"SLEEP SAFE, O WAVE-WORN MARINER! FEAR NOT, TO-NIGHT, OR STORM OR SEA-; THE EAR OF HEAVEN BENDS LOW TO HER: HE COMES TO SHORE WHO SAILS WITH ME. THE TIRELESS TRAVELER. EARLY JOURNEYINGS. One lonesome day in early spring, gray with fog and moist with rain, a Sunday at that, and a Puritan Sunday in the bargain, I stood in the doorway of our old barn at Forest Home. There was no church to go to, and the time stretched out before me long and desolate. I cried out in querulous tones to the two who shared my every thought, "I wonder if we shall ever know anything, see anybody, or go anywhere!" for I felt as if the close curtains of the fog hedged us in, somehow, from all the world besides. Out spoke my cheery brother, saying, "Oh, I guess I would n't give up quite yet, Frank!" and sweet little Mary clasped my thin hand with her warm, chubby one, looked into my face and smiled that reassuring smile, as sweet as summer and as fresh and fair as violets. "Why do you wish to go away?" she asked. Oh, we must learn-must grow and must achieve! It's such a big world that if we don't begin at it we shall never catch . up with the rest," was my unquiet answer. Always in later years when the world has widened for me, as it has kept on doing, I have gone back in thought to that gray, "misty, moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather," and been ashamed and sorry for the cross child I was, who had so little faith in all that the Heavenly Father had in store. My mother says I never crept, but, being one of those cosseted children brought up by hand, started at once, by reason of the constant attention given me by herself, when I was less than two years old, to walk, having declined up to that time to do anything except sit in her arms. The first independent traveling of which I am cognizant was running away, with that primitive instinct of exploration that seems well-nigh universal. Our overland trip to Wisconsin in my seventh year, two visits to Milwaukee, the fair, lakeside city; and one to my birthplace, comprised all the traveling done by me until we came to Evanston to attend college. I well remember the profound impression made upon me, at nineteen years of age, by the first hotel I ever entered — the Matteson House, Chicago. I can not pass the building that now bears this name without shuddering recollections of the impressive spectacle when we all sat down to dinner at what was then one of the chief hotels; the waiters (all white men) standing in solemn line, then at a signal, with consummate skill and as by "one fell swoop," inverting the covers on all those huge, steaming dishes, without letting a drop fall on the snowy table, and marching out like a detachment of drilled soldiers! And never did a sense of my own small size and smaller knowledge settle down upon me quite so solidly as when one of those faultlessly attired gentlemen in claw-hammer coat and white cravat asked me "what I would have." I glanced helplessly at my good father; his keen eyes twinkled, he knew the man oppressed me by his likeness to a clergyman; he summoned him for a conference, and chose my dinner for me. But I was distressed for fear I should do something awkward under these strange circumstances, ate almost nothing, and had a wretched, all-overish sense of being unequal to the situation. Helplessly I envied the fair girl of sixteen who sat beside me, and was full of merry quips with father, and not at all concerned about her conduct or herself-my beautiful sister Mary. ❞ in When we came home from my year as "preceptress Lima, in the spring of 1867, we found my dear father in what proved to be the last stages of consumption. Hoping that a return to his early home and the society of his near relatives would be beneficial, Kate Jackson and I induced him to go with us to Churchville, in September, where he remained with his only brother, Zophar Willard, and his youngest sister, Mrs. Caroline Town, until the 24th of January, 1868, when his worn body succumbed to its inexorable fate, and his triumphant spirit wafted its way to heaven Inasmuch as my father was with his family and had mother to care for him, I sought employment as a teacher once more, The Sad Home-going. 247 the impaired fortunes of our house seeming to make this requisite. I had secured a situation as teacher of English Composition in Lasell Female Seminary, Auburndale, Mass. My trunks were packed to go there from Kate's home in Paterson, when a letter from mother made me feel that my destiny did not lie in that direction. I therefore telegraphed to father, "I wish to come to you; shall I not do so?" Receiving his reply, "Come at once," Kate and I set out for Churchville, where for two months or more my only thought was to help as best I might in the care of my father, who was confined to his bed, and with whom mother and I took turns in watching for sixty nights, she having already, with my uncle and aunt, had the care for nearly two months. This season of solemn vigils was the most reflective of my life. In the silence of the night, how many times I sang to my father the old hymns dear to us at home, and read or wrote while he slept. The devotion of my mother and of my father's relatives can not be described-it was complete. Our loyal friend Kate settled herself in a quiet home across the street and was with us daily. When the sad home-going came, she was one of the company. A committee sent for the purpose met us on the train some hours before we reached Chicago, and when we arrived in Evanston at midnight with our precious burden, lights in the homes of our friends all along the streets we traversed, spoke eloquently of the sympathy and thoughtfulness they felt for us in our sorrow, and our home was bright with their presence and the manifold tokens of their loving care. All that winter, mother, Kate and I kept house together. In the spring we went to visit my brother Oliver and his family in Appleton, Wis., where mother remained, and whence going to New York, Kate and I sailed on our long, adventurous journey. And now, to show how it came about that I had the great advantage of living, studying, and traveling abroad from May 1868 to September 1870, I will give a sketch of my dear friend, KATE JACKSON. On my return from Pittsburgh in the summer vacation of 1864, I went according to my custom to the regular prayermeeting in our old church in Evanston, and participated according to my custom in the exercises. At the close of the meeting |