d in the few years after, I went through
the entire curriculum of infantile ailments. The first of these was
scarlet fever, which so nearly consummated its fell work on me that I
was given up by the doctors as doomed to die, and, according to custom
in those times in such a case, my grave clothes were completed, the
neighbours gathering for that purpose. During those early years I took
such a large share of epidemics that I have never been sick since with
anything worthy of being called illness. I never knew or heard of anyone
who has had such remarkable and unvarying health as I have had, and I
mention it with gratitude to God, in whose "hand our breath is, and all
our ways."

The "grippe," as it is called, touched me at Vienna when on my way from
the Holy Land, but I felt it only half a day, and never again since.

I often wonder what has become of our old cradle in which all of us
children were rocked! We were a large family, and that old cradle was
going a good many years. I remember just how it looked. It was
old-fashioned and had no tapestry. Its two sides and canopy were of
plain wood, but there was a great deal of sound sleeping in that cradle,
and many aches and pains were soothed in it. Most vividly I remember
that the rockers, which came out from under the cradle, were on the top
and side very smooth, so smooth that they actually glistened. But it
went right on and rocked for Phoebe the first, and for DeWitt the last.

There were no lords or baronets or princes in our ancestral line. None
wore stars, cockade, or crest. There was once a family coat-of-arms, but
we were none of us wise enough to tell its meaning. Do our best, we
cannot find anything about our forerunners except that they behaved
well, came over from Wales or Holland a good while ago, and died when
their time came. Some of them may have had fine equipages and
postilions, but the most of them were sure only of footmen. My father
started in life belonging to the aristocracy of hard knuckles and
homespun, but had this high honour that no one could despise: he was the
son of a father who loved God and kept His commandments. Two eyes, two
hands, and two feet were the capital my father started with.

Benignity, kindness, keen humour, broad common sense and industry
characterised my mother. The Reverend Dr. Chambers was for many years
her pastor. He had fifty years of pastorate service, in Somerville,
N.J., and the Collegiate Church, New York. He sa