Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-21
A MOTHER SAVAGE.

The story begins with the author hunting
ct Virelogne with his friend Serval They
tame upon a deserted cottage, and Serval
told this story:
When war was declared, the son, then SO
years old, enlisted, leaving the mother alone
IN the house. The old woman did not re-
eeive too much sympathy, because she was
known to have money.
So she stayed all alone in this isolated
house, far from the village, on the outskirts
Of the wood. But she YVES not afraid, for she
belonged to the same race as her husband
ind soma rough old woman, tall and thin,
who did not often laugh, and with whom no
pne ever joked. Women who work in the
Helds seldom laugh, for that matter. Laugh
Ter is for the men. The women have dreary
and restricted souls, living dull and gloomy
lives. The man learns to indulge in little
noisy gayety at the wine shop, but his COM
panion remains serious, with a countenance
constantly severe. The muscles Of her face
have not learned how TO laugh.
Mother Savage continued her every day
life in her cottage, which was soon covered
with snow. She visited the village once
week to get some bread and little meat;
then she returned to her hut. As there were
rumors of wolves, she carried a gun on her
back-her sons gun. 1t was rusty and the
stock worn from constant handling. She was
a curious sight, this tall Mother Savage,
little bent, going with slow strides through
the snow, the gun barrel projecting above
the black cap which so etfectually impris-
pned her white hairs that no one had ever
seen them.
One day the Prussians came They were
distributed among the inhabitants according
to the fortune and resources Of each. With
the old woman who was known to be rich
they placed four.
They were four big, light haired, blue eyed
fellows, who bad kept their flesh in spite Of
the fatigue which they had already endured,
and their good nature, although in a con-
1uered country. Alone at this aged woman's
house, they were thoughtful Of her, saving
her all the fatigue and expense that they
could. All four were to be seen making their
toilets around the well in the morning in
their shirt sleeves, wetting their pink white
flesh, characteristic of the men of the north,
with an abundance Of water, in the raw,
snowy air, while Mother Savage came and
went, preparing the soup. Then they were
seen cleaning the kitchen, securing the floors,
rhopping wood, peeling potatoes, washing
linen, fulfilling all the household duties like
four SONS around their mother
But the old woman thought continually Of
her own boy with his tall, thin figure, hooked
nose, brown eyes and big mustache. Every
day she asked each of the soldiers installed at
her fireside:
"Do you know which way the Twenty
third French regiment went? Ny boy be-
longs to it.n
They answered, ''No, not at all" And,
understanding her pain and anxiety, because
they had mothers of their own, they bestowed
upon her a thousand little cares Besides,
she was very fond of her four enemies, for
peasants seldom feel the patriotic hatred; that
Is monopolized by the upper classes The
humble, those who pay the most because they
are the poorest, and whom every new burden
Overwhelms; those who are killed in masses,
forming, because of their numbers, real food
for the cannon; those, in short who suffer
most cruelty from the atrocious miseries of
war because they are the weakest and least
able to resist, seldom understand the bellicose
srdor, the excitable feeling of honor and the
pretended political combinations which in six
months exhausts two nations, the victors as
well as the vaGquished
The neighbors said, speaking of Mother
Savage's Germans:
There are four who have found homen
But one morning, while the old woman was
alone iii her cottage, she saw at a distance
over the plain a man coming toward her
dwelling. Soon she recognized him as the
letter carrier. He handed her a folded paper,
and she drew from their case the spectacles
which she used in sewing; then she read:
MME. SAVAGE This brings you sad news. Your
boy Victor killed yesterday by a cannon ball,
which cut him in two was standing near, for
we marched side by side in the company. and he
had asked me to notify you in case any misfor-
tune should befal him.
have taken possession of his watch in order 70
restore it 10 YOU at the end Of the war
salute you as friend CESAR RIvoT,
Soldier of the I'd class, in the 2Sd Of the line.
The letter bore date of three weeks before.
She did not weep. She remained motion
less, so struck and stupefied that as yet she
lid not even suffer. She thought: There's
Victor killed now" Then gradually the