Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland

by Abigail Stanley Hanna

They placed his little form in a wide coffin, and laid it in the tomb to await the coming of his little sister.

A week passed away, a week of weary watchfulness and anxiety, of pain, suffering and distress, and the angel returned again for the twin spirit.

It was at the deep midnight hour when he announced his mysterious presence, by laying his icy hand and spreading his marble paleness over the form of the departing sister. The little frame was convulsed, and writhed beneath the grasp of the pale visitant, but he pitied not, relented not, but steady to his purpose, snapped the brittle thread of life, performed the task he had been commissioned with, and hurried away from that place of tears to cast his deep shadow over the sun light of other homes, and fill other hearts with grief, and cause other eyes to look red with weeping, "because death has come into the world," and the children of men must fall before his withering blight.

Already had decomposition commenced its repulsive work in the form of the little son, and he was laid away, while the coffin returned for the other dear one, who was to moulder with him in its narrow confines.

Deposited in the same tomb, was a coffin covered with mould, and just ready to drop from the shelf upon which it was placed, and the shrunken boards had separated, and it was perforated with large cracks where it had been joined together. The lid was always unscrewed, and was often raised by the hand of a fond mother, who looked upon the dust of an only daughter, who had been the idol of her heart. She had spared no pains in educating her, and she had well repaid the labor bestowed upon her in the acquisition of knowledge.

She was beautiful in person, amiable in disposition, and was beloved by a large circle of acquaintances. She was married early, to the companion of her choice, who had been attentive to her from childhood, declaring the first time he saw her, he never saw such beautiful curls in his life, as Annie Grey's.

She had two little sons, and all looked bright and prosperous; Annie was happy in the affection of her husband, her children and her friends, but death lingered not for these things; he came, a most unwelcome visitant, and bore his unwilling victim from the presence of her agonized mother, "to join the pale nations of the dead."

She dressed her in the gilded trappings of life, bolstered her up in bed, and curling her beautiful hair in glossy ringlets over her pale face, had her likeness taken as large as life, and touched with natural coloring, thus preserving the form and features of her child, upon the senseless canvass, which was kept hung up in her room, covered with black crape, during her life time.

Annie ever expressed repugnance at the idea of being deposited in the ground, and her mother had this tomb built that she might there repose, and she could watch her sleeping dust as it crumbled to decay.

Who that looked in upon that mouldering mass of blackened dust, and contrasted it with the beautiful form that moved in life, but learned an impressive lesson of the change that death makes upon the form of youth and beauty? She had slept there many years, and the mother felt the time was approaching, when she must take the last look of those dear remains, and have them removed to the second vault, or buried beneath the grassy turf; but ere the time arrived, the great reaper gathered father and mother into his abundant harvest, and laid them by her side.