One afternoon before Christmas, a man with bowed head and aimless step
walked the crowded streets of a city. The air was clear and cold, the
blue sky was dazzlingly beautiful, the sun shone brightly upon his way,
yet in his face was unspeakable pain.
His thoughts were with the baby daughter whom he had seen lowered into
the snow, only a few hours before. He saw it all,--the folds of the
pretty gown, the pink rose in the tiny hands, and the happy smile which
the Angel of the Shadow had been powerless to take away.
"You will forget," a friend had said to him.
"Forget," he said to himself again and again. "You can't forget your
heart," he had answered, "and mine is out there under the snow."
Through force of habit, he turned down the street on which stood
the great church where he played the organ on Sundays and festival
days. He hesitated a moment before the massive doorway, then felt in
his pocket for the key, unlocked the door and went in. The sun shone
through the stained glass windows and filled the old church with glory,
but his troubled eyes saw not. He sat down before the instrument he
loved so well and touched the keys with trembling fingers. At once, the
music came, and to the great heart of the organ which swelled with pity
and tenderness, he told his story. Wild and stormy with resentment at
first, anger, love, passion, and pain blended together in the outburst
which shook the very walls of the church.
"God gives us hearts--and breaks them," he thought and his face grew
white with bitterness.
Beside himself with passion, he played on, and on, till the sun sank
behind the trees and the afternoon shaded into twilight.
As the shadows filled the church, he accidentally struck a minor chord,
plaintive, sweet, almost sad.
He stopped. With that sound a flood of memories came over him--an
autumn day in the woods, the trees dropping leaves of crimson and
gold, the river flowing at his feet, with the purple asters and
goldenrod on its banks, and beside him the fair sweet girl who had
made his life a happy one;--and insensibly he drifted into the melody,
dreaming, on the saddest day of his life, of the day which had been his
happiest.
He remembered the look in her eyes when he had first kissed her.
Beautiful eyes they were, brown, soft, and tender, with that inward
radiance which comes to a woman only when she looks into the face of
the man she loves.
"I will go to her," he whispered, "but not yet, not yet!" And still
he played on in that vein of sadness, the sweet influence stealing
into his heart till the pain was hushed in peace. Conscious only of a
strange sense of uplifting, the music grew stronger as the thought of
the future was before him. He was young, talented, he had a wife to
live for, and a child--no, not a child--and the tears stole over his
cheeks as he again touched the minor chord.
The crescendo came again. The child was safe in the white arms of the
snow, and she was hidden away from the sorrows of the earth in the only
place where we are ever safe from these--in its heart.
The moon had risen over the hill-tops, and the church was as light as
if touched on every side with silver. The organ sounded a strain of
exultation in which the minor chord was in some way mingled with the
theme. He could face the world now. Any one can die but it takes a
hero to live. Something he had read came back to him: "Once to every
human being, God gives suffering--the anguish that cuts, burns and
stings. The terrible 'one day' always comes and after it our hearts are
sometimes cruel and selfish--or sometimes tender as He wishes them to
be."
And the strong soul rose above its bitterness, for his "one day" was
over, and it could never come again. His strength asserted itself
anew as he came down from the organ loft and went toward the door.
A little bundle in one of the pews attracted his attention, and he
stooped to see what it was. A pale, pinched baby face looked up at
him wonderingly, the golden hair shining with celestial glory in the
moonlight. The hair, the eyes, the position of the head were much like
those of the child he had lost.
Back came the rush of infinite pain--he was not so strong as he had
thought--but only for an instant. Hark! was it an echo or his own soul
playing upon his quivering heartstrings the minor chord? Again the new
strength reasserted itself and into his consciousness rose the higher
duty to the living over the love and faith for the lost.
"Was it you played the music?" said the sweet child voice. "I heard it
and I comed in!"
"Dear," he said, "where is your home? Are you all alone?"
"Home," she said wonderingly. "Home?"
Without another word, he took the child in his arms and hurried out of
the doorway. Along the brilliantly lighted avenue he hastened, till he
reached the little cottage in a side street. It was dark within except
for the fitful glancings of the moonlight, and he deposited his burden
in a big arm-chair while he went in search of his wife.
"Sweetheart," he called, "where are you?"
The sweet face came into the shadow before him, and she laid her hand
upon his arm without speaking. He led her to the little waif saying
simply: "I have brought you a Christmas gift, dear."
She put out her empty arms and gathered the desolate baby to her
breast. The eternal instinct of motherhood swelled up again and for a
moment, in the touch of the soft flesh against her own, the tiny grave
in the snow seemed only a dream.
"Theodora--Gift of God," he said reverently. Then as the clouds parted,
and the moonlight filled every nook and corner of the little room:
"Dearest, we cannot forget, but we can be brave, and our Gift of God,
shall keep us; shall it be so?"