The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-02-13
READING ALOUD.
Just One of the Most Delightful Gus
 toms Any Family CanHave.

(From Hildegarde Hawthorne's Books
 and Reading in March St. Nicholas.)
 I was looking through the biogra-
 phy of an English statesman the oth-
 CT day, the earlier pages of which are
 devoted to a description of his wife's
 childhood in the old Scotch castle
 where she was born and brought up.
 The picture of the life there was
 Charming in many ways, so simple
 and hea- thy and full of outdoor fun
 and jolly companionShip between the
 host of brothers and sisters. But one
 thing particularly struck me, and that
 WAS that the delightful custom that
 obtained among these children of read
 ing aloud to each other on stormy af-
 ternoons or during the evening Their
 meeting place was the great, central
 hall with it's huge fireplace at one end,
 with large fur rugs outspread before
 It and wide seats drawn c-ose to It..
 Here, after long rides and trampS
 over the heathery hills. for these
 young Scots were passiontely fond of
 CT as twilight fell. A lamp swung
 on chain above one of the seats,
 and under this, turn about, one of the children sat and read aloud to the rest. They read the Border ballads and tales of adventure and of his
 tory; they read the lives of great men and gallant stories of travel by land and sea. Round about them the vast spaces of the ancient hall, pan eled in dark woodwork and hung with tapestry, grew dinner and more mys- terious in the gathering dusk. Out side perhaps a wintry storm went wailing, skipping its wet wings against the long windows. Tn the warm cir cle of light created by the flaming logs and g,owing lamp, the eight or ten children, all iusty and handsome, lay or sat, some of them busy cary ing or eanbroidering, others idle and dreaming. and listened as the reader Scott was writing his romances at that time, and a new volume by the wizard of the North, as he was called, was eagerly welcomed. The shadowy old hall must have been a fine place for hearing his stories. Easy to imagine one heard the tramp of the armed feet and hoarse voices of command in the court without those very windows, and threatened to leap to death if grim Brian, the Knight-Templar, came a step nearer. l Amy Robsart and Leicester might out that archway while poor Amy was still happy in the earls love. Here the clans might have mustered in answer to the call of the wild Pibroch, or the old minstrel have | tuned his harp for that last lay.
 At any rate, Lady John Russell, in | all the happiness as well as the sor- 1 row of the rest of her life, never for got those wonderful hours when she | and her brothers and sisters read, and ! talked together of what they had read, | before the warm hearth. More than | that, she kept up the custom, and she | and Lord John used to read to each | other whenever they could find leis- | ure; for RusselPs life was crowded | with work They read many old | books, and they read the new ones. l and Dickens were writing | then, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Jane 1 Austen Russell would lay aside the | heavy cares of state, cares his wife | understood and shared with him, and | the two would laugh like children over | '1Pickwick'' and Martin Chuzzlewit'', or thrill over the lovely poems that | were so new to the world
 I have been telling this story of a | past time because don't see why | all of you should not have just such | p 'easant memories to look back to when you are grown up, and such a i habit to fall back upon. We cannot all lie before a fire in a vast baronial | hall, to be sure, where history is as hearthstone. But almost any place 1 ening lamp glows as cheerily in the | galOw, suburban house or a western ranch, as it can in the oldest haunted castle that was ever the scene of happenings. And then, too there's ''all outdoors to read aloud in, when the summer days come back | to us. It's the book that is the thing. Let that be good, and the reader good and the hours will prove unfOrgetable, what teVer the setting.