From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander
Night! Dark, rainy, disagreeable! A fit time for sad and brooding thoughts; a time to close the eyes to present surroundings and drift back on the “tide of years.” A picture rises to my mind’s eye—one that often comes, for it is indelibly printed upon my memory.
Night in the country. The cattle are housed, the sheep folded, and a family gathered around the hearthstone.
The fire, laid upon tall brass andirons, is blazing brightly; the brass top of the fender gleams in its ruddy glow, and candles in old-fashioned brass candlesticks add their soft light.
On the mantle stands the tall old clock, and poised on its top is a brazen eagle which seems forever spreading its wings for flight. The staring face of that old clock comes before my vision as a well-remembered friend, and I hear again the “tick-tock, tick-tock,” which counted out the moments of my careless, happy life.
The pictures on that clock were marvels, for it was so tall that it was divided into stories, and the two lower ones were embellished with pictures. A group of very white houses with very red roofs and very green blinds represented to my youthful imagination the city of Savannah, Ga. It does not occur to just now how I ever got that idea into my head, but there it was. I suppose it was because I was born in Savannah. Read More