Part 14

How distinctly I recall those long and happy evenings around that radiant hearth, the games, the stories read from welcome magazines! Little we cared for the howling storm without. I hear the tick of the ancient clock in the corner shadowed by the old arm-chair; I see the glimmer on the whitewashed wall, the festooned strings of apples, sliced and hung above the fire to dry; I hear the patient, expectant stroke of hammer on the upturned log, and now the crackling burst of the rough-shelled butternut, yielding up its long and filmy kernel; I hear the apples sizzling on the hearth, the puffy snap of pop-corn jumping in its fiery cage, the kettle singing on the pendent hook--a thousand things; and what a precious living picture of sweet home-life they all bring back to me!

But look! there is another hidden picture in the book of life--a shadowed page, which we had well-nigh forgotten. See that crouching figure in the dark, deserted street--that spurned and wretched outcast, without a home, without a friend! Perhaps if that broken heart has not already ceased to yearn, if the last spark has not yet been smothered by the driving, covering snow, we might still hear the faint and stifled sobs:

“Once I was loved for my innocent grace, Flattered and sought for the charm of my face. Father, mother, sisters, all, God, and myself, I have lost in my fall. The veriest wretch that goes shivering by Will take a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh, For of all that is on or about me, I know, There is nothing that’s pure but the beautiful snow. How strange it should be that this beautiful snow Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go! How strange it would be, when the night comes again, If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain, Fainting, freezing, dying alone!”

Life’s book is full of shadowed pages such as this; and it were well if in the midst of our contented homes, around our cheerful fires, we stopped to think and give a silent, heart-felt prayer for those who, by some strange, inexplicable fatality, seem doomed to walk with cruel burdens and with bleeding feet the path of life: no helping hand, no friend, no hope, no God.

What a terrible night! Hark how the wind moans, like a long wail from some despairing soul shut out in the awful storm! The air is filled with dense clouds of flying snow and sleet chased along by the gale. The trees bend and writhe, and, as if in fear, scratch their boughs upon the roof; the driving flakes beat with an angry, hissing sound upon the window-panes, and for a moment there is a muffled, ominous silence. Now comes a wild and furious gust, and a great white whirlwind sweeps with serpentine contortions past the window and disappears in the thick darkness of the night. Our very walls sway and tremble to their foundation. The clap-boards snap, and some loosened blind is torn from its hinges and hurled as a feather before the raging wind. We hear a crash of breaking glass, the shaking of the old barn doors, and now a frightened neigh, half smothered in the storm.

Who would venture out in such a night as this? We shudder at the thought, and yet there is one whose holy sense of duty will see no barrier even in this fierce tempest. Even now he is urging his faithful horse onward through the lonely road, cold and benumbed, but thinking only of the suffering he hopes to relieve.

How well I remember the welcome stamping at the front door, the chinking rattle of the tin box sounding nearer and nearer up the stairs, the tall and stately figure entering the room, clad in great-coat reaching nearly to the floor, the genial smile bringing both hope and comfort with its very presence! And what a noble face! the shapely forehead, the snowy tufts of close-cut hair, the magnetic, penetrating eyes, so deep and dark, looking out from beneath the heavy jet-black brows, and the clean-shaven cheeks and chin, of almost child-like bloom, relieved against the whiteness of the stock about the throat! Never before were winter and summer so strangely and beautifully blended in a human face. But we shall see that face no more. Physician, friend, companion, all were laid away with him, and sad indeed was the day that bore him from us. And now, as I look down upon that humble grave, I would that others, with the reverence I feel, might read the sacred epitaph inscribed upon my memory, of one whose only aim through life was the relief of suffering and sorrow. In storm or calm, by day or night, he fulfilled his holy mission. And when the fearful scourge swept o’er the town, and filled its homes with woe; when friends deserted friends, and brothers left their kin, this noble soul sought out the sick and dying, cared tenderly for their sufferings until the end, and even laid the dead away alone. A life of sacrifice, for rich or poor alike, without a thought of self. Professing no religious faith--yea, doubting even; but finding in the precept of the “golden rule” an inspiration worthy the devotion and the effort of his life: “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

And so the winter goes. It has its joys and its sorrows, its strong contrasts of light and shadow. The bitter winds will freeze and rule the earth, but the sun will shine again, and the very gloom transform to glittering splendor. Soon we greet the lengthening days. The farmer heeds the warning sign. The woods resound with the stroke of the axe and crashing of falling trees; and the prostrate trunks are rolled upon the sledge and hauled away “to mill;” the fields are strewn with compost, and meadows sown with clover on the snow, fences are fixed, and hot-bed started on the sunny slope; the cackling hens have felt the prophecy, and steal away into snug little places among the hay-mows and the mangers, and lay the foundation of their future brood; the climbing bitter-sweet lets fall its scarlet seeds, and the little pussies on the willows grow day by day. How eagerly I always watched these welcome signs! for even though I loved the winter, I never sorrowed at its departure in the face of coming spring, with its promises of the medleys of the birds, of unfolding buds, and those sweet shy faces soon to peep along the wood-path, and breathe their fragrance from among the withered leaves.

I remember, too, the faded butterfly, flitting about the wood-shed roof. His wings were torn and jagged at their edges, and their feathery beauty had nearly all been left among last summer’s flowers. Warned by November frosts, he had sought his winter shelter in some chink or crevice among the loosened boards, where, benumbed and dormant, he had spent the winter, awaiting the warmth of the returning sun to thaw him out, and once more coax him into the outer world. As early as February, should the day be mild, he would come out of his mysterious concealment and bask in the warm sunshine. Presently he alights upon the end of a birch-log in the wood-pile, and sips the sweet exuding sap. He is soon joined by another, and another, until a swarm has gathered at the feast. As the day declines, they retire again to the wood-shed, and there, huddled together on the rafters, await their next opportunity of mild and sunny weather. Even in a January thaw I have seen one of these faded butterflies that had left his hiding-place to tantalize a troop of hens around the barn-yard door.

I remember the torrent of rain and the freshet; the broken dams and bridges washed away. The softened ground yielded up its subterranean frosts; in all the trees the winter wounds bled with the quickened pulse; the elder spigots in the sugar-maples trickled all the day; and the neighboring farms echoed with the snap of whip and voice of eager teamsters, as the busy plough turned the dark-brown furrows, or the crushing harrow combed the crumbling mould. How welcome were the evidences of returning life among the low meadow-lands, where velvety-green tufts of sprouting grass circled the borders of the marshy pools, and the golden willow twigs bathed the brook-side in a luminous glow! Here, too, the alders hung their swinging tassels or trailed them o’er the surface of the swollen stream.

One by one the feathered flocks returned, and the little snow-birds and the buntings, seeing their place usurped, left for the northward region, to lend their cheerful voices to another winter. Then came a beautiful day, with mild, earth-scented breezes, like very spring. But at night the north wind came again to reassert its power, and the earth was once more subdued beneath the snow. And so for weeks the north wind battled with the sun,

Till at last the sweet Arbutus Nestling close on Nature’s breast Felt a throb · a warm pulsation Rouse it from its dreamy rest·

Throwing wide its little portals From its coverlet of snow It peeped forth from the leafy shelter Into a valley white below·

“Am I dreaming? · Shall the Winter Stifle and freeze my early breath Nay · hark! · I hear the Bluebird singing ’Spring has come’ he answereth·

“Ah! Frost-flower in thy grotto yonder Crystal sun-gem white and clear Thy reign must cease when I awaken Farewell! pale bloom · thy fate draws near·

Bleak Winter is thine Love’s Spring-time is mine· ]