The Press., 1897-04-29
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1897.

and over whom my grandfather and grand | mother grieved as over one of their own. | He went out early in the war as ''nine months man." Serving his term of en- listment he returned to the town, but the life was too hum-drum and he was born soldier He, enlisted for full term, rose rapidly, and in battle brave in his new uniform and proud of it's honestly won shoulder straps, ball ploughed its way through his head. An old townsman stood by him as he fell dying, as he could have wished the soldiers dearest death. Does one suppose that the name of ''Theron" was ever mentioned again in that household other than with tender ness and respect. And he was only a boy when he shed his life's blood.
 Once in a while hero would float back lough, and one day one of the old school boys came back wounded. It was not much of wound, a finger shot, or shot off, but the bullet might have sped to his heart. How he was lionized by his school mates and by his house full of sisters. There came about the same time one who had been an officer in the rebel army.
 We small boys would look at his hands, sanguinary, we did not doubt, with Yankee gore, and sure that that right hand had
 yielded the sword that split many a northerner to the chine. And we abhor- red him accordingly.
 There was an incipient riot in that school one day in my time as a pupil,
 which was in war time. The master, or
 teacher" as he was always called, must
 be able in those days to enforce his argu-
 ments, if need be, by force of muscle. He
 must be able, as the frontiersmen say, to
 "back his judgment" A dozen or 15 of
 the largest boys put him to the test one
 day by going skating and coming to school
 in body and an hour late. Their plan
 of campaign was all made who was to
 lead the assault when punishment was at
 tempted; who was to bring up re-enforce-
 ments, etc.? The young man who was to
 lead the assault did his part according to
 program, but the sight of him the next
 second lying on his back on the platform
 and at the opposite end of the platform
 from where he had stood second before,
 as the result of back handed sweep ot
 the masters open hand put a damper on the festivities, and the remainder of the malcontents took their thrashings most
 ingloriously. One only: jumped from the window and ran home. A few months later, however, he did not run from the rebel bullets and was shot through the
 head. His body lies in the old cemetery , within sight of the window from which he , son of his mother, and she a widow He, too, had served his country, but hat 3 come safely home to die shortly after O
 a fever. Two others, at least, of thu - boys of that uprising lie in the old oeme tery. One of them died in the house O ? other an honorable, upright citizen, ant v an accomplished workman, was fatall, 3 crushed few years ago by heavy piec 8 of machinery.
 8 But few months ago at a gathering ] in the little town on the green but fey feet from the old school house, met fo l the first time in a quarter of a century thu one chosen on that memorable day t.
 lead the assault. Neither one of us a 3 first knew the other, but when recogni 8 tion was mutual he at once adverted t, l the affair. Did he say it served th | lc ri P, 3 is still 'sore' because he was not properl.. f ''backed up," still claims with Whittie a that the saddest of all words are : 'I , might have been."
 g People-some people-say l talk to- 8 much of friends who are dead. They ar s not dead to me, only the tenemeuts il a which they lived for little time in thi y part of life have fallen into decay. Tn
 words that they said, the deeds they did e the touch of the hand, the glint of tn 0 eye, the tones of the voice, the laugh - these all live. Years and years ago, ,whe d my own years were very few, I recal going to this hilltop cemetery in a drivin e snowstorm and looking awestruck, scarce d ly knowing what death meant as tn e bright, sweet little 3-year-old daughter C s my uncle's household, the darling, tn @ baby of the house was laid away, snatche t away after but 8 days illness. Ther @ came time years later when our ow n house was made desolate. "She woul n be 30 years old," said the mother of tn d baby of the little one who had died froI @ her, as she put her hand in condolence o y my shoulder, land I can feel her littl IS warm arms around my neck now?" Th 1t baby to her is not dead, is not ofte 3, absent.
 It is said, too, that I cannot get m ,s thoughts away from the little town anon IS the hills and lodges. When one kne l. and loved every rock and bush, knew tn n flavor of every black birch tree, and tn Is locality of every wild grape vine; th W idyosyncrasies of every knarled old pa y ture chestnut-such trees are almost h, ,r man-knew the only places where hig
 huckleberries, or sweet flag, or winte Id greens, or trailing arbutus could h a found; lived for a brief but happy tim ,s in little world of the kind, where almos ,e every inanimate object was like huma 10 friend, why, pray teIl," should l tire | C itP Perhans what knew so well an a loved so we'll may be worth the readin -e of some one may touch a sympathet ,e chord in the bosom of some one-tim Id country boy or country girl, who remen v. bers with affection some other ''little re = school house." ERNEST H. MORGAN.
 w. C. T. U.
 Conservatism.
 eox, &o Abaa -slo %ho,,