Hopelessly and silently the unhappy man turned from the bed, and seated himself in a distant corner of the room. The death-mark was upon his children—did he not recognize the fatal sign? He had remained thus for only a minute or two, it seemed, when he felt a hand upon his arm. He looked up; his wife stood beside him, and her eyes rested steadily in his own. She pointed to the bed and motioned him to return there. He obeyed with a shrinking heart. No words were spoken until they were again close to the children; then the mother said, in a calm, cold, stern voice—
“You murmured at the blessings God gave us, and he is withdrawing them one by one. When these are gone, it will not cost us over five hundred dollars to live, and then you can save five hundred a year. Five hundred dollars for three precious children! But it’s the price you fixed upon them. Kate and Mary and Harry, dear, dear, dear ones! not for millions of dollars would I part with you!”
A wild cry broke from the lips of the agonized mother, and she fell forward upon the bed, with a frantic gesture.
The father felt like one freezing into ice. He could not speak nor move; how long this state remained he knew not. A long, troubled, dreary period seemed to pass, and then all was clear again. His wife had risen from the bed, and left the chamber. Little Harry had been removed from the crib, but Kate and Mary were still on the bed, with every indication of a violent attack of the same disease that had robbed them of their two oldest children. He was about leaving the room for the purpose of inquiring whether a physician had been sent for, when the door opened and the doctor came in with Mrs. Bancroft. The stern expression that but lately rested upon the face of the latter, had passed away. She looked kindly and tenderly into her husband’s face, and even leaned her head against him while the physician proceeded to examine the children.
But little, if any encouragement was offered to the unhappy parents. The incipiency of the disease gave small room for hope, it was so like the usual precursor of the direful malady they feared.
Ten days of awful suspense and fear succeeded to this, and then the worst came. Two happy voices that had, for so many years, echoed through the familiar places of home, were hushed forever. Kate and Mary were no more. But, as if satisfied, death passed, and Harry was spared.
Three were now all that remained of the large and happy household; the babe, whose coming had awakened afresh the murmurings of the father, and clear little Harry, just snatched, as it were, from the jaws of death, and the gay, dancing Lizzy, whose voice had, lost much of its silvery sweetness. Mrs. Bancroft did not again, either by look or word, repeat or refer to her stunning rebuke. But her husband could not forget it. In fact, it had awakened his mind to a most distressing sense of the folly, not to say sin, of which he had been guilty.
In self upbraidings, in the bitterness of grief for which there came no alleviation, the time passed on, and Mr. Bancroft lived in the daily fear of receiving a still deeper punishment.
One day, most disastrous intelligence came to the office in which he was employed. There had been a fierce gale along the whole coast, and the shipping had suffered severely. The number of wrecks, with the sacrifice of life, was appalling. Among the vessels lost, were ten insured in the office. Nothing was saved from then. Five were large vessels, and the others light crafts. The loss was fifty thousand dollars. Following immediately upon this, was another loss of equal amount arising from the failure of a certain large moneyed institution, in the stock of which the company had invested largely.
In consequence of this serious diminution of the company’s funds, the directors found themselves driven to make sacrifices of property, and to diminish all expenses.
“We shall have to reduce your salary Mr. Bancroft,” said the president, to him, some weeks after the company had received the shock just mentioned. “The directors think that five hundred dollars is as large a salary as they now ought to pay. I am sorry that the necessity for reduction exists, but it is absolute. Of course we don’t expect you to remain at the diminished compensation. But we will be obliged to you, if you will give us as much notice as possible.”
With a heavy heart did Mr. Bancroft return to the home that seemed so desolate, when the duties of the day were done. He tried, at tea-time, to eat his food as usual, and to conceal from his wife the trouble that was oppressing him. But this was a vain effort. Her eyes seemed never a moment from his face.
“What is the matter, dear?” she asked, as soon as they had left the table. “Are you not well?”
“No; I am sick,” he replied, sadly.
“Sick?” ejaculated the wife, in alarm.
“Yes, sick at heart.”
Mrs. Bancroft sighed deeply.
“My cup is not yet full, Mary,” he said, in a bitter tone. “There is yet more gall and wormwood to be added. We must go back to the two rooms, and live as we began some sixteen or seventeen years ago. My salary, from this day, is to be only five hundred dollars. It is useless to try for a better place—all is ill-luck now. We must go down, down, down!”
Mrs. Bancroft wept bitterly, but did not reply.
Back to the two rooms they went, but oh! how sad and weary-hearted they were. It was not with them as when with the first dear pledge of their love, they drew close together in the small bounds of a chamber and parlor, and were happy. Why could they not be happy now? They still had three children, and an income equal to their necessities, if dispensed with prudent care. They were relieved from a world of labor and anxiety. No—no—they could not be happy. Their hearts were larger now, for they had been expanding for years, as objects of love came one after the other in quick succession; but these objects of love, with two or three solitary exceptions, had been taken away from them, and there was silence, vacancy, and desolation in their bosoms.
“My cup is not yet full, Mary.” No, it seemed that it was not yet full, for a few days only had elapsed, after the family had contracted itself to meet the diminished income, before little Harry began to droop about. Mr. Bancroft noticed this, but he was afraid to speak of it, lest the very expression of his fear should produce the evil dreaded. He came and went to and from his daily tasks with an oppressive weight ever at his heart. He looked for evil and only evil; but without the bravery to meet it and bear it like a man.
One night, after having, before retiring to bed, bent long in anxious solicitude over the child for whom all his fears was aroused, he was awakened by a cry of anguish from his wife. He started up in alarm, and sprung upon the floor, exclaiming:
“In Heaven’s name, Mary! what is the matter?”
His wife made no answer. She was lying with her face pressed close to that of little Harry, and both were pale as ashes. The father placed his hand upon the cheek of his boy, and found it marble cold. Clasping his hands tightly against his forehead, he staggered backward and fell; but he did not strike the floor, but seemed falling, falling, falling from a fearful height. Suddenly he was conscious that he had been standing on a lofty tower—had missed his footing, and was now about being dashed to pieces to the earth. Before reaching the ground, horror overcame him, and he lost, for a moment, his sense of peril.
“Thank God!” was uttered, most fervently, in the next instant.
“For what, dear?” asked Mrs. Bancroft, rising up partly from her pillow, and looking at her husband with a half-serious, half-laughing face.
“That little Harry is not dead.” And Mr. Bancroft bent over and fixed his eyes with loving earnestness upon the rosy-cheeked, sleeping child.