Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1878-12-21
COMING HOME CHRISTMAS;
OR,
SEEING BETTER DAYS.

The widow Minton had seen better days
| she had seen them. Better days hung moldi-
ly about her, like the defaced shreds of an
tiquated embroidery.
who went about with their skirts tucked up
and their bare brown arms ready and able
for any work, looked ask at the widow
Minton, with her pitiful meagerness of
aspect, her Pickering black eye, and her
s is and Ga So*@ Better h Say aueS ssse
| usp
But the widow did not trouble the neigh
bors much, nor they her. A body who
couldn't do heartsome hands stirring was
best left alone to her brooding and the
widows smoky little cabin, solidarity apart
on the sea-shore, was left pretty much to
herself and her son Tom.
Tom was sturdy, brown-faced lad, who
picked up living by doing odd jobs for the
boatmen, and now and then taking a day
for fishing. Tom had probably never seen
better days The widow shook her head
over him-so stupidity content, poor Tom
illness and hopelessness. A tall, well-grown
red shirt. Tom took the world easily,
looking with reverent eyes on his mothers
by-gone gentility, but by no means seeming
to covet it for himself.
The widow deemed it due to her past re-
spectability to be seen at church OF Sun
day evening, and you could see the two
walking at twilight along the sands to-
gether, she with her clean pocket handker-
chief folded over her old hymn book, and a
certain doubtful hesitancy of gait, as if hea-
ven itself might be looking down critically
on her shabby black gown and rusty bonnet
AS for Tom, patient Tom, he went plodding
slowly after her, with his smiling face,
whisling to himself as he went. Always
patient, always plodding Tom! Pa
tiently falling asleep during the Sermon
and patiently listening, open mouthed, to the
closing hymn his careless, bright face con
trasting so oddly with his mothers queru
lous and tear stained visage, won for him
the sobriquet of Widow Minton's rainbow.
The minister of the parish, mistaken soul,
deemed it incumbent to make call on the
widow; and, on charity bent, it is said he
unwarily offered to employ her services in
his household for a season. He deemed it
his duty to rouse the old woman to activity.
He did rouse her; and it is averred that
he never found time to call at the cabin
again. Did he take her for common
household drudge, or born field hand
She thanked God she had too much spirit
left yet to put herself under anybody's feet.
He hadn't far TO 60 to find scores of drudges
and diggers, but he might go farther before
he knew a lady when he saw her.
1t might have been the afternoon after
the good mans visit that the widow sat idly
brooding at her cabin-door. Her eyes had
wandering, far-away look, and her face
| was keener and thinner than ever Beyond
| the bluff whichsheltered her cabin stretched
far line of sea-coast, the white sand
cleaning silvery in the sun. Far off a
group of bathers, in bright dresses, frolick-
ed between shore and water. They came
| from the great hotel down beyond; she
| could almost catch the sound of their voices
as she sat slowly rocking in her doorway
1t was quiet afternoon; the air was soft
and soothing, and the widows heart, so full
of bitterness, felt itself sweeten and soften
in the stiffness. This part of the shore, shell
tered by the oyerhanging rock, was seldom
| disturbed by intruders, but presently the
| watchers eye caught sight of young girl
| splashing and frolicking in the water just
| beyond the rocks. 1t was pretty sight, the
| rounded arms, the curving shoulders, the
| swaying, floating figure. And perhaps
| the old woman recalled with sigh the
time when she was young and blithe too
and had as CHEEKY a voice as that with
which the fair swimmer hailed her com
panions in the distance.
| Gazing absently on the smiling scene, q
reverie fell upon her ear, and when she looked
| nh ar
peared. She had probably swan ashore
behind the rocks. The widow turned away
hugging her thin shawl over her shoulders
and thought that the sea wind was chilly
Hank! What was that? Surely she heard
cry. No merry shout or ringing laugh
this; it might be the cry of wild bird OF
its way to its mate.
She couldn't have got beyond her depth
the young creature, surely But la wha
of it if she had? Dying young, body get
quit of deal of trouble. And---Yes, sure
ly, that was a scream. The widow looked
sharply out. Would Tom never come
The tide was rising, and---and certainly
something was the matter. She called
she beckoned frantically to the bathers be
yond---they seemed both blind and deaf
No one, not one soul, at hand, and tina
young thing in peril of life A minute
she stood still, listening--a feeble old wo
man, with haggard, scared face, to whom
no one would have dreamed of looking TO
help.
II can't stand this" she said. "Seems
might pull out that old scow myself
Tom r she screamed, with yell that hell
the concentrated energy OF ten years. Blu
no Tom appeared. And it was the widow
herself, with those withered old hands tina
disdained the minister's kitchen-work---i
was the widow herself, who, straining
Juggling, and with her gray hair flutterinl
in the wind, Embossed the old dug-out from
its moorings, and trembling, unskillfu