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.
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