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30
TIIE
FIRST
M4~¢MNWM¢¢II
“FORGET-ME-NOT.”
man when they came out—alas! that. he is not oftcner bright and grand~lookingl that care of so many fields, of so many creatures feeding, growing, working, so many barns, and sheds, and implements, and work-people, fills his brain full, leaving little chance for “joy and gladness" to enter! He is rich enough if he never again touches work, or entertains care of fields, cattle and laborers. When momma told him so to-day, standing before him, her hands reaching up and lying on his shoulders, he said, “Yes, I know; but I should be the dullest man living if I hadn’t care and work enough together to fill up every minute when I’m awake. It is a necessity that I inherit from my busy New England fathers and mothers, back I don’t know how many generations; and I can’t stop; there's nothing of me if I do. I’m the most nervous person you ever saw, I can’t sleep if I don’t work. It's bad!” seeing mamma’s wondering, deprecating look. “I suppose this is the curse of labor. I suppose labor itself, mixed up with love, flower- tending and rest in the shade, as it was in Eden,is a pure pleasure and benefit; only, according f to Fiehte, man was but a baby then and needed 5 the work, the pain and ‘sweat of the brow, needed exactly what came, in short, the curse, and all the sorrow of it, to make him a man, worthy of'the new, greater Eden; worthy because he had had the energy, faith and love to come round to it.”
“That is good!" mamma said. “I like that doctrine; for it puts mercy even into the curse and makes me see how it was just, necessary, and even tenderly, that it should descend to us 5 all, and lie on us all until it fits us for the great blessing. I never saw this blessing as I see it now and never longed for it so; for, my g husband, I want you to rest!”
- on the pages, she turned to me and began to lay
3 plans for reading the kind of books that suit pa, gfor qualifying herself to talk of the things that S will interest pa, for luring him in this way to lei i sure and rest. We are going to study astronomy, natural history, and civil history thoroughly. fill ing up completely the bare-frame-work we built up at school. We are going to have books; specimens and apparatus; are going, in this way to travel the sky, the air, the sea, the earth, and
ithe bowels of the earth, taking pa with us; then
i momma is sure, as I am, that he will be willing
t to let the oxen and the plough go their way,
iunder the eye and in the hands of those who need them in leveling their fields, raising their
daily bread. i “And Horace knows all about these things!"
concluded marnma. “ He has been over all the ground; or, so it seems to me; but he sees a whole life-time of study. I have heard him say so. You don’t know him, yet, dear. This crea ture, this Nisidia has had him all out of tune, as
unlike himself as morning is to midnight. ever since he has had anything to do with her. You'll see him, now, when he comesl There never was ’§adearer, better brother than he has been. There Ewas never a dearer, better husband, I am sure, i than he will be to you." Good night, auntie. Perhaps I will write a
§ little more after he comes to-morrow.
The 21.9! Here he is, auntie, safe, under the same roof, '5 and my whole being is, as it were, dissolved in gratitude. I could not believe, as the hour drew near, that he would come, that such happiness great, ; could come, as it would be having him here in S the same room with me, and knowing that he loved me.
Mamnm met him at the door and brought him II/
He took her little hands in his wide ones and E in. First he took my hand, looking in my face— held them a little with his eyes on her upturned 3 and how changed his air and all his expression face. “My wife, I do rest," said he. And he were, since our first meeting when I was so dis does, in her, bless her! gtrustt'ul, and he began so soon to laugh at mel
Momma asked him where the book was he , We did not speak, at first, either of us; but be quoted. He took it from the book-case, found E drew my hand nearer and nearer, drew me nearer the passage he had referred to, and then went. 5 and nearer, until he. passed his arm around we
Momma did not read it. With her hand lying and kissed my forehead. WWWM/w», Ww,,,w,lw”~
THE
FIRST
“FORGET—ME—NOT.”
Swn'r azure fairy of the fields, Wlth blue eye bathed in sparkling dew— Whoso presence many a memory yields Like perfume, as it brings anew And gently Steals, And now reveals The image of the loved—tho true.
mzl zlbnl lz’v
When o'er I FOG its Heavenly hue, My fancy wanders bright and Me, To distant lkles as pure and blue. That tenderly hung arched o’er thee; With many sighs To be those skies,
Which fondly may look down on thee.
n. c., .m
