My task is not so difficult,--as I seek virtues, not perishable stuffs. We will learn the history of these thickly crossing wrinkles, that, checkering, map out the face like the streets of a busy city. We will read the story "that youth and observation copied there." Many sit in my chair with weather-beaten looks, but time and want and necessity have ploughed still deeper furrows.
It is not in vain, this brave encounter with the elements,--this battle to keep the wolf Want outside the door,--the patient, laborious building up of the small house, made almost a comfortable home by many years of toil,--the sufficient meal snatched from Nature by the line or the gun, or wrung from her by hard labor of the hands. Is the face too thin and hard, the lips compressed? Would you turn away from so much patient endurance of a hard lot? Turn again, and read the story the clear eye tells; listen to the words of a deep religious experience which the thin, cracked voice relates: how in visions of the night the Comforter has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the burden of life is lightened. Will you go with me, dear, into those homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story of New England's farmers and farmers' wives? We cannot call those poor who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep experiences of a faithful life.
Uncle Jack stops on his way, going up to get the oxen, and passes the night,--says, "Other people can't find enough to do; for his part, he should like to lie down in the hay-mow and rest,--all worn out, used up. Now Josiah, good, conversable man, knows about geography and the country round. Well, when you've got that, got the best of him,--likes variety too well,--goes off, leaves the homestead like a dismantled ship. Now, if a man only gets three good days down cellar, that's something. Don't believe 'Siah ever does it. So many notions in's head bothers him." (Uncle Jack is quite right; 'tis not economical to have notions; besides, they are revolutionary, they subvert the order of things.) "Got a cunning little heifer used to have some manners. Lost some of our lambs; read in a book, that, take what care you might, you would lose some lambs at times."--To-day he has gone driving the oxen round by Perkins's.