The Lights and Shadows of Real LifeArthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
General
The Lights and Shadows of Real Life
Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
Conduct of life -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
"Henry Logan," replied the child, looking for a moment into the face
of Mr. Crawford, and then turning to gaze at the picture on the
wall. Every nerve quivered in the frame of that man of iron will.
The falling of a bolt from a sunny sky could not have startled and
surprised him more. He saw in the face of the child, the moment be
looked at him, something strangely familiar and attractive. What it
was, he did not, until this instant, comprehend. But it was no
longer a mystery.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked, in a subdued voice, after he had
recovered, to some extent, his feelings.
The child looked again into his face, but longer and more earnestly.
Then, without answering, he turned and looked at the portrait on the
wall.
"Do you know who I am, dear?" repeated Mr. Crawford.
"No, sir," replied the child; and then again turned to gaze upon the
picture.
"Who is that?" and Mr. Crawford pointed to the object that so fixed
the little boy's attention.
"My mother." And as he said these words, he laid his head down upon
the bosom of his unknown relative, and shrunk close to him, as if
half afraid because of the mystery that, in his infantile mind, hung
around the picture on the wall.
Moved by an impulse that he could not restrain, Mr. Crawford drew
his arms around the child and hugged him to his bosom. Pride gave
way; the iron will was bent; the sternly uttered vow was forgotten.
There is power for good in the presence of a little child. Its
sphere of innocence subdues and renders impotent the evil spirits
that rule in the hearts of selfish men. It was so in this case. Mr.
Crawford might have withstood the moving appeal of even his
daughter's presence, changed by grief, labor, and suffering, as she
was. But his anger, upon which he had suffered the sun to go down,
fled before her artless, confiding, innocent child. He thought not
of Fanny--as the wilful woman, acting from the dictate of her own
passions or feelings; but as a little child, lying upon his
bosom--as a little child, singing and dancing around him--as a
little child, with, to him, the face of a cherub; and the sainted
mother of that innocent one by her side.
When the Friend came for the little boy; Mr. Crawford said to him,
in a low voice--made low to hide his emotion--
"I will keep the child."
"From its mother?"
"No. Bring the mother, and the other child. I have room for them
all."
A sunny smile passed over the benevolent countenance of the Friend
as he hastily left the room.
Mrs. Logan, worn down by exhausting labor, had at last been forced
to give up. When she did give up, every long strained nerve of mind
and body instantly relaxed; and she became almost as weak and
helpless as an infant. While in this state, she was accidentally
discovered by the kind-hearted old Friend, who, without her being
aware of what he was going to do, made his successful attack upon
her father's feelings. He trusted to nature and a good cause, and
did not trust in vain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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