ad a large old-fashioned cow-bell, which was always rung to summon
the family to their meals. He resisted having one of more modern
construction, because he said that pleasantly reminded him of the time
when he was a boy, and used to drive the cows to pasture. Sometimes, he
rang it much longer than was necessary to summon the household. On such
occasions, I often observed him smiling while he stood shaking the bell;
and he would say, "I am thinking how Polly looked, when the cow kicked
her over; milk-pail and all. I can see it just as if it happened
yesterday. O, what fun it was!"

He often spoke of the first slave whose escape he managed, in the days
of his apprenticeship. He was wont to exclaim, "How well I remember the
anxious, imploring, look that poor fellow gave me, when I told him I
would be his friend! It rises up before me now. If I were a painter, I
could show it to thee."

But clearly above all other things, did he remember every look and tone
of his beloved Sarah; even in the days when they trudged to school
together, hand in hand. The recollection of this first love, closely
intertwined with his first religious impressions, was the only flowery
spot of romance in the old gentleman's very practical character. When he
was seventy years of age, he showed me a piece of writing she had copied
for him, when she was a girl of fourteen. It was preserved in the
self-same envelope, in which she sent it, and pinned with the same pin,
long since blackened by age. I said, "Be careful not to lose that pin."

"Lose it!" he exclaimed. "No money could tempt me to part with it. I
loved the very ground she trod upon."

He was never weary of eulogizing her comely looks, beautiful manners,
sound principles, and sensible conversation. The worthy companion of his
later life never seemed troubled by such remarks. She not only "listened
to a sister's praises with unwounded ear," but often added a heartfelt
tribute to the virtues of her departed friend.

It is very common for old people to grow careless about their personal
appearance, and their style of conversation; but Friend Hopper was
remarkably free from such faults. He was exceedingly pure in his mind,
and in his personal habits. He never alluded to any subject that was
unclean, never made any indelicate remark, or used any unseemly
expression. There was never the slightest occasion for young people to
feel uneasy concerning what he might say. However lively his mood migh