Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

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ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
lightful land, and our last memories of our grandfather are
those of one who, after finishing his hfe's work, lay sleeping
at peace with all men, having lived honestly and godly in this
world, where there is evil as well as good. Of this ancestor
of ours it may be said as it was of Job, that he was
Of spotless manners, with a soul sincere,
Evil his hate, and God alone his fear.
It was evening when Sam overtook father and gave him
the sad news. Father made haste at once and had the carriage
out and the little horses in harness, ready to drive all the long
hours of night in order to be there to see the last earthly hours
of his father; but while Sam was dehvering his message the
good neighbor women were making grandfather's shroud, and,
there being a doubt of father's getting the message, the preparations
for the funeral service proceeded. A preacher from
Mount Healthy, John Boggs by name, delivered the funeral
sermon, and I still remember his text was about the house of
many mansions: "For we know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
The undertaker came from Mount Pleasant with a red
cherry casket. The minister stood at the head while he talked
to us of the heavenly home where "age has no power to de-
stroy." Child as I was, the impression made has lasted all
through the years — the sermon, the house filled by our good
neighbors, the casket uplifted upon the shoulders of the bear-
ers, the graveyard on the hill. I even remember that one of
the bearers was a very tall, gray-haired man, one of the Sprong
family.
Returning home, we had dinner; when who should enter
but our dear father, who had driven all the night before. I
recall that sweet, quiet hour when he sat with our little circle
about him and in tender words spoke of the filial love he bore
his parents. A long life of events and many changes has not
yet shut from me this scene nor the impression of the shadow
of grief that passed over our childhood's brightness when we
lost our old grandfather. It seems sad that the hand of time