One day in particular Rosie always remembered—she had toiled for a good hour at training baby to say: “Pa—pa,” when the father had come from the office—and when he came the baby had stretched out her arms to him, looked back roguishly at Rosie, and then fairly screamed: “Ma—ma! ma—ma!” and they had all laughed and laughed! Good God! how easy it is for a baby to fill a happy home with merriment! And that very night “croup” had clutched with murderous fingers the little throat that was used to swell with laughter as a bird’s throat swells with song—and darkness and silence came upon the house.
Little Knights—poor, broken, Little Knights—like a small, gray shadow, flitted back and forth between the two stricken homes. At one moment he had blasphemed in his misery. His Rose had been lying on his breast and she had wrung her hands and lifted her tortured eyes to his and cried: “Father, what have I done? Think back—think hard! What wickedness did I do, that God should punish me so cruelly? Did I lie? Did I bear false witness against anyone? Think father—think for me, dear!”
And then he had lifted up his voice against Almighty God and cursed his work—and now he remembered his words and shivered, for, with creeping horror, he felt that there was something approaching him more terrible even than the loss of the second little bud of love and hope—Rose! Rose—his worshiped Rose—who wept not—who thought no more for others’ comforts—who sat motionless for long hours at a time, had been taken possession of by a grotesquely horrible idea that the husband she loved so was trying to put her legally away, because her children died! And she would hold his hands and beg piteously that he should wait for her to die!—that she would not be long about it now! And the poor husband would kneel at her feet and pour out his love and grief, but all in vain!
Then she would lay her head on “Little Knights’” breast and tell him to take her away before the new wife came! He felt what was coming, and believed his blasphemy had brought destruction upon her when his Rose became quite mad! At first he tried to take his life, but Mrs. Knights seemed to have eyes all over—he could not escape them. Then, suddenly, he cast himself—helpless, hopeless, almost heartbroken, at the “Blessed Feet,” asking nothing for himself, but entreating mercy for his Rose!—so innocent, so good! Bye and bye he ceased to bargain with the Lord, and bowed his head, and with grief-shaken voice, said simply: “Thy will, not mine, O Gott!” and straight a gleam of sunlight came back into his life. Rose—his beloved Rose—had recovered her reason! “Little Knights” held her in his arms and kissed the weary eyes and drooping lips—and blessed God for her! but knew in his heart he would never again see his white Rose “tied up mit pink ribbons.”
And time goes on and on, and Rose, gentle, kind, a very angel of mercy to the poor, devoted to her husband and her parents—rarely smiling—never laughing—shivers at the sight of a blond baby. Four years had passed after her second loss, and her silence was deceiving them all. I think, when one Sunday in church a strange, little, restless creature in her pew crept along the seat and put its baby hand on hers, and poor Rosie at that touch had fainted dead away, after that they understood.
One day I saw “Little Knights” standing uncovered at the side of two tiny graves. A small white stone at their head had carved upon it two rosebuds and beneath, three words, clear and plain: “Our little buds!” I murmured the words half aloud, and “Little Knights,” with tears on his cheeks, said: “Yays, yays—youst liddle puds—but, oh, whad sweet, liddle puds dey were! Gott give me youst von Rose—full bloomed unt perfect—but dese puds? No! no! He say dey may not bloom here!”
He looked up into the clear, far, far blue, and smiled and nodded, and said, very low: “Oop dere—I think He make ’em bloom out full—dem puds! I like I can see dat! I don’t want to leaf my Rose—I stay here as long as she stay—but I vant so much to see my liddle puds bloom!” and then he placed on each wee grave a beautiful rosebud, and trotted away home to his good, old wife and his adored Rosie!
“Let me see,” I added, “this is Saturday—is it not? Well, to-morrow, before four o’clock in the afternoon, should you go to W—— Cemetery, you would see the ‘little hop o’ my thumb’ I pointed out to you a while ago come trotting in, holding two beautiful, exquisitely beautiful, rosebuds in his hand; would see him make his way to those two tiny graves, and without shame, fall on his knees, and with one arm stretched across the graves, humbly pray. Then kissing both buds, he would place one on each grave—then, with falling tears, leave the cemetery—and that has been done and will be done, winter as well as summer, by this poor, faithful ‘Little Old Knights.’”
I glanced at my companion and was amazed to see her eyes were brimming, and as she dashed the tears away, the shameless little turncoat cried—“And do you now tell me you can’t see poetry in life—when you have known a man like that? Why, there is all the poetry of ‘fatherhood’ right before your eyes!”
And to this day she wonders why I laughed so long and heartily.