Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1900-12-28


about its depressing sI.uation, 1t con-
tanned so many things of interest.
The walls were completely covered
with portraits, charcoal sketches, wa
ter colors and pencil drawings. The
Old Testament pictures were also
there, and a life-sized representation
of a roaring tiger, dating doubtless
from the Van Amberg period. Before
one of the windows was the daughter
| Faiths sewing machine, she being the
read winer of the family. Before
the other was Daddy's chair and table
having innumerable drawers, chair
and table being of his own handi-
work. On the latter were several
| dilapitated books. some bits of kid,
pair of shears anu a pot of paste.
DO you still bind books?" | asked.
low and then | mend one" he an
| swered. There is nothing | delight
in like an old book.
After we had partaken of the tea
| and the layer cake, the model of the
especially good kind of a bridge was
brought out and explained, and | was
told whom the portraits represented
and shown the Old Testament pic
lures, which were executed with great
| refinement and delicacy. Many of the
sketches and water colors were of
New England scenery, my host and
hostess having come originally from
vuage not far from the foot of
Mount Washington, and possessing,
as they now revealed, an undying love
for granite lodges and powders and
for the things that grow upon and
about them. We talked OF May
flowers and MOSES and BURBERRY
bushes and ferns and lichens ana
pennyroyal; and Daddy described a
visit he had once made to Gloucester
as a boy, and a trip he had taken
from there to Portland on a sailing
vessel. II was not long after the
capture of the British brig Boxer by
the United States brig Enterprise.
There was a song the sailors used to
sing. He would hum 1t to us. he
said, IL he could remember II. and.
searching through that wonderful
storehouse where the treasures long
since hidden seem so much easier to
find than those gathered in later
years, perhaps because the earlier
things were put away with more leis-
ure and in less crowded corners, he
discovered the words he was seeking,
and sang gayly in a low musical
voice:
We boxed her up to Portland
And moored her OF the town,
To show the sons of Liberty
The Boxer of renown.
There had been long Indian sum-
mer in Daddys life. The winter
came suddenly. almost in a single
night. From the day of our October
stroll over the Brooklyn Bridge his
walks abroad grew shorter and
shorter, and he sat for hours in his
chair by the window planning about
this and that bit of work which he
hoped to finish when he felt a little
stronger and looking like a picture in
his dressing gown with its faded
flowers, his snowy hair falling under
the black cap which FORMED a part of
his indoor attire. Thus an entire
year went by, during whose summer
the pansies on Hopes grave missed
their accustomed care, although Faith
visited them as often as possible.
Faith was like her mother in appear
ance, and in life like her own sweet
name.
In the second winter of my ac-
quaintance with this little family, on
the afternoon before Christmas, the
two women went to make some pur-
chase and did not return until late.
1t is so easy to get delayed on Christ
mas Eve. When they entered the
front room the chair by the window
was empty, and they said Daddy must
nave gone upstairs, as he sometimes
did, to see the people on the floor
above; but ne was neither there nor
in any OF the places which their anx-
&c Oh al
nothing during the night, the situa-
ton being rendered all the more
alarming by the circumstance that
the old man had not been out since
summer, except now and then for a
few steps before the door, and that
he had recently developed a strange
rorgetfulness of the names of persons
and places. Suppose he had wan
dered away and met with some acci-
dent and was unable to tell who he
was or where he lived.
The proper authorities were noti-
fed; after that, what was there to do
but wait? They were still waiting
when went to see them on Christmas
morning. The little gifts prepared
for Daddy were also waiting, among
them a fine layer cake with Merry
Christmas" written upon it. in pink
sugar, and a quantity of evergreen
from New England, which some one
had sent to decorate the little dwell
ing.
1t was a mild December, and for the
last few days the air had been soft
and warm as spring, even after the
sun went down. About midnight on
Christmas Eve a Waterman passed
gateway. The gate was closed, and
this was well, otherwise the little old
man asleep on the steps might have