228 I GO A-FISHING. 



is true of those who have outlived the beloved of old 

 time ; for the gathering feet of the dear ones gone press 

 down the very blue above us, and bring heaven very near. 

 Down the valley a little way is the grave-yard in which 

 she had laid a great many dear forms of affection, and 

 had seen her stout sons cover them out of her sight with 

 the valley earth. A great many I say, but we who live in 

 crowds all our lives might think the number few. There 

 are only eleven inhabitants in the township in which she 

 lives. There are something more than twice eleven sleep- 

 ers in the grave-yard, but she knew them all, every one 

 of them old as well as young, and, standing by their 

 graves, she could tell you the story of each one's life and 

 sorrow or joy and death. We live among cemeteries 

 where we hesitate to leave our dead, in cold and lonesome 

 solitude, among strangers by the thousand. Here they 

 who sleep near each other are all of them old friends, or 

 the children of friends, and it is not so hard to leave the 

 dear ones in such company. 



The epochs in her life are all marked in the grave- 

 yard. The great events to which her memory goes back 

 with most profound regard are there registered. Nature 

 around her was unchanged, unchanging. Sunshine and 

 storm, indeed, alternated on the mountain-sides, but the 

 very alternation had a sameness that was like the hills 

 themselves. Only, from time to time, when God gave her 

 sorrow, in floods like the spring floods of the Pemigewas- 

 set, she bowed and was well-nigh overwhelmed, but the 

 mountains were the same every morning though the storm 

 had been fierce in the night, and so at length she grew to 

 be like them, unchanged by flood or storm, only purified. 

 What a little world this valley home has been for fifty 

 vears ! 



