JARED'S WIFE.

MRS

BY ALICE CARY.

murs.

"O what will become of us! what will become of us!" she cried over and over, wringing her hands and hiding her eyes from her daughter Cyntha, who had looked always to her mother for comfort and counsel. She could no longer look there now-the clouds of affliction were gathering so darkly about that mother that she no longer saw her own way. Three children had been carried to the silent grave in the three last years, and now the good, hard-working husband and father was gone after them, and it was a bitterer thought to the widow as she listened to the storm, that it beat on her husband's grave, than that it drove through her own roof.

There was but one gleam of light-that she had nothing to reproach herself with. It was well for her, and it is well for us all, perhaps, that we do not know our many short-comings. Before most of us I am afraid our life would stretch almost like a blanket, so little of it do we fill up rightly and well. Mrs. Donalson was not a bad woman-not a worthless woman, by any means; but she had taken fortune as it came, never seeking to make fortune for herself, scarcely ever to mend it.

James Donalson, on whose turfless mound the rain was falling, had done all the thinking for his wife as long as he lived; he had worked for her as long as he lived, and as long as he lived she had leaned upon him right heavily. There was nothing to lean on now, for James was resting from his labors-three mounds of different lengths on one side of him, and a patch of wet, tangly weeds on the other-an uninviting spot enough, but one to which Mrs. Donalson said she was quite ready to go.

"O don't, mother! O don't!" was all Cyntha could say at first, for she was crying too, and needing comfort as much as the mother. One

after another death had taken her two bravehearted brothers and her dear little sister, and now the father was gone-he to whom all had looked and on whom all had relied.

One bright eyed little boy was left-on either cheek a tear had lodged and stood ready to fall, his hands moved restlessly, and wonder, and sorrow, and a great fear all contended together in his round, rosy face. One little streak of unsteady light shone out across the hearth, and into that little Leonard had crept, not so much for the warmth, though he stretched his bare feet toward the flame, as to get out of the shadow, for darkness seemed to him twice as dark as it had ever seemed to him before.

He was crying, not more for his good father, whom he had been told he should never see any more, than in sympathy with his mother and sister. All was so strange to him, so fearful, he knew not what to do but cry. Now and then he would look up, hoping, perhaps, that mother or sister would smile; but when he saw the strange, unnatural look that was in their faces, he wished it was morning, as he had never, till then, wished for the morning.

The rain fell, and fell on the roof, and against the window, and pattered down the chimney among the ashes, and into the little red flame that was trying its best to warm Lenny's bare feet, but struggled and fluttered, grew pale and fell, and never got up again. Then Lenny began to sob aloud and say, "How dark it is! and when will it be morning?"

Poor Cyntha could not sit still in the dark and hear him moan so, and taking him on her knee she shut his eyelids down with her fingers, and told him if he would go to sleep it would be all light and sunshine when he awoke. But Lenny could not go to sleep at once-he wished it was sunshine then, and that his mother were making the tea, or toasting the bread, or doing any thing but sitting idly in the dark. Cyntha could not make the sun shine, but she could make it more cheerful with candlelight; and when the little flame was aglow it not only filled the room and dried the tears on Lenny's face, but also cheered a very little her own heart; for it is a strange truth, that whatever good we do another blesses us even more than the good we receive from others. So when Cyntha had lighted the candle to please poor Lenny, her own heart was lighted somewhat, and she told him a sorrowful story of a pet bird that sung all one summer while she spun, and died when the frost came and the flowers died; and in his sorrow for the bird Lenny forgot, for a moment, the strange bed

they had put his father in, and in that moment, tired as he was in heart and head, he fell asleep on his sister's bosom.

When his bed was spread soft and warm, and he lay in it fast asleep, there came a quiet over the turbulence that had made the world one gloomy confusion, and Cyntha began to think of the morrow; and when the mother cried, “What shall we do!" she answered, "What can we do!" "If we owned the house and the pasture field, with the cattle and sheep that are in it," said Mrs. Donalson, แ we might have some courage to try to live-if we even owned the house and the garden, or the house alone-but as it is-O Cyntha, Cyntha, there is nothing for us but to die!"

"It is all lost time," said Cyntha, "to think of what we might do if we owned the pasture and the cattle-we don't own them, nor any thing else, so let us make plans to suit things as they

are."

But still the poor widow wrung her hands and said there was nothing for which to make a plan. "Are not my two darling boys and my dear husband all gone from me, and my pretty baby, too? What is there in life to care about?"

Cyntha said nothing of herself, but she pointed to Lenny in the cradle, and asked if he were not worth trying to live for.

The stricken mother did not uncover her eyes for one look at the dear little sleeper, but moaned | and lamented all the same for those who would never wake from their sleeping.

It was a long and miserable night to Cynthathe longest she had ever seen in her life; and whether she looked from the window into the darkness and the rain, or whether she sat at the cold hearth beside her mother, was all as one, desolate, desolate.

Before the sun had made his fire she had made hers, and went about her tasks with an assumption of courage that she did not feel. Directly Lenny climbed out of the cradle and ran to the fireside, for the rain had done and the morning was breaking clear and frosty. And the blaze was grateful to the child's feet. If he had had shoes the mother would have put them on; but he had none, and she sat still, thinking of all the rich folks she knew who might give Lenny shoes and never miss the money.

"If such or such a one would assist us a little, we might have some courage to begin anew," she said to all the simple suggestions Cyntha could make with reference to helping themselves. And while the poor woman sat crying and saying she could do nothing, there came a hard knocking at the door, and Mr. Boardman, the

man who held the mortgage on the house and ground where the widow lived, came in. Time and again he had lent a helping hand to the poor family in the hope they would help themselves; but notes had been renewed till he was tired of renewing, and all Mr. Donalson had left in the world would not much more than half pay the debt owing to him. He was a man of great industry and energy, who, beginning with little, had accumulated a good deal, notwithstanding many adverse circumstances, and it was quite natural he should think the same efforts in others would be productive of the same results-quite natural that he should contrast the listless hands of Mrs. Donalson with the busy ones of his wife. There was a little cheerful light in his resolute face, at first, that gradually lessened and went out as the widow refused to take hold of any of the proposals he made whereby she might help herself. True, they were not munificent, but, on the whole, they were liberal; and if they had been greatly less so, under the circumstances, it was the best Mrs. Donalson could do to avail herself of them.

But it was not her nature to do the best thing that could be done under the circumstances, but vaguely to imagine better things and better cir

cumstances.

"Well," said Mr. Boardman, at last, "I will give you a day or two to consider what I have said, but I have done the best I can do-more than duty to my own family warrants." And so the interview, most unsatisfactory to both parties, concluded.

"How selfish rich people are!" thought Mrs. Donalson. "I suppose he did not see poor Lenny's bare feet, and think how easy it would be for him to give a pair of shoes-poor, dear Lenny! he is just as good as any body's child, and deserves shoes just as much. I suppose Mr. Boardman will turn us out of house and home next."

While the rich man remained Cyntha sat trembling in the obscurest corner of the room, wishing she could say or do something to make things better. If Mr. Boardman would address himself to her she might venture to say something, but as it was, how could she? So, fearful and trembling, she saw him go away without having noticed her at all, and she knew very well by the severe expression in his face that he had ne intention of giving Lenny a pair of shoes, and, furthermore, that he would not renew the offer already made. "Dear mother," she said, "let us try to do something for ourselves, and never mind Mr. Boardman."

But the mother replied that she had been trying all her life, and that now she was growing old and had neither energy nor hope to do for herself, and she supposed her rich neighbors would see her starve to death before they would give her one cent. Then she went back to the time when she and Mrs. Boardman were girls, and equal in position and hope-how they had married, one as well as the other, and settled on adjoining farms, one as large as the other; and then she related how one thing after another, and every thing had gone against themselves and in favor of the Boardmans, and for no fault and no want of effort on their own part. No matter what the Boardmans did, it was fortunate; and no matter what themselves did, it was unfortunate. Money seemed to flow right into the laps of the Boardmans, and they had as many friends as they wanted all the time. "Mrs. Boardman could visit," she said, "and ride about in her carriage, while she staid at home hard at work; and Mrs. Boardman's children could be finely dressed and educated, while hers suffered every hardship and privation, and died, at last, poor, poor children-what could she do but cry! And then to think that, in the deepest affliction of all, Mr. Boardman, prosperous and fortunate as he was, should come to take the very roof off from her head and bread out of her mouth! O it was all too bad! More than once, in their dealings, Mr. Boardman had taken undue advantage of poor James," she said, and with a sort of morbid pleasure she recalled all these injuries, and exaggerated them into terrible and premeditated wrongs that would meet retribution if there were any justice in heaven. And it was the conclusion of Mrs. Donalson that there was no justice, even in heaven, for her, but that God and man were against her.

There came to the heart of Cyntha an uncertain apprehension that God is against us when we are against ourselves, but it would have seemed cruel to speak it; and then it seemed, too, that there was a great deal of truth in what her mother said. She had seen Jared Boardman two or three times since he came from college, and he did not appear to know her-she supposed probably he did not, though she knew him well enough.

The best she could do, then, was to sympathize with her parent, hope a little almost against certainty, and wait.

Day after day went by-the wood disappeared from the door, and the meat and flour from the cupboard, and the little hope Cyntha had at first went out, and the waiting for better things was

done, and the watching for worse things had at last come.

The frost glistened all day in the shade at the door, and the wind drove all day against the broken windows, making the house very cold.

Cyntha cared little for herself, but her dear mother was sick, and all she could do she could not keep her warm enough. It was not long she had the wretched effort to make; the hands of the bereaved woman were tired and her heart was broken, and not unwillingly she went where there was no need of warmth. But to turn back a leaf. While she had been recalling the hardships and baffled endeavors of her past life, and enumerating the grievous wrongs the fortunate and hard Mr. Boardman had done her poor, kind, and most unfortunate husband, he sat by his comfortable fire, comfortably clad, feeling that he had earned it all by honest industry and prudent foresight, and deserved it all, though he was humbly thankful, he trusted. He trusted this; but he did not look very deeply into his heart to see whether he were really so or not-whether, indeed, he did not take all the credit to himself, and give all the thanks to himself.

"What has prevented the Donalsons from doing as well as we?" he asked his wife as she sat sewing beside him, just as fast and as earnestly as she had done when they were poor and beginning life.

"Sure enough," replied the busy woman, "we have given them chances time and again, if they had been disposed to exert themselves, and no body ever helped us in any way." And she went on to say that the Donalsons and themselves began on even ground-in fact, she believed what advantage there was, was in favor of the Donalsons; but instead of going forward, as they might have done, they had gone steadily down and down-themselves had reared respectably a family of children, while their neighbors' children had cost them very little money. They did not take into account how much the deaths of three of them had weakened their parents' hands.

They were sure they had been as forbearing as any body would be, and they had done as much as any body would do-more than they could afford to do in justice to themselves.

A hundred favors they could call to mind which they had done the Donalsons for every one received from them-in truth, they could not remember one which had really given them any substantial assistance.

Mrs. Donalson had come sometimes when Mrs. Boardman was sick, but what of that! it was no

more than any neighbor would do. Mrs. Boardman did not remember that Mrs. Donalson had sometimes worked in her house, and watched at her bedside two or three days at once, neglecting her own interests and her own family. She could remember very distinctly, however, when her husband had said to Mr. Donalson, "You need not trouble yourself to pay me for the odd bushels in the lot of apples you have taken," and that Mr. Donalson never did trouble himself and further she remembered, when Mr. Boardman had sold his neighbor flour at half price, and received that half in days' works that did not seem to come to any thing, and she remembered a good many little presents she had made Mrs. Donalson and her children one time and another-not of any great value to be sure, yet more than Mrs. Donalson or any one else had ever given to her. Once or twice Mrs. Donalson might have done a little nice needle-work for her-she believed she had, but she could hardly remember what it was, and she knew it was of no value. Probably Mrs. Donalson would have remembered just what work she did, and have placed a very different estimate upon it.

hands of her neighbor that had been lost among hard feelings for a long time. She really wished she had gone to see her poor friend before she died, and by wishing so she quieted her conscience so far that she did not feel it necessary to visit the orphans. There would be some way for them, she hoped, but she was sure they could not afford to do for them any longer. She was sure they might stay in the old house in welcome for aught she would care, if it would serve them to stay there, but she did not see as it would; and then the place must be repaired for Jared, who was soon to marry a fine lady, and must needs have a decent house to live in. It would be unnatural in them, she was sure, to cast off their own children for other people's.

The wind kept tapping and tapping at the sash to let Mrs. Boardman know how cold it was without, but she took no note of it; and the snow kept falling and falling as white as white could be, to let her see how pure a thing charity was; but she thought only of the warm shawls her girls needed, and of the splendid furs worn by Jared's wife, as she had heard.

"I must go to-morrow and tell the young woman she must vacate the house by a specified time," said Mr. Boardman. "It's an unpleasant task-I wish it were done, but there is no other way of course the young woman will never think of the necessity of exerting herself, for no doubt she is less energetic than her mother, if that were possible."

When Mr. Boardman related how listlessly the widow had listened to the offers he had made her, she said she was glad they were not accepted, and much good would it do Mrs. Donalson when she received another such offer. And snapping off her thread, Mrs. Boardman began picking out the stitches from the piece of work she was doing as vigorously as she had put them in; for in her unfortunate mood she had spoiled it all. The following day, when she heard Mrs. Donalson was sick, she said Mrs. Donalson was always sick, but that she supposed she must go to see her, and she would do so as soon as she could get time. Day after day went by and still Mrs. Boardman kept too busy to make the proposed visit "she supposed her neighbor was better," she said, "or she should hear of it."

When the news came that Mrs. Donalson was dead her conscience began to smite her, and she recalled a good many good turns received at the

"O, of course," said Mrs. Boardman, "how should she have any foresight-probably she ex

her lap, and I don't know any school but experience in which such folks will learn!" And she concluded by saying the Donalson children were no better than her children; and if her husband was foolish enough to give up the old house to them, why Jared and his wife could live in the barn, she supposed.

Mr. Boardman replied that he had no intention of giving up the house-under the circumstances he could not if he would-he was sure no body except the young woman would have the presumption to ask it of him; did not she know how deeply her father was indebted to him, and that farm, cattle, house, and household furniture would not remunerate him! If the young woman did know it she did not care--she had been so used to favors she received them as matters of course.

"True, she is badly off, we grant that," said Mrs. Boardman, "but then she must make the best of bad-that is all the way I know. If it