St. Cloud Democrat. [volume] (Saint Cloud, Stearns County, Minn.) 1858-1866, 1861-06-20

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bloom, and every flower it bore found its
way into the transparent hand of one we
never saw, young and lovely girl who
left her far off Eastern home to seek for
health and find grave-an almost for
gotten and neglected grave. just over
there behind the little brown church she
lies, and the cattle aud horses have sunk
fetlook deep into the soft earth which
presses upon the slight coffin which shell
ters her once, graceful, delicate form. I
seem to feel those great, heavy oxen as
though they trampled on my chest. Had
she been pauper. some rough, kindly
hand would have put mp a rough en-
closure, and Nature, who ever struggles
to obliterate all traces of death and decay,
would soon have clothed the spot with a
mantle of flowers. Then cattle would
have walked over the the green roof of her
narrow ..home casually; but they have a
strange propensity for trampling spot
where the Earth is bare. In vindication
Of our humanity, will not some one raise a
subscription to put fence Of even slabs
around the neglected grave?
How quickly associations grow up around
a human habitation. and memories of the
past are rife in the frontier town, all "a
diant in::the briskness o.. new paint, as we'll
as in the old stone turets of dccaying cas-
ties. Already our two year old inclosure
is linked with two graves-or two young
lives cut short in the heyday of youthful
loveliness. Our newly transplanted flowers
are made sacred by the memories of two
immortal plants, taken from the nursery
below to bloom in the garden above.
Beyond the inclosure stretches the deep
emerald grass, dotted with flowers and oak
trees, until it reaches thick grove. Ev-
cry spring it appears as though We had
never before beheld 50 rich and glorious a
green, but it is only the three thousand
year old newness-the ever recurring mir
acle-the renewed resurrection Of the
buried life. Let our graves be reverently
cherished, for do they not contain the
germs that shall yet burst forth into the
freshness and glory Of an immortal spring,
which shall be followed by no summer
droughts or autumn frosts, a spring that
shall fear no coming winter?
There out Of the window like an island
on this emerald sea lies cosy little home,
the white walls sheltered by wide spread
oak. Further back, halfhidden by the
trees, CLEAN out the white walls of one of
the thousands of monuments of human
folly with which civilization has already
contrived to-. dot the face Of the land to
which she has only, as it were yesterday,
laid claim, The white walls are those of a
church large enough to contain some fif-
teen hundred people; and intended for a
congregation of fifteen or twenty persons.
There stand the great, useless, walls while
the congregation has nearly all scattered,i
principally through contention and jeal-
ousies about a place Of meeting, while the
money expended on those walls could have
more than provided structure suitable
for all the requirements of the society for
years to come, : When will the god-fath-
ers and god-mothers of new States~an in
stitutions learn that babies want long
clothes. and that although SIX feet suit
of broadcloth may suit the young gentle
man at his majority, it would be very
inconvenient before be is weaned; and
that if you provide him with no other
clothing upon his first appearance in this
world, he will be likely y die Of cold be
fore the tailor can get them made? ..,.I
Beside the great church, and nearly
buried in the foliage is The District School
House; and peeping up behind it, as if
on tip:toe trying to look over that tall oak
is the belfry Of the Seminary, glancing in
and out amid the trees and underwood under
are the bright dresses the girls Of
the two institutions, mingled with the
straw hats aid grave colored suits Of the
boys: they ase bayipg : :, great rom1 y
My birdie is amongst them; That is her
her now in pink; land the familiar voice
comes floating in: through the open win
Az! -Here + ean ST / summer q
and watch to see her safely in: aat:, a: the
door. What lookout from my window!