The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1859-09-21
Mistellaneous,
FROM THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
MAY FALCONER
AN OLD woMAN's STORY.

| Y AN sitting here In the fresh light OF
~ the summer morning, thinking,
thinking. Over the wide, deep sea,
where roll the great pillows of years, |
can see the beautiful land of hope and
youth, from which / embarked many long
years ago, glad and happy. Life prom
ised me much, and fearlessly l steered
over the bounding waves. Why should
fear! Love and joy encompassed me;
there were light barks beside my own;
the sky was sunny, and the unmeasured
depths If the grand ocean that lay be-
fore me danced merrily in the sunlight.
All? the dawn of my life voyage was
royalty fair. Wealth, hope, hoane, and
love crowned my spirit with uuspeakable
glory, and Harry Icons ahianced bride,
the idolized child of wealthy parents, the
darling of gay social circIe-what
| could [ have to wish for? But there
came changes such as must come to re-
mind us Of our mortality, our weak
ness.
1t needs not now to tell how death and
change, those cold iconoclasts, took, one
by one, every idol of my life, and left me
desolate, wrecked, hopeless, ere yet eigh-
teen summers had matured their blossoms
and ripcned their fruits for me. 1t was
a wild, wild struggle. All the pillows of
agony rolled over me. Ny ruddcrless
bark beat about wildly under sky in
which there was no light, neither hope O.
any brightness. I prayed to die, bu
death came not; many months | strug-
gIed feebly with gloom; and then, cold,
passive, inactive, l was not made perfect
through suffering; was crushed. Two
years moved lstlessly through the halls
of our city manson-alas! it was mine
only now. received the visits of my
nearest acquaintance, and opened my
stately halls for theil pleasure, but all the
while waited-oh! so YEARLY. I could
not rally from my great grief, and when
they brought Harry Icons gold haired
bride to me, | only turned my dark, sad
eyes upon them both, and then I left
them. l could not speak calmly to the
woman who had supplanted me in the
heart of the only man that could ever be
loved by me. Not that l loved him
then-oh! no, po-but for lis sake ]
mourned a broken trust, and on him, al
unworthy, had wasted love that could
never be recalled. At last, one day, as
1 was weeping over the grave Of those be-
loved ones whom we laid in Gods keep
ing, thought, new and interesting, came
to me. For many days [ searched
through the haunts of the great city, and
one day very much astonished my good
house-keeper by giving into her charge s
little girl of three years, with the request
that she should be cleaned and dressed
and sent to me. Mrs. Arden never ques
toned, and an hour later the golden-hair
ed little girl who sat on my lap, hsped
out my name, and laying her dimpled
lips on mine, lisped.
Il am your May, Mamma Flory."
did not heed the innuendoes anc
sneers of the world in which l had lived
but sold the old city mansion, and sen
the books and the pictures to the deal
country home-sweet Riverside. Thith
Ell, with May Leslie, [ migrated, and there
for many long years we lived together
And truly she was my May, my morn
ing, my sunbeam, else how could [ hav'
borne the old associations of Riverside
But when l sat with May on the sea
where years before Harry Leon hac
pledged me his truth, where he had rea(
and sang, and talked with me, her sof
voice and her strange questioning brough
me away from the bitter past, from tn
staenant waters where my dear hopes haC
been wrecked, to the duty of the present
There were times when 1 would hav'
been alone to have mourned cor the low
which had lived its glorious but brief lif
at that country seat upon the HUDSON
But by-andby l learned to love it'll
May as l had never thought to love an,
earthly thing again. 1 would teach her
she should be perfect in soal as in form
but how, how might I, sorrow-crushed
sinful, teach Aers And so, feeling,
"Too great for me the task. to lead soul
Unscathed through earthly fires
/ learned to pray, and laid my burden a
the feet of the Infinite.
And so peace came to the lonely dwell