It was in autumn this illness seized on the little one, just when the leaves were turning, and the orchard fruits becoming ripe. His nurse attributed it all to his sitting on a grassy bank at play on one of those uncertain autumn days; but he, in his childish way, always maintained "It was Francie himself—eating red berries in the holly bower." However this may have been, the season and the time seemed indelibly impressed upon his mind. In all his long confinement to the house, his thoughts continually turned to outward objects, to the external face of nature and the season's change, and evermore his little word of hope was this, "When the summer comes!"
He kept it up throughout the long winter, and the bleak cold spring. A fairy little carriage had been provided for him, in which, well wrapped up from the cold, and resting on soft cushions, he was lightly drawn along by a servant, to his own great delight, and the admiration of many a young beholder. But when any one—attempting to reconcile him the better to his position—expatiated on the beauty or comfort of his new acquisition, his eager look and word would show how far he went beyond it, as, quickly interrupting, he would exclaim, "Wait till the summer comes—then Francie will walk again!"
During the winter there was a fearful storm, it shook the windows, moaned in the old trees, and howled down the chimneys with a most menacing voice. Older hearts than Francie's quailed that night, and he, unable to sleep, lay listening to it all—quiet, but asking many a question, as his excited fancy formed similitudes to the sounds. One time it was poor little children cruelly turned out, and wailing; then something trilling, with its last hoarse cry; then wolves and bears, from far-off other lands. But all the while Francie knew he was snug and safe himself: no fears disturbed him, whatever the noise may have done. Throughout the whole of it he carried his one steadfast hope, and, in the morning telling of it all, with all his marvelous thoughts, he finished his relation with the never-failing word of comfort, "Ah! there shall be no loud wind, no waking nights, when once the summer comes!"
The summer came with its glad birds and flowers, its balmy air; and who can paint the exquisite delight of the suffering child that had waited for it so long? Living almost continually in the open air he seemed to expect fresh health and strength from each reviving breath he drew, and every day would deem himself capable of some greater effort, as if to prove that his expectation had not been in vain.
One lovely day he and his little playfellows were in a group amusing themselves in part of the garden, when some friends passed through. Francie, longing to show how much he could do, entreated hard to be taken with them "along the walk, just to the holly bower." His request was granted, and on he did walk; quick at first, then slowly slower: but still upheld by his strong faith in the summer's genial influence, he would not rest in any of the offered arms, though the fitful color went and came, and the pauses grew more and more frequent. No, with a heavy sigh he admitted, "'Tis a very, very long walk now; but Francie must not be tired: sure the summer is come." And so, determined not to admit fatigue in the face of the season's bright proofs around him, he succeeded in accomplishing his little task at last.
Thus the summer passed away, and again came the changing autumn, acting on poor little Francie to a degree he had never reckoned on, and with its chill, damp airs, nearly throwing him back again. With a greater effort even than before, he had again tried the walk to the holly bower, the scene of his self-accusing misdemeanor as the cause of all his sufferings. He sat down to rest; above his head, as the autumnal breeze swept through them, "the polished leaves and berries red did rustling play;" and as little Francie looked upward toward them, a memory of the former year, and of all the time that had passed since then, seemed for the first time mournfully to steal over his heart. He nestled in closer to his mother's side; and still looking up, but with more thoughtful eyes, he said, "Mamma, is the summer quite gone?"
"Yes, my darling. Don't you see the scarlet berries, the food of winter for the little birds?"
"Quite gone, mamma, and Francie not quite well?"
His mother looked away; she could not bear her child to see the tell-tale tears his mournful little words called up, or know the sad echo returned by her own desponding thoughts. There was a moment's silence, only broken by the blackbird's song; and then she felt a soft, a little kiss, upon her hand, and looking down, she saw her darling's face—yes, surely now it was as an angel's—gazing upward to her, brightly beaming, brighter than ever; and his rosy lips just parted with their own sweet smile again, as he exclaimed in joyous tones, "Mamma, the summer will come again!"
Precious was that heaven-born word of childish faith to the careworn mother, to cheer her then, and, with its memory of hope, still to sustain her through many an after-experiment and anxious watch, until, at last, she reaped her rich reward in the complete realization of her bright one's hope. Precious to more than her such words may be, if bravely stemming our present trouble, whatsoe'er it be—bravely enduring, persevering, encouraging others and ourselves, even as that little child—we hold the thought, that as the revolving year brings round its different seasons, as day succeeds to night—and even as surely as we look for this, and know it—so to the trusting heart there comes a time—it may be soon or late, it may be now, or it may be then—when this grief or grievance will have passed away; and so 'twill all seem nothing—when the summer comes!