Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1903 — LAST THOUGHTS OF MOTHER. [ARTICLE]

LAST THOUGHTS OF MOTHER.

A Dying Boy Sends ■ Message es Affection U» His Aged Mother. Fargo (No. Dak.) paper; “I know that I must soon pass away. I%til mother that I died thinking of her.’* With one leg severed completely, his body bruised and m»ngled ; and his soul at the threshold of eternity, W. R. Michaels, the* young brakeman who met death* on the N. P. railway at Wheatland, yesterday morning* turned! to those surrounding him and forgetting his awful pain, said in at Husky voice: “Tell mother that I died think:' ing of her.” Bravely he spoke these few brief words, with eyes strangely appealing to his auditors. He turned and buried his face in hie pillows and when kindly handsreversed the head he had passed! to the dreamless silence of the tongueless dust. What more magnificent exemplification of a son’s affection for a mother could be made? In the darkness of death his motber stood as his star of hope mk£ consolation—his angel and listening love could almost hear the rustle of a wing. The strong-hearted men, accustomed to scenes of a kindred character, turned in silence from the cold, inanimate form. There were thoughts evidently of other far away homes, of other kind-faced mothers, whose brows are shaded by she lustre of silvery tresses, and whose thoughts are ever with th» “boy.” At the crucial hour matt may commune silently with hismaker, but when abroad and alon» in the cold, unfeeling world, th» mother in his parting words is tho worshiping queen upon eternitjV throne, to which the band is extended for sympathy and consolation ; or perbance, if she has passed! to the other shore, to whom, inadvertently the weary tarn in that glad promise of perpetual reunionThe body of this unfortunateyoung man, mangled and cold in death, has been Bent back to tireaged mother at Rensselaer, IncL* where the remains will be laiaL to rest.' The coroner’s jury found that death was the result of au accident without attaching the respeasibility.