The Shroud
There was once a mother who had a little boy of
seven years old, who was so handsome and lovable that no one could look at him without
liking him, and she herself worshipped him above everything in the world. Now it so
happened that he suddenly became ill, and God took him to himself, and for this the mother
could not be comforted and wept both day and night. But soon afterwards, when the child
had been buried, it appeared by night in the places where it had sat and played during its
life, and if the mother wept, it wept also, and when morning came it disappeared. But as
the mother would not stop crying, it came one night, in the little white shroud in which
it had been laid in its coffin, and with its wreath of flowers round its head, and stood
on the bed at her feet, and said, "Oh, mother, do stop crying, or I shall never fall
asleep in my coffin, for my shroud will not dry because of all your tears, which fall upon
it." The mother was afraid when she heard that, and wept no more. The next night the
child came again, and held a little light in its hand, and said, "Look, mother, my
shroud is nearly dry, and I can rest in my grave." Then the mother gave her sorrow
into God's keeping, and bore it quietly and patiently, and the child came no more, but
slept in its little bed beneath the earth.
--The End-- |
