"Well, he said we were young and hearty, and there was no such tearing hurry about the mortgage and that he'd give his right hand to have a couple of boys like yours.""Well?" - "Why, I said, supposing we had a couple, of boys, they wou1dn't be like yours, dressed to look genteel and to have their genteel ways but a pair of wild colts, into everything, tearing their clothes off their backs, and wasting faster than we could earn.He said 'twasn't the clothes, 'twas the flesh and blood he wanted, and 'twasn't no use to argufy about it; a man that hadn't got any children wasn't mor'n half a man.'Well,' says I, supposing you had a pack of, 'em, what have you got to give 'em?' 'Jest exactly what my father and mother gave me,' says he; 'two hands to earn their bread with, and a welcome you could have heard from Dan to Beersheba.'""I like to hear that!" I said."And I hope many such welcomes will resound in this house.Suppose money does come in while little goes-out; suppose you get possession of the whole farm; what then?
Who will enjoy it with you? Who will you leave it to when you die?
And in your old age who will care for you?"
"You seem awful earnest," she said.
"Yes, I am in earnest.I want to see little children adorning every home, as flowers adorn every meadow and every wayside.I want to see them welcomed to the homes they enter, to see their parents grow less and less selfish, and more and more loving, because they have come.Iwant to see God's precious gifts accepted, not frowned upon and refused."Mr.Brown came in, so I could say no more.But my heart warmed towards him, as I looked at his frank good-humored face, and I should have been glad to give him the right hand of fellowship, As it was Icould only say a word or two about the beauty of his farm, and the scenery of this whole region.
"Yes," he said, gratified that I appreciated his fields and groves, "it is a tormented pretty-laying farm.Part of it was her father's, and part of it was my father's; there ain't another like it in the country.As to the scenery, I don't know as I ever looked at it; city folks talk a good deal about it, but they've nothing to do but look round." Walter came trotting in on two bare, white feet, and with his shoes in his hand.He had had his nap, felt, as bright; and fresh as he looked rosy, and I did not wonder at Mr.Brown's catching him up and clasping his sunburnt arms about the little fellow, and pressing him against the warm heart that yearned for nestlings of its own.
Sept.23-Home again, and the full of the thousand cares that follow the summer and precede the winter.But let mothers and wives fret as they will, they enjoy these labors of love, and would feel lost without them.For what amount of leisure, ease and comfort would Iexchange husband and children and this busy home?
Martha is better, and Helen has come back to us.I don't know how we have lived without her so long.Her life seems necessary to the completion of every one of ours.Some others have fancied it necessary to the completion of theirs, but she has not a greed with them.We are glad enough to keep her; and yet I hope the day will come when she, so worthy of it, will taste the sweet joys of wifehood and motherhood.
