Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-01-01
CHAPTER XI-Co1tinued.

She was at the door of her mothers
room, which was like an antique shop.
Old plates lay ON top of old tables,
with vases on the floor under the
tables. Surrounded by her treasures,
Mrs. Galland awaited the attack; not
as a soldier awaits it, but as that ven
cradle Roman senator of the story
faced the barbarous Gauls-neither
disputing tie power of their spears
nor yieldiag the self-respect of his own
mind and soul. She had lain down in
her wrapper for the night, and the
light from a single candle-she still
favored candles--revealed her features
calm and philosophical among the pill
lows. Yet the magic of war, reaching
deep into hidden emotions, had her
also under it's spell Her voice was at
once more tender and vital.
Marta, l see that you are all on
wires!"
Eyes; jangling wires, every one,
iangling every second out of tune"
Marta acquiesced.
Marta my father"-her father had
been a premier Of the Browns-"al-
wnys said that you may enjoy the lux
uYy OF fussing over little things, for
they don't count much one way or an
other; but about big things you must
never fuss or you will not be worthy
of big things. Marta, you cannot stop
u railroad train with your hands. This
is not the first war on earth and we
nre not the first women who ever
thought that war was wrong. Each
Of us has his work to do and you will
have yours. 1t does no good to tire
yourself out and fly to pieces, even if
YOU DO know so much and have been
aroahd the world"
She smiled as a woman of sixty,
who has a secret beart-break that she
mad never given her husband a son,
may smile at a daughter who is both
son and daughter to her, and her
plump hand, al curves like her plump
face and her plump body, spread open
n appear.
Marta, who, in the breeding of her
generation, felt sentiment as more or
less of lure from logic, dropped be-
side the bed in sudden burst of sen.
aiment and gathered the plump hand
in hers and kissed it.
Mother, you are wonderful" she
aaid. Mother, you are great"
hona,oipc
customed to the firing as a city dwell
aers to the distant roar Of city traf
&c, Mrs. Galland slept. But Marta
could not follow her advice. If, tran
silently at least, she had found some
thing of the peace of the confessional
4he vigor of youth was in her arteries
and youth cannot help remaining
awake under some conditions. She
tiptoed across the hall into her own
room and seated herself by the win
dow The symbol of what the cal
had heard the eye saw-war, WORKING
an tones of the landscape by day with
smokeless powder; war, revealed by
Its tongues of flame at night. Ugly
bursts of fire from the higher hills
spread to the heavens like an aurors
borealis and broke their messengers
IN sheets of flame over the lower hills
the batteries of the Browns sprin
king death about the heads of the
gunners of the Grays emplacing theil
batteries. Staccato flashes from 6
single point counted so many bullets
from an automatic, which directed by
the beams of the search-lights, found
their targets in sections of advancing
infantry. Hill crests, set off witt
flashes running back and forth, &c
marked infantry lines of the Browns
assisting the automatics.
There were lulls between, the
crashes of the small arms and the
heavy, throaty speech of the guns
.ulls that seemed to say that botf
sides had paused for a breathinl
spell; lulls that allowed the battle il
the distance to be heard in its perva
Bive undertone. In one of them, wher
even the undertone had ceased for
few seconds, Marta caught family thu
yroans Of wounded man-one of tn,