Two more little mill boys were brought to Jane to take the places of Willie and Burton, and Louis kept walking forward, turning neither to the right nor left, bringing the comforts of living to the hearts that had known only the gathering of crumbs from the tables of the rich, and the few scattering pennies that chanced occasionally to fall from their selfish palms.

Clara’s glad smile and happy words made a line of sunshine in our lives, and the three years following this one, which had brought so many pleasant changes, were as jewels in the coronet of active thought and work, which we were day by day weaving for ourselves and each other.

When Southern Mary left us, she gave to Aunt Hildy something to help make out Jane North’s pension papers, and the first step Aunt Hildy took toward doing this was in the fall of 1853, when she painted Jane’s house inside and out.  Then in the next year she built a new fence for her, and insisted on helping Louis make some improvements needed to give more room, and from this time the old homestead where Jane’s father and mother had lived and died, became the children’s home, with Jane as its presiding genius, having help to do the work.  From six to eight children were with her; three darling little girls whom Louis found in the streets of a city in the winter of 1855, were brought to the Home by him, and he considered them prizes.

To be independent in thought and action was Louis’ wisdom.  He had regard for the needs of children as well as of adults, for he remembered that the girls and boys are to be the men and women of the years to come, and to help them help themselves was his great endeavor.

“For this,” he would say, “is just what our God does for us, Emily.  He teaches the man who constantly observes all things around him, that the proper use of his bounty is what he most needs to know, and to live by the side of natural laws, moving parallel with them, is the only way to truthfully solve life’s master problem.  Yea, Emily, painting pictures is grand work; to see the ideal growing as a reality about us, to know we are the instruments in God’s hands for doing great good; and are not the years verifying the truth of what I said to you, when a boy I told you I needed your help, and also that you did not know yourself?  I knew the depth of your wondrous nature.  My own Emily, you are a glorious woman,” and as tenderly as in the olden days, with the great strength of his undying love, he gathered me in silence to his heart.  How many nights I passed to the land of dreams thinking, “Oh, if my Louis should die!”

Father and mother were enjoying life, and when Aunt Phebe came to see us, bringing a wee bit of a blue-eyed daughter, she said, “If I should have to leave her, I should die with the knowledge that she would find a home among you here.”