The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-05-29

Copyright - S. S. Mcclure Company.
TTNCLE TOMMY DOwELL and
Uncle Luther Doweu were
twins only in age and patriot
ism. In everything else they were as
different as black and white or hot
and cold. Uncle Tommy was short
and puffy, and bald of head, with a
reminiscent twinkle in his blue eyes
and certain sprightliness in his step
that quite belied his age. Also, he
had two good, stout, stubby legs, al
though they were a bit bowed and
stiff, so that he thumped smartly with
his heels when he walked.
What Uncle Tommy lacked of reach
Ing natures standard of man Uncle
Luther made up. He was gaunt and
STOPPING, and so spare that one almost
expected to hear him rattle in his old
blue clothes like withered peas in q
pod. Fine trouble lines mapped his
forehead, and his beard was thin and
gray. When he walked he Iurched at
every step and bore heavily on his
cane, for he had left his good right
leg on the bloody slopes at Chicka-
manga, and for nearly thirty years he
had stumped painfully about on a
wooden leg. 4
Uncle Tommy was bluff and pros
porous. He lived in a comfortable
house in West Alden. and when all of
his children came home for Thanks
giving dinner Uncle Tommy's wife put
all the spare leaves in the dining ia
bic and carved two turkeys.
Uncle Luther had a little one-story
shop, across the county line in the ad-
Joining town Of Amery, where he sol=
dered leaky milk pans and tinkered
clocks. 1t was next the lane, in the
further corner Of his son Jonathan's
land, and he made up his own bed and
cooked his meals in the little room IN
the rear. He seemed at least twenty
years older than Uncle Tommy, and he
had become querulous and quavery, so
that Jonathan and his thrifty wife
groaned under the responsibility of
looking after him.
And that shows how two brothers,
who have been boys together, men to-
gether, and soldiers together may drift
apart. For years Uncle Tommy and
Uncle Luther had not met except at
gatherings of old soldiers, and these
were not pleasant meetings. For the
two little towns, albeit they lay out
on the wide Minnesota prairie, with
only an imaginary line between them,
could not agree. 1t was the kind of
NAN5'~-AfoAStA
in little communities where there are
few outside interests to occupy the in
tervals of attention. And the old SOL
diers took it up, and fought it out as
valiantly as they had marched on
Vicksburg. They might have had a
Grand Army post with reminiscent
campfires, and they might have had
Fourth of July celebrations and Me-
mortal day parades; but as certainly
as Uncle Tommy led the hosts OF
gWest Alden in one direction, Amery
and Capt. Enoch Bradley could be de-
pended upon to march in exactly the
opposite direction.
AS for Uncle Luther, he always fol-
lowed Uncle Tommys procession
wherever it might lead. Again and
again the old soldiers of the two
towns met in the interests Of har-
mony. Uncle Tommy would come to
preside, and Uncle Luther would sec
ond the motions, and then they all
would slump off into the quagmire of
diSsension. At such times the fires of
a stirring past would blaze up in
Uncle Luther's faded eyes, his stopped
shoulders would stiffen back a faint
flush would steal into his cheeks, and
he would nod his old gray head as if
in time to martial music that none
but he could hear. Sometimes the
tears came up to his eyes, and the
boy who was fortunate enough to hear
him talk thrilled with the quick pride
of strife and longed to shoulder a
carbine and march away to the music
of fife and drum.
For two years the towns had held