The Dawson journal., 1886-12-23
TOUCHING STORY OF DEVOTION
A Soldiers Noble Loyalty to His Err
ing Wife-Healing a Broken Heat.

/ ans ~ la O3ANA& AASssA u
New York Time
A decrepte little old man stood
on Broadway down near Trinity
Church trying to sell lead pencils,
but bad luck attended his enter
prise, and finally dishearbened he
fell back from the roadway's
edge and leaned against the iron
rails that enclose the historic old
churchyard.
And the old man cried. His
antique hat was down over his
eyes, and hurrying passers-by did
not notice his grief, but he sob
bed loud enough at last as he
edged off of Broadway and around
into the narrow lane of Rector
street.
A Stockholders attention was
attracted then, and the weeping
old man was accosted. He had
no story to tell, he said, and
wanted to go his way unqueston-
ed, but Wall street curiosity is
not so readily waved aside, and
the broker in the end elected the
tale that he had demanded.
1t was rather strange story,
ard it was sad enough to make
that broker open his purse,
The poor, disconsolate old fell
low was a Southerner. He was
in the prime Of life husband and
father when the Rebellion broke
out, and in devotion to his State,
marched into the field for the
ConfeIeracy.
Before the war was ever he lay
in prison, and afterward was in
hospital for months at deaths
door.
The fortunes of war had shut
off communication with home;
the village whore that home had
been was in ashes, the site Of a
battlefield. But as soon as lie was
free he hurried to his native State
seeking tldings Of wife and chill
dren
The boy and the girl of his
household were dead; the wife
their mother "a worse fate than
death had claimed her. She was
changed. Those who knew the
woman told of her coquetry with
a man of money and position--a
man who though not brave enough
to wear the blue, had come to the
South in the Union Army's van.
He was a New Yorker and
finally he had borne the migrate
wife away to the North in his
company, she avowIu2 herself his
wife, her first husband, she IN
sisted, having fallen on the battle
field.
When the husband heard this
story he, too, started North. -Four
year she searched this city and
this State over.
In one particular he disbelieyed
the tale that he had heard South;
he could not acceyt as true tbs
assertion that his wife had viii
lingly wronged him; he believed
that she had really thought him
dead; nor would he put his faith
in the story that aught but
sacred marriage ceremony had
given her to this second husband.
At the end OF four yeas his
quest was rewarded. And he
found that the Southern gos5ips
had spoken truly. When be ven
tured to seek her presence she
spurned him.
This was fifteen years and more
ago-years that brought no
brightness to the old soldier; that
had change Of fortune for the
misled woman.
A year ago her rich husband
died. She was left penniless,
cast adriTt on the world. Some
how the news got to the ears of
the husband working on q Star
Southern farm, recognized by all
as mental wreck, and he scraped
together few dollars and hur-
ried to the city again.
He was still in love with the
erring wife, anxious to take her
back, full of faith that if he and
she could again be reunited that
all would go well, that prosperity