OLD HOMESTEAD 



mer and the frosts and snows of winter for fourscore years. It 

 has seen generations born and die; it has seen families come and 

 go; it has had for many years the care of its founders, and for a 

 long time the neglect of indifferent tenants and strangers; it has 

 stood to see those from under its roof scattered throughout the 

 wide land, and most of them go to '' dwell in a house not made 

 with hands." Yet it still stands to recall the memories of the 

 happy home which so long existed within its walls. It tells me 

 of father, mother, brothers and sisters, neighbors and old-time 

 friends, of each and all, and takes me back to the joyous days 

 of childhood and youth, when I longed for a more speedy flight 

 of time that I might sooner reach the realm of manhood, little 

 dreaming the day would so soon come that I would wish to 

 retard the swift-passing hours which so rapidly bear us forward. 

 It brings back the ambitions, hopes, fears and fancies of youth, 

 and as memory rapidly shifts the retrospective view, I again go 

 through the many, many, busy, shifting scenes of a happy child- 

 hood and youth spent in this old red house — home. 



