Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1863-11-12
g Hush!n cried the old man. "Do you

"Hush!" cried the old man. "Do you
dare to tell me there is no hope. They SHALL
save Harry And then turning to the trem-
bling girl beside him, he repeated in cares
sing way: "Never fear, my lass, they shall
save my Harry, and he shall have you or what
else he likes Eli never thwart him again
But if there's a God above US he'll save nv
Harry"
This was the burden of his talk, while the
laborers were hard at work digging away the
rubbish and bringing out dead bodies by the
score. Men ground to pulpy horrors beauti-
full girls with torn limbs and children so un-
like in this awful death that every one was
claimed and struggled for by twenty mothers.
All day long they dug and lifted iron
weights and masses of stone, but there was
no sign of Harry's body yet. At the bottom
OF that awful pile no doubt he lay mangled in
to shapelessness. Alice knew it must be so,
but the old man kept saying, still-"They
shall save Harry"
Dusk had come, and they worked by torch
light now All had been found dead or dy-
ing; wounded and manned. They were car
ried to their homes Yet still the crowd was
thick about the ruin waiting for the moment
when what was left of Harry Graymarsh
awful silence prevailed, only the click of
spade and pickaxe broke it.
Suddenly there is a shout, lifting of those
hundred voices They had come to the low
er door of the building, and part of it re-
manned entire. There was little hope, vet
more than little for listening they heard q
faint voice calling to them, so it seemed,
though the words were inaudible. Faster
nowhere great rafter to lift, and piles of
stones and machinery to cast out. But that
noise inspires them. They worked as they
never worked before, and at last they hear
the cry again. 1t comes from the part Of the
cellar where the floor. remains. And one
great man, crouching on his face, forces him
self down into the darkness and screams
'Who is there ?"
And the answer is returned from the awful
Harry Graymarsh. Help me if yo.
can"
Then the men came out with glorious
shouts, and set to work like giants and even
women came to help as they thought of the
fair young face buried in that darkness. He
may be MANNED and wounded, but at least he
lives. And there is no pause, no respite from
that toll. At another time many there would
faint beneath it, but not now, for every lifted
stone brings them closer to the buried man,
and gives him firmer lease on life. As the
morning broke the last is heaved aside, and
the bronzed giant who before crept into the
cavern, leaps down and vanishes in the
shadow.
Silence, in which you might hear pin fall
or heart beat-silence that froze the blood
and then, breaking upon it woman's
scream; a shrek from the lips of Alice, as
they bring the form Of her lover, blood stain
ed and senseless, to the light. Not dead oh
no she thanked God for that. The great
beams had protected him. He was bruised
and wounded, but not mortally, and in a little
while his blue eyes opened, and his pale lips
whispered, "Father"
Then the old factor, kneelng by his child
as he had knelt on his dead wife's grave SO
long ago, took the white hand of Alice in his
own and placed it in his sons. "She is yours"
he said, "take her Harry and be happy
Wealth isn't as much as love. | should have
known that all along" remembering Kitty
Give, Harry only live and I'll never do
anything to grieve you"
And Harry did live. Long before the win
ter SHOWS had come, he stood-a little paler
and thinner than before, perhaps, but we'll,
strong again-before the altar Of the
little church, with Alice by his side, and that
watched him but the angels, the old factor
stood beside his Kitty's grave, and whispered
words of yearning love, which told that the
soul of the young lover only slumbered in its
iron-bound case, and that when death should
set free it would rise, pure and unsullied,
to meet its angel wife in heaven.
THE GARB OF HoNoR-We have noticed
IL, e, L, i
valnnt in the last two years, and it grows
constantly more so. 1t is the fashion of that
" customary garb of black that kind of
common law in our civilization has allotted
to those who mourn a loved one. Go where
you will, you will see it-not here and there
and now and then, but at all times and in all
places and it gives solemn and serious air
to all assemblages, whether at church or the
smaller private circle:
There is firesde, howso' er defended,
But hath vacant chair.
1t is part of the grand cruelty of war
Mothers send away sons that have been their
idols from the cradle. Send them away with
the great pride that fills mothers heart in
the possession of son who is man. and
ready to die for his country. Fond sisters
say their hopeful goodbye, and fair girls
" with love in their luminous eyes," consent
to part with the man they have chosen from
the racial for the country! Two or three
days later there is battle-mother, sister,
sweetheart, read the names of the killed and
wounded-and the next time you see them
they are dressed in Grape. They have thus 81.
lently and without ostentation arrayed them
selves in these robes of honor. For it is not
as when one puts on mourning under ordinary
circumstances. Who cared for that outside
of their special circle? And who does not
desire to touch his hat to those robes of sor-
row, worn IN memory of man given to death
for common cause? Such robes are the
signs that the wearers have made for the
country the utmost sacrifice that is any ones
power to make, and they are a grander
evidence of patriotism than all the tawdry
cockades that vanity ever puton.