Another lesson from the warning finger of Death: let what was
life not dream that it can sway the life that is, after the two part
company.
Not always were mothers-in-law such breakers of the peace. There is a
story in Tiverton of one man who went remorsefully mad after his wife's
death, and whose mind dwelt unceasingly on the things he had denied
her. These were not many, yet the sum seemed to him colossal. It piled
the Ossa of his grief. Especially did he writhe under the remembrance
of certain blue dishes she had desired the week before her sudden
death; and one night, driven by an insane impulse to expiate his
blindness, he walked to town, bought them, and placed them in a foolish
order about her grave. It was a puerile, crazy deed, but no one smiled,
not even the little children who heard of it next day, on the way home
from school, and went trudging up there to see. To their stirring minds
it seemed a strange departure from the comfortable order of things,
chiefly because their elders stood about with furtive glances at one
another and murmurs of "Poor creatur'!" But one man, wiser than the
rest, "harnessed up," and went to tell the dead woman's mother, a mile
away. Jonas was "shackled;" he might "do himself a mischief.
Pages:
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341