Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1893-05-17

that pestered her "They are going to put
the at the plow," she thought. TIT Is long
time since / did work Of any kind-noth-
ing, In fact, since Petit-Poulain was born.
Poor Petit-Poulain will miss me, but will
soon return" With these thoughts she
turned her head fondly and caressed her
pretty colt.
The colt must be tied in the stall, or he
will follow her." So said the cavalrymen.
! They threw a rope about his neck and made
him fast in the stable. Petit-Poulain was
very much surprised, and he demonstrated
vainly with his fierce little heels.
They put halter upon old Felice. JUS
tine, the farmers wife, met them in the
yard and reproached them wildly In French.
They laughed boisterously and answered
her In German. Then they rode away, lead
| ing old t'eiice, who kept turning her head
and whinnying pathetically, for she was
thinking Of Petit-Poulain.
OF peace know and can speak-of peace,
with It's solace Of love. plenty, honor, fame,
happiness, and its pathetic tragedy of pow
erty, heartache, disappointment, tears, be
reavement OF war | know nothing and
never shall know. 1t IS not in my heart or
for my hand to break that law which God
enjoined from Sinai and Christ confirmed
In Galilee. do not know Of war, nor can
tell you of that battle which men with
immortal souls fought one glorious day in
q fertile country with vineyard hills all
round about. But when night fell there
was desolation everywhere and death. The
Eden was wilderness; the winding river
was choked with mangled corpses; shell
and shot had moved down the acres Of way
ing grain, the exuberant orchards, the gar
dens and the hedgerows; black, charred
ruins, gaunt and ghostlike, marked the
spots where homes had stood. The vines
had been cut and torn away, and the de
spoiled hills seemed to crouch down like
bereaved mothers under the pitiless gaze Of
the myriad eyes Of heaven.
The victors went their way; n greater tri-
umph was in store for them; a mighty cap
ital was TO be besieged more homes were
to be desolated, more bloodshed, more
hearts broken. So the victors went their
way, their hands red and their immortal
souls elated.
In the early dawn n horse came galloping
homeward 1t Is Felice, old Felice, rider
less splashed with mud, wild eyed, sore
with fatiguel Feice Felice, what horrors
hast thou not seem If thou couldst speak,
If that tongue Of thine could be loosed,
what would it say Of those who, forgetful
Of their souls, sink lower than the soulless
brutes Better il is thou canst not speak;
the anguish in thine eyes, the despair in thy
honest heart, the fear, the awful fear in
thy mother breast-what tongue could ut
ter theml
Adown the road she galloped-the same
road she had trayersed, perhaps, II thou
sand times before, yet II was 50 changed
now she hardly knew it. Twenty-four
hours had ruthlessly leveled the noble trees,
the hedgcrows and the fields of grain.
Twenty-four hours Of battle had done all
this and more. In all those ghastly hours,
one thought had haunted teiice, one
thought alOne-thc thought Of Petition
lain She pictured him tied in that far
away stall, wondering why she did not
come. He was hungry, she knew; her dugs
were full Of milk and they panied her; how
sweet would be her relief when her Petit
! Poulain broke his long fast. Petit poulaiu,
I Petit Poulain, Petit-Poulain-this single
thought and this alone had old Feice
throughout those hours of battle and Of hor-
ror
Could this have been the farmhousef IL
was ruin now. Shells had torn it apart.
Where was the good master, Jacquesf Had
he gone with the cure TO the defense Of the
town. And Justine-where was shef Bull
lets had cut away the rose trees and the
smoke bush. The garden was no more
The havoc, the desOlation was complete.
The cote which had surmounted pole
around which an ivy twined had been swept
away. The pigeons now circled here and
there bewildered, wondering perhaps why
Justine did not come and call to them and
feed them
To this scared, SCARED spot came old
Felice He that had ridden her into battle
lay with his face downward near those dis
tant vineyard hills. His blood had stained
Felice's neck. A bullet had grazed her
flank, but that was slight wound-rider-
less, she turned and came from the battle
field and sought her Petit-Poulain once
again.
Hard by the ruins Of cottage, Of garden
and Of cote she came up standing. She
was steaming and breathless She rolled
her eyes wildly around-she looked for the
stable where she had left Petit PoulaiH.
She trembled as if an overwhelming ap-
prehension Of disaster suddenly POSSESSED
her. She gave whinny, pathetic IN its
tenderness. She was calling Petit-Poulain.
But there was no answer.
Petit-Poulain lay dead in the ruins Of the
stable. His shelter had not escaped the
fury Of the battle. He could not run away,
for they had tied him fast when they
carried his old mother off. So now he lay
amid that debris, his eyes half open in
death and his legs stretched out stark and
stiff
And old Felice-her udder bursting with
the maternal grace he never again should
know, and her heart breaking with the
agony of sudden aud awful bereavement
she staggered as if blinded by despair
toward that vestige Of her love, and bent
over him and caressed her Petit PouIain.-
Eugene Field in Chicago News-Record.
The Kahunas Of the Sandwich Islands.
Much has been written and said lately Of