The Home Circle by Ruth Mariner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 27, 1882

The Home Circle.

By Ruth Mariner

ELLIE'S FROCK.

"Pray, what are you making, mamma, That you are so long about?" "A frock for the veriest darling That ever wore them out. Is it not, with its puffs and plaitings And knots of baby blue, For Mabel's birthday party The very thing for you?"

"But, mamma, little Patty Is sick and like to die; I passed their door this morning And saw her mamma cry. If you could leave your sewing For just a little while, Could you not help poor Patty, And make her mamma smile?"

But I barred the doors of conscience Against the pleading knock With, "I cannot, I'm determined To finish Ellie's frock. With tiny points and scallops And dainty satin loop, I'll make my little darling The fairy of the group." In my heart I stifled pity And sewed with all my might— I plaited, puffed, and scalloped All day and half the night. I sewed and sung together And stitched in all the seams A mother's loving fancies, A mother's happy dreams.

But early on the morrow A passing neighbor said: "There's mourning in the cottage, For little Patty's dead." And now at my selfish folly Small time to be grieved or vexed, For of the fever's victims My Ellie was the next! I barred my doors but vainly Against Death's warning knock, And—lying in her coffin, She wore the finished frock.

—Ruth Mariner, in The Congregationalist.