Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-05-27

This rude old meeting house, unpainted,
decaying and grim as primitive law made
the gloomy wood still more desolate. An
unfreQuented road crossed another a few
yards north of it; trees sighed about it; moss
grew upon its rotten roof, and wild grass
and briars clambered about its sunken door
step. 1t told its mournful story without the
aid of words The plainly habited, honest
people who met beneath its roof in the past
had vanished from the earth, and their
descendants were scattered or had departed
from the faith of their fathers and belonged
to the worlds people. 1 stopped to look at
it, held by sad fascination
A shrill whistle interrupted my reverie,
and scattered the ghosts of the silent land
scape. Turning to my left 1 saw a boy
climbing bit of shaky fence. The climbing
was self-imposed task, and was evidently
indulged in for the sole purpose of adding
interest to the occasion, whatever it was,
since an unsteady gate swung open but a few
feet farther on. He wore an enormous straw
hat, gayly decorated with grasses and roses,
and carried in one hand big basket, heaping
full of flowers, old fashioned flowers, old
time roses, May pinks, lilacs, blue bells, snow
balls, peonies and honeysuckles. The other
hand waved a brilliant half grown flag, and
on the end of the basket very small flag
had been clumsily sewn.
Altogether, this brighteyed infant had
festal appearance in strong contrast to the
gloom and silence of the scene. He whistled
bar from the Star r-Spangled Banner" EN-
phasizing it by waving the flag energeticaIy.
He seated himself on the top rail of the fence
and eyed me with some interest, though pre-
tending not to see me. His bare, brown feet
beat time to the measure of the tune. He
struck up, in a shrill treble:
lam patriot true, sir;
Yes am; yes, ami
patriot firm and true, sir;
Yes, am; yes am!
"I don't doubt it in the least, said, at
tempting to be sociable; indeed, you look it
every inch"
A grimace was his only answer. Still it
was friendly grimace His dignity would
not permit him to make my acquaintance too
easily. / must make all the advances.
"Going to a picnic, are you notP l asked,
believing that the best way to open a CONVEX
sation with him would be to take some interest
in his affairs, though detest that method as
applied to myself.
%No-a strew." he answered
"A what?"
"a strew," he replied, with little annoy
ance in his voice, "a Decoration day strew.
Don't you know that this is the day to
decorate soldiers graves-the SOth of
May?"
'I had forgotten it." answered humbly.
"But where are there any soldiers gravesi
Not near here, surely"
He turned like bird on the old fence and
pointed with the flag into a mass of brambles
"Not there9"
"Yes, there. That's a graveyard-the
graveyard that belongs to the old meeting
house. Everybody that used to go to meet
ing there (pointing to the house, is in here
now pointing again toward the briars and
weeds, so there are no more meetings"
looked at the graveyard with Pitying in
terest. 1t was nothing but a square patch
of brambles, and rank, dark weeds, inclosed
by IA broken and worm-eaten fence and sur
rounded by the thick and silent wood
Nothing could be more isolated from busy
life, more completely forgotten by the world
No, not quite forgotten, for here was the
brown-legged boy, with his flag and his
flowers, his whistle and song.
"But soldiers are not buried hereT' said.
Zone of them is.s the boy answered with
an accent of pride and an additional wave OF
his flag. "It's his grave that Missis Gilman
is goin' to strew with these flowers, though
he wasn't any relation of hers at all He
was captain, and he has marble head
stone, the only one in the whole graveyard.
His company put it up. It's gettin' little
old now, for he's been dead nearly twenty
four years-died most fourteen years before
was born" He ratified this off with child
like eagerness, happy in being the first to tell
bit of something interesting to another.
"Were you in the WARP he asked
"Yaan