The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-02-24


Glow dared you to walk on the flower
beds, and why are your hands so muddy?"
said the mother bending over the sweet
| flushed face, aud examining those two
palms with Their shadowy seamings of fate
and their warm, sweet holows that any
mother should have longed to kiss
ooh, mamma, / was only making a lit
tie cemetery to bury the dead roses IN. and
l said, Now | lay me- over every one, y
answered the child anxiously, looking with
her pure innocent gaze into the depths Of
the others soul; and her sweet, red mouth
trembled like two rose petals stirred by a
kiss. But the mother did not understand
and was abashed that she did not, sending
the child away from her in silence And
the child yandered away, from the sunny
slopes of mothers love, and ON out into
the lonesome wilds of Siberian night of
| darkness where her little heart began to
freeze, and where there were DO stars Of
promise in the sky. The white winged
host that watched her sleeping pressed
closer to her TO warm the freezing heart,
and ward off with gentle wings the evils
that threatened to stain her pure soul
There were many guardian angels about
this little oBe--a host Of them reaching
across the night like shining Jacobs
ladder made of angels
Every child does not know that if you
do kind or loving act to some person and
that person dies he or she will become a
guardian angel; but it so happens that
some children have about them glorious
white winged flock. The halo about the
sweet head Of saint is really the lumi-
nous 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
more than to be wrapped about by the
white wings of this unseen beautiful host
to which newcomer is often added.
One dreary day when nature was pent
" it'll rain and the wind sobbed in the trees
and all earth waited in the strange myster-
icus interval before the dismal renewal of
the year, when the birds called in the bare
branches of the swelling trees and the
brooks cried over the hillside stones, the
eli lid came rushing in from the woods and
threw herself in passion of tears into the
mothers limp, unanswering arms. Il
cannot play, she cried, ''the sun has shut
his eyes and all the hin is weeping" She
put her fair little face down into her
mothers side, burr0wing there.
flush. child; it was only the brooks
running down the hin and you have mud
upon your clothes and you must go away
and be cleaned, y said the mother. 1t was
like frost falling on the newly opened
star flowers OF tie heart, frost that
quenched the perfume and shriveled their
beauty into black nothing.
One night the white winged host of guar
dian angels, over both mother and child,
were all in tears Yon could hear them
the window pane, aud now aud then
solitary drop splasIled down the wide
chimney and fixed in the yellow flame.
The child and her mother stood i'll the
darkening room two passion spent figures.
Something awful had happened; 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 mis-
derneanors The long thread was used
at last, and now she was going of into the
town, down the bleak. bristiing, weeping
hill, leaving the child shut up for the
night in the dark Of the great house.
II will stay here no more she had said
sternly. '.You are wicked and God does
not love you, and do not love you, she
said. boldly making herself sponsor for
the Almighty.
ssDon't do 1t, mamma You break my
heart. Forgive me, mamma, and take me
in your arms. will be good, just only
forgive me, mamma. I'm so lonesome;
my heart will break, and I'm so fraid of
the dark, mamma"
II was a plant TO touch heart OF stone.
"Forgive me, mammal. God help and
comfort the childless mother who ever said
no to that longing cry
The mother pushed away the elinging
hands and went away from the sound of
the vibrant little voice in all its sweet be-
seeching. 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,
II will teach her how to obey, will break
her spirit for her.
But she did not go away from the house.
She only only pretended that she had gone.
In the next room she was listening to the
sobbing 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 chen in the heart of the night a
something real stirred in the mothers
heart. that was warm under all her false
doctrines and ignorant ways and cruel
trainings, and for the first time the deep
meaning of the cry, "0nly forgive me,
mamma, +" seemed to melt into her heart.
She went back into the dark room, to
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