Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1915 — A Decision From the Dead [ARTICLE]

A Decision From the Dead

By F. A. MITCHELL

When Donald Erskine was fourteen years of age his father bought a place on one of the principal roads leading from the city. The house stood in a large lot, anti in the adjoining lot on one side stood another house of about the same size. There was no other house within half a mile. Donald had long wished for a gun. but his father would not consent to his having one so long as he lived in the city, hut when they moved to the country the boy was given a small ride. The day after reaching the new residence Donald went to a wood back of the house with his gun. , It was in the spring of the year, when shooting was not in order, but be wanted to see how it would feel to be in a wood with a gun. Donald found something better than a bird in tbe wood—a girl about his own age gathering wild flowers. Children don’t usually require an introduction, and a boy with a gun and a girl gathering wild flowers in a wood were not likely to forego an acquaintance from such a default Donald learned that the girl was Amy Stanford and that she lived in the next house to his own home. Since he did not feel at liberty to shoot the birds he leaned his gun against a tree and hunted with the girl for owers. When they had gathered quite a number they looked about for a seat on which they might arrange them into a bouquet

“Come with me,” said Amy, and she led Donald to a tree from which a branch a few feet from the ground 6tood out horizontally far enough to make room for the two of them, then tukned in a perpendicular direction. There the girl seated herself, spreading the flowers in her lap. and Donald sat down beside her. Then followed the most delicious hour lu Donald’s life. Above were the birds, twittering, flying to and from the nests they building, an occasional song, accompanied by the never ending music of a brook that bent about the tree underneath which the children were sitting, while at their feet trembled shadows of the half grown leaves. Donald passed other hours in the same position with the same girl beside him. But there is that in the first of anything which never comes again. On that branch he took the “first kiss of love.” Nevertheless there was not again quite the same sweetness in the songs of the birds, the music of the running water, the flecked shadows of the young leaves.

Just when he took the first kiss of love may not be revealed. It was to him too sacred to be spoken. But we may be sure it was not long delayed. The love that sprang up and blossomed there when it bloomed bloomed forever. He felt that whether they were together or separated in this world or in the next they were one forever. Three years later—Donald was seventeen—tbe Erskine family removed to a distant region. Their parting occurred at the trysting place where they had so often met, and neither doubted that they would meet again when they had passed from youth to manhood and womanhood. But they were never to meet again in mortality. Three years later Amy died. Four years after their parting Donald, who had come to man’s estate, one spring morning, sorrowful, with reluctant step passed from the road to the wood where he had been so happy with his lost love. There had been no change. Birds were twittering, the brook gave forth its music, the shadows of the leaves flecked the turf.

As Donald approached the branch seat he suddenly stopped and gazed as tboughTie saw some ngly apparition. A man sat on the branch wearing a countenance of grief. Then Donald with quicker step approached the man and said to him: “Why are you here?” “I am mourning a lost love.” “A lost love! Who may that lost love be?” “My Amy—Amy Stanford!” “Your Amy?” “My Amy! Mine in life; mine In death!”

There was a pause, during which the two men regarded each other with a 6trange emotion. Finally Donald spoke. “Did Amy Stanford love you?” “She did.” , “You lie.” “I lie? You have strange confidence.” “Confidence, but not strange confidence. If you speak the truth she was not what she was, and that is impossible. But it Is sacrilege for me to dispute with you on such a subject” Advancing to the trunk of-the tree where there was a cavity in the Wood, Ronald thrust In his hand nearly to the shoulder and drew forth a small metal box, took a key from his pocket, unlocked the box and took from it a paper. Without looking at it he handed it to the man who claimed to be his rival for one who had passed to another existence. The latter read it eagerly. Then suddenly it fel| from his rising, he stalked away. Donald/before parting with Amy, had given her the box and had exacted a promise that from time to time she would write him on a slip of paper contained in It a message and place It In the cavity. Some day he would come and get it What had been written on the paper was known only to two living men and—the dead.