The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1900-09-20
RIDING OVER THE vELDT.

Wilhelmina, and Mrs Van Aarndt and
her sisters were often playmates of
the present queen of Holland.
The brave little Dutch woman relates
some of her experiences in the war
as follows:
1--WE were at Interlachen when we
first heard that war was certain. We
were all together incognito-the queen,
her mother, my sister and my husband.
] had been married only few months,
and was very, very happy.
Zone morning while we were playing
tennis telegram was handed to my
husband. He requested permission of
the queen to go and send a reply, and
one of the other men took his place
in the game. As soon as / could hur-
ried away and into the hotel and found
my husband throwing some things in
great hurry into a travelling bag.
INSTANTLY 1 realized what the tele-
gram meant.
81 am going, too said, for it was
suddenly made perfectly clear to me
without my being told, that Piet was
going home, and that the war had be-
gun"
After reaching their home in South
Africa, Mr.. Van Aarndt offered his
services to President Kruger, who sent
him on to Cronje. Mrs. Van Aarndt
stayed for time in Pretoria, and then
went to her farm on the border between
Cape Colony and the Orange Free State.
1t was one Sunday morning that she
heard the coming of the British SOL
diers who stopped at her place for a
rest of five hours, as they told her, aft
er taking the breakfast from the stove
that the maids were preparing. Very
quickly the bright little woman real
lied that they were planning a sur
prise for the Boer soldiers, and she
racbed her brain with the thought:
How can get them word?" Pretend
ing to go to the milkhouse to get a
drink for one of the officers, she man
aged to secure a saddle, fastened it on
horse and was Soon speeding away
with her message, never stopping I'M
til she had carried the warning to Gen.
Cronje.
Mrs. Van Aarndt remained among
the fighting Beers until after the death
of her husband.
"One day." she recounts, 81 saw three
men carrying a figure so familiar to
me that at sight of it my heart almost
stopped beating.
1.-The dying comrade that they bore
was my husband.
HE was quite unconscious. He had
been cut by lyddite shell and his skin
was all bright yellow, and could
see the blood dripping from his hand,
which was hanging down. l started
to run to him, but stronger arms
pushed me back into the trench Just
as a shell struck, and then wagon
famed up.
1--WE made room and they brought
my husband to our trench. He was
still unconscious, and we were afraid
how it would be when he saw me, for
he did not know / was with the army.
But when he opened his eyes he was
not at all surprised that | was with
him, and did not ask how l had come
there until afterwards.
AT night carried water, which was
the only comfort he had. The heat
was so terrible that we could have
done without anything better than the
water.
'The shells we're bursting out in the
camp every minute, but we were used
to them, even when they burst on the
very edge of our trench and, ratified the
sand down.
1--WE knew these were the last hours
we could ever have together, for the
British were coming nearer and the
firing was stronger.
"Oh, how / prayed that he might
pass away from it all before the end!
But we were neither of us sorry we
had not stayed in Holland.
"The horses which had brought us