Year: 1862

was hers, beneath that wooden gown, or that
more stately bombazine, or that sole hairloom
of silken texture.


We can see her to day, those mild blue eyes,
with more of beauty in them than time could
touch or death do more than hide-those ewes
that held both smiles aud tears within the
taintest call of every one of US, and soft re.
proof, that seemed no passion but regret. A
white tress has escaped from beneath her
snowy cap she has just restored wandering
lamb to its mother ; she heightened the tether
of vine that was strayng over the window, as
she came IN, and plucked four.leaved clover
Tor Ellen. She sits down by the little wheel
"a tresS Is running through her fingers from
the dStaffS diShreVeied head, when a small
voice Grandma" from the old red cradle, and
Grandma !" Tommy shouts from the top of
the stairs Gently she lets go the thread for
her patience is almost as beautiful as her char
ity, and she touches the little red bark in
moment, till the young voyager is n a dream
again, and then directs Tommy's unavailiDg
attempts to harness the cat. The tick of the
clock runs faint and low, and she opens the
mysterious door, and proceeds to wind it up
We are all on tip toe, and we beg in breath
to be lifted up one by one, and look in the
hundreth time upon the tin cases of the weights,
and the poor lonely pendulum, which goes to
and fro by its little dim window, and never
comes out in the world, and our petitions are
all granted, and we are lifted up, and we all
! touch with finger the wonderful weights and
the music Of the little wheel is resumed


Was Mary to be married, or Jane to be
wrapped in a shroud ? So meekIy did she fold
the white hands Of the one upon her still hos
ON, that there seemed to be prayer in them
there and so sweetly did she wreathe the
white rose in the hair of the other, that one
would not have wondered had more roses bud
ded for company.


How she stood between US aud an appre-
hended harm ; how the rudest of IS sof,ened
beneath the gentle pressure of her faded and
trem lous hand From her capacous pocket
that hand was ever withdrawn closed, only to
he opened in our own, with the nuts she bad
gathered, the cherries she had pucked, the
little egg she had found, the "turn over she
had baked, the triHket she had purchased for
as the product of her spinning, the blessing
she had stored for us-the offspring of her
heart


What treasure Of story fell from those old
lips Of good fairies and evil, of the old time
when she was girl and we wondered if ever
but then she couldn't be bandsomer or dear
er-but that she ever was little" And then,
when we begged her to sing Sing Us one
Of the old songs you used to sing mother,
grandma"


" Children, / can't sing she always said
and mother used to lay her knitting softly
down, aud the kitten stopped playing with the
yarn upon the floor, and clock ticked lower 10
the corner, and the fire died down to a glow, !
like 40 old heart that is neither chilled nor
dead, aud grandmother To be sure it wouldn't |
co for the parlOr and the concert room nova /
days ; but then it was the old kitchen and the |
old fnshioned grandmother and the old ballad, |


IN the dear old times, and We can hardly see
TO write for the memoFy of them, though it is /,
a hands breadth to the sunset


Well, she sang. Her voice was feeble and
waVerlng, like fountain Just ready to fall, |!
but then how sweet-toned it was and it |
became deeper and stronger but it couldn't
grow sweeter. What |" JOY of grief" it was TO
sit there around the fire, all of Us, except Jane,
that claSped a prayer TO her bosom, and her
thoughts we saw, when the hall,door opened a
moment by the wind but then we were not
afraid, for wasn't it her old smile she wore 3
to sit there around the fire, and weep over the
woes of the Babes in the Wood" who lay
down side by side in the great solemn shadows;
aud how strangely glad we felt when the
rohnrelbreast covered them with leaves, and
last OF all when the angels took them out Of
the night into day everlasting.


We may think what we will of it now, bot |
the song and the story heard around the kitch.
en- fire have colored the thoughts and lives of
most of Us have given US the germs of what.
ever memory blooms in our yesterdays At
tribute whatever we may to the school and the
schoolmaSter, the rays which make that little
day we call life, radiate from the God-swept
circle of the hearthstone.


Then she sings an old lullaby she sang to
mother-Aer mother sang TO her but she
does not sing it through, and falters ere tits
done. She rests her head upon her hands,
and it is silent in the old kitchen Something
glitters down between her fingers and the fire.


light, aud it looks like rain in the soft sun
shine. The old grandmother is thinking when
she first heard the song, and of the voice that
sang it when light haired and lighthearted
girl she hung around that mothers chair, nor
saw the shadows of the years that were to
come o the days that are no more ! What
spell can we weave to hiring them back again
What words can we unsay, what deeds undo,
to set back, just this once, the ancient clock of
time


So all our little hands were forever clingng
to her garments, and staying here as il from
dying, for long ago she had done living for
herself, and lived alone in US. But the old
kitchen wants presence to-day, and the rush.
bottomed chair is tenantless


How she used to welcome US when we were
grown, and came back once more to the home
stead


We thought we were men and women, but
were children there The od.fashioned grand
:.l =. h. h,t CHI u with