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

THE GREEN TREE TAVERN i8i
Little is known of the parents of Mrs. Margaret Morris.
Brother WilHani affirmed that her father was a "Htigious man
and greatly impaired his fortune by law suits." Her mother
died about 1823, and is said to have been a German; as they
lived in Pennsylvania, where Mrs. Morris was born, this is
probably true. Mrs. Morris' maiden name was Chambers.
As I recall each member of that family living in Green
Tree Tavern, I see first the mother, Margaret Chambers
Morris, a woman of small, trim figure — five feet in height,
I should judge. She had dark brown hair and eyes, and her
complexion indicated liver trouble, as it was quite sallow.
She was an industrious woman of fine executive ability. Her
larder was always full and she was ready to spread her table
with good victuals at short notice, so the Green Tree was
pretty sure to please its patrons. She was a skillful needlewoman,
making all the girls' dresses. I can yet see how she
used to gather Alice's skirts, scraping the thick gathers and
backstitching them on the waists. She did with her might
what her hands found to do, and taught her daughters to
be good housekeepers. Julia, the eldest child, was at that
time twenty-five years old. She, too, was a small woman
and had abundant brown hair, which she parted from the
front down to the nape of her neck, thus dividing her whole
hair into two coils which covered the back of her round head.
Her face, too, was round and she had a fine countenance, although
not what all would call beautiful. Her eyes were brown
and intelligent, her small figure neat and well proportioned.
Alice was but a child in years but was a real help to her mother,
having inherited the unusual executive ability possessed by
that mother; I think I never noticed this trait more evident in
a girl of her age. Clarinda, the youngest, usually called
"Kin," was about ten years old when I was there; she seemed
to me to resemble her mother in appearance. Julia looked
like her father, as did the sons, John and Albert, who were
just coming into young manhood and were full of fun and
frolic. They helped their father in the conduct of the farm
and seemed to take an interest in it.
The attic of Green Tree, as I remember it, was a most inter-