Personally, I would just as soon leave it unelucidated. There are certain moods in which I do not want such things as nature, and love, and beauty, and self-sacrifice explained. It is enough for me that they are, and that I have been permitted to enjoy them.
And although I know that the Little People are not necessarily wearing gauze wings and white frocks and stars in their hair, as I pictured them in my first childhood, I still like to think that even in the brooks something is singing, something rejoicing, something giving thanks for the gift of life.
IT was three months after the funeral of the Village Hero. Now I come to think of it, I haven’t mentioned the funeral before.
The hero, a porter at the little railway station, enlisted very early in the campaign. Our village—in the main—did nobly in the way of early enlistment.
A quiet, retiring young fellow, he had never singled himself out for any sort of notoriety, though I, personally, had always remarked on his unvarying courtesy and his willingness to do everything he could to assist passengers.
The news of his death was the first thing to bring the War actually home to our isolated corner of the world.
People had known he was ill, because his wife had been summoned to a military hospital some weeks before, when his condition was pronounced critical. But no one had really anticipated the worst—till it came. And then the word passed quickly from cottage to cottage: “Poor Aleck’s gone!”
“Ay! You don’t say so! Ain’t it just like they Huns to go and kill off the best of the bunch,” said one woman who never had a good word for the lad during his lifetime.
One and all agreed forthwith that proper respect must be shown to “the remains”; and those who didn’t intend to inconvenience themselves by fighting, felt they were serving their country nobly by seeing that poor Aleck had a handsome funeral.
The news of his death reached the village on Friday. On Saturday the older members of the family selected the spot for his grave in the little churchyard, as, of course, he must be buried near his home.
By Sunday all the relatives to the remotest generation wore deep mourning to church—thanks to the superhuman efforts of the village dressmaker, and numerous ready-mades purchased in the nearest town.