“In my own early childhood,” she says, “only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays through the darkness. One was of our all running and dancing out before her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning, and her pleasant voice saying after us, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’” Another remembrance is this: “Mother was an enthusiastic horticulturist in all the small ways that limited means allowed. Her brother John, in New York, had just sent her a small parcel of tulip bulbs. I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nursery one day when she was out, and being strongly seized with the idea that they were good to eat, and using all the little English I possessed to persuade my brothers that these were onions such as grown people ate, and would be very nice for us. So we fell to and devoured the whole; and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the odd, sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not as nice as I had supposed. Then mother’s serene face appeared at the nursery door, and we all ran toward her and with one voice began to tell our discovery and achievement. We had found this bag of onions and had eaten them all up. Also I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of impatience, but that she sat down and said: ‘My dear children, what you have done makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onion-roots, but roots of beautiful flowers; and if you had let them alone ma would have had next summer in the garden great, beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you never saw.’ I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew at this picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty bag.” When the mother grew sick and the children were admitted to her bedside once a day, Henry was among the number, although no memory of the fact lingered with him in after-years. Mrs. Stowe writes of this event: “I have a vision of a very fair face with a bright red spot on each cheek, and a quiet smile as she offered me a spoonful of her gruel; of our dreaming one night, we little ones, that mamma had got well, and waking in loud transports of joy, and being hushed down by some one coming into the room. Our dream was indeed a true one. She was for ever well; but they told us she was dead, and took us in to see what seemed so cold and so unlike anything we had ever seen or known of her.” Mrs. Reeve, one of the most intimate friends of the family, writes of the last day of her life: