THE ANGEL
WHENEVER a good child dies, an angel from heaven comes down to earth and takes the dead child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies away over all the places the child has loved, and picks quite a handful of flowers, which he carries up to the Almighty, that they may bloom in heaven more brightly than on earth. And the Father presses all the flowers to His heart; but He kisses the flower that pleases Him best, and the flower is then endowed with a voice, and can join in the great chorus of praise!
“See”—this is what an Angel said, as he carried a dead child up to heaven, and the Child heard, as if in a dream; and they went on over the regions of home where the little Child had played, and came through gardens with beautiful flowers—“which of these shall we take with us to plant in heaven?” asked the Angel.
Now, there stood near them a slender, beautiful rose-bush; but a wicked hand had broken the stem, so that all the branches, covered with half-opened buds, were hanging around, quite withered
“The poor rose-bush!” said the Child. “Take it, that it may bloom up yonder.”
And the Angel took it, and kissed the Child, and the little one half opened his eyes. They plucked some of the rich flowers, but also took with them the wild pansy and the despised buttercup.
“Now we have flowers,” said the Child.
And the Angel nodded, but he did not yet fly upward to heaven. It was night and quite silent. They remained in the great city; they floated about there in a small street, where lay whole heaps of straw, ashes, and sweepings, for it had been removal day. There lay fragments of plates, bits of plaster, rags, and old hats, and all this did not look well. And the Angel pointed amid all this confusion to a few fragments of a flower-pot, and to a lump of earth which had fallen out, and which was kept together by the roots of a great dried field flower, which was of no use, and had therefore been thrown out into the street.
“We will take that with us,” said the Angel. “I will tell you why, as we fly onward.
“Down yonder in the narrow lane, in the low cellar, lived a poor sick boy; from his childhood he had been bed-ridden. When he was at his best he could go up and down the room a few times, leaning on crutches; that was the utmost he could do. For a few days in summer the sun-beams would penetrate for a few hours to the ground of the cellar, and when the poor boy sat there and the sun shone on him, and he looked at the red blood in his three fingers, as he held them up before his face, he would say, “Yes, today he has been out!’ He knew the forest with its beautiful vernal green only from the fact that the neighbor's little son brought him the first green branch of a beech-tree, and he held that up over his head, and dreamed he was in the beech wood, where the sun shone and the birds sang. On a spring day the neighbor's boy brought him also field flowers, and among them was, by chance, one to which the root was still hanging; and so it was planted in a flower-pot, and placed by the bed, close to the window. And the flower had been planted by a fortunate hand; and it grew, threw out new shoots, and bore flowers every year. It became a splendid flower garden to the sickly boy—his little treasure here on earth. He watered it, and tended it, and took care that it had the benefit of every ray of sunlight, down to the latest that struggled in through the narrow window; and the flower itself was woven into his dreams, for it grew for him and gladdened his eyes, and spread its fragrance about him; and toward it he turned in death, when the Father called him. He has now been with the Almighty for a year; for a year the flower has stood forgotten in the window, and is withered; and thus, at the removal, it has been thrown out into the dust of the street. And this is the poor flower which we have taken into our nosegay; for this flower has given more joy than the richest in a queen's garden.”
“But how do you know all this?” asked the Child.
“I know it,” said the Angel, “for I myself was that boy who walked on crutches. I know my flower well.”
And the Child opened his eyes and looked into the glorious, happy face of the Angel; and at the same moment they entered the regions where there is peace and joy. And the Father pressed the dead Child to His bosom, and then it received wings like Angel, and flew hand in hand with him. And the Almighty kissed the dry withered field flower, and it received a voice and sang with all the angels hovering around—some near, and some in wider circles, and some in infinite distance, but all equally happy. And they all sang—little and great, the good, happy Child, and the poor field flower that had lain there withered, thrown among the dust, in the rubbish of the removal day, in the dark narrow lane.