Year: 1872

1t was drtary work cutting carpet rags
night after night, with her boy away in the
army, and long lists of killed and wound
ed filling the newspapers. She had cut up
Alvin little c oat. 1t was the first coat he
he ever had, and She remembered how
proud ho had been of the buttons and pock
cts, and it weht to her leart to shred il in
to Sits.


The room where Patience Tanning sat
was very small and humble. 1t was the
first room she had furnished with things
eked out and scraped together by the hard
est toll. For moro than twenty years she
had lived in the dilapidated gray fram-
house, in narrow round of duties, center
ing at the cradle of her child, and later a
bout the bed of her sick husband and yet
she had tasted keenly most of the joys and
sorrows that belong to wcman's lot. Her
sphere had never seemed mean or made
quate TO herself, for holding her child in
her arms she felt that she possessed all the
dignity and honor earth has to bestow.


But the tears would drop some times
now, as Patience sat alone at her work, in
the 81 ender ray of the candle There were
vine shadows where the row of potted
plants had been, for it was spring, and the
gcranium an & heiotropes were out in the
little door yard beds, and she rested in the
longer twilight, and lived over the life she
had led fist as wife, then as mother, after
wards as n lonely widow with her boy
away at the war. Patience had always lived
in others. It'seemed as though her heart
ha1
ceived its pulsations from the beating hearts
of those she loved.


When Washington was threatened, aud
danger menaced the Pennsylvania frontier,
Alvin had grown moody at home because
she opposed his wish to join the volunteers.
1t was the dark hour of her country's per-
il, and Patience had wrestled and strug-
gled and prayed until she gained strength
to let her boy go out of her arms. She had
| given her eve lamb; she sat alone.
Her farm consisted of few acres of ra-
ther stony land that lay close TO the house
where she lived. Her husband had been
| a cooper, working at tubs and barrels off
and on the busy time of the year, and AL
| vim had learned the trade too but the lit
| tie shop was closed now and the fields
| were let out on shares, and ever since he
marched away in the coat of army blue,
her boy had sent back his pay to the wild
| ow, and her cruise and basket were never
| empty. Her neighbors were very kind.
| Abiah Williams, who lived on the next
| place, had banked up her house in the fall,
and dug and stored her winter vegetables,
and in the spring, rs soon as the ground
| grew mellow, he came with his ox-team to
| plow her garden. by carpet making and
| odd bits of sewing Patience was able to
supply all her slender wants. Not PEN
| ny of her boys earnings had ever been
touched. That money was sacred. Patience
had already spoken to Enoch Holbrook
about putting it out at interest. In the long
winter evenings, when she only heard the
| slow tick of the clock in the corner, or the
sough OF the wind in the pine trees, her
brain was busy with plans for her boys
! future


Deacon Spicer brought the paper in ev-
cry third day., aiter he had spelled 1t over


for an hour or two at home. The news


had travelled two or three hundred miles
| by rail and stage before 1t came to her


hand but Patience watched for it with a


beating heart. The account of a bloody


battle generally drove her to bed with q


bad headache, caused by the harder aching


of her mother heart. Rachels sympathies


were mainly on the mothers side; she did


not think so much of the stricken wives OF


desolate young maldens mourning ovel


their dead. She had one of those intense


but narrow natures which Puriianism de-


velops, with little imagination, but strong


and fervent feelings. Her mind was SC


deeply religious that the whole Of life wa'


invested with a sort of sacred ardor; even


her joy found expression in some grand


old covenanter's hymn, that seemed to al


the pauses of the wind in the forest grove


near at hand.