The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1901-05-30
THE YAKIMA HERALD.
THURSDAY. NAY 80, 1901.

Grafton made, and the reporter sat down
under the dropping limbs OF a beautiful
maple to wonder if he could find some
thing to write up beside the stereotyped
description. He scratched his nose with
his pencil and looked absently at the old
lady who sat opposite him, gazing up in
to the green, quivering world of leaves
above.
81 planted this tree she said softly.
ut must have been good many years
ago." the reporter ventured. at was"
she replied in the same low, dreamy
tone but there has never been one
Memorial Day since, that have not sat,
beside it at first, under it when it grew
tall enough"
"Soldier's widow" the man with the
pencil hazarded, noticing her black gar
ments.
Eyes, my husband - Ben's fathers
buried here. 1t was way back in the
sixties, but how well | remember the
morning he went to war. We were
young folks then, just starting in life to-
gether and he wasn't one of the first to
volenteer as had no friends but him,
and Ben was little baby. But the time
came when the news that the flag (like
that little one that is huttering on his
grave now,) had been torn down and
trampled on could not be longer borne.
We lived down there in that little house
where l live yet, and in the early morn
ing, before it was time for him to 90, we
were both awake, but neither of us
spoke. laid my head on his breast
and he kept stroking my hair back from
my brow; not thin and white as it is to-
day, but a mass OF heavy, waving brown !;
and could feel his heart beating heavi-
ly, heavily, but never CULVER OF fear.
And when it was time to get up, he
looked down at little Ben, who wasn't
four months old, and who lay warm and
sweaty, with his little clenched hands
above his head. And his father bent
down and said low, to himself like :
Benny, when will you sleep by me
again?
But he didn't stay away long, Ben's
father didn't; twas only little time
when | was standing at the door, with
the baby in my arms, waiting for him to
come.
did he come with a strap on his
shoulder" the man who wrote asked,
with supercilious smile.
"No," she said, still softly, che came
with a mimic bullet in the heart that
beat so strong beneath my young head
that last morning. When | come up
here to plant this tree, sat Benny down
there in the grass, and he played with
the pebbles that were thrown out of his
fathers grave.
Il remember when he could run alone,
| made him wreath of the lilacs his
father liked so well, and when he toddled
up and laid them on the grave, II sort
OF wished the men who urge on wars
could have seen his innocent baby face,
so like that other face Wondering down
there under the coffin lid.
"But by and by they began to have
Decoration Day for the men who stop
ped their work, their hopes and all their
future meant to them, to preserve for this
generation a united country that takes
10 second place in all the world. And
Ben, with his schoolmates, used to walk
miles to be sure to have flowers for every
soldiers grave and when he laid his
prettiest boquet above his fathers ashes,
he'd like to have me tell him what that
fathers last words to his baby were
and then he'd say, Poor father, | will
sleep beside him sometime, won't
MOTHER
"When Ben was big. broad should
cred fellow with mustache, we used to
come here and watch the G. A. r. men
put the flag on my boys fathers grass
grown grave. And how handsome Ben
was think there wasn't handsomer
man wore the Sons OF Veterans uniform.
There was such pretty girl who used
to sing The Red, White and Blue every
thirtieth OF May; and when Ben's eyes
would meet hers, they'd both blush and
smile but once, when | asked Ben if he
wasn't getting in love with the girl who
sung, he said, Never while my mother
needs me : and then he added, She's
rich and beautiful she'd never care for
me, mother.
Just as ii the woman lived who could
keep from loving Ben, when he looked