Death comes, and releases you. You are scarcely missed. Your next-door neighbor, who has lived within three feet of you for three years, may possibly recollect having seen the doctor’s chaise before your door, for some weeks past; then, that the front blinds were closed; then, that a coffin was carried in; and he remarks to his wife, as he takes up the evening paper, over a comfortable dish of tea, that “he shouldn’t wonder if neighbor Grey were dead,” and then they read your name and age in the bill of mortality, and wonder “what disease you died of;” and then the servant removes the tea-tray, and they play a game of whist, and never think of you again, till they see the auctioneer’s flag floating before your door.
The house is sold; and your neighbor sees your widow and little ones pass out over the threshold in tears and sables (grim poverty keeping them silent company); but what of that? The world is full of widows and orphans; one can’t always be thinking of a charnel-house; and so he returns to his stocks and dividends, and counting-room, and ledger, in a philosophical state of serenity.
Some time after, he is walking with a friend; and meets a lady in rusty mourning, carrying a huge bundle, from which “slop work” is seen protruding, (a little child accompanies her, with its feet out at the toes.) She has a look of hopeless misery on her fine but sad features. She is a lady still (spite of her dilapidated wardrobe and her bundle.) Your neighbor’s companion touches his arm, and says, “Good God! isn’t that Grey’s widow?” He glances at her carelessly, and answers, “Shouldn’t wonder;” and invites him home to dine on trout, cooked in claret, and hot-house peaches, at half a dollar a-piece.
SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE COUNTRY.
On the fragrant breeze, through your latticed window, come the twitter of the happy swallow, the chirp of the robin, and the drowsy hum of the bee. From your pillow you can watch the shadows come and go, over the clover meadow, as the clouds go drifting by. Rustic neighbors lean on their spades at sunset at your door, and with sympathising voices “hope you are better.” The impatient hoof of the prancing horse is checked by the hand of pity; and the merry shout of the sunburnt child (musical though it be,) dies on the cherry lip, at the uplifted finger of compassion. A shower of rose-leaves drifts in over your pillow, on the soft sunset zephyr. Oh, earth is passing fair; but Heaven is fairer!
Its portals unclose to you! Kind, neighborly hands wipe the death-damp from your brow; speak words of comfort to your weeping wife, caress your unconscious children. Your fading eye takes it all in, but your tongue is powerless to speak its thanks. They close your drooping lids, they straighten your manly limbs, they lay your weary head on its grassy pillow, they bedew it with sympathetic tears; they pray God, that night, in their cottage homes, to send His kind angel down, to whisper words of peace to the broken hearts you have left behind.
They do something besides pray. From unknown hands, the widow’s “cruse of oil,” and “barrel of meal,” are oft replenished. On your little orphans’ heads, many a rough palm is laid, with tearful blessing. Many a dainty peach, or pear, or apple is tossed them, on their way to school. Many a ride they get “to mill,” or “hay-field,” or “village,” while their mother shades her moistened eyes in the door-way, quite unable to speak. The old farmer sees it; and knowing better how to bestow a kindness than to bear such expressive thanks, cuts Dobbin in the flanks, then starting tragically at the premeditated rear, asks her, with an hysterical laugh, “if she ever saw such an uneasy beast!”
Wide open fly their cottage doors and hearts, at “Christmas” and “Thanksgiving,” for your stricken household. There may be little city etiquette at the feast, there may be ungrammatical words and infelicitous expressions,—but, thank God, unchilled by selfishness, unshrivelled by avarice, human hearts throb warmly there—loving—pitiful—Christ-like!