Now there is the story of the absent one that parents tell--the legend
about God and Heaven and the angels--a beautiful and comforting legend
it is for small minds, and being merciful, God may in His own way bring
us to realize it, in deed and in truth. When the lonely father or the
broken hearted mother tells the desolate child that legend, childhood
finds surcease there for its sorrow. But when there is no God, no
Heaven, no angels to whom the absent one has gone, what then do deserted
mothers say?--or dishonored fathers answer? What surcease for its sorrow
has the little lonely, aching heart in that sad case? What then, "ye
merry gentlemen that nothing may dismay"?
CHAPTER XXV
IN WHICH WE SEE TWO TEMPLES AND THE CONTENTS THEREOF
It was an old complaint in Harvey that the Harvey _Tribune_ was too
much of a bulletin of the doings of the Adams family and their friends.
But when a man sets all the type on a paper, writes all the editorials
and gets all the news he may be pardoned if he takes first such news as
is near his hand. Thus in the May that followed events set down in the
last chapter we find in the _Tribune_ a few items of interest to
the readers of this narrative. We learn for instance that Captain Ezra
Morton who is introducing the Nonesuch Sewing Machine, paid his friends
in Prospect school district a visit; that Jasper Adams has been promoted
to superintendent of deliveries in Wright & Perry's store; that Kenyon
Adams entertained his friends in the Fifth Grade of the South Harvey
schools with a violin solo on the last day of school; that Grant Adams
had been made assistant to the secretary of the National Building Trades
Association in South Harvey; that Mr. George Brotherton with Miss Emma
Morton and Martha and Ruth had enjoyed a pleasant visit with the Adamses
Sunday afternoon and had resumed an enjoyable buggy ride after partaking
of a chicken dinner. In the editorial column were some reflections
evidently in Mr. Left's most lucid style and a closing paragraph
containing this: "Happiness and character," said the Peach Blow
Philosopher, "are inseparable: but how easy it is to be happy in a
great, beautiful house; or to be unhappy if it comes to that in a great,
beautiful house: Environment may influence character; but all the good
are not poor, nor all the rich bad. Therefore, the Peach Blow
Philosopher takes to the woods. He is willing to leave something to the
Lord Almighty and the continental congress. Selah!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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