Stories Worth Rereading Part 4

"Yes, ma'am," choked Harry, drying his face on the sleeve of his gingham s.h.i.+rt. He sat down on a box before the door, the plate of food in his lap, and made an attempt to eat the daintily cooked meal, but every mouthful almost choked him.

At about midnight, the sleepless young watcher, lying on the edge of the hay just above the empty manger over which a lantern swung, lifted himself on his elbow at the sound of a long, low, shuddering groan, and in another moment, Harry knew that poor Brindle had ceased to suffer the effects of her gluttonous appet.i.te. Creeping down into the stall, he saw at a glance that the cow was dead, and for a moment, alone there in the stillness and darkness of the spring night, he felt as if he were the princ.i.p.al actor in some terrible crime.

"Poor old boss!" he sobbed, kneeling down, and putting his arm over the still warm neck. "I--I have killed you--after all the rich milk and b.u.t.ter you have given me, that have made me grow strong and fat--just by my carelessness!"

In after-years the memory of that hour came back to Harry Aldis as the dominant note in some real tragedy, and he never again smelled the fragrance of new hay, mingled with the warm breath of sleeping cattle, without recalling the misery and self-condemnation of that long night's watch.

In the early dawn, Dr. Layton found the boy lying beside the quiet form in the stall, fast asleep from exhaustion and grief, his head pillowed on the soft, tawny coat he had loved to brush until it gleamed like silk.

"Child alive!" he gasped, bending over and taking the lad in his arms, and carrying him out into the sweet morning air. "Harry, why did you not come and tell me, and then go to bed?" he cried, setting the bewildered boy on his feet, and leading him to the house. "Now, my boy, no more of this grieving. The thing is done, and you cannot help it now. There is no more use in crying for a dead cow than for spilled milk. Now come in and go to bed, and stay there until tonight; and when you wake up, the new heifer, Brindle's daughter, will be in the barn waiting for you to milk her. I am going to buy her this morning."

Five years after that eventful night, Harry Aldis stood on the doctor's front porch, a youth of eighteen, bidding good-by to the two who had been more to him than father and mother. He was going to college in the West, where he could work his way, and in his trunk was a high-school diploma, and in his pocket a "gilt-edge recommendation" from Dr. Layton.

"G.o.d bless you, my boy! Don't forget us," said the doctor, his voice husky with unshed tears as he wrung the strong young hand that had been so helpful to him in the busy years flown by.

"Forget you, my more than father!" murmured the young man, not even trying to keep the tears out of his eyes. "No matter how many years it may be before I see you again, I shall always remember your unfailing kindness to me. And can I ever forget how you saved me for a higher life than I could possibly have lived if you had set me adrift in the world again for leaving that barn door unfastened, and killing your cow? As long as I live, I shall remember that great kindness, and shall try to deserve it by my life."

"Pshaw, Harry," said the doctor, "that was nothing but common humanity!"

"Uncommon humanity," corrected the youth. "Good-by, Mrs. Layton. I shall always remember your kindness, too, and that you never gave me any less b.u.t.ter or cream from poor Brindle's daughter for my grave offense. You have been like an own mother to me."

"You have deserved it all, Harry," said the doctor's wife, and there was a tear in her eye, too, which was an unusual sight, for she was not an emotional woman. "I do not know as it was such a great calamity, after all, to lose Brindle just as we did, for Daisy is a finer cow than her mother was, and there has not been another chance since to get as good a heifer."

"So it was a blessing in disguise, after all, Harry," laughed the doctor.

"As for you, you have been a blessing undisguised from that day to this.

May the Lord bless and prosper you! Write to us often."

Four years pa.s.sed, and in one of the Western States a young college graduate stepped from his pedestal of oratorical honors to take a place among the rising young lawyers of a prosperous new town that was fast developing into a commercial center.

"I am doing well, splendidly," he wrote Dr. Layton after two years of hard work, "and one of these days I am coming back to make that promised visit."

But the years came and went, and still the West held him in its powerful clutch. Success smiled upon his pathway, and into his life entered the sweet, new joy of a woman's love and devotion, and into his home came the happy music of children's voices. When his eldest boy was eight years old, his district elected him to the State senate, and four years later sent him to Congress,--an honest, uncompromising adherent to principle and duty.

"And now, at last," he wrote Dr. Layton, "I am coming East, and I shall run down from Was.h.i.+ngton for that long-promised visit. Why do you write so seldom, when I have never yet failed to inform you of my pyrotechnic advancement into the world of politics? It is not fair. And how is the family cow? Surely Madam Daisy sleeps with her poor mother ere this, or has been cut up into roasts and steaks."

And to this letter the doctor replied briefly but gladly:--

"So you are coming at last, my boy! Well, you will find us in the same old house,--a little the worse for wear, perhaps,--and leading the same quiet life. No, not the same, though it is quiet enough, for I am growing old, and the town is running after the new young doctors, leaving us old ones in the rear, to trudge along as best we can. There isn't any 'family cow' now, Harry. Daisy was sold long ago for beef, poor thing! We never got another, for I am getting too old to milk, and there never seemed to come along another boy like the old Harry, who would take all the barn-yard responsibility on his shoulders. Besides, mother is crippled with rheumatism, and can hardly get around to do her housework, let alone to make b.u.t.ter. We are not any too well off since the Union Bank failed; for, besides losing all my stock, I have had to help pay the depositors' claims.

But we have enough to keep us comfortable, and much to be thankful for, most of all that our famous son is coming home for a visit. Bring your wife, too, Harry, if she thinks it will not be too much of a drop from Was.h.i.+ngton society to our humble home; and the children, all five of those bright boys and girls,--bring them all! I want to show them the old stall in the barn, where, twenty-five years ago, I picked their father up in my arms early one spring morning as he lay fast asleep on the neck of the old cow over whose expiring breath he had nearly broken his poor little heart."

"Yes, father, of course it has paid to come down here. I would not have missed it for all the unanimous votes of the third ballot that sent me East," declared the United States senator at the end of his three days'

visit. Long ago, the Hon. Henry Aldis had fallen into the habit of addressing Dr. Layton, in his letters, by the paternal t.i.tle.

"It does not seem possible that it is twenty years since I stood here, saying good-by when I started West. By the way, do you remember what you told me that memorable night when the lamented Brindle laid down her life because of my carelessness, and her own gluttony? I was standing at the horse's head, and you were sitting in your buggy, there at the carriage steps, and I said I wished you would horsewhip me, instead of treating me so kindly. I remember you reached over and tickled my neck with the lash playfully, and told me there was no use in thras.h.i.+ng a fellow who was all broken up, anyway, over an accident."

The doctor laughed as he held his arms more closely about the shoulders of Senator Aldis's two eldest boys; while "Grandmother Layton," with little Ted in her lap, was dreaming again of the little form that had long, long ago been laid in the graveyard on the hillside.

"Yes, yes," said the doctor, "I remember. What a blessed thing it was I did not send you off that day to the tune the old cow died on," and he laughed through his tears.

"Blessed!" echoed Mrs. Layton, putting down the wriggling Ted. "It was providential. You know, Harry, I was not so kind-hearted as John in those days and I thought he ought to send you off. But he declared he would not, even if you had cost him two cows. He said that if he did it might cost the world a man. And so it would have, if all they say you are doing out West for clean government is true."

Senator Aldis laughed, and kissed the old lady.

"I do not know about that," he said modestly. "I am of the opinion that he might have saved more of a man for the world; but certain it is, he saved whatever manhood there was in that boy from going to waste by his n.o.ble act of kindness. But what I remember most, father, is what you told me, there at the carriage step, that when I became a rich man, I could pay you for that cow. Well, I am not exactly a rich man, for I am not in politics for all the money I can get out of it, but I am getting a better income than my leaving that barn door open would justify any one in believing I ever could get by my brains; so now I can pay that long-standing debt without inconvenience. It may come handy for you to have a little fund laid by, since the Union Bank went to smash, and all your stock with it, and so much of your other funds went to pay the poor depositors of that defunct inst.i.tution. It was just like you, father, not to dodge the a.s.sessments, as so many of the stockholders did, by putting all your property in your wife's name. So, since you made one investment twenty-five years ago that has not seemed to depreciate in value very much,--an investment in a raw young boy who did not have enough gumption to fasten a barn door,--here is the interest on what the investment was worth to the boy, at least a little of it; for I can never begin to pay it all. Good-by, both of you, and may G.o.d bless you! Here comes our carriage, Helen."

When the dust of the departing hack had filtered through the morning sunlight, two pairs of tear-dimmed eyes gazed at the slip of blue paper in Dr. Layton's hand,--a check for five thousand dollars.

"We saved a man that time, sure enough!" murmured the old doctor softly.--_Emma S. Allen in the Wellspring._

Brotherly Kindness

A man may make a few mistakes, Regardless of his aim.

But never, never criticize And cloud him o'er with blame; For all have failed in many things And keenly feel the smarting stings, Which haunt the mind by day and night Till they have made offenses right.

So liberal be with those you meet E'en though they may offend, And wish them well as on they go Till all the journey end.

Sometimes we think our honor's hurt When some one speaks a little pert; But never mind, just hear the good, And ever stand where Patience stood.

Look for the good, the true, the grand In those you wish to shun, And you will be surprised to find Some good in every one; Then help the man who makes mistakes To rise above his little quakes, To build anew with courage strong, And fit himself to battle wrong.

JOHN FRANCIS OLMSTED

HONEY AT THE PHONE

Honey's mama had gone to market, leaving her home with nurse. Nurse was up-stairs making beds, while little Honey, with hands behind her, was trudging about the sitting-room looking for something to do.

There was a phone in the house, which was a great mystery to Honey when it first came. She could hear voices talking back to mama, yet could not see a person. Was some one hidden away in the horn her mother put to her ear, or was it in the machine itself?

Honey never failed to be on hand when the bell rang, and found that her mother generally talked to her best and dearest friends, ladies who were such frequent callers that Honey knew them all by name.

Her mama wrote down the names of her friends, with the number of their phones, and, because the child was so inquisitive about it, she very carefully explained to her just how the whole thing worked, never thinking that Honey would sometime try it for herself; and, indeed, for a while Honey satisfied herself by playing phone. She would roll up a piece of paper, and call out through it, "Hullo!" asking and answering all the questions herself.

One day, on finding herself alone, she took down the receiver and tried to talk to one of her mama's friends, but it was a failure. She watched mama still more closely after that. On this particular morning, while mama was at market, she tried again, commencing with the first number on her mama's list.

Taking down the receiver, she called out, "Hullo!" the answer came back, "Hullo!" "I wants A 215," said Honey, holding the receiver to her ear.

"Yes," came the reply.