The Forrest City times., 1898-11-25
THE CHRISTENING
 OF SARAH'S ELDEST
By Kenneth Herford.


'HE balmy DreeZeS of a down east
 August morning waited across the fields the sweet and soothing odor of the green and yellow growing things The grain stalks waved their tasseled heads gently and rhythmically--an ocean of gold--and the birds chirped their joy among the ripening fruit in the branches of the harvest apple t,ee, there by the corn crib.
 On the back porch of the old, old farm house-an echo, seeming. of an other day ,--behind screen of Dutch mans pipe and woodbine, Aunt Jane sat in 'cane seat" brought from the front room, husking the sweet corn for dinner.
 Now and then an ear of the pearly kernels would fall from her hands into the pan and she would, for an instant. look off down the road or across the field toward the dark green wood be- yond-absently her mind racing back the pathway of the years to the days when she and Silas were children to- gether in the old red schoolhouse; lead CTS, afterward, in the singing school, lovers at the husking bees, and then their wedding.
 Once or twice Aunt Jane took off her steel bowed spectacles and pulling up her apron cleared the glasses with a corner of it. Then she would arrange them again comfortably astride her nose, slipping back the bows into the ruts that time had made above her ears, and pulling down, ever so slight ly, the gray hair over them. Then, of a sudden returning to her task, she would tear off the green husks impatiently, as though by sheer force pulling her self back to the evening of the pres ent, from her moments ramble in the morning of the past.
 With my book, over on the other side of the porch, did not intrude into the domain of Aunt Jane's revery. Ere quently on looking up I would see her lips moving. as though she hummed to herself some old-time song or repeated in her heart some words that long since had been told her. would smile, sim ply, and resume my reading. When the last ear had been stripped of its gown of green and the brown silks had been picked from between the rows of kernels. Aunt Jane set the pan down on the floor of the porch and gazed out across the fields.
 Do you sec" she said, after a mo- ment, and from the tone the words seemed as much addressed to herself as  to me, though I responded. Do you see" she said, that big tree cross there, right at tn edge O tn woods. Tn one nex' t tn old blasted oak?"
 leaned forward in my rocker and. shading my eyes with the open book, gazed in the direction she designated. "fes, 1 replied; has that tree a story, Aunt Jane?"
 heard sigh. but so gently breathed that it seemed but the echo of sigh. No, tain't got story. That's tn tree where Silas asked me t marry him Nearly every man in tn Heminwav family, pears, asked their wives t marry 'erl under that tree. Silas' brother, Seth, asked Sary t marry him while they was a-strollin' through them woods one day, long. long time ago. Seems ages almost. It was right under that tree that he asked her. Sary told me of it durin' her las sickness when we tryin' t take care of her here at tn house. Her room was the back one upstairs, an she asked us t pull tn bed down so't she could see tn tree out O tn window. If ain't mistaken she died a-lookin' at that tree. She told Seth fore their fust child was born that she wisht, if she should die, he'd take tn child out under that tree every birthday O hern' an tell it that it was there that its mothers happiness be- gun. But Sary didn't die-not then. She had three boys an one girl grown up before she passed away. wonder if me or Silas ever told you bout tn christenin' O Sary's eldest?"
 And through the moisture that mem- ory had caused to gather in Aunt Jane's eyes there broke the light of Q smile that broadened and deepened until she laughed.
 Your mother likely knows it," she said, but if she ain't told it t you s'pose might as we'll
 And 1 knew that there was to be for me another delightful human chapter out of Aunt Jane's delicious volume of "reminiscences. l leaned back in my