Year: 1861

clothes hid q soul so clean that If you were
not wretchedly near sighted, and could see
all through coating of clear dirt, you at
once took such to your heart.


Such an one was Farmer Leighton A tall.
raw boned, hard-featured man, with the awk-
ward stragling gait, uncertain poise of body.
and splay feet, which are the rewards of an
inscrutable Providence for life of severe toll
perhaps to teach US to look beneath the
surface for the truest worth; perhaps also to
tell us that man does not live by bread alone,
and that Mary did indeed choose a better part
than servceable Martha


Farmer Leighton was now q well-todo per-
sonage in his little world. A man of some
thirty five summers, 10 most Of which corn
planting hay-making, reaping and housing crops
the multifarious, never ceasing tolls of the
farm-had left their marks not lightly upon
him; with scant, grizzled -whiskers and a
chin wretchedly shaven by a dull razor and an
unsteady wearied hand; hair of that tawny
sandy hue, which betokens several generations
Of rough struggle with forest lfe hanging
down in straight and tangled locks about his
ears and coat collar; and Sunday suit of blue
Kentucky jeans, homemade, and ingenously
contrived to show every angle and rough knot
and ungracefuI line in the poor, i'll used body
beneath. This was the man whose harsh
cracked voice, with querulous quaver in it
at first, and a strange after tone of protecting
and longing love, called out.


Now then, old lady


AT which bright bay mare harnesSed to
a mud,splashed buggy, standing near the hitch
ing post at the gate, pricked up her ears and
wondered what she had done now


A., Al IL -. IL L, l..
the world


In minute" answered q voice from with
in doors, having in it also certain uncertain
tremble--a quaver, however, which stood for
the fearfuncss of long and much-loving heart
whose meek habit was TO fit its motions to
the conv enience of others; voice soft and
agreeable, even though it was cracked, and
limiting of many cares and much housewifely
forecast. And presently appeared in the COW
cred way of the comfortable double cabin
portIy dame to whom this voice belonged


Here followed Il young girl blue eyed and
fair haired, as they are in Indiana, and of such
buxom and shapely form, combining both
strength and grace, as is the natural result of
hog and hominy," plenty of fresh air. and
total lack of servants and other incentives to
q lazy life Her name is Miranda Leighton
for which / am sorry, for | can not but be-
lieve that she should have been called by some
such honest and plain name as Susan, Jane, or
Eliza Bnt the Hoosier farmers having little
other grandeur to beStow upon their children
are pretty sure to give them grand and out
landish names And have a respect for facts,
which are stubborn things, but useful in their
way.


Miranda unfastered her pony frcm a rack
beneath the wagon-shed, where he had stood
under shelter-ucky beast ?-and leading him
up to the horse block leaped lightly into the
saddle. As she settled herself there, helped
by her fathers kindly hands, horseman rode
into the opening by turn of the road


There's John now," said Mrs Leighton.
John, come, 90 to church with US"


Pm goin'," said he. There is to be q
new minister amt thar ?"


Yes, and no tricks now, John" urged his
mother, beSeechingly.


No, indeed we're going to lsten-see
what stuff he's made Of. Guess the boys II
be still enough to-day"


"Tll warrant they'll all be thar" grumbled
old man Leighton.


Which was a safe guess. For, next to o
circus, nothing draws 50 large crowd in an
Indiana village as public speaking of any kind;
and above al, Il new preacher. A talent for
oratory is worshpped by all the West; and
man who really has something to say, and
knows how to say it as though he believed it
with all his heart, could not have a more ap-
preciative audience than these rough, unletter
ed farmers. Nor will you find any where
sharper or more relentless critics than these.
As logical as children and as impatient of hum
Inn lv wit
which inevitably pierces to the core of some
conscious miSstatement, or Sophistry, which the
speaker is not himself taken in by.


SO the sister and brother rode off together
in advance, while the Old folks followed at
such eisurely pace as suited the bay mare,
who had had her own way so many years that
she took it now as matter of right


Miranda had just returned from school. In
Indiana the boys must work, and their school
ing comes, if at all, by fits and starts-aS they
say lawyers get to heaven 1t is theirs to bat
tie with the primal curse from their earliest
years, and such learning as they get is picked
up at odd times, and chiefly from their Bibles
aud the agricultural papers. But the girls go
to school. For them money is laid by; and as
they grow up to young womanhood, poor in
deed must be the farmer who does not send his
daughter away to a boarding school in some
city or larger town, where she has, at any rate
the opportunity to gather such of the ways,
and thoughts, and accomplishments of more
finished culture as many asSimiate best to her
nature With these advantages the daughter
becomes the oracle of the house, cherished by
all as being of superior mold, and greatly
held in awe by younger brothers, who submit,
with what grace may be, to h er dominion
Miranda, as said, had just returned from
school. The free air and pleas ant sunshine of