By Nathaniel Hawthorne
ReadOasis Step 2
(Part 1)

It was a  December night, a very long time ago. A family sat around the fireplace in their home. A golden light from the fire filled the room. The mother and father laughed at something their oldest daughter had just said. The girl was seventeen, much older than her little brother and sister, who were only five and six years old.

A very old woman, the family's grandmother, sat knitting in the warmest corner of the room. And a baby, the youn...