Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1866-03-16
An 1nterestin9 Story.
THE BLIND MANS WREATH.

MY boy, my poor blind boy!" This
sorrowful exclamation broke from the
lips of Mrs. Owen as she lay upon the
couch to which long and wasting ILL
ness had confined her, and whence she
we'll knew she was never more to rise.
Her son, the only child of her widowed
hearth, the sole object of her cares and
affections, knelt beside her, his face
bowed upon her pillow, for now only, in
moment of solemn communion with his
mother, had she revealed the fatal truth
and told him she must soon die He
had watched, and hoped, and trembled
for many weary months, but never yet
had he admitted to himself the possibility
| of losing her; her faded check and
sunken eye could not reveal to him the
progress of decay, and SO long as the
loved voice maintained its music to his
ear and cheered him with promise of i'm
provement, SO long as her hand still
clasped his, he had hoped she would re-
cover.
He had been blind since he was three
years old stricken by lighting, he had
totally lost his sight. A dim remember
ance of his widowed mothers face, her
smoothly braided hair, and flowing white
dress, was one of the few recollections
entwined with the period before all be-
came totally dark to him.
The boy grew up, tall, slender, de-
licate, with dark pensive eyes which
bore no trace of the calamity that had
destroyed their powers of vision; grave.
though not sad ); dreamy, enthusiastic,
and requiting his mothers care with the
deepest generation and tenderness. In
the first years of his childhood, and also
whenever their inclination did not take
them to London and elsewhere, they had
resided near town ON the sea-coast in
one of the prettiest parts of England.
Independently of the natural kindness
which very rarely fails to be shown to-
wards any person who is blind, there was
that about the widow and her son which
invariably rendered them acceptable
guests: for their intellectual resources
and powers ofconversation, were equally
diversified and uncommon. Mrs. Owen
had studied much in order to teach her
son, and thus, by improving her natural
abilities, had become person of no COM
mon stamp; her intellectually, how
ever, being always subservient to. and
fitly Swallowed by, the superior feminine
attributes of love, gentleness and sym
pathy: for Heaven help the woman in
whom these gifts are not predominant
over any mental endowments whatso-
everl
When taey walked out together, his
mother took his arm he was proud of
that, he liked to fancy he was some sup
port to her, and many plying eyes used
latterly to follow the figure of the widow
in the black dress she constantly wore,
and the tall pale son on whom she leaned
confdingly, as if striving with sweet
deception to convince him that he was
indeed the staff of her declining strength.
But gradually the mothers form grew
bent. her step dragged YEARLY along,
and the expression of her face indicated
increasing weakness. The walks we're at
all end and, before long she was too
feeble to leave her bed, excepting to be
carried to summer parlor, where she
lay upon a sofa beside an open window,
with flowers twining round the easement,
and the warm sunshine filling all things
with joy, except her foreboding heart
and the anxious son who necessarily
hung over her. Friends often came to
visit them, and turned away with deep
sadness as they noted the progress of her
malady, and heard the blind man ask
each time whether they did not think her
better-oh, surely better than when they
bad last bcheld her?
Among all these, no friend was so
welcome or brought such solace to the
sick room as Mary Parker, a joyous
girl Of nineteen, one Of the beauties of
the county. aud the admiration and de-
light Of all who knew her. Mrs. Owen
bad danced Mary upon her knee, and
Edward used to weave baskets and make
garlands for her when he was boz of
twelve, aud she, little fairy of six
years old or thereabouts, stood beside
him, praising his skill and wondering
bow he could manage SO cleverly though
blind. None Of his childish companions
ever led him SO carefully as Mary, or
seemed SO much impressed with his
mental superiority; she would leave
those games Of her playmates in which
bis blindness prevented him from joining,
and would listen for hours to the stories
with which his memory was well stored,
or which his own Imagination enabled
him to invent.
AS she grew up, there was no change
IN the frank aud confding nature of their
intercourse Mary still made him the
recipient of her girlish secrets ard plans,
and dreams, just as she had done Of her
little griefs and joys in childhood; asked
him to quote his fayorite passages of
poetry. or stationed herself near him at
the piano. suggesting subjects for him
to play. which be extemporized at her
bidding Bright and blooming as Mary