My Sofa.

There stands beneath my window an antiquated piece of furniture with which I have had the most familiar acquaintance from my very earliest recollection. It is a sofa, in the correct acceptance of the term. It is not a "lounge." Its framework is of some dark wood, well begrimed with cigarette smoke and ashes. Its cushion is covered with velvet carpet of an ancient pattern, the figures of which, where not worn off entirely, seem to be made up of a conglomeration of enormous roses and tree trunks. To look at this aged sofa, you would say that it could not possibly be comfortable to sit, to lie or to take any posture upon whatever. Its perpendicular back and straight arms certainly give it a most uninviting appearance. Perhaps this is the reason it has not been worn out entirely long ere this.

The history of this sofa is a simple one. It did not come from England in the Mayflower, I am confident. The earliest record of it that I can obtain relates that it was presented to my grandmother, some sixty odd years ago, on her wedding day. Since then it has led a quiet, unpretending existence in the old house, until a year or so ago it was thought best to send it to college to receive those finishing touches that a university course alone can bestow. So now I recline upon it with my back against a cushion, while I smoke a pipe and think of the many personal associations I have had with this old settler. If it had but a tongue as serviceable as its stout old legs, what a tale it could tell. To me, the first recollection that it brings is of my grandfather. How well I remember the tall, spare old gentleman, as he sat in one corner of it reading the morning paper and glancing up over his spectacles every moment or so to see that young rascal was not pulling the fire out into the middle of the room. At home the old sofa stood beneath a window too, and I remember when quite a child kneeling upon it to look out and watch the birds that came for crumbs, and the snowberry bushes outside waving too and fro in the storm, or budding peacefully in the warm sunlight. Then how often in childish fits of anger or fretfulness, have I rushed to it, and buried my face in the cushion, and watered the mammoth flowers with my tears.

It is not so uncomfortable as it looks, however, altho' its seat has been hardened by the weight of two or three generations. And now, tired out by this everlasting theme writing, I lie down upon it, draw my afghan over me, and seek that dreamland whither I fear my reader has long since preceded me.

SUMNER DOW RICHARDSON.