Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1901-07-27
CHAPTER ONE.


to her breast and kissed his chubby
face over and over. She was stapdinr
on the outskirts of crowd of Very
solemn people who watched the names
added to bulletin board in front of
the little printing office. There had
oeen a great battle down in the war
belt. and the Maine regiment in which
most of the local men were mustered
had been in the thickest of it, Inside
the Office an operator was labOriously
reading the names from the paper tame
that came with good deal of tick
ing and halting from the telegraph in
stfument.
4. In the silent crowd were most of the
residents of the town. The rich and
the. paor mingled in a common atmos-
rhcre OF sorrow and suspense. The
proprietor of the hotel. who was
wealthy. had son down in the South.
Andsa,t his elbow stood the village
shoemaker, his face pale as he watched
name after name added to the list
and wondered which one of his two
Ia ndsome boys had died in the fight
Perhaps both had. Whenever a name
was brought out someone in the crowd
gasped and went away sobbing, or fell
I'm a 3swOon andAwas carried into the
.lllaSe store by sympathetic frienus.
No one paid any attention to Marie
Croteau. No ore stopped to remem-
Der that after all her husband had
been one of the most unseltish of the
volunteers. Born on the shores of the
pic turesque ST. Francis river he had
left his Canadian home just before the
Civil war broke out and had bought a
little farm i'm the valley of the An
droscoggin in Maine. After clearing
the land and turning back the worn
out pastures and fields he had built a
cottage. and one spring morning had
gone 70 Lewiston to meet his sweet
heart. Marie Pelletier. She came down
on the Grand Trunk from Quebec:
they were married by the priest who
was then at the head of the little COM
munity of Catholics in Androscoggin
county. The neighbors looked with
good deal of interest at the pretty.
darked-eyed little French girl as she
rode through the village that day on
the way to the cottage by the river.
She was the first French Canadian wo-
man who had ever come there to live.
She was slight tall, and very attrac-
tive. Beside her muscular young hus-
band she looked like some fair lily that
he might have gathered from the fields.
The people of the village looked at her
curiously. and straightway forgot her.
She had walked all over the little
farm, holding to the brown. labor
stained hand of her husband. She
admired everything he had done, she
praised his energy, and good sense. and
her eyes filed with tears of pleasure as
he showed her the plot by the door
that he had spaded up for her to plant
hollvhocks as her mother had done in
the little house in the outskirts OF
Quebec. Then she went into the cot
tagc. and she laughed long and loud at
his arrangement of the furniture. at
the paper curtains he had put upside
down. Then she settled down serious
" to make a home for him.
The village folk forgot Pierre Croteau
and his Young wife. But they re-
membered him with surprise when the
first call for troops came and he was
seen one day coming down the street
with his face pale and determined.
looking for the recruiting office. They
asked him what he was going for and
he answered that he had adopted the
country and intended to do his part for
its protection.
And now his regiment had been IN
great fight. Marie heard of 1t from
passing neighbor and taxing ilttle
Pierre on her arm had hurried to the
village to learn the details. No one
| greeted her as she stopped in front OF
the bulletin board. The hot sun had
put little Pierre to sleep and he lay,
precious burden. across her shoulder
She had been at work in the field when
she heard the story OF the flght, ana
had come with her hands still soiied
with her planting. For she did the
farming with a mans energy while her
| husband was away at the front hSnt-
! ing for the country of their choice
the native land of little Pierre. as she
fondly told old Mrs. Weymouth who
was her nearest neighbOr and who had
risen above her native animosity for
ia foreigner enough to visit the
pre- tty stranger whose husband was
fast making valuable farm out OF an
| a ba ndoned and worn out one.
| The names were now all on the board,
| and with a great fantness at nei
heart and a blackness before her eyes
Marie turned away. She turned with
bleached face. for the last name IN
the list was that of Pierre Croteau.
| Her neighbor saw her coming up the
road with leaden steps. She noticed
that she paused in front of the gate
and looked at the cottage, and at the
little out sheds that Pierre had puiit
with so much labor and patience. she
looked at them lovingly, and then
breaking into tears went into the house
crying aloud. She had been too proud
and to reserved to cry in the street Oh
| the village before all the people VINO
had held aloof from her for the few
years that she had dwelt among them.
She knew they would feel little sym
patty for her. or thought they would
and was too proud to show her grief as
the daughters. wives and sweehearts
of the Yarkee soldiers had done.
Old Mrs. Weymouth saw her run
crying into her lonely house. and rear
ing the worst hurried over to comfort
her. Those were times when every
patriotic household had its sorrow ana
ovor,- Q, ,,;I,- bod of IoaSt one dear one