St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1900-11-03
Won Beneath the Yellow Flag
BY Prince I. Woods.

A Ii RICHMOND had surrendered to
~ Gen. Humidity and his torrid solar
army The excessive heat had driven
all. but those to whom fate had been
unkind, to shelter from the fiery lances
of old Sol.
At Gray Manse the members of the
family had sought comfort in the cool
er air on the wide, vine-bowered piazza
and the serving people might be
found seeking the same solaee in the
grove back of the cook house. The
evening papers were filled with ac-
counts of victims of the invaders fury
and told of the hospitals filled with
persons overcome by the heat
But Madam Grey and her Daughter
Janet, were more concerned about the
dispatches from Mexico. yellow
Jack" was raging along the gulf coast.
The latest news reported that the vii
lagos along the lula river had been al
most wiped out of existence. The tenn
porary hospitals flying the yellow
flag" at Panuco were overcrowded.
Physicians were not plenty and were
oVerworked; nurses, there were none,
but the natives.
The newspaper correspondent wrote
that no news had been received for two
weeks from the outlying plantations
anc that it was feared that the plant
ers had succumbeo to the yellow
plague.
AS Janet Grey read the dispatches to
her mother her face whitesad and in
the tightening lines about her mouth
Madam Grey thought she read the
birth of some new resolve which no OPP
position could weaken.
Then as the soft moonlight iHumined
the younger woman's face, and in that
pale light there seemed something al
most divine in the inspiration that
shone from within the beng of her
sweet southern beauty, she broke the
silence: Mother must go to him.
The mothers answer came softly, re-
signedly, but with no reproach: AT
once, love. Poor Jack!'' Then two
pairs of hands became as one and the
pale moon peeping between t5e leaves
wondered at two women weeping in
each others arms.
Next morning among the passengers
on the fast express flying swiftly
southwark was a young woman who
might be 25 and whose sweet. sad face.
eontrasted strangely with the air of
eager impatienee which enyeloped her.
A grip at her feet bore the initials y.
c. Sixty miles an hour seemed slow to
Janet.
Five years before Janet GREY, an
only daughter, had been a student in
the New York training school for
nurses. Not because she needed pro-
fession, she told herself. but because
she wished to be able to be useful. It
was hobby, firmly rooted hobby, OF
young woman who was to be some
day owner of some of the finest land in
Virginia.
So when Jack Masters, a childhood
playmate and the son of an old family
friend, sought her love and twice asked
her to become his wife, she, hough she
was very fond of him, had twice put
him on and had refused to consiCer
matrimony as serious possibility un-
til she had won her diploma as
trained nurse
Furthermore, she had limited to Jack
that she was not sure of his constancy
and that she had doubts about his bust
ness ability; for ii was common prop
erty that, though Jack had inherited
most desirable estate, the young gem
tleman had not Gone all that might be
expected of him as a landed proprie-
tor, and that Masters hall was not the
hall of the old time
Madam Grey had enlisted under his
standard and had fought nobly for
him; but Janet remained firm in her
resolve, as she usually cid. She said
that if he was of the same mind when
she had completed her four years
training as nurse he might again
seek to win her. She would hear no
more on the subject until then.
In fit of what he considered right
eous Indignation at this decree, Jack
sold out Masters hall, purchased cof-
fee plantation near the banks of the
TuIa river in Mexico. and had taken
himself off. Before his, departure he
had broken taboo, and ha6 again
sought to win Miss Grey from her reso-
luton, but she remained obdurate. He
left vowing to prove himself man Of
business, and that he would return IN
five years, anG would then carry her
off whether she would or not
Five years, because that time was
needed to put his new purchase in the
hest paying coneition: also year
aonger than Janet's taboo, because the
young man sought to outde her in the
matter Of obstinacy. Somehow he felt
sure that Janet 3oved him, at any rate
she loved no one else.
Letters passed to and fro frequently
during the first four years. Young
aaGters alMays sent his love and re-