Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1892 — AT A SOLDIER’S GRAVE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AT A SOLDIER’S GRAVE

HE ranks of whiterobed school children had wound away down the path to the sleepy street; the blueclad veterans, with subdued pride, had carried off the scarred old flag, its precious folds caught in the long streamers of crape; the slowly recedi ing strains of the last dirge were borne back on the soft evening air

like a tender sob pulsating gently to the place of the dead. Only a few black-robed women and a little group of old soldiers—this one minus an arm and that one leaning heavily on his worn crutch —remained in the little graveyard, and soon they, .too, departed, leaving only two persons—a bent old mother in a distant comer, and a tall, stately woman, standing, as if waiting, In the deep shade of a gloomy pine.

It was the most peaceful, the most, neglected, the most lovely spot on earth. Nearly every stone had a flag or a sword out in its face, and each name bore after It the Twelfth Volunteers. At first the most solicitous care had kept the mounds smooth and the paths open, but time had gone by and now each grave had sunk to a hollow trench, down whose sloping sides the long grass trailed and across which the stained marble slaps had long ago broken; the vines, ‘ once planted by tender hands, had reached caressingly out and bound all in impartial embrace; flowers forgot where thfcy had stood originally, and tall trees looked out upon the once young shrubs now bidding fair to rival the old ones. This evening each narrow grave bore a tiny flag and its load of sweet blossoms; men, long since forgotten at all other times, were hunted out and honored on this one day of the year by offerings from the hearts and the hands of their old comrades; a sweet odor of fading flowers filled the warm air, and a soft golden afterglow tinged the tips of the Sines and a gentle breeze waved the ittle flags standing loyal and true even In their humble places. When all had left excepting the sobbing mother in the farthest corner, the tall woman stepped out and quickly picked her way over the thick-leaved plants and tangled vines to a long grave at the foot of the hill. Here, also, was an air of the absence of human care, and yet it seemed happier and truer in its transition back to nature. It was only a part of the harmony of the place for Its stone to be lost under a large, wayward rose-bush;- a closely cut sward would have been a cruel discord. The woman slowly knelt, laid aside the little black bonnet as if to let the slowly stirring air cool her hot forehead, and reverently bent her lips to the grass above the head. The last rays of the sun stole softly up and fell tenderly on her face and lighted it, showing eyes beautifully sad and patient, a mouth wonderfully sweet, and a low, fair forehead, from which were brushed back wave upon wave of soft snowy hair. White hair will soften and hallow any face, but here it seemed a crown, a halo sor5 or one as pure and lovely as a saint. Jut even its silver did not deceive one; there was a certain youth, in spite of the look of suffering, that kept one from judgin g her as old—a youth, borrowed, perhaps, from the past in which she always lived, Jf one might guess by the pleading, dreaming’ eyes. From the country, stretching away behind her, came the far-off lowing of cattle and from the town the strains of that Mine dirge, faint but yet filled with a sense of awful pain,. She pqt her hands over her ears 'and still knelt, while her face grew paler, and the shadows of the pinee near by cast their black' cloaks about her ; the silence, the loneliness, the sentiment of the place, overpowered her apd she started to her feet, But, recovering again, she took from a basket great, loose* creamy roses and heaped them about the tiny cotton flag and seemed to ponder till a big tear slowly rolled down each cheek and a sob convulsed her shapely shoulders. She threw herself on her knees again, with her face In her hands, while the sun sunk and the solemn, almost weird, music throbbed softly but dearly about her. iiL jjtfv 1..* ’A't J* «- <

Hers was not an unusual romanoe of that time; she had merely loved ami her love had not returned to her at th< final musteiing-out. The grave bj which she now stood, however, was not that of the lover, for she did not even know that he was dead. All that sh< did know was that the two brothers. Charles and Herbert Milford, haij marched away side by side; she had loved Herbert, but they had nevei spoken of It, and so ho left; Charles came back to die, and she was now at his grave; but she never knew where Herbert was, and—and she could nevei forget him. Thus the grave of the brother had become to her a place of all purity—a communion with the dear, dehd past—and where she went to kneel at the shrine of her old love. Twenty-five years had gone by and her heart had not changed; so, as she sobbed there in her holy of holies, she did not note how even the faithful mother had gone, and how the calm, white moon had slowly climbed up and was pouring its gracious benediction over each little flag-marked bed, seeming to say: • “Sleep on, oh, weary soul! Thy summons has not yet come. * A man came slowly up to the open gate of the graveyard—a man of probably 50, yet his face was older than his walk would lead one to expect. His head had fallen on his breast and he walked slowly, as If In a reverie. It seemed so good to get back again to the home which he had last seen through a mist of tears as he had waved his cap and pointed proudly to the gay, new flag twenty-five years before. His had been a busy life slnoe and he smiled a little once, saying to himself that he was growing sentimental when he, the president of a mammoth manufactory in the East, had stopped off at this little Western town just because the sight of it as he was passing through had brought up his boyhood and memories of a dark-eyed girl who had, after all, loved his brother, as some one wrote him when Charles had died. No, he didn’t care now whom she loved. Only —then, he had hoped she loved him a little then. But now—now; why, he hadn’t any heart now. “It's all turned into stocks and gold,* he laughed a little to himself as he patted his broad chest. However, the laugh was not a very hearty or satisfied one after all. Thus he argued to himself as he went on, following the directions given him by a boy In the town, and stepped cautiously about to the place at the foot of the hill. The old scorn had died out and the world was forgotten; he lived again the days of his youth and loved his brother and drew his life from the eyes of one young girl. So he continued until at his feet he saw a figure lying with the arms thrown out over the pale roses, and with the calm face turned full to the moonlight. He noiselessly stepped nearer and bent above her. Her low, regular breathing showed that she was sleeping, and a teardrop gleamed like a diamond on each dark lash. He knelt and brushed the grass from the face of the stone, and read:

“CHARLES MILFORD." "It Is she,” he murmured. “She did love him and thus she comes to him." Long and earnestly he looked at her quiet face, like an angel’s in the white moonlight; then, gently, noiselessly, he bent and pressed his lips to her snowy hair. Just for a -moment, when he sprung up and hastened away as if guilty of some crime, laughing nervously through his white lips, as he whispered: “She is his wife and has no thought of me. I shall go back to the world, for even the world Is never so false as a woman.” While she, a little later, awoke with a cry at finding herself alone so late In this beautiful, awful waste and ran wildly out to the street, her white hands pressed to her throbbing temples, while her cold lips quivered and a cry, like the cry of a wounded bird, rose to them: “I slept and dreamed that Herbert came to me and kissed me. Oh! why was it all a dream?" Angels of mercy are always hovering over us, but sometimes they only flutter near to us, instead of covering us safely in the loving protection of their wings.