The Empty Crib at the Corner of Third and Union

I saw my wife pull out the bottom drawer of the old bureau this morning, and I went out and wandered up and down until I knew she had shut it up and got to her sewing. We had some things laid away in that drawer which the gold of kings could not buy, and yet they are relics which grieve us until both our hearts are sore. I haven't dared to look at them for years, and I remember each article. There were two worn shoes, a little chip hat with part of the brim gone, some stocking pants, a coat, two or three spools, bits of broken crockery, a whip and several toys. Wife, poor thing, goes to that drawer every day of her life and prays over it and lets her tears drop upon the given articles, but I dare not. Sometimes we speak of little Jack, but not often. It has been a long time, but somehow we can't get over grieving. Sometimes as we sit of an evening, I writing and she sewing, the boy in the street will call out just as he used to, and we will both start up with beating hearts and a wild hope, only to find the darkness more of a burden than ever. It is still and quiet now. I look up to the window where his blue eyes used to sparkle at my coming, but he is not there. I listen for his pattering feet, his merry shout, and ringing laughter. But there is no sound. There is no one to search my pockets and tease me for presents, and I never find the chairs turned over, the broom down, or ropes tied to the door knobs. I want some one to tease me for my knife, or to ride on my shoulders, to follow me to the gate when I go, and be there when I come to call 'good-night' from the little bed now empty. And, wife, the house is still more. Here are no little feet to wash, no prayers to say, no voice teasing for lumps of sugar, or sobbing with the pain of a hurt toe; and she would give her own life, almost, to awake at midnight and look across to the crib and see our boy there as he used to be. So we preserve our relics, and when we are dead we hope that strangers will handle them tenderly, even if they shed no tears over them.