Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1916-07-07

mination between the best and the
worst of them. Whether it be the
hardened adventurer, knotted and tan
ned by exposure to the storms of
many lands, or the unseasoned, fresh
checked boy, full of the first bloom
of manhood, it is the same. Each must
take an equal chance, each must
share alike in the dangers and the
trials which come unquestioning, and
exact their toll without qualification.
1t is this thing that makes war so
hard to bear, so hard to understand.
A mother sends her boy away be-
fore the colors, and day by day must
wait in agony for the news that may
shatter with one blow ali her hopes,
her aspirations, her dreams. The
honor of the flag! the nations integ-
rity!-what cares she for all these
things when she learns that her boy
lies dead on the cacti-covered deserts
beyond the Rio Grande, and that she
has been robbed of the one priceless
blessing bought by the strength of her
own flesh and her own blood. For no
matter if his course in life has led
him through rough paths and rugged
ways, and he has become toughened
and hardened to the finer things in
the human existence, yet his is and
will ever be to her just her little boy,
whom she sheltered ana nurtured as
he knelt at her knee long years ago
to lisp the little prayer her lips had
taught him word by word.
There must inevitably come to
mothers and to fathers through this
land the realization and the awful
truth, which they must ponder as they
commune in loneliaess and grief
"Our boy died in Mexico!" And with
this thought, SO terrible to them that
all other griefs seem but shadows on
their way, they bow with signs and
tears and look far into the coming
empty years.
Our boy! What words can picture
the love that sprang from hearts full
for him place about that hearth
and which the coming of the years
only leaves more vacant! Our boy!
How deeply thrills that memory of
the pattering of little feet at play,
the tender clasp of tiny arms the half
said words on childish lips, the little
form about whom they had wrapped
the sum of all their life, their hopes,
their love! Our boy The words that
tell the story of all that has made
their life worth while. the key to the
great mystery that is stronger even
than all human bonds, striking the
note that wakes man to the labors of
men, and lifts humanity from the
lowest stage to that of Immortality.
Down beyond the border, where the
mesquite bushes shiver and chrivel in
the blistering sun, where camp-fircs
glisten, and the bugIe echoes far
across the Rio Grande, while the stars
and the lizards keep watch through
the sultry night, enshrouded in the
Stars and Stripes through the folds
of which there has crept a little stain
more crimson still than the rcd Of
his country's banner, their lies trag-
edy, far, far from home-our boy
killed in Mexico!
mo matter how hayward his foot
steps have been;
No matter how deep he is sunken in
sin;
No matter how low is his standard of
joy;
Though guilty and loathsome, he is
some mothers boy.
THAT head hath been billowed on some
tender breast;
Ihat form hath been wept DER, those
lips have been pressed;
That soul hath been prayed for, in
tones sweet and mild;
For her sake deal gently with-some
mothers child"