THE END
In a low hammock beneath the maples Carol lay, pale and slender,
dressed in a soft gown of creamy white, with a pink rose at her belt.
Through an open window she could see her father at his desk up-stairs.
Often he came to the window, waving a friendly greeting that told how
glad he was to have her in the family home again. And she could see
Aunt Grace in the kitchen, energetically whipping cream for the apple
pie for dinner--"Carol always did love apple pie with whipped cream."
Julia was digging a canal through the flower bed a dozen steps away.
And close at her side sat Lark, the sweet, old, precious twin, who
could not attend to the farm a single minute now that Carol was at home
once more.
Carol's hands were clasped under her head, and she was staring up
through the trees at the clear blue sky, flecked like a sea with bits
of foam.
"Mother," cried Julia, running to the hammock and sweeping wildly at
the sky with a knife she was using for a spade, "I looked right up into
Heaven and I saw my daddy, and he did not cough a bit. He smiled at me
and said, 'Hello, little sweetheart. Take good care of Mother.'"
Carol kissed her, softly, regardless of the streaks of earth upon her
chubby face.
"Mother," puzzled Julia, "what is it to be died? I can't think it.
And I lie down and I can't do it. What is it to be died?"
"Death, Julia, you mean death. I think, dear, it is life,--life that
is all made straight; life where one can work and never be laid aside
for illness; life where one can love, and fear no separation; life
where one can do the big things he yearned to do, and be the big man he
yearned to be with no hindrance of little petty things. I think that
death is life, the happy life."
Julia, satisfied, returned to her canal, and Lark, with throbbing pity,
patted Carol's arm.
"Do you know, Larkie, I think that death is life on the top of a sunny
slope, clear up on the peak where it touches the sky. Such a big sunny
slope that the canyons of shadow are miles and miles away, out of sight
entirely. I believe that David is living right along on the top of a
sunny slope."
Her father stepped to the window and tapped on the pane, waving down to
them. "I can't keep away from this window," he called. "Whenever you
twins get together I think I have to watch you just as I used to when
you were mobbing the parsonage."
The twins laughed, and when he went back to his desk they turned to
each other with eyes that plainly said, "Isn't he the grandest father
that ever lived?"
Then Carol folded her hands behind her head again and looked dreamily
up through the leafy maples, seeing the broad mesa stretching off miles
away to the mountains, where the dark canyons underlined the sunny
slopes.