The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1909-07-15
--8.


And we owned timbered forty of the
richest river land
Yes, owned it-every inch of it-by la
boris hard decree,
And none, we thought, in all the world
were happier than we.
Our cattle browsed the summer hills,
amid the bluegrass deep,
And all the shady bottom-lands were
snowy with our sheep;
Twas like a tale of fairy lore, the life
that we lived then,
When l was barely twenty-six and you
were only ten:
Love brought US peace and comfort, till
there rose an evil star,
In the summertime of plenty, when your
father went to war.
All. Jennie, l remember we'll the day
twas late in June,
Your father he came riding home from
town one afternoon,
AID his face was pale and haggard as he
reached the door and threw
One arm around me, daughter, while he
laid one hand on you;
And as my senses faltered, and 1 reeled
in his embrace,
read the fearful meaning that was
written in his face
1 felt it in the bounding blood that beat
against my breast,
l needed not a spoken word-too well /
knew the rest;
And all that night in dreams 1 heard
the tramp of marching feet,
And far away 1 saw the flags grow dim
mer down the street;
Twas long ago but o, my heart has not
outgrown the scar
Gods finger put upon it, when your faith
er went to war.
Then you and l were left alone. We
tried year or so,
By hiring help, to scrimp along, but
couldn't make it go;
The spring-foods swept away the corn,
the drouth of summer dried
The grasses on the uplands, and we had
no crops beside;
So we parted with the cattle that we
could no longer keep.
We sold the only team we had, and trad
And when the winds of autumn shook
the pipes about the caves,
And in the woodland hollows piled the
brown October leaves,
When the hazel-nuts were ripening in
the old familiar copse,
And the wild geese wedging southwark,
far above the maple-tops,
We locked the dear old farmhouse up,
and closed the pasture-bar,
And moved into the village, when your
father went to war.
Then winter came-a dreary time-a
night of hopes and fears,
On every hand the widows wept, and fell
the mothers tears
A reign of blood and ruin. Every day
some passing train
Brought back load of mangled men
brought back the coffined slain;
And Jennie o, my Jennie, ere the SHOWS
of winter passed,
They bore your father back to us-they
brought him home at last;
They sent him from the frozen hills, be-
side the Tennessee,
Borne down amidst the battle, where the
bravest love 10 be;
They sent him back a ruined man for
life, alas, my child!
l turned away in agony. l raved as one
grown Wild
But why recall the story now? The
years have drifted far,
And we've got used to trouble, since your
father went to war
The time, have changed. We, too, have
changed. Tonight the blue and
gray
Sit round their fires, with lighted pipes,
and puff their hates away
Sit spinning yarns about their camps,
until the drowsy stars
Put out their light and wage "good-
night across the twilight's bars.
Although my heart be broken, and al
though my hair be white,
And though the years have brought me
but disaster in their fight,
I am wicked in my weakness. l am cruel
to complain.
When yonder patient sufferer sits smil-
ing at his pain
Sits grooming in the Autumn moon the
ballads made to praise
The luster of his daring in the old heroic
days
Sits dreaming, Jennie, dreaming of the
battle-fields that are
The glory of the ages, since your father
went to war.
A little while-it won't be long until the
soldiers come
And bear away their comrade to the dead
march of drum,
To the green hills over yonder, where
eternal tents are spread,
And no pension bills are vetoed, in the
domains of the dead,
Where justice is no jester, and where
glory countersigns
+ The muster-roll of freedom as the CEN
fury declines
/ Yes. child. to that Republic where no par
tisan is found.
Where the private is promoted and the
potentate discrowned,
/ Our loved one now is journeying and as
for you and me
1t matters not-the pottersfield our her
4 itage may be;
The future frowns and threatens, but
thank God, it cannot mar
I The glory that we garnered when your
father went to war.
National Tribune.
The JOY of the Resurrection.
Early one morning In 1862, while at
Pennington, near Corinth, Miss, as
Brigadier (now Major) General Palm
er was riding along his lines to In
spect some breastworks that had been
thrown up during the previous night,
he came suddenly upon some of the
boys of Company l, Twenty-seventh
Illinois Volunteers, engaged In the
very absorbingly interesting process
Of SHINING acknowledgement pork
err To say we were startled would
| be putting ii mild: we were scared