Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1881 — Tide Marks. [ARTICLE]

Tide Marks.

It was low tide when we we o the beach, and the great gray rocks stood up bare and grim above the water; but high up, on all their sides, was a black line that seemed hardly dry, though it was far above the water. ‘What makes that black mark on the rocks?’ I asked of my friend. ‘Oh! that is the tide-mark,’ she replied. “Every day, when the tide comes in, the water rises and rises until it reaches that line, and jn a great many years it has worn away the stone until the mark is cut into the rock.’ ‘Oh!’ thought I,‘that is all, is* it?’ Well, I have seen a great many people that carry tide-marks on their faces. Right in front of me was a pretty little girl with delicate features and" pleasant blue eyes. But she had some queer little marks on her forehead, and I wondered how they came to be there, until presently her mother said: ‘Draw down the blind now, Carrie, the sun shines right in baby’s face.’ ‘I want to look out,’ said Carrie in a very peevish voice. But her mother insisted, and Carrie drew the blind, and turned her face away from the window. Oh! dear me! what a face it was! The blue eyes were full of frowns instead of smiles, the pleasant lips were drawn up in an ugly pout, and the queer marks on her forehead had deepened into actual wrinkles. ‘Poor liitle girl,’ I thought, ‘how badly you will feel when you grow up, to have your face marked all over with the tide-marks of passion; for these evil tempers leave their marks Just as surely as the ocean does, and I lave seen many a face stamped so deeply with self-will and covetousness, that it must carry the marks to the grave.’ ‘Take care, little folks! and whenever you give way to bad temper, remember the “tide-marks.” — Selected.