The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-11-15
A BRIGHT BOY GONE.
"The tide ran low, ran very low, ran out;
Autumn had settled down upon the land,

|
Autumn had settled down upon the land,
| And winters face, the face Of death, was sweet.
The painfully sad news went out through
the gloom of last evening to many homes
in this city, that Burr Thomas was dead.
His father, Mr.. w. A Thomas, known as
one of the oldest and most respected citi-
zens of Wichita, had left home but two
days before for Sherman, Texas, and by
wagon from the south line of the state.
under the assurance that his bov. by
whose bedside he had been anxiously
watching for weary weeks, was out of all
danger. The mother and the brother and
| sisters are left with their dead and the
added distress of the absence of the father
IN the heart Of the Indian country where
he cannot be reached by mail
or by telegraph In few min
utes after the sudden and unexpected
| calamity a courier took the south bound
Texas express for the territory with the
purpose Of making the seemingly hopeless
attempt of overtaking Mr.. Thomas on
horseback. We talked with Mr. Thomas
only a few minutes before his departure
and he was joyous over the supposed fact
that Burr had passed the crisis and was
improving very rapidly, he saying among
other things that the knowledge of the
boy that his sickness had been OBTAINING
his father had aggravated his illness. 1t
don't seem possible that Mr.. Thomas can
be overtaken or intercepted before all that
remains of his boy will have been laid
away from sight forever.
Burr Thomas, who was among the first
children born in this city, was II or IS
va OLD - Ill e
its youth. Bright and gentle-faced,
studious and ambitious, he was
the pride and hope of
happy home, into which but one such sor-
row had ever entered. But the cloud
which hung over that home during the
the dark watches of last night, who can
measure its depths, with the added mis-
fortune OF the fathers absence. Possess
ing the hopeful disposition and sunny life
so characteristic of his father, the hearts
around its hearthstone will moan and
bleed indeed, while the hearts OF many
other homes will reach out to them in
deepest sympathy But death is not the
end. While love sobs, hope whispers, and
we shall meet again where life is life un
touched by the change which we call
death; where the radiant spring-tIme of
eternal existence is never followed by such
autumnal gloom as that of last night in
which the spirit of our youthful friend
Burr, winged its triumphant flight beyond
these common skies whose folds shadow
SO much of strife and doubt. The dark
night, as we write these words, is raining
lonely tears, but as sure as there is bright
morning ahead, so those of that sorrowing
household, and he who is far away, all I'M
conscious of the surging wave that must
overtake and overwhelm him with its
grief, are assured that, as certainly as that
the darkness of this night shall be followed
by light, and as that spring with its bios
SONS and birds, will succeed the now i'm
pending winter, so sure will their boy,
Burr, in the glory and benignity of eternal
youth, meet and greet them again on
brighter shores and in better home.
At this writing nothing with reference
to the funeral has been determined upon,
and probably will not be until it is known
whether Mr.. Thomas is to be reached in
time or not.