on a brier bush. Dear me! how long it has been since I have seen any
tow, or heard a loom or a spinning-wheel, or seen a boy breaking in his
new flax-made shirt! No one sees these things any more.

Mother had but little schooling; she learned to read, but not to write
or cipher; hence, books and such interests took none of her time. She
was one of those uneducated countrywomen of strong natural traits and
wholesome instincts, devoted to her children; she bore ten, and
nursed them all--an heroic worker, a helpful neighbor, and a provident
housewife, with the virtues that belonged to so many farmers' wives in
those days, and which we are all glad to be able to enumerate in our
mothers.

She had not a large frame, but was stout; had brown hair and blue eyes,
a fine strong brow, and a straight nose with a strong bridge to it. She
was a woman of great emotional capacity, who felt more than she thought.
She scolded a good deal, but was not especially quick-tempered. She was
an Old-School Baptist, as was Father.

She was not of a vivacious or sunny disposition--always a little in
shadow, as it seems to me now, given to brooding and to dwelling upon
the more serious aspects of life. How little she knew of all that has
been done and thought in the world! and yet the burden of it all was,
in a way, laid upon her. The seriousness of Revolutionary times, out
of which came her father and mother, was no doubt reflected in her own
serious disposition. As I have said, her happiness was always shaded,
never in a strong light; and the sadness which motherhood, and the care
of a large family, and a yearning heart beget was upon her. I see myself
in her perpetually. A longing which nothing can satisfy I share
with her. Whatever is most valuable in my books comes from her--the
background of feeling, of pity, of love comes from her.

She was of a very different temperament from Father--much more
self-conscious, of a more breeding, inarticulate nature. She was richly
endowed with all the womanly instincts and affections. She had a decided
preference for Abigail and me among her children, wanted me to go to
school, and was always interceding with Father to get me books.
She never read one of my books. She died in 1880, at the age of
seventy-three. I had published four of my books then.

She had had a stroke of apoplexy in the fall of 1879, but lived till
December of the following year, dying on father's seventy-seventh
birthday. (He lived