There
was another old woman, quite an eccentric person, whom some young folks used to
smile at when she came to their houses with her basket of lace and other small
things ; she was so lofty about her business, as though it were vastly more
important than it really was, and so cheerful about it, as though it was a very
delightful way of making her living. "I'm sorry you have to earn your
living this way," said a young lady to her one day. " Why, my dear,
it's just as well as for your father to be selling furniture the year around; I
only has to earn a little bit for myself, and it brings in all I need, and I
gets acquainted with lots of fine young folks, and I sees all the pretty things
as I pass along as well as if I was riding, and I gets refreshed a bit, and
when I goes home I've lots to think over that I've seen through the day, and
that's better than sitting alone and fretting. I'm well off, my dear, to get
what I need and lay a bit by for a future day." We all felt a little
touched, and when she missed coming next week we hardly knew what to think, but
the week after she came again, and we inquired if she had been sick. "No,
my dears, I have been down to Nephi on the excursion train to visit my
daughter.""Why, we didn't know you had a child living.""And
I hasn't, my dears; my daughter has been dead and buried these eighteen years;
only nineteen when she died; and every year I goes down once in the summer and
takes my bouquet of flowers to lay on her grave, and I has my bread and cheese
and bottle of cold tea, and I sits down by her grave till sundown, and we has a
comfortable time together that lasts till I goes again."
Do you
think we felt like smiling slyly at her odd ways after that? One of us went out
and brought a tray with refreshments, and never forgot to do the same thing in
all her after calls. She had kept her Decoration-day years before it had become
a national custom.
Let me
tell you of another mother's faithful heart. This woman had such love for
children, such tender pity for the orphan, that she had, when we first met her,
raised three adopted children of different parentage. One day a person said to
her, "You never had a child of your own, did you?""Yes, I have
got a son of my own," proudly answered the dear old lady. The questioner
paused in surprise, and thought, "Perhaps she left him for the Gospel's
sake," and respectfully pursued, " Did you leave him in the old
country?""Yes, I have left my dear boy in the old
country.""How old is he? and does he write to you?""He does
not write to me; he is twenty- three years old. He died when he was
five.""Died? then you have not got him now!""Yes, I have
got him now; I have got him all the time, I have never lose him, he is
mine."
Children,
let these brief stories prove to you that each heart bears its own hidden,
sweet history, and do be careful when meeting the aged, the poor and numble, to
speak kindly and show them respect; perhaps this is all you can ever do for
them, and you little know what might be revealed to claim your pity and
admiration.
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