Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-11-22

sion and spent year in training for
the platform.
Then her beauty and fine bearing Sc
cured her an engagement from al
bureau. She appeared before the stu
dents of woman's college on Higher
Culture for Women" Miss Mary
Leonard, NJ D., lecturer, met chilling
reception. She resolved, after two or
three frosty interviews with an indif-
ferent audience, to change her theme,
and go into the field for herself. So at
an expense of more than $500 Mary
landed in Michigan city with her
lecture on Mission Work in Alaska.
The lecturer discoursed weakly.
After restless two hours, the audi
ence departed, leaving Mary to count
the receipts of the evening-les than
81.
Far away now seemed the career"
Mary Leonard took the morning train
| for home and the farm with it's rest
and quiet.
There the hearth fires seemed to-
burn brighter, the old days seemed
dearer. How disappointing the world
was, and how she missed faithful,
| patient, homely John. Often and often
she would have written if she had
dared. She had other offers of mar
riage and refused them. From IN
difference to home she had awakened,
and now she began to dabble in fancy
work, to paint PLAQUES and make
tides, to play at cooking with chat
ing dish, to visit the sick, and so time
rolled on till Mary had completed her
twenty-fifth year-a new woman who
loved home and wanted one of her
own.
One day a rumor came to Mary's
ears that John had enlisted and gone
to fight in the Philippines; her soul
cried out against woman's limita-
tions. What had she done but drive
him to death in a strange country?
Why might she not call him, now that
she knew her own heart? But no, it
is not the way of the world, nor the
course for proud woman. She took
to reading news from Manila, with
| feverish interest-every scrap of war
news, every line from a soldier out
therefor so she might hear from
John. Of course, he would die, she
thought.
He had gone to fling his life away.
to forget
From the wild desire for news from
the soldiers, Mary passed into a state
of frenzy. She. subscribed to some of
the great city dalies, and every even
ing her handsome carriage could be
seen on the way to the village news
stand. And every day she scanned
"Otis list of casualties with kind of
terror lest she find there what she
sought
1t came at last. Riding slowly home
in the dusk she read: KILLED, John
Stewart, Fourth cavalry, from Tacoma,
Wash" The paper fell from nerve
less, icy fingers. Her grief was ter
rible; yet not even to her mother
would she go in her despair. For
have killed him. was her constant
moan
She went no more for the mail, took
no further interest in news from the
Philippines. But when a few days,
had passed, she rallied from the shock
to think of his father and mother.
One evening a sorrowful letter float
ed into Johns western home. Johns
mother read it at the tea table. 1t
read:
Dear Father and M.ther-For Il
shall always thing of you now as my
own father and mother | have just
read the terrible news Of Johns death
away in the Philippines. And though
| know you can never forgive me and
love me as you once did. want you to
Johns mother looked at him over
her spectacles when she had finished
reading it. His face was scarlet; but
neither of them spoke. His mother
understood it, though, when John took
his first vacation in five years. He
said he was going back to his old
home. He wanted to see the old place
and Mt. Shawangum. and be boy
again among the Eastern SHOWS.
let me be something to you now,
though am so unworthy. And oh! |
want you to know how much | really
loved John, and that never realized it
till now, when | have lost him; and
how lonely and unhappy shall always
be; and how sincere my desire is to |
undo the past and come to you and
share your lifelong sorrow. Your own,
Mary Leonard.
The late train brought a traveller to |
Ulsterville one evening few days
later. He was tall and handsome and
prosperous looking. He seemed not
to care for old Shawangum now nor
the old home place. He waited for no |
friend or conveyance, but took his
way to the Leonard home with long.
swinging steps, thinking OF the old
days and Others yet to come He
asked for Mrs. Leonard first. lest he |
thrust his living presence too abruptly /
into this comfortable home. He was
supposed to be lying dead in the rice
fields OF Panay.
1t was well enough that Mary's
mother warned her. The thought OF
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