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A Spartan Mother
(Kalem)
By HENRY ALBERT PHILLIPS
The after-history of our bloodiest war is a record of the men who fought, and bled, and died — leaving only fame for a solace to them they loved. But seldom do we read of the noble women who married men, and reared sons, whose lives took root in the core of their hearts, and yet who gave them to the cause — and lost them!
Elizabeth Marye had lost a husband and three sons in the single battle of Bull Run. A fourth son was yet left to her, a mere boy, not yet seventeen, for whom she now sat waiting, with drawn blinds, in her gloomy Southern mansion. In her heart, chilled by tragedy, Robert was the one warm spot left. Yet now, as thru all the years of his boyhood, she cherished a vague, sublime hope at the thought of her last-born.
For some strange reason she expected this boy to accomplish what those others had set out to do and failed — in death. She had always secretly believed that Robert would some day be put to the supreme test, and at last the day had arrived. If her courage would only hold out, she kept telling herself. For her heart and soul, grown numb with grief and despair, threatened to dissolve at the thought of giving up her all. But the moth
er's hope was greater than her despair.
As she looked up the dusty road, her feelings colored her fancy with the picture that would never fade. She saw again the long line of gray uniforms winding over the hill, headed by the gallant husband who had just clasped her in his arms. And here, near the center of the column, were three stalwart boys, shoulder to shoulder. Each one had wept out his childish cares upon her breast ! Over the hill they had gone, into the valley whence none return.
The woman laid a thin, wrinkled hand over her eyes, as tho to wipe away the vision. When she looked up again, a handsome boy, with six feet of muscular frame, was coming over that hill.
She rose up and fluttered a tiny handkerchief, which the boy did not seem to see.
At length he entered the room, giving a curt nod to old Cephas, who held the door open for him.
"Well, mother !" He advanced with quickened pace and kist the wrinkled forehead of his mother. But she seized and hungrily drew him close, while the first tear that had come from her desert heart for many days fell on his breast. It was many
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