The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-23
The Grief of the Mother of Tom and Will
 McCartha.
BY WILL T. SIBERIAN.

BY WILL T. SIBERIAN.
 "The prisoner will stand up.'' The prisoner at the bar stood up. Too young he was to play his part in such scene--too young he was that he should hear the brand of Cain. His face was smooth, innocent of wrinkles. and deadly pale. In their pallid set ting his dark eyes glowed with strange brilliancy. And yet it was not an unpleasnt face nor an evil face.
 The dark hair above 1t was crisp and wayy. and handkerchtf was knotted carlessly about the well shaped neck below. The figure was small and boyish, in keeping with the pale, youthful face above.
 The prisoner stood up and grasped the table before him with trembling hand. And of those who saw him there in the dim light in the court room. there was not one hut that looked upon him with pity They looked upon him and pitied him. though they know he had killed q man. And that man was his brother. It was for this crime of Cain that this youth had to stand now before the bar of justice and answer. pa thetic pitiful figure he was as he stood there and strove to keep back the tears and strove to control the quiver of his lips.
 But behind him there was figure more pathetic and more pitiful It was the figure of an old woman, bent and bowed with toll and sorrow. She sat with her face upon her hand, with in the warmth of the stove for 1t was cold and black without. As cold and black as 1t was in the outside night it was no colder than the darkness and the iciness of her sorrow.
 A tragedy brings in its wake two trains of sorrow. One is for the loved ones of the dead man, the other is for those near and dear to the man who sent him to his grave. Grief and anguish is there for the loved ones of the man sent violently to his grave. And sorrow and grief is there for the loved ones of tho man who did the deed.
 The anguish of that tragedy when one man dies from a weapon in the hands of another is a two edged sor- row that cuts deep two ways with every stroke.
 Ii strikes the woe ridden heart of the mother whose tears moisten the flowers upon the new made grave of her son. Ii picrces the heart of the mother who sets by her son in a court of justice and hears him called by the terrible name of murderer The violent death of the one wrings the heart of the one. the demand of the law for the man who did it, the knowledge of tho thing he has done and the darkness of his future wounds and pierces the mother love of the other.
 But in all mercy the burden of sor- row is divided. Two mothers there are to struggle and bear with it. In mercy and in charity fate divides the burden of gloom and woe--ordinartly.
 But not for this old Alabama mother has the burden been divided. All, all of it is hers. Whatever of anguish, whatever of sorrow. whatever of woe, whatever of suffering, follows the staying of man by man was caught and confined in the bursting heart, Of thls sorrowinR mother.
 For both were her sons.
 The dead youth sleeping in q country cemetery. untimely dead. was nursed at her breast and from her eyes first caught the beautiful light of love The youth whom the law claimed as forfeit, had lain within her protecting arms. and smiled his affection and conf dence into her eyes.
 The ties. the dead man and his sIay- CT had with entwined hands seen to- gether the morning of life.
 And they were both her boys. the untimely dead and the unhappy living. Was ever mother called to pass through the blackness of such q grief? Was eyer mother called to taste the bitter ness of such a cup of sorrow.
 In the gloom of the Crenshaw court house they had sat side by side The pale fond lad and the unhappy old wo- man. In the twilight twelve men had filed slowly and awkwardly into the fury room. One of them held paper which declared that Tom McCartha had feloniously taken the life of Will Mo Cartha against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama" They had de- liberated. filed out again and gone to supper Mother and son close togeth CT in the court room sat together m silence.
 They but looked up as the jury filed back and resumed it's consideration ot tho pitifuI case of Tom McCartha.
 But of all sad sights the court room never saw sadder one than of the fearless grief of the old mother to whom hope was dead and for whom life held nothing but grief. red shawl was wrapped about her heau