THE STORY OF MAMIE'S LIFE.
LAST summer in the hot month of August, little
Mamie King, only five years old, was taken very sick; and as those long sultry
days wore away, she got no better. How hard the bed was, how warm the room, how
bad the water tasted! The windy fall came, and little Mamie only grew sicker.
Do you know of any children that are cross because they cannot have their own
way all the time? Mamie couldn't have
her own way any of the time. She had to lie there till her little body ached
all the time, and she felt too sick to live.
Some folks think it must be easy for people to be good when they know they are going to die.
But that is a mistake. If it is hard to be good when you feel well and happy and strong, how must it be if you were so sick that everything seemed wrong and bad, and you had scarcely strength enough to try?
Now is the easiest time to be good, after all.
But little Mamie lived, still, for all she was so sick. But she felt so sorry to have her mamma have to be awake nights with her that when she was in such pain that she couldn't open her mouth without screaming, she would shut her teeth close together, and lie so for hours, hoping her mamma would sleep.
She was afraid that her papa was spending money to get nice things for her to eat, that he needed for the rest of the family; and she would tell him not to get anything for her that she could get along without. In the winter, the doctors had to bring their sharp instruments, and run them down deep into her side, to let the bad matter out.
As soon as she knew what had been done, she asked, "Papa, will you have to pay for this?"
She always thought of the pleasantest things she could; and how happy she was when some one sent her flowers, and she would hold them in her hand to look at them when most children would have thought they could do nothing but groan.
One time her brother was sick, and he was crying and feeling very bad; but she said to him, "Don't do so; do like I do, just shut your eyes, and think you won't think about it; and first you know, you'll go to sleep and forget all about it."
And now little Mamie has fallen into a long, quiet sleep, and forgotten all about the pain. A bright little life is ended—a sweet story all told.
But, leaving out the sad parts, how many of us will tell the story again—not in words, as I have told it, but in life, as Mamie told it,—a story of quiet, patient goodness.
"They used to mourn when the children died,
Before King Jesus was crucified.
But his love, with bright, unchanging beam,
Now lights all the way o'er the misty stream.
We shall meet them again by and by,
We shall know them on Canaan's bright shore;
With fairer face and angel grace,
Each loved one will welcome us there."
ADA DE YARMOND.