DAVID MATSON.
Published originally in Our Young Folks, 1865.
WHO of my young friends have read the sorrowful story of "Enoch Arden,"
so sweetly and simply told by the great English poet? It is the story
of a man who went to sea, leaving behind a sweet young wife and little
daughter. He was cast away on a desert island, where he remained
several years, when he was discovered and taken off by a passing vessel.
Coming back to his native town, he found his wife married to an old
playmate, a good man, rich and honored, and with whom she was living
happily. The poor man, unwilling to cause her pain and perplexity,
resolved not to make himself known to her, and lived and died alone.
The poem has reminded me of a very similar story of my own New England
neighborhood, which I have often heard, and which I will try to tell,
not in poetry, like Alfred Tennyson's, but in my own poor prose. I can
assure my readers that in its main particulars it is a true tale.
One bright summer morning, not more than fourscore years ago, David
Matson, with his young wife and his two healthy, barefooted boys, stood
on the bank of the river near their dwelling. They were waiting for
Pelatiah Curtis to come round the point with his wherry, and take the
husband and father to the port, a few miles below.
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