many fond and sad recollections.

Stopping at the village hotel for some preparation, I wended my way to the
little cemetery. There was a picture in memory of a green hill-side slope,
which, whenever the dark funeral day was recalled, formed a vivid and
prominent feature of the scene; and so, upon that day, I found within the
little "city of the silent" the identical hill-side, but, with the most
scrutinizing search, failed to find the sacred mound holding the most
hallowed form of the home group, and over which were shed the bitter tears
of childhood's grief, more poignant and more lasting than we usually
attribute to that period of life.

In the hope of eliciting some information I entered a cottage near by,
which I found inhabited by aged people; but as they had been residents
only seven years, and twenty-four years had elapsed since my mother was
laid to rest, they could give me no light or aid, save the simple
suggestion that there were a number of graves covered by the undergrowth
of shrubbery, and perchance hers might be one of them. Accepting the
possibility I found the one I sought, which could not fail to be
recognized, for strange to say, time had dealt so gently that the slender
picket fence was undecayed by his "effacing; lingers," and the name
painted upon the little wooden head-board was distinctly visible. Grouped
in quadrangular growth were four little trees, gracefully arching in a
bowery drapery over the grave, as if nature in strange sympathy with the
mourners left behind had offered this tribute to the noble mother. How
vividly came back again the long lost childhood home, and as the wind
sighed through the leafy boughs, seemed to sob a sad requiem for the dead.
There was a little song I had learned in the Institution, and had so often
sang, when unknown to those around me every chord in my sad heart seemed