Across The Road From The Ward Moving Silently About The Avenues
Of That Vast "City Of The Dead," French Mothers Were Scattering
Flowers On Graves Of Their Loved Ones; And Then It Was
Understood Why Chester Howland Sang While The Thundering Cannon
Shook The Wards.
Soon for him there would be no weary marches,
no days of terror and nights of pain.
Ah, precious gold-star
mother, rightly have you said it seems that he is just "away."
The home he once brightened and filled with the beauty of his
presence shall know him no more; but think to what radiant
fields he has gone, for which you early taught him to prepare!
There no cruel war will ever come to take him from your hearth-
side.
I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead - he is just away!
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there,
And you - O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still, as he gave the blows
Of his warrior-strength to his country's foes.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things; where the violets grew
Blue as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;
While the little brown thrush that harshly chirped
Was dear to him as the mocking bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain.
Think of him still as the same, I say
He is not dead - he is just away.
- Riley.
The first Pilgrim trail is now Leyden street, which leads from
the edge of the water to the fort on Burial Hill. But we first
made our way to a real wooded park whose grounds were covered
with oak trees, clethra, alder, spice bushes, and green-brier,
which we fancied still grew as they did in the days of the
Pilgrims. We saw numbers of Indian tepees in this park, which
added to its touch of original wildness. We learned that they
belonged to the Winnebagoes of Maine, who came down to Plymouth
to take part in the pageant. The park was full of blueberry and
huckleberry bushes, and companies of the Indian boys and girls
were gathering the berries which were just beginning to ripen,
giving us a good idea of what the place must have been like
before the coming of the white man.
>From this place we followed a path along the shores of a stretch
of water known as "Billington sea." It is a lovely lake, that
had been blocked off from the ocean by a great terminal moraine
until "Town Brook set it free." There is a legend current here,
that a man who brought little credit but much trouble to the
Pilgrims by his acts of wantonness, was said to have reported
the discovery of a new sea; therefore "Billington's sea." His
sons seemed to be chips of the old block and caused the
colonists no end of worry and trouble by their recklessness.
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