Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1900-06-08
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|, P A r A D | S E Z
By Eloise Jane Hufft. \
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by Permission)
THE young mother had been into the
dim shadows where Death and
Life struggle, and win or lose, just at
the happiest, sweetest, fullest hour
which had been hers, when love took
on a new and tender unselfshness,
when its lifting, dancing measures
broke into the deep melody of an an
them, and, as she drifte6 back into the
light again, thus it was that she half
wished and half prayed in her still
childish way that Death would ne 'er
take this woman-child of hers as long
as Life held Happiness-that love of
Life should be talisman to stay the
hand of DeaG.
Thrice in the woman's threescore
years Death had come to WOO her from
his brother Life out into the far be-
yond, that unknown land, that here
after which he called Paradise, and of
which he spoke with wondrous elo-
quence and great witchery.
When first he came it was just at the
dawn of day, just as the east was flush
ing in the faint rays of the rising sun
and the birds twittered in the trees;
,shod with silence he glided through the
quiet halls and still hushed household.
among the watchers with wet faces and
terror-touched eyes. All unseen.
though they looked for his coming, he
went in the gray of the spring morn
ing into the sweet sanctity of the girls
chamber. Pausing on the threshold,
as if 10th to enter an unbidden guest,
he noted all it's whiteness and its dainty
simplicity; noted, too, on the muslin
draped dressing table tiny silver
frame, with the pictured face OF
youth, an earnest, grave face; and
Death smiled at the story it told. But
he went to the bed where she lay as one
asleep. until she seemed to be already
Deaths own. He stood beside her and
looked with sad eyes and cold, impas-
,sive brow at the child who was his for
the taking, and it was in tenderness
and. with love and pity surprising the
human that he gazed on the fair young
face, like an untouched lily leaf, the
unwritten brow, the sweet childish
mouth, upon which the kisses of love
had left neither song nor sigh, the slen-
der little hands, so weak and fragile,
and he stopped and touched her with
his pulseless fingers as he said: MY
child, you are ready, you are willing to
come with me? for / am your friend,
and will give you eternal calm and
peace, gift which human love and care
cannot bestow. / will take you to a
Hand where you will never lose your
youth; / will save you from Life. Look
into the faces Of the aged, my little
maid, and read there of all that Life
writes upon faces once as fresh and fair
as yours; all that love entails; all that
lengthened years give to those who
wait too long for me; the fever that is
ambition; the delirium that is love; the
chill that is regret; the ceaseless an
guish of sorrow and disappointment
that dims the eyes fixed upon the things
of this world"
His voice had almost the wooing and
the pleading of lover, as he saw in her
awakened eyes the cloudless, un-
troubled soul of child.
"From all this will save you. Come
with me now before Life has taught
you to yearn for me, for / come not at
your call, however sorrowing and
loud"
The girl gazed upon him with great
wonder in her gentle, dove-like eyes;
she quietly unclasped his hold and laid
her fingers caressngly upon some faded
roses on the bed beside her, and she
said, as one repeats words of foreign
tongue, all unlearned in their meaning:
"Regret, sorrow, disappointment
what are these?"
death went on: "Come, my child
come with me TO Paradise, to the land
where all is serenity, all is JOY and con-
tent; where the days are all one as an
other in their changeless. tranquil hap
piness." And then, as Death became
the more imperative, as he again
touched her with his icy fingers, she
looked across the room until she met
the pictured face, and omething like
frmness gathered and settled upon her
childish features. "That is not Para.
disc of which you tell me-" Then she
hesitated, but, looking straight and
direct into the close, stern face OF
Death, little faint flush creeping into
her cheeks and sweet. unafraid WON
anliness growing upon her as she
spoke: "That is not Paradise. Para
disc is here, because John is here"
And Death went his way with empty
arms, and when she walked the watch
ers said that she wandered, still sh,
was feyerish and distraught, although
her eyes were placid and clear and hei