[124]
in my last letter he continued for some days very feeble, but still we hoped for recovery.
About four days ago he was taken with decided cholera, and now there is no hope of his surviving this night.
Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do not return. All will be over before you could possibly get here, and the epidemic is now said by the physicians to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up. Let us not faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare not trust myself to say more but shall write again soon.
July 26.
My dear husband,--At last it is over and our dear little one is gone from us. He is now among the blessed.
My Charley — my beautiful, loving, gladsome baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of life and hope and strength — now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the room below.
Never was he anything to me but a comfort.
He has been my pride and joy. Many a heartache has he cured for me. Many an anxious night have I held him to my bosom and felt the sorrow and loneliness pass out of me with the touch of his little warm hands.
Yet I have just seen him in his death agony, looked on his imploring face when I could not help nor soothe nor do one thing, not one, to mitigate his cruel suffering, do nothing but pray in my anguish that he might die soon.
I write as though there were no sorrow like my sorrow, yet there has been in this city, as in the land of Egypt, scarce a house without its dead.
This heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere, and when it will end God alone knows.
