Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/43

Rh and you are busy. The shadows flicker over the room, for your one wax is not brilliant. I lift the veil from the living picture of our dear old father; pass my hand also to the fancy piece from the hand of a dear sister, who thus prepared a tablet for her own name; I smooth my hand along the household stuff of a past century, which, in the old ballad words, "the more it is used the brighter it shines;" I take a gaze again at the venerable face, the erect form, which has borne the care of four score years without growing old and childish. The whole atmosphere of your presence has rested me, and now I say, "Good night, mother," for it seems as though you were at my elbow. "Good bye, dear New England. Was there no hearth vacant and sad by my absence? Was there no cabin within your precincts into which I could enter by a fee simple?"

"There," shouts the driver, "don't you see there!" We jump up with a shiver, and, as in duty bound, look. We see, far in the distance, what appears like a respectable-sized barn, forming a step between the frightfully wide country and the clear glowing horizon. We ask, "What is it?"