444 UNDER THE HEMLOCKS.
marriage took place after her brother’s departure, our name had never suggested any relationship to the old man; and his astonishment
at finding that he had been unwittingly aiding
his nearest kin, was as great as ours in learning that for our renewed comfort and prosperity
we were not indebted to a stranger.
As may be supposed, it made us all very happy to know that to the ties of business and sympathy was added that of consanguity, making a three-fold bond of union.
We did move after Christmas; but it was to a comfortable brick house on Vine street, which, when success and fortune became more assured, we exchanged for our present home on the Avenue.
It is, I suppose, almost unnecessary to say that our kind benefactor, or uncle Charley, as we now called him, accompanied us, or that it became one of the deepest studies of our lives to repay, in some measure, the debt of gratitude we owed him, by striving to obliterate, through home-cheer and fire-side joy, all remembrance of those long years of exile and loneliness.
And we succeeded; for though, as he realized, his day of active exertion was past, it was followed by the peaceful calm of old age; that tender twilight of the silver-haired, illumined by the morning-star of memory and Aurora- gleams of a coming glory.
Now, too, the absorbing, consuming passion of his life seemed to be quenched, or displayed itself only in the invention of toys for the children; especially after Charley, his namesake, arrived, and had reached an age when he could appreciate perfection in kites, and almost perpetual-motion in humming-tops.
As he grew older, and more feeble, he seemed to grow also daily more and more gentle. And, paradoxical as it may appear, though his heart ever beat true to the purest evangelical faith, he always cherished an idea of a glorified hu manity; which, though not redeemed, was, at least, to be reclaimed and elevated by the genius of invention, and the progress of science.
This seeming contradiction became clear at last. He had been gradually failing, but his faculties were as bright, and his interest in public advance as keen as ever, when the end came. We were sitting in his room, and I thought that he was dropping to sleep, when Harry, who was reading the evening paper, knowing that the announcement for which he had longed would please him, read aloud the queen’s message; the first telegram flashed over ocean wires the inscription on my cake, Peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Instantly the fire of enthusiasm gleamed in his sunken eye, as he exclaimed, ‘My God, I thank thee!” And taking up the eloquence of Isaiah, “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising!” Then folding his hands as one who is satisfied, this faithful servant, who had welcomed each achievement of science as a step toward the final triumph of his Master, with the glad flush of victory still on his cheek, passed on into the fuller joy of his Lord.
Years have passed away, but the name of uncle Charley is not forgotten in our home. Often, as Harry and I look around upon our children, growing up amid all the advantages of culture and refinement, we feel our hearts glowing with loving remembrance of him whom, besides a kind friend and tender relative, we must always regard as the founder of our FORTUNE.
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS.
BY ELLIS YETTE.
THE Soft October sun looked down
On the sloping hills and the distant town;
And across the valley, and under the hill,
Lazily hummed the droning mill;
The trees were purple, and flame, and gold,
With a beauty gorgeous to behold ;
And through the valley, gleaming bright,
The river wound in silvery light;
And softly, gently, the sunbeams crept
Under the hemlocks, where we met.
The air was still, not the faintest breeze
Stirred the depths of those hemlock trees;
The clear, slant sunbeams fell across
The softest beds of greenish moss;
And here and there, on the mottled green,
A gold or crimson leaf was seen,
Like a sweet word said, and then forgot,
Or a pure, but unremembered thought;
There, where the sunbeams softly crept,
Under the hemlocks, where we met.
The quiet brook that murmured by,
Flowed to the sea without a sigh;
The sweet bird singing overhead,
Might come again when frosts were dead;
But who can gather up again
A love that has been poured in vain?
Or bring again the golden rays
That crowned our hopes in other days?
Or feel the sunbeams then that crept
Under the hemlocks, where we met?
