River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-04-13
Worn
Hands
By JULIA NELLY FINCH

HOW bravely she had stood her
hard and weariful life, only the
good God knew, for she told none, not
even Him.
Day in and day out she had labored,
striving to keep the tiny home CHEEKY
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,
STRAIGHTFORWARD chair beside the
kitchen table, and let herself cry, cry,
cry, TO ner souls easing and her
hearts relief.
Sobbing as do little children, she
lay prone upon the kitchen table, ner
sleeve (poor, mended calico sleeye),
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-
ton for her dearly beloved little ones.
Judith's face, proud, inperious even IN
it's babyish outlines. flashed before
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, rs buoyant as her own used to
be. Used! Abused!
Herbert, the dreamer the incipient
poet. embryo musician; the little lad
who so idolized his mother. Marion,
dear, dimpled darling, whose head es
it lay upon her breast so comfortefl
and consoled her sick heart-her dear,
dear children!
"The more | love them the more I
suffer. They are so beautiful, SO
bright, and I can barely keep them
alive, labor as l 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?
Will you think less of her when l
tell you?
The sight of her poor, SCARED and
ruined hands Just that and nothing
more How pearl-fair they once were;
how dainty, how fine of finger, rose
pink of palm. how jewel-like of cres-
cent nail, when first she laid them in
Johns great, strong grasp and heard
his whisper: MY wife; my dear, dear
wife,"
Her heart swe!led almost to burst
ing.
John! John! If you but knew!
If it were given the dead to see, 20
feel-ah, John, am so tired. You've
been gone so long! l am so tired! It
is so hopeless a struggled"
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! l loved
to let both mine lie in one of yours. -
Lifting her poor, swollen face, she
gazed at those hands outstretched he
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 budding 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.
recalled the first time she had sat uI
after Herberts birth.
She remembered, with shudderine
sighs, just the look of her luxurious
room-its softly tinted walls, the beau
tiful pictures John had hung there
that her dreaming eyes might drink
in their loneliness and bring to her babe
unborn sense of beauty, a perception
OF it. She saw herself, young, pa
thetically lovely beneath the shadow
of her hard travail, clothed in softly
trailing garments, her rich and
abundant hair hanging in beautiful
plaits far below her waist, and me
chemically she put up her hand tC
smooth back a stray tendril, and
smiled bitterly as the broken flesh
caught and pulled to pain the poor
gray tress that had fallen.