Middlebury and rode into the grounds of the college,
where the Senator had been educated, and on out to Weybridge to see
where he had lived as a boy. I found the Wright homestead--a
comfortable white house at the head of a beautiful valley with wooded
hills behind it--and rode up to the door. A white-haired old lady in a
black lace cap was sitting on its porch looking out at the sunlit
fields.

"Is this where Senator Wright lived when he was a boy?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," the old lady answered.

"I am from Canton."

She rose from her chair.

"You from Canton!" she exclaimed. "Why, of all things! That's where my
boy's home is. I'm glad to see you. Go an' put your horse in the barn."

I dismounted and she came near me.

"Silas Wright is my boy," she said. "What is your name?"

"Barton Baynes," I answered as I hitched my horse.

"Barton Baynes! Why, Silas has told me all about you in his letters. He
writes to me every week. Come and sit down."

We sat down together on the porch.

"Silas wrote in his last letter that you were going to leave your place
in Cobleskill," she continued to my surprise. "He said that he was glad
you had decided not to stay."

It was joyful news to me, for the Senator's silence had worried me and
I had begun to think with alarm of my future.

"I wish that he would take you to Washington to help him. The poor man
has too much to do."

"I should think it a great privilege to go," I answered.

"My boy likes you," she went on. "You have been brought up just as he
was. I used to read to him every evening when the candles were lit. How
hard he worked to make a man of himself! I have known the mother's joy.
I can truly say, 'Now let thy servant depart in peace.'"

"'For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,'" I quoted.

"You see I know much about you and much about your aunt and uncle," said
Mrs. Wright.

She left me for a moment and soon the whole household was gathered about
me on the porch, the men having come up from the fields. The Senator had
told them on his last visit of my proficiency as a sound-hand writer and
I amused them by explaining the art of it. They put my horse in the barn
and pressed me to stay for dinner, which I did. It was a plain boiled
dinner at which the Senator's cousin and his hired man sat down in their
shirt-sleeves and during which I heard many stories of the boyhood of
the great man. As I was going the gentle old lady gave me a pair of
mittens which her