Charitable people sent her wood, but it
was wet and hard to kindle, and the poor old woman, with her bent
back, would go out and painfully gather the dried sticks that lay
around her desolate home; but when I came, she would take my book
and dinner-basket into her house, and leave me the delight of
gathering the sticks. Ah! I was happy then--when I knelt on the rude
hearth and blew with my mouth instead of a bellows, the smoking,
smouldering wood into a blaze, and heard the loving words that the
good old woman lavished upon me. She loved me--but not as much as I
loved her. She was my peculiar treasure--something for me to live
for, and think of. I always left my dinner with her, and at noon
returned to eat it with her; though I would feel almost ashamed to
spread out the cold meat and bread before her, she looked so much
like a lady.
But she always asked a blessing; that was what I never did, and it
gave me an awe-stricken feeling, and my meal would have something of
a solemn and tender interest--what with the blessing, and the old
woman's love for me, and mine for her--and we ate it in a solemn and
gloomy room, for there was no table in the little back room, so we
used the counter of the old store; and the empty shelves and the
closed doors and shutters, with only the light from the back-door,
made me often look around shudderingly into the gloom and obscurity
of dark corners--for I abounded in superstitious terrors, and I
pitied the poor, lonely old woman for living in such a home more
than I ever pitied the cold and hunger she endured.
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