When
he had come in from out of doors to go on with his work, he had put
them there--perhaps as some tribute. After all his years with her,
many and strong, he must have acquired various tributes and
interpretations; but to-day, during his walk in the woods, it had
befallen him to think of her as holly which ripens amid snows and
retains its brave freshness on a landscape of departed things. As
cedar also which everywhere on the Shield is the best loved of
forest-growths to be the companion of household walls; so that even
the poorest of the people, if it does not grow near the spot they
build in, hunt for it and bring it home: everywhere wife and cedar,
wife and cedar, wife and cedar.
The photographs of the children grouped on each side of hers with
heads a little lower down called up memories of Old World pictures in
which cherubs smile about the cloud-borne feet of the heavenly Hebrew
maid. Glowing young American mother with four healthy children as her
gifts to the nation--this was the practical thought of her that
riveted and held.
As has been said, they were in two groups, the children; a boy and
girl in each. The four were of nearly the same age; but the faces of
two were on a dimmer card in an older frame.
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