The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-08-01

these miscreants fell Tommy Barrett, light
hearted Tommy. By them was he driven.
starved bullied, and beaten. A word
meant blow, blow over the head with
nat sabre. or musket barrel perhaps.
Weeks Of agony, of desperation, and of
pain; weeks of mental torture and bodily
SUFFERING; long weeks, 1t seemed, with days
OF deVflish torment and nights of troubled
dreams No shelter save the sky no food
save course and dirty leavings in scanty
quantity; no clothing but rags; no bed
save the ground, wet or dry, until at last
they arrived at prison made by human
devils to faithfully represent working
model of hell
Into this they were thrust with thous-
ands OF others, to lie there and rot and
die
Not light-hearted Tommy Barrett now
Not the gay soldier who had left his moth
er to weep her eyes out with sorrow for
MIN. Nobody would have recognized this
pent and haggard creature as the dear
boy whom his mother loved. She would
not until her maternal instinct had rein
forced her sight Staggering into the
stockade he threw himself upon the ground
a wreck. a shattered fragment of brave
and gallant soldier; disappeared into the
shadow and night of dayless misery for
ever.
And the story of this stockade: Has it
not been told a thousand times? And are
there not now many thousands of silent
witnesses lying in rows, numbered and
registered; and army not yet mustered out !;
but lying speeches. and motionless, in line
OF battle, yet waiting to tell their stories
when the bugle call shall bid them to arise.
What need is there to tell the story over
again. The grave has swallowed the guilty
ana the innocent If the tortured are gone
the torturers have gone with them. If
there are complaints to enter they shall be
entered at the bar of eternal justice; if
there 10 70 ha 10 LAT 1o,,,
be made where absolute scrutiny shall
weigh Them and where neither prevarica-
lions, not subterfuges, nor lying reasons
will avail.
From the memory of the nation all bit
terness because of these things has gone.
The blue and gray clasp hands. and are
united as brethren who would stand Shout
der to shoulder in peril. The flag of the
union is over them all; revered by them all :;
ana loved by the survivors who wore the
tattered blue, as well as by those who
donned the ragged butternut =
Strife has ceased. The night of conflict
Is over, and the fresh dawn of lasting
peace between the sections yet fingers. It
IS 10 blossom into perpetual day.
But IN a cottage, once white, but now
battered and weather beaten, decaying and
railing into ruins there sits an old woman,
wrinkled. with struggling white hair, which
anon she brushes away with long fingers.
her mind is never in the present. She does
not know, nor care about the peace To
her the war is raging and armed men are
rushing together on many fields. In her
ear the cannon shrieks, and she hears the
yell of the charge, and the cry of the
vanquished, and the vanquishing may say
Peace to her, but there is no peace The
gospel of love might be preached to her un-t
I'll the day of doom, but she would not
near 1t. She is waiting for the troops to-
come home for the war to end and for
the ecstacy and joy of the embrace of her
darling Tommy.
She is waiting in the cottage, which her
husband George Barrett, built so many
years ago. Tommy is waiting in line with
the other silent witnesses. But mother and
son are drawing nearer together, and soon
the dear old mother will have her hearts
desire and Tommys head will lie upon his
mothers shoulder. FRANK H. IRONS