The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-09-10
Selected Storm.
Waiting.


dare not take you from large and
happy home-circe and doom you to
life of poverty and drudgeTy with me.
Some men do it, know, but ! could
not. 1t would be against every instinct
of my manhood, every principle of my
life. When first felt the sway of this
passion; when first l OWNED the pow
erfu affinity of your soul for mine, /
tried to 90 away; | did 90 away, as you
know; but it was not in nature for love
to keep silent forever, and in that one
weak moment before left l let you
see my heart-and-God help mel
saw yours"
He hid his eyes. He could hurt her
when it was for her ultimate good; but
he could not watch her face grow
whittier and whittier in its pain.
ooh, if you could know how often
/ have wished l had died ere ever l
had brought this trouble into your life
Try to be happy. Try to be joyous
and glad as of old, the simple child-like
woman / first loved, or else l shall
feel criminal indeed. l am going
away now, going away to get well and
strong, that l may work like other men,
and when / have something more to
offer than my miserable self-but no,
that time is too far off. You must be
as free as a bird, Margaret; not even a
word must bind you. We are neither
of us to blame: we did not seek this
best we should part. l know it is best,
and, believe me, it is all for you. Will
you trust me?"
His lips trembled and his breath
came in gasps-the proud man sobs,
as he stood before the woman he loved
and pleaded for her future against his
own. Too well he knew the generous
nature and how ready it was to sacri-
flee, and for that reason forced himself
to be hard. And she? All! God has
made her sex very helpless. Could she
tell him that while you may lift the
latch and loose bird from its cage, you
can not free with word the heart of a
woman; that better life with him in a
hut on the prairie than existence in
another mans palace; that poverty
shared is Samson shorn of his strength,
and work for one you love is the prose
of life set to music. No, she must be
dumb; self-becalmed in the silence and
chill of reserve, while her whole being
was one rebellious protest against the
cruel masculine decree. Separation,
silence, indefinite waiting. These were
the conditions, and she was woman
and loved him, and because of that she
hushed her pain, and framed her lips
into the shadowy semblance of smile
as she took his outstretched hand. 1t
was piteous smile-we see it on the
&c l. ,a,..
first born to battle, the last brave cheer
of heart before it breaks; and the eyes
uplifted to his were strained wide with
that sudden overknowledge of life that
suffering brings. He could not meet
their gaze.
1t was easier to look on the murdered
dead. Had he killed her soul? His
Keeling steps found the door, and he
fled before all courage left him. He
knew he was doing right, but it was so
cruel that it wore the look of wrong.
For long time she stood where he
left her, staring at a small black speck
in the wall-papering above the mantel-
was it fly or break in the paper?
But when she reached her room and
put out the light she took the slender
right hand that ached yet from the last
fierce wrench, and covered it with tears
and kisses-kisses that fell softly now,
as on the dead, and now wildly, pas
sionately, as we press the lips of the
living. When we are waiting for a
dream to come true or dear wish to
be fulfilled we first count by days, then
by weeks, by months and twelve
months, until at last, disciplined by
much patient habit of hoping and re-
hoping, "neXt year seems as close as
our childish tomorrow"
So Margaret Cancelled the days after
awhile, but it took her long, as it does
us all, to realize that time enacts his
same number of minutes to the
hour and seconds to the minute whether
we be
Mad with joy or dumb with woe.
She worked constantly and steadily
she was poor as he was-and laughed
and sang at her tasks sometimes, fol
the heart does not give up its habits
any more readily than the mind, but
she felt that something had slipped
away; something that had made the
skies deeper blue and the grass q
richer green. The bright tints with
which youth paints the world had dried
on the brush, and she wist not how tC
mix the colors anew. 1t is when We
are glad that we want the day, the
blaze of light, the sunshine; but wher
pain-struck and weary, we ask only fol-
some place in which to hide, some
where where the soul can slip for {
space the restraints of the body anC
stand face to face with itself.
Long ago, in compassionate pre-
knowledge of this, God said: Gle
there be night as well as day." ant
since then, into the sympathetic ear Of
the dark, whose Thousand eyes " are
sightless, have been sobbed the secrets
of all the restless and grief-laden Of
earth; and Margaret, like the rest
carried her sorrows there and wept he
tears in the safe cover of its gloom.
Sometimes in the long years that fol
lowed letter would come, and it was
always kind, but it never said, an
coming" and those were the words sh'