From a newspaper clipping that is lose in the book
THE THREE LITTLE CHAIRS
They sat alone by bright wood fire.
The gray-haired dame and the aged sire,
Dreaming of the days gone by:
The tear drops fell on each wrinkled check,
They both had thoughts that they could not speak,
As each heart uttered a sigh.
For their sad and tearful eyes descried.
Three little chairs, places side by side,
Against the sitting-room wall:
Old fashioned enough as there they stood,
Their seats flag and their frames of wood,
With their bucks so straight and tall.
Then the sire shook his silvery head,
And, with trembling voice, he gently said:
“Mother, those empty chairs!
They bring us such sad, sad thoughts, to-night,
We’ll put them forever out of sight.
In the small, dark room up-stairs.”
But she answered, “Father, no, not yet,
For I look at them and I forget
That the children went away:
The boys come back, and our Mary, too,
With her apron on of checkered blue,
And sit here every day.
Johnny still whittles a ship’s tall masts,
And Willie his leaden bullets casts,
While Mary her patchwork sews;
At evening time three childish prayers
Go up to God from those little chairs,
So softly that no one knows.
Johnny comes from billowy deep,
Willie wakes from his battle-field sleep,
To say good-night to me;
Mary’s a wife and mother no more,
But a tired child whose play time is o’er,
And comes to rest on my knee.
So let them stand there, though empty now,
And, every time when alone we bow
At the Father’s throne to pray.
We’ll ask to meet the children above,
In our Savior’s home of rest and love,
Where no child goeth away.”
Mrs. H.T. Perry, in Evangelist
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