In Life’s Evening
Old
Amos was sitting by the open fire, smoking. The wreath of smoke was curling up
around his face there in the twilight making a sort of halo around his finely
shaped though old and wrinkled features. His snow-white hair was pushed far
back from his forehead and tiny snowy ringlets fell about his temples. His mild
blue eyes were looking at the fire in the grate, but it was not the bright
flames dancing and crackling that those tender bits of blue were seeing. It was
a home empty of childish treasures, a home where no little feet were heard
pattering to and fro, no little tongue calling “Daddy” to view his newly found
joy.
“Would
it have been harder,” he was asking himself, “if these sounds had once been
heard in his home? “To give up the darling one later in life?” No, it was best
that the little one should be taken when he was yet so young. Better and easier
to bear than to have the caress of rosy fingers to haunt the memory, when only
a tiny mound was left to bear witness of the lost one.
“God
knows best,” he murmured, passing a blue-veined hand over his eyes to dispel
those sad thoughts.
Mary,
his wife, came in from the kitchen and seated herself beside her husband. It
was always the same with these two. After the day’s work was finished they
would sit beside the fire and talk of things that they never seemed to have
time to talk of during the day. But tonight they were both silent. Each was
thinking of a night one and twenty years ago. That night when a beautiful boy
truly sent from the Father above had to come to bless their home. But the Angel
of Death had followed in the wake of the little stranger and flown the swifter
of the two and had taken for his prize the Hope and Joy of the happy young
parents. They had meekly folded their hands and said, “God’s will be done.” But
as the years sped by none other came to take the lost one’s place and it was
very hard to bear.
“Oh,
if he might have been spared, Jim,” Mary was saying. Others called him Amos,
but Mary always said “Jim.” It sounded sweeter to her she said and so it did –
from Mary’s lips. “Yes, if he might have been spared. But so it was not to be.”
Amos
said nothing, but his arm went around her waist and his lips planted a tender
kiss on her hair – once so beautiful, so golden, now white as the driven
snow. Some might have called them young
– neither was two-score and then – yet disappointment and Fate had made them
look twice that age.
“Jim,”
she whispered. “Jim, have I made you happy?”
“Happy,
Love? Happy? You are the most wonderful woman on this earth, so patient and so,
so loving.”
A
knock sounded at the door and Mary hurried to answer. A yellow envelope was
handed her and with a puzzled look on her face she went slowly back to the
fire.
“‘Tis a
telegram, Jim,” she said, making no attempt to open it, but her hands were
twitching nervously. After throwing more fuel on the dying embers, Amos took
the envelope from her lap.
“Mary,”
he said sharply, “Mary.” She would have fallen but for his arm. “Are you
better, Sweetheart?” he asked and her face white as death looking up at him was
slowly changing in expression, a fixed stare was giving place to a radiant
beaming look.
“Mary,
are you leaving me on earth alone?” Amos feared the worst. But there was no
sign of the Conqueror on her features. Instead a smile so wonderful, and her
voice so gentle, saying “I’m all right now, Dear. All is well.”
Again
Amos picked up the envelope. As he read his face paled and in a trembling voice
he reread it to his wife:
“Mr. Amos Westly: Your son, John Amos Westly, was slightly
injured in a train wreck this evening. He is yet unconscious, but his two
companions, an elderly man and woman, are uninjured. Please come at once to the
Carleton Hospital and accompany your son home. Percival Houghton, M.D.
The address was a city scarcely fifty
miles distant – the Quaker City.
“What poor
Mother’s boy is suffering while she is ignorant of this calamity? And they have
sent us this telegram?” Mary was saying. But Amos never heard her. He was
thinking and thinking fast. John Amos was the name they had given their baby
son. He turned to Mary, a strange light shining in his eyes: “That fifty
dollars, Mary,” he said excitedly. “That fifty dollars – that poor old Aunt
Sarah gave me when she died? Be ready in a few minutes. The Limited is due in a
half an hour.” Mary looked at her husband in a strange way – as if she was
dreaming.
“Jim,
O Jim,” she exclaimed. “What – where are we going?”
But
Jim was already extinguishing the fire and was paying no attention to her
words. Mary Westly had learned long ago to safely rely on her husband’s wisdom
in all things. People said that was the secret of the harmonious home life that
the Westlys led. Now she said no more, but quietly went to her room to prepare
for the journey – so unexpected – a few moments before. In twenty minutes they
were on the platform, a-waiting the train that soon came racing into the
station.
None
who saw the two old people board the Limited could have guessed the termination
of that hurriedly taken trip. Nor could they themselves. Indeed, after they
were seated and their tickets taken, Amos again brushed his hand across his
eyes and gazed at Mary as though he thought he might be dreaming. But Mary
scarcely noticed him, her eyes still held that look that had disturbed Amos
when she had given him the telegram.
The
attendant that admitted them into a room where two doctors stood disappeared to
return immediately, conducting a large, florid-faced man of perhaps fifty years
of age who walked with the aid of a cane. A second glance told the observer
that he was blind. At a gasp from both Amos and Mary, a spasm of pain crossed
his face and he appeared to be trying to penetrate the thick darkness that
enveloped him.
“Dr.
Ulric,” moaned Amos, and he sank into a chair beside Mary.
“Yes.”
It was the blind man speaking. “Dr. Ulric. When you knew me I was, or could
have been, a successful doctor, had not drink tempted me. But….” A hollow,
unearthly laugh came from the lips of the man. “I have taken my last and fatal
drink. The stuff was supposed to be “Bottled in Bond” but it proved to be wood
alcohol which has not only taken my sight but will, the doctors inform me and I
know them to be correct, take my life in a few hours. I should not have taken
it, but after the wreck nothing else would steady me for I feared the boy was
killed.”
At
the mention of the boy, his figure became rigid and he appeared to be goading
himself on to some unpleasant duty.
“Madam,
you have mourned your son as dead these twenty-one years have cause to rejoice
that once more his life has been spared. That night when you thought he lay a
corpse, he was only sleeping. It was the same Demon that has robbed me of my
sight and likewise my self-respect and manhood that robbed you of the joy of
rearing your son through childhood. Instead of giving him just enough of the
drug to quiet him, I gave enough to cause an unnatural sleep that would last
twenty-four hours. As you know, within that time he lay in his coffin. The coffin
was not opened again, but there was sufficient air for a four-days old babe.
Thank God before it was too late I regained my senses and realized my mistake
in time to prevent any more sorrow. My men and I followed close after the
funeral procession and before the sound of the wheels died away we were hard at
work. The child was still breathing though very faintly. However, he soon
recovered and I have tried to rear him as I thought you would have done. Today
he is a strong, self-reliant man. I ask you to forgive my mistake in choosing
deception rather than make known my fault and lose my professional standing as
I surely would had the truth become known. It was a weak and cowardly thing to
do, but I have tried to make good my wrongdoing. Other than a fractured arm as
the result of the wreck, your son is safe.”
But
Mary and Amos never heard these last words. They were in another room bending
over a bed, sobbing, for their son would no more be only a memory, but would be
with them to cheer their old hearts.