The Forrest City times., 1897-07-09
"Wf-c " '" I asked.

~'aas Aho hOt R0I1S CuTetnR Hn0
 swearing because his money was not
 sent last month, and this morning he
 went over to Crawford and got drunk
 He was coming home again, when he
 stumbled somehow and fell under a hay
 cart. He's badly hurt. 1 think the wheels went over his breast. Isuppose,
 bad as he is, we'll have to nurse him" !"
 And bad as he was, tyrant, tormentor
 and traitor, the new patient thus | thrown upon my hands was nursed as | tenderly as if he had been both loving
 and beloved. Out of her heavy despond-
 ency. throwing self aside. Mrs. Raynor
 developed her charitable. forgiving
 nature in the weeks of illness that fol- lowed her husbands injuries. fatal from
 the first. l believe she would have kept
 him in life if by any self-sacrifice it had been possible, but she could only make smoother the passage to the grove. 1 had thought her own tenure of life but frail, but in her devotion she grew | stronger. She gained sleep by actual | physical exhaustion, and calmness by
 the consciousness of duty performed.
 Susan, by my advice, provided food that
 was nourishing in small quantities, and as the injured man passed toward the
 portals of eternity, we kept his wife from throwing her own life away by
 our united efforts.
 I would like, for humanity's sake, 10
 write that the reprobate reformed, or
 even showed common gratitude for the care lavished upon him, but he died as
 he had lived, sinking into stupor for | days before the end came, and never, Susan assured me, bestowing one word | of thanks upon his gentle, tender nurse. It was a small funeral cortege that left Fern Cottage to take the remains
 of John Raynor to his New York home l insisted upon escorting the widow, | and left her with an aunt, who was sym
 pathizing and kind, but evidently spoke from her heart when she sand to me: Thank the Lord, he is dead this | time!"
 l scarcely expected Fern Cottage to | be occupied soon again, but Mrs. Ray nor returned in few weeks, working again busily, for her boy, she told me, content to bear some further separa-
 tion, as he was gaining greatly by the | German treatment. But the desolate
 yearning was gone from the large, dark | eyes, and health came back slowly in
 the winter months, when my advice
 was followed, and Susan guarded my patient against overwork. The piano ceased to wall and sob, and the slendes | fingers found tasks in weaving gladdea strains.
 A year passed, and one evening, just
 before the Christmas time, I opened
 the cottage door. Upon my startled
 ears fell the sounds of song Never had
 I heard Mrs. Raynor's rich, melodious voice in song before, and l paused, ss-
 tonished. as Susan whispered: Her boy is coming home for Christ-
 mas. Mir. Duchesne is bringing him.
 and we expect them any day. And
 Harold is perfectly cured"
 did not go in. Such joy as that felt should have no witness.
 They came, these eagerly expected | travellers, just before the Christmas bells rang out their joyful peals. Ths slender, handsome boy had his mothers face. and was evidently cured and on
 the way to noble manhood.
 And of his companion can only say that I have no truer or more valued friend than Frank Duchcsne. who
 comes every summer with his beautiful
 wife and pretty children to spend the hot months at Fern Cottage.-N. r.
 Ledger.