American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1879-01-18
BRANDED.

I" 1t won't be long! Can you bear it
baby?" and, with a wild look in her
great brown eyes, she clasped the wee
thing tighter to her breast and went rap
idly toward the rocky ledge that hung
over the ocean. She had played here
q thousand times in her childhood; had
watched the tide creep lazily in and out
on . summers day, or, wild and tenn
pestuous, DASH ships with their precious
lives upon the rocks,
The ocean was like lover 1t could
be all things -
'Win it be very cold for the baby
my baby-his babyP viii he mind it
much?" The birds sang sweetly and the
baby cooed, and the mild spring air
brought up the breath of the violets.
For a moment she faltered. If life was
only birds and blossoms; but it was not.
and with q last kiss on her baby, and a
death-like grasp, leap, struggle, and
all was over.
Missing!
Grace Reeverly was missing, but the
ocean told no tales.
The little Atlantic village was stirred
from center to circumference. A love-
ly girl, confiding in nature and pure as
the snow, she had been the pet and the
pride of the townsfolk. Her voice was
clearest in the choir of the little church;
her hand was gentlest on the head of
the poorest and toughest child, and the
village schoolnaster thought she repaid
his teachings thousand fold by her
intelligence.
There had come a young physician of
good family to the town, q young man
of manly physique and agreeable man.
-ners. Acquaintance grew intoiove and
the good people locked on with joy, that
providentially their loved one had found
one worthy of her. He had been train
ed in city ways. Either woman was not
sacred thing TO him. or, matching her
artlessness with his art, he judged wrong
'lywheu he tested her virtue BY her self
forgetting love. Perhaps it was not
true, as Button says, ssthat every person
has his price" All may not fall under
the strongest temptation, but most err
because they blindly trust leader who
leads over precipice. Is there no rem
edyp Mothers must do more than they
have. Girls must know that life is full
Of quicksands, and boys, that virtue is
of God, and the destroyer of it, if not
always punished here, will meet a de-
served hell hereafter. r.-.er
Missingi The whole town knew the
story; how he had deserted her, claim
ing that q woman who could be won
was unworthy Of him; how the day for
the bridal came and went; how Grace
and her aged mother wept and prayed;
how, when the baby came, she hid its
darling face against her breast, so that
nobody ever looked upon it save the
mother, for, beautiful though it was, it
had his face; how the springtime came
and the fresh. May mornings, but no
color came to the whitened cheeks, but
. strange unusual brilliancy into her
eyes, and then the old mother was
alone!
Every body was questioned, but no.
body had seen her. The aged woman
crept down to the ocean day by day,
but the tide came in bringing only sea-
weed and empty shells. One morning,
far up the beach, kindly hidden from
sun and storm, under q clump of trees,
some boys at play found the missing
ones. Her child was held fast in her
arms. The sea-weed was wound in and
out as though to bind the hands still
closer, lest the weakness of death I'M
lock them and let 60 her treasure.
The town had common sorrow. At
the burial the little church was crowd
ed. All the way to the graveyard, that
lay just above the sea, where the waves
sang constantly to the sleepers, there
was an unbroken procession. From that
day, no woman ever spoke to the young
physician. He walked the streets I'M
noticed. He carried himself less proud
ly. Circumstances would compel him
to seek anVthef f5iiie. Stran1gshat
N a comfy town a woman was so high
ly priza,s he thought. The world was
not all th7