The Newtown bee., 1896-06-05

brawnY private, that long-Iimbed, awk~ ward farmer boy, was all the world to her. No future opened to her vision which he did not share. She was 8 com mOnplace little creature, narrow in thought and limited in capacity, but other and greater women have found it all Cf life to love one man.
 Letters came to her from Tennessee now. Martin wrote that it looked as if some fighting would be done very soon that would scatter the rebels and end the war. Then came the fall of Forts Henry and Donclson, and he wrote, with still greater cer' ajnty, that the war waa soon to close. Men better informed than he thought the same then. After that there was marching across country, transpor- tation by boat up the Tennessee, more marching, with rain and mud and cold as features If the travel-all this described in fragmentary :crawls. One of them, dated April 5sb, and written on scrap of paper while he stood in the rain with his c0mpany awaiting orders, said there would he fighting soon, and added {: "HcIe's yellow violet; just found it under bank. Seasons early down here, Were going to beat the rebs out of their boots. Good by"
 This note, and then-silence. There had been a battle; it was Shiloh-bloody Shiloh. On its gory field when the sev- cnth of April dawned, the dead lay in thousand the blue and the gray. On, Shiloh! the Wailing hearts that broke when your victory was won.
 Private Davi7, of Company D, was numbered amor the dead. A c4mrade wrote to Lizzie, telling her that Martin had died like q hero. A part of his rcgi- ment had faced about and retrcated, brob. en in a panic before the Confederates' furious onslaught; but he had remained, had seized the flg from the hand of the fl ciug color bearer and gone on trium- phantly to meet the coming foe. In the thick of the fight he was soeb to fall, ''and, aid the writer, with no art of softenjng cruel truth, ''he was buried in a trench.,'
 To the widow realizing sense of the death did not come. is often so when those ab.cnt from hone are taken; to thcir families they aeem still temporarily absent and likely to return at any hour. She accepted the situation humbIy, un- c0mpIainiugIy. She had no longer 8 keen interest in life, and was without the strength of character to rise above her grief and f".ce herself to accept new in tcrcsts. She 7aa simply an everyday woman, who had loved her husband and continued to love and to think Of hirn day and night, tho he was dead. She sold her farm to Il rich ncighbor, who took advantage Of her ignorance to pay her but half jts value, and she wa9 deprived If large share of the proceeds by a sharper to whom she intru, t"d them for investment. Then che settled down in rh" little town and became a nrighbor- hood drudge She sewcd, nurscG the sick, took care of the new babies, and WIS at the beck and call of any housewife who neeisd her in d"mestc emergencies. The years went on with little variety The WET ended, and aflsirs settled into new grooves. A fl 1od of pro sperity swept over tue coun, y and affected even this quiet town, but made little differe nee in Nj D pvis's piodding, uneventruI ex, istcnce. No one pi.ied her especially, for her lonely and hard working life. She was spoken Of IS 'the widow Day. ;" but she was only one among many widows the war had created, and, ,.as she made no ado ever her woes, no one else thought to do it for her. They had their own troubles to think of. They did say, alorg Ut first. that she didn't take Mart's death very hard. She 'ddn't make no fus7, they said, and they "1owed she w3s 'ruther shaller." Afterward they virtually forgot hi D, and assumed that hc had Hnv the same, But she meyer put off her simple mourning ga1b; her mouth fixed itself in a pathetic little droop; her brown hair faded early. And she would not marry agaIn. Ten years after Shiloh, John Holt, thrifty widow CT, attracted by her quiet industrious ways, sought her as step-mother f"r his children.
 No, Mr Holt," she said, $ can't be your wife. Martin Davis is dead and buried but l can't make him seem dead, nohow; never have, an 1 don't reckon ever can. feel as if he was gone jest on trip; an dream of him O nights, an am always glad when night comes, because them dreams comes, too. I'll go along by myself till the times comes for me to go and meet Martin-but it's long, l0ng?"
 And tben, her self-repression overcome by the sudden compassion in the mans eyes, she bowed her head upon the table and sobbed and wept in the utter aban- donment of a grief which knows no pre- tense.
 John Holt went away thoughtful, and was afterwards heard to say it was a "sing'lAr dispensation O Providence that took man away from wife like that an let other men live whose wives wouldn't a-mourned for him overnight if they'd drownded theirselves."
 More years went, until, one day, Mrs Davis heard of an excursion that filled her patient soul with longing. This was trip by boat to Shiloh battle ground She had never been further from home than to Cincinnati, 50 miles away, where she had gone once when a girl; but she determined to make this journey. It was a great undertaking, and she got ready for it with an excitement such as had not stirred for years. She never thought of