The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1878-08-13
THE ORPHANS NEW-YEAR'S
EVE.


BY FRANK LEE BENEDICT.
Such . dreary, dismal New ears
Eve, endurable only as it made the
comfort of home contrast more
strongly with the darkness and cold
without.
Snow and ice on the pavement
clouds and darkness overhead-a chill
wind that struck to the very heart.
barbed with fakes OF snow which
stung like tiny daggers, and gave
fierce menace of sterner winter be-
yond.
Slowly out of the darkness came
the child into the Pickering glare of
the street lamp. She had just passed
q man mufiied in thick. warm gar
meuts, who had not even heard her
broken petition for help, or noticed
her desolate appearance-a man who
all his life has consulted hi own ease
and selfshness more than the comfort
of any human being, and who now.
hurryiug along under the influence OF
numberless bitter feelings, was not
likely to think of any other creatures
distress.
She came on toward the corner
house where the light streamed
through the shutrerless windows, and
Law broad and full on the deeply
tracked snow.
She climbed up the ratings and
stared in at the window, so benumbed
now with the cold that she did not
suffer with the acuteness of the pre-
vious hour. stared in with q vague
idea of comfort connected with the
bright lights and cheerful fire As the
glow fell over her hands.
Such q piteOus sight, as she stood
there. with the angels up in heaven
and New Years Eve on earth!
The wind was blowing her thin
dress and shawl wildly abOut-in the
darkness off back street she had lost
the old shoes which partially protected
her feet, and now they chung naked
upon the iron rails-her head un-
covered. and her long hair streamed
over her face as if trying to keep it
warm.
The worn, haggard little face, with
childhood and happiness frozen out Of
it. the wild. despairing eyes, with q
look 50 strong for a child's eyes to
wear, gazing in at the fire and the
lighted room. and vet seeming a
whole world away from its luxury and
warmth.
She had set her old haskell down
upon the stones. 1t was almost
empty, and she had not dared to 60
back to the place she called home !;
50. after the night came. had wander
ed about the streets, growing colder
and colder, weeping Sometimes in a
chilled nerveless way; at others
stamping upon the ground with q
passionate bitterness taught by the
precocious hardening Of her lite /;
settling at last into a passive misery
which was in her face still, as she
chung against the frosty iron ratings
and peered into the lighted room.
The family were gathered in that
pleasant apartment. Old Mr.. Legion
looking 50 content with the cares and
troubles of a long life left behind. and
that peace in his face which is the
glory of old age; young Mr.. Walter.
and his wife. and the little ones, and
quite a crowd Of youthful cousins, all
spending quiet. happy evening with
grandfather and cousin Mildred.
She alone was wanting an un-
seasonable visitor had called cousin
Mildred away more than an hour
before: and though he had been
heard to leave the house, Mildred had
not returned to the library.
The room was quite desolate with
out her. 1t always was. and. having
decided that her absence was not to
be borne any longer. a chorus of
voices rang through the hall.
"Mildred! Cousin Mildred! Are
you never coming back ?"
The voices reached the little
room where Mildred had
her visitor, and where she
still sat just as he had left her. lean
ing over the FIRE, looking absently into
the blaze, and thinking of all that lay
between her and the innocence of her
girlhood-looking back as We do at
thirty, when any chance incident or
person who ought to lie quietly buried
il the past, comes up suddenly and
looks US in the face, a. had happened
to Mildred Legion that night.
A tall, fair woman of q goodly
presence, with a face out of which the
freshness of youth had gone forever,
not gradually but with some sudden
wrench that snapped her heart-strings
"A face that had been proud aud
loving and impulsive, but
which was more beautiful now than it
had been in its 6rst bloom, from the
self-control and the earnest purpose
which elevated it.
Maybe you don't know what it is at
thirty to look back on the life of
eighteen, and find yourself as com.
pletely separated from it as if you had
passed into another existence; but
even if q dead sorrow and a dismal
yhost do not lie between you and that
easou, you have memories enough to
sdden you.
The anticipations that have all died
'ut; the balls at which you danced
mike any balls you can 60 to now
he time when music was a passion
md necessity, before your aste had
crown 80 critical aud refined that i'll
'ou heard an angel sing, you would
'e thinking more of the note he did
'ot reach freely than of the delicious
Melody which followed: the time
vhen YOU dreamed in Italy, and your