Year: 1878




CHAPTER XIV.


Often there was not one well woman
In the neighborhood to wait upon the
sick ones. At all our gatherings, quilt
ing bees, log rollings, aud the like, the
principal theme of our conversation
when the men were out Of bearing was
the family question; and no wonder, for
certainly it was the theme that most vi
tally concerned US.


We were not a new-fashioned COM
munity. We had not learned aught
concerning the numerous latter-day hy-
pocrisies that have been invented and
INDUCED to hide hymeneal villainies.
We believed emphatically and implic-
lily in the command by Moses to wom-
en- to multiply and replenish the earth,
while we also believed with equal ear
nestness that men were the only portion
Of the human family who were to have
dominion, aud thereby subdue the same
terrestrial habitation.


To this day do not imagine why or
when the division thus universally ac-
knowledged by us began. Nor can I
explain the reason, If one there be, why
woman, who brings forth children in
sorrow, should ever have considered it
her duty to endure the double curse Of
eating her bread and providing the
same for her family in the sweat of her
face. But it is very certain that we all
did 50 believe, ], because of my English
birth, being much more systematically
and constantly devout in the theory Of
obedience than the others. Because my
protector entirely ignored his share of
our mutual moral responsibility in pro-
viding for his family, it was doubly
necessary for me to be vigilant.


The care Of my twins bore heavily
upon me. Then Gerald, once my baby,
and after few struggling years a mis-
shapen and delicate youth, grew more
and more into the similitude Of that
despicabIe Elder Chalmers, both in fea-
ture aud disposition. And then another
calamity burst upon me in all its ap-
palling horror. The poor boy was also
cursed with the Inherited appetite for
rum. Never shall I forget my feelings
as he was one day brought to me in a
perfect stupOr Of drunkenness, and I
realized for the first time that the dis
ease, or sin, Of the parent was indeed
upon him. Poor afflicted boy How
bad loved him as he lay in my arms, an
innocent bundle Of breathing humanity,
when I was far away in Melbourne.
How intensified my love had grown
when be became the innocent victim ol
a fell misfortune that marred his beauty
and compelled him to 90 manned and
halt through a thwarted life. But oh,
how terribly intense was my devotion
TO the erring unfortunate when I awoke
TO the awful truth that he was not only
a cripple, but a sot 81!


Alb, mel


Good reader, spare me. Even now
must shut my eyes as ! shudder upon
the verge Of the awful horror that then
froze my hearts blood.


The dissipation Of my eldest born was
brief, but terrible. If Gerald, my hus-
band, was a scourge when intoxicated,
Gerald, my son, was a terror.


One day they brought him home, not
drunk, but dead He had been stabbed
to the heart in a Bacchanalian revel,
from which I bad sought in vain to pre-
vent his presence.


Ah, little thought in the long ago
that the time would ever come when ]
should look upon the death-even the
tragic death-of my erewhile baby boy
with silent thankfulness. But it did
come.


Thank God, the likeness to Elder
Chalmers died out of his face when the
darling was dead. It was as though the
spirit, ere it left its mortal prison, bad
given one expiring gleam Of gladness a,
it neared its escape from its warped
misshapen tenement into the realm Of
liberty that carried with il no stamp o
unjust aute-natal conditions with whicl
to mar its beauty, and no mark Of crue
parental blows to disfgure its fair pro
portions.


Very calmly I composed the dealt
wraps on his crooked form. And cal
never tell how dear he was. as tbropol
an eye Of faith saw the promisa 81
future wherein he was to wall, In "a
newness Of a life immortal. Nv ba.,
was wrung, but sOrrowed not as thos
without hope; and yet knew the DO
had given no outward sign Of that n
pentanee which my creed declared to
necessary to salvation.


"Suffer little children to come IN
me, and forbid them not; for Of such
the kingdom Of heaven" )" said the Man
Sorrows, who, like my own humble Sc
was once acquainted with grief Al
was not my thwarted and benight
Gerald as a little child because Of
infirmities?


They laid him away in the tangl
ferns of the somber wildwood, and
wandered every day to the spot whe
they had hidden the clay from my sig
forever.