The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-03-21

Since his return from Montreal, he had been
made to feel that he had but one friend be-
sides his mother. Only one neighbor had
called upon him, and that was Pete Searles.
He had ever proved true. But John did not
like to trouble his one friend, who lived two
miles away, to come and atay with him dur
ing the night. So he lighted candle, took
down from shelf little Bible and hymn
book that he and his mother had carried on
an average about four times year to school,
house used as church. some six miles awav,
and so alone with the dead he spent the
hours in reading and tears and meditation.
In the morning he locked the door of his
home and walked lover to Pete's." As he
met bis friend, he said in clear voice, but
with eyes averted, "She has gone, Pete-if
you will just take the key and 90 over there,
I'll go down to the lake, and get the things,
and tell Downer, and we'll have the funeral,
say on Thursday"
fete hesltated moment, then took the kew
John offered him, and said, eyes, John. I
VIII tell my woman, and we will 20 over and
nix It, and be there when you come back,
And so John went on his way .Downer''
was the minister, and ''the things'' were a
coffin and shroud,
On Thursday was the funeral. Pete took
care to have all the people of the neiehbor-
hood there, although it hardly seemed as if
John desired it. The popular voice, having
once decided it, still held John as murder
er, and claimed that he was cleared from the
charge only by the tricks of his lawyer.
John knew of this decision. At the funeral
he was stern, cold, white, and statue-like
While others wept, but few tears fell from his
eyes, and even those seemed wrung from him
by an anguish for the most part suppressed or
concealed.
He chose that his mother should be buried,
not in the ''burying-ground'' at the settle
ment, but upon their own little farm where
rocky ridge, where wild violets grew, she was
laid to rest. = -
Jonn spent the night following the funeral
at Pete's house, then returned to his own
home, and from that time his SOLITARY life
began. He took his cattle and his sheen over
TO Pete's, made all fast about his home. and
resumed his boating upon Lake Champlain.
He fully realized that he was marked man.
He was advised, it was said even by his own
legal counsel, to leave the country, and to
leave his name behind him; but no words
influenced him. Firm and steady in his
course, strictly temperate and just, he won
respect where ne could not gain confidence.
40. Tue years rolled by, Captain John still
" Was Doatman, and still kept his home at
InT lohely Iog-hJuse on the edge of the great
valley FROM each voyage he returned and
Speh. oay and night alone at the Old Mace
was built around his mothers grave p and
marble maidstone was placed there "u "a
other flowers grew with the wild vio, anu
Even in winter, when there was no hn.t;r .s.
and be boarded down by the lake, he ma9s
many visits to the old homestead. His flo.
ure. which, though youthful, was now grow
ing oaunt and thin as his mothers had been
was often seen by Pete at nightfall upon the
top of certain rocky ridge, standing out
clear and sharp against the cold blue steel of
the winter sky. ~ .Hf