The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1881-08-19
DIED OF A BROKEN HEART.
A story which May b. Read with Profit
bv Parents

wonder, and long curling eyelashes,
which started, like his fawn-like eyes.
with quick apprehension and timidity-a
boy who played with all intensity, kept
doing something all the day long, with
out the power to rest, walked of alone
and even when alone spoke with himself,
chased the geese with little legs as lean
and swift, and at the table eating his
meals could not sit very still, nor bear
to sit all the morning in church because
bis heart was too rapid In his little mar
row chest, where every rib could be
counted against his tender flesh and skin.
In the morning he was awake at earliest
light; at evening bis tired nature yielded
10 the deep sleep of exhaustion. His
mother feared she could pever raise him
10 be n man. His father thought he was
too long becoming n man III gravity, So
briefly and formal obedience.
"What ails my son p the father stern'y
asked. He is rattle-headed and with
out stability. / fear for hlm. Do you
chastise him enough? Spare not the rod
lest he grow beyond you and your rule. "
" Alas p exclaimed the mother, she
has his little world, we cannot see, per
haps. He is growing aud sensitive. The
doctor saws we must not push him at his
studies, but let him play all he can, till
his frame is equal to his brain.
The father shook his head and spoke
sternly to the boy, and feared he was GO
ing to give them ali trouble growing up
so seldom moulded aud unrestrained.
All day the little boy was doing some
thing, carrying the cat by the tail, carry
ing the dog under his arm, making pic
lures on paper, of engines and steam
boats. and bellows.
He will be an artist, said his mother
hopefully
He will spoil the library" exclaimed
the father suspiciously.
Antagonism grew up between the
father and the boy, born, on the boys
part, of fear on the fathers, of criticism
and severity. The boy ran to his mother
and asked her protection from his fathers
suspecting eye. The father feared his
wife was spelling the son with mistaken
generosity and allowance. At times the
fathers habitual suspicion broke away
like the clouds above hard, human
Britain, and he laid his rigorous books of
theology down to take his boy walking,
and they grew little nearer. Then
again the father observed some voluptu-
GUS tendency in the son which started his
fears anew some taste for worldly,
passing modes and joys.
"Wife, he said, "do you ever give
our boy money!
"A little, she said ga few pennies
to buy drawing materials ana colors he.
viii be an artist | think. -
Money" exclaimed the sire, a. is the
root of every evil. You had better give
him fire or poison. He VIII become a
wild, ruined spendthrift
FThs T1oa hof III I
money operated in the fathers head like
jealousy or revenge; it tinted everything
about his sons conduct, and he believed
his wife had set deliberately to work to
indulge her child at the expense of his
soul
One morning, thinking of such things
the father lay awake in bed, and gen
tie noise disturbed him. The sun was
mp, though it was scarcely ) o clock, and
the light and air striking through the
chamber curtains showed the little boy
In his night gown stealing toward his
fathers bed. He glanced sharply to
ward his father to see if he was quite
asleep, and then swiftly, like little bird,
hoped upon a chair and ran his lean
white fingers into his fathers vest
pocket.
HAT thought the father. "My son
IN my pockets by stealth, before l am
awake, and initiating the bad example of
my wife, who often, perhaps, searches
unauthorized there y
As he said this dreadful idea crossed
his mind That son, spoiled by the
mothers indulgence, already corrupted
by spending money, was a thief-a thief
while yet a child He rose in bed and
spoke in voice of thunder;
Robert, you are stealing my money!"
Horror froze the hoy; he dropped from
the chair like cat, and was into his own
ted IN the next room and covered his face
with his sheets. Anguish and stern re-
solve possessed at once the fathers
stricken heart. He had DELAYED too long
to chastise his Maynard son, now gliding
INTO ruin. 1t must be done, hard though
1t should be. He awoke his wife, and.
suppressing her replies with an iron will.
related the story of her depraved child.
" Henceforth, he said, 81 must be the
magistrate and mother, instead of You
Robert, come, dress yuurselfl'
He thrust the frightened mother back.
The boy fell on his knees but could not
speak one word, so large the knot that
gathered in his little throat, so resolute
tie startled, fawn-like eyes, as if agony
and perversity worked together to make
him obdurate. Down the stairs and into
the orchard, away from sight, the father
bore his child, and making him kneel
upon the grass, struck hard and slow
with the switch of the apple tree, telling
his boy TO confess yet dumb as Isaac
upon the altar beneath his fathers knife,
shrinking childhood of the boy received
his hard chastisement Carried back,
all trembling as with chill of death, to
the house of mourning, the little boy
was laid in his bed. still frozen tight of
speech and only the ointment of a
mothers tears fell upon his tortured
back and famine narrowed shoulders,
but his large eyes turned to little box
that he kept his treasures in, and they
placed it in his bed where he lay all day
signing from his inarticulate soul.
The fathers heart was wrenched to
think of such frail, dear son persisting
in his wiekedness, and turning from re-
pentance.
He sat by his side all that afternoon
his boy TO confess and save
them both the pain of another chastise-
ment The boy trembled, but did not
speak, and put his arms around his little
box as if it was his brother.
The long night through sigh went
through the chamber ever aud anon
from those suffering lips. Neither man
nor woman slept. At early day the
father felt that the stern pun
must be melted ont again unless
MS boy spoke and repented. He rose
md passed into the chamber where the
son lay in his lowly bed, all strewn with
lis little drawings, and his arms around
lis box He sighed no more, but
eemed asleep. Upon his face a color
,aler than the snowy sheets extended.
Another guest was in the bed the guest
hat cometh like a real thief in the
light.
Mary !" cried the father, "Mary, my