Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-03-02
Take Care OF Mother.

We stood, with hushed breath and senses
strained, TO catch those last words so pre-
cious always from the lips of the dying. 1t
was not brave YOUTH stricken in his prime,
whose heart, in the supreme moment, turned
away from the shadow of the dark valley,
the confines of which his feet fingered
towards the mother he loved passing well
nor was il maiden fair, who leaving her
young life, still clings to earthly loves and TO
the gentle being, who, bearing that hottest
Of ties, wept over her dying child, as from
pallid lips, and with the last quivering sigh,
were uttered the words, "rake care Of
mother" There were no raven locks, nor
golden, clinging with death dew to the pol
ished brow of the one we watched so anx-
iously; no young life-pulse was being sud
denly and untimely stilled, An aged man
lay there with withered cheek and furrowed
brow. His eyes were dim and uncertain,
and his limbs were palsied ere they had
been touched by the chills of DEATH He
had run his course full three score years and
ten, drawing nigh upon those days of which
IL is said that strength shall become " but
labor and sorrow" and now, with the
breath of summer time around him and
amid the many things, animate and mani
mate, which all Of these years he had loved
and tended, he was dying. Around his bed
Grafton, sorrowing alike, for he had been at
once parent, companion and friend to each
and all aud though we had seen his locks
silver over, and those burrows come one by
one and deepen on the dear face, his voice
had never lost the ring of youth, nor his
form its manly bearing. His heart had not
chilled with the passing years, and we had
been slow to realize that "grandpa was
growing old" Beside him, her hand held in |
his loosening clasp, stood the wife of more
than fifty years. Here to the old home he |
had brought her, youthful bride and here |
they had shared alike the good and the i'll of |
life, tightening each others burdens. Here |
their children had entered upon life, and |
hence for veal or woe had gone out into the |
world; and now within those walls, in the |
room even, sacred TO almost every Joy and |
every grief or earth, he held her hand for |
the last time. Silence fell upon the scene
silence 80 deep that the watcher nearest to |
him bent over the passive form to not, if in
deed the feeble pulse had ceased to throb,
when suddenly the eyes, dim in death, as.
sumed an unwonted brilliancy, as they
opened upon the fearful circle around him,
the faint clasp upon the hand he held grew
trmer, and he spoke: " Take care of mother"
Ere the sound of the words had died away.
the spirit that had prompted their utter
ance had fled. Loyal in death to the love of
his youth, and of his life, her name had
been the last words upon his lips. Not the
pretty girlish name that had been so dear to
him in the days of long ago, "when they were
first acquaint, nor yet one of the fond names
his love gave her in after years, but that
most sacred one Of all, which when num-
Dered around her their children and their
grandchildren, and when she seemed fairest
IN his eyes he loved to give her" Mother"
AS 1t is true that great men, in dying, have
sometimes uttered sentences of words men,
orable as giving key to the lives and char
acters which have won the respect or admir-
alton of their fellow-beings, so is it that 9TH
ers equally great in their true and unassum-
ing natures, give to those they love glimpse
OF the departing soul in utterances never to
be forgotten. Thus, none save those who
had known this man, the singleness of his
heart, and the purity of his life, could con-
ceive the sacredness of the charge he gave
to us in his dying word word, "Take care
of mother"