The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

INVASION OF OUR HOME.

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ing ourselves as agreeable as possible to all who might
come.
Very few, however, made their appearance until the
middle of the afternoon. Instead of the people, goods of
all kinds were constantly arriving at the parsonage. Loads
of wood; pots of butter; bags of flour; cheese in pieces,
and small whole cheeses; calico and delaine for dresses;
hand-knit socks and stockings; cotton cloth, bleached and
unbleached, in various lengths; uncooked hams and turkeys, with much else in the way of edibles and household
materials. There were also donations of cooked food for
the supper, which came in quantities beyond the capacity
of a hungry regiment. Pans of biscuit; loaves of cake;
pies of every variety, but chiefly mince; cold roast turkeys;
boiled hams and tongues; butter, cheese, preserves, applebutter, pickles, and relishes of various kinds; in short,
every variety of dainty to be found in a country larder
was in evidence for the supper table.
As evening approached, the house became crowded.
The whole parish had turned out for the occasion, and,
moving freely among them were many men evidently from
the factories and furnaces, whom I had never seen. Supper
was served without much regard to table etiquette. Every
one received in the dining-room whatever food he desired,
and then ate where he could find a place, - in the hall, in
the parlor, in the sitting-room, on the stairs, in the guestchamber, in the study. I watched the proceedings with an
unquiet eye, and unspoken misgivings. How my cosy house
was being despoiled of its beauty and neatness! On the
center-table, in the parlor, an open box was set, into which
money was dropped by people, not of the parish, who contributed to the receipts of the day, either from gbod will, or
in payment for services rendered during the year, or for the