Tombstone epitaph., 1917-05-27
ON MEMORIAL DAY
Time for Patriotic Thoughts as We Strew Flowers Over the
 Graves of Our Heroes.
MOTHER year has rolled around

CT flowers with which our yards abound at this time of the year. and reverently laid them on the graves of our soldier dead. It has been year of stress and storm for many of us, year of war and rumors of war in the land. We do well to put aside the duties of the season for a few hours and go out to the cemetery, where We may reflect on the great sac rifice of the heroes and heroines buried there, writes James M. Pierce in the Iowa Homstead.
 Memorial day is to me one of the saddest and loneliest days of the whole year. l remember the years which have gone; the father who left the happy home circle. never to return, lying today in an unknown grave in the sunny Southland. I remember the uncles who likewise gave up their lives that this nation might be free and united. I remember the struggles and the sacrifices of my mother and sisters, and as remember them the tears well from my eyes and loneliness comes down around me and upon me, like shades of night. Such a goodly com pany of brave young men marched forth. dropping plow-lines and ledger, with flies and drums quickening their pulses and their steps; and so few returned. And of that pitiful handful which came back, how few we have left with us today! The ranks of those who don the old and threadworn uniform to march out to the cemetery and honor their fallen comrades are thinning rapidly; but few more years and there will be none left among us. Shall we not honor them while they believe. when he wrote these lines: : It's lonesome. sort O lonesome. It's Sun
 dy-day to me.
 IL 'pears-like. more'n any day l nearly ever see,
 Nit. with the Stars and Stripes above. a. fiutterin' in the air.
 On ev'ry soldiers grave I'd love to lay a
 lily there.
 Gone are the days when there was North or South. when there was divi- sion in our beloved land. Today we
 
 strew our flowers and reverently lay our wreaths We do not think of wheth- CT the one We revere wore the blue or the gray; he was hero and he fought for what he believed to be right. Let me give you three of the stanZas of a poem I love that you may read them | over, at your leisure: So when the summer calleth. On forest and field of grain With equal mumur falleth The cooling drip of rain: Under the sod and the dew. Waiting the judgment day: Wet with the rain the Blue; Wet with the rain the Gray. | Sadly. but not with upbraiding. The generous deed was done; | In the storm of the years that are fading. No braver battle was won: ! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day: Under the blossoms the Blue. Under the garlands. the Gray. No more shall the war-cry sever. Or the winding river be red: l They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead.
 | Under the sod and the dew Waiting the judgment day: Love and tears for the Blue. Tears and love for the Gray. | Could we do better than to read these verses aloud, or teach one of the children to speak them at school, or ask that they be read at whatever ex- ercises may be held in our cemeteries? | We have been drawn together-we of l the North and the South. We of the farm and of the city-within the past year, in the face of a common danger, as never before. Shall We forget that there ever existed dividing lines, and unite, all together, in being true-blue Americans, dedicated to one another's welfare and prosperity. the greatest, most closely knit nation the sun ever l sbone on?