HOW SUSAN'S SIGH BECAME A SONG.
By A Maine Minister
A STORY FOR THANKSGIVING.
It was about six weeks before Thanksgiving, and Mrs. Susan Hodgkins sat in her kitchen, chopping mince-meat. A very pleasant kitchen it was, too. It lacked, to be sure, all the appurtenances of a city kitchen, and the house of which it was a part was not by any means a city house—just a plain story-and-a-half frame dwelling, with white paint and green blinds, such as you will see in any New England village. The cat lay curled up by the wood-box, a perfect picture of well-fed contentment. A bright sunbeam gilded the floor and wall. The kettle soliloquized cheerfully on the fire; everything in the kitchen wore a cheerful look, except Susan's face, which was anything but cheerful. It had an unmistakable frown upon it. Not even the "biled dinner" cooking on the stove, a favorite dish of Susan's, and the odor of which was diffused through every part of the premises, could relieve her discontent. "There!" she said at last with a sigh, "If there's anything I despise it's a hypocrite; and a hypocrite I ain't a-goin' to be, and put on thankful looks and say thankful things when I don't feel thankful. And I don't. Everything's gone wrong with us this year. To begin with, there was the cow that choked to death in February—the best one we had too. There ain't a cow in town today that I'd 'a' swapped her for. Then there was the strawberries. Why, 'Zekiel fussed over 'em last fall, and again this spring, down on his knees a-rakin' and scrapin', till I told him he was actually overdoin' it. And they was comin' along splendid; and then what happened but the frost must kill every blow, and not a berry did we get for all our pains. There was Perkins's right across the way and never hurt a bit. I heard him tell 'Zekiel myself that his never did so well. Now, to have the same identical frost take ours and leave his—that's what beats me. And he an unbeliever! It does seem sometimes as if the Lord had a special spite against his own children that walk in his ordinances. "And now, to cap the climax, what must happen but the bank must fail, and I must lose in a minute what it took years to git together piece by piece, all through that rascal of a Phelps. "Well, I s'pose 'Zekiel would say I ought to be thankful that my eggs wasn't all in one basket; I ought to think how much worse off I might be, and how little I deserve. But I tell you I think Susan Hodgkins deserves a good deal more than some folks that might be mentioned. And as to bein' so much worse off, I should like to know what good it does to imagine all sorts of dreadful things. What if my neighbor has got a cancer and I ain't got one; does that cure my headache? What if I ain't fell down cellar and broke my leg; does that mend the Chiny dish I broke last week? "And then, as to goin' into the sanctuary to see the end of the wicked, if there's anybody been in the sanctuary year in and year out, not to boast, of course, it's me and 'Zekiel. Hav'n't I seen him again and again put on his rubber coat and take his lantern and start for the vestry on a Thursday night, when he knew well enough there wouldn't be nobody there but him and the sexton? And I ain't seen no end yet to the prosperity of the wicked. They sit in the best pews and wear the best clothes, and their last state is better than the first. It may be all right, but there ain't no justice in it as it looks to me. The idea of that villain a-spendin' my hard-earned money! His wife's at the bottom of it, you may depend. See what style she's been a-puttin' on! It's enough to try the patience of an angel!" Susan chopped so violently that she did not hear the ringing of the front door-bell. In a moment it rang again, and more vigorously. Putting the tray upon the table, laying aside her apron, and adjusting her spectacles, she went to the door. As she opened it, a boy handed her a dispatch and said that he would wait for a reply. "Mercy me!" she said, as she took the envelope and with trembling fingers tore it open, "I hope there ain't nothin' the matter." HANOVER, Mass., October 21.
Alice is very sick, cannot live. Come immediately if possible.
MARY ENDICOTT. Mrs. Endicott was Susan's sister. Alice was her only daughter. The two sisters had lived near to each other when Alice was born, and Mrs. Endicott being in delicate health the little child had found a home at her Aunt Sue's, and had lived there until the aunt became almost the mother. "The Lord have mercy! Is it possible?" she said, after she had read and re-read the brief message, "Alice sick and can't live—why, for pity sake, ain't they wrote before. It must be something sudden." Necessary as her presence might, under other circumstances, seem to be in her own home, of course Susan found it possible to go and to go at once. The afternoon train found her at the station, and as she had an all-night ride, and did not care to take a sleeper, she had abundant opportunity for reflection. Many a time during the night, which seemed to her interminably long, as she thought of the sorrowful home that she was about to enter, and then of the happy home she had left, she found herself regretting that she had thought and spoken such bitter things. When the train reached the station at Hanover, early the next morning, Susan had scarcely stepped upon the platform before a man approached and said, "Be you the woman who is goin' to Mr. Endicott's?" "Yes, I am," said Susan, "and can you tell me how the daughter is?" she asked, breathlessly, trembling as she thought what the answer might easily be. "Not dead, but dreadful nigh to it, so they tell me; an' so fur as knowin' any of 'em is concerned, she might as well be dead now. Hain't you heard any of the particulars?" "No; do tell me all you can," said Susan, as she took her seat in the carriage and drew the robes about her, for the air was frosty and cold. "Well, it seems a few days ago Alice was a-vistin' a cousin o' hers a few miles out, an' just at night she was a-goin' to the closet for somethin' or other, an' not bein' over'n above familiar with the premises, she got the wrong door an' went down cellar head-fust. 'Twas a hard hit, too, but they didn't make no great account of it till a day or two ago brain fever sot in, an' the doctors say now she can't live more'n a few hours. It's a dreadful blow to the parents. She was a likely gal, an' they sot everythin' by her—hain't spared no expense in her schoolin'. An' that hain't all of it. I s'pose you've heard about Robert." "Robert? Why, no!" said Susan, astonished beyond measure. "What about Robert?" "I want to know ef you hain't heard about him," said the driver, and his face lit up at the thought that he was to be the first to communicate a piece of startling information. "Come to think, of course you hain't, for they didn't get the news themselves till yesterday forenoon. Well, the long an' short of it is, poor Bob is blind for the rest of his life." "Yes; that's jest the word. You know he's bin out in the mines. Somehow, the old gent an' him didn't seem to team together very well, an' he pulled up stakes an' went West. Was doin' frustrate, too, so everybody said, makin' money hand over hand; but they was a-blastin' an' there was a premature explosion, an' both o' his eyes was gone in a twinklin'. They sent a man this morning to go out an' fetch him home. Poor Bob! Singular how it should all come in a heap." "Alice dying and Robert blind," thought Susan, as they drove up to Mr. Endicott's door. In a moment she was inside. We need not follow her into that home. Many of those who read this simple story know, doubtless, what it is to sit at the bedside of the dying child in the helplessness of despair—the child of our care and affection lying there with white face and wasted form—all done that human skill can do, everything at hand that money can bring, but in vain. Oh, the unutterable sadness of that hour when the hand that we clasp in our own fails to respond any longer to our loving pressure, and the eyes that have so often717beamed with the love-light of home close upon us forever! It is the old story—the story of breaking and broken hearts, of the curse that came in with the sin of our first parents, and that shall remain to afflict their posterity until the last enemy is destroyed, and all things have been made new. The day after the funeral Robert came, or, rather, we may say, was brought. He had stopped in Chicago long enough to have his eyes carefully examined, and the doctors had said, "There is no hope." Henceforth darkness was to be his portion. He must be led by the hand, and fed and cared for like a little child. Susan looked from the front door when the mother and son met at the gate. She heard a cry of agony and a deep groan, and that was all that she could stand. With her fingers in her ears she flew to her room, and kneeling down alone she cried, "Oh, my God and Father, forgive me! Forgive me, a poor, rebellious worm, and cast me not off in thy hot displeasure!" When she came downstairs she found Robert sitting alone. The tears were running down his cheeks. He did not know that she was near. She ran hastily to him, and, throwing her arms about his neck, called him by name. "Oh, auntie!" he said, sobbing like a child, "it is hard, it is hard to bear!" Susan did not dare to say anything lest she should prove to be only a miserable comforter. She stood beside him, stroking his hair and mingling her tears with his. Her thoughts wandered back to that morning in the kitchen, and as she remembered how, sitting in that home upon which no such shadow had ever fallen, she had murmured, and had dared even to question the justice of the great Judge of all, she trembled and prayed that God would in mercy permit her to enter again that happy home, that she might show her gratitude to him. And Susan's prayer was answered. As soon as she could be well spared she wrote Ezekiel to meet her at the station, which he was only too glad to do; he was greatly taken aback when, in the presence of the numerous spectators, his ordinarily undemonstrative wife gave him a resounding kiss. Susan had all that she could do to refrain from kissing horse, harness, and wagon. When Thanksgiving came, as of course it did, and at the morning service Pastor Griffin read from 1 Corinthians the words of Paul, "Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer," Susan trembled again. As they were riding home together after the service, Ezekiel turned to his wife, and said: "Didn't you overdo it a little on the Doxology this mornin'? I may be mistaken, but it seems to me there was a lot of folks lookin' straight at our pew as if they wanted to know where all that noise come from." "I don't know but I did sing uncommon loud," said Mrs. Hodgkins, "and I guess it must have been because them lines of the poet was runnin' through my head:—
'Streams of mercy never ceasin'
Call for songs of loudest praise.'
I was thinkin' how amazin' kind the Lord has been to me, how much better'n I deserve. I wouldn't dare to tell you all, 'Zekiel, but I've had a narrow escape. I've been dreadful rebellious, and all about nothin'. But I guess I've learnt now for good and all that there's some things a good deal worse than to have your strawberries spiled, or your cow choke, even allowin' she's the best cow in town, or to have some thief run off with your money."