A FARM-HOUSE STORY. 117 



refinement and cultivation which marks American farm- 

 ers' families. Books, magazines, and newspapers find 

 their way into the remotest settlements, and it is a pleas- 

 ing fact that newness or freshness in the literature is not 

 an essential to its enjoyment. Life glides on so evenly 

 that there is no thirst for novelty, no excitement which 

 requires peculiar stimulus. It is the custom of many an- 

 glers whom I know to gather in the autumn all their old 

 magazines and literature of various kinds, and send it to 

 such distant homes in the forest, where it helps the winter 

 through, and where the giver finds, and is sometimes glad 

 to find it in the spring. 



My sawyer friend brought me to such a house. The 

 fire-light was shining from the kitchen hearth through the 

 open door as we approached, and an old woman, with a 

 bright and sunny smile on her face, welcomed her son 

 and his guest on the threshold. The two lived together 

 here, in a snug frame house, low down in the valley, and 

 only a half-mile from the open country where was a small 

 village and a church. " If it were daylight, you could see 

 the church," said the old lady, " but as it is you can only 

 see the lights in Alice Brand's farm-house." 



And later in the evening, after we had dined, or supped, 

 royally, and were sitting before the hearth talking of this, 

 that, and the other thing, the old lady told me a story 

 about Alice Brand's farm-house. 



Forty years ago Stephen Brand was a farmer in the 

 valley near the church, well to do in the world, and, as he 

 hoped, with some treasure laid up where it could not cor- 

 rupt. At all events Stephen was a light in the church, 

 and had been a judge, or something of the sort, in his 

 county. For a long time the stout old man had served 

 his country, and he was beginning to be weary. 



