From the month of leaves to the month of no
leaves--the period of long hot vacations--when his eyes were tired
and his brain and heart a little tired also, many a time it
refreshed him by all that it was and all that it stood for--this
green tent of the woods arching itself before his treasured
shelves. In it for him were thoughts of cool solitudes and of
far-away greenness; with tormenting visions also of old lands, the
crystal-aired, purpling mountains of which, and valleys full of
fable, he was used to trace out upon the map, but knew that he
should never see or press with responsive feet.
For travel was impossible to him. Part of his small salary went to
the family of a brother; part disappeared each year in the buying
of books--at once his need and his passion; there were the expenses
of living; and Miss Anna always exacted appropriations.
"I know we have not much, but then my little boys and girls have
nothing; and the poor must help the poorer."
"Very well," he would reply, "but some day you will be a beggar
yourself, Anna."
"Oh, well then, if I am, I do not doubt that I shall be a thrifty
old mendicant. And I'll beg for _you_! So don't you be uneasy;
and give me what I want."
She always looked like a middle-aged Madonna in the garb of a
housekeeper. Indeed, he was wont to call her the Madonna of the
Dishes; but at these times, and in truth for all deeper ways, he
thought of her as the Madonna of the Motherless.
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