ings' he was strongly attracted. It would, however, have
been impossible for father to have hewn a farm unaided out of the
wilderness, and he could not afford to hire any assistance, so brother
Barnes generously sacrificed all his own aspirations and preferences,
and devoted his life, which might have been a brilliant and successful
one, to the dull routine of farm acres."

"Did Uncle Barnes resemble papa much, as a boy?" inquired Ida.

"Your uncle was of a very different temperament," replied mamma; "he
was as gay and loquacious as your papa was silent and abstracted. He
was very fond of reading and of study, but he lacked your papa's
perseverance; he was more awake to the outer world and its
distractions, whereas brother Horace was oblivious to everything else,
when he once held a book in his hand.

"I have told you what a splendid voice your grandfather had. Brother
Barnes was the only one of the five children who inherited it, and with
it a very quick ear for music. I remember hearing mother say, that
when he was three and four years old, he was often called upon to sing
for our friends, who not unfrequently rewarded his talent with
presents; however, at the time when his voice changed, it completely
lost its musical qualities, to our great regret.

"As he grew older, he developed a taste for argument, that would have
done him good service had he been able to follow out his darling
project of becoming a lawyer; indeed, as it was, he was always called
upon, unprofessionally, to settle the neighbors' disputes, and was
renowned for making all the love-matches of the neighborhood. In his
reading he had rather a peculiar taste; he delighted in theological and
controversial books, and I never knew any one who was more thoroughly
acquainted with the Bible. He could not only give the precise chapter
and verse from which any text was taken, but was able to detect the
slightest verbal error in the quotation.

"He had a passion for preaching, and although unordained, was always
ready to deliver a sermon whenever he could find a vacant church and an
audience.

"Every one in America has heard of your papa's benevolent disposition,
and the amount he used to spend in private charities. Your Uncle
Barnes was, if possible, more generous. I have known him to part with
his last dollar to relieve another from want or embarrassment, and this
was not done through weakness or inability to refuse, but from a
genuine impulse