MY GRANDMOTHER'S COTTAGE.

BY REV. J.G. ADAMS.

Of all places in the wide world, my own early home excepted, none seem
to me more pleasing in memory than my grandmother's cottage. Very often
did I visit it in my boyhood, and well acquainted with its appearance
within, and with almost every object around it, did I become. It stood
in a quiet nook in the midst of the woods, about five miles from the
pleasant seaport where I was born. The cottage was not a spacious one.
It had but few rooms in it; but it was amply large for my aged
grandparents, I remember. They lived happily there. My grandfather was
somewhat infirm; my grandmother was a very vigorous person for one of
seventy-five; this was her age at the time of my first recollection of
her. She used to walk from her cottage to our home; and once I walked
with her, but was exceedingly mortified that I could not endure the walk
so well as she did.

I used to love this cottage home, because it was so quiet, and in the
summer time so delighting to me. I believe I received some of my very
first lessons in the love of nature in this place. It was a charming
summer or winter retreat. If the sun shone warmly down anywhere, it was
here. If the wind blew kindly anywhere, it was around the snug cottage,
sheltered as it was on every side by the tall old pines. If the robin's
note came earliest anywhere in the spring-time, it was from the large
spreading apple-tree just at the foot of the little garden lot. How
often has my young heart been delighted with his song there! And then,