A Child of Silence
A Child of Silence
At the end of the street stood the little white house which Jack Ward was pleased to call his own. Five years he had lived there, he and Dorothy. How happy they had been! But things seemed to have gone wrong some way, since—since the baby died in the spring. A sob came into Jack's throat, for the little face had haunted him all day.
Never a sound had the baby lips uttered, and the loudest noises had not disturbed his rest. It had seemed almost too much to bear, but they had loved him more, if that were possible, because he was not as other children were. Jack had never been reconciled but Dorothy found a world of consolation in the closing paragraph of a magazine article on the subject:
"And yet we cannot believe these Children of Silence to be unhappy. Mrs. Browning says that 'closed eyes see more truly than ever open do,' and may there not be another world of music for those to whom our own is soundless? In a certain sense they are utterly beyond the pain that life always brings, for never can they hear the cruel words beside which physical hurts sink into utter insignificance. So pity them not, but believe that He knoweth best, and that what seems wrong and bitter is often His truest kindness to His children."
Dorothy read it over and over until she knew it by heart. There was a certain comfort in the thought that he need not suffer—that he need never find what a world of bitterness lies in that one little word—life. And when the hard day came she tried to be thankful, for she knew that he was safer still—tried to see the kindness that had taken him back into the Unknown Silence of which he was the Child.
Jack went up the steps this mild winter evening, whistling softly to himself, and opened the door with his latch-key.