Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1916-03-15

He had smoothed my hair and told
me not to cry; God would bless me
for being a good child. He was a
member of the session when I joined
church; his voice in prayer had sooth-
ed mothers hard journey through the
dark valley; and now las mayor of
the city, had ordered it's illumination
in honor Of the battle of Buena Vista,
and this, too, on Saturday evening,
when the unholy glorification extend
ed into the Sabbath. Measured by
the standards of his profession as an
elder in the church, whose highest
judicatory had pronounced slavery
and Christianity incompatible; no one
was more vulnerable than he, and of
none was so unsparing, yet as l
wrote, the letter was blistered with
tears; but his oft repeated comment
was:
Jane is right" and he went out of
his way to take my hand and say,
"You we're right"
Samuel Black, a son of my pastor,
dropped his place as leader of the
Pittsburg bar and rushed to the war.
My comments were thought severe,
even for me, yet the first intimation
l had that I had not been cast aside
as a monster, came from his sister,
who sent me message that her faith
er, her husband and herself, approved
my criticism. Samuel returned with
a cOloneps commission, and one day
l was about to pass him without rec
ognition, where he stood on the pave
ment talking to two other lawyers,
when he stepped before me and held
out his hand. l drew back, and he
said:
lis it possible you will not take my
hand?"
looked at it, then into his manly,
handsome face, and answered.:
"There is blood on it; the blood of
women and children slain at their
own affairs, on their own hearthstones
that you might spread the glorious
American institution of woman-whip-
ping and baby-stealing."
"Oh," he exclaimed, "This is too
bad! l swear to you I never killed
man or child
"Then you did not fight in Mexico,
did not help to lombard Buena VISTA"
His friends joined him, and insist
ed that did the Colonel great wrong,
when he looked squarely into my face
and, holding out his hand, said:
For sake of the old church, for
sake Of the old man, for sake of the
old times, give me your hand"
I laid it in his, and hurried away,
unable to speak, for he was the most
eloquent man in Pennsylvania. He
fell at last at the head of his regi-
ment, while lighting in the battle of
Fair Oaks, for that freedom he had
betrayed in Mexico.
When Kossuth was on his starring
tour in this country, he used to create
wild enthusiasm by your own late
glorious struggle with Mexico;" but
when he reached that climax in his
Pittsburg speech dead silence fell
upon the vast, cheering audience.
The social ostracism had expected
when I stepped into the political
arena, proved to be Bunyan lions. In
stead of shame there came such a
crop of glory that thought of pulling
down my barns and building greater,
that l might have where to store my
new goods. Among the press notices
copied by the Journal was this:
1.-THE Pittsburg Commercial Journal
has new contributor who signs her
name Jane G. Swisshelm,' dips her
pen in liquid gold, and sands her pa
per with the down from butterflies
WINGS"
This troubled me, because it seemed
as though I had been working for
praise; still the pretty compliment
ratified me.