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

CHANGES IN THE OLD HOME 215
Mr. Morris' marriage. During the late summer our friends
in New Antioch had found a fine teacher, A. M. Weston, to
conduct a select school where advanced studies were to be
taught, and when I returned in the fall, school had begun and
Sister Ida was a pupil there. As Uncle William Utter lived
near New Antioch, Joseph also took studies there. Thus it
was that on my return home I found our parents alone in one
of Mr. Easter's houses, a little old home among the ever-
greens, a picturesque spot near a small mill pond whose pentup
waters made a pretty cascade as they foamed and tumbled
over the boulders and broken rocks that had at some time been
hurled down from the ledges above.
This little stream that dashed off to join Rocky Fork was
called Blinko, and where we lived was known as Blinko
Shades. Our yard ran down to the edge of the mill pond,
which made a picture-lake. A rustic bridge spanned the
stream, which went wandering down the valley where huge
slabs and boulders told their own story of a remote period of
upheaval. I shall never forget the little islands the rocks had
made in the stream, where a few cedars or evergreens would
cling, or those moss-covered slabs, flat as a table, where was
spread such embroidery of delicate fern and airy wild flower
as one seldom sees save in such shady, well-watered spaces of
Nature's most retired gardens. Lovely carpets of mountain
moss starred with pink blossoms, dainty columbine, and such
a show of woodland draperies as one rarely sees in a lifetime
were there to delight our eyes.
Father would occasionally write beautiful verses, and I
recall that one evening at twilight he went forth, as the evening
star was sliming, to dedicate some lines to the stream. He
came back from his walk by its banks, went to his desk, and
wrote a poem entitled "Blinko Shades." It began:
Dear Blinko Shades, no classic muse
Has gilded o'er thy simple name,
But I have felt thy twilight dews
And lingered by thy sylvan stream.
How I regret that only this fragment of what was a beautiful
poem remains in my memory. I think it was published in