The Bottom Drawer

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 28, 1886

The Bottom Drawer.

I SAW my wife pull out the bottom drawer of the old family bureau this evening, and I went softly out and wandered up and down until I knew she had gone to her sewing. We have some things laid away in that drawer which the gold of kings could not buy, and yet they are relics which grieve us both until our hearts are sore. I haven't looked at them for a year, but I remember each article. There are two worn shoes, a little chip hat with part of the rim gone; stockings, trousers, and a coat, two or three spools, bits of broken crockery, a whip, and several toys. Wife—poor thing—goes to the drawer every day of her life and prays over it, and lets her tears fall on the precious articles; but I dare not go.

Sometimes we speak of little Jack, but not often. It has been a long time, but somehow we can't get over grieving. He was a burst of sunshine in our lives, and his going away has been like covering our every-day existence with a pall. Sometimes when we sit alone evenings, I writing and she sewing, a child on the street will call as our boy used to, and we will both start up with a wild hope, only to find the darkness more of a burden than ever. It is so still and quiet now. I look up to the window where his blue eyes used to sparkle at my coming; but he is not there. I listen for his pattering feet, his merry shouts, and his ringing laugh; but there is no sound,—no one to climb over my knee, no one to search my pockets and tease for presents, and I never find the chair turned over, the broom down, or a rope tied to the door knob.

I want some one to tease me for my knife; to ride on my shoulders; to lose my ax; to follow me to the gate, and to be there when I come home; to call 'good night, papa;' for the little bed is now empty;—and wife misses him still more. There are no little feet to wash, no prayers to say, no voice teasing for a lump of sugar, or sobbing with pain of a hurt toe; and she would give her own life, almost, to wake at midnight and look across to the crib and see our boy, as she used to.—Sel.