And e'en the rude Bucket which hung in the Well."
SUNDAY MORNING
Father and mother did not marry until their home had been established, but they lost no time when they got started, for, thirteen years gave them a brood of eight children.
Father was a shrewd dealer in land and cattle, through which he gained enough to purchase about 350 acres of wild land and built a house and barn, while mother, as was customary for New England women, braided palm leaf hats for the slaves of the Southern planters, until she had saved enough to furnish the house. Then they got married.
Our living room was the big kitchen, where we warmed ourselves by the old-fashioned fireplace while the pots and kettles hung on the crane before us. Beside it was a brick oven, where mother baked the good things, especially on Thanksgiving Day, when we did not fill up with old common potatoes.
The parlor, which we were seldom allowed to enter, was to a little boy dazzling. Looking-glass, with gilded frame, paper of many colors, and high-shining brass andirons in the fireplace.
Sunday morning we all gathered there for family worship and one morning father gave us a lesson on "Inspiration," which has nerved me up to fight infidelity all my days.
He had quite a collection of books and one day he brought home a book on geology, from which, after studying it evenings, he declared that the creation of the world in science and the Bible exactly agreed.