is warming; yet the memory of those who have been
near and dear to us brings a deeper glow into the heart.

Uncle Lyman's farm supplied nearly every one of his needs except what
were called in his day West India goods. He believed with Cato that the
father of a family ought always to sell and never to buy. He strictly
followed his advice in selling his old cattle, his old carts and used up
tools and everything which he did not want. This was why his yards and
buildings were unincumbered with the trumpery which so often disfigures
New England farms. West India goods were the luxuries of his time. These
goods were chiefly rum, sugar and molasses. Tea and spices were even
greater luxuries. The strange marks on tea chests were a cipher no one
had unravelled. On his farm were raised corn, wheat and always rye, for
rye and not wheat was in Bellingham the staff of life. Eggs, cheese,
butter and pork were bartered at the country stores for West India
goods. Work, incessant work was the prime necessity on the farm and in
the house, and Uncle Lyman and his wife never knew an idle day. This
fixed upon him a serious and preoccupied air. He began the day early and
left off late. The sun was his fellow traveller and laborer to and fro
in the furrow, the corn rows and the swath. But it was hard for him to
leave his work at sundown; darkness alone sometimes compelled him to
quit the field. After supper, which was at five o'clock, the year round,
is half and the better half of the day in summer, he used to say. Our
Bellingham neighbors were humble, hard working people, but they taught
me "the great art of cheerful poverty." I was early cured of several
follies by standing under the shadow of rustic wise men. I drove their
oxen to the plow, and often fell behind alongside the ploughman and
picked up the scattered seeds of old, traditional wisdom in his furrows.
With these the sagacious urchin sometimes astonished his little mother.
Visitors, a cloudy day, a gentle rain did not prevent Uncle Lyman from
his labors. "Let us keep ahead of the weather," he would say, "and then
we can go a-fishing." No weeds grew in his corn or rye; and his made hay
seldom was wet. He scented a shower from as far away as the Mendon
hills. He first taught me to notice the sweet perfume which a summer
shower drives before it from afar, the combined perfume of wild flowers,
trees and new mown grass.

There was always the promise held out that, after haying or th