Old Mrs. Carter was a striking and original character. Her speech was seasoned with plenty of Attic salt, as when she remarked of some one who had risen from poverty to affluence and was spoiled by the rise, “Ah! when soles get to be upper leathers they're awfu’ stiff.” Her son Robert was idolized by her, and woe be to him who spoke slightingly of her treasure. It is related that when her son wrote to her, on his first coming to America, that some one had said that his being a foreigner might make it harder for him to get a position, “Hech, sirs!” said she, “they have a guid face to ca’ my son a foreigner.” When her son was at Peebles, he saw in the Bible of one of his pupils some verses which pleased him so much that he copied them and sent them to his mother. They appealed to her mother feeling, and to her latest days she loved to repeat them, in her rich expressive voice, and with her beautiful Scottish accent:—
LINES BY A MOTHER IN HER SON'S BIBLE.
Remember, love, who gave thee this,
When other days shall come,—
When she who had thy earliest kiss
Sleeps in her narrow home;
Remember ’t was a mother gave
The gift to one she’d die to save.
That mother sought a pledge of love,
The holiest for her son,
And from the gift of God above
She chose a goodly one;
She chose for her beloved boy
The Source of life and light and joy,—
And bade him keep the gift, that when
The parting hour should come
They might have hope to meet again
In an eternal home;
