The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-07-19
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Bill Tells About fills Wire's Departure
from Home.
atlanta Constitution.

My wife, Mrs. Arp, hadn't been away
from home. for two years. 1t is said
that setting hen never gets fat, but
these human hens do, and 80 the girls
thought their mother ought to rouse
up and go somewhere and take a rest.
1t was great undertaking to get her
of. 1t took 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 final
ly got her off, though the train liked to
have left her while she was saying
go0d-bye and kissing all the little
g. ndchildren. One of the girls went
w..a her, but was to scatter around
at home. Two weeks was the time she
gave herself, for she says that is as
long as anybody ought to stay any
where on visit, for sometimes folks
wear out their welcome and don't know
it. In fact one week is the safest. She
went to Rome, where our oldest boy
and his family live and where she lived
for twenty seven years. Some OF her
early friends are still there and they
came to see her, Of course, and talked
about the dear old times until their
eyes got teary and they drew their
chairs 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 and drank in music
from the same old organ, but the
preacher and the choir were changed.
After service she was forced to hold
q reception in the vcstibule, 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. Yes,
this wonderful woman who so gently
dominated her lord and master and
kept him so sweetly subdued that he
liked the subjugation.
She spent a delightful week and the
programme for another was already
arranged when on Saturday some bird
OF the air told her that was sick and
she could hardly wait for the evening
train. l had been sick, but the crisis
had passed and for fear she might hear
1t and cut short her stay wrote her
that was getting we'll and to finish
her rest. She is not that kind OF
woman or wife, and sure enough about
p. m. happened to look out of the
window and saw her coming up the
lawn like she feared would die before
she got here. Then had to tell her
as how l was taken down On Wednes-
day FOR NY sanle oiG kidneys got
belligerent again and wrestled with
me and threw me and had vertigo
and lumbago and embargo and my eye
balls ached and how the doctor treated
me heroically and scandalously and
dosed me with something every two
hours-all differentiated nobody can
tell what cured me.
But all's well that ends we'll, andnow
am In for another lease. OF c1urse
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 NIL collapse and turn to- dust
like the one-hoss shay.
And now here comes the PhiIadeI-
phia Record just to disturb my tran
guilty and aggravate me into using
more language On those yankee editors.
I have already used upall my adjeetives
ON Boston ana never dreamed would
need any for the Quaker CITY. The
Record prete nds to- be democratic
paper, but it has got Whole column
about the Aniersonville prison and it's
horrors, which it says have created
sentiment that will Inst as long as time,
and how the poor creatures were shot
down like dogs and starved, and had to
dig wells twenty five feet deep With
their hands and scraps of shells in a
vain effort to- water o'drink, etc.
Well, it is awful to read, but 1 would
like to'kiow where those shells came
from-must have fed the boys on
oysters.
Yes, Blaine charged all those horrors
upon US in a terrible speech, and Ben
Hill replied to him in one of the great
est speeches of his life and refuted
every charge and did it from the war
records and proved to the world that
GEant and Stanton and Lincoln were
responsible for every death and all the
distress that occurred mt Anderson
vile. They utterly refused to exchange
prisoners with us when importuned to
do. so for the sake of humanity, for
Grant said that our men in northern
prisons wouldlgo back to fighting again.
We begged them to send us rati6ns and
medicine for their men and told them
that both might be distributed by their
own officers and surgeons. They re-
fused this and. of cnnrse, their men
died d'like sheep, for we had no medi-
cines and our own rationS were corn
meal and salt pork. But those prison
ers had just what their guards had.
Ask the guards who still live. Ask
Captain Hudson, of Marietta, one of