A little way over the hill from Mrs. Allen's dwelling, stood a low, red farm house which covered a good deal of ground, and possessed many pleasant surroundings, such as marked the more thrifty class of farmers in those days. Rows of stiff, Lombardy poplars stood in lines before the house, looking more like mammoth umbrellas, verdant in color, and shut up for the season, than any thing else. Tall, cinnamon roses clambered up the front, while a whole forest of lilac and snowball bushes cast their shadows on the rich sward of the door yard. At the back was a fine apple orchard which filled the air all around with the delicate perfume of its blossoms in the spring-time, and gave out a rich, fruity odor in the autumn. A well sweep pencilled its slender shadow along the plantain leaves that grew rank at the back door, and beyond that, the distant outlines of a cider-mill could be imperfectly seen through the orchard boughs.
Every thing seemed natural to the stern man, as he drew near the homestead. He could not remember a time when the old place did not look thrifty and comfortable, as it appeared then. A few dry branches bristled here and there among the poplars, speaking of progressive age, like gray hairs in the head of a strong man, but they were scarcely perceptible in the moonlight, and Thrasher could see no change since the years of his boyhood.
The family sitting room was back of the house, and through the windows a gleam of light shot along the grass. Thrasher passed through the yard, and, pausing beneath the window, looked in. The paper blind was partly rolled up, and he thus commanded a view of the entire room.
Two old people sat together on the hearth, where a few embers lay smouldering. A round, cherry wood stand stood between them, from which towered a massive brass candlestick, supporting the only light that burned in the room.
The old lady was knitting. What a sweet, benign expression slept on her face! How softly the white hair was folded under her cap! The pure, healthy bloom on her cheek was something wonderful. It made you in love with the beauty of old age.
The old man was reading aloud; the great family bible lay open before him, and his deep, reverential voice could be distinctly heard through the imperfectly closed window. As Thrasher looked, the old man removed the spectacles from his eyes, and laid them on the page he had been reading, while he listened smilingly to some observation that his wife had made, but which, with her lower and softer tones, Thrasher had lost.
"How many times have we read this chapter together, Eunice—so many that neither you nor I can remember them; but every reading brings out something new—something more holy than we ever found before. Isn't that your experience?"
"Yes," answered the old lady, taking a seamstitch with serene precision as she spoke. "It seems to me, husband, that one never learns really what is in the Bible till old age comes on. When we were young, I can remember being so tired when the morning chapter was read, and full of other thoughts, that I am sorry to remember now. That is the reason I always had so much charity for our Nelson. Poor child, he never could sit still through a whole chapter—boy or man!"
"I'm afraid," answered the old man, with a heavy sigh. "I'm a'most afraid, Eunice, that we neglected to perform our whole duty to the boy at the start. He was such a bright child, that we wandered off into ambition and worldly pride where he was concerned. Now, that we are getting old, and a'most as good as childless, this idea troubles me more than a little. Maybe, if you and I had been a little more strict with the boy, he'd have got over them roving notions, and stayed at home."
"I don't know," said the old lady, putting on her glasses to loop up a stitch, while a shade of trouble came to her face. "It seems to me as if nothing would ever have kept Nelson on the farm. He was too high strung for that. But what then? Every body isn't of the same idea, you know; and if the education we gave our son helped to unsettle him for our way of life, it fitted him for another. Remember, he went out first mate this time."