THE Reed family were at breakfast. Lucy had peeled some potatoes, and baked them brown in the oven, and they were very delicious, the children thought,—so much better than with the skins on.

“Gill dug the potatoes while I was sick,” said Sally. “I am sorry, for we lost our lesson.”

“Maybe papa will tell us about them,” said Ben:

“I think you must know nearly as much as I do about this common vegetable,” said Mr. Reed. “Did you not help to plant it?”

Sally recollected that she and her mother were with Gill when he put the tubers into the hills, and that he told her how each little “eye” in the potato was a germ of life, and would sprout, and send up a new plant to spread out its green leaves, and display its purple and white blossoms and its little clusters of green seed balls, as big as some of Ben’s marbles. She and Ben went down cellar when they had finished their meal, to see the different varieties. The “early rose” and the “mercer” and the “pink-eyes” and the “blue-noses” and the “ladies’ fingers.”

“These big fellows Gill cuts in pieces to plant,” said Ben. “And he takes care to have two eyes or buds in each piece, for fear one might fail. He planted some seeds from the ‘apples’ as he calls the potato-balls, and there were tubers as large as a hen’s egg this first year. He says they will bear nice potatoes, fit for food, the third year. He has put them away as very choice seed.”

Mr. Reed told the children about the wild potato, which belongs to South America. He said, “It is a great blessing that it was transplanted to various parts of the world, and that it bears so well its exile from its native land, and gives nourishment to so many people.”

He told the children also that the potato plant is of the same family as the woody nightshade, which has purple flowers and red berries, and the garden nightshade, which has white flowers and black berries, and the deadly nightshade or belladonna, with its reddish flowers and purple berries.

“It is only the tubers that are wholesome,” said Mr. Reed. “The leaves and blossoms are narcotic, and produce a similar effect to the poisonous belladonna and henbane and stramonium.”

“Fortunately, there is very little danger of any body’s eating potato leaves, or flowers; for both taste and smell are disagreeable,” said Ben.

Mamma called the children. “It is too damp down there for Sally,” she said.

Papa had but a moment for them, but it was long enough to give them a few more facts about potato starch, and potato yeast and bread and cheese.

“Cheese! potato cheese!” exclaimed the children.

“Yes,” said papa. “The potatoes must be mashed to a paste, and curd and salt added, and some other ingredients, and the whole pressed together in a mold.”

Gill was off to market. The old cart was heaped-up—baskets of turnips and carrots, parsnips, beets, and potatoes on the bottom; and above these the great drum-heads and the yellow pumpkins.

Dobbin felt brisk and cheery as he trotted along in the fresh autumnal air, and the Scotchman was as blithe as a lad of seventeen, who looks only upon the bright side of life. Gill was thinking of the old country far away, where he used to play among the heather, and of the day when he first met bonny Lucy in the dingle. He cast no regretful looks across the waters to the old home and the former times; but he thanked heaven that he and Lucy and Jack were under this free blue American sky, and that they had health of body and vigor of mind, and that they were all traveling toward the beautiful city that lies beyond the great sea. He touched the ripe vegetables with a gentle, almost a caressing hand. “Well done!” said he. “Well done! The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and you have made good use of sun and air and rain, and here you are in the perfection of your beauty. I am proud to call you mine.”

His words seemed to impress him strangely. He thought of himself in connection with this produce that he was bearing away to market.

“Am I ripening for the great harvest?” said he. “Will the Master look upon me with approving eye, and say, ‘Well done! well done! ‘”

Gill’s heart was full of sweet trust. He was trying to do the very best that he could, and he knew that the blessed Saviour would do all the rest for him, and that God would count it as his own righteousness. This was what made him so blithe as he jogged along toward the market-place.

“Tib” did an unusual thing as she heard the familiar “whoa” outside the door. She shook the folds of her black silk gown, and tripped along in her white satin slippers to meet him, as if she knew that he would not come very soon again, and as if she wanted to do him all the honor she could by ushering him in. For you must know that it is always a beautiful courtesy when we open the door for a guest, rather than leave it to a servant to do; and I suppose you have learned long, ago that it is true politeness to accompany a friend to the portals of your house, when he must leave you, and bid him adieu, as he goes out from under your roof. “Adieu,”—that is a precious prayer in a word,—think of it always when it escapes your lips, and be sure that it comes from your earnest heart. “I commend you to God, who is able and willing to take care of you.” That is what it means.

Mrs. Beth made Gill drink from her tin coffee-kettle, and gave him a buttered roll to eat. She and Tib vied with each other in hospitality. He thought he had never seen her with such light in her eyes as on this morning; but then you must remember that his own soul was particularly bright and sunny, and we often see the reflection of ourselves in other faces. That is a good thing to know, for it will lead us to take especial care as to what is within us; for we must surely desire the very best and happiest reflection. Nobody likes an ugly image of himself. I want to sit again, and again, when the photographer shows me a disagreeable picture, and I always turn away from my mirror when it does not give my very best expression. I wonder if one can not have the very best expression all the time, if the heart is full of sweet and pure and holy thoughts. It is worth trying.

Gill did not stop long in the market. It was never his way to loiter after his errand was finished. He put the baskets of vegetables upon the bench around the stall, and the crisp green cabbages and purple kale and nice cauliflowers upon the table, and turned to go away; but Mrs. Beth had another word to say. She took off her spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on her nose again. Then she lifted Tib upon her knee and stroked gently the creature’s head.

“If any thing should happen to me,” said she, “I should like for Tib to have a good home where they will treat her as one of the family. She’s been a faithful companion to me, and I should feel easy about her if you will promise to take her to the farm, and care for her, if she ever needs other care than mine; will you?”

To be sure the Scotchman said, “Yes,” for he knew that Sally would go almost wild with joy over such a cat as Tib; but he wondered all the way home what was the matter with the old market-woman that she should be so eager to provide a home for her pet. Not all the way home, for when he had reached the first few rods of the last mile there was a poor man by the wayside half dead from fatigue, and Gill helped him into the cart, and talked to him the rest of the way, so that Mrs. Beth faded quite out of his mind. The man was old and very feeble, and had no friends. He had been a soldier, and had outlived all who loved him,—all but One. We can neither outlive Him, nor his boundless love. It was that almighty and everlasting Friend, who sent Gill to lift him into the cart at the very moment when his own strength had failed him. The children ran to meet Gill as he drove into the yard. They saw the old gray head, and had pity. They walked beside the soldier as Gill led him to a seat in the kitchen, and talked pleasantly to him as Lucy refreshed him with a cup of tea, and a biscuit, and the old man blessed them, and called them “God’s angels.” How beautiful a name!

Mamma came out with her arms full of clothing, and said that she would give him shelter and food, until he could be taken to the “Home.” That was an institution not far away for aged and poor men. But you should have heard little Sally, as she talked to the old market-cart, rehearsing its good deeds and giving it a well merited praise.

“You dear old body!” said she, as she brushed away the dust preparatory to moving in from the corn-crib, with her little family. “I don’t know what you haven’t done in your life, and what you haven’t been! Ever since I was born you’ve been going, going, with a great burden on your back,—not your own burden either, but every body’s else,—carrying food for hungry mouths, and bringing home good things for us; and you’ve been such a splendid house for Jennie and me, and such a grand church for us all,—don’t you remember? under the apple tree by the fence, when we sang that hymn of praise. And to-day, you’ve been,—what do you call it? an—am—ambulance, to bring the sick soldier in, and now you are my home once more, and my baby and I are going to live here always, always, for I love you better than any thing in the world, next to mother and father and Ben, and Gill and Lucy and Jack.” Lucy brought out the old comforter, and spread it on one side of the cart floor, and put Jack upon it with his playthings, and left him with Sally; and Gill and Ben got some of the white beets, and were pressing them and boiling them over the kitchen fire to see what sort of sugar they would make. They told Sally; but she preferred her housekeeping, and was too tired with moving, she said. “She could taste the sugar when it was ready.”

Lucy was stuffing a turkey for dinner. She had mixed the bread-crumbs and water, and put in a little salt, and an egg, and some sweet marjorum, and pepper, and summer-savory; and had plumped out the creature with it, and sewed up the openings with strong linen thread, and put a link of sausages around the neck, and laid it in the dripping-pan to roast. The poor old man sat looking on, and thinking of the time when he had a home of his own, and a wife to get good cheer for the table, and sons and daughters round about the board when the viands were smoking.

“All gone now,” he muttered to himself, “all gone,—wife, and children, and home.”

But Lucy caught him up there in his speech.

“The home is waiting,” she said, “with the wife and children in it,—waiting for us all. What if the wife and children have gone a little while before us? To be sure the heart may be sick with its yearning after them; but it is a sickness that is good for us, since it weans us from the things of this world.”.

“You speak like my Mary,” said the old man. “She had always a holy sermon on her lips.”

“And you seem like my dear old father, who used to dandle me upon his knee when I was merry, and sing sweet, sacred songs to me when the evening came on, and I was content to be quiet for an hour,” said Lucy. “He has gone, and my oldest sister and my little brother, and the home is all the brighter and more attractive for it. Gill and baby and I shall try to follow.”

So they talked together, while Gill and Ben were absorbed in their sugar-making, and Sally and Jack and Jennie kept house in the old cart.

When Mr. Reed came from the city at night, he had a great, square sheet, folded, and sealed with a wafer, and addressed simply:—

“Gill the Scotchman.

“At Mr. Reed’s.”

It had been sent to the office, just before the cars left, and all the letter said was,—

“Come for Tib.

“Mrs. Beth.”

Of course, Gill was off betimes next morning, taking the old soldier to the Institution on his way. He went directly to the pleasant room, under the French roof, where the one window looked out upon the sweep of houses and spires, and up to the deep, fathomless sky. The plants were fresh and green upon the stand, and a new rose had just blossomed, filling the room with its fragrance; but the old market-woman sat by the window with her head upon her hand. She had lost the bloom of the previous day, and looked withered and weary.

“I’m tired of the market-place,” she said. “I think I shall be permitted to go to my husband and my baby before long; but I could not go easily until you had taken the cat. Thank you for coming so soon.”

Gill tried to persuade her that she was only slightly ailing, and that she would be out again by to-morrow; but she held Tib in one long, close embrace, and then put her in the cradle and turned her back, while Gill took the cat down stairs and drove away.

She had nothing more to live for now. Not that she had lived for this little animal alone,—Mrs. Beth was gentle and kind to every thing and every body; but her days were fulfilled, and God took her up to be with himself and her beloved ones, and somebody else sat in the stall by the old broken lantern. Tib mourned for a a little while, and seemed lost in the new place, but soon grew content; for she had the same old cradle, and Gill and the market-cart, which she had long been accustomed to. She liked her new mistress, and Ben and Jack, very much indeed. Mr. and Mrs. Reed and Lucy petted her, and Dobbin and Flash and Brindle allowed her to get almost under their heels and purr about them.