Wichita eagle., 1888-02-09

gels about this little one-a host of them
reaching across the night Ike shining
4 Jacobs ladder made of angels
Every child does not know that if you do a
kind or loving act to some person and that
| person dies he or she will become guardian
angel; but so it happens that some children
have about them n glorious white winged
flock. The halo about the sweet head Of a
saint is really tie luminous white wings OF
the guardian angels. so thought the child,
and she tried, oh SO hard, in her shy, childish,
loving ways to win such halo for her own
sweet brows And, oh! can king. Or pauper.
or child ask NOR, than to be wrapped about
by the white wings of this unseen beautiful
host to which a newcomer is often added.
One dreary day when nature was pent
with rain and the wind sobbed in the trees
and all earth waited in the strange mysteri-
GUS interval before the dismal renewal of the
year, when birds called in the bare branches
of the swelling trees and the brooks cried
over the hillside stones, the child came rush
ing in from the woods and threw herself in a
passion Of tears into the mothers limp, I'M
answering arms II cannot play she cried,
'the sun has shut his eyes and all the Hill is
weeping" She put her fair little face down
into her mothers side, burrowing there.
flush, child; it was only the brooks rum
ming down the hill and you have mud upon
your clothes and you must go away and be
cleaned said tie mother. It was like frost
falling on the newly opened star flowers
of IT, heart, a frost that quenched the per-
fume and shriveled their beauty into black
nothing.
One night the white winged host of guar
dian angels, over both mother and child, were
all ia tears You could hear them signing
and the beating of their tears on the window
pane, and now and then a solitary drop
Splashei down the wide chimney and fixed in
the yellow flame. The child and her mother
stood in the darkenIng room two passion
spent figures. Something awful had hap
pened: the child had been disobedient and
the mother was going away from her out OF
the house to leave her alone with the dark
and the beetles in punishment for her evil
deeds, her baby crimes and unconsidered
misdemeanors. the long threat was used at
last, and now she was going off into the
town. down the bleak, bristling, weeping
hill, leaving the child Shut up for the night in
the dark of the great house.
~ will stay here no more" she had said
sternly. ''You are wicked and God does rot
love you, and do not love you" she said,
boldly making herself sponsor for tho AL
mighty.
Don't do it, mamma. You break my
heart. Forgive me, mamma. and take me liz
your arms viii be good, just only forgive
me, mamma. I'm so lonesome; my heart
will break, and I'm so fraid of the dark,
mamma"
T.. 1,.s,, 49, of etc
1Forgive me, mamma" God help and COM
fort the childless mother who ever said no to
that longing cry,
The mother pushed away the clinging hands
and went away from the sound Of The vibrant
little voice in ali it's sweet beseeching. Her
heart was hard. She had not learned how
to forgive and she went out from the forlorn
little creature, saying in her giant strength
and exultant pride, 81 will teach her how to
obey, | will break her spirit for her.
But she did not go away from the house
She Only prets0ded that she had gone. In
the next room she sat listening to the sob
bing of her child, to the cry, Forgive me
mamma, and come back" and then to the
solemn silence that fell upon all the house.
And then in the heart of the night some
thing real stirred in the mothers heart, that
was warm under ell her false doctrines and
ignorant ways and cruel trainings, and for
tie first time the deep meaning Of the cry,
"Only forgive me, mamma" seemed to melt
into her heart.
She went back into the dark room, to the
forlorn little figure by the bleak ard empty
hearth. Her heart ached as her eyes looked
down on the streyed untended locks Of hair
on the bent head. Such lonesome, frozen,
1notionless little heap of poor humanity it
seemed to be-
Il have come back to you," sire moaned.
81 do love you, my child did not mean to
be hard. lido love you"
The gentle head was uplifted with all its
golden glory of curls, and the sad stern eyes
looked upon her like two pale, wintry moons.
at is too late My heart is turned TO
stone,n answered the newly born woman,
looking UP at her Phidias.
The ncttle thickets are still high on the
hill, and no one knows today the way to the
mothers heart, or to the child's. In the
stormy path of life, out in the wide, wild
world, q woman with a heart of stone pur-
sues her way, and the hosts of guardian
angels furl their white wings, and their use
less tears beat down Oh the sad bent head, for
they cannot reach the heart that has been
turned so stonc-Catharine Cole in New Or
leans Picayuue.