"You ought to live at our house, we have noisy times; mother and I sing, and father is always humming about his work. Mr. Holmes is quiet, but Morris is so happy he sings and shouts all day."
"It used to be noisy enough once, too noisy, when the boys were all making a racket together, and Will made noise enough this time he was home. He used to read to me and sing songs. I don't wonder Hepsie is still and mournful, like. It's a changed home to her with the boys away. My father's house had noise enough in it; he had six wives."
"Not all at once," cried Marjorie alarmed, confounding a hundred years ago with the partriarchal age.
But the old story-teller never heeded interruptions.
"And my marm was the last wife but one. My father was a hundred years and one day when he died. I've outlived all the children, I guess, for I never hear from none of them--I most forget who's dead. Some of them was married before I was born. I was the youngest, and I never remember my own mother, but I had a good mother, all the same."
"You had four step-mothers before you were born," said Marjorie seriously, "and one own mother and then another step-mother. Girls don't have so many step-mothers nowadays."
"And our house was one story--a long house, with the eaves most touching the ground and big chimneys at both ends. It was full of folks."
"I should _think_ so," interposed Marjorie.
"And Sunday nights we used to sing 'God of my childhood and my youth.' Can you sing that? I wish you'd sing it to me. I forget what comes next."
"I never heard of it before; I wish you _could_ remember it all, it's so pretty."
"Amzi used to sit next to me and sing--he was my twin brother--as loud and clear as a bell. And when he died they put this on his tombstone:
"'Come see ye place where I do lie As you are now so once was I: As I be now so you will be, Prepare for death and follow me.'"
"Oh," shivered Marjorie, "I don't like it. I like a Bible verse better."
"Isn't that in the Bible?" she asked, angrily.
"Yes," said Marjorie, "that was the text last Sunday."
"And on father's tombstone mother put this verse:
'O, my dear wife, do think of me Although we've from each other parted, O, do prepare to follow me Where we shall love forever.'