The Washington times., 1906-05-06

subject OF song and
story. More pathetic ballad:
have been written on It than or
all your old oaken buckets. empty
chairs. and old apple trees put to-
gether. In heart interest IL is
second only to home and mother,
and little prattling Goldenhairs. 10
story writers, It is more. useful
than any two other inanimate OBJ
jects. They owe more to 70. even
than they do TO the lost will. They
have worked it so mercilessIy. how
ever. that the public is bit skepd-
cal-as skeptical as ones personal
friends when one says, Why,
didn't you get my letter. Well If
that isn't the strangest thing"
The dear public, like ones OWL
friends, has ceased TO believe In
the letter that never came. It
smiles and says. We'll. Uncle Sam
is pretty reliable. The letter that
never came is the letter that never
was sent" Which may be true IN
nine hundred and ninety-nine cases
out OF thousand But there rs
always the thousandth case, as was
recently emphasized up IN the lit.
tie town of Stoughton. Mass, when
a Young girl received a letter mail
ed more than a quarter OF a cen
tury before she was born, and a
white-haired old man was made
glad by a message from a beloved
son who laid down his life for his
country during the Richmond cam
paign more than forty years ago.
and a middle-aged wife and mother
smiled tenderly over long-forgotten
memories of a boy and girl af-
fair" when she was the girl and
gallant young soldier who went OF
TO the war and never came back
was the boy in the case.
.Forty-six years that letter was
comingi Which may not be never"
but certainly is "a long day
Forty-six years ago In the troubled
days Just preceding the firing on
Sumter, Massena Ballou Hawes. a
high-minded. ambitious lad Of TWEEN
ty-one. was teaching school in
Houghton. his home village. and pre-
pairing himself to enter college.
Within a year be lay dead on VIr-
ginia battlefield. During the summer
of 1860, the young school teacher
wrote an essay on What Constitutes
True Bravery" and contributed it 10
a Randolph, Mass, paper. A few
months later showing himself a man
of deeds as we'll as words, he enlisted
and went to the war, and stood the
supreme test as to what constitutes
true bravery.
On October %. 1850. Just before
going to the front, he wrote letter
10 My very dear Cousin Kate" be
tween the lines of which one may read
how very dear" Cousin Kate was TO
the high minded young soldier stu
dent about starting on the campaign
from which he never returned. But
though he knew on paper. and in his
own person, what constitutes true
bravery, he could not at the time
screw up his courage to mail that
letter to his very dear Cousin Kate.
1t was only when he was soldering
in Virginia that he finally addressed
1t. and a copy of the Randolph paper
containing his essay to Miss Kate
Halves. then a pretty school teacher,
now Mrs. Kate Crawbaugh, a white
haired old lady living in Cleveland,
Ohio
After lying in the dead letter Of
fee at Washington for over forty
FIVE years that letter has just been
delivered to Elisha Hswes. of North
Stoughton, the rinety-two-year-oId
father of the dead soldier. and WIN
eventually reach the person for
whom if was originally intended.
How it came TO remain so long in
ere dead letter Office without being
oCS1io9 ca VI Ictui ACu W TIC " ltcI.-
.or why II was sent TO the dead letter
office in the first place. cannot be
explained.
II is thought that some clerk there
came across the letter. n1islaiG in
senIe dusty niche until now. and
thought he was returning it 10 the
original sender. as the address given
was Stoughton. Mass.
1t is Miss Bertha Hawes. niece Of
the writer of II, who finally receiv-
ed and opened this quaint old-fash-
Toned letter from soldier lad of
the civil war to boyhood sweet
heart She is the granddaughter of
the white-kaired- old man who has