THE SWATH OF THE HURRICANE
When at last I saw my mother resting on the soft couch of furs in the glow of the cheerful fire, my strength left me, and I fell forward on her body as one dead. Such weakness, you must know, ever afflicted me in my youth, though I sought to overcome it, as indicating the absence of control that strong people have, but without any success until I was near a man grown. When I returned to consciousness, my mother was bending over me murmuring prayers and entreaties with the vain efforts they were making to bring me back to life.
"My child, my sweet child, come back to me! Speak to your mother! Open your eyes and smile, sweet one! O God, he does not breathe; he's dead, my darling boy!" she cried at last, relaxing her efforts in a paroxysm of grief; but I, regaining my senses as quickly as I had lost them, clasped her about the neck and kissed her, crying out:
"I am not dead, mother, though I thought I'd lost you and pap, I was so long away and the water was so cold."
"Oh, my sweet child!" was all the answer she could make, as she buried her face in the soft pillow beside my own.
"Did you think I'd never come?" I asked caressing her hair and face.
"We heard you call back that you would bring us help, but we could see no way, and were given over to despair and death when at last you reached us. Oh, you were brave, my darling, to have planned as you did. Surely God must have guided you."
"He did, dear mother, and except for your prayer I'd never have reached the shore or known what to do once I got there"; and this, her prayer to the good Lord to protect her son, has been a legacy of love and tenderness to me to this day. For throughout all my life the sweet vision has not faded, nor will to the end, nor afterward, I must believe.
My father, now that the danger was past, appeared much cast down, and so sat silent and despondent beside the pallet on which I lay. Seeing him, I cried:
"Oh, pap, you looked so brave and grand as you struggled in the water! and when I saw you with mother clinging about your neck I never loved you half so much"; and reaching up I pulled him down and kissed him, and doing so, my face was wet as with rain with his tears.