The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-01-23

his childhood Git has never been print
ed before):
My recollection of the long nights
when l was kept awake by coughing
are only relieved by the thought Of
the tenderness of my nurse n second
mother for my first will not be jeal-
ous). Alison Cunningham She was more
patient that I can suppose of an angel:
hours together h would help and con-
sole me, and 1 remember with partic-
ular distinctnesS how h would lift
me out of bed and take me. rolled in
blankets. TO the window, whence I
might look forth into the blue night,
starred with street lamps, and see
where the gas still burned behind the
windows of other sick rooms. The
sight of the outer world refreshed and
cheered me. and the whole sorrow of
the night was at an end with the ar
rival of the first of that long string of
country carts that. in the dark hours
of the morning, with the neighing of
horses. the cracking of whips, the
shouts of drivers and a hundred other
| wholesome noises, reaked, rolled and
pounded past my window"
Dummy had difficulty in making her
delicate charge eat his meals, as he
had but little appetite. She bought a
picture of a round-faced child dipping
| a spoon into a wooden bowl, and hung
it up in the nursery as a good example.
See his rosy cheeks" she would say:
that is because he is eating his dinner
like a good child" Then she would
entreat. only a wee bit of this beau
tiful bread. Seei 1t is made of the
Finest of the wheat" When the
furniture was sent out to Samoa from
Scotland, among the papers and books
this little picture was found. 1 re-
member Mr.. S~tevenson's pleasure when
he saw it again. and o he murmured.
looking at it, t very finest of the
wheati'
Dummy had strong religious belie1s,
which she instilled into the min of her
young charge, and one strangely
enough, was that novels were wicked
When reading aloud to him she would
explain: This is no novel. We ken:
they're just family stories" She was
reading a particularly exciting one from
Cassels Family Paper, called The Sol
| der of Fortune about the Crimean
a then lately ended, when she
stopped suddenly and exclaimed;
"Hoots. I'm afraid this will turn out
| a regular novel;
That night Louis had a pain in bis
side, and following the doctrine OF
Dummy, cast about in his mind for
the reason. The only crime that could
account for such a state of things was
evidently the novel. The next morning
GC SUIOIlSGd anu SOlilGM MT QloNC1ANNA~
ed his nurse by declaring that he
would have no more of that story
After. that the two would walk down
Princess street and look in at the sta
toners window n gaze deJectedly at
the pictures in succeeding numbers
/ The story haunted him, and years after
he mentioned the name in a magazine
article, when some sympathetic reader
sent him the bound volume of Cassels
/ Family Paper for that year; he re-read
"A Soldier of Fortune" from beginning
to end. and declared it to be a rafting
good story"
When we were visiting Edinburgh
last year, and the name Miss Cunning
ham, was announced by the little Scot
tish maid. l rose n looked with inter
est at the door. A tall, slender, hand
some woman came in, dressed in full
mourning, which she mas always worn
since the death of her laddie-" There
was very little gray in her brown mar;
she carried herself with dignity, anu
spoke with a broad Scottish accent in d
si%ngulariy sweet voice. OF course, she
talked of him; her eyes would fill with
tears, and then again she would laugh
at some amusing memory Of his youth
full days.
TT last time 1 saw him." she said,
"he told me before a room full OF peO-
pie. It's yourself that gave me a pas
Sui LOl liz 0IdAA4dr 0AAA q y ~
Me Master Lou I said. I never put
foot inside a playhouse in my life
Aye, woman d he. but it was the
grand, dramatic way We had of reclt1nS
the hymns" Then, Strengthening her
self UP, she said very seriously: Would
ye like to hear his favorite hymn"
She recited it quietly at first, then
saying. This is the way he preferred
it." began again in broad Scotch, with
a thrill in the voice. with awful pauses,
and an occasional deep whisper. 1 can
imagine the little Louis holding his
breath TO listen.
And so we talked of him, as those
who loved him talk. as though he were
near at hand. In his own beautiful
words, written to console a bereaved
one:
He is not dead, this friend-nOt dead,
But in the path 10 mortals tread,
Got some few trihing steps ahead
And nearer to the end,
So that you. too. once past the bend,
Shall meet again, as face to face, this
friend
Won fancy dead