The cars rush into the station now, right over our riverside
playground. I can often hear the mirthful shout of boys and girls
under the shriek of the steam whistle. No dream of a railroad had
then come to the quiet old town, but it was a wild train of
children that ran homeward in the twilight up the narrow lane,
with wind-shod feet, and hair flying like the manes of young
colts, and light hearts bounding to their own footsteps. How good
and dear our plain, two-story dwelling-house looked to us as we
came in sight of it, and what sweet odors stole out to meet us
from the white-fenced inclosure of our small garden,--from peach-
trees and lilac-bushes in bloom, from bergamot and balm and beds
of camomile!

Sometimes we would find the pathetic figure of white-haired
Larkin Moore, the insane preacher, his two canes lain aside,
waiting, in our dooryard for any audience that he could gather:
boys and girls were as welcome as anybody. He would seat us in a
row on the green slope, and give us a half hour or so of
incoherent exhortation, to which we attended respectfully, if not
reverently; for his whole manner showed that, though demented, he
was deeply in earnest. He seemed there in the twilight like a
dazed angel who had lost his way, and had half forgotten his
errand, which yet he must try to tell to anybody who would
listen.

I have heard my mother say that sometimes he would ask if he
might take her baby in his arms and sing to it; and that though
she was half afraid herself, the baby--I like to fancy I was that
baby--seemed to enjoy it, and played gleefully with the old man's