The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1891-08-28

interior were but dimly visible by the
glimmer Of the embers which fickered
on the hearth and Redeemed the dark
rafters overhead. The fsherman's nets
were hanging on the wall. Some homely
pots and pans twinkled on a rough shelf
in the corner. Beside a great bed with
long, falling curtains, a mattress was
extended on a couple of old benches on
which five little children were asleep
like cherubs In a nest. By the bedside,
with her forehead pressed against the
counterpart, knelt the children's mother.
She was alone. Outside the cabin the
black ocean, dashed with stormy snow
fakes, moened and murmured, and her
husband was at sea.
From his boyhood he had been a fisher
man. His life, as one may say, had been
a daily fight with the great waters; for
every day the children must be fed, and
every day, rain, wind or tempest, out
went his boat to fish. And while in his
four sailed boat he piled his solitary task
at sea his wife at home patched the sails,
mended the nets, looked to the hooks or
watched the little fire where the fish
soup was boiling. AS 0 as the five
children were asleep she fell upon her
knees and prayed to heaven for her hus-
band In his struggle with the waves and
darkness. And truly such a life as his
was hard. The likeliest place for fish
was a mere speck among the breakers,
not more than twice as large as his own
cabin-a spot obscure. eapricious, chang
ing on the moving desert, and yet which
had to be discovered in the fog and en-
pest of a winter night by sheer skill and
knowledge Of the tides and winds. And
there-whiie the gliding waves ran past
like ezneraAd serpents, and the gulf Of
darkness rolled and tossed, and the
straining rigging groaned as if In terror
there, amid the Icy seas, he thought
of his own Jenny; and Jenny, in her
cottage, thought of him with tears.
She was thinking of him then and
praying. The seagull's harsh and mock
ing cry distressed her, and the roaring
of the pillows on the reef alarmed her
soul. But she was wrapped in thoughts
thoughts of their poverty. Their little
children went barefooted winter and
summer. Wheat bread they never ate,
only bread of barley. Heavens! the
wind roared like the bellows of a forge,
and the seacoast echoed like an anvil.
She wept and trembled. Poor wives
whose husbands are at sea. How terri
Bile to say MY dear ones-father, lover,
brothers, sons-are in the tempesti"
But Jenny was still more unhappy. Her
husband was alone-alone without as
sistance on this bitter night. Her chill
dren were too little to assist him. Poor
motheri Now she says, Il wish they
were grown up to help their father"
Foolish dreaml In years to come, when
they are with their father in the tempest,
she will say, with tears, Il wish they
We're bat children stillr
Jenny took her lantern and her cloak.
at is time," she said to herself, 'sto see
whether he is coming back, whether the
sea is calmer, and whether the light is
burning on the signal mast" She went
out. There was nothing to be seen
barely a streak Of white on the horizon.
1t was raining, the dark, cold rain Of
early morning. No cabin window show
ed a CLEAN of light.
All at once, while peering round her,
her eyes perceived a tumbiedown old
cabin which showed no sign of light or
fire. The door was swinging in the
wind; the wormeaten walls seemed
lcarcely able to support the crazy roof,
on which the wind shook the yellow,
filthy tufts of rotten thatch.
Stay" she cried, 81 am forgetting
the poor widow whom my husband found
the other day alone and i'll. | must see
how she is getting on"
She knocked at the door and listened.
No one answered. Jenny shivered in the
cold sea wind.
'.She is i'll. And her poor children!
She has only two OF them; but she is
very poor, and has no husband"
She knocked again, and called out,
Hey, neighbour" But the cabin was
still silent.
''Heaven" she said, chow sound she
sleeps that it requires SO much TO wake
her."
At the instant the door opened of
itself. She entered. Her lantern illu-
mined the interior Of the dark and silent
cabin, and showed her the water falling
from the ceiling as through the openings
of a sieve. At the end of the room an
awful form was lying-a woman
stretched out motionless, with bare feet
and sightless eyes. Her cold, white arm
hung down among the straw of the pal
let. She was dead. Once a strong and
happy mother, she WAS now only the
specter which remains Of poor humanity
after a long struggle with the world.
Near the bed on which the mother lay
two little children-a boy and a girl
slept together in their cradle and We're
smiling in their dreams. Their mother,
when she fels that she was dying, had
laid her cloak across their feet and
wrapped them in her dress, to keen them
warm when she herself was cold.
How sound they slept In their old, tot
tering cradle, with their calm breath
and quiet little faces II seemed as If
nothing could awake these sleeping Or
phans. Outside the rain beat down in
floods and the sea gave forth a sound
like an alarm bell. Prom the old crew
iced roof, through which blew the gale,
a drop of water fell on the dead face and
ran down 1t like a tear.
What had Jenny been about in the
dead woanan's house. What was she