Connecticut western news., 1891-09-17
JENNY.

It was night. The cabin, poor but warm and cozy, was full of half twi- light, through which the objects of the interior were but dimly visible by the glimmer of the embers which fickered on the hearth and reddened the dark rafters overhead. The fisherman's nets were hanging on the wall. Some homely pots and pans twinkled on a rough shelf in the corner. Beside great bed with long, falling curtains, a mattress was extended on couple of old benches on which five little children were asleep like cherubs in nest. By the bedside, with her forehead pressed against the counterpane, knelt the children's mother She was alone. Outside the cabin the black ocean, dashed with stormy snow flakes, moaned and murmured, and her husband was at sea.
 From his boyhood he had been 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
  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 soon 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 life as his was hard. The ikeliest place for fish was mere speck among the breakers, not more than twice as large as his own cabin-a spot obscure, capricious, chang ing on the moving desert, and yet which had to be discovered in the fog and tenn pest of 8 winter night by sheer skill and knowledge of the tides and winds. And there-while the gliding waves ran past like emerald 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 seagulrs 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 forge, and the seacoast echoed like an anvil She wept and trembled. Poor wives whose husbands are at seal How terri ble to say, My dear ones-father, lover, brothers, sons-are in the tempest!' But Jenny was still more unhappy. Her husband was alone-alone without as- sistance on this bitter night. Her chil dren were too little to assist him. Poor mother! Now she says, II wish they were grown up to help their father!' Foolish dream! In years to come, when they are with their father in the tempest, she will say, with tears, 'I wish they were but children stillr'
 
 Jenny took her lantern and her cloak. ''It is time," she said to herself, ito 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 streak of white on the horizon. It was raining, the dark, cold rain of early morning. No cabin window show ed gleam of light. r-
 All at once, while peering round her, her eyes perceived a tumbledown old cabin which showed no sign of light or fire. The door was swinging in the wind; the wormeaten walls seemed scarcely able to support the crazy roof, on which the wind shook the yellow, filthy tufts of rotten thatch.
 Stay" she cried, II am forgetting the poor widow whom my husband found the other day alone and ill. I must see how she is getting on."
 She knocked at the door and listened. No one answeeed. 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.
 "HeavenW she said, Chow sound she sleeps that it requires so much to wake hsrr'
 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 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 strong and | happy mother, she was now only the specter which remains of poor humanity after long struggle with the world. Near the bed on which the mother lay two little children-a boy and girl slept together in their cradle and were smiling in their dreams. Their mother, when she felt that she was dying, had laid her cloak across their feet and wrapped them in her dress, to keep 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! It seemed as ii nothing could awake these sleeping or phans. Outside the rain beat down in floods and the sea gave forth sound like an alarm bell. From the old crev iced roor, through which blew the gale l drop of water fell on the dead face ant ran down it like tear.
 1 What had Jenny been about in tn dead woman's house? What was sh carrying off beneath her cloak? Why Wa her heart beating? Why did she hastel with such trembling steps to her owl cabin without daring to look back
 What did she hide in her own bed be ! hind the curtain? What had she beel
 stealing2