Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1908-05-28
AT A PATRIOTS
GRAVE
C.-admOiher's Memorial Day Spccch
By DORA OLIPHANT COE.

~ GRANDMOTHER ADAMSON had
81 reached into the depths of her
81 U rose-sprigged bandbox, but
- n just as her fingers touched
the stiff ruching in the front
of her best bonnet her attention was
arrested by a 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
a 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 | 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 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 I'd make a wreath
to hang on the cross on his tombstun"
The expression on Grandmother
Adamsons face would have made a
good study. From a blaze of anger
1t passed through all the stages Of
Mortified scorn to stony determina-
tion.
The development of the CONVERSE
tion beyond the paper-covered board
walls collected her nebulous chaotic
emotions into stern resolve.
Susan Ann was stout, and she had
srieved all the morning over the long
walk to the graveyard. AS she sank
ponderously into 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
III be sick"
Couldn't she walk up with us?"
Mrs. Rayburn asked. Wen not walk
fast"
"Oh, mothers as spry on her feet
as you be. l hadn't thought of her
goin' with any one else, but / don't
see why she couldn't. It'd be a real
help. She amt got nothin' to carry,
fnr 40 i,r n
up this morning, before breakfast.
She's just that wrapped up in Decora-
tion day l couldn't disappoint her
about goin'. She's gettin' ready now.
I'll go and see if it'll be all right"
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 hand
through the round handle of a little
basket and scurried down. the passage
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
ly 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 brilliantly-decked mound she
stopped and, kneeling, said:
81 hate to do it, jeremiah, but
know you'd want me to. | won't take
them to any one else, though, Jere-
miah, though | 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 ben babies, and jest SOS you
could have them today and l jest
can't see any one else have 'em. How
would you like to look over these
posies and see that laylock wreath
a-hangin on old Dick Rayburn's tomb
stun? You fought. bed 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 ceme-
terry and buried them under pile of
last years leaves. Then she went
back to the bare mound.
Soon the faraway notes of Cover
Them Over with Beautiful Flowers"
told that the procession was coming.