Pathetic Story of Memories Awakened by its Contents.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 134, 26 December 1885, Page 6

Pathetic Story of Memories Awakened by its Contents.

|l saw my wife pull out the bottom dr^er; iof; the old family bureau this * Evening, and I .went apftly !put and .feti^i^: land down until I knew .isjie had, gbne,\to (her sewing. We haVe fcome things laid away in 111 1 that drawer whiofc gold of iking? could not buy, and yet they are 'relics whioh grieve us both until our hearts are sore, I haveti't looked at them for a year,' but I remember each article. There are t^ro worn stfb'ei, a little chip •hat with part of the rim gorie^some stockings, trousers , and a coat, two'or thtfee spools", bits .of broken orockery, a whip and several toys. My wife I—poor1 — poor thing — goes to the drawer every day of/ her life and praya over it and lets her tears fall upon the preoiouß artibles, but I dare not Sometimes we, speak of Httlle «Tac£, but not often. It has been a long time, but somehow we can't get over grieving. He was a burst of sunshine into our lives, and his going away has been like covering? our everyday existence with a pall. .Sqmetiraes when we Bit alone of evenings, I writing and she sewing, a child on the street will call out aa our boy used to, and we will both start- up with beating hearts and a wild hope, only to 1 find the darkness more 6i a burden than ever. It is ho still and so quiet now. I look up at the window where his blue eyes used to sparkle at my coming, but he is not there. I listen for his pattering feet, his merry shout, and his ringing laugh, but. there is no sound. There is. no one to climb -over. my. knees, no one to search my pockets and tease i for presents : and I never find thd chair turned over, and the broom down or! the rope tied to the knobs. ' I want some one to tease me for my knife ; to ride on my .shoulders ; to lose my axe ito follow me to the gate when I go and to be there when I come ; to call " good night " from the little bed now empty. "And wife,she misses him still more. There are no little feet to wash, no prayers to say, no voice teasing for lumps of sugar or sobbing with pain of a hurt toe ; and she would give, her own life almost to awake 1 at midnight and look across to the crib and see our boy as he used to be. So we preserve our relics, and when we are dead we hope that strangers will handle them tenderly, even if they shed no tears over them.