Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1894-12-28

near the pulpit. ! remember now how
ashamed | used to be to carry her toOl-
stove all the way up that long aisle for her
i was such foolish little boy then-and
now. all me. how ready and glad and PROUD
| should be to do that service for dear OLD
grandma.
When grandma went to meeting she car
ried lovely big black velvet bag; 1t had
a bouquet wrought in beads of su0dued
color upon it, and it hung bytvo sombre
silk pickering over grandma arm.
In the bag grandma carried a supply OF
crackers and peppermint lozenges, and
upon these she would nibble in meeting
whenever she felt that feeling of goneness
in the pit of her stomach, which was tolu
old ladies sometimes suffer with. 1t was
proper enough. ! was assured, Tor ola
ladies to nibbe at crackers and peppermint
lozenges in meeting but that such pro
ceeding would be very wicked for little
boy. This seemed hard to understand
theu, but it is clear enough to me now.
There was one thing, however which /
have never been able to study out. Grand
ma used to make a practice OF getting up
out of bed at night and eating hard-boiled
eggs whenever she felt hungry. 1t was
impossible TO make her believe that "a billed
never did harm grandma; ! guess that
eggs in these degenerate days are no longer
what they were in the good old times.
Already ! have said that grandma con-
sidered stoves an abomination. Maybe
you would have thought so, too, If you
could have eaten of the many nice things
grandma used to cook in those great open
chimneypaces in the old homestead.
Doughnuts and cookies nowadays give me
dyspepsia terribly, but grandma's dough-
nuts and cookies never hurt anybody! And
fried potatoes-well, l am sure that there
never was anybody else, and there never
will be anybody else, capable of frying po-
tatoes half so deiciously as grandma. When
father lay dying of a dreadful malady he
said one day to his brother, an old man
who had come many miles TO soothe father S
last hours: "Charles, / wish mother were
living and here to cook for me. 1t may be
an idle fancy, but ! believe | could eat and
relish some of her fried pork and potatoes
And do you know that's Just how have
felt many and many a time, when illness,
or, maybe, the heat of summer made me
Indifferent to viands, carefully prepared to
tempt my appetite? At such times I've
thought to myself that if / only had some
of grandma's cooking, how gladly and
heartily ! would eat. And then has come
the second, sweetly-sad thought that
maybe, after all, it was grandma herself
the cheer, the restfulness, the healing, the
sOlace of that sympathetic, sanity presence
that pined for
The few books that grandma had were
kept In the old secretary in the front room
under the spare chamber. Grandma was
a life member of the American Tract So
ciety, so her library was constantly increas-
Jig, and there was no other woman in the
state OF Vermont who had so wide and so
exact an acquaintance with the spiritual
condition and needs Of the heather as
grandma had. There was not in all grand
Z mas collection, as YOU can imagine, a
book that could not with the utmost pro
priety be read on Sunday The nearest
approach to light literature We're The
Blind Mans Offering and Life of
Mary Lyon" But my favorite reading
when | visited grandma was The Well
Spring and the New England primer.
The rude cuts in the primer had then, and
still have, a certain weird fascination which
| can neither explain nor resist. My Ge-
votion TO this kind of literature inspired
grandma with the fond delusion that maybe
some time | would become minister. so
/ she set about cultivating the theological
germ she fancied was in me. She paid
me ninepence for every sermon or report of
a sermon ! wrote for her, and one of these
sermons has survived the ruthlessness of
/ years. and here it is now beside me-the
/ sermon ! wrote when | was nine years
OLD in pencil in an old account book be-
| longing TO my grandfather. ! cannot for
bear giving you just one extract from this
D -, !
| what a gloomy, stilted, conventional thing
it is, and in order, furthermore, that you
may see how good a thing Il is that l aban-
doned sermonizing so many years ago;
II remark secondly that conscience
makes the way of transgressors hard, for
every act of pleasure, every act of guilt his
conscience smites him. The last of his
/ stay on earth will appear horrible TO the be-
holder. Sometimes, however, he will be
stayed in his guilt. A death in a family
of some favorite object, or be attacked bv
I some disease himself is brought to the
| portal of the grave. Then for a little time
perhaps he is stayed in his wickedness.
but before long he returns TO his worldly
lust. Oh, ii is indeed hard for sinners TO
90 down into perdtion over all the obsta-
Giles which God has placed in their path.
But many, | am afraid, do 60 down into
/ perdition, for wide is the gate and broad is
the way that leadeth to destruction, and
many there be that 90 in thereat"
Grandma herself was an able theologian.
aud her familiarity with the scriptures was
simply amazing / think that Proverbs
must have been her favorite book in the
Bible, for she was always quoting there
from, and, moreover, she constantly held
Solomon up TO me as one whose example
should initiate. One day / wanted to
/ hear more about this wisest man. for l dis
/ covered all at once that in her talk about
/ Solomon, grandma seemed to take pains
/ 10 avoid all reference to the conclusion of
his career. But l never got any satisfac-
! ton on this point from grandma, and but
/ for future investigation, conducted without
( srandma's advice or consent, l might still
be fancying that solomon was cut off in
/ the flower of his wisdom and goodness.
One bitter winters night my Younger
brother had an attack of Group. While
somebody was going for DR.. Warren-how
well l remember his splendid shirt frills and
/ blue coat with brass buttons-grandma
came upstairs and administered spiritual
/ consolation TO the sick child She told him
/ that in the midst of life we are in death, and
she asked him if he were prepared tc
render GP,an account before the King OF
| Kings Poor little child, he was frightened