Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1885-12-24
JOSEPH QOLDTNqiS
CHRTSTMAS.

tANt
LET was very strange. thoueht old
~ Joseph Golding, that he couldn't
! be master of his own mind. He
bad lived great many, years, and
neither remorse- nor memory had ever
been in the habit of disturbing him
but nowit seemed to bin as if the very
foundations of his life were breaking
up. He was well through with bis days
work-he had dined comfortably he
sat la an easy chair I'm n luxurious
drawing room, whose crimson hang
ings shut out the still cold or the De-
cember afternoon-he had nothing TO
do tut enjoy himself. Mr.. Golding
liked to enjoy himself at this season as
much as others did, for it was Christ
mas Eve. What though he was In the
habit Of spending 1t solitarily 2-he
liked solitude.
For many years on Christmas Eye he
had sat balancing in his mind the great
accounts presented i'm his ledgers, the
accumuldting Golfers at bis bankers,
the stl okes OF business he would make
In future. Not SO now. The year was
drawing to close some insrnding
voice kept whispering that ia like man-
ner so was his career. He could not
put it from him, try as he would. The
voice reminded him of coming time
when his life's work would be all done
even as his days work was all done
now-when he would be ready to sit
down in the evening and look over the
balance sheet OF his deeds, good and
evil. Curiously the old days came
trooping in slow procession before him.
And he had been able to forget them
for so very long
HIS dead wife. He had not loved
her much when she was with him, but
how vivid was his memory of her now
He could see her moving round the
house, noiseless as shadow, never in
truding ON him after be had once or
twice repulsed her gruffly, but going on
her own meek, still ways. with her
face growing whittier every day. He
began to understand, as he looked back,
why her strength had failed and she
had been ready, when her baby came,
to float out on the tide and let it drift
her into Gods haven. She had had
enough to eat and drink, but he saw
now that he had left her heart TO
starve. Heaven what hard man he
had been He seemed to see her white,
still face, as he looked at it the last
time, with the dumb reproach frozen
on it /; the eyes that would meyer plead
vanity any more, closed for ever.
He recalled how passionately the
three-days-old baby had cried i'm anoth-
er room just at that moment, moving
all the people gathered together for the
funeral with thrill of pity for the poor
little motherless morsel. She sOds a
passionate, willful baby, al through her
baby hood; he remembered that. She
wanted-missed without knowing what
the luck was-the love and sustenanc0
which her mother would have given
her, and protested against fate with all
the might of her infant lungs. But as
soon as she grew old enough to under
stand how useless it was, she had grown
quiet, too just like her mother. He
recalled Der, all through her girlhood, "a
shy, still girl, always obedient and SUBJ
missive, but never drawing very near
him. Why ? Because he would have
repulsed her as.he repulsed her mother.
He could see it now. It was very
strange these facts should come back
to him to-day, and their naked truth
with them. He had been cold, hard.
ungenial man, without sympathy for
any one human being; absorbed utterly
in the pursuit of money making. And
so the child, Amy. had grown up With
out him.
But suddenly, when she waseighteen,
the old passionate spirit that had made
her cry so when a baby must ashave
awakened again, he thought, !; for she
fell in love then, and wished to marry.
To marry in defiance of hie wishes.
He remembered her standing proudly
before him after one of their quarrels,
where he had been harsh and bitter, and
abusive of the man she wanted to call
husband. She had borne in silence re-
proach of herself; but not of him who
had become to her as her best exist
ence. Her words cams back to the old
man now.