Death! The Shadow
of Death!" Out into the starlight I crept, to rouse the gray
physician,--the Shadow of Death, the Shadow of Death. The hours
trembled on; the night listened; the ghastly dawn glided like a tired
thing across the lamplight. Then we two alone looked upon the child as
he turned toward us with great eyes, and stretched his stringlike
hands,--the Shadow of Death! And we spoke no word, and turned away.

He died at eventide, when the sun lay like a brooding sorrow above the
western hills, veiling its face; when the winds spoke not, and the
trees, the great green trees he loved, stood motionless. I saw his
breath beat quicker and quicker, pause, and then his little soul leapt
like a star that travels in the night and left a world of darkness in
its train. The day changed not; the same tall trees peeped in at the
windows, the same green grass glinted in the setting sun. Only in the
chamber of death writhed the world's most piteous thing--a childless
mother.

I shirk not. I long for work. I pant for a life full of striving. I
am no coward, to shrink before the rugged rush of the storm, nor even
quail before the awful shadow of the Veil. But hearken, O Death! Is
not this my life hard enough,--is not that dull land that stretches its
sneering web about me cold enough,--is not all the world beyond these
four little walls pitiless enough, but that thou must needs enter
here,--thou, O Death? About my head the thundering storm beat like a
heartless voice, and the crazy forest pulsed with the curses of the
weak; but what cared I, within my home beside my wife and baby boy?
Wast thou so jealous of one little coign of happiness that thou must
needs enter there,--thou, O Death?

A perfect life was his, all joy and love, with tears to make it
brighter,--sweet as a summer's day beside the Housatonic. The world
loved him; the women kissed his curls, the men looked gravely into his
wonderful eyes, and the children hovered and fluttered about him. I
can see him now, changing like the sky from sparkling laughter to
darkening frowns, and then to wondering thoughtfulness as he watched
the world. He knew no color-line, poor dear--and the Veil, though it
shadowed him, had not yet darkened half his sun. He loved the white
matron, he loved his black nurse; and in his little world walked souls
alone, uncolored and unclothed. I--yea, all men--are larger and purer
by the infinite breadth of that one little life. S