The Project Gutenberg EBook of Family Pride, by Mary J. Holmes

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Title: Family Pride
Or, Purified by Suffering

Author: Mary J. Holmes

Release Date: April 12, 2005 [EBook #15607]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FAMILY PRIDE

OR

Purified by Suffering

BY MARY J. HOLMES

Author of "Dora Deane," "The English Orphans," "Homestead on the
Hillside," "Tempest and Sunshine," "Lena Rivers," "Meadowbrook," "Cousin
Maude," etc., etc.

CHAPTER I.

THE FARMHOUSE AT SILVERTON.

Uncle Ephraim Barlow, deacon of the orthodox church in Silverton,
Massachusetts, was an old-fashioned man, clinging to the old-time
customs of his fathers, and looking with but little toleration upon what
he termed the "new-fangled notions" of the present generation. Born and
reared amid the rocks and hills of the Bay State, his nature partook
largely of the nature of his surroundings, and he grew into manhood with
many a rough point adhering to his character, which, nevertheless, taken
as a whole, was, like the wild New England scenery, beautiful and grand.
None knew Uncle Ephraim Barlow but to respect him, and at the church
where he was a worshiper few would have been missed more than the tall,
muscular man, with the long, white hair, who Sunday after Sunday walked
slowly up the middle aisle to his accustomed seat before the altar, and
who regularly passed the contribution box, bowing involuntarily in token
of approbation when a neighbor's gift was larger than its wont, and
gravely dropping in his own ten cents--never more, never less--always
ten cents--his weekly offering, which he knew amounted in a year to just
five dollars and twenty cents. And still Uncle Ephraim was not stingy,
as the Silverton poor could testify, for many a load of wood and bag of
meal found entrance to the doors where cold and hunger would have
otherwise been, while to hi