The Ely Miner

JOHN LORIMER walked quietly out of the house, closing the front door softly behind him. For a moment he stood hesitatingly on the piazza, then, with a deep sigh, he walked down the gravel path, out of the gate and up the lane towards the big white house of the Armstrong family. He walked slowly, with eyes bent on the ground, as one having trouble on his mind, until, glancing up, he caught the gleam of a white dress at the gate of the Armstrong home—then the lagging steps grew brisk, and the melancholy face was brightened by a smile of pleasant anticipation.

It was a lovely evening in the latter part of May, and all nature seemed to be rejoicing in the fullness of the ripe springtime. It seemed a time for gladness and naught else, at least to those to whom sorrow was unknown. But in the cottage John Lorimer had just left was a little gray-haired woman who, sitting in an arm-chair with an old, faded photograph in her thin, shaking hands, was sobbing as though her heart would break. The picture was that of a young, handsome man in the uniform of a lieutenant of artillery, and was sadly blurred with the unavailing tears that had fallen upon it. The twilight deepened, and darkness came, and with it the songs of the frog and the cricket and the whip-poor-will and all the other sounds that tend to make night in the country a very symphony in itself—but the woman paid no heed, pausing only in her weeping now and then to kiss passionately the faded, tawdry photograph.

Young Lorimer's smile vanished almost as quickly as it came, for he could not more than momentarily forget the poor little heart-broken mother he had left weeping in her corner of the big sitting-room, although he knew he could do nothing to soothe her, and that she preferred to be left alone at this time: so his face was unusually solemn when he greeted his sweetheart, Bessie Armstrong, who was waiting for him at the gate.

“What makes you look so solemn to-night, big boy?” asked the girl, lightly.

“Oh, just what happens every year at this time—my mother is having her usual cry over my father's picture, and, as I can't be any solace to her at these times, I came away as soon as I could. You see, this is the anniversary of my father's—”

The girl's face had become grave almost as soon as John began speaking, and it was in a different tone than she had used at first that she asked:

“Your father was killed in the war, wasn't he, John?”

“We don't know. I suppose he was, but mother will not think so. I never saw him, you know, for I wasn't born until he had been gone six months. Shall I tell you about him?”

“Yes,” whispered Bessie, nestling closer to him in the twilight. And John, with an occasional little break in his voice, told her the story of the father he had never seen.

In the village of Banbury, at the opening of the war, lived a prosperous young merchant, John Lorimer. He had not been married long when the call for 90-day volunteers came, and for this and other reasons he did not feel it incumbent upon him to respond to the call. But when it was seen that the civil war was assuming alarming proportions, and

“Father Abraham called for 300,000 more,” then John Lorimer saw but one thing to do. He sold out his business, and, turning the proceeds of the sale and all his other property over to his wife, he went to the front as second in command of a battery fitted out by Banbury and neighboring villages.

For a year or more came, with more or less regularity, John's cheery, breezy letters, in which the discomforts of camp-life were depicted as a joke, and the horrors of war as a pastime. Then came the account of a battle, with the bulletin of dead, wounded and missing—and among those whose names followed that awful word “missing” was:

“John Lorimer, captain Battery C, —th Illinois artillery.”

Vainly the sorrowing wife he had left at home wrote here and there to see if she could get any trace of him. Years passed—years during which the young wife often told herself that the knowledge of his death were better than that terrible uncertainty as to his fate. As soon as the war closed, she went south and inspected the records of all the military prisons, but gained no clew from these. Yet she could never convince herself that he was dead, and she lived in the faith that she and her boy, the son he had never seen, now nearly as old as his father was when he went to the front, would yet look upon the living face of that husband and father.

It was the day when all America, leaving all other matters aside, unites in doing honor to the heroes who died that the nation might live. The morning had broken bright and clear, and the spring sun shone benignantly upon the completing preparations for the Memorial day ceremonies in Banbury, whence many a promising young fellow had gone to the war and died for his country.

At 11 o'clock came the services at the church, which almost everyone attended. Lined on either side of the walk outside were the Banbury guards, the local militia company, standing at “parade rest” while waiting for the appearance of the grand army post. Presently the veterans appeared, marching up the street with somewhat uncertain step—for many of them were cripples—behind muffled drum and silent fife—a little group of aging men, the remnant of scores of strong, hopeful young fellows who had gone forth from Banbury to fight for the cause they loved.

As they approached, the young captain of the guards gave two or three quiet commands: “Attention! Carry arms! Present arms!” And through the files of untried soldiers passed those of many battles.

“I wonder who that old fellow in the last row of veterans is,” mused John Lorimer, who, with his mother and Bessie Armstrong, stood on the corner and saw the old soldiers pass by.

“He must be a stranger. Did you notice? He seemed to be dazed—a little 'off,' I reckon.”

The services at the church were more than usually impressive. The new minister, Mr. Dare, was himself a veteran, and he talked to the soldiers as only a soldier can, then preached a sermon that brought tears to the eyes of nearly everyone in the house.

The services over, the veterans, followed by the guards and a long procession of citizens, marched to the cemetery to perform the remaining ceremonies of the day. At the church door Mrs. Lorimer left her son and Bessie to join some other flower-laden woman in a carryall, and the young people walked leisurely toward the cemetery.

There were short services at the base of the tall shaft inscribed: “To Our Unknown Dead”—then the graves were decorated, the salutes fired, and the procession marched back to the village, leaving behind only a few persons, most of whom had friends buried there.

Among those who remained were John Lorimer and Bessie Armstrong, who, in a silence begotten by the solemnity of the occasion, walked hither and thither among the shady paths of the little cemetery.

“What's that?” asked John, suddenly, as they turned into a path they had not seen before.

Bessie gave a little scream. Almost at their very feet lay the old stranger John had noticed in the morning, with the blood trickling from a wound on his gray head. He had, apparently, sat down on a stump to rest, and, overcome by the heat and his rather long march, had fallen backward striking his head on a large stone just beside the pathway.

AT THEIR VERY FEET LAY THE OLD STRANGER.

John went to him as soon as he recovered from his first shock, and raised the old man's head, but, beyond his faint breathing, there was little sign of life.

“There's only one thing to do, John,” said Bessie, quietly. “You bandage his head with your handkerchief, prop him against the stump, and I'll hold him until you can borrow a horse and buggy and bring Dr. Baker.”

John hesitated a moment, then followed his sweetheart's directions to the letter. He easily borrowed a horse and buggy from one of those who still lingered at the cemetery, and in less than half an hour he returned with the doctor.

“H'm! Pretty bad case—old wound, I fancy,” said Dr. Baker. “Who is he?”

“I don't know,” said John. “I noticed him in the procession this morning, but he seems to be a stranger.”

“Well, he must be taken care of, in any case, and well taken care of. But where can we—”

“Just take him over to our house,” interrupted John, promptly, receiving for this suggestion, an approving smile from Bessie.

In a very short time the injured man was lying in Mrs. Lorimer's “spare room,” and before the day was over all the village knew that “the widow Lorimer” was nursing a sick veteran.

“Just like her,” said everybody.

“She'd just work her finger to the bone doing for anyone who wore the army uniform.”

Under Dr. Baker's somewhat primitive treatment the patient did not thrive, but, instead, grew worse, until, at the end of a week, at Mrs. Lorimer's suggestion, a physician from the city was sent for.

That eminent practitioner arrived, asked a few questions, examined the patient's injured head, and announced:

“The man has been wounded in the head, and his skull has been trepanned. It was a bad job, for something was left pressing upon the brain, and this accident has dented the plate, also. I think he'll stand an operation,” the physician went on musingly as he turned to his case of surgical instruments.

In a few hours, the city physician, having removed the old plate and replaced it with a new one, took the train home, leaving behind him a patient who was sleeping as quietly as a babe. To Mrs. Lorimer the doctor said, at parting:

“All your patient needs now is good nursing, and I know, madam, he will receive it at your hands. When he regains consciousness, it will be, I think, as a perfectly sane man.”

The second morning after the doctor's departure Mrs. Lorimer was leaning over the sick man, when suddenly his eyes opened.

“I've been pretty sick, haven't I, nurse?” he asked with a faint smile.

“Yes, indeed. But you mustn't talk.”

“What shall I get you to eat?”

“How long will it be, do you think, before I can go home?” persisted the man.

“Not for quite awhile yet, I'm afraid. Where do you live?”

“At Banbury, Ill. I've got a wife there and a boy I've never seen—named after me—John Lorimer, and I want to—”

John in the sitting-room heard his mother's scream, and, bounding up the stairs three steps at a time, found her lying in a faint across the body of the wondering, frightened sick man.

It was all soon explained.

John Lorimer, Sr., had been struck by a flying bit of shell while in command of his battery, and had been taken to the hospital, where an incompetent surgeon trepanned his injured skull. In a short time he had been discharged from the hospital as cured—but he had lost his memory, had forgotten his name, residence, everything, and was semi-imbecile besides. In this condition he had passed 22 long years—years of which he had no recollection whatever.

But the husband of her youth was again with her in the flesh, and Mrs. Lorimer's steadfast faith was justified.

“Just look at Mrs. Lorimer,” said one of the guests at the Armstrong house the day John and Bessie were married; and she nodded towards that little woman, who was leaning proudly on the arm of her long-absent husband.

“If it weren't for her gray hairs, she'd look like a bride, and a pretty young one at that.”

R. L. KETCHUM.