Stories and ballads for young folksAlden, Ellen Tracy
General
Stories and ballads for young folks
Alden, Ellen Tracy
Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature; Children's poetry; Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature
Lem returns to the kitchen to consult with his wife, Eliza, as to what
shall be done for her in whose welfare they have felt such a tender
interest since, years ago, she and her brother were left orphans. Not all
the heartfelt sympathy of young and old, and the loving little attentions
of the children, seem to be of any avail. Eliza advises to go for Edith.
“She used to ’muse Master Wallie.”
But once in the room, her toys about her, Edith soon ceases to play.
There is a change. Somebody is gone who used to be here. She may somewhat
have forgotten all that has been passing of late, scarcely can have
understood what has been told her; but whether she thinks about it or
not, or remembers, even, she feels a want. “It’s lonesome without _him_!”
Ah, that is it; and she begins to sob, creeping close to Kate. But what
new thing is this? Katy doesn’t notice her! Those queer, staring eyes,
that do not turn and smile upon her, they are not Katy’s eyes. That
white, stony face, that is not like Katy, either. And all the while the
wind is moaning and wailing, and the gloomy clouds grow gloomier, making
the day dreary and the room dreary. Everything is dreary and lonesome,
and not as it used to be. She flies into the hall, crying and calling to
Lem, below.
“Take me home! I’m afraid! Katy isn’t Katy any more!”
“Oh, come back, Edie!” calls Kate, arousing at that pitiful little cry
and holding out her hands to the child. “Don’t go away and leave Katy all
alone! She’ll be good now. She’s sorry she scared Edie; she didn’t mean
to.”
“_Are_ you all alone?” Edith has stopped crying suddenly. There is a
peculiar earnestness in her look as she questions.
“Yes, Edie, all alone! all alone!” and the answer ends almost in a wail.
“Then it’s there—there, behind the book—the paper that he did write on. I
must give it to you when you was all alone, he said—my captain. He said,
would I ’member? Ha, ha! I _did_ ’member, didn’t I?”
Kate opens the book-case, and finds, as the child said, a folded paper
behind one of the encyclopædias. It contains some lines written with
pencil, so running together, lines and words, as to be almost unreadable.
As she recognizes that handwriting and slowly deciphers it, the tears
come at last like rain. Edith, no longer afraid, wipes them away with her
little white apron, murmuring, the while, all sorts of baby talk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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