IT was a bright summer morning in the month of June, many years ago, that the Sunday-school began to assemble in the quiet town of P. The children were generally regular and punctual; and among the pupils, of whom Robert Kelly was one, there were signs of deepening earnestness. Robert was a fine intelligent boy, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
That morning, as usual, he left his mother’s home a little before schooltime; he had just received from her a new gilt-edged Bible, together with her blessing and a parting kiss: but Sunday-school, was opened and closed, and still Robert’s place remained vacant.
Robert was soft and pliable, easily influenced by others; therefore, that Sunday morning, he was carried away by the temptations of a set of boys who had determined to spend the Lord’s day in pleasure, and joined them in a row on the river.
Doubtless there was a struggle between conscience and inclination, but the end was that Robert turned his back on the Sunday-school, thrust his Bible under the bridge close by, that he might find it on his return home, and, with loud laughter and eager hope, hastened off with his companions.
It was long past noon, and the village congregation had assembled as usual, and Robert’s pious mother was there. Several times did she glance towards her son’s usual seat, and observing that one or two other boys were also absent, she feared that Robert was playing truant.
The writer was in the pulpit on that day, and the congregation were listening with their usual attention, when the church door opened quietly, a man, pale and agitated, whispered something in the ear of one, who immediately hurried out. Soon another and another followed; and when the cause of the excitement was known, it was found that the little boat, that had gone out so merrily, had been upset, with all the boys on board. Hastening to the spot, the writer was shocked at the sight before him. The bodies of the poor boys were stretched on the grass, and as the parents of each recognized their child, who can describe their piercing cries of sorrow!
Robert’s mother alone was calm; no cry broke from her lips, no tear flowed from her eye. In silent agony, with clasped hands, and on bended knees, she looked upward toward heaven, and then on the cold, fair face of her boy. It was a dreadful thought to her widowed heart, that she should have been called on to part with him so suddenly, and, worst of all, in an act of disobedience.
It was agreed by the bereaved parents that all the funerals should take place on the same day; and those who witnessed the sad scene cannot easily forget it. Some unable to control their sorrow, bewailed in wild cries the death of their beloved ones, while in others broken sobs gave expression to their grief. Robert Kelly’s mother seemed dumb, she wept not, spoke not, but gazed steadfastly on the coffin of her boy.
In a solitary nook in the cemetery of P. are two graves side by side. A weeping-willow over-shadows the lesser one, and in the early summer time, it is adorned by flowers that were planted by a mothers hand. Need we tell the reader whose graves they are?
For some weeks the lonely mother resorted almost daily to the quiet resting-place of her beloved boy, but gradually her visits became less frequent, and the neighbors remarked that she grew weaker and weaker. At her own request she was buried near her poor disobedient Robert, near him whose, sad end had brought down her “gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.”
ML 12/03/1899