“But here are letters from more of your old friends, mother. Here is one from Mrs. Bridgens, and one from Mrs. Jones, and one from old Miss Christie, and from Mrs. Cook.” And Mary sat for almost an hour reading the messages from old friends to the invalid of whom the writers spoke so tenderly, and wrote of old-time adventures and scenes from their girlhood days.
Mary was delighted to see the change these messages of love had worked in her invalid mother. The faded old eyes were lighted with a new illumination, and a little color had struggled back to her cheeks. She asked to have the letters given to her, and she brought both hands together to receive them, holding them as tenderly as a little girl would hold her first doll. Mary went downstairs, leaving the invalid holding her love letters so fondly, and when she returned in half an hour, she found her sleeping sweetly, and fondly holding those letters in one feeble hand. And Mary whispered:
“If they only knew how much pleasure and hope their letters brought to my dear old mother, they would never neglect writing to their old friends when affliction is upon them. God bless them for the hope and happiness they brought to this home.”
AT THE POOL OF LIFE
The unsatisfied hunger we experience during this life, creates a longing in every human heart for another trial at living after this life has been lived to the end. Once out on a desert, some travelers were perishing from thirst. The man came to a small oasis amidst a few gnarled and twisted trees. The sight of the trees was evidence that water was near, so he hurried his steps and came near to the desired spot. He found water there, but it was stagnated and foul, wild animals had been drinking and wading and wallowing in the pool until it looked sickening and disgusting to the traveler.
The hopes that filled his heart as he approached the promising oasis began to ooze out through his fingers, and a sickly sensation filled his soul. Yet this was all the available water to be had. His wife joined him a few minutes later, bringing two children. They remained over night at the pool, finding that the foul water had revived them in spite of the filth. They did not know which way to go to find the inhabited country, so they erected an improvised tent and thought to live there until some traveling caravan came that way, when they would follow it back to the green earth.
They could secure flesh to eat from the fowls that came to the trees and the young of wild animals brought there to get a drink of water. And so days passed into weeks and months and years, and the longing to be rescued became as a dead hope. None were satisfied with the befouled water, nor the narrow life, but the wife and children were afraid to again brave the desert and go in search of inhabited land. One night the husband and father became so sick and disgusted with the water that he arose and stole away by the light of the moon determined to find a better place of existence or become lost and perish out on the burning sands.
Next morning there was deep sorrow at the pool. The mother and children mourned him as one dead. They tried to follow him, but his tracks were soon lost in the shifting sands, so they returned to the pool and the friendly trees, resolved to wait until some one came to take them away.