Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-03-21
How the Way was Lighted.

NOW the way WAS LiguteU.
When men tell you that poverty
brushes all sentiment out of the human
heart-that cold and crusts and years
OF struggle with wretchedness blunts
mothers love for her child, they speak
without weighing their words, and they
do not know the depth Of q mothers
love.
How dark it was last night while the
world waited for the great white moon
to show its face and brush away the
shadows which clasped hands across
each street and settled down on spire
and house-top! And yet how much
darker it must have seemed in the poor
and wretched home where mother sat
beside pinched-faced, hollow.eyed
child, of whom the doctor had whis.
pered as the sun went down:
eff she had had proper food and
clothing she would not be dying now.
Before midnight you will be alone in
the worldp
Proper food and clothing!" sobbed
the mother, as the child seemed to sleep,
and she looked around at the rags on
the nails and at the crusts on the shelf.
She had toiled her best; but he who
struggles away from the wolf of hunger
is sure to meet sickness and other enc
mics who grasp at his throat and pull
him down. The child had been her
only sunshine as she toiled. 1t had
wept with her over their shivering pow
erty, and it had laughed with her when
grim fate left their track for time to
hunt down others. That child stood
between mother and suicide. Hands
had beckoned to the mother from the
shadows of despair, but the thought of
the child had driven them away. It
has been said of men that none die until
they have finished their mission. Sol
must be of women. When the heart
has nothing to cling to the arms will no
longer work. When there is no more
sunlight to break in on the soul, the
hesrt will become stone.
"She has hungered and shivered and
suffered with me-" sobbed the mother,
"and If she lived on her days would
be full of woe, but yet she is my all.
Haven't we earned her right to live
my right to keep her? Is there no re-
ward for the pain the body suffers and
the misery that wrings the hearth"
She looked out upon the dark night,
and the child opened its eyes and said:
"Let me stay with you until I can
zee my way up to Heaven! I might get
lost in the darknessl"
In the farther corners, where the
feeble lamp-light toyed with the shsd-
ows, the woman thought she saw o
deeper shadow, and with white face and
arms outstretched she sobbed
"Oh. Death, wait little longer! The
day has gone and the world is dark.
Nothing made by man can light the
way through the valley and the shadow,
but Gods own light will give my child
joy and safety"
The shadow moved back, and the
mother clasped the child's thin white
hand and groaned in anguish Of heart
as she remembered how that hand had
found hers when the midnight gale
made the old building trembls and
culver.
"Has the light come, mother ?"
asked the child, as the hot tears fell
upon her hand.
Not yet-not YETI wept the mother,
as she looked out upon the world.
"Cail me when the light comesl"
whispered the girl, and she slept again.
How still that old house would be
when night came again! How the
mother, tired in body and crazed in
mind would miss the face so oft held
up to hers that little voice might
whisper in her ear:
"Never mind-I amt cold or hungry,
and bye-and-bye we'll he rich!'
Did the Shadow hiding in the shad-
ows move? The mother turned her
startled look that way, and the shadows
had gone. In their place was food of
moonlight, as soft and pure as any that
ever fell upon earth.
"The light has GOMEZ whispered the
child. as she held up her hands.
Don't go-don't leave me" walled
the mother, as she bent over the wasted
form.
&C. shall not get LOST am not afraid
kiss me once more!" came the whis-
per, and the great white moon was light
ing up the path to Heaven 80 grandly
that the child sang joyousiy as her feet
pressed it.
You did not think of it as the world
was bathed in the silvery flood, but had
you listened you might almost have
heard the echo of her song.-Detroit
Free Press.