Here in this room I used to dream until most likely interrupted by some caller upon grandmother. Then I would retire to the corner and listen to their conversation about antislavery, human freedom, states’ rights, etc.—understanding not a word, but fascinated by the fervor of the speakers. I have seen gathered together in this parlor Emerson, Frank Sanborn, Charles Sumner, and John Brown, the last short and squat, his great beard upon his breast, and spreading his coat tails before the fire like a pouter pigeon. Something that occurred years later, when I was a student at Harvard, made me appreciate my grandmother more than ever. Prof. Asa Gray, a man of seventy, and the first botanist of the world at that time, met me in the Yard one day and stopping me said: “I understand that your name is Simmons and that you are the grandson of Mary Bradford Ripley?” I replied that I was. He took off his skull cap and bowed low to the ground, saying, “Allow me to do honor to the offspring of one of the ablest botanists I have ever known.” I remember her looks well. Her features were very marked and her nose big and straight. Her hair was then white and she had blue-gray eyes. There is a photograph of her sitting under a grape arbor, looking very absent-minded, with the little finger of her left hand hooked in the corner of her mouth—a habit of my sister and both of my boys! Grandfather’s salary as a Unitarian clergyman was the munificent sum of six hundred dollars a year, and on this my grandmother managed to bring up a large family of children—doing all the cooking and sewing herself—marry off three of the girls, and send the two boys through college. “As big as Sam Ripley” was the saying throughout the countryside, and, although he was lusty and hail, my grandfather died when he was in his prime—in fact, before I was born. The circumstances of his death, which I heard when a youngster, made a deep impression upon me. It was the day before Thanksgiving. The Old Manse was full of guests and relatives when he took his daughter Elizabeth and, filling his buggy with goodies, drove out to distribute them to his poor parishioners. The last gift delivered, they turned upon the road home, he remarking that the Widow Hall would certainly enjoy the two chickens he had left her. It was a rainy, bleak November night and Lizzie, snuggling into the robes, almost went to sleep, when, looking down, she noticed the reins were slipping. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Even then she could not realize what the matter was, until, reaching to gather in the lines, she felt his hand cold beneath hers. He was already dead.