Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/60

 44 JULIA L. DUMONT. [1820-30. was immediately taken especially under her maternal care. She had in her school several cripple boys, some of whom were poor and friendless, and it seemed to me no mother could have surpassed her endeavor to fit them for usefulness." "We claim special honor for her early and successful devotion to education in the West. Her nature was so finely strung that few were capable of sympathizing with her, either in her sorrows or her rejoicings. She dwelt in some sense alone, and yet her heart was full of sympathy. When a great grief was pressing upon her soul, she was surrounded by a promiscuous circle, capable of interesting and rendering happy those with whom she mingled. Very bitter were some of the trials through which she passed, and very severe the discipline of suffering which was her lot. She saw three sons wither, one by one, away to the cold grave. Soon a daughter followed them. There was a beautiful boy whom she called Edgar, and whom she loved intensely. One summer morning he left her side full of glee ; in half an hour he was drowned ; she bore him to her house in her arms. The blow was terrible. Her soul had a long-continued struggle. His name she never mentioned ; yet he Avas ever in her heart. I said she did not call his name, but a letter from her daughter says : "Among all her papers was never found any allusion to his name, nor to this bereavement ; but in a pi-ivate drawer of hers are to be found several small packages marked thus, ' Seed of the flowers he planted,' ' The shoes he wore,' ' His little fish- hooks.'" There is scarcely to be found a more touching fact. It tells the deep, sad grief which preyed upon her soul. During all this struggle she did not " charge God foolishly." She strove to feel what she believed to be true — that God was very pitiful and of ten- der mercy. There were other trials. She had another son, who had grown to man's estate — had married — was admitted to the bar, and had high hopes of eminence in his pro- fession. He was sprightly and full of force. Well did I know him — often I spoke with him — united him to his bride in marriage, and stood by his bedside as he was passing down into the swellings of Jordan. In the pride of his manhood he was smitten, and wasted to the tomb. Another shrine was broken ! Mrs. Dumont's health gave way — her constitution, though elastic, was delicate, and she bowed at length. She went South — among the orange groves and palmettos she sought to regain her former strength and activity. It was not to be so. She was marked for death. A year, or nearly so, was spent South, and then she returned home, for Vevay was still the home of the living and the resting-place of the dead. Amid the greetings, the experiences, the questions asked and answered, her children discovered that she had come back to them with a distressing cough. It never left her, but was developed into consumption ! It only needs the old history to tell what remains, so far as the disease was concerned — the mocking promise of restored health — then the change. With the indomitable industry which had ever marked her, she would not cease work, but, in addition to preparing a volume of sketches for the press, also, after her return, superintended her school through several terms. " She trusted and was not afraid." Trust ripened into joy, and she whose whole life had