الفصل الفصل 101 · The Shroud

. The Shroud

There was once a mother who had a little boy of seven years old, who

was so handsome and lovable that no one could look at him without

liking him, and she herself worshipped him above everything in the

world. Now it so happened that he suddenly became ill, and God took him

to himself; and for this the mother could not be comforted, and wept

both day and night. But soon afterwards, when the child had been

buried, it appeared by night in the places where it had sat and played

during its life, and if the mother wept, it wept also, and when morning

came it disappeared. As, however, the mother would not stop crying, it

came one night, in the little white shroud in which it had been laid in

its coffin, and with its wreath of flowers round its head, and stood on

the bed at her feet, and said, “Oh, mother, do stop crying, or I shall

never fall asleep in my coffin, for my shroud will not dry because of

all thy tears, which fall upon it.” The mother was afraid when she

heard that, and wept no more. The next night the child came again, and

held a little light in its hand, and said, “Look, mother, my shroud is

nearly dry, and I can rest in my grave.” Then the mother gave her

sorrow into God’s keeping, and bore it quietly and patiently, and the

child came no more, but slept in its little bed beneath the earth.