The younger, a plump, vigorous urchin, three or four
months old, did, without doubt, "feel his life in every limb." He
was my especial charge, for his brother's clinging weakness gave
him, the first-born, the place nearest his mother's heart. The
baby bore the family name, mine and his mother's; "our little
Lark," we sometimes called him, for his wide-awakeness and his
merry-heartedness.(Alas! neither of those beautiful boys grew up
to be men! One page of my home-memories is sadly written over
with their elegy, the "Graves of a Household." Father, mother,
and four sons, an entire family, long since passed away from
earthly sight.)
The tie between my lovely baby-nephew and myself became very
close. The first two years of a child's life are its most
appealing years, and call out all the latent tenderness of the
nature on which it leans for protection. I think I should have
missed one of the best educating influences of my youth, if I had
not had the care of that baby for a year or more just as I
entered my teens.
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