It was a low, subdued tone that sings to me yet across thirty-five years.
You see the edge of that rocker worn quite deep?
That is where her foot was placed while she sat with her knitting or sewing, on summer afternoons, while the bees hummed at the door and the shout of the boy at the oxen was heard afield.

From the way the rocker is worn, I think that sometimes the foot must have been very tired and the ankle very sore; but I do not think she stopped for that.

When such a cradle as that got a-going, it kept on for years.
Scarlet-fever came in the door, and we all had it; and oh, how the cradle did go! We contended as to who should lie in it, for sickness, you know, makes babies of us all.

But after a while we surrendered it to Charlie.

He was too old to lie in it, but he seemed so very, very sick; and with him in the cradle it was "Rock!" "Rock!" "Rock!" But one day, just as long ago as you can remember, the cradle stopped.