“Beautiful!” he said, again and again, as the ever changing landscapes formed and faded in his sight; “beautiful! beautiful!”
Before the train reached Wilkesbarre the summer evening had fallen, and from that city, up the valley of Wyoming, Bennie saw from the car-window only the twinkling of many lights.
Tom was at the station to meet him. Dear, brave Tom, how his heart swelled with pride, as, by some unaccountable instinct, Bennie came to him, and called him by name, and put his arms around his neck.
Many were there to see the once blind boy, and give him welcome home. And as they grasped his hand, and marked his happiness, some laughed for joy, and others,—for the same reason indeed,—others wept.
Then they started on the long home walk, Tom and Bennie, hand in hand together, as they used to go hand in hand, to find and greet the mother.
She was waiting for them; sitting by the window in her chair, as she had sat that dreadful winter night; but there came now no sudden jar to send a pallor to her face; she heard, instead, the light footsteps of her two boys on the walk, and their voices at the door; and then—why, then, she had Bennie in her arms, and he was saying—strange that they should be the very words that passed his lips that awful hour when death hung over him—he was saying, “O Mommie! how beautiful—how beautiful—it is—to see!”
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.