Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-04-29
WHILE HE Is NEAR.

On one occasion when President Grant
visited Boston, he was accosted on the
landing of the stairway of the hotel
where he stopped, by woman, whose
Maynard son had deserted from the ar
my, and was then at large somewhere
in Texas The history of the case was
this. He had gone as a seaman to New
Orleans, in hope of finding employment.
He did not succeed, and after weeks of
waiting, friendless and in despair, he
had enlisted in the army. 1t did not
take the poor fellow. who had been ten
derby brought up, very long to find out
his grievous mistake and folly; and so
he added another mistake and folly to
the previous ones, he had deserted, and
was then living in disguise with poor
farmer, an elderly man and wife, who
had compassion on him, in Texas.
But his mother, who had borne with
his waywardness from infancy, whom he
grieved ten thousand times, who had re-
monstrated against his leaving home,
against his entering the army, against
his desertion. Could she forget him ?
Was henot as Benjamin to the patriarch ?
She enlisted social and political infu-
ence to secure his discharge, before he
deserted. The petition was presented,
and had not the hayward boy, meantime,
consummated the act he had threatened,
would doubtless have succeeded. Now,
he was at large, with price upon his
head, and exiled from his home The
President was to be in Boston. This
mother had been promised an interview.
But she could not wait. She intercept
ed, the President on the landing of the
staircase, and plead for the pardon of her
son.
'My good woman, | will examine
his case as soon as return to Washing
ton, and if possible, will grant your re-
quest" This was the kind, though
brief and undemonstrative answer of him
who had the power to do the thing she
asked.
"But will you not forget it? viii
you remember the case. ?"
II will remember"
"May | not urge you to take some
thing to remind you of the promise p
removing a ring from her finger
Il will remember" persisted the Pres.
ident, declining the prohered pledge.
And so the heart-broken, half-crazed
mother believed the Preident's simple
word, that amid his crowded thoughts
and cares, he would not forget her pool
boy he would remember.
He did not forget him. The Secreta
ry of War soon ordered that when this
boy should deliver himself up at some
military station, he should be discharg
ed. He delivered himself up. Week
pass and no order is received by the com
mander of the post. He writes the half
distracted mother, that if anything i
done, it must be done at once, or the de
serter will be brought to trial. Sh
stirs up friends in Washington, to SCI
why the order has not been sent. |
has been sent, but has failed of its DIES
tination. The Secretary of War tele
graphs to the military post, where tn
boy awaits his fate, these words: "Dis
charge at ONCE Of company
calvary" And after more than a year
solitude, the deed is done, and the poo
boy is free.
"While he is near" This mother
success, perhaps, depended upon that in
terview in the hotel in Boston. Sh
stirred herself up to take hold on him
who had in his hands the destiny o
her son. Shall we not remember tina
God exhorts us to call upon him Will
he is near ?-J. e. Rankin, d. d.