The Alchemist's Secret

by Isabel Cecilia Williams

"No letter to-night, mother."

"Never mind, father; it'll sure come to-morrow," and Martha would sigh and clasp her hands in her lap.

Presently, by the movement of her lips he would know she was praying for the absent one. He would lay aside his pipe, fetch his beads, and together they would say the Rosary, begging the blessed Mother of God to keep special watch over their child. She was the only one they had left, four little white stones marking the resting-place of the four little angels who had been permitted to remain with them for only such a very short space of time.

Martha was sleeping now beside her babies and he was alone in the world; for who could tell what had become of Sallie? She, too, might be at rest in God's Acre. Sometimes he felt that she must be, or surely, surely, some word would have come from her. She must have known how anxiously they would watch for news of her, and certainly she would not be so heartless as to keep silence all this long time.

Perhaps she had written and the letter failed to reach them. Well, whatever the trouble was, Tony had long since given up all hope of hearing from her, but, because of his promise to Martha, he still made his nightly visit to the post-office in the village. Had it not been for that promise he would certainly not take that long walk day after day, in summer heat and winter storms, for hope had long since died in Tony's heart. At least, so he told himself, but somehow the walk home always seemed twice as long as the walk down, after hearing those depressing words "No letter to-night, Tony."

Of late, the daily visit to the village had been almost more than the old man's failing strength had been able to support. How often he wished he had not been obliged to sell Lassie. She was the last of his horses to go; the last, in fact, of all his possessions. There was nothing left to him now but the old house, and that was in such a state of dilapidation as to be really unfit for habitation. In the old days, his dogs and his horses were better housed than he was now; in the old days, when his farm was one of the most prosperous in that section of the country. It was lonely indeed since Martha went away, but he was glad she had not lived to see him brought to this pass. He was glad he had been able to surround her with comforts up to the very end, though to do so he had been obliged to sell timber-land, horses, cows, everything he owned, one after another.

But Martha never knew; patient, suffering Martha, confined to her room by illness for many years before God had sent her release from pain. Thank God, Martha never knew; she had trouble enough without worrying over their poverty. Her room was always bright, always cheerful; her favorite flowers blossomed in the window, a fire of logs burned cosily upon the hearth. The neighbors were kind in helping him to care for her, in bringing her little delicacies to tempt an invalid's appetite; fresh eggs, chickens, new lettuce, which Martha supposed had come from their own farm.

It would never do to let her know that all their land was gone, all save that upon which the house stood and Martha's flower garden which stretched from her windows to the road. How he had worked in that garden, cultivating the flowers she loved to see growing there. Sometimes he would lift her from the bed and place her in the large chair by the window, where she could watch him at his work; where she could watch, too, the road that led from the village. Often, he would glance up from his spading to meet her brave, cheery smile that sweetened all his labor; oftener still, it would be to find her eyes fixed upon that long, dusty line that wound over hill and valley, in and out through orchards and corn fields, the road that led to the village and thence to the city beyond. He knew her mind had gone out into the wide, busy world, of which an occasional echo would reach them, gone out in a vain effort to guess at the whereabouts of the girl who had passed down that country road so many years ago never to return. To the very end, Martha had never ceased hoping, never ceased praying for the return of the wanderer, or at least for some word of assurance that all was well with her.

By the time Tony reached the dismantled farmhouse the snow was falling thickly, silently, on all around.

"Twill be a bad storm," thought Tony. "God pity any who are abroad this night."