Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1875 — Something Else There. [ARTICLE]

Something Else There.

A pair of little feet clambering up the steps of a shady piazza; a pair of little hauds bearing a small, well-filled basket; a sweet child’s face, rosy and earnest. The basket was rested for a moment upon the upper step, and a pair of soft, grave eyes peered through the half-closed blinds of the nearest window'. The hall-door was open and a lady came from the room to welcome the diminutive messenger. “Good morning. Dewy; pretty well loaded, aren’t you F Shall I take it?” And she extended her hand for the basket. The little fellow gave it to her, also the kiss for which she had bent smilingly. “Aunt Ria, it’s for Uncle Fred; but my mother says you can have some of it,” he said, as he pattered after her into the pleasant sitting-room. “Did she ?” laughingly responded the lady. “Yes, ma’am; I asked her. And she said I must tell her if Uncle Fred is any better. Is he?” he queried, speaking low and trying to edge himself up on the lounge. “ Come m here and see, Dewy,” came in Uncle Fred’s own voice from the bedroom adjoining. Dewy quickly slipped from his perch and almost ran across the room. “ Oh, Uncle Fred, you am better! ’Cause yesterday you didn’t speak to me; you had your eyes shut.” i , - ■ “Yes, Dewy, I nqi better, but I must not kiss you yet, pet. Just let me hold your hands. Now, Aunt Ria, let us see what’s in the big basket the little man tugged all the way up the hill.” Aunt Ria took out a dressed chicken, some fruit, and,a jar of cream. “ Something else there,” said Dewy. Aunt Ria shook the napkin and glanced again into the basket. “ I don’t see anything else. What was it, dear?” “ Something you can’t take out,” returned Dewy, very gravely. Uncle Fred laughed quite heartily for a sick man at what he considered his small nephew’s joke. “ I suppose you mean the bottom of die basket, Dewy,” he said. “ No, Uncle Fred, I don’t,” replied the child with decision. “It was something my mother put in there. It was a prayer.”

“It was what?” asked both relatives at once. “A prayer. I saw my mother put it in. You can’t take it out, hut God can.” “ What a strange notion,” said Aunt Ria. “ Well, I guess it’s so,” murmured Uncle Fred. “Course it’s so,” repeated Dewy. “ I saw my mother from the window. ’Fore she put on the napkin she looked up so” —turning his sweet lace upward—- “ and said something low, and I know it was a prayer. That’s the way she does lots of times, and she puts a prayer in my crib every night.” - Dewy’s mother had told him to return immediately; so, after taking “just one peep” at his baby cousin, who lay asleep in another room, he departed. His active, earnest footsteps were still sounding upon the stone walk when his Uncle Fred remarked: “That putting in a prayer, as Dewy calls it, is just like Madge, although I never gave it a thought before. I really believe she never does the least thiitg without praying over it. She is a good creature, if there ever was one; yet, when we youngsters were all at home together, we boys used to tease her unmercifully sometimes about her religion. Grandmother used to say,” he added, after a brief silence, “ that Madge was the extreme good or bad luck to others, and once she startled us all by declaring that whoever was ill among the neighbors either died immediately or began to convalesce as soon as Madge had insisted in attending them, though it were only for a night. 1 noticed that thing particularly, and it did seem so; but.l believe now that nothing more supernatural than her prayers was at the bottom of it.” The invalid remained in deep thought and with closed eyes so long that his wife thought him sleeping; but suddenly he looked up, his brow troubled, his lips working nervously. “ Maria,” he said, “ I have never vet dropped a prayer into our baby’s cradle. I am. a miserable, ungrateful wretch; and if I ever get to heaven it will be because a sister’s prayers have kept me within the reach of mercy. I think her prayers must have saved my life once before; your care and her prayers will raise me from this illness; hut now I believe it time that I began to call upon the Lord for myself. Dewy lias given me a key,” he resumed, after a brief interval, “ that unlocks Madge’s whole life, and I view her character now in its true light rilsed to regard her as absurdly conscientious, but now I know that she is a child of God.” The key which Dewy in childish simplicity an J trust gave so earnestly to his uncle” that bright summer morning has brought to the eyes of the latter more than one beautiful revelation. God did take the mute petition from that little basket, and he changed it into anthems of praise. The praying sister soon clasped the brother’s hand in hers and pointed out the path that led to the precious cross. The heart of tlie sister and wife was also won by Calvary's simple story, so old and yet so new—so wonderful. “ Something else there,” they frequently say to each"other, “ or, if there is not, there ought to be;” and Dewy’s remark, once so perplexing, has dlded‘them more than any other uninspired word toperform cheerfully the duties expected of those who humbly l follow Christ.—Christian at IF ark. A lawyer who consumes three hours in arguing a question of law relating to the ownership of a barrel- of' apples is ini dignant at his minister for exceeding twenty-five minutes in unfolding one of tlie great .principles of morality, on whose observance the tolerable existence of society depends. — Ch rial in n Register. The Golden Age, started by Theodore Tilton, has suspended. v -