Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-04-05
1URY1NG HER FACE IN HER HANDS, SHE
TRIED TO PRAY

1~sAA~A~i !
gray mist before the eyes of the strick-
en- mother. She sat, white Tipped and
fearless, gazing at the wall, but seeing.
nothing. Her little boy Roger gone to
the war to be killed! 1t was incredible.
Why, it seemed only yesterday that he
was playing on the floor at her feet,
his childish chatter an inspiration, his
laugh symphony. Oh, how could he
leave her! Vaguely, wonderingly, she
looked at her hands. Those callouses
on her palms! Those large, ugly
knuckles! The washtub had left its
dnenaceable impression that Roger
might wear creased trousers and pat
ent leather shoes.
He was not bad boy, she mused;
only careless, Indifferent and selfish
through thoughtlessness. He might
have been different il she had forced
him to learn trade. He was her
only son; the image of his father. Her
Sin lay in loving him with much zeal,
but little. knowledge. There on the
mantel stood the bottle Of ammonia
with which she had cleaned his trou-
sersl only the day before. Who would
clean his trousers now? she wonder
ed. And when the buttons came off
his clothes who would sew them on?
She had noticed for some time past
that Roger was uneasy. The instincts
Of manhood We're striving within him.
He had tried to secure situation, but
had failed for want of an education in
q specific line. Then he had become
moody and Respondent. She had de-
tected the odor Of alcohol on his breath
and had reproved him gently, she
thought. Perhaps she had been un-
kind. She had not meant to be. God,
the all merciful, only knew the sacri-
fees she had made for her. boys COM
fort A tear ran down her face into
her mouth. It tasted bitter like aloes.
She slid erect. like a bag of meal, to
the floor. Burying her face. in her
hands, she tried to pray. Brokenly,
incoherently. but aglow with the sane
tity OF maternal love, her prayer flew
upward full Of signs and heavy with
the weight Of her despair. The; fire
went out. The water In the washtub
grew cold. 1t was o'clock in the
morning when she knelt to pray.
When she arose, wan eyed and trem-
bling, night had come.
For month the newsboys spoke Of
Mrs Williams as great graft" She
bought all the papers they brought
her Late into the night she sat I'M
reading every line relating to the war.
Each line about the Seventy-first regl-
ment she read over and over again.
Twice she received CHEEKY letters from
4 Roger, the last one containing money
4 order for his first months pay. He
ap6logized for keeping So and went
Into q pitiful explanation of the things
he had bought with the money, the ac-
count including needles and thread
l with which to sew on his buttons. 1t
was the first money he had ever earn
ed, and his mother knew the supreme
satisfaction which it afforded him to
send 1t to her. She did not send 1t
back, being aware that it's return
I; would pain him.
1t was not until the regiment left
/, Tampa for Santiago that the idea Of
Joining her boy in Cuba came to her.
Butt when the idea had found lodg-
ment in her brain 1t never left her.
Day and night she brooded over it.
Once her hopes were raised high by
the thought that she might become a
Red Cross nurse, only to be crushed
when she learned that experienced
nurses only were accepted. For sew
eral days she was depressed. Then it
occurred to her that she might dis
guise herself as man and attain
some mental employment on one Of the
vessels which would enable her to
reach her son. Early the next morn