The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-01-28
A Story of Long Ago.

1911 was @ VIII ulSub III DldICu curing
which, In fisherman's hut ashore, sat a
young girl at her spinning wheel, and
looked out on the dark driving clouds,
listened, trembling, to the wind and the
sea. The morning light dawned at last.
One boat that should have been riding
on the trc ubled waves was missing-her
fathers b, at! and half mile from the
cottage, her fathers body was washed upon
the shore.
This happened fifty years ago, and fifty
years is long time in the life ola human
being; fifty years is long time to go on
In such a course as the woman did of
whom am speaking She watched her
fathers body, according to the custom of
the people, till he was laid In the grave
Then she laid down on the bed and slept,
and by mig 1T got up and set q candle in
her easement, as beacon to the fisherman
and guide. She sat by the candle all nigh
and trimmed it, and spun; then when day
dawned she went to bed and slept In the
sunshine. So many hanks as she had spun
before for her daily bread, she spun still;
and one over to buy her nightly candle,
and from that time to this, for fifty years,
through youth, maturity, and old age,
she has turned night into day, and i'll the
snow storms of winter, through driving
mists, deceptive moonlight, and solemn
darkness, that northern harbor has never,
once been without the light OF the can
die.
How many lives she saved by this can
die, or how many meal she woo by it;
for the starving familie of the boatmen,
it is impossible to say; how manya dark
night the fishermen, depending on it went
fearlessly forth, cannot now be told.
There it stood, regular as lighthouse,
steady as constant care could make it.
Always brighter when daylight waned
they had only to keep it constantly in
view and they were safe, there was but one
that could intercept it, and that was the
Rock However far they might hay.
stretched out to sea, they had only to bear
down straight for that lighted window,
and they were sure OF a safe entrance into
the harbor.
Fifty years of life and labor-ffty years
of sleeping in the sunshine-ffty years Of
watching and self DENIAL and all to feed
the flames and trim the wick of that one
candle! Buff we look upon the recorded
lives of great men and just men and wise
men, few of them can show fifty years of
worthier, certainly not of more successful
labor Little, indeed, of the midnight
oil" consumed during the last half centu-
ry so worthily deserved the trimming.
Happy woman! and but for the dreaded
rock, her great charity might never been
called into exercise:
But what do the boatmen and the
boatmen's wives think of this? DO they
pay the woman? No; they are very poor;
but poor or rich, they know better than
that. Do they thank her? No, Perhaps
they feel that thanks of theirs would be
inadequate to express their obligations,
or perhaps long years have made the
lighted easement SO familiar that they
look upon it as a matter of course. Some
times the fishermen lay fish on her
threshold, and set child to watch it for
her till she wakes; sometimes their wives
steal into her cottage now she is getting
old, and spin a hank or two of thread for
her while she slumbers; and they teach
their children to pass by her door quietly,
and not to sing and shout before her
door, lest they should disturb her. That
is all Their thanks are not looked for
scarcely supposed to be due. Their
grateful deeds are more than she expects
and as much as she desires
How often in the far distance of nv
English home, have awoke in wild
winter night, and while the wind and
storm We're rising have thought of that
Northern bay, with the waves dashino
against the rock, and have pictured to
myself the easement, and the candle
nursed by that bending, aged fgure How
delighted to know that through hel
untiring charity the rock has long lost
more than half its terrors, and considered
that, curse though it may be to all besides
it has most surely proved a blessing tc
her
You, too, may perhaps think with ad
vantage on the character of this woman
and contrast 1t with the mission of the
Rock. There are many degrees between
them. Few, like tie rock, stand III
wholly TO work ruin and destruction; few
like th3 woman, .!ot their light shine
SO brightly for good. Bat to one OF the
many q gees tween chem we must all
IN ,st certainly bul0ng-wea all lean iowa dis
the woman or the rock On such charac
ters you do well to speculate with me, fol
you have not been cheated into sympathy
with idea al shipwrcck or imaginary kind
ness. TIL rc is many rock els wtlcre as
perlious as the one [ liza t. d You o.
perhaps there are many such women; but
for thus one, whose story is before you
pray that h1r candl, may burn llttIe
longer, since this record Of her charity is
true Jean IngelaN.
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