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

VOICES FROM THE PAST 339
this month was the one that saw our brothers pass into the
silence, it cannot be of holidays that I am thinking. My
thoughts are back in the past that gave me the loved ones and
took them from me into those scenes unpenetrated by mortal
eye. A year ago this Christmastime my husband wrote to a
friend upon our western coast:
Here I am upon my sick-bed where I have been most of the time
for six months. No sound of the breaking waves of the deep sea, no
murmurings of the rolling surf as they wash the white sands at your
feet come near my sick room. There is sweet music above and
around me.
"Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me,
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea —
"Peace on earth, good will to men" is the sweetest song angels
ever sang. I want the peace that passeth all understanding.
Lovingly,
Xmas— 191 1. A. P. Frost.
It is not without faith and hope that I pen these last lines,
there is much in the thought of the past that brings a kind
of happiness that time and death does not destroy. I love
to think over what our people wrought and what others have
said of them.
Among the friends of Brother William's youth none were
more admired and loved than Thomas Brown who was some
years older than our brother. He lost his hearing when a child
and learned the sign language and so his family conversed
with him. He was bright and ever on the alert to see and
know what was going on. He learned to read writing in the
palm of the hand which was an advantage, but his most astonishing
accomplishment was that should he look across the
room and see the top of a moving pencil, he would read the
words as fast as they were being written on the paper which
of course he could not see at that distance but just the lines
described by the top of the pencil were enough for him. This
feat caused him amusement at times when his friends were
writing something for him and he would comprehend their
thought before they had handed him the paper!