The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1882-11-23
THE D O FESTIVAL.
long the DAYS were!

How long the days were!
Day after day he had lain there, weak,
suffering, patient, enduring all things,
and rewarding all care with a look of
tender gratitude, a faint hand-pressure,
now and then a word of thanks.
The accident had been dreadful.
Through the carelessness of a switch
tender a fast train had left the track
and plunged over a high trestle-work.
Thirty people we're killed at once and
at least fifty injured. Among the latter
this man, Judge Seymour, was hurt
worst of all. Others had broken bones
and bruised muscles; some were taken
up ~senseless, and, lingering unconscious
for a day OF two, died without returning
to their senses-a merciful dispensation;
but the physicians in his case pro-
nounced the spine seriously hurt and
feared internal injuries. He might re-
cover, and he might not. Time would
show.
He was a vigorous man, OF middle age.
with a lovely, loving wife and three
children, Just elected Governor of his
native State; full of plans for a career he
meant to make noble and useful. His
reputation was wide and lofty; his per-
sonal friends numerous and warm; ne
had-a moderate fortune and a pleasant
home. What more could life offer him?
Yet here he lay, the victim of o mans
carelessness.
1t seemed to his wife that with him all
she cared for was fading away. Her
children were about her; but they were
young. They leaned on her, and she
had chung to her husband for help to
bear the cares and burdens of living,
till she grew, as a vine grows, weak of
stem, unable to stand alone, PROSTATE if
unaided. Now she was wearing out
with a strain of suspense and anxiety;
trying to keep her face calm and her
hands steady; leaving the bedside only
when flesh and spirit could bear the
stress no longer and to stay would have
been dangerous to her husband and
agony uncomfortable to her.
So it vent on, day after day. Some
times he was better, Or she thought SO;
oftener he was worse. The alterations
of hope and fear tortured her, and,
watching the minute symptoms, the mo-
mentary aspects, the most trivial details,
she lost all power to g~eneralize and COM
prehend the case. She did not see that
he gained nothing in reality, that no day
found him stronger; but that every week
he lost something and suffered some new
pain. But the end came, and to her
came suddenly. She was called from
her troubled sleep to find him uncon-
scious, to see him die, speechless, unrec-
ognizing, blind. Years before, in driv-
ing slowly pasta little country grave
yard, a new monument erected to the
memory of a young man killed by the
caving in of a sand-quarry had caught
her eye. She knew the incident and re-
called the name she saw; but the fence
hid all but the first line of the epitaph,
which ran:
Without one parting word"
1t had touched her deeply at the time
and often since; but now she knew what
it meant. Over and over it rang in her
ear and moved her silent lips as She bur-
led her head in the pillow beside her
dead and longed to be dead, too. But
the children called from without. Life
challenged her even in her despair. They
must not enter. So she rose and went
out to them and told them. They were
children. They could not even know
what death was, and their questions,
their incredulity, their want of grief,
that was Ignorance instead of heartless.
ness, stung her to the quick. She was
not generous or sympathetic enough to
understand them, and for the first time
she felt a fierce Impotence of their pres
ence and sent them all away to the nur-
sery. Then she was quite alone and be-
gan to know it.
But why should 1 describe the dire
experience we have almost all been
through, in some formP What I have
to do with is Mrs. Seymour's life after
the funeral pageant was over, the grave
green, the children taught their sorrow
by those about them and then comforted
out of it into practical forgetfulness.
But Eleanor Seymour did not forget;
time did not comfort her. She felt day
after day more deeply the loss of her
life; she fathomed its meaning; she
knew it past repair; in the language of
Scripture, she ''refused to be comforted.' -
Her children were rosy, careless, happy,
and in health-they had their school and
their comrades; but she had made few
friends in Salem since they went there
to live, at the time she married Mr..
Seymour. She was not a women OF
broad nature, and yet she was intense.
She had all she wanted or needed in her
husbands affection and society-even
the children were secondary to him in
her heart; and, though she had acquaint-
ances in her OWL social sphere and dis
pensed charity as freely as her means
would allow, there was no one now to
whom she could open her heart and fine
therein the relief of ''the grief that
speaks"
She came home from church one dark
November day, had her late dinner, saw
the children safe in their beds, anG
seated herself by the kindled wood fire
in the library to spend her solitary
evening; for the rain peat fiercely now
against the northeast window, and in its
gusty pauses the roaring surf sent its
laundering echo on the wings of the vino
ever through the heart of the town. Fol
this reason of the storm she stayed from
church tonight; and, as she sat staring
into the flicker of the fire, something re-
called to her the proclamation fol
Thanksgiving Day that had been read
from the pulpit that afternoon. Hell
lips smiled with a scorn sadder thar
tears.
"Thanksgiyingr' she murmured. 90
keep Thanksgiving!' and her thought.
went back to all the times she had KEEP
that festival in her life, keptit outward
ly and in spirit, for she was a gooc
woman, and meant to be a grateful one
iIl three months ago. She remembered