The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-03-22
THE TRUE BLUE STAR

THE TRUE BLUE STAR
She purchased the flag, returning
from the station that sunny June even
ing, when she and the sky were of
the same hue Again in the home.
where to every room chung his mem
DRY, she had carefully picked out
the stitches that held the star. After
wards, adding red and white badge,
she had sewed them back into place
on the white field and smoothed out
the bulge with a hot iron. With
sharp intake of breath that stirred
the flag, she had herself hung it in
the very center Of the tiny parlor
window, where it's blue star bore
witness to the passing street Then,
during the long afternoons, when
some of her friends came signing and
consoling she had silenced them with
her invariable antidote.
Il said to Sammie, the night war
came, Son, are you going to wait to
be drafted?' And he said to me,
STOPPING over. Mother, how can i?
[ enlisted this afternoon And I
said, Sam, you only did your duty,
and no harm will befall you, because
I'm placing you under real Magic
| Coat"
Somehow the CONSIDERS and the
sighers and the busy mongers ceased
to trouble Mrs. Howard
Nevertheless, the day his last hasty
line came from Mineola, gloating that
his next letter would come from
| Over There Land" she had turned
the statue on the mantlepiece till the
kindly eyes must look directly at the
blue star. And she had told her
daughter Mary, very determinately
that hereafter she herself would fill
and trim and keep alight the small
lamp that cast it's reddish glow up
| the robes of the statue, up to the
i Sacred Heart.
Then, through the letterless days,
she knitted sleeveless jerseys that
would only fit certain broad chest,
and while her fingers toiled tirelessly,
her thoughts would stay out on the
long blue curve that led to France
So she tried, while she knitted and
prayed, to practice her dear fathers
constant maxim, Keep stiff upper
| lip And she always turned a smil-
ing face to Mary: for young should
erS find the bearing of the burden
hard.
Well she remembered how her
mother had smiled through the tense
fortnight after Gettysburg. when her
fathers name was on no list, and how
her mothers face suddenly aged when
the news came that he was I'M
wounded and promoted. Now, with
the seeming flip of half century. she
was the mother and Mary the daugh-
ter, and instead of Father in blue,
this time it was her own olive-drab
son.
Then, one rainy morning. when she
was unable to go the three squares
to $50 Mass at the Sacred Heart
Church, came BRIEF censor-stamped
card from nowhere, saying, Il have
arrived safely over seas and every
thing was tres bien, ma mere She
had laughed 1t was SO like Sam to
air any new accomplishment.
Later in the day, as Mary was leav-
ing for the Red Cross, she stopped
before the hallway mirror to adjust
her hat, and through the half-open
curtains caught her mother standing
before the framed photograph that
held the place of honor in the tiny
eoft ind ho,.
she heard the murmured I'm Thee
trust And she noticed the
puckered, trembling lips. The thought
struck Mary, as she rolled the white
yards at the meeting, that an ounce
of mothers preventive prayers
might outweigh curative pound of
these bandages.
Then within the month, like burst
of shrapnel, came the telegram. Mary
had answered the ring, certain it was
message announcing the time of
Aunt Mamie's train. She had lightly
out:
stop your everlasting knitting. old
lady, and hear the news. It's from
Auntie. You open it,
And her mother had pulled down
her spectacles and cut the yellow
edge with her scissors.
Il suppose it's the 1902. You will
have to go, as that's my Red Cross
hour"
Then her mother was smiling heav-
lily and she got up and said:
Daughter
Mary, startled, had followed the
older woman into the silent parlor
before the lighted statue And here
her mother had said:
"Kneel, dear"
She showed Mary the open face OF
the dispatch. 1t offered the Depart
ment's sympathy and regretted to re
port of the next of kin: Private
Samuel Howard killed in action
i Somehow, Father Scully learned at
once (many of the telegraph girls