isters. O, well do I recall them
all! They come near, and I feel their presence as of old! I am glad to
linger mostly on their early days; for, in after life, their hearts were
filled with sorrow, their fresh spirits wearied, and care brought and
filled their souls with other feelings than those of love and sympathy
to others.

Our fairest and brightest brother was Fred. I was only one year younger
than he, and I remember well how I watched my mother while she nursed
him, and sent me away from the arms which a little before had been my
sole possession. I could not understand it, and my little heart was
filled with dismay. I would creep away by myself, sit down, and in the
most pitiful manner repeat to myself, "Poor Sammy! poor Sammy!" The
sense of desolation was very great; and in the whole course of my life I
do not remember to have known a more distressing grief. When I grew to
be a man, and disappointments came upon me; when I laid my wife and
children in their graves, and knew there was not one left of my line but
myself--a miserable old man--there was hope in my sorrow, light in my
darkness; for I knew the love of God and the life of eternity. These
deep sorrows had, also, bright heights; but it was not so then. I could
not feel God's love. My mother's care had been all I knew; and, now that
it seemed given to another, I was alone and wretched. There was a
terrible sense of injustice, which nearly broke my heart. I could not
understand how my little brother could have the right to what was
denied me.

I have always tenderly pitied children who had griefs; then they need
our care more than the grown children, who feel God's love and wisdom.
But these little ones grope in a kind of darkness. Suffering is a
mystery to them; they can perceive no cause or end for it; they only
know they suffer.

After a while, I, too, was allowed to sit on my mother's lap with this
brother, and then I began to love him, he was _so_ beautiful. There was
no child in the county which could be compared with him, and, simply
because of his beauty and his cunning ways, he gained the power of a
king over the household, so that as soon as he began to run about he
ruled it, and me even more than the rest.

The country was very new then, and all the gay, flourishing towns and
villages, which are now scattered in every direction, scarcely existed
even in the minds of the first sanguine settlers. Dark woods and sombre
swamps covered the surfac