Connecticut western news., 1880-08-25
FIGHTING Jog.
|" Who andxwhat was he 2p
THE. STORY OF A HERO.

"Who andSwhat was he?P
 was standing in the churchyard of small town on the borders of South Staf- fordshire one bright Sunday afternoon in April. was stranger in that part of the country, and was passing through the place in the course of long walk from the larger adjacent town, to which my business had taken me the day be- fore. The extensive mining operations of the last twelve or fifteen years had altered the little unpretending village materially; and though the quaint old church and some long and low buildings, suggestive of farms and homesteads, still retained an air of rustic simplicity, they were being gradually obscured and the place itself sophisticated by the formal rows of plain and ugly tenements, built expressly for the mining popula- tion, which each year was becoming more and more numerous.
 l had amused myself by deciphcring some of the inscriptions on the grave stones-wen nigh obliterated by the weather stains and the moss that time had suffered to find root-hold in the hol- lows of the lettering assman, pre- sumably miner, in the Sunday clothes peculiar to that class, carrying little child of two or three years, and fol lowed by another somewhat older, seated himself, onsa fiat stone and opened 8 conversation.
 Aciyilly-spoken fellow enough, though with the uncouth accent of the county. readily accepted the invitation he offered, and we chatted pleasantly. He had known the place many years, he told me, aye, long before it had grown into the town it now was, when it was nothing but humble village, and when the long grass or ripening corn bowed it's head to the wind on the spot where the unsightly engine house and tall red chimney now stood, and where the heaps of slag and cinder marked the busy life of the toilers in the earth below.
 That handsome marble monument, he told me, denoted the last resting place of the late rector, and this broad mas sive piece of granite was the tomb of a certain local squire, popularly known as Esquire Jack, who, it seemed, was much given to horse racing, cooking, and such kindred sports, and who, be- ing sad "ne'er-do-well," thought less, reckless fellow, but withal good natured and easy-going, was, as such gentry not unfrequently are, the most popular member of his family.
 As my new acquaintance pointed out these objects and others which he thought, l suppose, would interest me, he had risen from his seat and we had strolled leisurely through the church. yard. It was in corner, and rather in g hollow, that, before humble mound of green turf, and decked with the pretty spring flowers, carefully planted in the form of a cross, we both, as of one ac cord, paused. It had not any grave stone, but only 8 piece of wood sup ported by two short uprights. On this were roughly carved, as if done witl apocket-knife, these two words: Fight ing Joe." &
 "That is strange inscription to pu over man's grave" I said, and thel added, "Who and what was he?"
 The man seated himself on ston, close by and was silent for a few seconds He had set down the little child he hat carrying, and the two little things, at tracted by the bright flowers, had fount their way to the mound and were abou to gather them, a.,.s .-l..s s..
 "Here, you mustn't touch then flowers" !" he said, and, taking hand o each, led them away.
 "Well, mate," he then went on to sa; to me in, reply to my question, ''I don rightly know who or what he was. H was a stranger down here, and neithe me nor my mates ever heard tell wher he came from or who he was. Whe this here pit, Fenton's Pit we call it, wa first workedwe had but few hands heres bouts, and men that could work had n call to wait long for a job, and got goo wage as well. Most of the hands wer Staffordshire, .butwe never knowed whe1 Joe come from, and I don't know as " asked, and p'raps he wouldn't have tol us if we had. He was quiet and lonel like, and said but Ettle-that is when |