Father was easily entreated, and then Mother was as excited as a little child. She wanted new strings to her best bonnet, fresh laces for her gray bombazine dress, and there was a button off her best gloves. So in these and kindred duties for the children, the day passed. We smiled and made believe we were pleasantly occupied, but Father knew, and I knew, it was the last day we should ever spend together. The heart-breaking pathos of those three words—the last day, lay underneath all our pleasant words and smiles. We were really dying to each other every hour of that last day. In after years when the fire of life has cooled down, we wonder why we felt so keenly, and how we endured it!
Fortunately the strain was in a measure lifted early the next morning. We were to leave at nine o’clock and every one was busy dressing or breakfasting. When the carriage was at the door, and I had kissed my sisters, I looked around for Father. “He is in his room,” said Alethia, and as she spoke, I heard him walking about. I went to him, and when he saw me enter, he knew the parting moment had come. He stood still and stretched out his arms, and I clung to him whispering “Father! My Father! I must go!”
Tenderly he stooped and kissed me, saying, “Dear, my dear! My Milly! I know not where you are going, and Robert could not tell me. But this I know, wherever your lot may be cast, ‘your bread shall be given, and your water sure.’”
Then Mother called us, and we went down together. Mother and the children were in the carriage. Robert was waiting for me. Without a word Father kissed us both, and the carriage went hurriedly away but I watched as far as I could, the white lifted head, and eager eyes of the dear soul I was never to see 140 again in this world. He lived about nine years after our parting, and died as he wished to die—“on a Sabbath morning, when the bells are ringing for church.” Perhaps he had some primitive idea of the glory of the Church Celestial, and some hope that he might serve in it. Only to be a doorkeeper in His House, would be heaven to his adoring love.
“O Strong Soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? In some far shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the Word
Of the Spirit, in whom thou didst live.”
. . . . . . . . . .