St. Landry democrat., 1893-08-19
FOUND IN A cont POCKET.
BY FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD.

The 30th of May was raw and chill
in Aurora, small village in the ed &c of
the Northern pineries. The sun had
hidden behind mass of gray clouds,
and keen blast off the great lake swept
over the country, like a parting taunt
from the long tarrying, furious winter,
which had just taken leave. A sharp
frost had visited the garden the night
before, and the meagre bounty of bud
and blossom that they yielded for the
day seemed to visibly revive and freshen
under warm, human touch.
All things partook Of the dismal infiu-
ence of the day and weather. The SOM
bre forest that cncompasscd the town
took on new dignity and gloom. Houses
and fields, which a month before had
been robed in an enchanted mantle OF
glistening white, and which month
hence would be gracious with vines and
flowers, stood forth upon the landscape
in naked ugliness. The men and women
who had gathered to do honor to their
fallen heroes were wrapped in sad
retrospect, looking again into open
graves or living over anew periods Of
heart breaking suspense that had ended
in tidings of woe. Even the veterans,
who in grim school had learned lessons
of fortitude and cheer, were singuarly
depressed, and forgot the jests and gay
badinagc with which they were accus-
toned to silence painful memories.
Aurora and her outlying districts had
sent three companies to the war. Barely
a dozen old soldiers gathered to join the
procession this day. Some of the sorry
remnant had gone further west in search
of health or fortune. Others were shut
up in their houses, too weak Or broken
to venture out. OF those who answered
the roll call the majority were ailing or
infrm and mutfied to the ears to pro-
pitiatc the physical man for the audacity
Of the spiritual.
John Sexton was one of the younger
men among the veterans, yet when he
stepped to the door that morning and
viewed the sky and faced the bitter
wind, he went to a cedar chest and took
from it a garment that had laid there IN
disturbed for years-a blue overcoat,
soiled and faded, and with a scorched
hole in the right sleeve, which hung
empty by his side.
The procession formed at the head of
the main street, before the old church in
which the memorial service had been
held. Many memories clustered about
that old frame church. John Sexton re-
called some of these The first call for
recruits had been made there. He heard
again the fiery, impetuous speeches, and
saw the rush of volunteers, amid the
cheers of men and the sobs of women.
He had been among the first to enlist, a
beardless boy with mans heart, kindled
with patriotic fire. Within the same
gray walls, at the parting supper given
to his regiment the night before it
marched, he had asked Hettie Plympton
to be his wife some day, and she, half
laughing and half weeping, had told him
that when he came back wearing his
epaulets she would marry him. And he
had gone away proud and confident. The
epaulets had seemed so easy to win, the
chances of failure or disaster so vague
and remote. Then had come the hard
discipline of the camp, the long, forced
marches, the carnage of battle, the rifle
ball that cut short his career.
He recalled how he had come back.
Her face had been the first he had seen
on his return. Descending from the car,
manned, feeble, wasted by long sickness,
his head reeling from the exhaustion of
the journey, kind hands assisting him to
the platform, he had caught sight of her,
apart, pale, silent, her eyes in
tent on him with an expression that he
could not then understand, but that he
had afterwards construed into shrink
ing horror of the wreck he had become
A crowd of people had surged in between
them; nciehbors, friends, Indifferent ac-
quaintances, the majority with words of
hearty sympathy on their lips; few
moved only by idle curiosity to see how
foully the accidents of fortune had plum
dered him. One old woman whose only
son-had fallen ON the battlefield cried
over him, in place of the mother whose
frail thread Of life had snapped in the
had gone to the front
In the midst Of all this tumult he had
again glimpse of Hetty, her gaze with
drawn from him, calmly penciling some
memoranda in little silk bound book
that she carried, and he had wondered if
she were making note of some fnery that
she intended to wear at the next party or
church festival, or was taking down the
date of an engagement she had made for
q boat ride or dance, bitterly contrasting
her life of pleasure with the heavy bur
den of care and perplexity that had de-
scended upon him: Yet few seconds
later there had been q moment, q strange.