Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-04-14
Work
 Hands
By JULIA NEELY FINCH

&OOQ S3OQ KucW, 1OC sue LOlO uOue, not even Him!
 Day in and day out she had labored, striving to keep the tiny home cheery and neat; washing. indefatigably, the rosy faces about her and the little moist and sticky palms whose light est touch brought comfort to her hurt heart.
 Day in and day out, in and out about the house she went on tireless feet; cooking, scrubbing, cleaning, straight ening numberless times each day the disorder children, the best of them, make; and hers were good children; she knew that! And the little house showed her brave effort: clear and shining each tiny pane; spotless the bare floors; pure and white the poor cloth that bespread the tottering table, and well-cooked and decently served the poor food to which she and her little ones must sit down. But somehow, to-day her ooz- ing courage had seemed all at once gone; her heroic heart grew sick and Quailed within her. Being alone, for a wonder, she sank down into the hard, straight backed chair beside the kitchen table, and let herself cry, cry, cry, to her souls easing and her hearts relief.
 Sobbing as do little children, she lay prone upon the kitchen table, her sleeve (poor, mended calico sleeve), wet with the flowing tears.
 Her life, so hard, so .monotonous, so lacking in lavish comforts, passed be- fore her; her pride and longing ambi- | tion for her dearly beloved little ones. Judith's face, proud, inperious even in its babyish outlines, flashed before l her; she saw the scarlet scorn of the velvet lips, the soft shadow of the long lashes on the rounded cheek, the | proud set of the childish head. the walk, as buoyant as her own used to be. Used! Ah-used! Herbert, the dreamer, the incipient poet, embryo musician; the little lad who so idolized his mother. Marion, dear, dimpled darling, whose head as /, 1t lay upon her breast so comforte,l and consoled her sick heart--her dear dear children!
 'The more I love them the more I suffer. They are so beautiful. 60 bright, and I can barely keep them alive, labor as I may. God be merci- full to mel"
 And what had brought this ava lanche upon her, that had swept her from her feet, had overwhelmed and robbed her of every atom of cour- age? l Will you think less of her when tell you?
 The sight of her poor. scared and ruined hands. Just that and nothine more How pearl.fair they once were; how dainty, how fine of finger, rose pink of palm how sjevel-lika oftores. cent nail, when first she laid them ir Johns great, strong grasp and heard his whisper: My wife; my dear, dear wife!"
 Her heart swelled almost to burst. ing.
 John! John! If you but knew! If it were given the dead to see, to feel-ah, John, I am so tired. You've been gone so long! I am so tired! II is so hopeless a struggle!"
 Weakly she added, and scorned her self for the speech:
 "And my hands hurt me so; they hurt me so! If you could just hold them once kind, kind hands! I loved to let bot mine lie in one of yours. '
 Lifting her poor. swollen face, she ' gazed at those hands outstretched be- fore her on the pine table. How dark and dingy the nails. and at the cor ners the flesh was split and black ened by rough usage; the knuckles swollen, distorted; the palms excori- ated, ugly; the outer skin lying in great huddHng wrinkles.
 My poor hands!" She set her lips upon the one uppermost, and poored and pitied it as mothers do the hurt places little children bring to them for comforting.
 Sitting there in the silent house. she recalled the first time she had sat up after Herbert's birth.
 She remembered. with shudderins signs, just the look of her luxurious room-its softly tinted walls. the beau tiful pictures John had hung there that her dreaming eyes might drinl in their lOveliness and bring to her bab' unborn a sense of beauty. perception of it. She saw herself. young. pa thetically lovely beneath the shadow of her hard travail, clothed in softly trailing garments, her rich ant abundant hair hanging in beautiful , plaits far below her waist, and me chanically she put up her hand t' smooth back a stray tendril, ah' cmiled bitterly as the broken fes. ! caught and pulled to pain the poo 1 gray tress that had fallen
 She felt the richnsss of the cus!i toned chairs which held her; she say the glowing coals by which sh dreamed; the play and leap of tn blaze upon the child's white garments held upon her hollowed arm Tn subtle scent of violets stole upon her she saw the bold baby brow; the va
 the fine. fair hair curved from it
 pearly and veined surface. The baby
 lips made a sibilant sound as
 sighed and dreamed of her breas