The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1881-01-07
The Old Blue Chest.

| One uay last week nVe or SIX women
with serious faces and hushed voices
were gathered in q room il house on
Fort street east. For two years a poor
old woman had lived there, not exactly
a beggar nor an object of charity. but
certainly in want. She had husband
when she first moved there-a poor old
man whose days could not be long; but
one day he was missing. He may have
wandered out into theIcountry and died.
This left the old woman alone, and there
were days and days in which no one
went near her or addressed her. The
other day when she felt the chill OF
death approaching she wanted some
one with her She had lived alone, but
she could not die that way. She wept
as tender hands clasped hers and kind
voices addressed her. Death had al
ready placed its mark on her face, and
the women could do nothing. While
their tears fell upon her wrinkled hand,
che passed away as a child sleeps.
There was but little in the room be-
yond an old blue clest-battered and
bruised and splintered. but yet holding
together. 1t had seen strange times,
that old blue chest. 1t had held silks
and broadcloths perhaps-it had surely
house to house and from town to town.
it had listened TO laughter, and had
heard sobs and means. 1t had grown
old no faster than the woman whose
hands had so often lifted its lid. 1t had
doubtless kept the company CT good car
pets and furniture and crockery, and
laughing, romping children had climbed
over it or hidden in it. 1t had faded,
and its hinges were rusty and weak, but
1t had outlived its owner.
The women looked about for garments
in which to shroud the dead. Nothing
was in sight. One of them lifted the
lid of the old blue chest, and called the
others to help drag it out from its dark
corner. 1t held treasure-such treasure
rs men could not buy nor poverty steal
away. There was a dress of fine ma
terial, cut after fashion of long years
ago. For twenty years the chest had
been its guardian. 1t would have sold
for few dollars, but though the gnaw-
ings OF hunger had come often and the
cold had fought its way to her marrow,
that poor old woman would not part
with that relic of better days. 1t may
have been link to connect her with
wealth and love. Beneath it was treasure
still more priceless. Carefully wrapped
in paper was a silver dime more than
fifty years old. A weeks fast would not
have sent her to the bakers with that
relic. A child, dead in its young years,
had worn that dime around its neck as
a gift or talisman. There was a child's
mitten, stained and worn, but a mitten
knit by a proud young mother for her
child. 1t could not speak 10 tell the
dim past, but it had power. As the
women saw it they covered their faces
with their aprons and wept.
There was boys cap and girls hat,
both so old and faded and time-eaten
that they bad to be tenderly handled.
The women looked from them to the
poor old white face on the bed and
whispered:
"None but good mother would have
treasured these relics. She was old and
poor, but her heart was pure"
Deeper down, as if TO battle the search
of time itself, was a familiar toy-a
child's dumb watch. Hands were
broken and gone, face scratched and
case battered, but the women handled
it as if touch would shiver it. There
was a dolls head, boys ish-line, some
toy chairs, yarn ball, and other things
to show that in the long ago that dead
woman had felt the soft kisses of chill
dren, heard their "good nights" and
thanked God that she was blessed, Each
relic was wept over-each was replaced
with fresh tear stains. They asked the
old blue chest no questions. Its relics
might have been voiceless to man, but
to woman and mother each one had
a tale in words as plain as print. They
shed more tears as they bent again over
the poor old dead, and they said to each
other:
"If she had only told us of this how
we would have loved her and sought to
tighten her sorrows"
But she had gone. She had come and
gone as q mystery, and but for the old
blue chest in the corner few would have
cared, and none would have sorrowed.
Detroit Free Press.