The Sister's Grave

THE SISTER'S GRAVE.

There is a burial-ground that is sprinkled with green trees, and is a favorite resort not only with the bereaved, but with those whose feelings are not thus darkly overcast. I met there one morning a little girl with a half-playful countenance, busy blue eye, and sunny locks, bearing in one hand a small cup of china, and in the other a wreath of fresh flowers. Feeling a very natural curiosity to know what she could do with these bright things, in a place that seemed to partake so much of sadness, I watched her light motions. Reaching a retired grave, covered with a plain marble slab, she emptied the seed, which it appeared the cup contained, into the slight cavities which had been scooped out in the corners of the level tablet, and laid the wreath on its pure face.
"And why," I inquired, "my sweet child, do you put the seed in those little bowls there?"
"It is to bring the birds here," she replied with a half-wondering look: "they will light on this tree," pointing to the cypress above, "when they have eaten the seed, and sing."
"To whom do they sing?" I asked: "to you or to each other?"
"Oh! no," she quickly replied, "to my sister: she sleeps here."
"But your sister is dead?"
"Oh! yes, sir; but she hears the birds sing."
"Well, if she does hear the birds sing, she cannot see that wreath of flowers."
"But she knows I put it there; I told her, before they took her away from our house, I would come and see her every morning."
"You must" I continued, "have loved that sister very much; but you will never talk with her any more, never see her again."
"Yes, sir," she replied, with a brightened look, "I shall see her always in heaven."
"But she has gone there already, I trust."
"No, she stops under this tree till they bring me here, and then we are going to heaven together."
"But she has gone already, my child: you will meet her there, I hope; but certainly she is gone, and left you to come afterward."
She cast to me a look of inquiring disappointment, and the tears came to her eyes.


There are times that we get a big shot of reality that completely knocks us down and when it does, boy does it hurt. The trick is to not let that stop us. After we get through it there is a great lesson that we will see that we learned.