* * * * *

In the basement below the candle is burned to its socket, and as the last ray flickers up, illuminating for a moment the room, and then leaving it in darkness, Aunt Polly Pepper starts from her evening nap, and as if continuing her dream mutters “Yes this is pleasant and something like living.”

* * * * *

And so with the moonlight and starlight falling upon the old homestead, and the sunlight of love falling upon the hearts of its inmates, we bid them adieu.

RICE CORNER

CHAPTER I.

RICE CORNER.

Yes, Rice Corner!  Do you think it a queer name?  Well, Rice Corner was a queer place, and deserved a queer name.  Now whether it is celebrated for anything in particular, I really can’t at this moment think, unless, indeed, it is famed for having been my birthplace!  Whether this of itself is sufficient to immortalize a place future generations may, perhaps, tell, but I have some misgivings whether the present will.  This idea may be the result of my having recently received sundry knocks over the knuckles in the shape of criticisms.

But I know one thing—­on the bark of that old chestnut tree which stands near Rice Corner schoolhouse, my name is cut higher than some of my more bulky contemporary quill—­or rather steel—­pen-wielders ever dared to climb.  To be sure, I tore my dress, scratched my face, and committed numerous other little rompish miss-demeanors, which procured for me a motherly scolding.  That, however, was of minor consideration when compared with having my name up—­in the chestnut tree, at least, if it couldn’t be up in the world.  But pardon my egotism, and I will proceed with my story about Rice Corner.

Does any one wish to know whereabout on this rolling sphere Rice Corner is situated?  I don’t believe you can find it on the map, unless your eyes are bluer and bigger than mine, which last they can’t very well be.  But I can tell you to a dot where Rice Corner should be.  Just take your atlas—­not the last one published, but Olney’s, that’s the one I studied—­and right in one of those little towns in Worcester County is Rice Corner snugly nestled among the gray rocks and blue hills of New England.

Yes, Rice Corner was a great place, and so you would have thought could you have seen it in all its phases, with its brown, red, green, yellow, and white houses, each of which had the usual quantity of rose-bushes, lilacs, hollyhocks, and sunflowers.  You should have seen my home, my New England home, where once, not many years ago, a happy group of children played.  Alas! alas! some of those who gave the sunlight to that spot have left us now forever, and on the bright shores of the eternal river they wait and watch our coming.  I do not expect a stranger to love our old homestead as I loved it, for in each heart is a fresh, green spot—­the memory of its own early home—­where the sunshine was brighter, the well waters cooler, and the song-bird’s carol sweeter than elsewhere they are found.