So on radiant wings time flew by, until one morning neighbors heard laughing in “Little Knights’” garden--laughing that continued and continued, and when they went over, “Little Knights” was doing the laughing, with tears running down his cheeks and falling on the prodigious Bible open on his short knees. When questioned, he exclaimed: “She has kom’--all safe, she has kom’! I seen her mit mine eyes--I have tooched her mit dese fingers! De liddle daughter of mine own Rose! Ach, de Almighty Gott is a most goot Gott!” and then he bowed his white head and muttered: “Now let Thy servant depart mit peace!” And so poor, “Little Old Knights” found his cup of joy full to the brim!
And what happens to any cup held in human hands if filled to the brim? It runs over--and there is cruel loss! And so it came to pass that Rosie’s little one stayed with them just long enough to smile a recognition of her girlish mother’s face, and then some sweet, strong call came from the “beyond” that baby had heard and answered--and they were left to wonder at the awful void that small absence made in all their lives.
Poor, Old Knights! Tight in his arms he held the tiny, coffined dead--moaning over and over: “My liddle pud--my Rose’s liddle pud!”--until that sad moment when, by sheer force, they took the wee, dead thing from him, to hide it away beneath the flowers and the grasses.
Time passed slowly now. Rosie, very gentle--very tender of others--was sad, so sad. That was not natural to her--so all rejoiced when hope once more shone in her face--and all was thankful when Little Old Knights trotted from door to door with the news that his Rose had “anodder liddle daughter--so like--ach Gott! so like de first--as never yet dey saw!”
Rosie’s joy was great, but it was not the laughing, unthinking joy of other days. She felt anxieties and fears. She dreaded this and that, but her silvery blond baby was so strong and well, and grew so fast, and “crowed” and laughed, and romped with father and grandfather, and stood so strong upon her little legs that fears had to give way to confidence, and her heart bounded with triumph when she heard the baby voice, cry imperatively; “Ma--ma! ma--ma!”
One day in particular Rosie always remembered--she had toiled for a good hour at training baby to say: “Pa--pa,” when the father had come from the office--and when he came the baby had stretched out her arms to him, looked back roguishly at Rosie, and then fairly screamed: “Ma--ma! ma--ma!” and they had all laughed and laughed! Good God! how easy it is for a baby to fill a happy home with merriment! And that very night “croup” had clutched with murderous fingers the little throat that was used to swell with laughter as a bird’s throat swells with song--and darkness and silence came upon the house.