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

CHAPTER XVIII
VOICES FROM THE PAST
ITTING in the lengthening shadows of life's
eventide, I am thinking of the long-vanished
years, of the bright days of youth, and of those
who started out with me upon the journey.
Many have since dropped by the way like the
leaves of autumn, so but few are left to con-
tinue with me the little way beyond. The old
farm which Grandfather James Watkins bought second from
the government in 1804 has changed title but twice in a hundred
years. When I visited it after an absence of more than
thirty years, I could but stand under the walnut tree while
the "tears would unbidden flow." True, there were still some
things that reminded me of the dear ones, my brothers and
little sister and father and mother, but they were few. I
thought of all the things our ancestors had done to make us a
home, even carving it out from the wilderness. Grandfather
had cleared this farm, built buildings, planted orchards; our
father, too, had wrought his share, despite his limitations. I
seemed to feel as never before that they had passed on, had
toiled and builded and sent us forth equipped for life's battle,
and now were not — even the place where they had served
knew them not. It was as though we had not worked and
played, lived and loved right there — the old home was gone.
The house grandfather built, the barn, the corn crib, the
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