“How did he look when you were a little girl, mamma?” I inquired.  “I think he is quite imposing in your little picture taken the year before he died, and he must have been very handsome when he was young.”

“He was not only handsome:  he was an unusual man,” said mamma, decidedly.  “No biographer, in speaking of our family, has ever estimated him correctly, and even dear brother himself does not give sufficient importance to father’s fine character and mental qualities; but you know that he left home when a boy of fifteen, and after that time he only saw father at long intervals.

“You remember, Cecilia, that all the foreign sketches you have ever read of brother, announce that his parents were ‘common peasants,’ while many American writers, although they do not use the word ‘peasant,’ convey a similar impression.  Father was by no means a common man, for to be ‘common’ one must be vulgar or ignorant, and father was neither.  He was not uneducated, although his schooling was very slight; but he was a good reader, was very skilful in arithmetic, and wrote an excellent hand—­an accomplishment for which our family are not celebrated—­beside possessing a hoard of self-acquired information upon different subjects.  During the long winter evenings in our lonely Pennsylvania home, he taught us younger children arithmetic, and was very fond of giving us long sums to puzzle out.  I have often, heard him say to brother Barnes,

“’You must store your mind with useful knowledge, that when you go out into the world you will have something to talk about as well as other people.’

“A poor farmer in those days did not have much opportunity to acquire accomplishments, as you may well imagine; but father possessed one talent that, if properly directed, might have made his fortune and ours.  I have never yet heard a natural voice that excelled your grandfather’s; a high, clear, powerful tenor, with unsurpassed strength of lungs, which, added to his handsome presence, would have made him one of the finest singers that has yet trodden the boards.  Of course his voice was uncultivated, with the exception of the slight training of country singing-classes, and the songs that he knew were simple ballads; but his memory was very retentive, and his singing was in great demand when company was present.  At husking-parties and apple-bees, when supper was over and the young people wished to dance, if no fiddler was present, father would be petitioned to sing.  I have often known him to sing country dances for hours, and he sung so heartily, and marked the time so well, that the young people enjoyed the dancing as much as if the music had been furnished by the most skilful violinist.