wish to have the home of their childhood live green in their memory. The chain which binds them to us is more than golden, and we would have its links grow stronger and brighter."
The response to this call was warm and earnest. The appointed time in August witnessed throngs of arrivals in Pittsfield. There, hospitality was the opening both of house and heart. Every possible arrangement for comfort and accommodation had been made; seats placed on a beautiful hill, and a noble banquet spread under cover of a tent for three thousand guests. Music and eloquence, song, genius, and beauty, lent their attractions to the two summer days thus spent together.
The weather, on which the comfort of a popular assemblage, where there is a large admixture of ladies, eminently depends, was generally propitious. But one morning, when an audience of nearly six thousand had gone in procession to their hill of Jubilee, and were listening with enchained attention to an accomplished speaker, a heavy rain suddenly fell. This was attended by a most singular rushing sound, the simultaneous expansion of thousands of umbrellas, under whose protection such as could be accommodated repaired to the church, where the exercises were continued.
In excursions to different points of interest, the ancient and magnificent Pittsfield Elm was not forgotten. Around its venerable head, multitudes of