The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-05-30
Guild have loved hin, the better better Mar

II
answer. EA ~
SO Hugh Heriot enlisted with q
Northern regiment, parted with his
sweetheart bravely, and left her to wait
as hundreds like her were left in those
dreadful days.
Did we know then, shall we ever
know-we who came out scathless
what those women suffered, who. tied
hand and foot, maddened by the poor
recurrent routine of daily life, filled
with vague imaginative terrors, had yet
to live and do their petty duties under
the edge of a sword worse than the
tabled blade of Damocles?
Honor for ever to that noble army OF
martyrsI To them, no less than to
those who lost their lives on the actual
battle field, should monuments arise
and wreaths be offered. They were
the beating heart that sent strong life
blood into the battling hand, and, oh!
how often persisted with it! not in the
pallor and decay Of physical death, not
in the rest and shelter of the flower
strewn grave, but in the broken heart,
the joyless life, the desperation of
memory, the ''dying, yet behold we
live" that death in life that is the
greatest if not the last enemy!
If there were other women who suf-
fered more than Marion Lancaster in
this dire suspense she did not know it;
il seemed to her no heart could be more
torn with anxiety, more tortured by
the silence that yet thrilled with dread
full possibilities than hers. She did
not consider that her love for Hugh
Heriot was young passion scarcely
rooted in her breast: that she was
bound to him by none of the strong
ties of those who had sent their hus-
bands out to war, and crouched on DESC
late hearth-stones with clinging chill
dren about them, who might the Mex
hour be wailing orphans; she thought
she suffered all she could, and as week
after week grew into month after
month, and the second year came lin
gering on, she grew thin, pale and list
less. ..-..r
For Hugh Heriot had yet no fur
Tough: the few times Marion had heard
from him he had spoken of his inten-
ton to apply for one at the years end,
but he had enlisted for the war, and
felt that while his strength lasted he
must fight; he was more needed on the
field than even Marion needed him.
Yet after that first year began there
were no more letters, and, after the
battle of Lookout Mountain. the lists
of killed and wounded came in so slowly
that it was long week before the
VERY last showed among the list of
missing" Hugh Heriot, Major c,
Tenth Infantry" D o. "
Missing" Can words expound what
that one word meant in those days?
Not the sharp blow of Wounded
which implied possible life, and even
hope of immediate repair to the sufferer,
and all the gentle ministries to relieve
one and console the other, blessed in
giving or taking. Not the stun and
desolation of Dead" that left no worse
to fear, nor tantalized with the ignis
fataus of hope; but that one fatal word
that tortured but did not slay; that
bound the victim to the stake and piled
the fagots, but delayed to light the fire
till the waiting grew TO be madness.
Marion was a warm-hearted imagi-
native girl, and missing" meant to her
long chapter of surmised agonies. In
her waking hours she figured so many
and such dreadful possibilities that her
sleep renewed and exaggerated, she
painted such sufferings for her lost
lover, such terrific and harassing stu
atoms, that it would have been pos
tive relief to her to know of his death;
yet she would not admit it to herself.
She lost all that held her to life, when,
just rs the war ceased, her widowed
mother died suddenly and without one
farewell word. Itwould have been better
for Marion had necessity forced her to
exertion, but she had enough money to
live on comfortably, and so she shut
herself in her tiny house with her old
servant, and made herself a solitary
mourner. Her beautiful and abundant
brown hair grew white as snow, and
her eyes lost their sparkle; but her
health gradually asserted itself anew,
her constitution was strong, and she al
most lived out of doors, either in her
garden. which was her sole amusement
and pleasure, or walking over the
breezy hills Of the country about She
had never been half so beautiful when
Hugh Heriot knew her as she was,
eight years after. when, one exquisite
morning in May, she stood by her door
clipping boughs of hawthorn from her
one cherished tree, and placing them
beside the apple blossoms she had al
ready gathered in a large basket. There
too were sheaveS of pale narcissus,
trails of heaven blue myrtle, punches
Of the later snow-drops and gorgeous
tulips; for it was Memorial Day, and
never since its first observance had
Marion failed to carry whatever BIOS
SONS she could find to the cemetery,
and add her share to the honors of the
few dead soldiers who slept in that
small and shaded place of rest
1t smote her every year to think Of
that unhonored place where her lovers
body rested, for long ago she had given
up hope for his life. Who covered his
grave with flowers or foliage? Who
prayed over his last sleep? The thought
stung her again as she took from the
doorstep smaller basket of wild
flowers, with which she always dressed
the, low mound above her mother, and
taking the larger one on her arm, went
over to the school-house, where the
young village girls were making wreaths
and bouquets. From there she went to
her mothers grave, and began to adorn
it with all the blossoms of wood and
field her mother had loved so much in
her life; she heard the distant music of
the band begin to send its wailing re-
QUEEN from the church steps, where the