I think of my own joyous childhood, spent in the sweet companionship of
fishes, brooks, and butterflies, birds, crickets, grasshoppers,
whispering trees and fragrant wild flowers, and the thousand and one
playfellows of Nature which the good God has placed within reach of the
happy country children. I think of the shining eyes of my little Lucys
and Bridgets and Rachels could I turn them loose in a field of golden
buttercups and daisies, with sweet wild strawberries hidden at their
roots; of the merry glee of my dear boisterous little prophets and
patriots, if I could set them catching tadpoles in a clear wayside pool,
or hunting hens' nests in the alder bushes behind the barn, or pulling
yellow cow lilies in the pond, or wading for cat-o'-nine-tails, with
their ragged little trousers tucked above their knees. And oh! hardest
of all to bear, I think of our poor little invalids, so young to
struggle with languor and pain! Just to imagine the joy of my poor, lame
boys and my weary, pale, and peevish children, so different from the
bright-eyed, apple-cheeked darlings of well-to-do parents,--mere babies,
who, from morning till night, seldom or never know what it is to cuddle
down warmly into the natural rest of a mother's loving bosom!

* * * * *

Monday morning came and went,--Monday afternoon also; it was now two
o'clock, and to my surprise and disappointment Patsy had not appeared.
The new chair with its pretty red cushion stood expectant but empty.
Helen had put a coat of shellac on poor Johnny Cass's table, freshened
up its squared top with new lines of red paint, and placed a little
silver vase of flowers on it. Our Lady Bountiful had come in to pay for
the chair and see the boy, but alas! there was no boy to see. The
children were all ready for him. They knew that he was a sick boy, like