The Path of Duty | Page 2

going. At that moment my father opened his eyes, and,
looking upward with a pleasant smile, expired without a struggle. I
could never clearly remember how I passed the intervening days
between my father's death and burial. I have an indistinct recollection
of the hushed voices and soft footsteps of friends and neighbors, who
kindly came to aid in performing the last offices of love and friendship
to the remains of my departed father. I also remember being led by my
almost heart-broken mother into the darkened room, where lay the
lifeless body of my father, now prepared for the grave; but I have a

more vivid recollection of standing with my mother beside an open
grave, and hearing our pastor, in a solemn voice, utter the words, "Earth
to earth--ashes to ashes--dust to dust." Oh! the falling of that first earth
upon my father's coffin, shall I ever forget the sound? Child as I was, it
seemed to me that my heart would break; but tears, the first I had shed
since my father's death, came to my relief. Those blessed tears. I may
well call them blessed, since the physician afterwards told my mother
that they saved either my reason or my life. Kind friends besought my
mother and me to allow ourselves to be conveyed home and not await
the filling up of the grave. But no. We could not leave the spot till the
last earth was thrown upon the grave, and a mound covered with grassy
sods was to be seen, where a little before was only a mournful cavity.
Then indeed we felt that he was gone, and that we must return to our
desolate home--the home which ever before his presence had filled
with joy and gladness.
I must pass over, with a few words only, the first year of our
bereavement, as even now I shudder to recall the feeling of loneliness
and desolation which took possession of us, when we found ourselves
left alone in the home where everything reminded us so strongly of the
departed one. There was a small apartment adjoining our usual
sitting-room which my father was wont to call his study, and, being
fond of books, he used there to pass much of his leisure time. It was
quite a long time after his death before my mother could enter that
apartment. She said to me one day, "Will you go with me, Clara, to
your father's study?" I replied, "Can you go there, Mamma?" "Yes,
dear," said my mother, and led the way to the door. No one had entered
that room since my father left it on the last night of his life, the door
having been locked on the day succeeding his death. As my mother
softly turned the key and opened the door, it seemed almost that we
stood in my father's presence, so vividly did the surroundings of that
room recall him to our minds. There stood his table and chair, and his
writing desk stood upon the table, and several books and papers were
scattered carelessly upon the table. The last book he had been reading
lay open as he had left it; it was a volume of Whitfield's sermons; it
was a book which my father valued highly, and is now a cherished
keep-sake of my own. My mother seemed quite overcome with grief. I

know she had striven daily to conceal her grief when in my presence,
for she knew how I grieved for my father; and she was aware that her
tears would only add to my sorrow, so for my sake it was that she
forced herself to appear calm--almost cheerful; but upon this occasion
her grief was not to be checked. She bowed her head upon the table,
while convulsive sobs shook her frame. I tried, in my childish way, to
comfort her. I had never seen her so much moved since my father's
death. When she became more composed, she rose, and I assisted her in
dusting and arranging the furniture of the room; and after this first visit
to the room, we no longer avoided entering it. Since quite a young man
my father had been employed as book-keeper in a large mercantile
house in the city of Philadelphia, where we resided. As he had ever
proved trustworthy and faithful to the interests of his employers, they
had seen fit, upon his marriage, to give him an increase of salary, which
enabled him to purchase a small, but neat and convenient dwelling in a
respectable street in Philadelphia, where we had lived in the enjoyment
of all the comforts, and with many of the luxuries of life, to the time of
the sad event which left me fatherless and my mother a widow. I had
never,