The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1922-09-02

| mountains, frecked brown-legged bit
of a boy, always singing some little
| tune of his own as he drove the COWS
down into the green places in the
! morning and called them home in the
evening.
"Once he came shyly to the re-
fectory garden while the hill people
were receiving their daily ration of
bread for the love of God. Seeing
the child look wistfully for moment
at the Novicemaster, that Father ask
ed a poor woman about the boy, and
from her we cleaned our first infor-
nation of David.
1--WE had supposed him to be the
| carefree child of a truck farmer a
boy of the people, singing because
he had never known biting sorrow,
because blessed childhood had not in
him been blighted. But not so David;
he lived-or rather, existed-in the
great house over the hill, with it's
| acres of rich woodland spreading like
a fan down the river below
His father for there was no one
else) had had a stormy career, So
| cially and-er-"
! "Morally?" suggested Mr.. Brown.
"a stormy career, you understand,
dear Mr. Brown; had married late in
life, and after the early death of his
wife, in spirit Of resentment toward
the world turned resolutely away from
the scenes of his early triumphs,
abandoned his business in the city,
and buried himself among his books
and cobwebs in the great house over
| the hill. s~a~
| "Also, there was David, poor little,
/ innocent baby, deprived, after the first
| year or two of any tender care, of a
| woman's love, Of even fathers in.
terest.
GA strange pair they must have
been-the middle-aged recluse and his
child, the seltimmured man living in
seclusion neither as a praying peni-
tent Git is to be feared) nor as pris-
oner of the law, and the sunny-hair.
ed fodder, growing like golden lily
among perennial weeds, singing all the
day and every day because the merci.
full Lord did not permit his baby days
to surmise their deprivation.
THE gates were closed to the sym
pathetic and curious alike; a farmers
wife nearby was long the sole person
admitted, and she but occasionally, to
measure David for a suit of clothes or
to nurse him through an illness. Mrs
Jones was a devout SOUL she gave
her raspberry money of two years
collecting for a contribution during
the erection of this convent"
The Guestmaster smiled at the
Daivety of Brother Henry. Brother
Henry continued, not observing:
During happy hours she told the
little fellow stories of the saints; she
told him Bible stories; she sang the
canticles of Our Lady. One day she
told David about Our Lord in the
Blessed Sacrament; told it as well as
she could, as well as any of us can tel
of this mystery of His love. And
David sang with a new note of JOY
from that day. Perhaps wonderful
truth of the Real Presence was sure
ly revealed to the child. For when he
spoke to his father of it, and the ia
theirs rage broke forth, and Mrs. Jones
was ordered never to step inside the
gates again, the boy-so the father
himself told us, long afterwards
stood perfectly still, his hands clench
ed, his face white as alabaster and
presently gave little hurt sound like
a wounded baby rabbit and fed out
among the trees to have his cry alone
las the boy grew older, he was
allowed to own some cows and
chickens, and presently to attend the
village school in the valley; but his
odd little ways did not at once win
him friends. He had imbibed enough
of his fathers disposition to be con
tent with his lone conradeship; and
often we saw him come singing
through the woods, singing as though
all the joy of the world lay Graded
in his heart.
{ AT first he would sit for hours un
der the trees, watching us working in
the garden, listening to the divine of
flee in the improvised rustic chape
under the birches, noting the progress
of the erection of our convent. Their
ne began to speak to some of the
Brothers; then he carried water, OF
what not, for the brother-carpenters
| then he looked intently as Father
Minister blest the altar stone and of
fered the Holy Eucharist and com
menced here the reservation of the
Blessed Sacrament.
1t was happy day when he asked
Father Minister about the Prisoner
of the Tabernacle; and when finally
: the eyer-burning light was explained