Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-05-05
DIED OF A BROKEN HEART.

a son-a little, large headed boy Of nerv-
GUS intensity, with eyes of startling won
der, and long curling eylashes, which start
ed, like his fawn-hke eyes, with quick ap
prehension and timidity-a boy who played
with all intensity, who kept doing some
thing all the DAY long, without the power
to rest, walked off 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 his heart was too rapid
In his little narrow chest, where every rib
could be counted against his tender flesh
and skin. In the morning he was awake
at earliest light at evening his tired ma
ture yielded to the deep sleep of exhaus-
ton. His mother feared she could never
raise him to be a man. His father thought
he was too long becoming q man in gravity,
sobriety and formal obedience.
"What ais my son ?" the father sternly
asked. &c He is rattle-headed and without
stability. l fear for him. Do you chastise
him enough? Spare not the rod lest he
grow beyond you and your rule.
Alas p exclaimed the mother, " he has
his little world we cannot see perhaps
He is growing and sensitive. The doctor
says we must not push him at his studies,
but let him play all he can, till his frame
is equal to MS brain.
The father shook his head and spoke
sternly to the boy, and feared he was going
to give them all trouble growing up SO sell
dom nodded and unrestrained.
Ali day the little boy was doing some
thing, carrying the cat by the tail, carrying
the dog under his arm, making pictures on
paper, of engines and steamboats, and bel
lows.
"He viii be an artist, said his mother
hopefully.
''He viii 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 Sc
verify The boy ran to his mother and
asked her protection from his fathers sus-
pscting eye. The father feared his wife
WAS spelling the son with mistaken gsner.
osity and allowance At times the fathers
habitual suspicion broke away like the
cioads above hard. human Britain, and he
laid his rigorous books of theology down
to take his boy walking. and they grew a
little nearer. Then again the father OBJ.
served some volUptuous tendency in the
son which started his fears anew; some
taste for worldly. passing modes and joys.
sWife, he said, 'do you ever give our
boy money ?"
ga little" she said &c a few pennies TO
buy drawing materials and cOlors he will
be an artist | think.
money" exclaimed the sire, sis the
root of every evil. You had better give
him fire or poison. He will become wild,
ruined spendthrift.
The idea that his wife gave the child
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 in
dulge her child at the expense of his soul.
One morning. thinking of such things
the father lay awake in bed, and gentle
noise disturbed him. The sun was up,
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 towards his fathers bed.
He glanced sharply toward 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.
"Ha I" thought the father. "My son
awake, and initiating the bad example of
my wife, who often, perhaps, searches I'M
authorized there !"
As he said this dreadful idea crossed
his mind. That son, spoiled by the moth.
er's indulgence, already corrupted by spend
ing money, was thief-a thief while yet a
CHILD He rose in bed and spoke in voice
of thunder
-
Horror froze the boy he dropped from
the chair like a cat, and was into his own
bed 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 hayward son, now gliding
into ruin. 1t must be done, hard though
it should be. He awoke his wife, and, sup
pressing her replies with an iron will, re-
lased the story of her depraved child.
Hencsforth, he said, 81 must be the
magistrate and mother, instead of you
Robert, CONS, dress yourself I"
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 il agony and
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 con-
fess yet dumb as Isaac upon the altar be-
meath his fathers knife, the shrink
ing child received his hard chastise.
ment. Carried back, all trembling as with
a chill of death. to the house of mourning
the little boy was laid in his bed. still
frozen tight of speech and only the ONT
ment of q mothers tears fell upon his tor
tured back and famine-narrowed shoulders
but his large eyes turned to a 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
wickedness, and turning from repentance.
He sat by his side all that afternoon de-
manding his boy to confess and save them
both the pain of another chastisement
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 and anon from
those suffering. lips. Neither man nor
woman slept. At early day the anguished
father felt that the stern punishment must
be melted out again unless his boy spoke
and repented. He rose and passed into
the chamber where the son lay in his lowly
bed, all strewn with his little drawings,