The Southern herald., 1899-09-01
VISITS THE OLD HOME
Bill ARP Tells HOw His Wife Took
Vacation.
she Had Pleasant Times with Old
FrIends-But Hurries Home On
Hearing Mr.. Arp IL IIl-MOre
NOrthern ISLANDERS.

Ny wife, Mrs. Arp, hadn't been away
from home for two years. 1t is said
that a setting hen never gets fat, but
these human hens do. and SO the girls
thought their mother ought to rouse up
and go somewhere and take a rest. II
was a great undertaking to get her off.
Il took a whole week to get her apparel
in first-class condition, for she wasn't
raised on common clothes and won't
wear them now especially when she
goes abroad or TO church. We finally
got her off, though the train liked to
have left her while she was saying good
by and kissing all the little grandchil-
dren. One of the girls went with her,
but | was to scatter around at home.
Two weeks was the time she gave her
self, for she says that is us long as any
body ought TO stay anywhere on visit,
for sometimes folks wear out their
welcome and don't know IL. In fact one
week is the fast. She went TO Rome,
where our oldest boy and bis family
live and where she lived for % years.
Some OF her early friends are still there
and they came TO see her, OF course, and
talked about the dear old times till
their eyes got teary and they drew their
chairs a little closer and were merry
and sad by turns as they talked Of the
living and the dead. On Sunday she
went to our same old church and sat
in the same old pew aud drank in music
from the same old organ, but the
preacher and the choir were changed.
After service she was forced to hold a
reception in the vestibule, where old
friends and their children and grand
children gathered around her, the
friends TO greet her and their children
to look upon the matron Of the olden
time of whom they had heard. Yet this
wonderful woman who so gently dom.
mated her lord and master and kept
him SO sweetly subdued thathe liked the
subjugation.
She spent delightful week and the
programme for another was already ar
ranged when on Saturday some bird Of
the air told her that was sick and she
could hardly wait for the evening train.
had been sick, very sick, but the crisis
had passed and for fear she might hear
it and cut short her stay wrote her
that was getting well and to finish her
rest. She is not that kind Of woman
or wife, and, sure enough, about six p.
IN. | happened TO look out of the win
dow and saw her coming up the lawn
like she feared | would die before she
got here. Then had to tell her as how
| was taken down on Wednesday for my
same old kidneys got belligerent again
and wrestled with me and threwme and
| had vertigo and lumbago and embar-
go and my eyeballs ached and how the
doctor treated me heroically and scan
dalously and dosed me with something
every two hours-all different-and no.
body can tell what cured me.
But all's we'll that ends we'll and now
| am in for another lease. OF course an
old wagon will break down ever and
anon and has to be patched up and kept
creased, or it can't go. BY and by 1t
will all collapse and turn to dust IKE
the one-hoss shay.
And now here comes the Philadelphia
Record just TO disturb my tranquility
and aggravate me into using more lam
guage on those Yankee editors. have
already used up all my ndjectives on
Boston and never dreamed | would
need any for the Quaker City. The
Record pretends to be a democratic
paper, but it has got whole column
about the Andersonvlle prison and its
horrors, which it says have created
sentiment that will last as long as
time, and how the poor creatures were
shot down like dogs and starved, and
had TO dig wells 25 feet deep with their
hands and scraps of shells in vain
effort TO get water to drink, etc. Well,
it is awful TO read, but would like to
know where those shells came from
must have fed the boys on oysters.
Yes, Blaine charged all those hor-
rors upon us in terrible speech, and
Ben Hill replied to him in one of the
greatest speeches Of his life and re-
futed every charge and did 1t from the
war records and proved to the world
that Grant and Stanton and Lincoln
were responsible for every death and
all the distress that occurred at An
dersonville. They utterly refused to
exchange prisoners with us when i'm
portuned TO do so for the sake of hu-
manity, for Grant said that our men
in northern prisons would go back to
fighting again. We begged them to
send us rations and medicine for their
men and told them that both might
be distributed by their own officers and
surgeons. They refused this and, of
course, their men died like sheep, for
we had no medicines and our rations
were corn meal and salt pork. But
those prisoners had just what their
guards had. Ask the guards who still
live. Ask Capt. Hudson, of Marietta,
one of the best of men, and he will tell
you that the prisoners had everything
that he did and there was no inhu-
manity, but pity and sorrow for them
and Indignation at the heartlessness of
their government. Read Percy Gregg's
chapter on this Andersonville and you
will wonder that such indifference TO
the misery Of their own soldiers could
be found in an9 government upon
earth. Mr.. Gregg declares that If the
great powers Of Europe had known ii
they would have been horror struck
that the authorities in Washington
were really the murderers Of their own