The old Bond mansion, though threatening to tumble down at every
wind-gust, stood just where Rose had left it. The woodbine still
festooned its piazza with green garlands in summer, and scarlet and
purple berries and leaves in autumn. The tall butternut-trees still
stood sentinel before it, the old moss-roofed barn leaned over on one
side, like some old veteran whose work was almost done, and the
iron-gray horse still took his afternoon-roll on the grass-plot before
the door, kicking up his hoofs in the very face of old Time. The brown
chickens, once Charley's delight, had become respectable mothers of
families, and clucked round after their lordly chanticleer, too happy to
escape with half a dozen rebuffs a day from his majesty, and old Bruno,
the house-dog, took longer naps on the sunny side of the house, and was
less irascible at tin peddlers and stray cattle. The once nicely-kept
little garden was overrun with pig-weed and nettles, and the tall,
slender hollyhocks swung hither and thither with their flushed faces,
like some awkward overgrown school-girl, looking for a place to hide.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and yet old Mrs. Bond had not
thrown open the kitchen-door opposite the well-sweep, or filled the
tea-kettle, or kindled up the kitchen-fire for tea. But look! a strange
woman steps out upon the piazza; such a woman as every country village
boasts; round, rubicund, check-aproned and spectacled, with very long
cap-strings, turtle-shaped feet, thick ankles, and no waist. With her
fat, red hands crossed over the place where her waist once was, she
steps out on the piazza and looks over her spectacles, this way and
that, up and down the road.
The little brook babbles on as usual, and the linden-trees and maples
are nodding and whispering to each other across the road; but nothing
else is stirring. So Mrs. Simms goes back into the house, and closes the
door, and Bruno gives a low growl to signify that all is right, as far
as he knows.
Then Mrs. Simms lays her hand on the latch of the sitting-room door, and
softly glides in. It is very dark; just a ray of light is shining in
through a chink in the shutter. She opens it a little further, and the
pleasant afternoon sunlight streams in across the floor--across the pine
table--across the coffin--across the placid face of good, dear, old Mrs.
Bond.
She has gone to that city where "there is no need of the sun, nor of the
moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb
is the light thereof."
And now the neighbors drop in gently, one by one. Not one there but can
remember some simple act of kindness, which makes the warm tears drop
upon the placid face, upon which they are looking for the last time.
Mrs. Bond had no kin; and yet every trembling lip there, called her
"mother."
Not for thee, "mother," whom the busy world honored not, whom the Lord
of Glory crowned; not for _thee_ the careless city sepulture, the
jostled hearse, the laughing, noisy, busy crowd. Reverently the prayer
is said; now the little, rosy child is lifted up, to see how sweet a
smile even icy Death may wear; and now toil-hardened hands, though
kindly, bear her gently on to the quiet corner in the leafy church-yard,
to which she has so long looked forward. The mold has fallen on her
breast, the grave is spaded over, and still they linger, loth to leave
even to the fragrant night, the kindly heart which had beat so long
responsive to their homely joys and sorrows.
Oh, many such an earth-dimmed diamond shall Jehovah set sparkling in his
crown, in the day when he maketh up his jewels.