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Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

RETURN

(By Elsa age 15, P.O. Box 313, Hawera.) It was a warm, sunny day of the harvestr-fcime, when autumn had touched the tender cruves of the hill with a golden grace, and filled the valleys with peace and beauty. Mellow sunlight, like a blessing, lay over the golden harvest-fields with their eplashas of blood-red poppies. There was a faint haze on the far horizon, where the steeple of a little village church rose up into the soft blue of the eky, as it curved down to meet the fields. The trees were changing summer's green arlands for copper and red and yellow; all Nature was dressed in its festal garments, in readiness for the last feast of the harvest.

There was an autumnal feeling of peace and sweet content in the air. a sense of fulfilment of duty, and rest after toil. There was peace in the lazy flight of the birds, and in the slowly curling smoke from the chimneys of white farm-houses; content in the voices of- farmers at work; peace in the pleasant sunshine, in the deep water of the river beside the old mill, and among the trees on either bank— among willows, which dropped yellow leaves into the water, and dark pines where golden light slanted mellowly through grey-brown trunks, to make a mosaic, with shadows on the ground.

Only in the face of the man who stood beneath the pines there was not peace. There, many conflicting emotions mingled doubt and hope, and joy with ■a touch of &adoess. He looked out across the golden harvest-fields, with a mist softening his keen blue eyes; and then at ths dark sweep of the river, broadening to a wide stretch of translucent water; with lambent sunbeams on its unrippled surface, which -suddenly vanished steeply round the curve of the bank. Ah, what a fair scene it was to look upon that lovely autumn day! Perchance it brought back memories.

From the river, the stranger's glance turned to the old mill, not far from where he stood; and the mist in his eyes grew so thick that he could not see ... but it cleared again, and he saw the sunshine falling on the whitewashed wrils, the orderly kitchen garden a,t the back, the cleanly swept porch, with the broom against the wall; the scarlet geranium in the white-curtained window. Evidently the old mill was now merely a dwelling-place for the old miller and his wife.

Aβ the man watched, a little greyhaired woman, with a neat black dress and little linen apron, came out of the door, and walked uncertainly through the porchway, feeling her way along the wall. As he watched her, a gasp came from the stranger's lips, and the next moment he had raced across to the wicket-gate of the garden. At the click of the latch the old woman raised her head inquiringly, and stood still. The stranger advanced a few steps and then stood hesitating;. After a pause he said, in a voice that sounded husky and far away: "Don't you know me?" "Know you?" she answered. 1 cannot even see you." "Not see me?" he said, puzzled. "No. lam blind," she answered quietly. "Blind! How long have you been blind?"

"For 20 years. Ever since my boy ran away from home."

The stranger made a quick movement, and took her little, work-worn hand in his big brown one, which trembled despite his efforts at self-control.

"Mother! Mother!" the words came tumbling forth, "you are blind because of me! Mother! You do not know me—your son!"

"My son!" she gasped in a voice choked with a sob. "Oh— ~ Suddenly a wild look of understanding came into her eyes.

"My son!" she cried again. "I can sec! You have given me back my sight. I see you. You are really my son, who else would look so like your father? After all these years!!" She buret into wild sobbing, and almost fell fainting, as her husband, the old miller, came running through the gate.

They carried her within, and laid her on a couch. Presently she opened her eyes again, crying: "I can see! My son, come back to me!"

Ah, what a joyful scene the little kitchen witnessed in that hour. It was the happy reunion between father, mother and the son who had run away to sea so long before, and returned to bring happiness to the home he still loved.

The haze on the horizon deepened to rose. The warm air became crystal cold, and a blaze of gold showed through the pine trees, as if the wood were afire. The evening star shone out in the clear western sky, looked down upon the harvest fields, now swathed in rosy mist, and afar to the little wicket gate of the old mill-garden, where stood two dark figures, one tall, with an arm round the other, which was small and slight. The shadows of the autumn evening gathered around them, tender with memories. The slight figure turned its face upwards.

"How -wonderful it is to see all this again, but how much moro wonderful to see you, my son," the happy mother whispered.