Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-02-16
Take Care OF Mother.
Hdrper'S Bdzdr.

We stood, with hushed breath and SEN
ses strained, to catch those last words so
precious always from the lips of the dying
1t was not brave youth, stricken in his
prime, whose heart. in the supreme mo-
mcnt, turned away from the shadow of the
dark valley, on the confines of which his
feet fingered, towards the mother he loved
passing well; nor was it maiden fair, who,
leaving her young life, still clung to earth
ly loves and to the gentle being, who,
bearing that holest of ties. wept over her
dying child, as from palid lips, and with
the last qulvering sigh, were uttered the
words, Take care of mother" There
were no raven locks, nor golden, clinging
with death dew to the polished brow of
the one we watched so anxiously; no
young life pulse was being suddenly and
untimely sllled. An aged man lay there,
with withered cheek and furrowed brow.
His eyes were dim and uncertain, and his
limbs were pased ere they had been
touched by the chils Of death. He had
run his course. full three score years and
ten, drawing nigh upon those days of
which it IS said that strength shall become
"but labor and Sorrow and now, with
the breath of the summer time around him =,
and amid the many things, animate and
inanimate, which all of these years he had
loved and tended, he was dying.
Around his bedside we stood, his chill
dren to the third generation, sorrowing
alike, for he had been at once parent, COM
panion and friend to each and all; and
though we had seen his locks silver over,
and those furrows 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 of earth,
he held her hand for the last time. Silence
tell upon the scene-silence so deep that
the watcher nearest to him bent over the
pulse had ceased to throb, when suddenly
the eyes, dim IN death, assumed an un-
wonted brilliancy. as they opened upon
the fearful circle around him, the faint
clasp upon the hand he held grew firmer,
and he spoke: Take care of mother" p"
Ere the sound of the words had died away,
the spirit that had prompted their uterance
had fed. 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 MIN in the days of long ago, "when
they were fast acquaint," nor yet one of
the fond names his love gave her in after
Years, but that most sacred one of all,
which when he numbered around her their
children and their grandchildren, and when
she seemed farest in his eyes, he had
loved to give her-"Mother."
AS it is true that great men. in dying,
have sometimes uttered sentences or words
memorable as giving key to the lives and
characters which have won the respect or
admiration of their fellow beings, so is it
that others, equally great in their true and
unassuming natures, give to those they
love a 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 conceive the
sacredness of the charge he gave to us in
his dying words-"Take care of mother ."