The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1882-01-13
MOTHER AND son.
Reunited After Mourning Each other for



Some years before the war q wealthy
/ Southern gentleman passed the summeT
months In a little town in Northern Ohio.
he boarded with the clergyman, and a
I warm love grew out of the acquaintance
between the young Tennesseean and the
/ clergyman's daughter, then fifteen years
( old. 1t ended IN his returning the next
| year to claim her as his bride, and bear
/ her to his home in the sunny South ;
/ which proved, indeed, a sunny South to
! the happy young couple until the angry
mutterlngs of the war were heard, and,
/ like many others, their little circle (en-
/ larged now by two precious chlldren)
was broken and the happy family sepa-
rated
In the midst of the excitement, the
day after the secession of South Carolina,
the gentleman was warned that his wife
must leave the South because of her
staunch and outspoken support Of North
ern principles, and in obedience to the
behest Of that tyrannical power which
aimed with such determination at the
nations life, she turned away from the
sacred spot where were centored all her
dreams of love and Joy, and with her
baby started for Ohio, expecting her
husband to follow with her little four
year-Old son by the next boat, but the
next boat came not The blockade was
ordered, cutting off communication as
well as travel, and IN vain did she wait
for tldlngs from her lost ones.
Days of weary watching followed each
other for nearly two years, and when the
oft-told tale of death in a Southern hos
pital reached her, officiating the last
ray OF hope, the agony of despair settled
H. Al
condition of the country would admit of
travel, she returned to her home for the
child, only to find that the relatives had
gone to the far West before his fathers
death, leaving him with old friends, of
whom she could hear nothing. All eff
forts to find them, or TO gam even a
plttance of the fortune her husband had
left IN trust for her, failed.
Her handsome wardrobe and Jewels
were sacrificed to secure the services of
lawyers and detectives, who received her
money only to add one more to her long
list OF disappointments. Death tore her
baby from her, and, heart broken and
despairing, with no more means to carry
on the search, she gave up and mourned
as dead her dear first born It is i'm
possible to describe her sufferings in
those years of mourning. Only those
who have drained the bitter dregs can
understand the misery of the sleepless
nights, and the sad, empty days Of this
poor, lonely mourner.
After many years she returned again
to her home and mother, in Ohio. One
day, not long ago, she received a
strangely familiar letter, bearing a far
distant postmark, and from it learned
that a child, taught in the long ago that
his mother was dead, had been turned
into the world to care for himself. when
he should have been tenderly nurtured
and educated, while cruel and treacher-
Ous guardians lived in luxury upon his
inheritance and how, through all these
years his heart had yearned with such
intensity for a mothers love, and how he
had wandered from place to place In
search of her, though ignorant of her
whereabouts, until hope deferred had
made his heart sick, and he. too. had
given up IN despair; how his young wife
had found IN the lining of an old trunk,
a letter which she thought gave a new
address, and, anxious to satisfy the con
slant, longing desire of his life. made
this one more effort TO accomplish it. If
II were impossible TO describe her sor-
row, II were thrice impossible TO tell her
Joy. or the Impotence with which she
had waited till time and circumstances.
through the medium of a scrap Of yellow,
time-worn paper, should bring to her en-
brace her long-lost son.