A few hours after his spirit had gone a crippled boy came to the house
and begged permission to go to the chamber. The wish was granted, and
the boy hobbled to the bedside. Who he was, and in what manner my
brother had befriended him, none of the family knew, but as he painfully
picked his way down stairs the tears were streaming over his face, and
the onlookers forgot their own sorrow in contemplation of his grief.
The morning of the funeral, while the family stood around the coffin,
the letter-carrier at Buena Park came into the room, and laying a bunch
of letters at the foot of the bier said reverently: "There is your last
mail, Mr. Field." Then turning with tears in his eyes, as if apologizing
for an intrusion, he added: "He was always good to me and I loved him."
It was this affection of those in humbler life that seems to speak the
more eloquently for the beneficence and the triumph of his life's work.
No funeral could have been less ostentatious, yet none could have been
more impressive in the multitude that overflowed the church, or more
conformable to his tenacious belief in the democracy of man. People of
eminence, of wealth, of fashion, were there, but they were swallowed up
in the great congregation of those to whom we are bound by the ties of
humanity and universal brotherhood, whose tears as they passed the bier
of the dead singer were the earnest and the best tribute to him who sang
for all. What greater blessing hath man than this? What stronger
assurance can there be of happiness in that life where all is weighed
in the scale of love, and where love is triumphant and eternal?
Sleep, my brother, in the perfect joy of an awakening to that happiness
beyond the probationary life. Sleep in the assurance that those who
loved you will always cherish the memory of that love as the tender
inspiration of your gentle spirit. Sleep and dream that the songs you
sang will still be sung when those who sing them now are sleeping with
you. Sleep and take your rest as calmly and peacefully as you slept when
your last "Good-Night" lengthened into eternity. And if the Horace you
so merrily invoked comes to you in your slumber and bids you awake to
that sweet cheer, that "fellowship that knows no end beyond the misty
Stygian sea," tell him that the time has not yet come, and that there
are those yet uncalled, to whom you have pledged the joyous meeting on
yonder shore, and who would share with you the heaven your companionship
would brighten.
ROSWELL MARTIN FIELD.
BUENA PARK, January, 1896.
Contents of this Little Book
CASEY'S TABLE D'HOTE
OUR LADY OF THE MINE
THE CONVERSAZZHYONY
PROF. VERB DE BLAW
MARTHY'S YOUNKIT
OLD ENGLISH LULLABY
"LOLLYBY, LOLLY, LOLLYBY"
ORKNEY LULLABY
LULLABY; BY THE SEA
CORNISH LULLABY
NORSE LULLABY
SICILIAN LULLABY
JAPANESE LULLABY
LITTLE CROODLIN DOO
DUTCH LULLABY
CHILD AND MOTHER
MEDIAEVAL EVENTIDE SONG
CHRISTMAS TREASURES
CHRISTMAS HYMN
CHRYSTMASSE OF OLDE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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