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Show I THROUGH THE VALLEY. j i -j. The fearful lines had gone now. The terrible elephants with bright red tusks had stopped fighting. fight-ing. The snaky-haired witches with white, white faces, and ryes that looked like pieces of red-hot coal, had sailed away off into the air on their broomsticks. broom-sticks. The goblins with their hateful yellow bodies bod-ies and great pop-out eyes had gone out risrht straigt through the wall. A dear little bit of a fairy, perched on the foot of your bed, had waved a tiny hand to and fro. to and fro, just like that, and away had cone all the awful things that had been trying 1o catch you, and grab you, and to throw you into liery furnaces for years and years and years! The fairies had always been kind to you, but you never could forget them for this. And then you opened your eyes, and. "I'm so hungry," was what you said, though you guessed you must be getting deaf, for you could hardly hear it yourself. And then, the funniest thing happened. Mother just threw her nrms around father's neck and cried like a baby. Cried 'cause you were hungry! That was prettv mean! And then grandmother came into the room,-and room,-and gave you a spoonful of milk. A spoonful of milk to a starving girl ! Oh, how could they be such stingy pigs when it was years and years since you had had a mouthful to cat? The dear little fairy would fix them, just as she had fixed the other wicked wick-ed things. You shut your eyes tight, but the dear little fairy had gone! Tighter and tighter, you squeezed them shut, but you couldn't see a thing but i I,1o.-l.-inc,2 Vi-n worn ulniie All nlniip witb n father and a mother, ami a grandmother Avho brought you spoonful of milk. The tears trickled down your cheeks, and then, before you knew a thing about it, off you went to the Land Dreams. Remember those long, long days of getting well J low poor, thin little legs, that couldn't even walk icross the room yet. just tingled to be out in the .-umdiine, running races, jumpintr rope, walking through woods all sweet and fresh with the smell of spring, hunting for the first shy anemones, and the saucv little jack-in-thc-pulpitsi! How white, 'most transparent, little ears longed to be listening to the ir-t sweet song of the robin red-breasts, and to the glad stories the brooks had to tell as they came rushing down the hills after their long, icy sleep? How big blue eves that had Tone back 'most a mile in vnuAittle head just ached to be seeing all the girls in their splendid new straw hats and '"stylish" j spring jackets, and all the boys spinning tops and j r-laviiiff marbles for keeps! It was terribly lonesome lying there, just lying th- re, all the time, with no one but just Father and Moih'or and Grandmother and the Doctor coming n 10 coo you. Even your Baby Brother never came .-,,, how terribly lhat hurt your feelings! Of ourse Alothf r said that he was coming by and by, ihat -he couldn't let him just yet, but you wanted see him now. You knew that if bed been sick, votrd'have gone into the nursery to see him, no '.natter what anybody had said. You d just-have -one in on the sly if you couldn't have got in any other wav. But then the sigh came way from the-.ip the-.ip -f vour toes you guessed sisters knew how 1 . love better than brothers did, anyway. Oh it was so lonesome, so still. Of course you dear! v loved Father and Mother and Grandmother, but-well it seemed to you that even Mother duln t lau-h half bo much as shewed to before you were .ick nd vou did wish she'd wear some of her nrotiv. bnVht dresses-you dearly loved her robin s blue with the white lace, and her caffy-o-lay nh.t was the funniest name for j color!) wi h the cherry-pink ribbons-mstead of that black U all 'he time. It wns awful n;gv you thought, for her to be saving ad her pre ttj, hngh Jes fur uther people and wearing old. gloomy ' 1 ' : Jl . . r. things in your room just because you were sick. ou guessed you wouldn't spoil her dresses. It made you very cross, but of course you were too proud to say a word about it. If she didn't want to wear them, she needn't. You did ask her to go down in the parlor and play the piano, and she said by and by. Everything seemed to be "by and by"' when you were sick, music. Baby Brothers oh, you were worried! wasn't Mother afraid he would forget you, and stop loving you if he didn't see you I No, Mother said that he would never forget you, and that he would always love you," always love you. Mother had said again gravely, you were to believe that all your life. And then she had gone out of the room to tell him everything you had just said, you s'posed, so as to help him re-I re-I member. Then came a time when "you- grew very much better. You had walked across the room three times yesterday, and once the da-" before, and five times otday. You were almost well. They left you alone in the room now, when they wanted to 'tend to anything abo"ut the house. The Doctor had told you yesterday that he wasn't coming to see you any more, and that pretty soon you must come to see him. You Avere sitting up in a big chair by the window, all wrapped up in nice warm comfortables. On the window-sill was a big saucer sau-cer of floating-island with pink islands, Great-aunt Harriet had sent down to you that morning. You had eaten a lot of it, and there was heaps left for another person. (Shall you ever forget those generous gen-erous portions that always came down from Great-aunt Great-aunt Harriet's? Xo skimping from that Queen of Cooks!) Why, only three or four days before, af-I af-I ter you had eaten all you could of it. you had sold j Father ten cents' worth of charlotte-russe that had come from the same lavish giver you had to do something to make money when you were sjck and couldn't run errands or brush people's hair. You looked again at the floating-island with pink islands isl-ands lots left, for another person. Another person? per-son? Of course, of course! Such a joyful thought! Your Baby Brother! You would forgive him for not coming to see you. Day after day Mother had said that next day he would come. You just couldn't wait another minute. You would surprise him! You would go to see him, and you would take him the big saucer of floating-island with pink islands (he had been so good, you remember now that you had never heard him cry once all the time you had been getting well!), and it would be just as if you were coming home from a party with an orange or a doughnut for him ! " You listened very carefully. There wasn't a . sound in the house. Everybody was busy. Xo one would catch you. Up you got from your chair. Out of the room you tottered, one of the bio-, bright comfortables trailing from your shoulders, the saucer of floating-island with pink islands held tightly in two thin little hands, and down to the nursery you started on your poor little errand of love. Remember how you smiled happily as you thought of that the other day, the Wonderful Day, . when you had taken all your best-loved treasures down that same hall to that same Baby Brother (but very little, very new then"), that every one had longed for and prayed for till at last God had let him come? He'd be gladder to see you this time, you guessed. 'Specially since you had been so sick, and were going to see him the very first; one of all, and with a big saucer of Great-aunt Harriet's floating-island with pink islands! He'd look up from the floor the minute he heard you, and then he'd knock his splendid block houses, and Across the room he'd toddle to meet you, and, oh, how he'd kiss you and love you ! Slowly, very slowly (it was such hard work to walk!) you went down the long hall. You had almost al-most reached the nursery. The door stood wide open. Oh, so tired, but with little heart beating hard with joy, you went two or three steps farther and peeped into the room. Why was this the right room? Why why everything was different! The little white crib wasn't there. The Avicker "high chair" was gone. There AA-ere no block houses. There was i:o Baby Brother down on the floor laughing up at you. But instead there Avas Mother Moth-er in that same black dress you hated, sitting down in front of a table, her head bent over on her arms, sobbing as if her heart aatouM break. And on the table was a little woolly dog with shoe-button eyes, and a half-worn-out blue and white Avorstcd boy-doll, and a broken little rattle. And then it seemed as if something snapped inside your hearta And in one swift, terrible, blinding instant you understood. Half a lifetime ago! Yet has it ever really ceased, the bitter, aching longing for "A little one asleep That does not hear his Mother's song?" And you do you know what it is to have loved a "little boy aaIio died?" Sarah Guernsey Bradley in Harper's Bazar. . |