The Miracle at the Bend

At the close of a beautiful summer’s day, when the sky was bright and the woods were gay, and the air was filled with the sweet perfume that steals from the earth and the flowers in bloom, a plentiful rain had bedewed the ground; all nature was resting, and hushed every sound. As a railway train was speeding on its way, I stood at my post as the engineer. But my heart was filled with an unknown fear; a dread foreboding assailed my breast. We had been delayed at the upper town, and to make our time we were hurrying down. The only point I had cause to dread was the bend in the road two miles ahead. The whistle was sounded, we’ve passed the curve; but what is the sight that pales each nerve? An infant babe scarcely three years old, with violet eyes and with hair of gold, on the railway track laughingly stood. His little hands grasped the branch of a tree, which he waved aloft in his childish glee. It was now too late to avert the end. I closed my eyes to shut out the sight. A moment more, and that infant fair was seized by the catcher and whirled in the air. I stopped the train, and hastening back, expecting the babe lay dead on the track. When a sound above made my heart rejoice—I had caught the lips of a childish voice! I sprang up the bank, the child lay there, and my heart went forth in a quiet prayer; for, smiling and still, on a bed of sand it lay, with the bough still grasped in its hand. As I raised it up from its sandy bed a voice cried out, 'My babe is dead!' And, turning to soothe the sudden alarm, I placed it safe in its mother’s arms. Not a bone was broken—’twas quite unhurt, save a few slight scratches from sand and dirt.