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hosiery of the family, and the home-spun linen, emulating the 

 whiteness of the snow-drift. The floors are carpeted, and the 

 beds are made comfortable, with the produce of their own 

 flocks and fields, all wrought by their own hands. The gold- 

 en products of the dairy ; the transparent sweets of the hive, 

 obtained without robbery or murder ; the abundant contribu- 

 tions of the poultry-yard, the garden, and the orchard, load the 

 table with delicious luxuries. There are books for their leisure 

 hours ; and there stands too the reverend bass-viol in the cor- 

 ner, constant like its owner to appear at church on Sundays, 

 and kind always to assist in the chant of the daily morning and 

 evening hymn. Better than all this, there are children trained 

 in the good old school of respectful manners, where the words 

 of age, and grey hairs, and superiority, still have a place ; en- 

 ured to early hours and habits of industy, and with a curiosity 

 and thirst for knowledge stimulated the more from a feeling 

 of the restricted means of gratifying it. There is another 

 delightful feature in the picture ; the aged grandmother in 

 her chair of state, with a countenance as mild and benignant as 

 a summer evening's twilight ; happy in the conviction of duty 

 successfully discharged by training her children in habits of 

 temperance and industry ; and receiving, as a kind of household 

 deity, the cheerful tribute from all of reverence and affection. 



Some may call this poetry ; it is indeed the true poetry of 

 humble rural life, but there is no fiction nor embellishment about 

 it. The picture is only true ; and if it were not a violation of 

 the rules which I have prescribed to myself to mention names 

 in such cases, and that I might offend a modesty which I high- 

 ly respect, I would show my readers the path which leads to 

 the house, and they should look at the original for themselves. 



The owner, when I visited him, was forty-five years old. — 

 At twenty-one years old, he V\'as the possessor of only fourteen 

 dollars, and with the blessing only of friends no richer than 

 himself. His whole business has been farming and that only. 

 He married early ; and though he did not get a fortune loith a 

 wife, he got a fortune in a wife. They have comforted and 



