The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1878-09-05
For the Citizen.I
THE TWO CAPS:
The White and Black Cap.
BY ESTELLE VEHSE.
(Continued.)
The child lived Lived.

Inc Cullu llNeu! LlNeu,
''To break the ties
Which early love had formed; and to bow
down
TIL elastic spirit, and to blight each flower
Strewn in life's crowded pathw
Lived in ease and bloated idle
ness; surrounded with affluence, ,and
never learned the grand lesson for
good and successful life. e.,
self denial. Growing to manhood
unbending and imperious in spirit.
Soothing at holy things! Seldom if
ever rebuked by the mother who
had deemed it nonsense to teach his
supple knee to bend in prayer to
Him who hath said, "Thou shalt
have no ether gods before me-" A
graduate in one of our best colleges
at an early age, and an adept in
many vices ere he was twenty one.
Bending the energies OF a fine
mind to sporting life, and wasting
the golden opportunities to enter
upon professional career for which
his education so eminently fitted
him, he met III a distant city a
lovely, beautiful and an accom-
plished girl who had been trained
by the pious and careful hands of
Christian parents; and she, without
looking below the surface of a fine
exterior, and knowing nothing of
his disposition and the ''lurklng
deviP' 50 easily aroused in him, and
his loose principles of honor, &C
cepted him after he made a profess
sion of religion and married him
against the will of her family.
Within year he had broken her
trusting heart, and wrecked her
young life
Like too many, he wore his reli-
gIon as mantel, t'to cover his
cloven foot" and without one spark
of godliness within his depraved
heart Alas!
"That one may smile, and smile and be a
Iillainn
May betray his Lord and Master,
while he shows forth to the world
his observance of the beautiful and
thrilling words-"ln remembrance
of mew
His mother, sad at heart and
worn with anxious thoughts over
his continued absence from her
home. which had always been his
home too, began to chafe over his
ingratitude secretly; and feeling and
fearing his downward rush to in
fanny since the tender young wife
had been removed to her grave, be
gan to demonstrate and to endeavor
to save if possible her wayward and
misguided son, little dreaming Of
the dark career he had already en-
tered upon.
Gas ye have sown, so shall we
reap" AS well to undertake with
a woman's puny strength to dam
the mighty Mississippi! to straight
en- the old snarled oak into a grace
full swaying willow, or to convert
clumsy elephant into 1.-the and
bounding deer! Too latei Alas
the fatal wordsl Woman! behold
your work. Look what your petted
indulgence has done. Look at the
ruined life fostered into evil by
your hand and your countenance.
Know that He holds you responsible
for the soul entrusted to your keep
ing, the life demanded W you at His
hands.
Flinging back into his mothers
face cruel words one morning at the
breakfast table, under the smart of
a small wounded vanity, she refus-
ing for the first time his demand
for money, he rose with an oath
and stalked down to the stables,
saddled his fine pet mare, Bess,
rode into the city which was in
sight, sold her, went into a gam
bling hell, drank deep and long,
winning and losing day after day
and night after night, and finally
took the north bound train without
one word or farewell to his motherl
A few months the mother receives
letter from a stranger. Her son
is forger. fleeing from justice.
The world, the aristocratic world
in which he had moved so grace
fully with his faults tucked out of
sight, is shockedl By-and-by, the
world says he is in Asia, but she,
the grief stricken mother that stsr
ties at every shadow and the crack
ing Of every stick, knows her son is
skulking in his own country under
false name.
But hers is a sealed grief, filing
her strong heart into deep channels,
and filling her soul with despair
to which her silent lips never give
utterance, save in the dark silence
of night and in her lonely chamber.
Two years of woe, and she knows
her son is inhabiting a dark cell at
night, and in the day his proud
limbs encssed IN prison garb at
hard work
"Tbe wine of life is drawn, and the mere
lees is left"
Six years roll away. Sumpter is
fred upon, and the civil war is in
augurated. Material is needed for
ball and powder. Pardons are is