The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-05-30
TRIBUTG TO The FLAG


They could get work in the quarry over
the hill, and. when she was too cd.
one of them could help her with the
milk.
Odd, simple dream Of rest and CON
tent! Only to leave off trudging up the
rough hillsides where the cart could rot
So-OnIy to drudge a little less bitterly
IN old age than she had done in youth
10 sit in the sun sometimes and stare al
the blue sky, and the sea, and be az
peace-what little thing it seems! Wh1
would think that so humble an ambition
could never be realized?
remember always. when I think of
her, the senseless husband staring az us
with unmeaning eyes-the two children
on the earthen floor playing with the
tin trumpet.
pet
have seen her many times since then.
l nave seen her driving down to the lit
tie station in the cool fresh MORNING
with the milk bottles in shining rows
oehlnd her; or trudging up the narrow
winding path. beset with dancing cicai5s
ana SHINING black bees, and here and ther4.
py glorious swallow-tailed butterflies. like
names OF brocaded gold Sometimes
nave seen her digging in the valley be
low Where the melons lie yellow in the
SUM- and thyme and southernwood grow
as weeds beside the way. Bur. wberaver.
ana whenever have seen her, she has al
ways been at work, and alone.
one always wears the same dresser
one iIAe lt-laded to the color of the brown
edrth. Ihe straw of her wide. hapDino
nat Is burned to the same tint. She is
srayer now than when l first saw her
ana her face is sCOrChed and vriDl<red
mr. Of
ana the vacant husband still ATS i'm m
novel on the hill, like a grim. speechless
vampire sucking the poor fruit of her la
Dor. --'i 10
But the tin trumpet hes hung on the
wall for many a year
4hey went out, those little pfckers of
zanplSnans and figs, into the world be-
yond the sunny herb-scented Esterel The
elder released from his service driftad
away into other paths-going in the end
oI course. to swell the runiauism of lowest
FarlS' The younger same back, broken
GOWN by fever, poisoned by the deadly
IhlaSma OF some pestilentiaI African
Iharsh-back TO the mother whom he was
TO help and the little bare hut on the hill
side.
Neither Of these two men had ever
struck blow a an enemy. Neither had
n1ted finger in the defense of his coun-
try. Yet both were to die for it-oue Years
later by the hand of the executi1uer-oue
only today, in the grip of disease.
For the last act in this humble drama
ended today. AS l came through the lone
~ rough road leading through the forest
to st. Raphael, only an hour ago, 1 heard
the cracking of whip in the stiffness
and the rumble of wheels Presently one
Of the great stone carts of the quarry
came in sight, rocking stormily among the
ruts and drawn by Il couple Of mules. and
l looked up in sudden surprise for upon
the high seat holding the reins I'm her
motionless hands, sat my old milkwoman
of the hill.
Her face was still and gray and impas-
SlVe as stone under the shadow Of the
faded hat Her bent brown figure hardly
moved to the jolting of the cart Her
eyes, staring past me, had the look IF
some dumb beast Of burden which has
been gOaded beyond even despair
Three or four quarrymen ran beside the
cart with whips in their hands urging
the mules on with an occasional cut and
resonant Italian curse, and in the cart
lay a coffin, over which some one had
flung the dingy French flag from the door
of the dirty little cafe-ht covering for
soldier of France, whose life had been
offered up on the altar Of his country
folly
1 stood aside and the strange procession
swept past me. There was something in
finitely savage and barbaric about it
infinitely savage, but Infinitely sad. The
big, black mules, with their hish-peaked
collars, the shape of which had perhaps
never changed since the days of the Sara
cens-the brass laurel wTeaths worked
upon the leather trappings dim survival5
Of Roman cOnquests; the running men.
with their dark unmOved faces and their
brutal EXPLANATIONS, and, high above all
the jaded, motonless figure, sitting alone
with its desolation and despair. and be
hind it the rough coffin, covered with a
flag, torn by the fingers of playing chill
dren and despatched, not with blood. but
with wine.
And yet France laughs at those who
speak to her Of peace and the trumpet
calls from the empty fields those whose
labor it should be to make fruitful this
fertile desert-calls them to useless de
structiOn before the altar Of that national
vanity which Is miscalled Glory.
LA France-la GIoire-Ie Drapeaui"
They are fine words these But to that
gray old woman left alone upon her hill
side. France is only a dim terrible thing
to which her children have been sacrificed
in vain. Glory is but another name for
Death, and the flag is that battered tri-
color before the cafe door, which has lain,
into a sad unspollen epitaph, above the
wreck of all her simple hopes, and the
ruin of a broken life.