Hearts of Oak, Part II [pp. 419-431]

HEARTS OF OAK.
done under the circumstances. Paul was
an odd boy, and odd boys often required
odd treatment; this was most decidedly
odd treatment treatment which he, Rivers, could not have submitted to in any
stage whatever of mental or physical debility. He thought it was all well enoughl
in Paul's case, especially as it could not
be helped; but Paul was rather a big
boy to be crying like a baby in a woman's lap.
When a brief nap had somewhat quieted Paul's nerves, they managed to get
him into bed; and having given him
some soothing mixture, they hoped for
better times. That night Rivers lay
close to Paul, with his arm over him,
all through his heavy, uneasy sleep.
Every throb of his pulse was an electric
touch, that thrilled through the disturbed organism of his unhappy school-mate,
giving him strength and rest.
Rivers slept very little. To him this
was a new order of things. He could
scarcely understand such weakness in a
boy. Why had he never felt it himself?
His father and mother were both dead,
to be sure, and his uncle, under whose
chliarge he had been left, was not very
lovable. He saw him but seldom, and
then had little to say to him. How
any one could have such a love for
grown-up people, was the question that
puzzled him, as he tried his best to comfort Paul and make him more of a man.
Had Paul been conscious, he would have
felt the life-giving currents pass into and
course through his members, quickening
their sluggish action; for Rivers gave
all the sunshine of his nature and the
warmth of his loving heart to the brightening and bettering of that cheerless
soul.
The morning came, but with it came
the shadow of a greater sorrow. Paul
was summoned home in the utmost haste.
He scarcely knew why; he almost dreaded to realize the truth that had been
hinted at, for it was the first, the most
awful blow that could be dealt to the
young life. Rivers knew it all before
Paul had been informed of it, and doubly dear was Rivers in that terrible visitation. Death had entered and led away
the patient and devoted mother. Rivers
would have taken the whole weight of
the sorrow upon himself, had it been
possible. He had never wanted to be
useful half so much as now, to Paul, to
the landlady, who was herself weeping
at Paul's sorrow-to every one, in fact.
It seemed as though it concerned him
quite as much as Paul; and he certainly
bore the weight of it equally with the
orphan, whose life he had restored to
him, only that it might be blighted thus
early in its greenness and beauty.
Poor, stricken, heart - broken Paul!
How the acorn within your breast swells
and swells to bursting in this great sorrow. Bear up a little under it; for it is
the storm that toughens and the rain that
vitalizes it, and adversity that goes toward making it a Heart of Oak, that shall
yet resist temptation and bear bravely
the brunt of life.
ASPHODELS.
There is a blow more deadly to the
yearning heart of childhood than any
other that may be dealt it. It is the
loss of a mother's precious and benign
presence. To the young child it is a
mystery too awful to contemplate-a
ghost that haunts the chamber, and will
not rest. To those older and more capable of realizing their loss, it is a sacred
and everlasting memory-a cross borne
upon a heart bleeding with its weight; a
bowed head lacerated with the thorns of
that crown of woe. Yet it is a voluntary
martyrdom. The mourner would not
suffer the cup to pass his lips; for the
continually returning influences of that
mother's every word and look visit the
bowed spirit of her son.
This incomparable sorrow swept down
upon Paul in the heyday of his thought
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[MAY,