Daisy In The Field

One never knows, after all, where the first bolt will come

from. Mine struck me all unawares, while I was looking in an

opposite quarter. It is hard to write it. A day came, that I

had a father in the morning, and at night, none.

It was very sudden. He had been feeble, to be sure, more than

usual, for several days, but nobody apprehended anything.

Towards evening he failed - suddenly; sent for me, and died in

my arms, blessing me. Yes, we had been walking the same road

together for some time. I was only left to go on awhile longer

alone.

But Mont Pilatte said to me that night, "There remaineth a

rest for the people of God." And while the moon went down and

the stars slowly trooped over the head of the mountain, I

heard that utterance, and those words of the hymn "God liveth ever:

"Wherefore, soul, despair thou never."

I could go no farther. I could think no more. Kneeling at my

window-sill, under the starry night, my soul held to those two

things and did not loose its moorings. It is a great deal, to

hold fast. It was all then I could do. And even in the

remembrance now of the loneliness and desolate feeling that

came upon me at that time, there is also a strong sense of the

deep sweetness which I was conscious of, rather than able to

taste, coming from those words and resting at the bottom of my

heart.

I was in some measure drawn out of myself, almost immediately,

by the illness of my mother. She fell into a nervous

disordered condition, which it taxed all my powers to tend and

soothe. I think it was mental rather than bodily, in the

origin of it; but body and mind shared in the result, as

usual. And when she got better and was able to sit up and even

to go about again, she remained under the utmost despondency.

Affairs were not looking well for the Southern struggle in

America; and besides the mortification of her political

affections, mamma was very sure that if the South could not

succeed in establishing its independence, we should as a

family be ruined.

"We are ruined now, Daisy," she said. "There can be nothing

coming from our Magnolia estates - and our Virginia property

is a mere battle ground, you know; and what have we to live

upon?"

"Mamma, there will be some way," I said. "I have not thought

about it."

"No, you do not think but of your own favourite speculations.

I wish with all my heart you had never taken to fanatical

ways. I have no comfort in you."

"What do you mean by fanaticism, mamma?"

"I will tell you!" replied mamma with energy. "The essence of

fanaticism is to have your own way."