"ElizaLeeFollen-TheTalkativeWig" - читать интересную книгу автора (Follen Eliza Lee)

The Squire was a good man, and tried to find consolation in the only
way it may be found, in the religious performance of duty. He became
the benefactor of the village. He was the friend of all who needed
his aid.

Now, my friends, I must pass over the next ten years. What I have
just related to you of the Squire passed in the year seventeen
hundred and eighty. Now follow me to the year seventeen hundred and
ninety-two.

The Americans, by their wisdom and bravery, had won their
independence.

The Squire had done his part for his country by furnishing money,
and by making his large retired mansion an asylum for all his
friends who were in want of it.

He was now seventy years old; and a haler, heartier, more serene old
man was never seen. His house was the summer rendezvous of all his
young and his old friends.

Well do I remember one beautiful afternoon, just before sunset, the
Squire's going to the glass, and adjusting me nicely, and then going
to the door, and looking up through the avenue of elms which were
young trees when I was first carried there, and saying, "It is time
my niece and her husband and children were here."

In a few minutes, a carriage appeared with a lady and her son and
daughter in it. That little girl, then five years old, was
afterwards the mother of our little friend asleep yonder.

Never was there a more cordial welcome given to friends than the
good Squire gave them, and never was welcome more acceptable.

There were other friends in the house, and such frolicking and
laughing and dancing on the lawn you seldom see nowadays.

For many years, the nieces and nephews and their children and
children's children came in this way to refresh body and soul at
their good uncle's; till childhood blossomed into youth, and youth
began to strengthen into maturity, and maturity to fade away into
age. Years gathered around the old man's head, but his vigor
remained.

You need not bounce in that way, my friend musket, and you, Messrs.
tea-kettle and pitcher, need not try to turn up the noses you have
lost, at my using these flowery expressions. Remember that, for more
than half a century, I dwelt upon a human head. It is natural that I
should have gained something from it, and that I should speak
somewhat as human beings speak.