River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-05-28
At APATRIOT'S
GRAVE
Grandmother's Memorial Day Speech
By DORA OLIPHANT coz.
Grandmother's Mel
By DORA OLIPHANT coz.

"a GRANDMOTHER ADAMSON had
reached into the depths Of her
w rese-sprigged bandboX, but
WI jHst as her fingers touched
the stiff ruching in the front
Of her best bonnet her attention was
arrested by ring at the front door.
AS though suddenly petrified in her
STOPPING position, grandmother waited
while Susan Ann, her daughter,
creaked through the passage way lead
ing from the kitchen.
At the first words Of greeting grand
mother Strengthened with a snap like
jack-knife, and an angry color famed
on her cheeks.
Why Marthy Ellen, what lovely
roses. Did you ever see the flowers
SO handsome as they are this year?
Come right in. It's dreadful hot,
amt it? Seems like I never knoWed
it to warm up as early as it has this
season, but, then, it's been awful fine
for the flowers. Pears like the roses
and laylocks and pinies has just tried
themselves to see who could do the
most bloOmin'. Now, that's a pretty
idee, amt it, Mrs. Rayburn, that lay
lock wreath?"
Yes; laylocks was Dicks favorite
flower, and he set this bush out his
sci. and / thought Id make a wreath
to hang on the cross on his tombstun."
The expression on Grandmother
Adamsons face would have made a
good study. From blaze of anger
it passed through all the stages of
Mortified scorn to stony determine
ton.
The development OF the converse
ton beyond the paper-covered board
walls collected her nebulous chaotic
emotions into a stern resolve.
Susan Ann was stout, and she had
grieved all the morning over the long
walk to the graveyard. AS she sank
ponderously into a chair, she la
mented:
Il get heavier on my feet every day
| live, and the heat to-day is just
awful on me. If mother hadn't had
her heart so set on it, l wouldn't try
to go to the cemetery. l just know
I'll be sick"
Couldn't she walk up with us?"
Mrs. Rayburn asked. Wen not walk
fast"
But grandmother, with what was al
most one movement, had stopped for
ward and slipped off her congress gait
ers, at the same time taking from its
box her bonnet. She slipped a hand
through the round handle of little
he
way and out through the back door
On the step she delayed just long
enough to put on her shoes; then, with
her best bonnet carried more careless
~ than ever before in its dozen years
of use, she hurried out through the
back gate.
The cemetery was being made bright
with flowers when grandmother
passed through the iron gateway, and
her face hardened as she recognized
some of the STOPPING figures and the
graves over which they bent.
At a brilliantly -decked mound she
stopped and, kneeling, said:
Il hate to do it, jeremiah, but |
know you'd want me to. | won't take
them to any one else, though, Jere-
miah, though I know you'd say fur me
to. if you was here But dearie, I've
keered fur these things ever sence
they was buds, jest as tender as If
they'd a ben babies, and jest SOS you
could have them to-day, and l jest
can't see any one else have EN-. How
would you like to look over these
posies and see that laylock wreath
a-hangin on old Dick Rayburns tomb
stun? You fought, bled and died al
most fur nothin, jeremiah, when that
OLD copperhead gifts jest as many flow
ers as YOU do"
Grandmother had turned up the
skirt Of her black alpaca dress and.
into the receptacle thus formed, had
put every flower that had lain on
Jeremiah's grave. She carried them
all over to a far corner of the Gene
terry and buried them under pile of