Come about me, little ones, and I will tell you my story. I seem old to you now; but once I was as young as you. I had twelve brothers and sisters; but now they are all gone before me into the better land, and I remain here alone upon the earth without them.

I am very old. My teeth have fallen away from my mouth one by one, until they are all gone. My bald head has a very few gray hairs; my ears are deaf, so I can scarcely hear your young, sweet voices: and the bright sky is dimmed to my eyes. Slowly my footsteps totter along the earth, as when I first stepped into my mother’s outstretched arms.

My wife long ago went before me to the grave, and I have left many children there. Many a time have I seen the green sod laid over the grave of loved ones. Often have I wept at the sight of God’s servant, Death; but when next he comes I shall hail him with joy, for he will be to me the beloved friend who bears me to my home above.

Now that I am grown old, God lovingly carries me back to the days of my childhood. He sends many a loving spirit upon the wings of consolation to bear me into the fair region of youth. The scenes of the few years since all the noise and bustle of my manhood’s prime are banished far away from me, and only the stillness and quiet of my childhood close around the last moments of my earthly existence. Thus, dear children, bathing me in the innocence and trustful spirit of my childhood, does God prepare me for my home in his beautiful garden.

I told you I had twelve brothers and sisters. O, well do I recall them all! They come near, and I feel their presence as of old! I am glad to linger mostly on their early days; for, in after life, their hearts were filled with sorrow, their fresh spirits wearied, and care brought and filled their souls with other feelings than those of love and sympathy to others.

Our fairest and brightest brother was Fred. I was only one year younger than he, and I remember well how I watched my mother while she nursed him, and sent me away from the arms which a little before had been my sole possession. I could not understand it, and my little heart was filled with dismay. I would creep away by myself, sit down, and in the most pitiful manner repeat to myself, “Poor Sammy! poor Sammy!” The sense of desolation was very great; and in the whole course of my life I do not remember to have known a more distressing grief. When I grew to be a man, and disappointments came upon me; when I laid my wife and children in their graves, and knew there was not one left of my line but myself a miserable old man there was hope in my sorrow, light in my darkness; for I knew the love of God and the life of eternity. These deep sorrows had, also, bright heights; but it was not so then. I could not feel God’s love. My mother’s care had been all I knew; and, now that it seemed given to another, I was alone and wretched. There was a terrible sense of injustice, which nearly broke my heart. I could not understand how my little brother could have the right to what was denied me.

I have always tenderly pitied children who had griefs; then they need our care more than the grown children, who feel God’s love and wisdom. But these little ones grope in a kind of darkness. Suffering is a mystery to them; they can perceive no cause or end for it; they only know they suffer.

After a while, I, too, was allowed to sit on my mother’s lap with this brother, and then I began to love him, he was so beautiful. There was no child in the county which could be compared with him, and, simply because of his beauty and his cunning ways, he gained the power of a king over the household, so that as soon as he began to run about he ruled it, and me even more than the rest.

The country was very new then, and all the gay, flourishing towns and villages, which are now scattered in every direction, scarcely existed even in the minds of the first sanguine settlers. Dark woods and sombre swamps covered the surface; and what do you think we had instead of roads, when we wanted to go from one town to another? The first one who found his way along cut pieces of bark out of the trees, and others followed these marks, until after a time they cut down the trees and made a road. I think this is the reason old roads in this country are so crooked; for you know a man cannot walk very straight through a forest.

Our near neighbors lived a mile from us, and it was quite a little journey to go and see them. We had a village, too, in which were but two buildings, the meeting-house and blacksmith’s shop. You children would hardly think you could live in such a place; yet such was the state of things ninety-three years ago.

Well, my father and mother had come up from a town near Boston, because my grandfather could give them some land here, and they built their house, and made it their home. The house stands now; it is the very one in which my brothers and sisters were all born.

In her parlor my mother had a very nice piece of furniture, which her mother had given her as a wedding present, and of which she was very proud, inasmuch as no parlor in the county could boast the like. It was a looking-glass!

Well, laugh! No wonder it seems funny to you that any one should so prize a looking-glass, when you all have so many of them; but you can have no idea how different everything was then. The people were very poor, and, although they owned many acres of land, yet they could frequently sell it but for one dollar an acre, and thought that a fine bargain. You see we had no money to buy the elegant luxuries you have in your houses the carpets, and sofas, and rocking-chairs. Our floors were hard, covered now and then with a little sand, perhaps, as a great luxury. The chairs were straight and high, while our tables were small and low, and the cups from which we drank our tea as small as those you play with. But, before I say any more, I want to tell you of the fate of mother’s looking-glass.

The great room (as mother’s parlor was called) was always kept carefully closed, and a very sacred, awful and mysterious place it was to us children. It so happened, one day when mother had gone away, that my little brother Fred began to be acted upon very powerfully by a desire to take one peep into that room. By some strange neglect mother had left the door unlatched for she kept her bonnet in there, and always put it on before the glass. The temptation to go in was altogether too powerful for Fred to withstand, and, especially as others had never pronounced the little monosyllable no, to him, he had no mind to begin by saying it to himself. So in he went, and almost the first thing he saw was mother’s looking-glass, hanging over the table between the two front windows. As he went towards it he saw a little boy, who seemed to be peering and staring at him from between the windows. He had no idea it was himself he saw, never having seen the looking-glass before, nor his own reflected image. You may be sure he looked right earnestly upon the strange child. If he stepped forward, so did the boy; if he turned away, and then looked cautiously back to watch the boy, there he was, looking at him in a very sly manner. Freddy, enraged at this, rushed out for a stone, and, bringing it in, hurled it at the looking-glass. But it was all in vain, for, even after the glass rattled down and strewed the floor with its many pieces, that impudent boy peeped at him from every bit of glass in which he looked.

When my mother came home, and went to put away her bonnet in the great room, as usual, she found her beautiful looking-glass lying on the floor, broken into a hundred pieces. When she came out, and demanded of us what it meant, Fred told her of a little boy he saw behind it, at whom he was offended and hurled a stone, but that still the boy looked at him from the pieces of glass and made him very angry.

Then mother laughed when she heard Fred’s story, and, catching him up in her arms, kissed him again and again. She forgot to chide him for his disobedience in going where he had been forbidden to go, and for his foolish anger at the supposed boy. She was so much amused at his version of the story, that she did not explain to him what the boy was, and how the looking-glass reflected figures before it, but he was left to find that out by his experience afterwards.

If my brother, long before that, had learned lessons of love and forbearance, this circumstance, slight as it may seem, would never have occurred. Instead of the threatening and distrustful look in the mirror, he would have found a laughing face, and a tiny, loving hand would have been given him. O, my dear children, this story has a higher meaning than I thought of when I commenced! In the feelings of those whom we approach we see the reflection of our own; if we approach any one with love, it is given to us from them. Think of this: it will serve you well, and teach you to be careful, ere you hurl the stone, to know what is the object of your anger.

I have often thought that we all helped to make my brother selfish. He was so very beautiful that we indulged him in every whim he had; so he came to look upon us at last as bound to serve him. I do not blame him only; they who had the nurturing of him, they to whom his young spirit was sent so fair from God’s heavenly gardens, in their unwise love taught him to think of himself, and make others serve his purposes.

These dear, helpless little ones they come to us in fresh beauty like a spring morning, and we taint their spirits with selfishness, and darken them with worldly care!

Years after, when my brother and myself had grown to men, we bound our interests in one. He had quicker parts than I was a much better scholar; so I trusted all our business confidently in his hands. But I grieve to say he did not meet my confidence with honor he took from my purse to enrich his own; and when I stood by his bedside, at last, and saw how the deep wrinkles were worn in by care upon his once round cheek, I wept. I wept that he should die without having found in life that peace which any one would have predicted for him over his cradle, when the rosy cheeks sank into the soft pillow, and the long lashes of his baby eyelids rested upon them! I love that brother now, and his child, who had become penniless after his death, I warmed in my chimney-corner, and held to my heart as though she had been my own child. Brother, I know thou hast repented, long ago, of the wrongs thou didst inflict, and that some time, in the presence of God, I shall clasp thee in my arms, pure again as when we sat together on our mother’s knee!

See how I have wandered away off from my story!

Let me tell you how we got our clothes. Did you ever ask yourself what we could do then, when there were so few shops, and so little money to carry to the shops?

We had sheep, who gave us wool, which my mother spun, and wove it into cloth. Just think of that! Do you imagine you would have as fine clothes, if your mothers had to spin all the cloth? She knit, too, O, so fast! as well in the dark as the light. I have known her to knit a coarse stocking easily of an evening her fingers flew along the needles! Cotton cloth was a great rarity among us. I remember once my mother had a cotton gown, and it was esteemed very precious.

Father made our shoes, and rough ones they were too, and which we only wore in the coldest part of the winter. The long winter evenings were so beautiful to us! Father taught us to read and spell, and chalked out sums on the wall for us; then we would draw profiles on the wall, for the great blaze of the wood-fire cast a bright light, and, consequently, the shadow was well marked. A huge chimney-place we had, with a broad hearth, and all about this would we sit, roasting apples and popping corn by the heat of the fire.

So we lived; in the summer, playing “hi-spy” around the corners of the barn, and, in the winter, living snugly in the chimney-corner, telling stories.

When the revolutionary war broke out, you’ve heard of that, of course; but then I’m afraid you’ll never know how much we endured then; our feeling against the injustice of Mother England was very great. You do not know how we had loved her, nor how we children used to listen to stories of that beautiful country beyond the sea. Our father and mother spoke of it as “Home,” and we all hoped that some time, when we were men and women, we might go “Home.” Then, when she began to tax us for more money than we were able to pay, in order to build grand palaces, it seemed hard to us; and, even after we had remonstrated again and again, she took no notice of our petitions. She laid a heavy tax on some little comforts we had, such as sugar and molasses; and then, when we refused to buy them rather than pay the tax, she imposed a heavy tax on tea, and sent a great deal of it here to force us to buy it. We wouldn’t have the tea, however, and you must have heard how a party of men, disguised as Indians, threw it all into Boston harbor.

All these things seemed the more cruel because they came from “Home.” And, finally, worn out with the injustice constantly experienced at their hands, we prepared to resist them by war.

The declaration of independence, which you celebrate every fourth of July, was received with mingled emotions of joy and sorrow. It was severing an old tie which had once been sweet; but yet it promised us, through the doubtful conflict, freedom and independence.

How enthusiastic we children were! Father made us rude wooden guns; and drilled us every morning, for no one knew how long the war would last; but we were determined to conquer, even though our fathers died in the war, and our children succeeded to it. I remember when the recruiting army came round. I seized my gun, and manfully joined its ranks. But to my dismay I was sent back; my wooden gun, and extreme youth, were thought insufficient to meet the demands of a soldier’s duty. I remember well when the battle was fought on Bunker Hill. A great part of the town was gathered upon a slight elevation, from which we could distinctly hear the roaring of the cannons and the clashing of the artillery. It was a terrible day! There was many a woman there who had a father or husband in the battle; and, at each report which filled their ears, they fancied they saw them falling before the foe, and trampled beneath the feet of the conquerors.

Those were trying times. Children, I pray God you may never know such; and you never can, for you will not struggle with poverty as we did. When I look upon your happy faces, and see the satchel full of books on your arm, when I look in upon your happy homes, upon the career of honor and usefulness before you in the future, I am, by the strong contrast, transported to those “trying times” when we lived in the cold houses, and wore the coarse cloth; when we sacrificed the refinements of knowledge, and the pleasures of luxury, to the bold struggle of liberty against tyranny; when our hard-working mothers at home melted their last pewter plate, that the guns should know no lack of bullets, and sent all the little comforts of food and clothing they could find, to bless the husbands and fathers toiling in the war; and when the fathers fought with the fangs of thirst and hunger fast upon them, and leaving behind them, upon the sharp ice, the traces of their footsteps, engraven by their bleeding feet. Then, children, tears of joy and gratitude fill my eyes; for we did not toil in vain. In you all do I behold the fruits of our labor. We were ignorant, that you might be wise; poor, that you might be rich; outlawed and disgraced, that you might build up a free and generous nation. And, in reaping these privileges, do not forget the old man, and the old woman, who, bowed and wrinkled with age, need your kind hand. We have given you these things gladly; and now, before we go to our further toil in eternity, let us hear your blessed voices speaking to us in kind tones of love; let us feel your young lips pressed upon our old brows; let us clasp your little hands, and feel the gladness with which your attentions come to us. And when you see an old man, alone, with those of his generation passed away, treat him tenderly. Guide his tottering footsteps, and bear with him when he is slow; for he is waiting for the kind servant, Death. He is thinking of a dear little girl, who, long ago, with her blue eyes and golden hair, her light step and soft embrace, went up to live with the angels; and the tears fall fast over his worn cheeks, as he remembers the lone place she left in his heart, for she was the last thing which had been left him from his broken family. Speak to the old man gently, for his heart is often in converse with the beautiful past! Speak to him gently, for his soul dwells among the angels of heaven!