Julia Ward Howe.
(From a recent photograph.)
our father had placed seats and a rustic table. Here, and in the lovely, lonely fields, as we walked, our mother talked with us, and we might share the rich treasures of her thought.
“And oh the words that fell from her mouth
Were words of wonder and words of truth!”
One such word, dropped in the course of conversation as the maiden in the fairy-story dropped diamonds and pearls, comes now to my mind, and I shall write it here because it is good to think of and to say over to one’s self:—
“I gave my son a palace
And a kingdom to control,—
The palace of his body,
The kingdom of his soul.”
In the Valley, too, many famous parties and picnics were given. The latter are to be remembered with especial delight. A picnic with our mother and one without her are two very different things. I never knew that a picnic could be dull till I grew up and went to one where that brilliant, gracious presence was lacking. The games we played, the songs we sang, the garlands of oak and maple leaves that we wove, listening to the gay talk if we were little, joining in it when we were older; the simple feast, and then the improvised charades or tableaux, always merry, often graceful and lovely!—ah, these are things to remember!
Our mother’s hospitality was boundless. She loved to fill the little house to overflowing in summer days, when every one was glad to get out into the fresh, green country. Often the beds were all filled, and we children had to take to sofas and cots: once, I remember, Harry slept on a mattress laid on top of the piano, there being no other vacant spot.