I am afraid the builder of this new house _poetized_ a little when
he styled the original edifice a mansion. It was a plain, roomy,
substantial farm-house, about the centre of the little village of
Roxbury, and the father of Warren who occupied it was an industrious,
enterprising, intelligent farmer, who raised superior fruits and
vegetables for the Boston market. Warren's father was a beginner in that
delightful industry, and one of the apples which he introduced into the
neighborhood retains to this day the name which it bore in his lifetime,
the Warren Russet.

A tragic event occurred at this farm-house in 1775, when Warren was a
boy of fourteen. It was on an October day, in the midst of the apple-
gathering season, about the time when the Warren Russet had attained all
the maturity it can upon its native tree. Farmer Warren was out in his
orchard. His wife, a woman worthy of being the mother of such a son as
she had, was indoors getting dinner ready for her husband, her four
boys, and the two laborers upon the farm. About noon she sent her
youngest son, John, mentioned in the above inscription, to call his
father to dinner. On the way to the orchard the lad met the two laborers
carrying towards the house his father's dead body. While standing upon a
ladder gathering apples from a high tree, Mr. Warren had fallen to the
ground and broken his neck. He died almost instantly.

The _Boston Newsletter_ of the following week bestowed a few lines
upon the occurrence; speaking of him as a man of good understanding,
industrious, honest and faithful; "a useful member of society, who was
generally respected among us, and whose death is universally lamented."

Fortunate is the family which in such circumstances has a mother wise