OLD REUBEN DEAD.
Nothing pleased Reuben half as much as to sit in the shadow of the
vines, watch the flowers grow, and feel that all this beauty was
Violet's work; for the old gardener loved flowers dearly; and when he
had grown too old to work himself, he was so glad to feel that his
garden pets need not be smothered up in weeds, and die.
So there he sat in the sun day after day, while he grew thinner and more
feeble; and one pleasant afternoon, when Violet thought he had taken too
long a nap, she went to waken him for fear he might take cold.
But she paused to look at the good old man as he sat there with his
hands folded on his bosom, and such a beautiful smile on the wrinkled
face, and the wind stirring the gray locks, while his head rested among
the fresh summer leaves.
Reuben never awoke; he was dead.
Violet burst into tears, and wished for a moment that she could die
herself; but she thought of the mother who was too infirm to take care
of herself, and who had lived with Reuben longer and would feel his loss
more than she.
Just then a bird flew from his nest in the vine, and soaring slowly,
sang low at first, and sweetly, and then louder and louder, till he was
lost among the clouds.
And Violet remembered what her father had said so often, that one of
these days he should shake off the old aching body, and soar as lightly
as any bird, and live as happily, up in that calm heaven.
They buried Reuben under a great elm tree in sight of his own garden,
and where he had often rested after his work, and watched the orioles
building their nests or teaching their young to sing.
Lonely and sad enough it was in the hut when Violet and her mother went
home and saw the old man's empty chair, and his garden tools hanging on
the wall.
"It won't be long before I shall follow him," said old Mary, "and then
God will take care of our child."
"But I will take care of my mother first, for a great many years," said
Violet, drawing closer, and putting her arms around Mary protectingly;
for Violet, though still young, was no longer a little child, as when we
knew her first. The blue eyes, though, were just as bright and as full
of love and tenderness; and the light hair, which was folded now in wavy
bands over a calm white forehead, when the light touched it, had the
same golden look as of old. She had grown tall too, and healthy, and was
graceful as a bird, and had a low, musical voice like the brook, and a
smile like sunshine, and, in short, was beautiful as a fairy herself.
While she sat there, with her low, sweet voice, trying to console her
mother, and now and then her own sunny smile breaking through even her
tears, the door opened, and their landlord entered.
He had sold the pasture and the whole blackberry hill to a rich man who
would build there immediately; and they must move this very night, for
the hut stood in his way.