“Ours—” was she? God rest thee, Mary—naught is left us now, but this sweet memory, and our falling tears!
But we were not the only ones who had exultingly said, “Swissdale is ours.” One fine morning I stood upon the lawn, under the broad spreading trees, watching the mist, as it slowly rolled off the valleys, and up the hill sides. The air was laden with fragrance and music, and the earth bright with beauty. I heard a stifled sob near me! Oh, who could sorrow on such an Eden morning? I turned my head. Three young sisters, clad in sable, with their arms about each other, were looking at a luxuriant rose-vine whose drooping clusters hung above my door.
“Our mother planted it,” they sobbed—“she died in that room,” pointing to the second window, over which the rose-vine—her rose-vine had clambered up.
“Could they roam over the old place?” I pressed a hand of each, and nodded affirmatively, for their tears were infectious.
There are sorrows with which a stranger may not inter-meddle; but hour after hour passed, and still those sable-clad sisters sat, on the hill-summit, with their arms about each other, mingling their tears. Oh, how plaintive to them the blithe song of the bird of the unrifled nest, the musical murmur of the careless brook! Every twig, every tree, every flower, had its sorrowful history!
Ah! how little I thought as I looked at that weeping group—that years hence—I too, should make to that very spot, the same sorrowing pilgrimage! That strange eyes should moisten for me, when I asked leave to roam over the “old place;” that I, too, with streaming eyes, and tremulous finger should point to the trees and vines which my dead had planted.
Wise as merciful is the Hand which draws before our questioning eyes the vail of the future!
CHILDREN’S TROUBLES.
I believe in children, and I can’t say that of all grown-up people, by a great deal. For instance, I don’t believe in an editor who feels too important or too busy to say a word now and then to the children of his subscribers. I would not give a copper for him; I don’t care how much he knows about politics (which you and I always skip when we read his paper) if he does not love children he is not the editor for me—there is something wrong about him. Why need he put on such big airs? Ten to one, if we inquired, we should find out he was once a little boy himself; cried for sugar candy; was afraid of the dark, and ran screaming to his mother whenever he saw a poor, harmless, old black man. He put on big airs indeed! that’s a joke! I’ve a great mind to set up a paper for you myself, and not notice the grown-up folks at all. Wouldn’t it be fun? But you see I have my own ideas about things—and there’s your Aunt Nancy, who was born and brought up when children were thumped on the head for asking the reason for things. She would take up our little paper, and scowl at it over her spectacles. Other papers for children generally keep an eye out for Aunt Nancy—and papers for big people too, for the matter of that. But I couldn’t do it. Your Aunt Nancy believes that children should talk, move, and act as if they were a hundred years old. I respect your Aunt Nancy, but I can’t believe in that; and what is more, I am sure that God does not. I believe that the merry laugh of a little child is just as sweet in His ear, as the little prayer it lisps. He loves you all; oh, how much! He likes you to be happy; He made you to be happy as well as good. And He never—never thinks, great as He is, that what little children say or think, is “of no consequence.” And though He keeps the sun, moon, and stars in their right places, and holds the roaring winds and the great mighty sea in His fists, and makes all the trees and flowers, and birds and beasts, and human beings all over the earth, He is never “so busy” that He can not bend down His ear whenever a little child sobs, or, looking up to Heaven, calls Him “Father.”
Well, you see, it looks very small when an editor or any body else, thinks himself too important or too busy to remember the dear little children whom God can watch over so lovingly. I don’t like it; and I don’t like a great many other things you children have to bear, and sometimes I get so troubled about it, that I want to go all round battling for your rights.