The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-10-15

battery crossed the slope like whirlwind, to be
checked behind her bank of sweet peas.
An officer rode rapidly along the edge of the
broad road. The way was clear. What ex-
postulatiOns and pleadings and threats had failed
to ccomplish accomplished only too well by the
shot that manned and killed scores The distance
was not great. The widow beheld her
While the horses paved and snorted the battery
that had leaped up the hill behind the sweet peas
as If sped there by Jove sent shell after shell into
the very midst of the Confederates.
But long before the earth rocked under the ex-
plosions of Battery B. the widow flying feet car
RED her swiftly towards her son. A trailing vine
or was 1t rein .-caught her foot, and she
stumbled and fell. When she sat up and looked
around her she shielded by large boulder. Its
gray face rose out of the emerald greensward like
wall, behind which she now crawled, trembling,
quivering in every nerve
The tops of the distant hills were all crowned
with batteries. In every direction, as far the
eye could reach the woods were decked with flashes.
They leaped from the haze of low-lying smoke like
lightning. Straight great fields long lines
of men moved until the guns the tops of the
hills vomited fire. Then the lines wavered, swayed
uncertainty and disappeared i'll the woods from
which they had emerged.
They came out of the woods in even lines They
sought again in ragged, disordered masses.
Sometimes they out again, advanced we're
torn apart and melted away in a haze.
he struggle had been in progress five mortal
hours when mass of men and horses emerged
from fringe of wood Just below her. Another
and another came after them until the entire
slope was covered An arc of fire from the bat
teries above them smote the seething surging
of humanity. men and animals dashed against each
other in wild dismay, and the declining sun, seen
through veil of smoke, seemed to hang motion
less in the west the waverng, mutiated lines of
assault faded away in a mist
han oSI1oI1 rfYYI tho
uproar of all the battle sounds. fell on the scene
The stiffness was oppressive. Birds notes
hushed the shring of insects ceased All the
earth was silent as burned out planet.
As far as the eye could see the widow looked ON
broken fences crushed wagons, horses lying in I'M
couth shapes vague specks that looked like broken
and twisted fence posts. These last lay singy and
in groups far apart from each other and at all
angles. They covered the slopes whichever way
she looked.
She gazing across the hill where Get
tysburg lay when another gust of musketry swept
up the slope Another followed. and another faint
still. Something battered on the bare rock. The
leaves of the tree near her trembled then the rain
that came to quench the thirst of the wounded and
dying descended,
Was it the sweet relief from the steady roar,
the confusion, the multiplicity of shifting scenes
and sounds and from that crushing silence that
soothed and Gained the widow, or did nature send
soace or blessed sleep with the rain! At all events
the widow slept.
When she awoke with start the earth
dripping. She rose the instant, all her faculties
sharpened. There rain or iron or lead now.
She experienced no difficulty in passing the
weary, battle-worn guards They scarcely turned
to look at the silent figure fitting past them.
She turned bend in the road There, not two
hundred yards distant, she her house. a dull
CLEAN of dying embers told her that someone was
lying there. Perhaps it was Battery B. As she
neafed the house shadowy forms resolved them
selves into tired men buried in sleep, the embers
into neglected camp fires
But where were her sweet peas! Great rents
were cut through the vines half at least had been
trodden into the ground by mems and horses feet.
Yes. and there was a cap. She picked it up and
beheld the letter B. Now she was seized with
horrible trembling. She put her hand over her
heart and pressed on, through her ruined plots
and vines. Not a sound was heard but the gentle
plash plash of the early morning rain.
What if Jack were lying here. Sleeping men
were huddled near the dead and dying fires
She moved cautiously now. There, Just behind
a clump of vines left standng-yes. merciful God
a human form lay there. She ran towards it. The
face, pressing the wet grass, turned up quick
ly. There cry, not moan, she ralned
kisses upon the cold lips the eyes and cheeks of the
dead man she found lying behind her sweet peas.
The widow had found her son.-Mount Angel
Magazine.
After the Storm.