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Sweet Cicely; or, Josiah Allen as a Politician, a novel by Marietta Holley |
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Chapter 14 |
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_ CHAPTER XIV Wall, Cicely died in June; and how the days will pass by, whether we are joyful or sorrowful! And before we knew it (as it were), September had stepped down old Time's dusty track, and appeared before us, and curchied to us (allegory). Ah, yes! time passes by swiftly. As the poet observes, In youth the days pass slowly, in middle life they trot, and in old age they canter. But the time, though goin' fast, had passed by very quietly and peacefully to Josiah Allen and me. Every thing on the farm wus prosperous. The children was well and happy; the babe beautiful, and growin' more lovely every day. Ury had took his money, and bought a good little house and 4 acres of land in our neighborhood, and had took our farm for the next and ensuin' year. And they was happy and contented. And had expectations. They had (under my direction) took a tower together, and the memory of her lonely pilgrimage had seemed to pass from Philury's mind. The boy wus a gettin' healthier all the time. And he behaved better and better, most all the time. I had limited him down to not ask over 50 questions on one subject, or from 50 to 60; and so we got along first- rate. And we loved him. Why, there hain't no tellin' how we did love him. And he would talk so pretty about his ma! I had learned him to think that he would see her bime by, and that she loved him now jest as much as ever, and that she _wanted him_ to be a _good boy_. And he wuz a beautiful boy, if his chin wuz sort o' weak. He would try to tell the truth, and do as I would tell him to--and would, a good deal of the time. And he would tell his little prayers every night, and repeat lots of Scripture passages, and would ask more'n 100 questions about 'em, if I would let him. There was one verse I made him repeat every night after he said his prayers: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And I always would say to him, earnest and deep, that his ma was pure in heart. And he'd say, "Does she see God now?" And I'd say, "Yes." And he would say, "When shall I see Him?" And I'd say, "When you are good enough." And he'd say, "If I was good enough, could I see Him now?" And I would say, "Yes." And then he would tell me that he would try to be good; and I would say, "Wall, so do." And late one afternoon, a bright, sunny afternoon, he got tired of playin'. He had been a horse, and little Let Peedick had been a drivin' him. I had heard 'em a whinnerin' out in the yard, and a prancin', and a hitchin' each other to the post. But he had got tired about sundown, and come in, and leaned up against my lap, and asked me about 88 questions about his ma and the City. He had never forgot what his uncle Josiah had read about it, and he couldn't seem to talk enough about it. [Illustration: THE BOY AND LET PEEDICK PLAYING HORSE.] And says he, with a dreamy look way off into the glowin' western sky, "My mamma Cicely said it would swing right down out of heaven some day, and would open, and I could walk in; and don't you believe mamma will stand just inside of the gate as she used to, and say, 'Here comes my own little boy'?" And he wus jest a askin' me this,--and it beats all, how many times he had tackled me on this very subject,--when Whitfield drove up in a great hurry. Little Samantha Joe had been taken sick, very sick, and extremely sudden. Scarlet-fever was round, and she and the boy had both been exposed. I was all excitement and agitation; and I hurried off without changin' my dress, or any thing. But I told Josiah to put the boy to bed about nine. Wall, there was a uncommon sunset that night. The west was all aflame with light. And as we rode on towards Jonesville right towards it,--though very anxious about the babe,--I drawed Whitfield's attention to it. The hull of the west did look, for all the world, like a great, shinin' white gate, open, and inside all full of radience, rose, and yellow, and gold light, a streamin' out, and changin', and glowin', movin' about, as clouds will. It seemed sometimes, as if you could almost see a white, shadowy figure, inside the gate, a lookin' out, and watchin' with her arms reached out; and then it would all melt into the light again, as clouds will. It wus the beautifulest sunset I had seen, that year, by far. And we s'pose, from what we could learn afterwards, that the boy, too, was attracted by that wonderful glory in the west, and strolled out to the orchard to look at it. It wus a favorite place with him, anyway. And there wus a certain tree that he loved to lay under. A sick-no-further apple. It wus the very tree I found him under that day in the spring, a lookin' up into the sky, a watchin' for the City to come down from heaven. You could see a good ways from there off into the west, and out over the lake. And the sunset must have looked beautiful from there, anyway. Wall, my poor companion Josiah wus all rousted up in his mind about the babe, and he never thought of the boy till it was half-past nine; and then he hurried off to find him, skairt, but s'posen he was up on his bed with his clothes on, or asleep on the lounges, or carpets, or somewhere. [Illustration: PAUL LOOKING AT THE SUNSET.] But he couldn't find him: he hunted all over the house, and out in the barn, and the door-yard, and the street; and then he rousted up Mr. Gowdey's folks, our nearest neighbors, to see if they could help find him. Wall, Miss Gowdey, when she wus a bringin' in her clothes,--it was Monday night,--she had seen him out in the orchard under the sick-no-further tree. And there they found him, fast asleep--where they s'pose he had fell asleep unexpected to himself. It wus then almost eleven o'clock, and he was wet with dew: the dew was heavy that night. And when they rousted him up, he was so hoarse he couldn't speak. And before mornin' he was in a high fever. They sent for me and the doctor at daybreak. Little Samantha Joe wus better: it only proved to be a hard cold that ailed her. But the boy had the scarlet-fever, so the doctor said. And he grew worse fast. He didn't know me at all when I got home, but wus a talkin' fast about his mamma Cicely; and he asked me "If the gate had swung down, for him to go through into the City, and if his mamma was inside, reachin' out her arms to him?" And then he would get things all mixed up, and talk about things he had heard of, and things he hadn't heard of. And then he would talk about how bright it was inside the gate, and how he see it from the orchard. And so we knew he had been attracted out by the bright light in the west. And then he would talk about the strangest things. His little tongue couldn't be still a minute; but it never could, for that matter. Till along about the middle of the afternoon he become quiet, and grew so white and still that I knew before the doctor told me, that we couldn't keep the boy. And I thought, and couldn't help it, of what Cicely had worried so about; and though my heart sunk down and down, to think of givin' the boy up,-- for I loved him,--yet I couldn't help thinkin' that with his temperament, and as the laws was now, the grave was about the only place of safety that the Lord Himself could find for the boy. And it wus about sundown that he died. I had been down-stairs for somethin' for him; and as I went back into the room, I see his eyes was wide open, and looked natural. [Illustration: "SAY!"] And as I bent over him, he looked up at me, and said in a faint voice, but rational,-- "Say"-- And I couldn't help a smilin' right there, with the tears a runnin' down my face like rain-water. He wanted to ask some question. But he couldn't say no more. His little, eager, questionin' soul was too fur gone towards that land where the hard questions we can't answer here, will be made plain to us. But he looked up into my face with that sort of a questionin' look, and then up over my head, and beyend it--and beyend--and I see there settled down over his face the sort of a satisfied look that he would have when I had answered his questions; and I sort o' smiled, and said to myself, I guessed the Lord had answered it. And so he went through the gate of the City, and was safe. And that is the way God took care of the boy. [THE END] _ |
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