Part 3 (1/2)
Miss Rogers entered into business for herself, and I went unattended to Ypsilanti, Michigan, to be under the charge of a physician, who was to test the effect of electrical treatment as a means of restoration to sight. While he was deeply imbued with interest in my case, and gave me every care and attention while I remained under his roof, he was unfortunately wedded to one whose cold, unsympathetic suspicious nature made a pandemonium for all within the circle of her baleful influence. Of such unions Watts has truly said:
Logs of green wood that quench the coals, Are married just like sordid souls; With osiers for a bend.
To her I am indebted for many a dark and tearful hour, when not only my heart, but my eyes, needed perfect repose.
But beside this thorn-tree in the home garden bloomed for me, and for all, a beautiful flower, in the person of her niece, Josie McMath, who, with her loving, gentle touch, toned down the inequalities and smiled away the frowns.
She and I became fast friends, and afterward freely exchanged confidences, telling to each other a mutual tale of girlish hope and trustful affection.
During my stay in Ypsilanti I received a letter from Rachel Weaver, who had been bereft of her mother and had lost every means of support. She earnestly desired to return to me; and as the letter brought with it the magnetism of a former attachment, I wrote to her to come to me.
Finding the prospect of recovery through my present treatment hopeless, I went to Ionia, Michigan, repairing to the house of Dr. Baird, where I awaited tidings of Rachel Weaver, and whom I met at Detroit, when we returned to Chicago, where I was met by Mr. Arms, and who, soon as an opportunity offered, rehea.r.s.ed to me the workings of his own mind during my absence.
He told me he had been seriously thinking over the matter, and after carefully reviewing his own feelings he could arrive at but one conclusion, viz, that I had become necessary to his happiness, and that he hoped for a mutual plan for speedy union.
He owned a farm in Iowa, which he proposed to sell, and invest the proceeds in a home in Chicago.
He also begged a promise that I would never make another attempt to recover my sight, which gave me an a.s.surance that my blindness was no barrier to his love.
With a strange flutter of emotion my heart responded to his sweet a.s.surances, and, as a weary child confidingly rests upon its mother's breast, so did my tired soul trustingly repose in the safe haven of his manly love, and cast its anchor there! safe amid the lowering clouds of life, serene amid its surging seas and wildest waves; for arching all was the Iris of bright-hued hope.
CHAPTER XI.
”Visions come and go; Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng; From angels' lips I seem to hear the flow Of soft and holy song.”
”'Tis nothing now-- When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes, When airs from paradise refresh my brow, That earth in darkness lies.”
Leaving Chicago I traveled via Michigan Southern Railroad to the little town of Jonesville, Michigan, the home of my childhood and the scene of so many fond and sad recollections.
Stopping at the village hotel for some preparation, I wended my way to the little cemetery. There was a picture in memory of a green hill-side slope, which, whenever the dark funeral day was recalled, formed a vivid and prominent feature of the scene; and so, upon that day, I found within the little ”city of the silent” the identical hill-side, but, with the most scrutinizing search, failed to find the sacred mound holding the most hallowed form of the home group, and over which were shed the bitter tears of childhood's grief, more poignant and more lasting than we usually attribute to that period of life.
In the hope of eliciting some information I entered a cottage near by, which I found inhabited by aged people; but as they had been residents only seven years, and twenty-four years had elapsed since my mother was laid to rest, they could give me no light or aid, save the simple suggestion that there were a number of graves covered by the undergrowth of shrubbery, and perchance hers might be one of them. Accepting the possibility I found the one I sought, which could not fail to be recognized, for strange to say, time had dealt so gently that the slender picket fence was undecayed by his ”effacing; lingers,” and the name painted upon the little wooden head-board was distinctly visible. Grouped in quadrangular growth were four little trees, gracefully arching in a bowery drapery over the grave, as if nature in strange sympathy with the mourners left behind had offered this tribute to the n.o.ble mother. How vividly came back again the long lost childhood home, and as the wind sighed through the leafy boughs, seemed to sob a sad requiem for the dead.
There was a little song I had learned in the Inst.i.tution, and had so often sang, when unknown to those around me every chord in my sad heart seemed
”As harp-strings broken asunder, By music they throbbed to express.”
Then the sweet, sad words come back in memory,
”I hear the soft winds sighing, Through every bush and tree; Where my dear mother's lying, Away from love and me.
Tears from mine eyes are weeping, And sorrow shades my brow; Long time has she been sleeping-- I have no mother now.”
After a long, lingering look, I turned sadly away, going to the little marble yard in the vicinity, and seeking the proper person, I communicated to him the desire for a head and foot-stone for the grave, together with marble corner stones to support an iron chain for an enclosure, asking him for an estimate of the cost.
Looking at me with almost tearful emotion, he said, when the blind girl, after the lapse of twenty-four years, comes back to offer a tribute to the memory of her mother, the result of her own unaided earnings, I can but be generous, and offered to do all for half the usual price. Knowing instinctively that I could trust him, I left all in his hands, and have never had occasion to feel that I had misplaced my confidence.