Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1875 — Tide-Marks. [ARTICLE]

Tide-Marks.

It was low tide when we went to Btisftol; 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. “ VV hat makes that black mark on the rocks?” I asked my friend. “O! that is the tide-mark,” she replied. “Every day, when the tides comes in, the water rises until it reaches’ that line, and, in a great many years, it has worn the stone until the mark is cut into the rock.’’ “Ot” 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: “Drawdown 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. O 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. “Poorlittle 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 ever illtempers leave their marks just as surely as the ocean does; and I have 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 wav to bad temper, remember the tide-marks.’ ’ —London Friend.