The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1908-12-18
had heard could ever laugh again, sur.

ly.
She went down stairs into the lighted
hall with a weight OF misery on her
heart. Her mother and father seemed
suddenly like aliens, with whom she
a nothing in common.
1t was plain to see that of all the
household she was the only one that
knew this dreadful thing, and suddenly.
the air n her radiant young mother
Was smiling beside him, she realized
that she could not tell them. she could
not. Why, once when her ath was
playing with her her head had come
Violently in contact with the arm of his
and half r~eproaches. His oh! have 1
hurt my little girl?" had beer more
soothing than the arnica that promptly
made 1ts appearance. How could she
hurt him now. and mothers! Once a
long time father had been
very Ill III a heard mother crying
in h night, very softly, and she had
not gotten UP and gone to her because
OF a strange soul shyness that had fall
en- upon her. but her baby heart had
and now was h to make mother cry
axain. They are so happy" Sarah
tell them, I can't!"
There was q big bowl of holly on the
dining table. Sarah tried to keep her
eyes from 1t. She was a silent little
thing, at her happiest-one of those
quantity good children whose samplers.
had h lived a hundred years before,
would have pointed to with pride. Her
father and mother adored her, but the
secret soul Of a child is sometimes too
hidden for love itself to ind.
The fact that Sarah ate her baked
apple and bread and butter sandwich In
silence was not uncommon. They had
no knowledge of the truth that Sarah
was shielding them, protecting them.
even from herself.
For q wonder there was little talk of
Christmas at the table that night.
Father and mother were going to q
theater party. it appeared, and Hannah
was to put Sarah to bed and wait up
And she'll tell you how Santa Claus
comes to little girls in Ireland" her
mother said as h kissed Sarah good
by. Just think, Honey, at this time
tomorrow night your stocking will be
hung UP and somebody will be COM
ing quick. quick all the way from the
North pole. Think Of it when you go
to sleep tonight" And beneath this
torture Sarah had managed to smile.
Her mother mustn't know-not tonight,
hearted. Perhaps she would find out
at the theater. Perhaps when she went
there all the lights would be out, and
when her father asked what the matter
was some one would turn to him and
say Haven't you heard?" and then tho
blight would fall on them.
Sarah had been to the theater once.
She tried to think of 1t when she lay at
last in her little. white bed; tried to
think of the fairies hannah had told
her about that danced like white light
on the bog (she had successfully ma
neuvered to keep Christmas from the
conversation, much to the honest hand
maids surprised. but the effort was
hopeless. Oh. IL 1t only hadn't been
true. II 1t only were not true. sud
denly an inspiration seized her. Not
to doubt Emerson's word (that pos
sibility never remotely occurred to her),
but to clutch the mir hope that he
might nave been mistaken. That he,
even he. might have. been misied by
false reports. and there was a way to
find out, a certain way.
She made her way cautiosly from her
bed to the threshold. Yes. Hannah
was asleep in the chair by the fre and
here on her desk was the pencil and the
letter paper with a little boy holding a
bouquet at the top. She carried them
with sublime caution past Hannah's
very back. tiptoed through the chilly
hall to the stairs and down them to
the library. her night gown crumpled
up In n cold hand.
There was a low light in the library,
but for all that she was horribly afraid
and lonesome, and the room seemed
strangely unfamiliar and desolate. She
sobbed a little to herself as che wrote
her letter, a pathetic little figure In the
shadowy room. She realized when aft
er INFINITE labor 1t was finished hat it
scarcely expressed the heart breaking
desire she felt.