Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-08-18

You might tell them about the
time you tainted dead away" suggest
ed grandma, with her tender, pensive
smile, as she bent caressingly over his
latest namesake fast asleep in her
| arms.
Yielding to the clamorous entreaties
of more than a dozen young voices,
the veteran slowly proceeded: "You
see. L was Just out of Andersonville,
and little shaky even on an ordinary
occasion, and this was most extraor-
dinary occasion, being the day your
grandma graduated at Holyoke.
81 first enlisted for three months,
full of fight and sure of victory, and L
looked SO fine and tall in my blue
uniforr-, 1 thought I'd go and say
goodbye to DIR. Miller's daughter I
was only common farmer, and she
had another beau, student at Am
herst, but L remembered once at a
party, when she had to choose part
ner, she sel9cted me instead of Jim;
so I thought I'd go and tell her was
off for Dixie in the morning. 1
thought maybe she'd cry little as my
mother did, or say something fine
about my laying down my precious
life for the dear old flag; but she
didn't say much, and 1 didn't stay
long, for Jim was there.
"Martha went with me out to the
gate. L reached out my big, sun
burned hand, and she took it in both
her own and held it quite bit, and
she said; 'Bennie, I'm sorry you're
going to the war; you're too young a
man, and too good man to stand up
and be shot at Then Jim appeared
on the scene, and / went away half
cursing my honest hand for being so
big and SO brown, while Jim's was as
white as a lily with a great flashing
diamond on the smallest of his slender
fingers
'Talk about standing up as target
for bullets; that's nothing at
all compared with lying in prison.
AS the days passed into weeks and the
weeks so long, into months so much
| longer, that lost all count, how many
and many time Hooked at my white,
bony hands and wished they were as
big and as tanned as they used to be,
and when l would have prayed for an
ending of my misery, how well 1 re-
membered that Martha had said / was
too young to die, and the way she
had held my hand still thrilled me, and
kept me alive and out of the clutch of
old Giant Despair, and l said over and
over to myself thousand times, with
grim determination, what DR.. Miller
had so often repeated: While there is
life there is hope, and at last I was
exchanged and discharged. Oh, how
happy | was to be set flee! Ibid not
regain my freedom with sigh, like
the poor prisoner of Chillon, but with
a great Joy that buoyed me up, for the
long, weary journey home, and enabled
me to assist others who were still
weaker.
"When at last the stage set me down
in the familiar village postoifice [ was
so weary and wasted no one seemed to
recognize me, but looked at me in a
plying way | could not understand,
and so [ did not speak to any one, but
staggered down the hill to the old
| luI IiuOuse, trgluS III Ndln 10 scent une
supper or the Glove pinks. / did not
know my precious mother had been
dead almost year, but when reached
the gate L felt the change. 1t hung by
one hinge, and swayed and creaked
with dismal sound that seemed to
me like the groaning of a ghost. 1t
weakened me so that had to rest a
while before going down the long walk
still lined by mothers flower bedsl
but oh, how neglected they looked
AS neared the porch saw red calf
tied to lilac bush, one that my mother
had herself planted on the very day
she was bride, and then L seemed to
know that she was gone. War kills
women as well as men. She thought
her only boy was dead, and she had
nothing to live for-nothing hut an
empty home.
''That was too good house to be
long unoccupied, and DIR. Miller had
rented it to sedy family of foreign.