The Lamoille news. (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1877-1881, 1877-05-23

the toddling wee thing that grasped at
sunbeams, and looked with grieved
wonder at its empty hands; the little
eharmer that faltered out her first be-
witching words the wise little maiden
who lisped prayer at mothers knee,
and pleaded for stories with irresistible
wiles.
All that had been lacking in our
lives seemed to have come with "Pre-
cious," and even Nan, with her sor-
rows unforgotten, was $50 beautifed by
mother love, that | .a4ver looked at
her without recalling the wonderful
promise, 81 will restore unto thee the
years that the canker-worm hath eat
en-"
Truly the blighted summer seemed
restored with all its lost possibilities
of bud and bloom and harvest. So
poorly we interpret ife's prophecies.
This is only the shot story of a life,
and it is nearly told. l lost Precious
out of my world, but the mothers
whole world was shattered and struck
into chaos. They say such dreadful
things are all the time happening; that
these sweet lives come to an end every
day and every hour. Perhaps so.
There are some dreadful truths in the
universe which God never meant we
should realize. 1t is one ofhis tender
mercies that they are too great for us,
and only our peryersity leads us to
torture ourselves by trying to compre-
hendend them. No other, living or
dying, could soften Mans sorrow. 1t
was just as if death began and ended
with Precious.
We make much of our kinship with
the angels, yet day by day death walks
with us, and we know it not. The
tenderest mother holds her little child
and does not see that the soul is flut-
tering at the windows: kisses the
warm lips with no subtle sense of the
chill creeping up to them. If you
knew, if you only could know, in those
busy moments when yos1skake off the
nl,r+e.l, %, q I;A4l-..si x ~ - ;, |
but YOU donot. NothirtA warns you; /
so be sure His way is best.
In all those blessed days, that seem
now like some far-of' drgam, we never
Thought that we could lpse Precious.
We only exulted in possession while
the baby crept over the soft grass
filling her small hands with flowers,
and recklessly casting them away,
while she toddled after beetles in the
garden, and pressed her blossom of a
face to the palings, looking with Won
dering eyes at the world outside her
greenery. We tossed away the flow
ers she dropped, we smoothed the
walk where she digged in it, we wiped
from the windows the marks Of mouth
and fingers, where Precious had crowd
ed close to ''see the mornin'," or pur-
sued some luckless fly with baby cru
city. Then came other days when the
full white forehead was hot under the
hossy rings of hair, and the small feet
pattered YEARLY after Nan, and the
plaintive voice was always pleading
"Mamma, take mel" Days when,
through the long hours, Nan held the
little one on an aching heart, smiling
with woeful eyes as she showed her
stores of bright pictures, sung merry
ballads with quivering lips, and told,
with pitiful tremble in her voice, a
story for the picture that Precious
liked best, ,-"little white bed and no
body in it," Over and over she asked
for the story, her fingers feebly hold
ing the picture and cropping over the
empty crib with its per.dals curtains and
rounded pillows, and it hardly seemed
like Precious who said so plaintively
"Nobody in"
Then night when, too weak for the
D mothers arms, she lay on her pillow
in heavenly patience, growing faire.
g and lovelier, until, scarcely breathing
she watched the Frightening Of tn
/ eastern sky.
4 ePrecious see the mornin'," sh
| faltered with wan ghost Of a smile
a and then locking her fingers over Nan
e she asked once more, "Little Whit
It Bed%
n All, it was almost too much Nan
: lips moved, but no sound came fror
/ them, save a husky breathing, and a
V that instant our darling went ava
It and left us only the 'little aDhite be
it and nobody in"
IS Was it empty? 0 beautiful clay
g have you no closer kinship to the spil
d it? Can it leave you so utterly, wit
g no slow severing of subtle bonds OF