University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE MOTHER.

From the tall trees which shade the desolate old house
the leaves have fallen one by one, and the November rain
makes mournful music, as in the stillness of the night it
drops upon the withered foliage, softly, slowly, as if weeping
for the sorrow which has come upon the household.
Mattie Kennedy is dead; and in the husband's heart there
is a gnawing pain, such as he never felt before; not even
when Katy died; for Katy, though pure and good, was
not so wholly unselfish as Mattie had been, and in thinking
of her, he could occasionally recall an impatient word;
but from Mattie, none. Gentle, loving and beautiful, she
had been to him in life, and now, beautiful in death, she
lay in the silent parlor, on the marble table she had
brought from home, while he,—oh, who shall tell what
thoughts were busy at his heart, as he sat there alone,
that dismal, rainy night.

In one respect his wishes had been gratified; Mattie
had not turned from him in death. She had died within
his arms; but so long as the light of reason shone in her
blue eyes,—so long had they rested on the rose-bush
within the window,—the rose-bush brought from Harry's
grave! Nestled among its leaves was a half-opened bud,
and when none could hear, she whispered softly to Janet,
“Place it in my bosom just as you placed one years ago,
when I was Harry's bride.”

To Nellie and to Maude she had spoken blessed words
of comfort, commending to the latter as to a second
mother the little Louis, who, trembling with fear, had
hidden beneath the bedclothes, so that he could not see
the white look upon her face. Then to her husband she
had turned, pleading with all a mother's tenderness for
her youngest born—her unfortunate one.

“Oh, husband,” she said, “you will care for him when
I am gone. You will love my poor, crippled boy! Promise
me this, and death will not be hard to meet. Promise
me, wont you?” and the voice was very, very faint.

He could not refuse, and bending low, he said, “Matty,
I will, I will.”

“Bless you, my husband, bless you for that,” were Mattie's
dying words, for she never spoke again.

It was morning then,—early morning, and a long,
dreary day had intervened, until at last it was midnight,
and silence reigned throughout the house. Maude, Nellie,
Janet and John, had wept themselves sick, while in little
Louis's bosom there was a sense of desolation which kept
him wakeful, even after Maude had cried herself to sleep.
Many a time that day had he stolen into the parlor, and
climbing into a chair, as best he could, had laid his baby
cheek against the cold, white face; and smoothing with
his dimpled hand, the shining hair, had whispered, “Poor,
sick mother, wont you speak to Louis any more?”

He knew better than most children of his age what was
meant by death, and as he lay awake, thinking how dreadful
it was to have no mother, his thoughts turned toward
his father, who had that day been too much absorbed in
his own grief to notice him.

“May be he'll love me some now ma is dead,” he thought,

and with that yearning for paternal sympathy natural to
the motherless, he crept out of bed, and groping his way
with his noiseless crutches to his father's door, he knocked
softly for admittance.

“Who's there?” demanded Dr. Kennedy, every nerve
thrilling to the answer.

“It's me, father; won't you let me in, for its dark out
here, and lonesome, with her lying in the parlor. Oh,
father, won't you love me a little, now mother's dead? I
can't help it because I'm lame, and, when I'm a man, I
will earn my own living. I won't be in the way. Say,
pa, will you love me?”

He remembered the charges his father had preferred
against him, and the father remembered them too. She
to whom the cruel words were spoken was gone from him
now and her child, their child was at the door, pleading
for his love. Could he refuse? No, by every kindly
feeling, by every parental tie, we answer no, he could not,
and opening the door he took the little fellow in his arms,
hugging him to his bosom, while tears, the first he had
shed for many a year, fell like rain upon the face of his
crippled boy. Like some mighty water, which breaking
through its prison walls, seeks again its natural channel,
so did his love go out toward the child so long neglected,
the child who was not now to him a cripple. He did not
think of the deformity, he did not even see it. He saw
only the beautiful face, the soft brown eyes, and silken
hair of the little one, who ere long fell asleep, murmuring
in his dreams, “He loves me, ma, he does.”

Surely the father can not be blamed, if when he looked
again upon the calm face of the dead, he fancied that it
wore a happier look, as if the whispered words of Louis

had reached her unconscious ear. Very beautiful looked
Mattie in her coffin—for thirty years had but slightly
marred her youthful face, and the doctor, as he gazed
upon her, thought within himself, “she was almost as fair
as Maude Glendower.”

“Then, as his eye fell upon the rosebud which Janet
had laid upon her bosom, he said, “'Twas kind in Mrs.
Blodgett to place it there, for Mattie was fond of flowers;”
but he did not dream how closely was that rosebud connected
with a grave made many years before.

Thoughts of Maude Glendower and mementos of Harry
Remington meeting together at Mattie's coffin! Alas,
that such should be our life!

Underneath the willows, and by the side of Katy, was
Mattie laid to rest, and then the desolate old house seemed
doubly desolate—Maude mourning truly for her mother,
while the impulsive Nellie, too, wept bitterly, for one
whom she had really loved. To the doctor, however, a new
feeling had been born, and in the society of his son, he
found a balm for his sorrow, becoming ere long, to all outward
appearance, the same exacting, overbearing man he
had been before. The blows are hard and oft repeated
which break the solid rock, and there will come a time
when that selfish nature shall be subdued and broken
down; but 'tis not yet—not yet.

And now, leaving him a while to himself, we will pass
on to a period when Maude herself shall become in reality
the heroine of our story.