The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1868-03-13
General Miscellany
NOT BURIED ALIVE
TcSpit0i Epis0de.
81 Miss AMANDA NJ. HAZE.

il often happens that golden thread
of romance runs through the dullest
most pr07aic character. 1t may never
shine 0at FIN action. but while circum-
stances so baille and hamper the best of
us who shall dare judge any one by
what DE does alone? Few people are
such clods Us they seem ! beg pardon
of the world i'm general for the Use of so
uncomplimentarv an epithet, but enre
nous. dear. discriminating reader, we
must admit that most people DO not
starJlou- by their lrilEmcy. And Yet
/ do not doubt that there is many q
mute. ingl0ri0us Milton many q
man fashioned of the stuff of which he
lOcs are made among the careless,
slouching country boys who pass my
window Often and often. some dull,
homely body shall surprise you by a
chance word that reveals whole beauti-
ful worlds OF feelings, lets you down far
depths into the secret places of the
smothered undeveloped soul, where
YOU never suspected anything so lovely
could abide; and you have stood in
that poor, mean presence rebuked and
humbled, but gladly confessing the lus-
ire of the Jewel that God had hidden
away in that darksome corner.
All this is not aprop0s TO my subject,
though il came very naturally to my
mind. For I was thinking in the first
place how curious il was that I should
have any materials in my life for ste
~, considering how very quiet and I'M
eventful il was fOr-l think though, if
/ should say hOC many years, you
would get very erroneous impression
of me, 80 | viii keep that profound
secret, and simply say-a long time /;
and in the second place ! was thinking
that nobody in the world that is, in the
world of Babblebrook, would have be-
ieved that /. meek as | looked, had any
aspiratious: that did not find ample
scOpe and verge enough for all my fac
ulties in helping mother on week days,
and singing in the village choir on sun
DAYS; that / was ever desperately tired
Of the treadmil round; that | gloated
over Joan and Are, rejoicing in Flor
ence Nightingale, and vehemently
longed to find my mission ;" that j
could have almost done something
wicked for a change. Nobody suspected
all this. and a dreadful cOmmotiOn 1t
made when | announced myself one
day 80
. / am going into the army !"
II was the very sweetest April day
tLat was ever full of sunshine, and
showers lovelier than the sunshine,
and bird music and blossoms. Wewere
all sitting in the porch, and somebody
had been reading the newspaper l for
oot to say that it was the memorable
4 pril which some day we shall be SO
nroud of. because that day the nation
beoan to set its face toward the just and
right.
And so. when a stirring paragraph or
two had been read, and the thrill naq
gone around the little circle, | SAID; L
ana going into the army" Everybody
started as if "A bomb-shelI had fallen into
the midst of the group; but as there was
no explosion, the sensation died away
into q faint exclamation or TWO.
Nonsense, Pattyl"
q I am. though, +" insisted.
Going to get a commission or shail
Won list in the ranks?" said brolher
Robert, very patrOnizingly.
Robert is q great many years oiueI
than / because the airs they take III
consequence of this paltry seniority are
insufarable 1t wasn't my fault tnat 1
was born after my brothers ana sisters
We're all grown up, and so have Always
been dc frop--the superfiuous tWlg On
the family tree. -,
Neither the one nor the other, MI.
Robet,n | said, haughtily. " am go
ing as nurse. If our young men can lay
down their lives on the battlefield, the
women should be willing to risk theirs
in the hospital. And they will do IL.