The Autumn wind has died away, and the air has not a sound,
Save the sighing of the withered leaves as they fall upon the ground.
During this visit to his home Whittier's father died. This circumstance probably influenced him in his decision to resign his position as editor of The New England Weekly Review, that he might return to his mother and sisters.
One pleasing glimpse we catch of Elizabeth in her twentieth year. Sharing her brother's anti-slavery sympathies, she was occasionally called to share the dangers which at that time beset those who had the courage to espouse the cause of the oppressed. In 1835, when Whittier was the corresponding secretary of the Anti-slavery Society of Haverhill, a lecture on slavery having been announced was interfered with by the mob, who terrified the audience by a disgraceful attack upon the building where the lecture was being delivered. The meeting was broken up in confusion, and it was in part owing to the bravery of Miss Whittier that the lecturer escaped in safety, she, along with another young lady, undertaking to escort the lecturer, pushing their way through the threatening mob. On another occasion, when attending a meeting of the Female Anti-slavery Society at Boston, Elizabeth was herself in considerable danger of rough usage at the hands of her infuriated opponents. She did not by any means lead a public life, but was, on the contrary, of a retiring and gentle nature, and it was only the cruel wrongs of the oppressed that roused her sympathies and led her to active endeavours on their behalf.
In the year 1840 the farm at Haverhill passed out of the family, and they removed to Amesbury. It then consisted of four members only—the poet and his mother, aunt, and sister Elizabeth.
Thenceforth, until her death, she was her brother's close companion. The playmate of his childhood became the adviser of his riper years, the sharer of his sympathies, hopes, and aims. Happy lives are generally uneventful, except, indeed, in what constitutes their best portion—the pleasant intercourse, the loving ministries which go to make life so truly worth living.
With such inmates we are sure that the poet's home at Amesbury was supremely blessed—that the years passed gently and time touched kindly. But the happy circle gradually thinned. A few years after settling at Amesbury the cherished aunt died; some years later—in 1857—the mother. From thenceforth until her own death in 1864, Elizabeth seems to have been her brother's sole companion.
When Whittier's sister died her memory lived. The empty home seems to have carried back his mind to his earlier home in the quiet valley where his sister shared his woodland rambles, and where the icy grasp of winter imprisoned the complete family round the glowing hearth. It was in the year following his sister's death Whittier wrote the poem before referred to, "Snowbound," which is at once fondly reminiscent of bygone days and touched with a tender memory of his latest loss. He says:—
As one who held herself a part
Of what she saw, and let her heart