CHAPTER XIX.
"The road to death is life, the gate of life is death;
We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane.
Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath,
The fall of a river that turneth not again."
"All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain—
Love only outlives death."
The winter set in—a dreary, desolate winter of wind and rain, mud and slush. The snow never lay upon the ground for two days together, and the air, unpurified by frosts, hung heavy and dank over the land.
A black New Year makes a green graveyard, says the old proverb; and the wisdom of these old saws was demonstrated yet again that year in Jamestown, for there was much sickness. There was hardly a family that had not lost a member, scarcely a house in which there was no illness.
"There's a turrible lot of sickness," said Mrs. Deans to Mrs. Wilson one day at the church door.
"Yes, a turrible sight of it," agreed Mrs. Wilson. "The old folks is droppin' fast; but what's an ordinary sickness to what I've bore with?"
"That's so," said Mrs. Deans. "But a living sorrow's worse than a dead one, they say; and it's turrible when one's own flesh and blood goes wrong."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Wilson; "but it's turrible discouragin' when they're cut down in the midst and no one can say, 'What doest Thou?'"
Mrs. Wilson's tone implied that there might be some consolation if she were permitted to "talk back" at the Lord. Mrs. Deans noticed this and said warningly: