American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-02-26
AUNT DEBoRAH,s SHIP.

Il
was dreadful coquctte when young, and
wore the most bewitching coal-scuttle
bonnets he ever beheld. That was before
my time, and / cannot contradict him /;
but can remember the period when Aunt
Deborah was not bit old, was as pretty
as fairy and as gentle as a fawn. She
lived with us at Swcefcross then, and as
sisted my mother in the housekeeping
My father used to call her Deborah Dole
full because she was quiet and pale and
sometimes sad but she never seemed a
bit doleful To me, and loved her as only
very little boy in sfrocks and open-work
socks can love Kind and sympathetic
nurse. She filed my life with nursery
romance, and if dreamt of flowers and
fRlts and fairies and golden sunshine it
,ecar.se she had wooed ME to sleep
Gondrously pretty stories or melodi-
gs. always recall Aunt Deborah
lwncr of wonderful snip. can
fgct that ship, because had a
interest in its cargo than all the
Friters at Lloyd's. Whenever i felt
lsition to cry for anything, that
ad the very article on board-that
kunt Deborah said 30. g Wait till my
dip comes home," she would tell me,
" and then my dear boy shall have it." /
can see that vessel now as saw it then in
my very little minds eye. What a stately
gailcon she wasl "A golden ship on a sun
lit sea, laden with sweets and spices and
magic toys from the far-ntf Land of Won
der. ClcDpstra's galley was a coal barge
TO that fairy craft, and the ship in our old
clock that went up and down on three
green waves, and never got any farther,
was NO more like it, aunt said, than SIENNA
was like barley sugar Aunt Deborall's
eyes would brighten as >she pictured il
and went through the apparently endless
Ia IL Vas a
while coming said so once, and she
sighed and gave me n little lecture on pa
uence- She told me u story of Princess
one of those delightful Princesses that
lived In the year once-upon- a-time-who
had longed and longed for her ship 10
come through many years.. till she had
learned the lesson of patience at last and
found in the lesson holy joy.
That Princess, said Aunt Deborah, was
once wayward beauty who loved herself
better than anybody else in her father's
dominions- She was surrounded by ev-
erything thaf was rich andbeaatiful, from
the palace OF pearls and rubies in which
she lived to the natural loveliness of land
all flowers and fruits and golden corn shut
she fook little heed of the beauty of the
world She loved of all things to gaze
into mirror of crystal, where she saw
reflected her pretty face with its sunny
smile and wealth Of curling locks. Her
fathers Ministries twanged their lutes to
most seductive measures, and gilded
courtiers moved about her breathing
honeyed words of fiattery; but she needed
them not, and gazed in the mirror from
morning till night, content to center all
her love on that dainty face. Oh! said
Aunt Deborah, what multitude of peo-
pie are content TO live their lives in that
little range OF delusive glass, till it drops
from the weakened hand and lies mass
of brittle fragments to lacerate the feet of
the wanderer on his weary pilgrimage
into the shadow and the darkness!
There came one day, continued Aunt
Deborah, 30 this Princess Prince of
manly form and noble heart, who wooed
her in the tender poetry of an honest love;
but she took not her eyes from the glass.
Yet the music of his voice was sweeter
than the minstrels' lutes, and there was
truth in the tremulous accents that fell
upon her car. If she cast her eyes upon
him for a moment, it was only that they
might daily with his as spoiled child
dallies with its last new toy When the
Prince had tarried many days, said Aunt
Deborah with sigh, his heart fell sick OF
love and disappointment, and he vowed
that he would go over the silvery sea to
mourn in secret his unrequited love. And
when he hoped, deep down in his heart,
that the Princess would by look or word
bid him tarry, she gazed in her glass, and
was too busy scanning her own beauties
to mark the lOve-lOrn anguish in his eyes.
And the gallant Prince sailed away, and
the MINISTRIES played on their golden lutes,
and the jeweled courtiers f1attered as be-
fore; but change came over the pretty
Princess She missed the music of the
Princes voice, and, missing it, she was
sad Every day the glass reflected a sad
der face The bloom faded from the vel |
vet cheek, and tears would sometimes |
blind tine soft blue eyes. And then the |
lace III the glass began to reproach her, |
and she felt the folly of centering all her |
heart upon fading vision; and then, said |
Aunt Deborah with a suddenness that |
made my little heart leap, she dropped |
the glass, and for the first time saw that |
the world was beautiful beyond. The
eyes that had been confined 10 the limits |
OF the crystal now roamed in freedom |
over the beauteous land, and the heart |
that had been blind now found sight to |
look out farther stiIl-away over the sill |
very sea-straining TO catch the first |
glimpse Of the home. bound ship as il |
should rise above the horizon; but it did
not come. And for days and years she
looked for the bark that should bring
back her gallant Prince, and the shattered
mirror of her selfishness and pride lay at
her feet; but he did not come. And
chastened by painful longings, she found
sympathy for those who longed and hoped
and suffered, too, and thus she serrowed
will, the sDrrOwinO and tha bur- |