University of Virginia Library

THE ANSWERED PRAYER.

All day long the canary bird had sung unheeded in
his gilded cage by the door, and the robin had caroled
unheard by his nest in the tall maple tree, while the soft
summer air and the golden rays of the warm June sun entered
unnoticed the open windows of the richly furnished
room, where a pale young mother kept her tireless watch
by the bedside of her only child, a beautiful boy, three
summers old. For many days he had hovered between
life and death, while she, his mother, had hung over him
with speechless agony, terrible to behold in one so young,
so fair as she. He was her all, the only happiness she
knew, for poor Lina Hastings was an unloving wife, who
never yet had felt a thrill of joy at the sound of her
husband's voice, and when occasionally his broad hand
rested fondly upon her flowing curls, while he whispered
in her ear how dear she was to him, his words awoke
no answering chord of love.

How came she then his wife—and the mistress of his
princely home? Alas! wealth was then the god which
Lina Moore worshipped, and when Ralph Hastings, with
his uncouth form and hundreds of thousands asked her
to be his wife, she stifled the better feelings of her nature
which prompted her to tell him No, and with a gleam
of pride in her dark blue eyes, and a deeper glow upon

her cheek, she one day passed from the bright sunshine
of heaven into the sombre gloom of the gray old church,
whence she came forth Lina Hastings, shuddering even
as she heard that name, and shrinking involuntarily from
the caresses which the newly made husband bestowed
upon her. And so the love she withheld from him was
given to the child who now lay motionless and white as
the costly linen on which his golden curls were streaming.

All day she had watched him, for they told her that
if he lived until the sun setting, there was hope, and as
the hours wore on and the long shadows, stretching to
the eastward, betokened the approach of night, oh, how
intense became the anxiety in her bosom. Fainter and
softer grew the sunlight on the floor, and whiter grew
the face of the sleeping boy. 'Twas the shadow of death,
they said, and with a bitter wail of woe, Lina fell upon
her knees, and as if she would compel the God of Heaven
to hear her, she shrieked, “Spare my child. Let him
live, and I will bear whatsoever else of evil thou shalt
send upon me. Afflict me in any other way and I can
bear it, but spare to me my child.”

In mercy or in wrath, Lina Hastings' prayer was answered.
The pulse grew stronger beneath her touch—the
breath came faster through the parted lips—a faint moisture
was perceptible beneath the yellow curls, and when
the sun was set the soft eyes of Eddie Hastings unclosed,
and turned with a look of recognition upon his mother,
who, clasping him in her arms, wept for joy, but returned
no word or thought of gratitude toward Him who had
been thus merciful to her.

In a small brown cottage in a distant part of the same

village, another mother was watching beside her first-born,
only son. They had been friends in their girlhood, she
and Lina Hastings. Together they had conned the same
hard tasks—together they had built their playhouse beneath
the same old chestnut tree—together, hand in
hand, had they wandered over the rocky hills and
through the shady woods of New England, and at the
same altar had they plighted their marriage vows, the
one to the man she loved, the other to the man she
tolerated for the sake of his surroundings. From this
point their paths diverged, Lina moving in the sphere to
which her husband's wealth had raised her, while Mabel
Parkman one sad morning awoke from her sweet dream
of bliss to find herself wedded to a drunkard! Only
they who like her have experienced a similar awakening,
can know the bitterness of that hour, and yet methinks
she was happier than the haughty Lina, for her
love was no idle passion, and through weal and woe she
clung to her husband, living oft on the remembrance of
what he had been, and the hope of what he might be
again, and when her little Willie was first laid upon her
bosom, and she felt her husband's tears upon her cheek
as he promised to reform for her sake and for his son's,
she would not have exchanged her lot with that of the
proudest in the land. That vow, alas, was ere long
broken, and then, though she wept bitterly over his
fall, she felt that she was not desolate, for there was
music in her Willie's voice and sunshine in his presence.

But now he was dying, he was leaving her for ever, and
as she thought of the long, dark days when she should
look for him in vain, she staggered beneath the heavy
blow, and in tones as heart-broken as those which had

fallen from Lina Hastings's lips, she prayed, “If it be
possible let this cup pass from me,” adding, “Not my
will, oh God, but thine be done.”

“I will do all things well,” seemed whispered in her
ear, and thus comforted she nerved herself to meet the
worst. All the day she watched by her child, chafing his
little hands, smoothing his scanty pillow beneath his
head, bathing his burning forehead, and forcing down
her bitter tears when in his disturbed sleep he would beg
of his father to “bring him an orange—a nice yellow
orange—he was so dry.”

Alas, that father was where the song of the inebriate
rose high on the summer air, and he heard not the pleadings
of his son. 'Twas a dreary, desolate room where
Willie Parkman lay, and when the sun went down and
the night shadows fell, it seemed darker, drearier still.
On the rude table by the window a candle dimly burned,
but as the hours sped on it flickered awhile in its socket,
then for an instant flashed up, illuminating the strangely
beautiful face of the sleeping boy, and went out.

An hour later, and Willie awoke. Feeling for his mother's
hand, he said, “Tell me true, do drunkards go to
heaven?”

“There is for them no promise,” was the wretched
mother's answer.

“Then I shall never see pa again. Tell him good-by,
good-by forever.”

The next time he spoke it was to ask his mother to
come near to him, that he might see her face once more.
She did so, bending low and stifling her own great agony,
lest it should add one pang to his dying hour.

“I cannot see you,” he whispered, “it is so dark—so
dark,”

Oh, what would not that mother have given then for
one of the lights which gleamed from the windows of the
stately mansion where Eddie Hastings was watched by
careful attendants. But it could not be, and when at last
the silvery moon-beams came struggling through the open
window and fell upon the white brow of the little boy,
they did not rouse him, for a far more glorious light had
dawned upon his immortal vision—even the light of the
Everlasting.

In her tasteful boudoir sat Lina Hastings, and at her
side, on a silken lounge, lay Eddie, calmly sleeping. The
crisis was past—she knew he would live, and her cup
of happiness was full. Suddenly the morning stillness
was broken by the sound of a tolling bell. 'Twas the
same which, but for God's mercy, would at that moment,
perhaps, have tolled for her boy, and Lina involuntarily
shuddered as she listened to the strokes, which, at first,
were far between. Then they came faster, and as Lina
counted five, she said aloud, “'Twas a child but two years
older than Eddie.”

Later in the day it came to her that the bereaved one
was her early friend, whom now she seldom met. Once
Lina would have flown to Mabel's side, and poured into
her ear words of comfort, but her heart had grown hard
and selfish, and so she only said, “Poor Mabel, she never
was as fortunate as I”—and her eye glanced proudly
around the elegantly-furnished room, falling at last upon
Eddie, whom she clasped to her bosom passionately, but
without thought of Him who had decreed that not then
should she be written childless.

The humble funeral was over. The soft, green turf had
been broken, and the bright June flowers had fallen beneath
the old sexton's spade as he dug the little grave
where Willie Parkman was laid to rest. In the drunkard's
home there was again darkness and a silence which would
never be broken by the prattle of a childish voice. Sobered,
repentant, and heartbroken, the wretched father
laid his head in the lap of his faithful wife, beseeching
of her to pray that the vow that morning breathed by
Willie's coffin and renewed by Willie's grave might be
kept unbroken. And she did pray, poor Mabel. With
her arms around the neck of the weeping man, she asked
that this, her great bereavement, might be sanctified to the
salvation of her erring husband.

“I will do all things well,” again seemed whispered in
her ear, and Mabel felt assured that Willie had not died
in vain. 'Twas hard at first for Robert Parkman to break
the chains which bound him, but the remembrance of
Willie's touching message—“Tell pa good-by, good-by
forever,” would rush to his mind whenever he essayed
to take the poisonous bowl, and thus was he saved, and
when the first day of a new year was ushered in, he
stood with Mabel at the altar, and on his upturned brow
received the baptismal waters, while the man of God
broke to him the bread of life. Much that night they
missed their child, and Mabel's tears fell like rain upon
the soft, chestnut curl she had severed from his head, but
as she looked upon her husband, now strong again in
his restored manhood, she murmured—“It was for this
that Willie died, and I would not that it should be otherwise.”

Fifteen years have passed away since the day when
Lina Hastings breathed that almost impious prayer—
“Send upon me any evil but this,” and upon the deep,
blue waters of the Pacific a noble vessel lay becalmed.
Fiercely the rays of a tropical sun poured down upon her
hardy crew, but they heeded it not. With anxious,
frightened faces and subdued step, they trod the deck,
speaking in whispers of some dreaded event. There had
been mutiny on board that man-of-war—a deep-laid plot
to murder the commanding officers, and now, at the sunsetting,
the instigators, four in number, were to pay the
penalty of their crime. Three of them were old and
hardened in sin, but the fourth, the fiercest spirit of all,
'twas said, was young and beautiful to look upon. In
the brown curls of his waving hair there were no threads
of silver, and on his brow there were no lines save those
of reckless dissipation, while his beardless cheek was
round and smooth as that of a girl. Accustomed from
his earliest childhood to rule, he could not brook restraint,
and when it was put upon him, he had rebelled
against it, stirring up strife, and leading on his comrades,
who, used as they were to vice, marveled that one so
young should be so deeply depraved.

The sun was set. Darkness was upon the mighty deep,
and the waves moved by the breeze which had sprung up,
seemed to chant a mournful dirge for the boy who, far
below, lay sleeping in a dishonored grave, if grave it can
be called, where

Over the surging billow and away to the northward,
other robins are singing in the old maple-tree than those
which sang there years ago, when death seemed brooding
o'er the place. Again the summer shadows fall aslant the
bright green lawn, and the soft breezes laden with the
perfume of a thousand flowers, kiss the faded brow of
Lina Hastings, but they bring no gladness to her aching
heart, for her thoughts are afar on the deep with the wayward
boy who, spurning alike her words of love and censure,
has gone from her “to return no more forever,” he
said, for he left her in bitter anger. For three years the
tall grass has grown over the grave of her husband, who
to the last was unloved, and now she is alone in her splendid
home, watching at the dawn of day and watching at
the hour of eve for the return of her son.

Alas, alas, fond mother, Mabel Parkman in her hour of
trail, never felt a throb of such bitter agony as that which
wrung your heart-strings when first you heard the dreadful
story of your disgrace. There were days and weeks
of wild frenzy, during which she would shriek “Would
to Heaven he had died that night when he was young and
innocent,” and then she grew calm, sinking into a state
of imbecility from which naught had power to rouse her.

A year or two more, and they made for her a grave by
the side of her husband, and the hearts which in life
were so divided, now rest quietly together, while on the
costly marble above them there is inscribed the name of
their son, who sleeps alone and unwept in the far-off
Southern Seas.