The Old Homestead

Her soul was full of tender thought, Ardent and strong but gentle, too, Like gems, in purest gold o'er wrought, Or flowers that banquet on the dew. Love seemed more holy in her...

The grey morning dawned gloomily on Chester's desolated home. Isabel awoke and looked around with dull and heavy eyes. The beauty of her young face was clouded by a night of sha...

When the strong man turns, with a haughty lip, On poverty, stern and grim, When he seizes the fiend with a ruthless grip, Ye need not fear for him. But when poverty comes to a l...

It was a scene of solemn power and force, That woman, standing there, with marble face, As cold and still as any sheeted corse, The martyr herald of her own disgrace.

Disease, thou art a fearful thing When, half disarmed by household care, Thou sweepest with thy poison wing, O'er the loved forms to which we cling, And bending to the sweet and...

Oh, give me a home on the mountains high, Where the wind sweeps wild and free, Where the pine-tops wave 'gainst a crimson sky,-- Oh, a mountain home for me!

How little would there be of grief or want If love and honesty held away on earth! The demon poverty, so grim and gaunt, But for injustice never need have birth! Give room and w...

Just where the banks of the East River are the most broken and picturesque on the New York shore, and the sunny slopes of Long Island are most verdant in their Arcadian beauty,...

The voice which uttered these words was so anxious, so pathetic with deep feeling, that you would have loved the poor child, whose heart gave them forth, plain and miserable as...

It was the evening of a disagreeable, chilly day. Everything was gloomy inside and out. Salina had come up from the Farnham's deserted mansion to spend the evening with aunt Han...

The children gazed with a grateful thrill, 'Twas a glorious sight I know-- Those cornfields sweeping o'er the hill-- Those meadow-slopes below!-- Tall mountain ridges rich with...

Home is emphatically the poor man's paradise. The rich, with their many resources, too often live away from the hearth-stone, in heart, if not in person; but to the virtuous poo...

A few mornings before the little birth-day party described in our last chapter, two men were seen to enter the Mayor's office, accompanied by the Alderman, whom we have seen clo...

Mary Fuller was aroused from her sleep the next morning by the most heavenly sound that had ever met her ear. It was a wild gush of song, from the birds that had a habit of slee...

Age is august, and goodness is sublime, When years have given them a solemn power. But souls that grow not with advancing time, Like withered fruit, but mock life's opening flower.

While uncle Nathan and Mary were conversing on the porch, the two women within doors remained comparatively silent, till the storm rose almost to a hurricane. The gloominess of...

The month of June had littered its path with roses, and now came July, with its crimson berries, its ruddier blossoms, and its profuse foliage. On the Fourth of this luxurious m...

High up among the emerald breasted hills, There lay a village, cradled in their green. Surrounded by such loveliness as thrills The poetry within us--and the sheen Of a broad ri...

He paused. A strange thrill shot over him, as the hand of the youth touched his. "Come," he added, tenderly, leading the stranger on, "I have strength for us both."

There were busy hands in the rustling sheaves, And the crash of corn in its golden fall, With a cheerful stir of the dry husk-leaves, And a spirit of gladness over all.

The apple trees were all growing old, And old was the house that sheltered him; But that brave, warm heart, was a heart of gold! Though his head was grey, and his eyes were dim.

When uncle Nathan led his nephew into the house, and told aunt Hannah who he was, she grew pallid as a corpse, and when the young man took her hand, she began to shiver from hea...

Ask her not why her heart has lost its lightness, And hoards its dreamy thoughts, serenely still, Like some pure lotus flower, that folds its whiteness Upon the bosom of its nat...

The carriage which bore Mrs. Chester paused before the gates at Bellevue. The gloomy and prison-like buildings loomed in heavy and sombre masses before the stranger, as he leane...

But Isabel Chester. I wish you could have seen her as she stood upon the deck of the Atlantic steamer, which was to convey the Farnhams to Europe! Those large almond-shaped eyes...

Frederick Farnham would not leave the country. With the resolution of a strong will he persisted in treating Isabel's vow as nothing, and would not be convinced that she might n...

Nature hath many voices, and the soul Speaks, with a power, when first it feels the thrill Of buried Love. Then breaking all control, She claims her own, against man's haughty w...

There is fruit from the orchard and corn from the field, For old mother earth gives a bountiful yield; There is light in the kitchen and fire on the hearth, The Homestead is rea...

Between that portion of Bellevue occupied as an hospital and the main building lay several enclosures sparsely cultivated with flowers, but altogether possessing a barren and di...

There was, at the time of our story, a public house, or tavern, about five minutes walk up the street from uncle Nathan's house. To this tavern the young men betook themselves,...

Not here--not here with our lovely dead-- Oh, give one spot of sacred earth! Where the grass may wave, above her head, And the sweet, wild flowers have holy birth.

As the starbeams come earthward, and smile on the night, Awaking the blossoms that drooped in the day, And kindling their hearts with a dewy delight, They came to the couch wher...

There was energy and strength in her, A heart to will, with a hand to do; Like the fruit that lies in a chestnut bur That honest soul was fresh and true.

Burning with thirst and wild with fever, She tossed and moaned on her couch of pain; With an aching heart he must go and leave her; Never shall they two meet again! Never? Oh, y...

And then I thought of one, who in her pale, meek beauty, died, The fair young blossom that grew up and faded by my side; In the cold, moist earth, we laid her, where the forest...

Oh, it is hard for rich men in their pride, To know how dear a thing it is to give; When, for sweet charity, the poor divide The little pittance upon which they live, And from t...

Since the day of Chester's death, a great change had fallen upon the Mayor. He went to his office as usual, and performed its duties with habitual exactitude, but he never enter...

It was fortunate for uncle Nathan, that his little harvest was stored in the barn before the storm we have described swept the valley, for a good many crops of corn were destroy...

Oh, give me one clasp of her friendly hand, One tender glance from those gentle eyes; For my heart is alone in this mountain land, And every joy of my childhood dies.

Poor Mrs. Chester, half dying and quite insensible, was borne into the fever ward of that close and crowded Hospital. Number ten was a large airy room, capable of holding twenty...

They have met, they have met--with a warm embrace, Those panting hearts beat free again; And joy beams out in each glowing face,-- Together, they fear not grief or pain!

Softly she came like a spirit of light, And her goodness shone out like the glow in a gem; As she waited and watched through the wearisome night, The fall of her footstep was mu...

Again the night was intensely cold. There had been a storm of sleet and rain during two whole days, and now came on a keen frost, sheeting the pavements, the trees and the house...

The house at which Judge Sharp stopped was long, low, and terribly weather-beaten. Once a coating of red paint had ornamented it, but time had beaten this off in some places, an...

"Well," said Salina, seating herself on Mary Fuller's bed, "if you insist on it, I'll do my best, but I can't make up nothing, never could, and what I've got on my mind is the g...

Chester had business with the Chief of Police, and about nine o'clock the next morning, after his adventure with the orphan, he passed into the Park, through the south entrance,...

Like the patter of rain in a damp heavy day, Or the voice of a brook when its waters are low, That murmurs and murmurs and murmurs away-- Was the sound of her words in their mea...

Now do I drop my heavy load of woe, As some wet mantle saturate with rain, And rise as a soft spirit that doth glow In rays of light beyond the realm of pain.

When aunt Hannah entered uncle Nathan's room he was sound asleep, with a smile upon his half-open mouth, and two large arms folded lovingly over his head, as if a sweet morning...

With an honest purpose, whatever betide, She stands like a pillar of native stone, Firm and rough, with a cap of pride-- Till her trust is given, her mission done.