The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-05-24

The sun had hidden
behind cloud, and keen blast from
off the great lake swept over the coun-
try like parting taunt from the long,
furious winter that had just taken
leave. A sharp frost had touched the
gardens the night before, and the
meager bounty of bud and blossom
that they yielded for the day seemed
to visibly revive and freshen under
warm, human touch. All things par
took of the influence of the day and
weather. The somber forest that en-
compassed the place took on new dig
nifty and gloom. Houses and fields,
which month before had been robed
in an enchanted mantle of glistening
white, and a month hence would be
gracious with vines and flowers, stood
out upon the landscape in naked ugli-
ness. The men and women who had
gathered to do honor to the memory of
their fallen heroes were wrapped in
sad retrospect, looking again into open
graves, or living over anew that period
of heartbreaking suspense that had
ended in tidings of suffering and death.
Even the veterans who in a grim school
had learned lessons of fortitude and
cheer were singularly depressed, and
forgot the gay jests and badinage with
painful memories.
Aurora and her outlying district had
sent three companies to the war.
Barely dozen men walked in the pro-
cession this day. Some of the sorry
remnant that returned had gone fur
ther west in search of health or for
tune. A few were shut up in their
homes, too weak or too broken to ven
ture out; of those who answered the
roll-can the majority were ailing or in
firm, and mufied to the ears to pro-
pitiate the physical man for the au-
dacity Of the spiritual,
John Sexton was one of the younger
men among the veterans, but he had
stepped to the door that morning,
Viewed the sky and faced the biting
wind, then went to a cedar chest and
took from it a garment that had lain
there undisturbed for many years-a
blue overcoat, soiled and faded, and
with bullet-hole through the right
The procession formed at the head of
the main street, before the old church
in which the memorial services had
been held. There were memories clus-
tering about that old frame church
John Sexton recalled some of them
The first call for recruits had been
made there; the fiery, impetuous
speeches, the rush of youngsters, amid
the cheers of men and the sobs of
women. He had been among the first
to enlist. beardles IS boy with a 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
shyly asked Hetty Plympton to be his
wife some day, and she, half laughing
and half weeping, had told him that
when he came back wearing his epau-
lets she would marry him. And he
had gone away glad and proud, buoyed
mp with hope. The epaulets seemed
50 easy to win, the chances of disaster
or failure so remote. Then there came
the hard discipline of the camp, the
long, forced marches, the carnage Of
battle, the secret night mission. the
rife ball that cut short his military
career.
He recalled how he came back. Her
face had been the first he had seen on
bis return. Descending from the car,
MANNED, feeble, wasted by long sick
ness, his head reeling from the ex-
hsustion of the journey, kind hands as
sisting him to the platform, he had
caught sight of her, standing apart.
pale, silent, her eyes intent upon him
with an expression that he could not
then understand, but that he afterward
construed into a shrinking horror Of
the wreck he had become A crowd
of people had surged in between
them-neighbors, friends, Indifferent
acquaintances, the majority with
hearty words Of sympathy on their
lips; a few moved by idle curiosity to
see how foully the accidents Of fortune
had plundered him. One old woman
whose son had fallen on the battle
field had cried over him in the place Of
his own mother, whose fra1 thread Of
life had snapped in the tension OF the