WOMAN'S INFLUENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8160, 16 June 1906, Page 7

WOMAN'S INFLUENCE.

(By Emma Garrison Jones). "Good-bye, little mother!" She came out in the morning sunshine at the sound of her son's voice, a little shapely girlish-faoed woman in widow's weeds. "Good-bye, Tom, my brave boy," standing on tip-toe to kiss him; "you'll not forget mother when you're gone?" He looked down and bis keen blue eyes filled with tears, and the firm lips, beneath his tawny beard, trembled like a woman's. "No, mother,," a half sob in his voice, "I'll not forge' you." "I know you won't, my good handsome Tom" she responded, patting and caressing bis arm with her childish, dimled hands. "You never caused your mother's heart an hour's sorrow, in all you life, and you'll not begin now 1 shall pray for yon unoeasiugly, and you'll come baok to me, Tom. I am sure the good God will bring you baok to me. One word more, Tom. Here's my little Bible," drawing a small package from her bosom; "your father and 1 used to read it together. Miart, Tom, dear, and make it your guide and companion, and you'll never go astraty. Army life u full of temptations, my boy, and but, for 'little mother's' sak<* you'll not yield to them?" ''No, mother." "And, Tom, dear, you'll abstain from strong drink—you won't 'look at the wine when it is red?' You'll promise me that?" • "Yes, little mother." "All right, you'll not break your promise, I'm sure of that. Whenever your companions press you to join them in a social glass, think of 'little mother' Tom. It would break: my heart to see my boy's handsome head brought low by strong drinW " "Yon shall never see it, mother. Good-by, again,—there goes the j bugle —1 must be off. Take care j of yourself, 'little mother'." "Aye, aye, Toml" He slung his knapsack across bis broad shoulders, and strode down the dewy lane, the summer sunshine falling biightly on his burnished arms and soldier blue, in an hour's time he had joined his regiment, and was under marching orders for the seat of war. A sultry summer night in Southern Virginia. Tbe sky hot and brassy, a lurid crescent moon hanging over tbe smoky fields, aid long lines of shimmering bayonets. A group of officers were drinking and chatting in tbe colonel's tent. "Come, Tom, my lad,' said a gray-bearded old major, addressing the tall young captain of a cavalry company; "come, my lad here's a glass of good old whisky to cool your blond and Are your oourage. We'vo bloody work to do before the -moon goes -iown. He extended tbe brimming glass and Tom put oat his hand to receive it. He was out of sorts that sultry evening. His head throbbed with a dull pain, and a silly, choking sensation at bis heart almost stifled him. Tbe pending engagement would be his first battle, and despite his tall figure, and sinewy limb, nnd tawny beard, poor Tom's heart thrilled and throbbed witb something that was almost fear. He craved the clear fiery liquor that sparkeled so temptingly It would make him strong for the terrible conflict in which he must soon take part. He took the brimming glass from tbe major's hand. The officers rose in a mass, clashing their sabres. 1 "Here goes," cried the colonel, clanging bis glass against that of his nearest neighbour; "we'llpledge our absent wives and Bweotheßrts, boys!" He drained his glass and a dozen others followed his example; but tall Captain Tom put down his, still brimming and untasted. He had no wife or sweetheart in the far-off riew England village where he was born, but be had his 'little mother." And at that moment of supreme temptation, her sweet, fair face seerred to rise between him aud the fatal glass, and her voice spoke in his ear. "No. Tom, don't for 'little mother's sake!" He put down his glass untasted. Never in all his brave young life had he wilfully disobeyed his 'little mother'; never since tbe hour when his father died, aad gave her to his keopiDg had he caused her a moment's pain. He would not do so now. She would know—some subtle influence, flashing like electric fire from the Southern battleground to the old cottage amid green New England hills, would warn her if ha broke bis promise, and yielded to terrfptation. "Why, what's up, captain?" cried the major; "haven't turned teetotaler, have you, old boy? Come, down with your whisky!" But Tom shook bis bead, heedless of their jeers aud • laughter, turned awav, leaving tbe sparkline glass untasted. Tbe desperate charge was over, aud like the heroes of JJalaklava, only a few returned. Captain Tom ws not amid the Dumber. He lay prostrate on the bloodstained battlefield; and the list of dead that went up to New England bore bis name. In her desolute cottage his 'little mother' read it, with the account of the beroio onset, and mourned for her slain soldier as only a fond mother can. Meanwhile in a Southern hospital, scores of wounded sufferers lay, burned by consuming fevers that no skill oould allay. "Can't save them —not one," said tbe surgeon on his round. "Tbe whole paok were drunk when they went to battle, and this is the result. The whisky has fed tbe fever, you see! That fellow out there," pointing to the tall fig-ire of Captain Tom, stretohed on a cot, "may get up—he was sober." The summer was well over amid the New England villages tbe grain was waving yellow on the hills, and In the orchards the fruits hang in insoious, golden clusters. But hundreds of homes were made desolate by the loss of husbands, and sons, and brothers; hundreds of hearts ached with a sorrow that no earthly remedy oould cure. The "little mother" of tall Cap- . tain Tom sat on tbe low sill of tbe old-fashioned kitchen, in tbe shimmering light ot%tho autumn moon. Out under the tawny chestnut

trees, where, the brook was babbling, and the crickets chirping amid the yellow grasses, her hußband lay in death's dreamless sleep and the heart of the widow was sore with her new sorrow. "Oh my boy 1" she sobbed, tears raining over her oheeks, "my tall, handsome Tom! Never to see him again—never to hear his voicenever to feel the embraoe of his strong arms, it is very bitter 1 Oh, Tom, my boy." The oriokets pined out their shrill melody, the autumn wind rustled the tawny ohestnuts, and the noisy brook babbled. The old cottage, under the misty splendour of tbe autumn moon, with that bowed figure on tbe doorstep looked unutterably lonely and desolate. And the mother's poor heart was full of wordless agony, while her strained, tear-blinded eyes seemed to see that nameless grave far down in a Soutbern valley—her son's grave, above which her tears oould never flow. A quick, sharp step crushed the crisp grasses; a tall shadow darkened the autumn moonlight lying in silver rifts on the white boards of tbe kitchen floor. "Little mother" looked up. There was a moment of breathless silenoe, and then a sudden cry—cry a of suob intense, unutterable joy that all the silent night took up tbe sound, and hundreds of echoes repeated it amid the surrounding hills. "Ob, Tom I my boy, it it you?" "Fes, it is I, 'little mother'l" At his right side an empty sleeve hung but with the left arm be ylasped her close, covering her wet oheeks witb Dassionate kisses. "Oh, Tom, 1 have suffered so?"" she sobbed at last. "I thought you were dead, my dailing! but you have come back, my brave, handsome soldier!" She raised herself from his embrace, and putting her hands on his shoulders looked steadily in bis eyes. They met the seaobing gaze clear and fearless. "Tom" she said with a little laugh that was half a sob "you've come home to me pure and true as you went—my good boy has kept his promise!" "Yes. thank Heaven! I,have kept my promise!" he answered with a solemn tenderness in his handsome eyes; "and it has been my salvation! Tbe temptation was a sore one and if 1. had yielded should have died like the rest of my comrades, poor fellows. But the thought of you saved me as I seemed to see your eyes face between me and tbe luring glass. It was all your work 'little mother'." "And given me my reward. Be has given me baok my boy, whom I mourned as dead" responded his mother, witb happy tears.