Observations of a Retired Veteran | Page 7

like the rest and will soon forget them in the busy street. But to-night while all is still, I look with reverence and curiosity on our future homes, my newest friends, the Stars.
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Another new friend is the News Gatherer. I give you my word that one sick man gets more news--political, gossip, scandal--than any twenty well ones. You see he is always there and easy to find. Human nature can't keep news long and it always hunts up the man that is easy to find and unloads on him. There is a sense of security in talking to a man flat of his back--he can't get out to repeat it. Many things combine to make the News Gatherer the sick man's friend. He is helpless, weak and can't talk back. That secures a good listener. He is sick and wants to be entertained. That makes him an eager listener. And finally being confined and unable to get out he is presumably an empty vessel waiting to be filled. And with this inviting prospect the News Gatherer moves his machine up to the side of the bed and monotonously pumps, pumps, pumps. It is well for that kindly hearted man that the patient is not only stretched out on his bed, but also unarmed. Ah! how many men earn sudden death and yet in the mystery of Providence escape it! I have often wondered at the persistency with which habit has fixed on women the exclusive reputation of gossipers. For I say unto you, brethren, that Woman, who with empty head and silly tongue toys with her neighbor's character unto its destruction, is not more full of gossip than her brother Man, who knows better and yet cannot stand the temptation of a sick man and a safe chance to chatter about matters with which he has no business. I am afraid like the idea of original sin we all have just a little spice of it.
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A relief to this friend, and a friend I never saw before, was my Moth. I think he came into the world about February, having been deceived by the hot room into the belief that Spring had come. Many days after, when snow could be seen on the ground, I have seen him feebly climbing up the window pane and looking out with the air of one whose whole life had been a dreadful mistake. The first time I saw him was one night sitting in the light and heat of the lamp, his grey wing shining like silver and his brown little body giving a soft, velvety light, his face grave with owl-like stupidity, and two big black eyes. After the snow passed away he seemed to get settled, and at night would sit on a match box staring for hours at the lamp, as one who should say, "Well, I understand the medicine vials, and the blisters, and the inkstand, and all that, but this great bright thing is quite beyond me." He never once thought of flying into it to see how it was done, and I thought of writing to the Bug Professor at the Smithsonian that here was a species of moth that light did not attract. But what will not bad company do? After the warm weather came and the windows were open, what should come in but other moths, of little character I think, who commenced pranks of humming and buzzing and butting the lamp. My Moth watched it with deep interest for two nights, but on the second night, I saw from his rubbing his nose with his paws that he was getting excited. Sure enough on the third night he remarked, "Well, I guess I'll try a little of that myself," and hopping back to the mucilage bottle for a start he took a header at the lamp. Except that his silver wings trembled, and his velvet legs drew up, he never moved again. I had lost a good friend whose innocent ramblings I had watched for hours and whose antics, when he tasted the ink or got a sniff of the ammonia, had much amused me. I don't know that he died too early. He had learned a bad habit, and for a man or a Bug who has learned a bad habit, I am not certain that death can come too soon. He died thinking he knew everything worth knowing, for I have no doubt that through the panes of my window and across my narrow street he thought he had seen the World. Just as we larger, but not wiser animals think that after gazing through our little theological panes, we have seen clear through Eternity, and into the mind of the Father. After all,