You should have seen Ella, dressed as an old woman, and trying to thread the point of her needle by a tallow candle of enormous length, and which was called “The Light of other Days.” Louise, too, in broad frilled cap and glasses, with her dollies all over her, represented the “Old Woman in the Shoe,” and attracted crowds around her, until every doll was sold, and the great shoe was nearly empty. The Fish Pond was very popular, and was drained in half an hour,—the boys and girls going nearly crazy over it, and contending with each other for a chance to fish, at five cents a bite. It proved a great success, as did everything pertaining to the fair which closed with “Johnny Schmoker,” sung and acted by the children, and a tableau arranged by the young ladies.
It was rather late when at last the fair was over, and the children went home very tired, and a few of them a little cross, it may be, though some were very happy, as was proved by little black-eyed Johnny, who had come up from Rochester, and who, after the fair was over, and he was going to bed, asked his mother if she did not think that children were sometimes as happy in this world as they would be in heaven; “Because, mother,” said he, “I know I was as happy to-night at the fair as I shall ever be in heaven.”
When the ladies, who had worked so hard and been sometimes so disheartened, heard of that, they felt that the fair had paid, if only in making one child so happy. That it paid, too, in a more tangible form, was shown when the receipts were footed up, and found to amount to over two hundred and sixty dollars. You may be sure there was great rejoicing the next day when it was known that we had enough to get the Font, together with the bishop’s and rector’s chairs, which we so much needed. Means were immediately taken to have them in readiness by Christmas, so that the children could then present them to the church.
CHAPTER VII.
POOR LITTLE HUNTER
The fair was held on the third of October, and of all the boys there, none was happier, or enjoyed it more, than little Hunter Buckley, who never dreamed that this was the last festivity in which he would ever join with his comrades,—that before the winter snows were falling, or the Font for which he had worked was set up in the church, he would be buried away from sight and sound,—where the songs of the children could not reach him, nor the sobs of his poor mother, who mourned so bitterly for her little darling boy. His death was very sudden. In the morning he was perfectly well, and his mother little thought, when, after breakfast, he bade her good-by, and started for the village, that never again would his feet come down the grassy lane, or his loved voice sound in her ears; that when he came back to her it would be as the dead come back,—lifeless and still. Yet so it was, for in a few hours the news ran through the village that Hunter Buckley was dead,—smothered in the wheat where he was playing; and which was running through a large tunnel into a boat loading at the wharf. It was a careless thing to play there; but he had done it before, and thought of no danger now, until the suction became so great that it was impossible to escape, and he was drawn into that whirlpool of grain.
I saw him the next day, looking, except that he was paler, exactly as he had the Sunday before, when he sat in Sunday school, and listened to the lessons his teacher taught.
The next day was the funeral; and six young boys carried his coffin up the aisle and laid it on the table; while, in silence and awe, his companions listened to the words the clergyman spoke,—words of admonition to them,—words of commendation of the dead,—and words of comfort for the weeping friends, upon whom so heavy a sorrow had fallen. Those were sad notes which the organ played then, and more than one voice trembled as it joined in the hymn sung over the dead boy, and then they carried him out to the long, black hearse, which bore him to the graveyard where Berkie had gone before him.
Since that time they have made another grave, and the boys of the Sunday school have followed Walter Hewitt there. He died when the winter snows were heaped upon the ground, and now lies in the same yard where Hunter and Berkie are,—three little boys, who will sleep there in their coffins until the resurrection morn, when Jesus comes to claim his own and take them to himself.