Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1899 — Which Shall Enlist? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Which Shall Enlist?

A A c?O<?ELI'. Ed, I’ve enlisted!” XfN/ “Hare you though, Tom?” •414 “Yes, sir! I’m one of them!" “I declare, I wish I was, too.” “Falks won’t let you?” “Na.” “Urn's only sixteen more wanted to M «• A* company and I’ve just met three MDaws that said they were going up to gat their names down,” and then Thomas Warn* eighteen years old, lithe-llmbed and ialehjiired, enumerated to his chum of the Mast Me, Edward Wilkinson, who “the IsMhars” were who said that they were griog up to enlist. “■Award, mother wants you to come in to Auer. How do you do, Tom?” and a ga>M light-footed girl of fourteen ran out grass the farm house opposite to which the tare hays had fronted, and looked halfaamaeetly, half-laughingly. Into the eyes es the young man, her neighbor, and her Brother's Inseparable companion, Thomas “Tans has enlisted, Nellie. Now isn’t it «aa had that my folks won't let me enlist •ad gate the war?” “You’re enlisted, Tom? Really?" “Yaf,i Nellie, and I wish Edward would, Are we coaid be always together. Sleep A the same tent, march together and ” “Fight together!” said the girl, her eyes “Yea, Nellie, fight together!" the young ■saa proudly added. A tall woman with slightly gray hair, who had been standing at the side door of the long white porch of the farm house, “sHae to dinner, children, and you, too, ■ ThSanaa Hines, come in and eat dinner with as. Yhe hoy would hare hesitated, but a Baud at either side bidding each of his, there waa nothing for the young volunteer

planting, and took his seat at the head of the table. “Well, Thomas,” he added after a moment's silence, “somebody’s got to do it, I s'pose! But you’re rather young yet, Tom!” “Can’t Edward go with him, father?" at length asked, in pleading voice, the girl, breaking the alienee. Edward Wilkinson looked up at his sister, a feeling of deep gratitude in his heart, and followed the attack with, “Yes, father, you said once that you’d give your consent, if anybody from right around home here was going that would look out for me.” ‘ “But Tom is only a boy himself. I meant some older person.” “And do you want your only brother to go to the war, Nellie?” asked the girl's mother. “Yes, as he wants to go himself, and besidea when it is every one’s duty to go who can,” aaid the girl spiritedly. “Besides, too, when his best friend and chum, Tom Hines, is going!” The three young faces looked earnestly at the head of the table. As they did so a tall, thin-faeed woman came and stood in the open door. Invited in, Mrs. Hines would not take off her things, and said, all breathless, that she had come to know if they had made up their mind to let Edward enlist. She had given her consent to her own son feeling sure that his friend was going also. “No, Mrs. Hines," replied at length in slow, measured voice, Amos Wilkinson, “Edward has never been very well, and, besides, I must have his help this summer. We must both work out for the neighbors, by day work on their farms when we can get time, to meet the bills that’s due.” “But did you hear about the town meeting this morning, what they did?” “No, what?” “Voted to give every man in the new company a bounty of two hundred dollars in advance.” At the words the face of the hardfeatnred farmer flushed. Looking at him hia hand could be seen to tremble. He was not an avaricious, grasping man, but the sterile little rocky New England farm lie tilled made him think, in a practical way, in order that both ends should meet. This had been one of the weightiest reasons against his son’s enlistment, bnt he had not mentioned it before. The other was the frailty of the yonng man. Bnt now, as he sat there, he thought of the mortgage of two hundred dollars upon the little place, and a note coming due in the snmmer. * The color came and went to the man’s face, but no, he would not sell his boy's life, or the risk of that life. Rising, as all sat and looked upon him in the silence, watching the struggle, he said, a determined look upon his face, and with flashing eyes, in a low tone: "Edward is not gojng to enlist, but I am. I will go myself!” V As a thunderbolt the words came upon the devoted family. ”7 “Edward, you can take care of the

farm,” he said, and then turning to Mrs. Hines, “perhaps I can look ont for your boy better at the front than another boy of the same age could.” The next day the Allentown company, enliaWd to its full compliment of one hundred and one men, marched proudly down the street of the old town, and at its head, beneath the flag upon Its staff No captain that had ever stepped before

for hia place than did Amos Wilkinson, the old State militia captain, the com pany's choice. A modest, retiring mu, he had no thought of the place he was elected to fill, when, the day before, he had enlisted. So it was that the Allentown company reported at the State camp, and after, with its regiment, reported at the Heights of Alexandria, and in all the marches and battles of the Army of the Potomac, beneath Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania skies, the fanner, citizen, soldier of Allentown did his whole part in cheering on and leading his men. First, as captain, then secondly as major aigl again lieutenant colonel, to finally fall when, upon that awful Jflne morning of 1804, in the fiery fatal loop of Lee. the division of Martindale fell as a tiring wall at Cold Harbor. “I was to watch over yon. Sergeant,” he said, as, dying, his orderly. Sergeant Hines, beat over him —Col. Wilkinson. “Tell—tell—tell your " bnt the death rattle sounded, the eyea pat on a vacant stare, and another brave ofllecr of tho Army of the Potomac was no fioore. The remains of Col. Wilkinson rest in his own village cemetery at Allentown. There, each year, as sad Memorial day comes round, the widow of Captain Hines, he who died a year later from a gunshot wound received among the last fired before Itichmond, and the daughter of the town’s brave hero. Col. Wilkinson, with her little one, trims the flowers above these graves. And with them, too, another grave, for Edward Wilkinson, the frail yonth, could not stand the work he tried to do at home, and died even before the war ended. Bnt the bravery and determination of a father at the front strengthened snd disciplined a regiment.—The Bouquet.

MARCHING AWAY TO WAR.