[Gutenberg 45408] • The Pansy Magazine, June 1886

SIX O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING.

Lord, evermore give us this bread.

Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad.

"WHY, you've found another verse about bread!" said Grandma, then her eyes grew thoughtful.

"Association is a queer thing, children; association of ideas, I mean." (Some people might think that Grandma Burton used large words in talking to her grandchildren; but the fact was, she did not try very hard to make her words little. Not that she selected long ones; her language was always simple; but words which they would be likely to hear among cultured people, or to see in their books, she aimed to use in talking with them. If they did not understand a word, they were always at liberty to ask its meaning. The consequence was, they were quite intelligent children, and the phrase, "association of ideas," did not trouble the older ones in the least. As for little Sarah she did not bother her brains about it, yet awhile.)

"Now you wouldn't suppose," continued Grandma, "that there was anything in that verse to make me think of a large, old-fashioned farm-house kitchen, with a wooden bowl on the table, and a wooden spoon hanging over it, and old-fashioned dishes arranged on the shelf above it, and a woman in a straight dress, and neck handkerchief, bending over the bread-bowl, and a little girl with a high-necked apron on, standing before an old-fashioned churn, moving the dasher up and down, yet I see all those things as plainly as though it was yesterday morning, instead of sixty odd years ago."

"What makes it, Grandma? What happened?" And Marion settled little Sarah more comfortably on the hassock, and straightened herself, ready to listen.

"Why, it is this association of ideas I was speaking of; my memory of that verse about bread is mixed in with all those scenes. I was the little girl moving the dasher. You see it was this way:

"Mother was very sick that spring, and father had to take her to the city to be under the care of a great doctor, and he had to stay with her; so we children were scattered. I went to spend a week with aunt Pat Worcester."

"What a horrid name for a woman!" said Rollo.