Of a rugged race, educated in hardness, wringing his substance out of the very teeth and claws of reluctant nature, on a rocky and barren soil, and under a harsh, forbidding sky, who but the All-seeing could judge him? In that hard soul, there may have been, thus uncouthly expressed, a loyalty to Something Higher, however dimly perceived. It was acknowledging that even he had his master. One thing is certain, the custom of family prayers, such as it was, was a great comfort to the meek saint by his side, to whom any form of prayer, any pause from earthly care, and looking up to a Heavenly Power, was a blessed rest. In that daily toil, often beyond her strength, when she never received a word of sympathy or praise, it was a comfort all day to her to have had a chapter in the Bible and a prayer in the morning. Even though the chapter were one that she could not by any possibility understand a word of, yet it put her in mind of things in that same dear book that she did understand,—things that gave her strength to live and hope to die by,—and it was enough! Her faith in the Invisible Friend was so strong that she needed but to touch the hem of His garment. Even a table of genealogies out of _His_ book was a sacred charm, an amulet of peace. * * * * * [Sidenote: The kitchen fireplace.] The fire that illuminated the great kitchen of the farmhouse was a splendid sight to behold. It is, alas, with us, only a vision and memory of the past; for who, in our days, can afford to keep up the great fireplace, where the backlogs were cut from the giants of the forest, and the forestick was as much as a modern man could lift? And then the glowing fire-palace built thereon! That architectural pile of split and seasoned wood, over which the flames leaped and danced and crackled like rejoicing genii—what a glory it was! The hearty, bright, warm hearth, in those days, stood instead of fine furniture and handsome pictures. The plainest room becomes beautiful and attractive by firelight, and when men think of a country and home to be fought for and defended, they think of the fireside. * * * * * [Sidenote: The curfew.] Though not exactly backed by the arbitrary power which enforced the celebrated curfew, yet the nine o’clock bell was one of the authoritative institutions of New England; and, at its sound, all obediently set their faces homeward, to rake up housefires, put out candles, and say their prayers before going to rest. MY WIFE AND I. [Sidenote: Faculty.] What Yankee matrons are pleased to denominate faculty, which is, being interpreted, _a genius for home life_. CHAPTER IX. MISCELLANEOUS. OLDTOWN FOLKS. [Sidenote: The company room.] It takes some hours to get a room warm where a family never sits, and which therefore has not in its walls one particle of the genial vitality which comes from the indwelling of human beings.