"There was not even a momentary expression of impatience, but she sat
down and said, 'My dear children, what you have done makes mamma very
sorry; those were not onion roots, but roots of beautiful flowers;
and if you had let them alone, ma would have had next summer in the
garden, great, beautiful red and yellow flowers, such as you never
saw.' I remember how drooping and disappointed we all grew at this
picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag."

When Harriet was five years old, a deep shadow fell upon the happy
household. Eight little children were gathered round the bedside of
the dying mother. When they cried and sobbed, she told them, with
inexpressible sweetness, that "God could do more for them than she had
ever done or could do, and that they must trust Him," and urged her
six sons to become ministers of the Gospel. When her heart-broken
husband repeated to her the verse, "You are now come unto Mount Zion,
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of
the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
Mediator of the New Covenant," she looked up into his face with a
beautiful smile, and closed her eyes forever. That smile Mr. Beecher
never forgot to his dying day.

The whole family seemed crushed by the blow. Little Henry (now the
great preacher), who had been told that his mother had been buried
in the ground, and also that she had gone to heaven, was found one
morning digging with all his might under his sister's window, saying,
"I'm going to heaven, to find ma!"

So much did Mr. Beecher miss her counsel and good judgment, that he