A SCRAP OF PAPER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 18, 5 March 1915, Page 5 (Supplement)

A SCRAP OF PAPER.

When the dead were being buried, a trace of blood led the searchers to a shady spot, where they found a French sergeant lying dead with his hand tightly clenched in death, pressed to his lips. In his clenched hand was a scrap of paper, which they forced from it and read. It was a letter from his little girl of five, which, when mortally wounded, he had crawled here to read with the last light of his dying eyes, and it ran thus: "Dear Father, —I miss you so much. 1 miss you most morning and evening, when I used to kiss you. I try to be good, as you told mo, and hind to Mamma. —Your loving littJ'-'girl, Marguerite. - ' Here in this leafy place Quiet he lies; Cold with his sightless face Turned to the skies; Tis but another dead— All you can say is said. Carry the body hence, Kings must have slaves; Kings rise to eminence Over men's graves: So this man's eyes are dim, Cast the earth over him. What was that white you touched There by his side? Paper his hand had clutched. Tight ere he died. Message or wish, may be? Smooth out its folds and see. Hardly the worst of us Here could have smiled; Only the tremulous Words of a child, Message that has for stops Just a few ruddy drops. See! She is sad to miss Morning and night His—her dead father's—kiss, Tries to be bright; Kind to mamma and sweet, That is all—Marguerite! Ah! that beside the dead Slumbered the pain! Ah! that the hearts that bled Slept with the slain! That the grief died; but no: Death, will not have it so. AUSTIN' DOBSON, In the "Daily Chronicle.''