The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1892-08-30
when He Saw Her Lying Dead.

| mOJneT. w nlIe lneTc dTe lIlluS pcO
pie in the world, it follows naturally
that some of them will be mothers
and Deacon Hanson's wife was one Of
them. The deacon was of German
descent-and perhaps some of the com
posure of his nature came from that
lie was stolid sort of man, some peo'
pie said but that was just what Dea'
con Hanson was not.
He was simply a patient man, be-
lieving that God ruled the world, and
that it was an i'll thing to pull against
Providence. Moreover he had in him
wonderful capacity for unselfish and
long-enduring love.
He had married Jane Grey because
he loved her, and he loved her still,
when she was fifty years old, a wiry,
fretful woman, in whose worn and
worried aspect no suggestion of her
sweet youth was left for any other
eyes than his. He looked at her
through the mists of vanished years,
and saw with some second-sight OF
the heart, the roses of long ago on her
cheeks, and the light of other days in
her eyes.
But that was what her son could
not do. He had no memories OF days
older than himself; and ever since he
could remember she had been fretful
and hard to please. Only when he had
been i'll, at times, she had nursed him
so tenderly that he began to find out
the mother side of her nature, and
half-longed to be i'll over again, when
he got well, and his unwonted soft
ness vanished.
He used to envy boys who could 60
to their mothers with all their little
troubles and joys--their failures and
their successes. His mother desired,
indeed, to be informed of his; but she
seemed to him in the first place to
claim his confidence as right,
and then to use it as text for fault
finding. So-instead of trying to
thaw her out with the sunshine of his
love-he shut his heart away from
her, and never spent moment with
her he could possibly avoid. Thus
there grew up between them sort Of
wall, over which she looked at him
sometimes, as he then thought, sui
lenly. He knows now, too late, that
it was with dumb longing in her eyes.
For suddenly she was taken i'll, and
her illness was sharp and short. Her
son was away from home. They sent
for him but when he came it was too
late for her to turn back from the
gate of the other world to speak some
last word for this. He went into the
house, into the well-known room, and
there he saw her lying dead.
"Did she leave any message for
me ?" he asked his father, who sat be-
side the bed, gray with his unspoken
sorrow.
Not exactly. She only cried out,
just as she was going, oh, if Charley
and l could only have been like other
sons and other mothersn And then,
before / could answer her, she was
gone. always knew you didn't I'M
derstand her, Charley; but she loved
you all the same. She never had one
day Of really good health after you
were born, and she suffered so she
couldn't be gay and clipper and
easy-going. But she did love you,
Charley.
And there she lay, dead and the boy
telt that if he had but drawn nearer
to her, and warmed her with his love,
he might have found out her suffer-
ing, and cheered her with his tender
ness, and tasted the sweetness of be-
ing like other sons with other
mOthcrs.' And so knowing, over his
heart there fell the shadow of sor-
row and elf-condemnation which
will not leave him while life shall last.
All, let us be tender and pitiful 10
our own, now, to-day, and not wait
until we see them lying dead
Youths Companion.