Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-08-03

their children a start in the world,
and then when they had grown old
and one was called they felt that the
other would soon follow. In fact,
they promised that to each other.
But the parting came far sooner than
they expected. The young wife fell
i'll. Everything possible was done
for her. The anxious husband de-
voted himself to her care. But in
side of five weeks she was gone. She
turned her face up to him, whispered
that she loved him, smiled and fell
asleep.
That was two years ago, he writes,
but the hurt has never grown less.
She was the only girl he ever had,
the only one he ever will have. He
is restless and unsettled. like a ship
without sails or rudder which has
broken away from its moorings. The
children are the only thing that has
served to anchor him; he has done his
best for them, but wealthy people are
anxious to take them and give them
every advantage, and he is not really
sure but that he is standing in their
light.
He wavers between a dozen i'm
pulses; sometimes the suggestion
comes that he go back to the road
d5dlu' VI " sea, Ut lnIO the IHlCh OIL
the lighting. Again he is a prey to
morbid questionings. May it not be
that his wife's faint smile at their
parting meant that he should keep
the promise they exchanged and seek
to follow her?
Does his little pal" as he used to
call her, still live? That is what
he asks. If so, where is she? How
can he reach her? What is he to do
with the lonely years that stretch be-
fore him? What would she wish him
to do? Was there a subtle meaning
in that farewell smile she gave?
Where and how can he find the an
swer? -r.
The answer? Does it not lie in
himself and in the world around
him? This is a universe of law;
things once started are not left un-
finished. nor do they happen by
/, chance or accident. Was it by chance
that his little pal cana into his
life? She was the steadying and in
spring influence which he needed
Just at that moment, and for which he
was perhaps unconsciously seeking.
And he gave in return some element
of strength or tenderness or under
standing which she required just as
much.
Their association was no hap
hazard coincidence, but a part of the
great orderly scheme of things,
working out of the processes of des-
tiny. And those processes can no
more be interfered with or set aside
than can the progress of the con-
stellations or any other of the eternal
laws.
Somewhere. somewhen. somehow
On
Joined must meet again. AS he is
seeking her, so no doubt is she seek
ing him. But it is idle to try and
force the meeting-as idle as to at
tempt to retard or accelerate the
turning of the tides.
His old reckless wanderlust rises
in him and impels him to go quest
ing into the unknown in search OF
her. But If her gentle spirit could
speak to him, l am sure she would
tell him now to follow the sane and
prosaic path, to rear their children
no stranger, however well-intention-
ed, can fill a fathers place-and to
play the game as it lies, just as she
urged him long ago to quit his Vaga-
bond life and go back to work.
play the game" Tha. is the way
I interpret her farewell smile. If /
is trusting him to do it. Perhaps she
is trying to tell him so; and his un-
settled yearnings and questionings
are the result of her misapprehended
message, as telephone buzzes and
clicks unintelligibly when the con-
nection is faulty. Also. If communi-
cation is ever established with those
we call dead-which now seems very
probable-may it not be that two
such closely attuned souls as these
will be the first to form the medium?
His little pals" mission upon this
plane of existence is finished. He
has still work to do else he would
not be here. He cannot hope to
evade or escape it. He will come back
until the demands of destiny are sat
isfied. But upon some higher plane
she is awaiting him, and their ulti-
mate reunion is as certain as the law
of seedtime and harvest-a reunion
for which the happiness they knew
here was only a foretaste and a
prophecy.