The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-03-06

WHEN men tell you that poverty
brushes all sentiment out of the human
heart-that cold and crusts and years
of struggle with Indebtedness blunts a
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
werld 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 q mother sat
beside pinch.faced, hollow-eyed child,
of whom the doctor had whispered as
the sun went down:
eff she had had proper food and cloth
ing she would not be dying now. Before
midnight you will be alone in the
world!'
proper food and clothingr' 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 enemies who grasp at his throat
and pull him down. The child had
been her only sunshine as she toiled.
1t hal wept with her over their shiver-
ing poverty, and it had laughed with
her when grim fate left their track tor
time to hunt down others. That
child stood between mother and sui
eide. Hands had beckoned to the moth
er from the shadows of despair. but
the thought of the child had driven
them away. 1t has been said of men
that none die until they have finished
their mission. So it 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 heart will become a
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'twe earned her right live-my
right to keep her? Is there no reward
for the pain the body suffers and the
misery that wrings the heart?''
She looked out upon the dark night,
and the child opened its eyes and said:
"Let me stay with you until I can
see my way up to Heaven! l might
get lost in the darkness r.
In the farther corners, where the
feeble lamp-light toyed with the shad-
ows, woman thought she saw a
deeper shadow, and with white face
and arms outstretched she sobbed:
"Oh, Death, wait u 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 groancd in anguish of heart
as she remembered how that hand had
found hers when the midnight gale
made the old building tremblc and
culver.
elias the light come, mother?' asked
the child as the hot tears fell upon her
hand.
"Not yet-not yetr' wept the moth
er, as she looked out upon the world.
"Call me when the light comes!'
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 il
mind, would miss the face SO oft helt
up to hers that a little voice might
whisper in her ear:
"Never mind-I amt cold or hun.
cry, and by-and-bye we'll be rich"'
Did the Shadow hiding in the shadows
move? The mother turned her startled
look that way, and the shadows had gone
In their place was flood of moonlight
as soft and pure as any that ever fell
upon earth.
"The light has comer' whispered
the child, as she held up her hands.
"Don't go-don't leave me!" wailet
the mother as she bent over the wasted
form.
Il shall not get LOST am not afrait
kiss me once morer' came the wits
per, and the great white moon wa
lighting up the path to Heaven Sc
grandly that the child sang joyousl.
, as her feet pressed it.
You did not think of it as the worlt
was bathed in the silvery flood, but hat
. you listened you might almost hav,
heard the echo of her song.-Detros
, Free Press.