One of the most affecting reminiscences of my mother is my remembrance
of her as a Christian housekeeper. She worked very hard, and when we
would come in from summer play, and sit down at the table at noon, I
remember how she used to come in with beads of perspiration along the
line of gray hair, and how sometimes she would sit down at the table
and put her head against her wrinkled hand and say: "Well, the fact
is, I'm too tired to eat." Long after she might have delegated this
duty to others she would not be satisfied unless she attended to the
matter herself. In fact, we all preferred to have her do so, for
somehow things tasted better when she prepared them. Some time ago, in
an express train, I shot past that old homestead. I looked out of the
window and tried to peer through the darkness. While I was doing so
one of my old schoolmates, whom I had not seen for many years, tapped
me on the shoulder and said: "De Witt, I see you are looking out at
the scenes of your boyhood." "Oh, yes," I replied, "I was looking out
at the old place where my mother lived and died."
That night, in the cars, the whole scene came back to me. There was
the country home. There was the noonday table. There were the children
on either side of the table, most of them gone never to come back. At
one end of the table my father, with a smile that never left his
countenance even when he lay in his coffin. It was an eighty-six
years' smile--not the smile of inanimation, but of Christian courage
and of Christian hope. At the other end of the table was a beautiful,
benignant, hard-working, aged Christian housekeeper, my mother. She
was very tired. I am glad she has so good a place to rest in. "Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord; they rest from their labors, and
their works do follow them."