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And Paul has taken the pen too, and in his extraordinary
effort to make a big P, has made a very big
blot. And Jamie writes under it—“This is Paul's
work, Pa; but he says it's a love blot, only he loves
you ten hundred times more.”

And after your return, Jamie will insist that you
should go with him to the brook, and sit down with
him upon a tuft of the brake, to fling off a line into
the eddies, though only the nibbling roach are sporting
below. You have instructed the workmen to
spare the clumps of bank-willows, that the wood-duck
may have a covert in winter, and that the Bob-o-Lincolns
may have a quiet nesting place in the spring.

Sometimes your wife,—too kind to deny such favor

—will stroll with you along the meadow banks, and
you pick meadow daisies in memory of the old time.
Little Carry weaves them into rude chaplets, to dress
the forehead of Paul, and they dance along the green-sward,
and switch off the daffodils, and blow away the
dandelion seeds, to see if their wishes are to come
true. Jamie holds a butter cup under Carry's chin,
to find if she loves gold; and Paul, the rogue, teases
them, by sticking a thistle into sister's curls.

The pony has hard work to do under Carry's swift
riding—but he is fed by her own hand, with the cold
breakfast rolls. The nuts are gathered in time, and
stored for long winter evenings, when the fire is burning
bright and cheerily—a true, hickory blaze,—
which sends its waving gleams over eager, smiling
faces, and over well-stored book shelves, and portraits
of dear, lost ones. While from time to time, that
wife, who is the soul of the scene, will break upon
the children's prattle, with the silver melody of her
voice, running softly and sweetly through the couplets
of Crabbe's stories, or the witchery of the Flodden
Tale.

Then the boys will guess conundrums, and play at fox
and geese; and Tray, cherished in his age, and old
Milo petted in his dotage, lie side by side, upon the
lion's skin, before the blazing hearth. Little Tomtit
the goldfinch sits sleeping on his perch, or cocks

his eye at a sudden crackling of the fire, for a familiar
squint upon our family group.

But there is no future without its straggling clouds.
Even now a shadow is trailing along the landscape.

It is a soft and mild day of summer. The leaves
are at their fullest. A southern breeze has been
blowing up the valley all the morning, and the light,
smoky haze hangs in the distant mountain gaps, like
a veil on beauty. Jamie has been busy with his lessons,
and afterward playing with Milo upon the lawn.
Little Carry has come in from a long ride—her face
blooming, and her eyes all smiles, and joy. The
mother has busied herself with those flowers she loves
so well. Little Paul, they say, has been playing in
the meadow, and old Tray has gone with him.

But at dinner time, Paul has not come back.

“Paul ought not to ramble off so far,” I say.

The mother says nothing; but there is a look of
anxiety upon her face, that disturbs me. Jamie
wonders where Paul can be, and he saves for him,
whatever he knows Paul will like—a heaping platefull.
But the dinner hour passes, and Paul does not
come. Old Tray lies in the sun-shine by the porch.

Now the mother is indeed anxious. And I, though
I conceal this from her, find my fears strangely
active. Something like instinct guides me to the

meadow: I wander down the brook-side calling—
Paul!—Paul! But there is no answer.

All the afternoon we search, and the neighbors
search; but it is a fruitless toil. There is no joy
that evening: the meal passes in silence; only little
Carry with tears in her eyes, asks,—if Paul will soon
come back? All the night we search and call:—the
mother even braving the night air, and running here
and there, until the morning finds us sad, and despairing.

That day—the next—cleared up the mystery; but
cleared it up with darkness. Poor little Paul!—he
has sunk under the murderous eddies of the brook!
His boyish prattle, his rosy smiles, his artless talk,
are lost to us forever!

I will not tell how nor when we found him: nor
will I tell of our desolate home, and of her grief—the
first crushing grief of her life.

The cottage is still. The servants glide noiseless,
as if they might startle the poor little sleeper. The
house seems cold—very cold. Yet it is summer
weather; and the south breeze plays softly along the
meadow, and softly over the murderous eddies of the
brook.

Then comes the hush of burial. The kind mourners
are there:—it is easy for them to mourn!

The good clergyman prays by the bier:—`Oh,
Thou, who did'st take upon thyself human woe, and
drank deep of every pang in life, let thy spirit come
and heal this grief, and guide toward that Better
Land, where justice and love shall reign, and hearts
laden with anguish, shall rest forevermore!'

Weeks roll on; and a smile of resignation lights up
the saddened features of the mother. Those dark
mourning robes speak to the heart deeper, and more
tenderly, than ever the bridal costume. She lightens
the weight of your grief by her sweet words of resignation:—“Paul,”
she says, “God has taken our
boy!”

Other weeks roll on. Joys are still left—great and
ripe joys. The cottage smiling in the autumn sumshine
is there: the birds are in the forest boughs:
Jamie and little Carry are there; and she, who is
more than them all, is cheerful, and content.
Heaven has taught us that the brightest future has
its clouds;—that this life is a motley of lights and
shadows. And as we look upon the world around us,
and upon the thousand forms of human misery, there
is a gladness in our deep thanksgiving.

A year goes by; but it leaves no added shadow on
our hearth-stone. The vines clamber, and flourish:
the oaks are winning age and grandeur: little Carry

is blooming into the pretty coyness of girlhood; and
Jamie with his dark hair, and flashing eyes, is the
pride of his mother.

There is no alloy to pleasure, but the remembrance
of poor little Paul. And even that, chastened as it
is with years, is rather a grateful memorial that our
life is not all here, than a grief that weighs upon our
hearts.

Sometimes, leaving little Carry and Jamie to their
play, we wander at twilight to the willow tree, beneath
which our drowned boy sleeps calmly, for the
Great Awaking. It is a Sunday, in the week-day of
our life, to linger by the little grave,—to hang
flowers upon the head-stone, and to breathe a prayer
that our little Paul may sleep well, in the arms of
Him who loveth children!

And her heart, and my heart, knit together by sorrow,
as they had been knit by joy—a silver thread
mingled with the gold—follow the dead one to the
Land that is before us; until at last we come to
reckon the boy, as living in the new home, which
when this is old, shall be ours also. And my spirit,
speaking to his spirit, in the evening watches, seems
to say joyfully—so joyfully that the tears half choke
the utterance—“Paul, my boy, we will be there!”

And the mother, turning her face to mine, so that
I see the moisture in her eye, and catch its heavenly

look, whispers softly—so softly, that an angel might
have said it,—“Yes, dear, we will be THERE!”

The night had now come, and my day under the
oaks was ended. But a crimson belt yet lingered
over the horizon, though the stars were out.

A line of shaggy mist lay along the surface of the
brook. I took my gun from beside the tree, and my
shot-pouch from its limb, and whistling for Carlo—as
if it had been Tray—I strolled over the bridge, and
down the lane, to the old house under the elms.

I dreamed pleasant dreams that night;—for
I dreamed that my Reverie was real.