
4 "And there was the clock-the clock tha
belonged to my great-great aunt, and thai
had licked away the lives of five generations
in one corner, reaching from the floor to thu
ceiling, with the halfmoon on its face. Wha
history, what biography that old clocl
was, secure there in the kitchen corner; thai
had watched such bright hair turned to snow
such fair young foreheads grow dark ant
wrinkled under the burden Of years!
-"And at last, when the hour had crept VI
to nine, grandpa would take his old-fashionet
bible, and the laughing eye and merry dim
, pies would settle into gravity, as he reat
those blessed words once read over his era
4 die, and that would soon be read over hi