64 
MATTERS OF TASTE. 
important addition to her little shelf of books, and 
another luxury which she had long coveted. 
In the village to which she often went with her 
sisters to make the necessary purchases for spring 
and autumn, she had observed green-house plants for 
sale, and the roses and geraniums which bloomed so 
beautifully, while all without was so dreary, had 
attracted her beyond anything she had ever seen. A 
rose and a geranium were purchased with the rem¬ 
nant of the bee money, and placed in the sitting 
room, where a sunny window promised well for 
such pets. The care of these supplied the place of 
the beloved bees, during the short winter days when 
there was little time for anything but household 
affairs, during the hours of daylight. In the even¬ 
ings, the delightful long evenings, while Polly spun 
flax on the small wheel, and the other sisters were 
knitting stockings or sewing little diamonds and hex¬ 
agons into patch-work, Ellen, who had learned to 
knit and read at once , would sometimes obtain per¬ 
mission to rc'ad aloud; and after she had read her 
father to sleep with a few paragraphs of the weekly 
paper, or an agricultural monthly for which she had 
persuaded him to subscribe, she would get one of her 
own favorite volumes, the Tales of a Grandfather, 
perhaps, or one of Mary Howitt’s stories, and try to 
interest her sisters, while her own fingers flew almost 
as busily as theirs. By such means as these, a de¬ 
cided improvement manifested itself in the family, 
and Ellen had the satisfaction of seeing a taste for 
reading gradually growing among them. Little Liz¬ 
zie was nicely dressed and sent to school in ample time 
every morning, instead of being suffered to lounge 
about at home until it was too late to go. Sarah 
bought Tales of American History for her own read¬ 
ing ; and she too found that scarce a pair less of 
stockings need be knit in the course of the winter, 
while she occupied her eyes with a well printed 
book. Polly was almost too old to learn so easily; 
but even she was willing to hear, provided a story 
was the thing read; and in the matter of roses and 
geraniums, sne soon came to love them, to take care 
of them, and to be as anxious to increase their stock 
as either of the other girls. 
Jane, the third daughter, whom we described as 
being more fond of dress than the others, was less 
inclined to improvement than either of them. When 
once the passion for personal adornment has seized 
on a female mind, there is scarce anything more 
hopeless than an attempt to induce a taste for better 
things. She still laid out all that her father allowed 
her on tasteless finery, and her character was so far 
consistent, that she could 'hardly endure to hear any¬ 
thing read but the most romantic novels. We may 
easily imagine that Jane’s judgment did not ripen very 
rapidly under such influences; and there is no saying 
what silly things she might have done, had not Pro¬ 
vidence ordered a blessing for the Dickson family, in 
one of those questionable shapes which it often 
chooses for our improvement. 
The harvest was over, and the great barn was 
stored almost to bursting, when a violent thunder¬ 
storm, such as sometimes occurs late in the sea¬ 
son, came on in the afternoon. The barn was 
struck by lightning and set on fire; but the large 
number of men who had been employed in the har¬ 
vest being still on the ground, the fire was subdued, 
after very great exertions, before any very extensive 
damage had ensued. All went weary to bed, and 
slept so soundly that they remained totally uncon¬ 
scious that the house itself was burning, until they 
were awakened by a suffocating smoke, and found 
themselves in such imminent peril, that they were 
glad to escape with life; leaving almost everything 
that the house contained, to the mercy of the flames. 
In the confusion of extinguishing the fire which 
threatened the destruction of the barn, nobody had 
thought of a quantity of lime which had been stored, 
for barn-yard purposes, close against a line of fence 
which communicated with the house. Being cover¬ 
ed with a rough shed, the lime had not been visible; 
but the deluge of rain had reached it in sufficient 
quantities to produce combustion, and hence the loss 
of the house. Whether ignorance or carelessness 
produced this result, it was, or seemed, disastrous 
enough for the time. 
Poor Polly’s stores of bedding and stockings, long 
hoarded for a bridal which seemed yet far distant, 
were all scattered to the winds. The feather-beds, 
to make which she had assiduously plucked live geese 
year after year, were melted into an indistinguishable 
mass with the butter and cheese on which she and 
Sarah so prided themselves; and Jane’s gaudy dresses 
blazed literally, as they had before done figuratively. 
Ellen’s little treasures went with the rest; but her 
taste for such things remaining in full force, and her 
acquirements being those of the mind, she lost far 
less than the others, and she possessed, moreover, a 
degree of judgment and resolution which proved in¬ 
valuable to the family under these circumstances. 
The house was to be rebuilt, of course. The loss 
of a house, however comfortable, does not prostrate 
a thriving farmer, and Mr. Dickson was not so im¬ 
provident as not to have been insured to a considera¬ 
ble amount. So, although the girls’ handiwork was 
irrecoverably lost, their father’s property had not suf¬ 
fered materially, and the taste and ingenuity of the 
daughters was called into action in planning the new 
house; or, rather in making suggestions and addi¬ 
tions to the plan which they were wise enough to 
procure from a professional man. A good warm ex¬ 
posure for the winter sitting-room was thought of, 
and a small, sunny nook for the plants, communicat¬ 
ing so easily with the great kitchen chimney that 
heat was readily obtained, with scarce any additional 
expense. A light piazza at once graced and shaded 
the windows of the best parlor, which was seldom 
used except in summer; and this room opened by a 
sash door, directly into the garden. These, and 
many other improvements, soon reconciled all to 
the loss of the homely old house; and the gradu¬ 
al refinement of the family went on more rapidly 
than ever, under circumstances so much more fa¬ 
vorable. The girls lost none of their industry, but 
they learned to exercise it with more judgment. 
They became convinced that all effort should have 
some determinate end; that to go on laboring and 
sacrificing one’s time to no valuable purpose, is just 
as foolish when the object is useless bedquilts and 
stockings, as when it is something which wears a 
less questionable shape. Even in their household 
operations, they find a reference to books highly use¬ 
ful ; and the various records of modern improvement 
have shown them how much time and trouble they 
formerly wasted for want of the knowledge which 
was, even then, familiar to the better instructed. 
