Central High School - Aglaia Yearbook (Manchester, NH)

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JANUARY AGLAIA or THE ORACLE 19 RECOLLECTION The visits to my uncle's farm in Chester that I made when I was a child, I shall long remember. Hardly before my father could stop the motor of the car in the farm door- yard, my Aunt Sadie would have appeared in the doorway of the big farmhouse with her shawl over her shoulders to welcome us with her characteristic, hi there . By this time my Uncle Hiram would have emerged from the barn or one of the many doors in the long ell which connected the house with the barn, to escort us into the house with much hearty welcoming. Then we followed my aunt through the cold dining room, which was too large to heat, into the big, warm sitting room. The next twenty minutes or so were for me quite dull. Everybody wasengaged in conversation which filled the room with a jumble of voices. Close together and lean- ing foreward in their chairs near the wood stove were my grandmother and old Emma Towle, my uncle's aunt who lived there. Their conversation was intense. A comment on the recent death of an old, mutual friend had carried them into old age's paradise of reminiscense. How great was my amusement when my ear caught such names as Ezekiel or Uriah as they chuckled about good times with these beaux of sixty years ago. In an- other part of the room my mother and Aunt Sadie sat conversing about cooking, sewing, house cleaning, magazines, ailments, and the like. My father and uncle talked about the farm work and the purchase of a cow, or my father's work in the city, or politics, and every once in a while everybody would hush while my uncle, who had the rare faculty for telling a funny story well, reeled off a yarn which brought forth peals of vari-toned laughter from everybody in the room. During this time I sat silent, gazing at the low ceiling or at any quaint object in the room which happened to attract my atten- tion. Sometimes I got up and Walked over to the writing desk to look abstractedly at some books, the leaves of which had grown brown with age. Perhaps I would strike a few notes on the ancient piano only to re- ceive the anticipated glareof reproval from my mother. When I thought I had, in the words of my mother, visited a little while , I quietly asked permission to go out to the barn. V ' On my way through the cold dining room I can remember how I used to stop to inspect the dld wall telephone whidh work by a crank, or the bric-a-brac on the fire-place mantle, or the big twelve gauge shot-gun in a little nook behind a curtain. It was a gloomy room, as was the Whole house except, perhaps, the sitting room and kitchen, which I passed through next. Its floor, which was of brick, had sunken in places so as to make footing unsure. Behind the stove which radiated an intense heat, there was an old Dutch oven of large dimen- sion which always arrested my attention. Everything in the house was suggestive of antiquity. A musty smell, characteristic of ancient farmhouses, pervaded its rooms. It was a large house, much too large for the three people who lived in it, but they loved it, and nothing could have putsuaded them to part with it. After a lengthy tour of inspection of the ell and barn, I would return to the sitting room where my folks would be preparing to leave. My aunt and uncle usually escort- ed us to the car where the conversation continued for another five or ten minutes before we'd Hnally bid them farewell and depart. RICHARD HITCHCOCK

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CLASS OF 193813 '23