The daily gazette., 1877-01-19
An Old House.

\ There is something in an old house that
| there never can be in a new one. The
new one may be handsomer, it may have
higher ceilings and broader panes of
| glass, s,amedievalmantel piece, and French
paper ON the walls, and Persian rugs
You may be proud of it, but you loyed the
| old house--the dear old place, almost as
| old as the great trees at the door. A tall
man could touch the ceiling, with his
palm, and the great mantel pieces were
stiff and ugly. but there in the freight,
used to sit, once upon time, the old
| grandmother with her knitting, while
the children climbed her knee and she
| told them stories of her youth.
I Out of that window-the little window
with the diamond panes-she had looked
| to see her young husband coming home
| after long days bunt. flushed with eX
ercise, bright, and handsome. There lay
| the great red deer he shot; yonder the
| dogs were kennelled--the great, brown
eyed dogs.
One of their race, then unborn, some
times stands beside her as she tells these
tales, old and blind and toothless, and
there are no deer now. Yes, up that road
she had ridden herself,a gay, young bride
| coming for the first time TO the husbands
house, full of hope and joy. There
her babes had been born, grown to be
men and women, married, and gone
forth.
Out of that door went, at last, her hus-
bands long funeral train, and nothing
was left her of her life but its memories,
There she sat, thinking and knitting,
telling the old stories. How could she
be so content? the younger people often
thought.
The tall clock stood in the hall and
licked, as it had done for seventy years.
In the glass cupboard were stored a sac
red tea service with guilt edges, andsilve
teapot that had been a wedding pre-
sent.
Fox's Martyrs and the Pilgrims Pro-
gress were in the bookcase, and the big
Bible on the stand; and there were black
profiles eff choked- looking gentlemen and
ladies', with wondrous puffs on their
heads, on the walls; up in the bed rooms
were rag-carpets and high-post beds, and
chests of drawers, and long presses. How
many heads had rested on those pillows!
What happy dreams had been dreamt,
what bitter tears had been shed.
And down in the parlor, with its hard
upright sofa, guests with strange dulness
of which no one dreamt, had been enter
tanned; and lovers had been wooed and
won, and doubtless there had been little
tragedies, such as go on between lovers
through all the generations. Story
after story had told itself in the old
house.
They are not all happy ones, but they
make the old house different from a new
one. Memories lurk in the very walls;
and who shall say that the spirits of those
who lie at rest in the old church yard.
under tomb stones on which moss has
grown, do not sometimes fit through
it-unseen bat felt-bringing softened
emotions and tender recollections as they
pass?
The very trees in the garden are not as
other trees. They have their stories
Under this n first kiss was taken,
under that hands met in an eternal
parting.
Down in the orchard is a baby's grave
the baby would be fifty years old if
he lived to-day-but only a little while
ago his mother sat there and shed tear
over it.
The new house is fine, and costly and
modern, but there is no poetry in it, and
there will not be until at least two gem
erations have made it an old house, and
haunted it with sweet ghosts as they did
the old one.