Helen Hunt Jackson

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    "In outskirts of Thy kingdoms vast,
    Father, the humblest spot give me;
    Set me the lowliest task Thou hast,
    Let me repentant work for Thee!"

That evening, Aug. 8, after saying farewell, she placed her hand in her husband's, and went to sleep. After four days, mostly unconscious ones, she wakened in eternity.

On her coffin were laid a few simple clover-blossoms, flowers she loved in life; and then, near the summit of Cheyenne Mountain, four miles from Colorado Springs, in a spot of her own choosing, she was buried.

    "Do not adorn with costly shrub or tree
    Or flower the little grave which shelters me.
    Let the wild wind-sown seeds grow up unharmed,
    And back and forth all summer, unalarmed,
    Let all the tiny, busy creatures creep;
    Let the sweet grass its last year's tangles keep;
    And when, remembering me, you come some day
    And stand there, speak no praise, but only say,
    'How she loved us! It was for that she was so dear.'
    These are the only words that I shall smile to hear."

Many will stand by that Colorado grave in the years to come. Says a California friend: "Above the chirp of the balm-cricket in the grass that hides her grave, I seem to hear sweet songs of welcome from the little ones. Among other thoughts of her come visions of a child and mother straying in fields of light. And so I cannot make her dead, who lived so earnestly, who wrought so unselfishly, and passed so trustfully into the mystery of the unseen."

All honor to a woman who, with a happy home, was willing to leave it to make other homes happy; who, having suffered, tried with a sympathetic heart to forget herself and keep others from suffering; who, being famous, gladly took time to help unknown authors to win fame; who, having means, preferred a life of labor to a life of ease.

Mrs. Jackson's work is still going forward. Five editions of her Century of Dishonor have been printed since her death. Ramona is in its thirtieth thousand. Zeph, a touching story of frontier life in Colorado, which she finished in her last illness, has been published. Her sketches of travel have been gathered into Glimpses of Three Coasts, and a new volume of poems, Sonnets and Lyrics, has appeared.