And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe , and as the Dutch clock ticked , and as the red fire gleamed , and as the Cricket chirped , that Genius of his Hearth and Home -LRB- for such the Cricket was -RRB- came out , in fairy shape , into the room , and summoned many forms of Home about him . Dots of all ages and all sizes filled the chamber . Dots who were merry children , running on before him , gathering flowers in the fields ; coy Dots , half shrinking from , half yielding to , the pleading of his own rough image ; newly-married Dots , alighting at the door , and taking wondering possession of the household keys ; motherly little Dots , attended by fictitious Slowboys , bearing babies to be christened ; matronly Dots , still young and blooming , watching Dots of daughters , as they danced at rustic balls ; fat Dots , encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren ; withered Dots , who leaned on sticks , and tottered as they crept along . Old Carriers , too , appeared with blind old Boxers lying at their feet ; and newer carts with younger drivers -LRB- `` Peerybingle Brothers '' on the tilt -RRB- ; and sick old Carriers , tended by the gentlest hands ; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers , green in the churchyard . And as the Cricket showed him all these things -- he saw them plainly , though his eyes were fixed upon the fire -- the Carrier 's heart grew light and happy , and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might , and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do . * * * * * But what was that young figure of a man , which the same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool , and which remained there , singly and alone ? Why did it linger still , so near her , with its arm upon the chimney-piece , ever repeating `` Married ! and not to me ! '' Oh , Dot ! Oh , failing Dot ! There is no place for it in all your husband 's visions . Why has its shadow fallen on his hearth ? CHIRP THE SECOND Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves , as the Story Books say -- and my blessing , with yours , to back it I hope , on the Story Books , for saying anything in this work-a-day world ! -- Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves , in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house , which was , in truth , no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackleton . The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the great feature of the street ; but you might have knocked down Caleb Plummer 's dwelling with a hammer or two , and carried off the pieces in a cart . If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad , it would have been , no doubt , to commend its demolition as a vast improvement . It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackleton like a barnacle to a ship 's keel , or a snail to a door , or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree . But it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung ; and , under its crazy roof , the Gruff before last had , in a small way , made toys for a generation of old boys and girls , who had played with them , and found them out , and broken them , and gone to sleep . I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here . I should have said that Caleb lived here , and his poor Blind Daughter somewhere else -- in an enchanted home of Caleb 's furnishing , where scarcity and shabbiness were not , and trouble never entered .
Caleb was no sorcerer ; but in the only magic art that still remains to us , the magic of devoted , deathless love , Nature had been the mistress of his study ; and , from her teaching , all the wonder XXXXX .
came cared commend lived lying made repeating showed stuck summoned