Year: 1879

home. She could bear anything better than
that. She took off her own garments TO
fold around him, and sang him the sweet
cradle song which had 80 often soothed him.


But the fierce howls Of the wolves and the
sulen thunder Of the river filled his little
heart with terror, and all the long, dark
night through he clung TO her neck, sleep
lessly, crying to go home to papa.


Day dawned at last, the pale sun swim
ming through the sickly sky, the pallid fore
cast of storm. Weak and faint from hun
ger, and suffering intensely from cold-for
summer ia no bearer Of tropical smiles in
this inhospitable clime-Martha paced back
and forth the narrow limits Of the rock.
Noon came-the faint sun declined-it was
night again. A cold fog sank down over
the mountain, followed by drizzling rain,
which before morning changed TO perfect
deluge. The water rose fearfully, foaming
milk-white down the gorge, filling the air
with shuddering roar, like the peal Of an
imprisoned earthquake.


The day that followed was no better
only rain and ashen white mist-not ray
of sunshine


new fear rose in the heart of Martha
Warren. The turbulence of the stream
must have swept away the bridge over
which her husband would cross on his re-
turn, and he would be detained for days
may be for weeks. She gave up all for lost.
Strongly and fearfully was she tempted TO
fold her child in her arms and plunge into
the cauldron beneath, and thus end her
fears and doubts. 1t would be better, she
thought, than to suffer that slow, painful
death of starvation. But something held
her back-God's curse was on those who do
self-murder.


Toward night lost robin, beaten about
by the storm, stopped to rest moment on
the rock. Martha seized upon him and rent
him in twain with almost savage glee, for
her child to devour raw-she who three
days before would have wept at the sight of
a wounded sparrow.


Another night and day like the other, only
more intensely agonizing. Martha Warren
was sullenly Indifferent now too weak and
spent to sit up, her boy was lying on the
rock with his head on her lap, his great eyes
fixed on her face.


She tore open a vein in her arm with her
scissors and made him drink the blood.
Anything, she said to herself, to calm the
wild, wistful searching of the eyes.


The boy arose; he sat up and peered into
the darkness.


"Mamma," he said, "papa is coming. |
felt him touch me'


She wept at the mockery, and drew the
child frantically to her bosom.
The night was fair-lit up by new moon
Overcome by deadly exhaustion, against
which she could make no resistance, Martha
fell into an uneasy slumber which toward
morning was broken bya startling cry She
sprang to her feet and gazed around her.
No her eyes did not deceive her there
on the shore stood the stalwart form of her
husband, and he was calling her name with
the energy of despair. She could only cry
out, go Mark Mark ~ and fell senseess
to the earth.


When she awoke TO consciousness she
was lying on her own bed in the cottage,
supported by her husbands arms.


1t was no dream. She and her darling
boy were SAFE and he had come back.


Many weeks passed before she grew strong
again, but Mark tended her as a mother
would an infant, and by the time the au-
tumn frosts fell she was the blithe Martha
Warren of old.


At the time of the freshet the bridge
over the Ammonoosuck had indeed been
swept away, but Mark, impelled by an un-
controllable fear-almost presentiment-
had crossed the river at the risk of his life
on log raft, and reached home only to find
ii vacant.


The descendants of Mark Warren and his
wife still dwell among the fertile valleys of
the Ammonoosuck, and the old men still
tell to their grandchildren the story of
Martha Warren and her child.-.Selected.