Logs were blazing on the great hearth, and
the pineknots, thrown at intervals on the fire, gave a bold and
cheerful light throughout that capacious kitchen. I remember how the
winter wind went glancing over the house-top, whirling, and eddying,
and moaning around the corners, hissing under the door and sending its
cold breath in at every crevice; and how the windows rattled when the
blast came fiercest, and how the smoke would sometimes whirl down the
great chimney, I remember well where my father's chair was always
placed; and where my mother sat of those winter evenings, when her
household cares were over for the day, plying her needle, or knitting,
or darning stockings, or mending garments, for such employment was no
dishonor to the matrons of those days. With these for the leading
figures, I remember how seven brothers and sisters were grouped
around, and how the old house dog had a place in the corner, and how
lovingly the cat nestled between his feet. Cherished memories are
these pleasant visions and they come to me often, vivid as realities.
But the dream vanishes, the vision fades away, and I think of the six
pale, still faces as I saw them last, and of the names that are
chiseled upon the cold marble that stands through the sunny
spring-time, the heat of summer, the autumnal days, and the storms and
tempests of winter, over the graves of the dead.
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