Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1877 — WE TWO. [ARTICLE]

WE TWO.

" FortMM Iwtep la mww *>o»i» tlut *n ■*« It's jus* a bit of » story, sir, that don’t sound inch to atnwgers. but I'd like to tell you about it, if you have time to Hatea, for fcey’Te all tor gotten Bobbery down hert, except me; they’re poor folks, you see, and things drift out of folks' iieads when poverty drifts in. Bobbery ? yes, air. that was his name—leastways the name we gave him down hew. As to a father or mother, we never had any, I think; never had anyone in the wide world to belong to, except our two selves—Bobbery and me. I waa the eldest, two long years older than hint; but then I was blind, you see, so tha two years didn't count for much, and Bobbery grt ahead <4 me after the time when the long days of pain slipped into long nights, and 4#od abut me out of the world; not that 1 grumble, sir—l’ve given over that; and Bobbery was always such a good lad to me, that perhaps I didn't miss so much, after all. I grew to fancy things, and made believe I saw a great deal, particularly after Bobbery took to working at his tradeshoeblack, sir; and sometimes, when I became accustomed to being always in t'ue dark, I went out with Bobbery, and held the money that he made. Well, not much, perhaps, but enough for us two, and the little room we had down at Kingstown, oyer against the river; only Bobbery was an extravagant lad—not in drink, air—we were always a sober lot —but in oranges. They were almost his ruin, sir—those oranges. Ho used to come up-stairs sucking them softly, so that I might not hear, and thinking to deceive me; but I forneliow unfit oranges, and it always made me sharper to catcli Bobbery whistling little tunes to himself on the way up, just to put me oil. He made a deal of rec, did Bobbery—•long of heine blind, you see—and so did the neighbors: but I was rare proud of him. You don't know what it is, sir, to sit alone in the dark all day, and then, on a sudden, to hear a fellow cail out: “Here wc are again! Come down and feel the sun set. and we’ll count the copper'-!” It would make you love anyone, sir. who had a voice like that, let alone a fellow like Bobbery. Perhaps you didn't happen to be in Kingstown,'sir, last spring, wher the Hoods had risen, and the land was under w ater for miles round. Bobbery used to ■wade a little going down to bis work, but he rather liked it, he said: and he used to tuck up his trousers, and call back tome and laugh as the water crept round his feet; and he said folks wouldn't want their boots blacked, he feared, for the water would soon take off the polish. I used to sit on the window-sill to feel the sun, and if I .listened very hard 1 could hear the ripple-ripple of the shallow water at eveiy step that Bobberv made, and it had a pleasant sound, and made a kind of company feeling; but wbeu he was out of hearing, and it still kept rippling up against our walls, the company feeling went away and left me lonely, and sometimes I thought the water hateful because it lay for so very long between me and Bobbery. Well, once I was sitting alone on the window-sill, and the diy was very quiet—so quiet that F “did not even hear the little rippling waves—and in the quiet I grew frightened at last; and in the quiet I stretched out my hands across the fiill, to teel my way down. I felt something that made me shiver and draw back out of the sunlight—that made my whole dark life grow suddenly a beautiful and precious thing—l telt the water rippling almost up to the level of the sill, and I was quite alone, and Bobbery woqld never know. I did not call out, or go mad with fright, as T thought at first I might do; only I crept away, in my everlasting darkness. from the' warm sunlight, and sat dow non the bed where Bobbery and I slept together, and put my hands over my ears, to'shut out the roar of the waters. How long I sat there I don’t know, but I thins it must have been hours, for 1 felt the sunlight slanting on my face, and the water rushing round me before I moved again. I was hungry, too; but when I tried to get down and reach the cupboard, the water took me oft my feet, and I crept iback to the bed, and on to the shelves of the dresser, to be out of the way. I said my prayers two or three times, and I said some prayers for Bobbery, too, for I knew he would be sorry when he found me some day, where I had died all alone* and in the dark. And then I tried to think how tilings looked from our window, with the -water sweeping up to the very sill, and the red sunset lying on it—and’ beyond, the pretty town, and the steeple with the clock; and 1 thought it was better for me to die than Bobbery, after all, for he could see, wnile I— I had no pleasure in my life. And yet I wanted to live;’ 1 wanted to hear Bobbery’s voice again; I wanted the waters to go down, and somebody to remember me at last—lorTwks afraid. ' ' 1“ " ' " Well, sir, God answers our prayrrs sometimes in a way that is terribly just. It takes us a long lime to find out that everything is very good, I think, but we come to learn it at last—and learn, too, to leave our prayers as well as the answers to God. Somebody did remember me at last, and came back —somebody whose laughing voice across the waters was nearer every minute —somebody whose hands were on my shoulder, whose eyes I felt, were on my sac who had never forgotten me—Bobbery! “Bobbery! Bobbery!” I cried, and 1 stretched out my arms to him. Bobbenr said: “ I came over in a tub only think! such a lark! but. as 1 climbed in at the window our tub drifted away, and how we’re to get over I can’t tell.” “You must think of something,” I said. •“ Bobbery, it was a long day.” “ Why, of course it was,” Bobbery answered, “ without me. Come along* the river’s rising like fury.” “ Is it very wide! ” I asked. “ Oh, not more’n a good stretch from here to the dry land—but deep; over six feet, I should say—and rising.” “ But the bed. Bobbery,” I said, f ‘ and the other things?” “ Well, we must just leave them until it’s all right again.” “ Will it ever be all right? ” I asked. “Why, yes, .of course,*’ said Bobbery. He was such t splendid chap, sir, was Bobbery, and to clever! He took the two -chairs that were drifting a Paul the room, and tied them close together, and then we waded across to the window, and stood .upon the sill. “ I think it’s jolly good ftin,” said Bob'bory. “If you could only see how your beat's bobbing up and down in fibnt here! Get in quick, or I can’t hold her. Here! port her helm, or something! Are you all Tight?” “ It’s splendid,” I said; “ come along.” But when Bobbery put his foot on to the unsteady raft, she went down on one side with a plunge. “ Never mind,” be said; “you’ve just got to push yourself

ashore with this pole, as straight as you can,go, and I’ll follow.” law oar to you, air. I thought that it was true, or I never would have left Bobbery. 1 took the pole he gave me, and went out on the restless waters, that I felt were blood-red where the setting sun had touched them. People on the opposite aide cheered and cried and called me, and Bobbery behind cried out once or twice, “ Ship ahoy!” in a shrill voice, that I knew and loved better than anything on earth, and once I heard him say, laintly—he seemed so far away—” In portkt last.” At last! The people on the shore had ceasrd their shouts of excitement and encouragement, the light had diod utterly away. In an awful silence, and an awful darkness, 1 jumped to land, and held out my two hands. Bobbery! Bobbery!’’ I cried, “ I want to thank you.” Did Bobbery hear, sir, do you tliiuk? Do people hear anything, do people understand anything, after they nave gone away? I only know that the awful silence was turning me to stone, that the awful darkne s was rising like a wail between me and Bobbery—and I was afraid. When I called, no one answered me, and I was glad. If his voice was sileDt, any other voice would have maddened me just then, And I wanted, nothing more to tell me all the truth. I learned through the silence on land and sea how God had answered my prayer. * They*told me afterward how the plank he was launching to help himself to tlic shore drifted away from his hand, and was out of sight directly; how they would have saved him if they could, and how, when they began to shout to him directions, he made a sign for silence, and and stood straight upon the sill, with the sunset creeping all about him, and the waters washing at his feet. They wondered why he had made no effort to reach the shore with me—they used to wonder, for long after, why he had stood so silent, with his eager eyes and restless feet so strangely still. / knew, of course; but what right bhd anyone else to come between Bobbery and me? It wouldn’t have done anyone else any good to know what I knew —that Bobbery wouldn’t let me lose life fain Vest chance"; thought my blind, helpless '’life quite as well worth saving as his own. I would have done the same for him, sir, any day—for, Bobbery and me, we were always fond of eacn other. The story’s been longer than I thought, sir; but just the evening, and the floods again, and your wanting to know about the cross, brought it back to me like the same evening, somehow—and it’s company, like, to talk of the lad. And Bobbery? he just died, sir; and the folks thought such a deal of him that they collected a bit to set me up, and I took half of the money, just to put up tins little cross by the river-side—for we always divided the coppers, sir; and I haven’t forgotten him—not in these two years! =============== ; - That’s all, sir—just all about Bobbery. —Harper't Bazar.