Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-05-31

By p chance as seeming strange as the
meeting in mid ocean of ships from antip-
odal ports, as strange as the meeting of
long parted friends in the crowded
thoroughfare OF a strange city, Carl Burton
came into her life and found it swept, gar
nished and prepared. That one year of
love, which followed, seemed a year of
more than human JOY Perhaps, though
happily she could not know it, a longer ex-
perience would have shown her that, as
the sunlight makes even common things
beautiful, so she owed to the glamour Of her
own love-its abnegation and intensity
much of the beauty which she found in her
lover. Perhaps she might have slowly
learned that her ceaseless prayer to be wor
thy OF him was needless, or even that his
embrace was parasitic, drawing on her life
to nourish selfish existence. But ali such
thoughts were far from the mind of Kate
Wilton. Life seemed a roy al progress She
moved through a landscape bathed in sun
light, radiant with color, sweet with song.
AS her religion was love, so her love was
religion, and no sacrifice that love could
ask but she would have gloried in making
1T. 1t is comparatively easy, oftentimes,
to make a voluntary offering OF that which,
if withdrawn from us by sovereign power,
would stir US to angry mutiny against the
supreme authority that - orders all things
after the counsel of His own WILL
All this dream of love was to fade,
the sky become overcas. and the
birds cease their singing. During
all this year of first love, Kate had heard
the roll Of drums, the good-byes of friends,
and Rachel's comfortless cry of grief for
her children, as If it came from an outside
world. When Carl spoke of taking his
place in the ranks, she had put her arms
about him and said: NAY, dear; we are
betrothed. You shall give me this year;
for Of old they granted to the soldier newly
wed his one year of exemption" And
Carl was too 10th to turn his back upon
this paradise, to make remonstrance. 1t
was Kate's prayer and hope that as the
year sped, an end might be made of the
cruel strife and her lover be spared
the descent into 1.-The mouth of
hell,'' with it's belching flames and
sulphurous smoke, from whence so many
mover returned. The year wore away, but
the war went on. The village streets grew
quieter, the mourning weeds were album
dant, and the news of slaughter yet more
terrible. Carl's face grew troubled; at last
he spoke again: Dear, if you hold me
back by your love, and into our after para
disc of home should come this serpent
Shame, to writhe about me, neither thou
nor could escape its sting" She heard
and knew his resolve was taken. Her lips
grew cold and tremulous, and lay still and
unresponsive beneath his kiss. Z" Carl"
she whispered, presently, ''when do you
leave meP "To-morrow,'' he said.
Tomorrow" She echoed his words as
if they measured the whole span of re-
naming life.
All through that summer night they sat
together hand in hand. Seldom they spoke,
and then but of the trifles of the minute; Of
the midnight stiffness or the morning chill.
They kept such vigil as wife and husband
might keep beside the coffined form of a
first born child. Something new had come
into life rather than something gone out of
it. Their cup was fuller by one bitter drop,
and all the draught was sadder and sweeter
for the fulness.
At dawn they parted and for ever. There
came time when letters ceased, when
days and weeks of anxious waiting would
have rendered any news acceptable. But
Carl disappeared utterly and left no trace.
For long she lived on the hope that he
might come back when the prisons
opened their doors. The war ended,
life began to flow back into the old
long dried channels, but word of Carl
there was none. A slow and subtle
change began to be wrought in Kate, by
disappointment. She who had loved all
things, came to hate with bitter hate the
very name of the South That name was to
her the name of the murderess who had
slain her love. The turbulence of an I'M
quiet spirit made the olden divine whis-
perings less and less audible. God seemed
remote; prayer, the useless wall of neg
lected child. So passed nearly fifteen
years. Aunt Ruth died and Kate lived ON
alone with the old servant whose connec-
ton with the household antedated her earfi-
est recollection. 1t was toward the close of
this period that Kate Wilton became
attracted to Spiritism. A stranger had be-
come resident in the village and with all the
zeal of a propagandist she had sown the
seeds of her "ism" in every promising
soil. To Kate the possibility of hearing
voice from beyond, above all his voice,
was enough to stir her nature to its depths.
She became an easy convert, and was the
first member of the growing circle that
held its weekly gatherings at the houses of