The Story of My Childhood
109
great and matchless country. I fear that my plain, simple facts will rob many a fancy sketch of its brightest tints, as in this instance. I am compelled to confess in regard to the second statement, that my father never had a mortgage that I knew of, and, therefore, had no need of my brave help. On the other hand, he had something to give to me.
I think it usually occurs in small
communities that there is one family,
or one house, to which all strangers
or new comers naturally gravitate.
Nothing was plainer than that ours
was that house. All lecturers, upon
any subject, clergymen on trial, whoever
had a new idea to expound and
was in need of an abiding place meanwhile,
found one there. My father's
