The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1871-02-02

One summer was boarding with my
family In q farm house by the seashore.
Our host was q pitiful miser, starving
himself, starving his family; and, for
tori, starving his boarders. Sick of hu-
man nature, sick of pity, miserable con-
tention, q party of us started out one day,
| in n wagon, for fine beach some miles
away, to try to forget our woes in the
kind lap of mother nature. AS we APP
preached the beach, we stopped at farm
house to ask permission to put our horse
in the barn Knocking at the door, it
was opened by a motherly-looking woman
of fifty, in spectacles, the glasses Of which
to serve, like varnish on a picture, to
bring out the light and warmth of a
pair of loving blue eyes underneath.
She gave us the heartiest reception.
Put your horse in the barn? Certainly!
You'll find plenty of hay there Come to
spend day by the beach, have you?
That's right do like to see the young
people enjoy themselves Won't you eat
your lunch in our apple orchard; it's so
nice, and cool, and shady there9 And
wouldn't you like pan of sweet milk to
have with it ?"
BLESS your dear, loving hearth /
cried internally. Then the stern neces-
sites of farm life do no shrivel, and
wien, and dry-rot souls after the man.
ner Of old Grimes we are boarding with.
But perhaps this old lady had trodden
more silken path"
looked round the room. There were
milk-pans enough to make ones life
one eternal sour. Her dress, too was
trussed up, her arms bare and with that
battered and callous look about the ell
bows which betokened hardy usage.
"No children, probably; that accounts
for it" Presently a rustling of bed
clothes and an incipient wall from a
neighboring room. ''Ahl that's your
,grandchild, supposel" mo, that's my
baby" 1 was about as incredulous as
sixteen childrenl"
Sixteen children! All these milk-pand
ordinary work of the farmhouse, and
room still in the heart for such reception
as we had for such a generous 81 do
like to see young people enjoy themselves"
for such hearty Protiers OF the hospitality
OF the apple orchard, and of aful gallon
of sweet milk! ALL see it. Where
there is room in the heart, there is always
room in the house." room for all these
children, and then room to spare for a
bevy of pleasure-seeking, do-nothing
strangers, who would seem sent only to
suggest the complaint, why must my life
be a ceaseless toll of nursing, scrubbing,
ripping, sewing, while these people can
lie on the rocks, all day long, counting
the breakes, cooled by the spray, DOING |
off to the music of the pulsiag ocean?
/ could tell great deal more about |
this blessed woman-how she refused all |
pay; feeling she was already paid amply |
in the delight of kindness it self; how she |
worthy of Chesterfield himaf. Chester
field forgive the wrong Of naming his
hollow, atifcial type of manner in such a
genuine presence-but still an exquisite |
delicacy of politness; by replying when
l went, after a preliminary embarrass-
ment in the stable over the horses collar, |
and said, blushingly, Madame, 1 am
to say l do not know how to |
harness that horsel" ''Of course not |
everybody can't do every thingl" and |
this In a tone as though she wero already |
overwhelmed with amazement at the |
number of things l could d..
Her replying thus, l say, and then
running to the back door calling to two
of her sons in the field, "Here you,
Henry Clay! Daniel Webster! Groom |
still in the heart, we see, for a streak of
hero worsh!pD Come here and help
this gentleman ham sss his horse I" Blu
L cannot enlarge futher. Does not she,
however, illustrate gloriously the creative
power to make small house big, marrow
means abundant, work play, a contracted
sphere rOomv, broad and airy?