Again the mother is in the city home. No crib stands by the fireplace;
no tiny garments are spread out to air. All is orderly as in the years
that now seem so far away.
She sits with book or needle.
The book falls to her knee, the work slips to the floor; tears steal
down her cheeks.
Bruno presses near, his head against her arm. With his uplifted,
pleading eyes, he seems to say,--
"Don't cry, Judith, please don't cry."
Oh, matchless comforter!
After a time we notice that Bruno is growing old and feeble.
Do we grieve at this? Far from it. We feel that life is over for us; our
only thought is to escape its grasp and join our Little Blossom.
We could never leave Bruno alone; he would grieve himself to death, and
meanwhile, perhaps, be abused as a stupid brute for refusing to be
comforted.
So it is with a feeling of sad resignation that we realize how his hold
on life is weakening. At least he will die in comfort, ministered to by
his loved ones.
We sit alone, we three, in the twilight,--Julius and I, with Bruno at
our feet,--talking of the future. We speculate on the Beyond, hoping it
will not be the conventional Heaven, with harps and crowns.
We long for a sheltered nook, near the River of Life, where we and
Little Blossom can resume the life so happily begun here, going over to
the Happy Hunting Grounds to get Bruno, and to the Cat Heaven for
Rebecca and Catsie.
Then, our family circle complete, we would settle down to an eternity of
HOME.
Can Heaven itself offer anything sweeter than home,--the wedded home,
where love abides!
One morning Bruno seemed not to care for his breakfast. He sniffed
daintily at it, and turned away, though I tried to tempt him with
everything he liked best.
He rested his head on my knee, looking gratefully into my eyes, while
his tail waved his thanks.
Then he went to his bed, and lying down upon it, he fell asleep,--not a
short uneasy nap, with ears open for every sound, but a deep, dreamless
sleep.
There was a beautiful young fig-tree in our lot. Under this his grave
was dug. His bed was laid in, he on it, with his blanket wrapped around
him.
"Arise against thy narrow door of earth,
And keep the watch for me!"
THE END
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER NOTES:
Missing punctuation has been added and obvious punctuation errors
have been corrected.
Printer errors, misspelled and archaic words have been retained
with the exception of that noted below.
Page 91: "gods" changed to "goods" (and we again found ourselves on
the train with our household goods).