Trial and Triumph | Page 6

not anxious to have them all professional men and school teachers
and government clerks, but she wanted each one to have some trade or
calling by which a respectable and comfortable living could be made;
but first she consulted their tastes and inclinations. Her youngest boy
was very fond of horses, but instead of keeping him in the city, where
he was in danger of getting too intimate with horse jockeys and stable
boys, she found a place for him with an excellent farmer, who, seeing
the tastes of the boy, took great interest in teaching him how to raise
stock and he became a skillful farmer. Her second son showed that he
had some mechanical skill and ingenuity and she succeeded in getting
him a situation with a first-class carpenter, and spared no pains to have
him well instructed in all the branches of carpentry, and would often
say to him, "John, don't do any sham work if you are going to be a
carpenter; be thorough in every thing you do and try to be the best
carpenter in A.P., and if you do your work better than others, you won't
have to be all the time going around advertising yourself; somebody
will find out what you can do and give you work." Her oldest son was
passionately fond of books and she helped him through school till he
was able to become a school teacher. But as the young man was high
spirited and ambitious, he resolved that he would make his school
teaching a stepping stone to a more congenial employment. He studied
medicine and graduated with M.D., but as it takes a young doctor some
time to gain the confidence of an old community, he continued after his
graduation to teach and obtained a certificate to practice medicine.
Without being forced to look to his mother for assistance, while the
confidence of his community was slowly growing, he depended on the
school for his living and looked to the future for his success as a
physician.
For the girls, because they were colored, there were but few avenues
open, but they all took in sewing and were excellent seamstresses,
except Lucy, who had gone from home to teach school in a distant city

as there were no openings of the kind for her at her own home.
Mrs. Harcourt was very proud of her children and had unbounded
confidence in them. She was high-spirited and self-respecting and it
never seemed to enter her mind that any evil might befall the children
that would bring sorrow and shame to her home; but nevertheless it
came and Lucy, her youngest child, the pet and pride of the household
returned home with a great sorrow tugging at her heart and a shadow on
her misguided life. It was the old story of woman's weakness and folly
and man's perfidy and desertion. Poor child, how wretched she was till
"peace bound up her bleeding heart," and even then the arrow had
pierced too deep for healing. Sorrow had wasted her strength and laid
the foundation of disease and an early death. Religion brought balm to
the wounded spirit, but no renewed vigor to the wasted frame and in a
short time she fell a victim to consumption, leaving Annette to the care
of her mother. It was so pitiful to see the sorrow on the dear old face as
she would nestle the wronged and disinherited child to her heart and
would say so mournfully, "Oh, I never, never expected this!"
Although Annette had come into the family an unbidden and
unwelcome guest, associated with the saddest experience of her
grandmother's life, yet somehow the baby fingers had wound
themselves around the tendrils of her heart and the child had found a
shelter in the warm clasp of loving arms. To her, Annette was a new
charge, an increased burden; but burden to be defended by her love and
guarded by her care. All her other children had married and left her,
and in her lowly home this young child with infantile sweetness,
beguiled many a lonely hour. She loved Lucy and that was Lucy's
child.
But where was he who sullied Her once unspotted name; Who lured her
from life's brightness To agony and shame?
Did society, which closed its doors against Lucy and left her to struggle
as best she might out of the depth into which she had fallen, pour any
righteous wrath upon his guilty head? Did it demand that he should at
least bring forth some fruit meet for repentance by at least helping Mrs.
Harcourt to raise the unfortunate child? Not so. He left that poor old

grandmother to struggle with her failing strength, not only to bear her
own burden, but the one he