Canadian fiction; Maine -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction; Poor -- Fiction
But the general store on the village street still flourishes, and in
Cale Rodgers' place is one whose speech is still a marvelous thing in
staid old New England ears--it is an Irish brogue perhaps, for his name
is Michael Coogan. There are little Coogans too, and Mamie is a happy
wife. And to the Coogans come sometimes letters from a far-western farm
to say that things are well and that prosperity has come to one who
signs himself--facetiously it always seems to Mamie who reads the
letters to her husband--as Pale Face Harry.
And so the years have passed, and it is summer time again. The fields
are green; the trees in leaf; the flowers in bloom. And there are
visitors who have come again to the scenes of yesterday--a man and
woman--and between them a sturdy little lad of eight. They stop at the
end of the wagon track and look out across the lawn.
It is still and peaceful, tranquil--and to them conies the soft, low
murmur of the surf. Slowly they walk across the lawn, and pass beneath
the splendid maples--and pause again.
The cottage is like some poet's fancy, hidden shyly in its creepers and
its vines; and seems to speak and breathe in its simple beauty of the
gentle soul who once had lived there--and loved his fellow-men. It is as
it always was, open, free for all to pass within who wish to enter; for
loving hands have cared for it, and grateful purses, opened to its
needs, have kept it as--a Shrine.
But they do not enter now, for Madison points to where the sunlight, as
it glints through the trees at the far end of the cottage, falls on a
slender shaft of marble.
"Let us go there, Helena," he said softly.
And so they walked that way, past the trellises laden with flowers,
past the end of the cottage; and presently they stopped again where,
beneath the maples' shade, rises the pure white stone--and beyond it is
the sweep of the eternal sea.
Madison, his hair streaking just a little gray at the temples now,
removed his hat--and his face softened, saddened, as he read the simple
inscription:
THE PATRIARCH
The boy glanced at his father a little wonderingly--and then spelt out
the words. He shook his head.
"I don't know what that means," he said. "What does that word mean?"
Madison patted his head.
"You tell him, Helena," he said--and came and stood beside her.
And so Helena told the boy in simple language as much of the Patriarch's
story as she thought he could understand--and when she had finished the
boy's face was aglow.
"And!" he said breathlessly, "and--and did he ever do a really,
truly-truly miracle?"
There was silence for an instant--then a tender smile came trembling to
Helena's lips, and into the brown eyes crept the love-light, as she
reached out to Madison and her hand found his and held it very tightly.
And Madison bent and kissed her; and drew the little lad between them
and laid his hand on the boy's head, and answered for Helena.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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