h enchantments, for the
hope is noble and the reward is great." Quite right. It would be no
greater miracle that brought us into another world to live forever
with our dearest than that which has brought us into this one to live
a lifetime with them. Both are equally incomprehensible to finite
beings. Let us therefore comfort ourselves with everlasting hope, "as
with enchantments," as Plato recommends, never forgetting, however,
that we all have our duties here and that the kingdom of heaven is
within us. It also passed into an axiom with us that he who proclaims
there is no hereafter is as foolish as he who proclaims there is,
since neither can know, though all may and should hope. Meanwhile
"Home our heaven" instead of "Heaven our home" was our motto.

During these years of which I have been writing, the family fortunes
had been steadily improving. My thirty-five dollars a month had grown
to forty, an unsolicited advance having been made by Mr. Scott. It was
part of my duty to pay the men every month.[19] We used checks upon
the bank and I drew my salary invariably in two twenty-dollar gold
pieces. They seemed to me the prettiest works of art in the world. It
was decided in family council that we could venture to buy the lot and
the two small frame houses upon it, in one of which we had lived, and
the other, a four-roomed house, which till then had been occupied by
my Uncle and Aunt Hogan, who had removed elsewhere. It was through the
aid of my dear Aunt Aitken that we had been placed in the small house
above the weaver's shop, and it was now our turn to be able to ask her
to return to the house that formerly had been her own. In the same way
after we had occupied the four-roomed house, Uncle Hogan having passed
away, we were able to restore Aunt Hogan to her old home when we
removed to Altoona. One hundred dollars cash was paid upon purchase,
and the total price, as I remember, was seven hundred dollars. The
struggle then was to make up the semi-annual payments of interest and
as great an amount of the principal as we could save. It was not long
before the debt was cleared off and we were property-holders, but
before that was accomplished, the first sad break occurred in our
family, in my father's death, October 2, 1855. Fortunately for the
three remaining members life's duties were pressing. Sorrow and duty
contended and we had to work. The expenses connected with his illness
had to be saved and paid and we had not