The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1895-04-23
THE AFTERMATH OF WAR.
ILLUMINATING ON THE HARDSHIPS
OF THE PAST.

The Advent of Spring Recalls the
scenes of 1S85-Experienccs of The
Arp Family in Going Home After
+ the Surrender.
| was Illuminating about the return Of
spring.
1t is Il blessed pleasure to sit in the
piazza and look upon nature that
is now budding into beauty and put
ting on her pantaletts AID decking
herself with flowers like q May queen.
Natures beauty costs nothing, and is
the loveliest of all. like things that
cost n~Othing-nO money, no labor nor
toil-hut my wife likes some that re-
quire work and there's nobody here
put me. She says that nature can't
put On new clothes until the old one
arc removed, and so | have to rake up
tee leaves aid trash and haul them of
in a wheel barrow and the flower beds
a to be renewed and rcfertiliZed and
the old vines torn down from the ire
lisses and the bulbs and vcrbcnas and
geraniums brought out of the green
houses and reset in their beds. When
| get tired she says ] may swap work
by digging in the garden, and so she
manages to keep me busy, and all I get
Is u little praise now and then. If il
wasn't for her [ don't reckon | would
do much of anything but sit around
and ruminate.
I've got u beautiful! garden and am
proud OF 1T, for | I'm u horny-handed
son of toll. have eight long rows OF
Strawberries that are full of fruit. We
Thought it was enough last night to
make IL frost, and SO to " my beans
my daughter pasted u lot of newspa-
pers together in q long roll and then /
unrOlled 1t oven the beun rows and
fastened 1t down with a few stones and
told the weather to frost il it wanted
to. Newspapers are as good as a
blanket. and 1T takes but IL little while
to paste them together. My wife says
| am u good worker when / get at it
That's all she says, but / know what
she means.
We wero both Illuminating about
spring and the time TO decorate the
graves, and about tho anniversary Of
surrender, for about this time thirty
years ago there was trouble in this
country-this Southern country. The
war WAS over, but there vas not very
much euce. There was more fear
than peaco-fear OF lawlessness al
homo n oppression from our con.
qucr0rs. And there was IL fear of suf.
feriDg, for there was but little corr
n no meat from the last years crop,
There were widows and children mi
over the land. bat there were no cattle,
no sheep, nor hogs, and but u few
chickens. The returning soldiers
brought back some sorc-back mules,
u there was nothing to feed them On.
While tho Northern soldiers went
home in triumph, singing songs OF vic.
tory about marching through Georgia,
the Georgia boys were browsing The
mules ON the coming grass and digging
up their old pillow stocks and patching
the gear with hickory bark. But the
long war was over, and that was
enough. The boys had got back 10
nome and ireside and said they could
eat roots and drink branch water and
be happy. Not all the boys had got
back, for there were thousands in Fed
eral prisons and it took time and red
tape to release them. After they
were discharged 1T took time and
charity to get them home, for they had
no money and had to beg or work their
way: On every road these returning
soldiers came. 1t was q picture too
pig Tor a painter, III else it would have
been painted long ago. THE return
OF the boys la gray" unshaved, un-
washed, unkempt, they plodded along
from day to day, weary and hungry
and fo0tsore, but homeward bound.
most OF them to humble, country cot
tages. where. perhaps, there was ~
mother missing OF q sister or some