Willmar tribune., 1900-05-30

played with his brass buttons-how
plainly she saw that! Was it the daz-
zlc of it in her eyes that made them
water? Diantha Berry was old-if 60
years is old-and lonely and grim.
There had been few shadows-or sun
fashes-in her life. Little Benjie had
been more to her than, in her heart,
she would confess. He had been to her
almost what her own son might have,
been.
She sat back in her chair now, rock
ing iercely, and remembered many
things. Little ,Benjie was in them all.
They filed before her mind in steady,
relentless succession-the time when
Little Benjie put on his first bits of
trousers and stumped across the yard
to show her the pockets in them-the
time when he first went to school and
she tucked pair of his beloved straw
berry tarts, unnoticed, into his lunch
basket, for a surprise-and the time
Diantha Berry drew in her breath
sharply, with the pain of remember
ing--the time when, i1f>:his brave SOL
dier clothes, he marched away to war,
to the tune of the "Red, White and
Blue" That memory hurt her. She
wondered, in dull misery, if mothers
could feel worse than that. If Little
Benjie's mother-but she would not
finish that thought out. Her thin
lips clenched. What had she to do
with Little Benjie's mother? It was
only Little Benjie that mattered to
her.
''But I'd pity her-I'd do that, if
'twarn't for the way she treated me
when they brought home Benjie's body.
I'd have forgot all the rest then
wasn't ready to? Wasn't I the first
one to give in? Do you suppose I'd
have let miserable little quarrel
STAN between us then, when Little Ben.
jie lay dead in the house? But Leah
felt different. She wouldn't make up
even then-then! If 'twarn't for that,
I'd pity her, settin' acrost there, all
alone. I'd be sorry for the mother o.
Little Benjie. I'd 90 acrost and see how
her rheumatism was, and I'd run down
the street where the bands practicin'
and make 'em stop goin' over that tune
of Little Benjie's. I'll tell 'em to have
pity-it hurts his mother so to hear
it.. But now"
She turned the pages of the diary
in her hand, searching for something.
It was not thereof course not! 1t
was in the next little book further
along in the rom. She took it down and
found the page she wanted, .:...>..;.
"They brought little Benjie home,
dead, to-day. Little Benjie dead! I
saw 'em take the box out of the hearse
and carry it in to Leah-poor Leah!
My heart is achin for her. She's feelin'
the way would have if they'd brought
my boy home to me dead, wearin' his
worn-out soldier clothes. I know how
Leah feels-poor Leah! I'm goin'
acrost. to comfort her-I've got to, I
can't helpsit. You wouldn't expect a
quarrel to hold good when Little Ben
5,jie was layin' dead?''
The next days entry was short
enough. Hurt pride and sensitiveness
lurked between the lines of it. s..
81 couldn't make up my mind to 60,
5uninvited, and so F KEEP waitin' for
Leah to send acrost for me. I made
certain she would, but when she
didn't, even then couldn't give it
up. I was SO sorry for Leah, and
my heart was SO sore to look at Lit
tie Benjie's face again. Is couldn't
stan it, SO . wrote note to Leah,
askin' IS i could come IL she'd for
get the quarrel as I would, and let
JUS Begin again beside Little Benjie.
oh, the Lo1d in Heaven knows j tried
TO say. it right! He knows SI warn't
[suppishi aSmite, nor any thing but hllm.
|sble ana sorrowin' said Forgive
me, Leah, and not 81 word about
forgiyin' her not "a word, though
me began the quarrel. Well,
= sent the note acrost By Mis- Dag.