Sometimes strangers as well as friends shared this kindly hospitality. I well remember one wild stormy night, when two men knocked at the door and begged for a night’s lodging. They were walking to the town, they said, five miles distant, but had been overtaken by the storm. The people at the farm-house near by had refused to take them in; there was no other shelter near. Our mother hesitated a moment. Our father was away; the old coachman slept in the barn, at some distance from the house; she was alone with the children and the two maids, and Julia was ill with a fever. These men might be vagabonds, or worse. Should she let them in? Then, perhaps, she may have heard, amid the howling of the storm, a voice which she has followed all her life, saying, “I was a stranger, and ye took me in!” She bade the men enter, in God’s name, and gave them food, and then led them to an upper bedroom, cautioning them to tread softly as they passed the door of the sick child’s room.
Well, that is all. Nothing happened. The men proved to be quiet, respectable persons, who departed, thankful, the next morning.
The music of our mother’s life is still sounding on, noble, helpful, and beautiful. Many people may still look into her serene face, and hear her silver voice; and no one will look or hear without being the better for it. I cannot close this chapter better than with some of her own words,—a poem which I wish every child, and every grown person too, who reads this might learn by heart.
A PARABLE.
“I sent a child of mine to-day:
I hope you used him well.”
“Now, Lord, no visitor of yours
Has waited at my bell.
“The children of the millionaire
Run up and down our street;
I glory in their well-combed hair,
Their dress and trim complete.
“But yours would in a chariot come
With thoroughbreds so gay,
And little merry maids and men
To cheer him on his way.”
“Stood, then, no child before your door?”
The Lord, persistent, said.
“Only a ragged beggar-boy,
With rough and frowzy head.
“The dirt was crusted on his skin,
His muddy feet were bare;
The cook gave victuals from within:
I cursed his coming there.”
What sorrow, silvered with a smile,
Glides o’er the face divine?
What tenderest whisper thrills rebuke?
“The beggar-boy was mine!”