Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1877-02-20
agricultural,
In OlOt House.

There is something in IN old house
that there never can be in new one.
The new one may be handsomer, 1t may
have higher ceilings and broader panes
of glass, medieval mantle-peice, and
French paper on the walls, and Persian
rugs. You may be proud Of it, but you
loved the old houSe-the dear old place,
almost as old as the great trees at the
door. A tall man could touch the cell
ings with his palm, and the great mantle
pieces were stiff and ugly; bat 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.
Out Of that window-the little window
with the diamond panes-she had looked
to see her young husband coming home
after long days hunt, flushed with ex-
ercise, bright, and handsome. There lay
the great red deer he shot; yonder the
dogs were kenneled-the great, brown
eyed dogs.
One Of their race, then unborn, some
times stand beside her as she tells these
tales, old and blind and JoothlesS, and
there are no deer now Yes, up that
road she herself had ridden, gay young
bride, coming for the first time to the hus-
bands 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 lett her OF her lie but Its memories.
There she sat, thinking and knitting, tel
ing the old stories. How could she be
50 content? the young 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 scar
red tea service with gilt edges, and sill
yer teapot that had been avoiding pre-
sent.
FOx's Martyrs and the Pilgrims Pro-
greSS were in the bookcase, sud the big
Bible on the stand and there were black
pro6,eS Of choked-lOoking gentlemen and
ladies, with wonderous puffs on their
heads, on the walls; up in the bedrooms
were rag-earpetS and high-pOst beds, aud
chests OF drawers, and long presses. How
many heads had rested on thvSe pillows
What happy dreams had been dreamt
what hittar fears Nh,d
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 wooed and won.
and doubtless there had been little TRACE
dies, such as 20 on between lovers through
all the generations. Story after story
has told itself in the old house.
They are not all happy ones, but they
make the old house different from new
one. Memories Turk in the very walls /;
and who shall say that the spirits Of those
who lie at rest in the old church-yard
yonder, under iomb-Stones on which moss
mas grown, DO not sOmetiaes fit through
it-unseen but te.t-bringiug soitened
emotions and tender recollectionS as they
pass
The very trees in the garden are not
as other trees. They have their stories.
Under this FIST kiss was taken; under
that hands met in an eternal parting
Down in the orchard Is baby's grave
the baby would be fifty years old il he
lived to-day-but only little while ago
his mother sat there and shed a tear over
it.
The new house is fine, and costly, and
modern, bat there Is no poetry in 1t, and
there will not be until at least two gen.
erations have made it an old house, and
haunted it with sweet ghosts, as they did
the old one.-Selected.