Barriers Burned Away | Page 2

that the gale was driving before it in blinding fury.
Seated at one of the windows, peering out into the gathering gloom of
the swiftly coming night, was a pale, faded woman with lustrous dark
eyes. An anxious light shone from them, as she tried in vain to catch a
glimpse of the darkening road that ran at a distance of about fifty yards
from the house. As the furious blast shook the frail tenement, and
circled round her in chilly currents from many a crack and crevice, she
gave a short, hacking cough, and drew a thin shawl closer about her
slight frame.
The unwonted violence of the wind had its effect upon another
occupant of the room. From a bed in the corner near the stove came a
feeble, hollow voice--"Wife!"

In a moment the woman was bending over the bed, and in a voice full
of patient tenderness answered, "Well, dear?"
"Has he come?"
"Not yet; but he MUST be here soon."
The word MUST was emphasized in such a way as to mean doubt
rather than certainty, as if trying to assure her own mind of a matter
about which painful misgivings could not be banished. The quick ear of
the sick man caught the tone, and in a querulous voice he said, "Oh! if
he should not get here in time, it would be the last bitter drop in my cup,
now full and running over."
"Dear husband, if human strength and love can accomplish it, he will
be here soon. But the storm is indeed frightful, and were the case less
urgent, I could almost wish he would not try to make his way through it.
But then we know what Dennis is; he never stops to consider
difficulties, but pushes right on; and if--if he doesn't--if it is possible, he
will be here before very long."
In spite of herself, the mother's heart showed its anxiety, and, too late
for remedy, she saw the effect upon her husband. He raised himself in
bed with sudden and unwonted strength. His eyes grew wild and almost
fierce, and in a sharp, hurried voice, he said: "You don't think there is
danger? There is no fear of his getting lost? If I thought that I would
curse God and die."
"Oh, Dennis, my husband, God forbid that you should speak thus! How
can you feel so toward our Best Friend?"
"What kind of a friend has He been to me, pray? Has not my life been
one long series of misfortunes? Have I not been disappointed in all my
hopes? I once believed in God and tried to serve Him. But if, as I have
been taught, all this evil and misfortune was ordered and made my
inevitable lot by Him, He has not been my friend, but my enemy. He's
been against me, not for me."

In the winter twilight the man's emaciated, unshorn face had the ghostly,
ashen hue of death. From cavernous sockets his eyes gleamed with a
terribly vindictive light, akin to insanity, and, in a harsh, high voice, as
unnatural as his appearance and words, he continued: "Remember what
I have gone through! what I have suffered! how often the cup of
success that I was raising to my lips has been dashed to the ground!"
"But, Dennis, think a moment."
"Ah! haven't I thought till my heart is gall and my brain bursting?
Haven't I, while lying here, hopelessly dying, gone over my life again
and again? Haven't I lived over every disappointment, and taken every
step downward a thousand times? Remember the pleasant, plentiful
home I took you from, under the great elms in Connecticut. Your father
did not approve of your marrying a poor school-teacher. But you know
that then I had every prospect of getting the village academy, but with
my luck another got ahead of me. Then I determined to study law.
What hopes I had! I already grasped political honors that seemed within
my reach, for you know I was a ready speaker. If my friends could only
have seen that I was peculiarly fitted for public life and advanced me
sufficient means, I would have returned it tenfold. But no; I was forced
into other things for which I had no great aptness or knowledge, and
years of struggling poverty and repeated disappointment followed. At
last your father died and gave us enough to buy a cheap farm out here.
But why go over our experience in the West? My plan of making sugar
from the sorghum, which promised so brilliantly, has ended in the most
wretched failure of all. And now money has gone, health has gone, and
soon my miserable life will be over. Our boy must come back from
college, and you and