“Rustic girls in hoods Go gleaning through the woods.”
Two days after this, we said, my dear mate and I, we shall have a
holiday, and from sunrise till sunset, with our laps full of ripe nuts
and orchard fruits, we shall make pleasant pastime.
Rosalie, for so I may call her, was older than I, with a face of beauty
and a spirit that never flagged. But to-day there was heaviness in her
eyes, and a flushing in her cheek that was deeper than had been there
before.
Still she spoke gayly, and smiled the old smile, for the gaunt form of
sickness had never been among us children, and we knew not how his touch
made the head sick and the heart faint.
The day looked forward to so anxiously dawned at last; but in the dim
chamber of Rosalie the light fell sad. I must go alone.
We had always been together before, at work and in play, asleep and
awake, and I lingered long ere I would be persuaded to leave her; but
when she smiled and said the fresh-gathered nuts and shining apples
would make her glad, I wiped her forehead, and turning quickly away that
she might not see my tears, was speedily wading through winrows of dead
leaves.
The sensations of that day I shall never forget; a vague and trembling
fear of some coming evil, I knew not what, made me often start as the
shadows drifted past me, or a bough crackled beneath my feet.
From the low, shrubby hawthorns, I gathered the small red apples, and
from beneath the maples, picked by their slim golden stems the notched
and gorgeous leaves. The wind fingered playfully my hair, and clouds of
birds went whirring through the tree-tops; but no sight nor sound could
divide my thoughts from her whose voice had so often filled with music
these solitary places.
I remember when first the fear distinctly defined itself. I was seated
on a mossy log, counting the treasures which I had been gathering, when
the clatter of hoof-strokes on the clayey and hard-beaten road arrested
my attention, and, looking up--for the wood thinned off in the direction
of the highway, and left it distinctly in view--I saw Doctor H----,
the physician, in attendance upon my sick companion. The visit was an
unseasonable one. She, whom I loved so, might never come with me to the
woods any more.
Where the hill sloped to the roadside, and the trees, as I said, were
but few, was the village graveyard. No friend of mine, no one whom I had
ever known or loved, was buried there--yet with a child's instinctive
dread of death, I had ever passed its shaggy solitude (for shrubs and
trees grew there wild and unattended) with a hurried step and averted
face.
Now, for the first time in my life, I walked voluntarily thitherward,
and climbing on a log by the fence-side, gazed long and earnestly
within. I stood beneath a tall locust-tree, and the small, round leaves;
yellow now as the long cloud-bar across the sunset, kept dropping, and
dropping at my feet, till all the faded grass was covered up. There
the mattock had never been struck; but in fancy I saw the small Heaves
falling and drifting about a new and smooth-shaped mound--and,
choking with the turbulent outcry in my heart, I glided stealthily
homeward--alas! to find the boding shape I had seen through mists and,
shadows awfully palpable. I did not ask about Rosalie. I was afraid; but
with my rural gleanings in my lap, opened the door of her chamber. The
physician had preceded me but a moment, and, standing by the bedside,
was turning toward the lessening light the little wasted hand, the
one on which I had noticed in the morning a small purple spot.
“Mortification!” he said, abruptly, and moved away, as though his work
were done.
There was a groan expressive of the sudden and terrible consciousness
which had in it the agony of agonies--the giving up of all. The gift
I had brought fell from my relaxed grasp, and, hiding my face in the
pillow, I gave way to the passionate sorrow of an undisciplined nature.
When at last I looked up, there was a smile on her lips that no faintest
moan ever displaced again.
A good man and a skilful physician was Dr. H----, but his infirmity was
a love of strong drink; and, therefore, was it that he softened not the
terrible blow which must soon have fallen. I link with his memory no
reproaches now, for all this is away down in the past; and that foe that
sooner or later biteth like a serpent, soon did his work; but then my
breaking heart judged him, hardly. Often yet, for in all that is saddest
memory is faithfulest, I wake suddenly out of sleep, and live over that
first and bitterest sorrow of my life; and there is no house of gladness
in the world that with a whisper will not echo the moan of lips pale
with the kisses of death.
Sometimes, when life is gayest about me, an unseen hand leads me apart,
and opening the door of that still chambers I go in--the yellow leaves
are at my feet again, and that white band between me and the light.
I see the blue flames quivering and curling close and the smouldering
embers on the hearth. I hear soft footsteps and sobbing voices and see
the clasped hands and placid smile of her who, alone among us all, was
untroubled; and over the darkness and the pain I hear voice, saying,
“She is not dead, but sleepeth.” Would, dear reader, that you might
remember, and I too all ways, the importance of soft and careful words.
One harsh or even thoughtlessly chosen epithet, may bear with it a
weight which shall weigh down some heart through all life. There are
for us all nights of sorrow, in which we feel their value. Help us, our
Father, to remember it!