A Mother's Heart

This is truth. Arm Daris was left a young widow, almost penniless; a little frame house a great tract of barren, worthless land, and her baby boy, constituted her earthly possessions. She was brave and stront;, and aha slaved at all work obtainable to elegantly clothe and daintly feed her precious little one. Several excellent offers of marriage she refused, not daring to risk her son' happiness with a step-father. The boy grew beautiful and bright, but wilful and headstrong. At an early age he was sent to the best day school of the section, dreased and endotved like the child of a millionaire, nis mother's hard labor obtaining the means. There carne a sudden change in the fortunes of this woman. Speculators oftered dollars per inch of her land. Oh! She was shrewd and made grand bargains; in one week fiom poverty, she counted her thousands by the hundreds. Clinton must go to college now to mingle with and out-spend the offshoota of aristocrticy. Clinton went, he made money fly. Hia conduct beoame outmgeous, flnally he wasexpelled. Hismother was sure he had been wropged and lied to her neighbors regarding his return home. He went to Europe; ayear'sincome, large as it was, mefi his every three months' expenses. H returned broken in health and the mother nearly killed herself in nursing him. Then he started weet with a large sum to establish a cattle ranch. Four months later a letter was brought to her by a kindly neighbor. It was one of the infrequent epistles fromherson. She glanced at it and set her face into a sfcrange smile, for the neighbor was there still. "Good news?" she asked. "Oh, yes! yes! It's from Clinton' she replied. "I 8ee it is post-marked St. Louis. I thought Clinton was further west," said the inquisitive friend. "Oh, his place is much further west, away, far out. But the poor boy wants to see me, and hai come as far as St. Louis to meet me, so I will not havesuch a long journey. I hall start in the morning, and must get readv." The neighbor left. Then Ann threw berself on the Hoor and groannd. More trouble was upon her, and she had lied again. She was a woman oí deep reliftious feeling, and the sin of falsehood lay heavy on her soul, but she must risk all to save the good name of her boy. The next morning she left for St. Louis, Clinton was imprisoned, bail refused, for etabbing a man during a quarrel forced upon him. The mother would not believe him suilty. Lawyers and bribas at last set him free. He obtaiued another large sum from his mother and departed, hardly bidding her eood-by. She returned to her home, aged, broken down. But when friends induired for Clinton her voice was cheery. "He's well, and doing so well, with plenty of money and brightest prospecta. It did hiin so nmch good to have me go out to see him." All of which waa truth - of a certain kind. The son never wrote to his poor mother except for money, and at last did not even write, simply draw dratts upon her. Thiy were all honored. Then she had to mtike a longer trip to eee Clinton, this time in a state prisoii under an assumed name, for a cowardly murder. Her monay, her prayers.. obtained a pardon lrom the governer. Clinton was free, no longer the beautiful boy, bnt a great burley, brutalized bulley, with low vice and exces8 marked upon every feature of his sullen face. Ann Dairs could no longer deceive herself. Her son was a villain. She acknowledged it in her heart, butgave no sign to him or others. "Would he come home with her?" she asked, prayint; he might refuse. "No, he would not. He wanted money to get away Irora the niiernal place." "Might she go with him?" "What! go with him?" and a brutal laugh gave an answer. He got the money and went away, forgetting even thanks. Bhe returned sick and old- very old. But she reported that "Clinton was flourishing and happy. A aplendid big man he was now. He wanted her to stay with him, but she preferred her own quiet home." Much of her large fortune had been squandered by her son; it was well ■he had wisely insisted on an interest in the oü that gushed from the oil tract. One day, several mnnths after her return, the cashier of the bank called. He handed her a check bearing a poor imitation of her signature. Her heart told her who had written that name. "That check was sent us from Cheyenne. W. T. Shall we pay it?" "Yes, ja; pay it! Certainlyl I gave Clinton when I was there blank checks, it's ail right. He haa large intereits and needs large sums." The cashier went away. Thewoman sobbed and prayed. She had lied again, her son was a forger, and of h3 mothers name. The lame amount nearly exhausted her funds, but she snid nothing. Soon after, however, the neighbora began to say that "Ann Dairs was gutting queer." öhe simt herself in her little house without servant or friend, and gave welcome to no one who called. It leaked out that she had drawn every cene of her money from the bank, would only receive returns and dividens trom her interests in the oil wells in cash paid into her own hands. It was concluded that she hoarded all i this money in her home. Nearly a year passed; two more checks had been sent to the town i bank. The cashier was suspiciout at first; he became convinced; returned them with information that Mrs. Dairs had no bank account now, and iaid ' nothing to the widow. The man who had signed those checka must have drawn nis own and correct conclusions. There had been 10 days of ous pourlng rain over country and town. Ann'a home was still in the httle two-story house. It stood at the base of a hill alonï the upper side of which on a ledge 150 feet highor than her roof, ran the tracks of a railroad. There had been troubïe on the road at that point for a week, the water from the still higher hilla had gathered there in a great mass, the usual channels being anable to carry off the llood. It was the last night of the storm; the elements seemed to riot in a final eflort. In the beat ing rain, the rolling thunder, and howling wind, Ann Dairs did not hear two men forcing the door of her lonely dwelling. She knew nothing of their entrance until a light was flashed in her face from a lantern. Two masked men were at her bedside. "You have a pile of money in this house," said one; "give it to us and we'll do you no harna. If you don't we'll murderyou." Ann was brave. She sprang to the window and shrieked aloud for help. The storm dro ve her voice in upon her. Strong hands seized her, butshefought furiously! Her nails toie the mask from off one who grasped her arms. There was a dazzling flash of liuhtning. By its light she recognized her sou. líer arms and body became limp, her head dropped upon her breast. "Take all, Clinton; it was for you, any how. The chest key is under my pillow; the chest is in your old room. Take it all, Clinton: but kill me before you go!" Then she feil tqhysterical cryingwid screaming. While the other robber secured the key, her son tried for a moment to quiet her; failing, with an oatb, he said: "Yon want to be killed, and I'll do it; I ain't going to be lagged when the job's this near done." The vile fingers closed about the throat that he once had circled with his infant arms; the murderous grasp tightened; the wide open eyes of his mother looked into his own, but met no glance of pity or remorse in return. "Harry, man," said the other burglar, "let's get the swag and be ofï." Tighter crew the grip. A moment more woufd finish the weary, sad life. What was that niose? Something more than the storm! The house was lifted, rocked; sent whirling around. Through the doors and windows great holes burst in the frame end, carne an ocean of water and stones, railroad ties, timbers, iron rails, earth and branches of trees. It swept all before it, carried the house two hundred yards, forced out the front, and obtained an outlet. A maas of shattered scattered Elanks alone remained of Ann Dair's ouse when the landside, from the track aboye, finally stopped a thousand feet away. The neighbors hastened to the rescue. The widow was found but Httle injured. One of the party noticed a hand projecting from the earth; two teet under he unearthed a body, a shapeless mass except the face. By his lantern light he recognized Clinton Dairs. The other villian's corpse was disco vered unden 10 feet of reiuse. When Ann Dairs was told of the finding of her son's body. though lyinií sick unto death at the house of a kind neighbor, she lied still more to preserve his memory; she said she knew he and a friend were coming to visit her, but she had given them up that evening on account of the storm. "They must have arrived and been walking to the house when that awtul landside overtook them," she said. The neiehbor who found the body was the bank cashier. He wondered how it was, if Clinton had not been at the house, he happened to have a bit of torn lace, as trom the neck ol a night dress, in his stiffened fin-zers but he said nothing. The money safe was discovered. The two dead men were buried by the widow. A minister preached a touehing sermón over the body of that "good son," Clinton Dairs, while his mother wept with covered face. She lies about that son stil!; in all else her life is, and ever has been, blameless and holy. Does the recording angel, asho notes the sin of f&lsehood drop that tear which washes out the reccrd against this body and soul-sacrilicing mother wlio waits and prays that the cali may quickly come for her to go henee to the untroubled silence of the grave? It may be!- Alex. Duke Bailie.