The Pedler of Dust Sticks | Page 6

nature. After a hard day's work, he could come home and enjoy the beautiful sunset, and look at the moon and stars in the evening, and hear the nightingale sing, and join with his Agatha in the song of praise to the Giver of all good things.
Henry did not, because he was rich, lead a lazy and selfish life. He still worked with his own hands, and thus taught his workmen himself, and made their work more easy and agreeable by his presence as well as by his instructions. He was continually making improvements in his business, inventing new things, and so keeping up his reputation. He exported large quantities of the articles made in his factory. Every year his business grew larger, and he gained still higher reputation.
Henry's fellow-citizens offered him some of the highest offices of honor and profit which the city had to bestow; but he refused them. The only ones he accepted were those that gave no pay. He was one of the overseers of the poor, and was always one of the first to aid, in any way he could, plans for the benefit of his suffering fellow- beings. He gave money himself generously, but was very anxious not to have his charities made public.
He was one of the directors of the first railroad from Hamburg.
He engaged all his workmen with reference to their character as well as their capacity, and no one of them ever left him. He was their best benefactor and friend.
So lived this excellent man, as happy as he was good and useful, for sixteen years with his dear wife; they had seven living children; but, as I before told you, she had very delicate health, and it was the will of God that these two loving hearts should be separated in this world, as we hope, to meet in heaven to part no more. After sixteen years of perfect love and joy, he parted with his dear Agatha.
Henry bore his sorrow meekly and patiently. He did not speak, he could not weep; but life was never again the same thing to him; he never parted for a moment with the memory of his loving and dearly- beloved wife. He was then only thirty-five years old, but he never married again; and when urged to take another wife, he always replied, "I cannot marry again." He felt that he was married forever to his dear Agatha.
I must relate to you some of the beautiful things Henry's daughter told me about her mother. Agatha had such a refined and beautiful taste and manner that though, from her parents' poverty, she had not had the benefit of an education, yet it was a common saying of the many who knew her, that she would have graced a court. She never said or did any thing that was not delicate and beautiful. Her dress, even when they were very poor, had never a hole nor a spot. She never allowed any rude or vulgar thing to be said in her presence without expressing her displeasure. She was one of nature's nobility. She lived and moved in beauty as well as in goodness.
When she found she was dying, she asked her husband to leave the room, and then asked a friend who was with her to pray silently, for she would not distress her husband; and so she passed away without a groan, calmly and sweetly, before he returned. An immense procession of the people followed her to the grave, to express their admiration of her character and their sorrow for her early death. There were in Hamburg, at that time, two large churches, afterwards burned down at the great fire, which had chimes of bells in their towers. These bells played their solemn tones only when some person lamented by the whole city died. These bells were rung at the funeral of Agatha.
Henry, ever after his separation from her, would go, at the anniversary of her birth and death, and take all his children and grand-children with him to her grave. They carried wreaths and bouquets of flowers, and laid them there; and he would sit down with them and relate some anecdote about their mother.
It is a custom with the people of Germany to strew flowers on the graves of their friends. The burying ground was not far from the street, and often unfeeling boys would steal these sacred flowers; but not one was ever stolen from the grave of Agatha.
The sister of whom we have before spoken, whom we will call also by her Christian name, Catharine, loved her sister with the most devoted love, and when Agatha was dying, promised her that she would be a mother to her children, and never leave them till they were able to take care