The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1899-03-08
AN INCIDENT
OF VICTORY

she was sitting on the piazza Wnefi
the news came TO her.
The Marechal Neil roses were bloom
ing; knocking bird was turning every
other birds talent into insignificsnce.
The little colored girl brought her a
morning paper and laid it down on her
lap and sat down at her feet to sort the
stockings in her work basket.
Mrs. Rivers read the editorials, then
turned to the war news. The headlines
looked quiet, and down the column
were the names of two more identified
dead bodies; only regulars. S. p. Riv-
ers, private, was one of the names, fol-
lowed by the company and regiment
numbers. 1t was her only son.
She laid the paper down in her lap
and sat looking over the strsggly grass
in the yard, over which the great bulky
magnolia trees threw their dark shad-
Ows.
The mocking bird was now singing a
luxurious contralto- solo, having finish
ed initiating amateurs; the little darky
at her feet was thrusting hHr fingers
into the stockings and humnIipg a
tune. From the kitchen fioated out a
folk-song, which the cook was singing.
Mrs. Rivers caught herself thinking
of this tune and remembered she had
resd somewhere that persons often pay
the greatest attention to trides around
them when a mental blow has struck
them like club.
She remembered thinking how i'm
possible negro's beautiful tones are to
initiate; how it was claimed that the
reason for Melba's great magnetism
came from her being the only singer
who could strike the exact shade of
sound that negro could; then she had
wondered where she bad read that.
How wonderfully the cook was sing
ing; from what ancestry did she inherit
that hypnotic middle of the note? 1t
was especially noticeable when she
sang that minor refrain: ''Chariot Of
the Lord Rolling On"
Her mind then took up the thread of
her boys childhood, and she realized
how her heart had aehed through all
those early misdemeanors of his; Of
that first awful fear-swakening that
probably her boy was not morally res
ponsible; that what she had forced her
self TO accept as childish indiscretions
were growing into settled immOralitiesi
She had prayed to God with elenched
hands night after night that such would
not be the case; that the boy would
prove himself as much of man as his
father.
The father had never seen this child;
it was born while he was in the army
of the Potomac just as he was going
into battle, and all he could do was to
write his prayer that should death come
to him while he wore the gray the boy
might grow up to be son, protector and
guide TO his mother.
Death touched the father with honor.
Men cheered him as he fell and wept
when they dragged his riddled body off
the battlefield. Dying, he carved his
name high among the States heroes,
where men said be would have placed
it even bad he lived and never fought
with a musket.
She thought of that first serious troub-
lie the boy had brought home, and how
she had spent her savings that the
townspeople might not hear of it, how
she had schemed and planned to bear
her grief over him alone, so she would
have no pity shown her. She was too
proud for pity.
She grew to shrink from the newspa-
pers, fearing she might see his name in
great letters staring at her from the
headlines, doing-she dared not think
what. She wondered how the other
mothers stood their cbildren's immor-
alities with such equanimi.y. going
among their friends as if all were we'll
A loud ring at the door always made
her nerves thrill until they ached.
And now he was dead.
For the first time she saw his name
in print, but the letters were small and
the people on the staff Of the paper
didn't seem to know that this was
Jack Rivers, Of their own town.
She was right in that surInise; the
D sople on the paper didn't know they
hardly knew there was a Mrs. Rivers
in that town. They were of newer
generation, and even the older towns
people never knew why this woman
had grown SO old and bowed and silent
at 50. Few visitors came TO the little,
old, rambling house; she rarely went
out except 20 church on Sunday morn
ing. She was woman without conf
dants; her sorrow had so absorbed her
that she would have been astonished TO
know that half the people in the town
never remembered Jacks misdoings
very keenly; the world was too swift,
too full Of worse men than be.
There were few stauneh old friends
whose hearts yearned with sympathy
for this proud broken woman, but they
respected her tremendous struggle too
keenly TO worry her with the subject of
her sorrow, and nothing they could
have said would have convinced her
that she would not be pitied if she
went out into the world.
She had grown seIfcentered with alb
sorbing one subject, as persons are apt
to do If they allow their lives to become