“On Sunday afternoon Mary came running to us with a frightened face, saying that Tom had been suddenly taken very ill whilst playing in the garden. We hastened to him, and found him cold and blue and almost pulseless. We saw at a glance that he had been smitten by the relentless foe, and when first I saw him my heart seemed to stand still, for I felt certain that there was death in his face.
“We knew by that time what measures to take, and they were promptly taken. We had been two hours with him, and still that state of rigid collapse had not yielded, when Mary called us once again to say that Charley was complaining of dreadful pain, and looked almost as bad as Tom had done.
“There were two beds in the boys’ room. Tom occupied one now, and in another hour Charley was lying still and rigid in his. The doctor came, and looked very grave. From the character of the seizure in both cases, he anticipated the worst from the first moment.
“That night both my boys died. They were conscious towards the last, and they knew both their mother and me. She told them they were going home, and asked if they were afraid. They told her no; because Jesus had died for them. I asked them how they could be so sure of it; they looked half surprised, and Tom answered, with a look I shall never forget—it seemed so strange in the eyes of laughter-loving, careless, merry Tom.
“‘He said so, father; and besides, I feel it here’—laying his hand on his heart. ‘He said, He died for all of us. He said, He took away all sin with His blood. I know He’s taken away mine. Mother and I have asked Him so often.’
“Charley’s testimony was more faintly spoken,—the boy had suffered much and was sinking rapidly,—but it was just as clear.
“He’s coming for me, mother dear. Don’t cry, sweet mother. I’d like to stay with you if I could; but He knows best. He’s so good; and I am quite happy. You will be—happy—too.”
“And so they died—both in one night—brave and steadfast and fearless, as young soldiers who have known something of the battle, even if their fighting days have been but brief. They were not unhappy or afraid. Dying for them was but leaving one happy home to find another—a far brighter one than this could ever be.
“My wife was the next—she was only two days behind her boys; and her little girls so closely followed her that she could hardly have had time to miss them before she found them again in the everlasting home. For a very little while I hoped that my last little boy, the pet and darling of the house, was to be left to me. Each night, as I visited him in his sleep, and marked the bloom on his cheek and the healthy, natural slumber, I told myself that he would surely be spared me; but there came one morning when I saw, by the frightened and averted glances of my servants, that some new calamity had befallen me. I asked no question, but went straight up to the nursery.
“There he lay in his little bed, white and still as marble; his little hands crossed upon his breast, and fair white flowers around him. He had been found dead in his bed in the morning, having evidently passed away in his sleep. The poison had done its work swiftly and well, and the child had not known one struggle or one pang.