Indiana State sentinel., 1851-07-10
The Country.


Passing along one of the narrow streets OF our city
on the hot Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, we OBJ
served group of boys and girls surrounding boy
OF eight years thereaboutS, whose pale face and
eInaciated features indicated that he was sufferer
Poverty manifest in each and all Of that colec-
ton, but in his it seemed more bitter. He wore
but single garment, much like loose gown, ga
thered at the neck and hanging around him without
a belt He had neither shoes stockings. His
pale forehead contraSted with mass of dark brown
hair, combed back his head, and his thin delicate
ears would have satisfied the most aristocrac judge
of high blood. He was seated on the door stone OF
one of those houses in which poor families crowd
ed to suocation, and the other children sat on the
pavement, or stood around him.
All this saw approached and passed the
group, for did not pause, and we heard but SIN
gle sentence of their conversation The sick boy
was speaking, and his voice very sad and very
cheerful too, Chat ndescribable union OF cheerful
ness with sorrow, which all have met with in one or
another instance, and he saying, eff could
only be buried in the country, / think should be
- content was doubtless the last word of his
sentence, but did not hear it, for we had passed
on. We went to church-but that voice haunted us,
and though the text stirring passage, and the
sermon eloquent confess that the ringing of those
melancholy tones was louder, and we might as well
have been at home. This is simple incident IN 1t
SELF not manufactured for the occasion, but we have
related it exactly it occurred and now we propose
to moralize on it a little. The boy was dying That
was clear His face looked like it, and in his soft
dark eye there CLEAN of light not earthly, and
in his voice and his prophetic wish, there was tone
like the tones we hear in dreams which come from
across the river lie had doubtless lived in the coun-
try once perhaps had been born there, and had
ed to walk with his tiny feet crushing violets Per-
haps he had loved the blue sky up among the noun
ains and doubtless the trees had often led his eyes
up from their topmost branches to the far home OF
all our dreams. He had slept in some small house
l@x, LII nhar hxf
wind, making music In the branches OF the oaks and
elms, had been woke every morning by the swallows
passing his window and the whistling quail in the
in the grain fields across the valley, or perchance by
two robins that returned yearly to their nest In the
old apple tree, and that sat every morning on the old
rious dreams. Perhaps-but no. We are uncon-
sciouly supposing all country homes alike, and we
confess that we have been thinking of our own.
Without any perhaps at all, he was now walking the
cold and stariess road of DEATH No more birds
would wake him to gladness in the morning, no more
musical waters sing him TO slumber at night fall! The
spring time had come; the meadows would be yel-
low and white with the buttercups and daisies, and
the forest would be sweet with the delicate anemone
and woodbine the grass would grow up green and
tall and wave in the sunshine, and the lark and bob
a-link would fill the air with their shri happy voices
but not for him! He might not hope to walk in the
old lane under the willow trees again, nor again to
sit with his little feet cleaning in the brooket while
the ripples flashed over Them But if he might not
look on all those things again with his dmming eyes,
hear all those sounds again with his heavy
feel all those glad throbs again with his young buthnhs-
ing heart it would still be pleasant beautifully pleas
ant to sleep the long sleep out there To lie down
the brook side for the last tme where the branches
were waving, and the sunshine stole through them
down into the grass, where the winds were making
forever the same old music, and the stream was sing
ing the same old song.
1t was bitter thought TO die in this hot place,
where not even the sky is blue, and where the wind
is always laden with impurities; but to be buried
here to lie through long centuries where this unceas-
ing roar, day and night, shakes the ground and
browns the voices of the air and water, than
this, to lie in the Potter's Field with nnumerabe
strangers, all in the cold companonship of death this
was terrible 10 the young shrinking heart, which
membered the pleasant church yard in the country,
and shady corner under the large old trees, within
stones throw of the deep hole in the brook, where
the large trout used to le How all these thoughts
crowded on him now, and how happy it would make
him, could he but hope TO be carried up the church
aisle and rest few minutes under the pulpit, and
have the solemn service read over him and then be
laid to slumber in that sll nook where the earliest
flowers always bloomed! And then to wake there in
the mOrning,-N Y Journal of Commerce.