The old times New England house mother was not a mere unreflective drudge of domestic toil.  She was a reader and a thinker, keenly appreciative in intellectual regions.  The literature of that day in New England was sparse; but whatever there was, whether in this country or in England, that was noteworthy, was matter of keen interest, and Mrs. Pitkin’s small library was very dear to her.  No nun in a convent under vows of abstinence ever practiced more rigorous self-denial than she did in the restraints and government of intellectual tastes and desires.  Her son was dear to her as the fulfillment and expression of her unsatisfied craving for knowledge, the possessor of those fair fields of thought which duty forbade her to explore.

James stood and looked in at the window, and saw her sorting and arranging the family mending, busy over piles of stockings and shirts, while on the table beside her lay her open Bible, and she was singing to herself, in a low, sweet undertone, one of the favorite minor-keyed melodies of those days: 

“O God, our help in ages past,
  Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
  And our eternal home!”

An indescribable feeling, blended of pity and reverence, swelled in his heart as he looked at her and marked the whitening hair, the thin worn little hands so busy with their love work, and thought of all the bearing and forbearing, the waiting, the watching, the long-suffering that had made up her life for so many years.  The very look of exquisite calm and resolved strength in her patient eyes and in the gentle lines of her face had something that seemed to him sad and awful—­as the purely spiritual always looks to the more animal nature.  With his blood bounding and tingling in his veins, his strong arms pulsating with life, and his heart full of a man’s vigor and resolve, his mother’s life seemed to him to be one of weariness and drudgery, of constant, unceasing self-abnegation.  Calm he knew she was, always sustained, never faltering; but her victory was one which, like the spiritual sweetness in the face of the dying, had something of sadness for the living heart.

He opened the door and came in, sat down by her on the floor, and laid his head in her lap.

“Mother, you never rest; you never stop working.”

“Oh, no!” she said gaily, “I’m just going to stop now.  I had only a few last things I wanted to get done.”

“Mother, I can’t bear to think of you; your life is too hard.  We all have our amusements, our rests, our changes; your work is never done; you are worn out, and get no time to read, no time for anything but drudgery.”

“Don’t say drudgery, my boy—­work done for those we love never is drudgery.  I’m so happy to have you all around me I never feel it.”

“But, mother, you are not strong, and I don’t see how you can hold out to do all you do.”

“Well,” she said simply, “when my strength is all gone I ask God for more, and he always gives it.  ’They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.’” And her hand involuntarily fell on the open Bible.