Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1905 — A Dream’s Fulfillment [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Dream’s Fulfillment

The Rector’s Christmas Charity and What Came of It.

By SALLY CHAMBERLIN

TCopyright, 1904, by Sally Chamberlin.] BANG! Bang! Bang! John Hare jumped from his warm bed into his dressing gown and slippers, switched on the electric light and was on the lower floor swinging wide the heavy, massive door before his eyes were fairly open. Through the blackness of the outer night peered the hard and forbidding faces of two roughly clad men. The taller man stated in gruff toues that his baby was dying and his wife wanted the child baptized. In less than five minutes the young rector was dressed and back to the men, whom he had left sitting in the hall, and the three started out. The trip to the outskirts of the city through dark and strange streets was anything but pleasant. Finally reaching a little low cottage, set quite apart ?

from any other dwellings and lighted by one small lamp which sent its rays through the narrow window, he followed the men through the door into a barely furnished room. On a cot in the corner lay a child, small and wasted, marked with death's stamp, and beside her sat the weeping mother. Some strange mystery haunted the room. What were these poverty stricken people trying to conceal'.' The clergyman shook off the feeling and opened his prayer hook at the baptismal service. Having performed his mission, accompanied by the two mem he was passing a clump of trees on his way home when one of them stopped suddenly and, pulling a long bladed knife from his pocket, flashed it before the young rector’s face aud instantly pointed it toward his heart. lie uttered a piercing shriek. ****••• “Ugh!” said John Hare as the sound of his own voice wakened him and he sat up in bed. "What an ugly nightmare!” Then, with a look at his watch, “It is high time I was up anyway, with fifty parochial visits before me. I must make sure that not a single family has a cheerless Christmas tomorrow.” His eye caught the picture of a girl’s face, gentle eyed, yet cheery, hanging in a frame on his wall. “And if there’s any persuasion in John Hare's poor eloquence he won't have a cheerless nor a lonely Christmas the next 25th ! of December.”

This young rector had come to Spottsfleld, a rising manufacturing city, three years before, after serving as curate in a large city parish. He had transformed his new congregation from a disgruntled, quarreling community composed of a few rich and many poor to a great family interested in each other and respecting his Christlike principles. And incidentally his strict resolution for a busy bachelorhood had been somewhat disturbed by a pair of Interested, laughing eyes which belonged to the daughter of a factory owner. Tills energetic, but rather shy, young woman was famed and loved among the poor and sick of Spottsfleld for her gentle und unpretentious way of helping when and where she was needed. Though of different faiths, she and John Hare met often while on excursions of mercy. He had seen her, too, at beta father’s home, where he was popular as a dinner guest because of his appreclatlou of a good cigar and his broad, forceful views on Christianity. As he dressed that morning before the festive holiday he realized that the human heart cannot be denied its. sustenance one heating in touch and sympathy with it—and that one fair girl had woven her charms about him so completely that he could no longer refrain from telling her of it, even though of late she had rather seemed to avoid him when he crossed her path and was even chary of her conversation when he dined at her house. During the long busy day she was constantly brought to his mind ip the homes he visited. A forlorn old woman told of the coming of Miss Ruth with yarn for the next year’s knitting and a box of sweets. A grateful mother told of the nights Miss Ruth had

stayed and nursed the baby back to life. In the poorer homes be beard ,of the baskets of Christmas goodies she had brought, with toys aud warm mittens for the children. It was 10 o’clock before the rector had finished the day’s task, and when he reached home he threw himself, quite worn out. on the couch in the library. Not ten minutes seemed to have elapsed when the sound "Rr-r-r-r!” through his sleep wakened him suddenly to the realization that some one was ringing the bell with the evident intention of rousing the entire household, and as he stepped into the hall to open the door he was amazed to see the hands on the old fashioned clock pointing to 1. “Sir, we’ve come to get Mr. Hare. The baby’s dying, and my wife wants a minister,” announced one of the two men who stood on the step facing the tired rector. The memory of his vivid nightmare had not recurred to him since the morning, but at the words “baby’s dying” it it all flashed before his mind, and he hesitated an instant with some misgivings. Quickly pulling himself together and throwing off the vision, he exclaimed : “I’m Mr. Hare. Where is your baby?” In a harsh voice the larger of the two men mentioned the outskirts of the city, where the houses were small and low and widely scattered. Again pushing aside the warning of his apparition, the rector incased himself in warm overcoat and arctics and, locking the door behind him, bade the men lead the way. For several blocks an occasional house showed lights from top to bottom or a stray light in the soccnd story gave evidence that an eager youngster was awake examining Santa Claus' gifts. Then the houses became dark, and the three men trudged on through the gently falling snow. Hare’s questions received but curt, abrupt answers, while the memory of his grewsome dream grew clearer with each step of the long dark walk till he reached the Identical cottage of his nightmare, with one light shining through the window. A suggestion of cold perspiration stood on his forehead and a shiver ran down his spine as he thought of the sinister group and the suspicious and foreboding glances of the men in that dim scene which he had passed through before so realistically. Entering the house behind the larger man, he looked instantly toward the corner for the cot and the child. They were there! The thin face of the child showed the same pallor of death, but the mother was not In the chair beside the bed. In her place sat a girlish figure, holding a vial in her delicate fingers. “Thank you so much for coming,” said a soft voice, and the Ituth of his day dreams lifted her eyes to his with a wistful, shy glance of comfort and relief. “The mother never would have beeu consoled for her neglect in not having had her child baptized, and I felt so sure J you would come, even though it was at this late hour.” So the dying baby received the blessing of the church, and as the sun rose between two distant hills the child passed into its Saviour's arms. Two hearts were peaceful from a souse of finished duty. Unconsciously radiant with joy at being together, the man and the girl passed from the low roofed cottage into the clear frosty air of the blue canopied earth with its fresh carpeting of pure white snow. A Christmas happiness such as they had never known before illuminated the world for these two alone in the snow clad woods.

It was some time before the young rector felt inclined to speak, aud then it was to recount his nightmare with its realistic reproduction up to the point where he had found her beside the dying child. “And the knife aimed at your heart —that must have been a dreudful dream!” John Hare paused, holding her with his strong magnetic gaze. “The knife is in your hand. If you cannot love me, your ‘No’ will he the deathblow to my hopes aud ambitious.” She smiled up into his eyes and held out both hands. “See—there is no knife.”

IN ONE PLACE SAT A GIRLISH FIGURE.