Page:Orange Grove.djvu/50

 Even the infant in her arms failed to arouse any emotions of joy in her soul. She looked upon him as one born under a curse, and when, a few months after she was called upon to render up her little charge to Him who gave it, did so without a murmur. And when another, and another came and went in quick succession, she felt that it was in mercy God had taken them unto himself. Like one whose great, overwhelming weight of sorrow had checked the ordinary tides of grief, she seemed alike insensible to the ebb and flow of the surging sea of human passion or human affection.

The fourth boy survived the birth and death of the fifth and was quite a sprightly little fellow of three years, bringing a ray of sunshine to the poor mother's soul, for whose sake she was willing to live and suffer. One day a neighbor's child gave him a little kite which to him was the wonder of the age. Seeing his father coming home, he sprang forward to show it to him, when Mr. Crawford seized a stick of wood that lay in his path, which he hurled at him with such force as to injure his spine so seriously he never walked again. After lingering for some months in great pain, he was taken to the fold of his little brothers, safe from farther harm. Mrs. Crawford no longer exhibited the resignation and indifference before shown. Her newly aroused sensibilities lent acuteness to her sufferings, and she felt the full force of a mother's inconsolable bereavement. She prayed for death, but it would not come, as it never does at our bidding. Though so often breaking in upon our most cherished plans, and bearing hence