The Little Armchair by Margaret E. Sangster

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 30, 1903

The Little Armchair

By Margaret E. Sangster

NOBODY sits in the little armchair; It stands in a corner dim; But a white-haired mother, gazing there, And yearningly thinking of him, Sees through the dust of the long ago The bloom of her boy’s sweet face, As he rocks so merrily to and fro, With a laugh that cheers the place.

Sometimes he holds a book in his hand, Sometimes a pencil and slate, And the lesson is hard to understand, And the figures hard to mate; But she sees the nod of his father’s head, So proud of the little son, And she hears the words so often said, “ No fear for our little one.”

They were wonderful days, the dear, Sweet days When a child with sunny hair Was hers to kiss, to love, and to praise, At her knee in the little chair. She lost him back in the busy years When the great world caught the man, And he strode away, past hopes and fears, To his place in the battle’s van.

But now and then in a wistful dream, Like a picture out of date, She sees the head with a golden gleam Bend over a pencil and slate. And she lives again in the happy day, The day of her young life’s spring, When the small armchair stood just in the way, The center of everything.

—Margaret E. Sangster.