Oh, I should miss the garden very much indeed!
It did not take long to turn over the new leaf of our home
experience. One sunny day three of us children, my youngest
sister, my brother John, and I, took with my mother the first
stage-coach journey of our lives, across Lynnfield plains and
over Andover hills to the banks of the Merrimack. We were set
down before an empty house in a yet unfinished brick block, where
we watched for the big wagon that was to bring our household
goods.
It came at last; and the novelty of seeing our old furniture
settled in new rooms kept us from being homesick. One after
another they appeared,--bedsteads, chairs, tables, and, to me
most welcome of all, the old mahogany secretary with brass-
handled drawers, that had always stood in the "front room" at
home. With it came the barrel full of books that had filled its
shelves, and they took their places as naturally as if they had
always lived in this strange town.
There they all stood again side by side on their shelves, the
dear, dull, good old volumes that all my life I had tried in vain
to take a sincere Sabbath-day interest in,--Scott's Commentaries
on the Bible, Hervey's "Meditations," Young's "Night Thouhts,"
"Edwards on the Affections," and the Writings of Baxter and
Doddridge.
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