a
carpenter by trade, and a leader in his church which was to him a club,
a forum and a commercial exchange. He was a native of Maine and proud of
the fact. His eyes were keen and gray, his teeth fine and white, and his
expression stern. His speech was neat and nipping. As a workman he was
exact and his tools were always in perfect order. In brief he was a
Yankee, as concentrated a bit of New England as was ever transplanted to
the border. Hopelessly "sot" in all his eastern ways, he remained the
doubter, the critic, all his life.

We always spoke of him with formal precision as Grandfather Garland,
never as "Grandad" or "Granpap" as we did in alluding to Hugh
McClintock, and his long prayers (pieces of elaborate oratory) wearied
us, while those of Grandad, which had the extravagance, the lyrical
abandon of poetry, profoundly pleased us. Grandfather's church was a
small white building in the edge of the village, Grandad's place of
worship was a vision, a cloud-built temple, a house not made with hands.

The contrast between my grandmothers was equally wide. Harriet Garland
was tall and thin, with a dark and serious face. She was an invalid, and
confined to a chair, which stood in the corner of her room. On the walls
within reach of her hand hung many small pockets, so ordered that she
could obtain her sewing materials without rising. She was always at work
when I called, but it was her habit to pause and discover in some one
of her receptacles a piece of candy or a stick of "lickerish root"
which she gave to me "as a reward for being a good boy."

She was always making needle rolls and thimble boxes and no doubt her
skill helped to keep the family fed and clothed.

Notwithstanding all divergence in the characters of Grandmother Garland
and Grandmother McClintock, we held them both in almost equal affection.
Serene, patient, bookish, Grandmother Garland brought to us, as to her
neighbors in this rude river port, some of the best qualities of
intellectual Boston, and from her lips we acquired many of the precepts
and proverbs of our Pilgrim forbears.

Her influence upon us was distinctly literary. She gloried in New
England traditions, and taught us to love the poems of Whittier and
Longfellow. It was she who called us to her knee and told us sadly yet
benignly of the death of Lincoln, expressing only pity for the misguided
assassin. She was a constant advocate of charity, piety, and learning.
Always poor, and for m