University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

TOWARD the close of the third day's journey the wayfarers
were just beginning to think of camping, when they came
upon a log cabin in the woods. Hawkins drew rein and entered
the yard. A boy about ten years old was sitting in the cabin
door with his face bowed in his hands. Hawkins approached,
expecting his footfall to attract attention, but it did not.
He halted a moment, and then said:

“Come, come, little chap, you mustn't be going to sleep
before sundown.”

With a tired expression, the small face came up out of the
hands,— a face down which tears were flowing.

“Ah, I'm sorry I spoke so, my boy. Tell me—is anything
the matter?”

The boy signified with a scarcely perceptible gesture that
the trouble was in the house, and made room for Hawkins to
pass. Then he put his face in his hands again and rocked
himself about as one suffering a grief that is too deep to find
help in moan or groan or outcry. Hawkins stepped within. It
was a poverty stricken place. Six or eight middle-aged country
people of both sexes were grouped about an object in the
middle of the room; they were noiselessly busy and they
talked in whispers when they spoke. Hawkins uncovered
and approached. A coffin stood upon two backless chairs.
These neighbors had just finished disposing the body of a
woman in it—a woman with a careworn, gentle face that had
more the look of sleep about it than of death. An old lady
motioned toward the door and said to Hawkins in a whisper:

“His mother, po' thing. Died of the fever, last night.
Tha warn't no sich thing as saving of her. But it's better
for her—better for her. Husband and the other two children
died in the spring, and she hain't ever hilt up her head sence.
She jest went around broken-hearted like, and never took no intrust
in anything but Clay—that's the boy thar. She jest worshiped
Clay—and Clay he worshiped her. They didn't 'pear
to live at all, only when they was together, looking at each
other, loving one another. She's ben sick three weeks; and
if you believe me that child has worked, and kep' the run of
the med'cin, and the times of giving it, and sot up nights and
nussed her, and tried to keep up her sperits, the same as a
grown-up person. And last night when she kep' a sinking
and sinking, and turned away her head and didn't know him
no mo', it was fitten to make a body's heart break to see him
climb onto the bed and lay his cheek agin hern and call her
so pitiful and she not answer. But bymeby she roused up,
like, and looked around wild, and then she see him, and she
made a great cry and snatched him to her breast and hilt him
close and kissed him over and over agin; but it took the last
po' strength she had, and so her eyelids begin to close down,
and her arms sort o' drooped away and then we see she was
gone, po' creetur. And Clay, he—Oh, the po' motherless
thing—I cain't talk about it—I cain't bear to talk about it.”

Clay had disappeared from the door; but he came in, now,
and the neighbors reverently fell apart and made way for him.
He leaned upon the open coffin and let his tears course silently.
Then he put out his small hand and smoothed the hair and
stroked the dead face lovingly. After a bit he brought his
other hand up from behind him and laid three or four fresh
wild flowers upon the breast, bent over and kissed the unresponsive
lips time and time again, and then turned away and
went out of the house without looking at any of the company.
The old lady said to Hawkins:

“She always loved that kind o' flowers. He fetched 'em
for her every morning, and she always kissed him. They was
from away north somers—she kep' school when she fust come.
Goodness knows what's to become o' that po' boy. No father,

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE ORPHAN'S LAST GIFT.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 033. In-line image of a child weeping over a coffin, while a number of people look on at him.] no mother, no kin folks of no kind. Nobody to go to, nobody
that k'yers for him—and all of us is so put to it for to get
along and families so large.”

Hawkins understood. All eyes were turned inquiringly
upon him. He said:

“Friends, I am not very well provided for, myself, but
still I would not turn my back on a homeless orphan. If he
will go with me I will give him a home, and loving regard—
I will do for him as I would have another do for a child of
my own in misfortune.”

One after another the people stepped forward and wrung
the stranger's hand with cordial good will, and their eyes
looked all that their hands could not express or their lips
speak.

“Said like a true man,” said one.

“You was a stranger to me a minute ago, but you ain't
now,” said another.

“It's bread cast upon the waters—it'll return after many
days,” said the old lady whom we have heard speak before

“You got to camp in my house as long as you hang out
here,” said one. “If tha hain't room for you and yourn my
tribe'll turn out and camp in the hay loft.”

A few minutes afterward, while the preparations for the
funeral were being concluded, Mr. Hawkins arrived at his
wagon leading his little waif by the hand, and told his wife
all that had happened, and asked her if he had done right in
giving to her and to himself this new care? She said:

“If you've done wrong, Si Hawkins, it's a wrong that will
shine brighter at the judgment day than the rights that many
a man has done before you. And there isn't any compliment
you can pay me equal to doing a thing like this and finishing
it up, just taking it for granted that I'll be willing to it.
Willing? Come to me, you poor motherless boy, and let me
take your grief and help you carry it.”

When the child awoke in the morning, it was as if from a
troubled dream. But slowly the confusion in his mind took
form, and he remembered his great loss; the beloved form
in the coffin; his talk with a generous stranger who offered
him a home; the funeral, where the stranger's wife held him
by the hand at the grave, and cried with him and comforted
him; and he remembered how this new mother tucked him
in his bed in the neighboring farm house, and coaxed him to
talk about his troubles, and then heard him say his prayers
and kissed him good night, and left him with the soreness in
his heart almost healed and his bruished spirit at rest.

And now the new mother came again, and helped him to
dress, and combed his hair, and drew his mind away by
degrees from the dismal yesterday, by telling him about the
wonderful journey he was going to take and the strange things
he was going to see. And after breakfast they two went
alone to the grave, and his heart went out to his new friend
and his untaught eloquence poured the praises of his buried
idol into her ears without let or hindrance. Together they
planted roses by the headboard and strewed wild flowers upon
the grave; and then together they went away, hand in hand,
and left the dead to the long sleep that heals all heart-aches and ends all sorrows.