I can see him now, chang-
ing 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. She who in simple clearness of vision sees
beyond the stars said when he had flown, "He will be happy
There; he ever loved beautiful things." And I, far more
ignorant, and blind by the web of mine own weaving, sit
alone winding words and muttering, "If still he be, and he be
There, and there be a There, let him be happy, O Fate!"
Blithe was the morning of his burial, with bird and song
and sweet-smelling flowers. The trees whispered to the grass,
but the children sat with hushed faces. And yet it seemed a
ghostly unreal day,--the wraith of Life. We seemed to rum-
ble down an unknown street behind a little white bundle of
posies, with the shadow of a song in our ears.
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