Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-07-03


such suffering for her lost lover, such ter
rife and harrassing situations, that it
would have been positive 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 as the war ceased
| her widowed mother died suddenly and
without one farewell word. 1t would have
been better for Marion had necessity fore
ed her to exertion, but she had enough
money to live on comfortably so she shut
herself in her tiny house with her old SER
want and made herself 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 almost lived out-of-doors either in
her garden, which was her sole amuse-
ment 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 cherish
ed tree, placed them beside the apple
blossoms she Lad already gathered in a
large basket. There, too. were sheaves of
pale narcissus, trails of heaven blue invite.
! punches of the ID ter snowdrops and COR
geous tulips; for 1t was Memorial day and
never since its first observance had Mar
ion failed to carry whatever blossoms she
could find to the cemetery and add her
share to the hOnors of tie few dead SOL
diers 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 steep? The thought stung her again
and she took from the door step a smaller
basket OF wild flowers with which she al
ways dressed the low mound above her
mother, and taking the larger one on her
arm, went over to the schoolhouse, where
the young village girls were making
wreaths and boquets. From there she
went to her mother grave, and began to
adOrn 1T 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 requiem
from the church steps, where the process
sion was just entering; she heard the slow
toll OF the bell that always rang a knell in
Alton on Decoration day; she knelt by the
maidstone of her mothers resting place,
and leaning her head against it sobbed
bltte-l ", and spoke aloud in her re-awaken-
| ed sorrow, knowing there was no ear to
hear: "Oh, Hugh! my Hugh! if I could
but know where you are lying! If
could only see your grave, it would be a
help. But you have gone out into dark
ness, and the place of your sephulchre no
man knoweth unto this day. Why, why
cannot go, too?'
Marion, said voice. She lifted her
quivering lids. Hugh stood before her.
With low cry she fell across her mother
grave and lay at bis feet
She knew no more till she came back to
life on her own sofa, with Hugh kneeling
beside her, and the village doctor dropping
some pungent fluid slowly into her lips.
She looked at her dead alive lover with
anxious, asking eyes,
Il am not Hugh; am Sandy" he said,
sadly, but distinctly. Yet he was Hugh
to her eyes and her heart; every line an
swered to line in the strong fine face ex-
cept that it was older, darker, more worn,
as 1t might after the stress of war; the
smile was sadder and sweeter than ever
Hugh's had been, but it was Hughs voice
In tone and accent
There was long story to tell when
Marion could listen; but through it she
felt strange and CHASTITY sense that
she was hsteN1ng to a tale from an
other world, was following sound in the
dark
Alexander Heriot was indeed the true
Image of his brother; he had been tall and
pale and delicate in his youth; but when
the war broke out and he openly avowed
his opposition to the course of the SOUTH
he was obliged for his mothers and life's
sake to take refuge In the mountains till
he could lind way to join the army Of
the north, as he knew Hugh had done
The outdoor life and enforced exercise re-
stored him to perfect health And in six
months he had found the Union army, but
not Hugh; and volunteering in the ranks
had fought well and bravely till peace
came; then he went back to the native
place, only to find his mother dead, and
and his sister, the bride of day, widow
ed and alone, but bitter against him that
intense bitterness that only exists between
those who are kindred, and have been dear
to each other.
There, too, he found the report of Hugh
as ''missing;' and having no home-for
his sister had gone to her husbands
friends In Savannah-an nod means to
make the plantation remunerative he sold
it for fmall sum and divided the pro-
ceeds with Cornelia, and devoted him
self to tracing Hugh. At last by one of
these accidents we ought to call ''provi-
dence,' he discovered his brothers nap
sack in the hut of a poor man not far
from the battlefield, and by dint of rewards
offered learned that the man from whom
that napsack was taken had erept away
mortally wounded to the shelter of few
bushes during the fight, and had been
found there by the cracker who took
possession of his arms and his accoutre-
mentS.
But he made a grave for our poor
Hugh, Marion,' Alexander said with a
trembling volce-''a grave where decora-
tions never fail. The fellow showed me
where he buried him, between two pine
trees. On one of them climbs a Cherokee
rose that drops its thick white petals on
the sod, and wild blossoms have trailed
all over the mound, till it is fair as your
mothers grave today. | could but think
when | saw it that the God of the brave
and the loyal had not forgotten Hugh's
lonely pillow in the Wilderness
After leaving his brothers place of rest,
Alexander had opened his knapsack and
found in it Marion's letters and picture.
As Hugh had said, the twin brothers were
alike in every fiber. and Alexander's heart
opened at once to enshrine the lovely
woman Hugh had adored and left for his
country.
But what had he to offer her? Before