Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/42

38 that all is in order, sink into the easy- chair under it. I am sitting opposite you, looking into your earnest eyes; you look pale and slightly sad; you gaze into the cheerful wood fire; your elbow rests upon your knee, and you make an easy chair of the hand and wrist, into which, by the right of former possession, your chin settles down comfortably. Now you slily adjust the spinal weakness of the immense brass andiron nearest you, (by the way, I always felt that you considered yourself responsible for the good appearance of that unfortunate member of the family,) and with the hearth-brush you make an attempt at fighting up some stray ashes or coals ; as though they had not learned long ago better than to touch so nice a hearth-stone. Those bright old and-irons, how they belong to home! and the shovel and tongs that never knock their heads into the jams, nor irreverently roll over with a clattering sound; the two quaint candlesticks of the same metal, standing so as to measure the length of the snuffer tray, which always occupies the centre of the mantel. Now you light a taper, and the candle which is longest is set burning. The knitting suddenly appears,