Year: 1875

We called ON an old lady the other day.
who, when we were boy, we knew a. the
wife Of large farmer, the mistress of the
largest dairy and the tidiest farmhouse in
the parts. In those days her house
swarmed with children and work.folks.
and her husbands farm was the plantation
on which they found homes and livli.
hood. Since then her husband has died.
her children have grown up, married and
gone out into the world to follow 9TH
er pursuits than farming, and the old
place has passed into other hands. She
lives in village alone; near by her live a
son and a daughter. Years of work have
wrinkled her brow and silvered her
hair; her step has lost its lightness,
and her eye its keenness. She is an old
| lady who, as she expressed It, "needs
three days to do twelve hours work in"
Knowing this, and knowing, too. that she
has not only an abundance Of this worlds
goods. but that her children would be glad
to supply all her needs, we were some.
what surprised to find her in the barn feed
ing COW, and lecluring on gluttony to an
uneasy pig who was playing the part of
Oliver Twist over an empty trough.
Upon our expressing this surprise she read
us Il sermon, which, if it interests our
readers as much as it did us, will Justify
us in recalling it:


Yes, as you say. am not actually
| obliged to do this kind of work, and per-
haps am foolish for doing any. for I have
got some money, and might go and live
with the boys. But they have ali got wives,
good wives enough, but their ways are
not my ways, and have been mistress of
my own house too long to give up and be
boarder or visitor in anybody's now. It's
nearly fifty years since began work, and
| think have done enough not 10 be laid
away in my sons. sitting room TO be ex-
hi5ted as a curiosity, or propped up in an
armchair to be stared at by everybody
who comes, as an old granny. Might stay
in the kitchen you say. No ! couldn't;
there never was kitchen big enough for
two women to live in, and as told you
you where / am / want to be mistress,
and as long as l can stand on my
feet l am going to be. So live here
where can have good solid rag carpet
on the floor and some comfortable old
fashioned furniture and brick oven aud
lots of other things which couldn't have
in either of the boys houses.


But you say | needn't keep cow and
| pig. Why, yes, must, too. Why, do you
think, after have had cream to put in my
tea fifty years, | am going to put up with
milk now, or that alter have sold tons of
the best butter that ever went into mar
ket I'm going to set my table with bought
en- stuff And, if keep COW, of course
must a pig, else what would do with
the sour milk, and having COW and q pig
| must have a few hens too. Out back
here, have got a little farm of three acres
where they cut hay enough to keep my
COW, and raise corn enough to fat the pig,
and SO l get along comfortably well. Do
| make money farming? Well, you 60 and
ask the boys. and they will tell you every
pound Of butter make costs dollar, and
every pound of pork % cents. But it's
precious little they know about it. You
see this working all summer to make two
or three iirkins of butter and two or three
hundred pounds Of pork looks like small
business to them, but If they had begun as
did they would look at It differently.
But to tell the truth, keep my COW and
pig more because they make me feel at
home than anything else. They are about
all have got that connects me with the
old farm, aud though feel terribly poor
sometimes when think of the long row of
milk pans | used to have and the few / use
now, thcy nclp Roou ueai 10 make me
contented. Without them l shouldn't feel
better than II town pauper. 1t is lone
some here sometimes. but the boys chill
dren are here great deal, and with them
and the cow and pig get along nicely"
| And SO this old lady, with her love still
clinging TO the old farm where hard and
constant work through long half century
won for herself and family comfort and
contcntment is going down to the end OF
her labors.


Is it not IA lesson to some who are de-
serting the old homesteads and rushing
away TO turmoil and strife and dependence
of the cities ? 1t seemed so to us.-lNdn-
chester (N. H., Mirror.