And then the door opened, and in came Peter and Zeke tumbling boisterously over each ›ther, and Mark, stopping short with his hat in is hand. | gether, and shut the door. Clear, and triumphant, and joyful rang the church bells, out in the evening hush. "Why, I never!" said Dolly. "You don't "How do you do, Mark?" began Mr.say so!" Cruncher. "I have been making a call on your Why!" "Zeke, sir," said Dolly, bringing him forward. His tattered clothes, dry now, and warm, had been neatly mended by Dolly's skilful fingers; a stick of the Christmas candy showed in his pocket. The faint, struggling joy spoke in its dumb way through every feature of his face. “Zeke,” said Mr. Cruncher, holding out his hand, "I want to look at you." The boy came slowly to his knee, and the E two looked in one another's eyes. "How where did you come from?" Mr. Cruncher's voice was low and hoarse. "I belonged to a circus, or a circus belonged to me. There was horses." "You ran away with a circus- that was it?" They beat me," said the boy, turning to look for Dolly. "Zeke,” Mr. Cruncher touched his shoulder, shrinking a little as he did so, "I want to look at you again." Again the boy came slowly to his knee, and again the two looked into one another's eyes. Then Gilbert Cruncher covered his face with his hands. Mark looked at Dolly, and Dolly looked at Mark, and the baby cooed softly in the silence. Just then a church-bell rang out clearly on the hush of the evening air. Clearly, and sweetly, and sorrowfully. Sorrowful, sweet, and clear. The wind caught the sound, and bore it far over the pure, soft snow, and away into the golden Christmas sunset-away, somewhere clear, and sweet, and sorrowful; sorrowful, sweet, and clear. Even as if the voice of the Child were there, with the music of its message. Oh! beautiful, whispered message, that only two should know! Gilbert Cruncher looked up at last, and took the boy's hand within his own. "Come, my son,” he said, "we will go home." Clear, and sweet, and joyful rang the church bells, as they went out of the cosy room to And then she sat down and cried, like the silly little Dolly as she was. But it is very sweet to cry for joy, isn t it? And very sweet did Dolly look, and very pink and pretty, and very, very dear. At least, that was what Mark said, and I take his word for it. THE DYING MOTHER. BY SARAH A. NOWELL. "I am a child once more —— Old scenes of early youth are with me now, No, this is my own dear home. One look it is the last One kiss, and then in love and peace I go; Look up there is a star Oh, it is sweet to bear My little Arthur to the Great White Throne, I bless thee, Oh my God, that he wiil wear His crown so early. To Thy presence there, I shall not come alone." 'Twas past. She bowed her head Meekly, like one who sinks to evening rest, Without a fear—a pang of grief and dread, Look, friends! how peaceful lies the holy Dead! God hath her slumber blest. For His dear love bestows On weary, wandering feet and aching head Over the silent river there, He waits to bear them safely on His breast A little child beneath a tree A little song- a pleasant song, "I OUR THANKSGIVING. chilled it so. What did those children mean? DON'T believe we shall have a bit of stairs! I wished they would not — to night- "Why, ain't she going to have a pudding?" That was Harry all over. "Oh, I s'pose there'll be a pudding, 'cause Mr Smith he sent up some raisins this mornin' -I peeked into the paper. But there isn't a single sign of a evergreen trimmin' put up, nor a flag, nor a any thing. And mother she just looks so sober, and she hain't laughed all day long. Oh, I think it's real horrid." to-night. The frosts, weaving and weaving their pat tern on the window, weaved out of sight the church shadow and that within it. Only the glitter of the silvered picture was left, with the moon faint behind it. I drew my shawl over my shoulders and went into the other room. A bright fire was crackling on the hearth; the curtains were drawn, red and warm and cozy, behind the ivies: my rocking-chair was in its "I saw her cry too. She sent me after a place, with the cricket pushed up beside it— that was Susy. She was always thoughtfulmore like clean handkerchief." "She did! Well, I s'pose it's all about Will. You know he came home last Thanksgiving." "Will allers laughed Thanksgivin', Sue. My! didn't he put into the nuts and raisings, and string up the wish-bones!" "Harry! why how you act! Will's dead, you know." "I can't help it," said Harry, apologetically. "I allers had good times with him. I wish he wasn't dead. Didn't he look funny in mother's bonnet after dinner!" "I wish he wasn't dead too, Harry, but then he is, you know. I tried to cry this mornin' when mother kep' wipin' her eyes, but I didn't after all. I wish she wouldn't look so horrid sober. You see if we have a nice time-I know we sha'n't." Well," said Harry, after a moment's consideration, "there's the turkey, any how." The sitting-room door closed then, and little feet pattered up stairs on their way to bed. The parlor was cold, and the twilight hung and deepened in the room. Just in front of me the frosts had frescoed the window, and the light of a faint, rising moon struck through them. In one little spot the children had dimmed away the silver tracery by their warm breath but a few moments ago. Through it, in the shadow of the church, something stood out alone and still-something which had drawn me into this lonely room, and fastened and held my eyes on the cold, cruel window-something which no close-closed curtains of warm homelights could ever shut out; which the width of a world could not separate from me; whose shadow fell across my very prayers, and darkened the face of God — the grave. This night it was so cold. The frosts weaving and weaving their pattern on the window, I found I was chilled through, and sat down by the fire. Then I covered my face with my hands. God knows how I had dreaded this day which was coming; how for months I had shrank from it, and pleaded with it to pass me by; how I had talked with it in dreams, and been wak ened by my tears, and prayed for strength to live it through; how like a phantom it had confronted me, and haunted me, and dogged my steps, and the strength had not come. now it was upon me. And Our Thanksgiving had been no more, I suppose, to us than to any who love the day; the tender household memories clustering around them no sweeter and no dearer than thousands and thousands; nor was my grief more than any other mother's grief. But what was that to me or mine? Our loss was as irreparable, my grief as solitary, as if the universe held no other. For the heart knoweth its own bitterness. He loved these days so- my boy; he loved them so. For him and because of him they had always been so bright. And it was only the last-only the last one that he was with us. Just for a few days the short, happy furlough lasted-days that brighten as the distance between me and them grows wider and darker. I remember his face as I met him at the door. It was only "Mother!" and "Oh, Willie !" only a close clasping and a long kiss. All that day I could not see him except through thick-falling tears; happy tears I called them; yet now I can read the prophecy of their pain. God did not tell me that he would not come home to his mother again; but I knew it from the moment he crossed the threshold I knew it. And here was the day staring me in the face. W Vhat will you think of me, if I say that in my hildren's prattle that night I saw for myself no eproof; that indeed I was almost vexed with heir thoughtless joy; their merry voices stung ne; I shrank away from their little plays and aughter. It was the silence only that I heard. He -he was my first-born, and I loved him. To live through to-morrow's festival without him; to fill it with the old glad customs and the old rejoicings; to come to the table and see only that one vacant chair; to watch the children play about the fire, where he had played among them; to sit and worship and give thanks in the church to which he had walked with us in company, and from which we had borne him to his rest; to keep eyes free from tears and lips from quivering. "Mary," said a voice beside me. My husband had come in from his study, and was pacing the room in his restless way. "Well ?" "I suppose you have been preparing for to-morrow?" window which the frost was painting thicker and thicker with its cold clear pictures, and through it I saw a solitary figure passing over the moonlit snow and into the shadow of the church. It was as I supposed. As I went back to the fire some sleighing party in the street shot by, singing a merry Thanksgiving song. I expect only those who mourn to uuderstand how I listened to it. It was a little thing to hurt me; but it did. Thanksgiving! I could have laughed at the word. Should I give thanks? For this desolated fireside, for that vacant chair and silent voice, for the vanished smile and touch and household blessing, for those few dimmed letters, and the heart-ache of that lock of clinging hair, and the grave beneath the early snowsshould I give thanks for these? So many memories crowded into the word; so many pictures came and went, as I sat there alone in the firelight. The boy sitting just here at my feet he was the only one then-cracking his nuts, and stealing the raisins from my with the pretty mischief bright in his, so great "The children shall have their dinner; what pocket after dinner, looking up into my eyes else can I do ?" "We do not want them to have a gloomy day and dark and full; no one ever had eyes like of it, Mary." Willie's. He was such a pretty baby, and so "I can not, can not help it. John, you dear; you see, he taught me the word mother; know." it was his little upturned face, and the touch of He came up and laid his hand upon my his tiny fingers, in which I first read the beauty bowed head. "I know, Mary, I know. I am stronger to bear it than you. I will try and be cheerful for both of us, it will soon be over." That was just like him; all my burdens were his own; all my pain doubly his. I might have known how it would be. Was this sorrow making me forgetful of my husband? Could I be that? "Oh, John. I am so selfish! but you know I loved him so if I could be brighter, John!" "I understand it all. Why, Mary!" He took me in his arms as I broke into sobbing; he took me in his arms like a child, and sitting there beside the fire we talked a long time. I can not tell you what we said. This our child, whom the Lord had taken, was dear to him as to me; for him as for me the path we trod was very dark. But when at last he left me we understood one another, as in every trouble we always had understood. We could bear any thing together. I heard him take his hat, go out of the halldoor, and close it behind him. I went to the of its holiness. How could I help it that he was what he was to me? What should I do with all this love that had grown into my heart for one-and-twenty years? Another picture. How the years went and came? He was the only one no longer; but in the group of happy faces his always stood alone to me. It was he who stilled the little ones at their quarrels or when the plays grew rough; it was he who made the beautiful Thanksgivingdays so bright to them; it was he who watched my steps about the room and drew my chair up to the fire, and followed me with his little smile --such a beautiful smile it always was! Why, somehow all the festival days are lighted with it far down the faint and fading years. I see it. When the school-boy affecting all the little importances of the Bucolics and the first Xenophon lesson, was not ashamed to come out in the kitchen and help me stone the raisins. I see it at the merry dinner-table, and the twinkle in his eye, and the laugh, and the jest, his face all aglow with delight. I think it was a beautiful face. I see the smile again - older and more manly, but with the same child's tenderness in it; even the mustache of the young collegian could not hide it. How we laughed at him about that mustache! He knew how proud I was of him all the while; how could I help it? Those college vacations are so many sunny days, they were so brief and bright. I remember how we watched for him at the door; how the old coach came lumbering up-it passed the house just now as I write. I suppose I always hear it. I suppose I never hear it without a quickening of my pulse. I suppose I never shall. I see him bounding up the steps. I feel his arm about I see the children pulling at his sleeve. I see his face why will God give us such faces to be our own, our very own, and snatch them away into darkness? Yet I would not now, I would not even then, that night, with the murmuring words upon my lips, lose the sweet memory for ten thousand times its pain. me. Once more I see the smile; but it is the smile of a martyr. He knew, when he came to me, with all the hero in his eyes, fired with his pure bright dreams of sacrifice, loving his country as only her young men can - when he came, as if he were again a child, and asked his mother's blessing- he knew to what he was going. So, I think, did I. Yet I did not say him nay. I did not hold him back with my weak tears and pleadings. I thank God for that. I thanked Him on that desolate Thanksgiving-eve. And when I go down the sloping years to meet my old age without my boy, I shall thank Him still. I am very sure of that. But you do not care to hear the rest of my story. It is yours, perhaps, as well as mine: and of its sacredness you and I know well. was one woman I was not there to see him die. I can never go back and be there to help him die. There you have heard of her, perhaps--she found him a stranger, cared for by strange hands; and when they bore him to his quick-made grave upon the battle-field, she stooped to touch his face with reverent lips, and said, "Let me kiss him for his mother." God bless her for that! God bless her wherever she may be and may she never lay her first-born away under the frozen ground, where he can never call to her, or take her in his arms, or kiss her with his warm young lips! But we have brought him home since that, and in the shadow of the old familiar church he is at rest. As I sat before the fire, through all my bitter musing that night, I remembered the solitary figure pacing round and round the moonlit grave his father loved him so. I not say that even I, his mother, loved him more. Did I ask for strength to live through t day which was coming—to live it quietly, healthfully, thankfully, remembering that mine was not a thorn-wreath, since "no mortal grief de serves that crown?" I do not know. Do we never pray for that which we will not have! Our Father, who is very patient with us, alone knows. And then these facts of sorrow are so sharp It was one thing to give him up — a grand, he‐ roic thing; it was another to find him gone— To feel the door-latch stir and elink, Do you know this "surprise when one sits quite alone?" But, with my prayers or without them, the morning came. It came as other Thanksgiving mornings had come — with fresh, frolicking winds, and sunlight, and blue skies; with merry voices, with cloudless faces, and happy hearts. The children woke me with the old rap on my door-Susy and Harry and Bertie, and May hiding shyly in the entry, lest papa should have a peep at her night-cap, half doubting, indeed, whether she was not getting to be too much of a woman to take part in the children's sport. How merry Willie always was at it! his little rap always the loudest, and his laugh the clearest of all. I could not forget it, and turned away to hide the quick, hot tears. "Mamma don't talk," cried Bertie through the keyhole. "I guess she hasn't woke upMamma!" "Come away," said May in a whisper"Mamma feels badly to have Thanksgiving come, you know. Perhaps she isn't well - let's go and dress." And before I found my voice the little bare feet had pattered away over the entry, and it was too late to call them back. I remember just how yellow and murky the sunshine lay on the floors that morning, and how I thought the wind wailed about the corners of the house-to me it had no frolic. The children came in from coasting while I was at work, all flushed, and eager, and happy, jostling and pushing each other at play in the entry. The moment they saw my face Susy grew sober, and May began to hush Harry's laughter. How could I help it? "Where's the evergreen trimmings?" asked | old, rare smile; I touched his own bright curls Bertie, looking around the room with disap- upon his forehead; I spoke to him; he spoke to pointed eyes. "There's a lot picked up garrets, mother." Ah, that pretty celebration of the day! I had never planned for it. It was Willie's fancy, and Willie's skilful fingers they were which had always made the old rooms bright and festive. How I cling to the baby-name! Yet he never minded it from me; sometimes, from a quick, pleased look in his manly eyes, I used to think he liked to have me call him 80. "May! May! fix the trimmings," I said, turning away. "I-I am too busy this morn=ing." "It isn't like having you," said May, her bright face falling, and then the children with puzzled eyes, crept one by one away. Dinner-time came at last, and they gathered round the table gleefully-just as gleefully, I thought, with a half bitterness, as if they had all been there. "Why! what's this for?" asked Harry, stopping. "Mother, you've got one chair too many." So I had put it there the empty chair; and with its pitiful, appealing blankness beside me, I sat down to the festival meal. I remember just how everything looked as in a picture my husband's face, with its white, peaceful smile, the same that he had given to his boy, and the children grouped around in the old places; and a fleck of yellow sunlight that had fallen in through the warm south window upon the tablecloth. I remember every thing. I know that John had just bowed his head to ask God's blessing on our food, and the children's eyes were closed, when I saw - I saw as distinctly as I see this paper upon which I write the words shadow fall across the empty chair. - a I turned my head, and I saw him my boy Willie. I know it was Willie. You need not doubt me, for I tell you I cannot be mistaken. Should not I know him, I, his mother? I looked deep, deep into his eyes. I saw the me. "Willie !" "Mother!" The voice was breathless, but it was his. "Willie! Willie!" Again the old, rare smile. With one hand he motioned silence. His father's voice hushed the Amen, and the children looked up and began their chatter. "Did you speak to me, Mary?" asked my husband. "No." Why, I thought some one spoke during the blessing. Well, Miss May, what part of the turkey shall I help you to?" So they did not see him. I alone was chosen. I looked into his face, smiling, smiling down into mine so tenderly - you cannot know how tenderly; but in his eyes I saw and I thought my heart would break to see it - a certain sad, reproachful look, that I had caught on his face. once, years ago, when I accused him with injustice of some trifling childish fault a look that had haunted me in many a still hour since. And then I heard him say distinctly, though to not another ear was the breathless voice audible: "I want them to be happy. I want you to enjoy the day. Did you think I should not be with you, mother?" He was with me, thank God! and I was happy. I talked, I laughed, I chatted with the children; their merriment increased with mine; my husband's pale face lighted up; I felt my own eyes sparkling. And all the while, where they saw only that empty chair, I saw the beautiful still face and happy smile. I saw him pleased with the old familiar customs. I saw him mindful of the children's jests. I saw his eyes, full of their own home-love, turn from one to another, and back again to me - I saw and I was content. All that day he was beside me. He followed us into the sitting-room and took his old seat by the cozy fire. He listened to his father's stories, and watched the children at their games, and joined us when we gathered around the piano for our twilight song. I heard his voice; the children asked what made me sing so clearly. Just as the shades began to fall heavily he drew me toward him by the frost-bound window. I know he stooped and kissed me. I know he |
