PARADISE

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, 27 August 1903, Page 8

PARADISE

2 By Eloise Jane HufFt. r 9 ikKvmy&^v&vcW<**'u&*£

(From the Kew Orleans Times-Democrat, by Permission.) IlffE young mother had been into the dim shadows where Death and e struggle, and win or lose, just at Hie happiest, sweetest, fullest hour which had been hers, when love took on a- new and tender unselfishness, •when its lilting, dancing measures broke into the deep melody of an anthem, and, as she drifted back into the light again, thus it was that she half wished and half prayed in her still childish way that Death would never take this woman-child of hers as long as Life held Happiness—that love of Life should be a talisman to stay the hand of Death. " Thrice in the woman's threescore years Death had come to woo her from his brother Life out into the far beyond, that unknown land, that hereafter which he called Paradise, and of which he spoke with a wondrous eloquence and a great witchery. When first he came it was just at the dawn of day, just as the east was flushins; in the faint rays of the rising sun and the birds twittered in the trees; shod with silence he glided through the quiet halls and still hushed household, among the watchers with wet faces and terror-touched eyes. All unseen, though they looked for his coming, he went in the gray of the spring morning into the sweet sanctity of the girl's chamber. Pausing on the threshold, se if loth to enter an unbidden guest, he not ed all its whiteness and its dainty simplicity; noted, too, on the muslindraped dressing table a tiny silver frame, with the pictured face of a youth, an earnest, grave face; and Death smiled at the story it told. But he went to the bed where she lay as one asleep, until she seemed to be already Death's own. lie stood beside her and looked with sad eyes and cold, impassive brow at the child who was his for the taking, and it was in tenderness and with a love and pity surpassing the human that he gazed on the fair young face, like an untouched lily leaf, the unwritten brow, the sweet childish mouth, upon which the kisses of love had left neither song nor sigh, the slender little hands, so weak and fragile, and he stooped and touched her with his pulseless fingers as he said: "My chilil. yon are ready, you are willing »o conic with me'.' for 1 am your friend, and will give you eternal calm ami peace, a gift which human love ami care cannot bestow. 1 will take you to a land where you will never lose your youth; I will save you from Life. Look into the faces of the aged, my little maid, and read there of all that Liftwrites upon faces once as fresh and fair as yobrs; all that love entails; all that lengthened years give to those who wait too long for me; the fever that is ambition; the delirium that is love; the chill that is regret; the ceaseless anguish of sorrow and disappointment that dims the eyes fixed upon the things of this world." His voice had almost the wooing and the pleading of a lover, as he saw in her awakened eyes the cloudless, untroubled soul of a child. .- "From all this 1 will save you. Conm with me now before Life has taught yon to yearn for me, for I come not at your call, however sorrowing and loud." The girl'gazed upon him with a great wonder in her gentle, dove-like eyes; , ahe quietly unclasped his hold and laid .her fingers caressingly upon some faded roses on the bed beside her, and she ! said, as one repeats words of a foreign .tongue, all unlearned in their meaning: "Regret, sorrow, disappointment— Vhat are these?" \ "Death went on: "Come, my child; come with me to Paradise, to the land jrhere all is serenity, all is joy and content; where the days are all one as another in their changeless, tranquil happiness." And then, as Death became the more imperative, as he again touched her with his icy fingers, she looked across the room until she .met the pictured face, and something like firmness gathered and settled upon her ehildish features. "That is not Paradise of which you tell me." Then she hesitated, but, looking straight and direct into the close, stern face of Death, a little faint flush creeping into her cheeks and a sweet, unafraid worn- • anliness growing upon her as she ••poke: "That is not Paradise. Paradise is here, because John is here." And Death went his way with eniptv ' arms, and when ahe waked the watch- l eri said that she wandered, still ahe I was feverish and distraught, although j her eyes were placid and clear and her {

voice even and sweet. for ahe said: ".«; I will not go with you; Paradise i.here." . - It was noon, a still summer noon when Death came again, meeting. :i he glided through the solemn «;-;:» i ■■ the waiting, praying, desolate horn*man whose face was as pale and s«i :: Death's own; whose eyes weir lit av;. with unshed tears: children with :. strange grief upon their hearts. IJi. heedless, unpitying Death passed then by, and went one again for i lit* on who was brought into the shadow y. his wing. But it was a difTereni set-in that met his eyes as he paused for hi instant at the door; it was a mother".room now, wide and spacious. Over t lie mantel the pictured face of a man. a scholarly face, pure of outline and direct and firm of expression, seemed to dominate the room, and the groups of children's portraits, little shoes upon the floor, little stockings in the gnat, wide workbasket, school bocks and slates on the desk by «ft« window, all typified her life, with its broad, iinselfish, womanly interests, its loves and its cares, it* duties and its pleasures. Onfte agaia she listened to Death's pleadiagk, and rs he lookei upon her. he nlmofl envied Life tin beauty he had written upon her fner Youth and freshness were gone, spen! as a generous giver does mere gold, u loving service, glad to be the poorer but there was grace and loveliness pass ing that of form or color in the quiet. Madonna-like eyes, the thought in brow, the mouth kept sweet and mn low by sunshine and rain, the word. of love and the crooning of cradh songs; all was there, all the Life fron which he had warned her—tears am laughter, moment* of joy, hours y sorrow and grief, years of sweet. cahn even-paced content, hope, patience anxiety, realization—the story was al written there, and it was gain, not loss: beauty, strength and a'.l lovesome womanliness, but Death despaired not. even though he saw more of happiness than of sorrow. "Xow you are ready to come with me to Paradise; you who have known grief and loss, for I have taken your children from your arms, and they bloom there You have seen all that Life imjoses: you have known weariness; you hsm felt the. thorns and briars along tin path. Life has not spared you labor o care. To you, and such as you. I comas a deliverer; one who bestows resi after long toil. All LifeVburdi-tis wii. be lifted, and you will forever fold jour bands in eternal peace. Come with me. you who should greet the coming of a friend who will give you Paradise." But she looked up into his face, into the passion-pure, marble-like features of Death, and, as the glow of the Northern Lights flushes into roseatt hue even fields of ice and snow, so tin face of Death-became illumined with all but human beauty and expression, as she said, her voice not th« timid, faltering tones of the blushful maid who had once answered his plea, but the full-rounded, melodious accents of a woman: "Go your way. Death. 1 know all that life means, all that love gives and takes, and again will 1 say. after all these years, Paradise is not with you. Paradise is here, happiness. is here, for John is here!" And Death trailed his ghostly garments through the house and went alone,with almost a bitterness against his brother Life, who could so hold out and so charm. When she waked she said, as one who had routed and conquered a foe: "What does he know of Paradise? Paradise is here, for you, my beloved, are here."'

Evening shadows were gathering when Death" came again. The room was all in half lights; a mother's room slill. but no longer that happy mother of little children. Xo little shoes upon the floor, no little stockings in the work basket; the low rocker where so many lullabies had been suug was gone; the little pile of school books and slates was put away; the lessons to be learned in mother's room were not to be conned from books, or written upon slates. The man's face still looked down from the mantel, but the pictures around it were no longer of children, but of men and women. All was changed, all the childish life was folded awa.y, but the anxious ones as he passed them looked with eyes that stirred his memory, the fathomless, ages-old memory of Death, with a recollection of two other faces—the child aud the woman, neither of whom would go with him in these buried years. But now he had scarcely paused by her side when she said to him as one who greets and welcomes and half chides a friend who has tarried too long: "Why have you waited such a weary time to come for me? I haw ijeen watching and praying for you—oh. so long! and you let me linger." And, as he gazed upon her out of the depths of the past he remembered her although it was an old and worn *a c 2 that was lifted so wistfully foi ft* white and lined, framed in. uowv ! hair, tired and grief-stricken, but the voice was the same, though all its vibrant tones were stilled, that voice that always took on a softer measure at one name. So it was that when they found her, the men and woman who called her -Mother, on her face was a strange, sweet peace, and a smile almost of triumph and much of youth; for it came when she placed her hand in that of Death, and said: "Yes, I will go with you to Paradise. I for John is there." '

Where the Paint Went. "I thought you were working on Jay "K rank's new house," said the housepainter's friend. "1 was going to," replied the hou?epaiuter, "but 1 had a quarrel with Mm, and he said he'd put the paint on himself." "And did he do it?" ~« V ™ ~ l b al t , i l w here h j« P«t most of " -- 1 | ' l -"'"!nhin Prt-ss. "