Page Two
! THE POSTSCRIPT |
t BY MARY LAWRENCE CAMNITZ. |
■JT
It was an afternoon of mid-sum
mer 1917. Thi» larjj.e Chautau
iqua tent in an Illinois city was,
crowded with an interest ] but j
anxious audience, for it was but a
few days before the first draft whs
drawn, following- our entrance in
to the great W.HJO WH\
The symphony orchestra hfed
thrilled the crowd and when the
program closed with "The Star
Spangled Banner" the people rose
to their feet and the very air
breathed tenseness. The orchestra
left the plaform by June Black
burn the little Southern entertain
er.
She was a typical daughter of
the South —lithe, willowy, and
graceful with a wealth of dark
brown hair, and brown eyes in
which flashed all the fire of her
Southern ancestors. Her voice was
full and s,trong yet possessing the
soft accent so peculiar to and
charming in the Southern woman.
Shp told her stories of the Old
South with a charm and magne
tism that captured the vast au
jLliencQ. One moment they were in
tears at the pathos of it all; the
next they were convulsed with
laughter at some of her quaint
and humorous darkey s,tories„ June
Blackburn had w'alked right into
the hearts of that Northern au
idience.
In closing her program she said,
"I am so happy that you have en
joyed the picture I have tried to
bring you of the Old. South which
is fast slipping away. I do not
feel that picture would be com
plete without my showing you the
flag of that Old South. (Here she
displayed a tiny silk Confederate
Hag). This flag was given to me
by dear Stonewall Jackson when |
I was a tiny little girl and 1 have
loved it ever since. It is a flag
that is dear to every Southerner's
heart. Our grandmothers rallied
to its, call in '6l and God only
The Place Your Money
Counts Most
BARNES'
CASH GROCERY AND FEED STORE
FOREST CITY, N. C.
Where You Will Find A Big Stock of
Heavy and Fancy Groceries and various
kinds of Feed Stuff at prices
Lower than elsewhere
Give Us a Trial and Let Us Prove What We Say
Our Motto: 4 'Strictly Cash and Sell It Cheaper"
$5.00
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out.
We have one used Universal Cleaner with complete
set of attachments, that we will sell for $25.00.
I
PEOPLES ELECTRIC GOMPAIMY
CONTRACTORS Forest City, N. C. SUPPLIES
i
knows what they suffered and en
dured for it. . . . But today we
are laying it tenderly away with
, all the other reverent memories of
those dear old heroes while we an
swer the call of the Stars and
Stripes—the flag of both the North
I and South. A Southern woman
never shirks. She has but to see
her duty to do it. Our country
calls us today and we shall rally
'round the Stars and Stripes with
just the same devotion and self
sacrifice that our grandmothers
rallied 'round the Stars and Bars.
(Here she picked up Old Glory).
For this is your flag and my flag
And, oh, how much it holds
Your land and my land
Secure within its folds
Your heart and my heart beat
quicker at the sight
Sun kissed, and wind tossed —
the red and blue and white." j
At the close of her program the
audience thronged up to her voic
ing their delight at such unity of
purpose between the North and
South. A great many of these
were Union soldiers who put their
arms about her and patted her on
the shoulder as they told her of (
the many kindnesses shown tO (
them by the Southern women dur-:
ing that awful struggle. She would j
have been very happy over all this
had she not seen a large number (
of women leave the tent just be
fore she finished. She was hurt
beyond expression at that and de
terminded to find out before the
evening program why they had
left. This was not at all difficult
to do. She learned that these lad-j
ies refused to stay in a tent where j
a Confederate flag was displayed,
even though it was shown with
the view of making all the strong
er the Southerners' allegiance to
the Stars and Stripes.
For a time she was hurt; and
then her indignation completely
swallowed up her hurt feelings
and when she stepped on the plat
form that night her snapping eyes
told, even before she spoke, just
how she felt about it all. She
couldn't begin her program until
she had poured out upon them
i some of the boiling, seething in
dignation she felt at the dishonor
shown the flag she had 1 been
taught ts love and cherish.
"I've learned that some of you
ladies in my audience this after
noon objected to my showing the
Confederate flag from your plat
form. You misunderstood, ladies.
We love that flag as we love Geo.
Washington, Robt. E. Lee and
many other great heroes of the
past. But our loving them doesn't
make us love the Stars and Stripes
nor President Wilson one bit less.
If you ladies will come down
South we'll show you what real
patriotism is. Our school children
| pledge their allegiance to the flag
j every morning before beginning,
i their work: the little street ur- j
chin stops his game of marbles to
! stand attention while the tin-pan
street piano plays the Stiar
j Spangled Banner. And now, even
before the draft is drawn, we wo
' men are laying plans in our
Southern city—where one of the
great Cantonments is being built
—to make things, pleasant and
comfortable for your boys. As
1 you know they will come to that
ftamp and we want them to feel
1 their lots have fallen in pleasant'
■places and that they are not'
i among strangers. And we shall
care for them just as tenderly as
we care for our own Southern
boys*" 1
* * *
It was in October, 1918, when
the "flu' 'was raging in fell the
camps both here and overseas. The
big camp in June Blackburn's
Southern city was suffering most
|of all. With hundreds of other
young women of that city she had
the Red Cross call for volunteer
1 nurses and had put aside every
thing else to go to the camp hosr
j pital to nurse the sick and dying.
She was assigned to a ward con
taining twenty stalwart young
'soldiers who had been stricken
with the terrible malady. She
stayed on duty from seven in the
morning until eight at night with
never a moment's, rest nor a bite
to eat. She bathed their faces;
J gave them their medicine and fed
them every bit of nourishment
they took —for they were too ill
, to hold even a drinking tube to
their lips. She met all the loved
ones who came with a hearty wel
! come and a sympathetic and un
standing hand-clasp. And to those
who could not come she wrote a
short note telling how the boy
I was, doing. She gave all of her
I time, strength, and endurance to
j the work.
After all had been done that
' medical science could do and she
knew the last call had come for
some of them she took the mes
sages they wanted to send to their
j dear ones at home and then held
i their hand and tenderly smoothed
back their hair that they might
; not feel that they were going out
| alone and unnoticed. Each of the
five in June Blackburn's ward who
, were claimed by the dreadful
i scourge went out feeling that he
| was among friends—that some one
cared.
It seemed like a trick of fate
that two of these five boys were
from this same Illinois town
where June's, beloved Southern
j flag had been frowned upon a lit
. tie more,than a year before.
One of these boys knew that the
; end was very near and asked June
|to write a letter to his mother —
i which she did—"My
! darling mother," he said, "this
! will be my last message to you,
but don't let it make your heart
; ache too much v for it's all right,
. mother. To me it seems a rather
! inglorious way to go after dream
; ing of the great part I was going
Ito play in the trenches. As it is,
j I'm only dying in an army camp—
j but the God of Battles knows best
and so it is all right. And mother,
I know it will ease the hurt in
your heart to know that I was
surrounded with every care and
I comfort that I could have had at
: home—the daintiest things to eat
| the best medical cftre, and the
i tenderest nursing. Mother, I
j didn t know that God made such
wonderful women in the world
(except you, old dear, of course)
as these Southern women. They
have given up everything to make
us comfortable, and every boy who
lives will bless them to his dying |
day and those who die will die
blessing them. This little nurse i
who is writing this, has done for
me all that your loving hands
could have done had you been
THE FOREST CITY COURIER
well enough to come to me. One
dhy, mother, when the hurt was
so bad she even rubbed my chest
with paracamph because I had
told her that was what you used
to do when I went coasting and
caught cold. §he knew it wouldn t
do any good but she thought it
would make me think of home.
! And every time I sjuelled that
paracamph, mother, I thought of
all your gentle, tender ministra
tions and I shall go into heaven,
you to me for a mother. And I
fchall thank Him for these cMar
thanking God for having given
Southern women, who have brush
ed the heartaches away from so
many boys in this camp. The
time is growing shorter, mother,
bu\ don't feel sad dear, just know
that when you reach heaven's
gates I shall be standing just be
i hind them to grab you and give
you a bear hug as I always did
i when you came from town..
Your Boy." j
It was not long after June fin
ished the letter before the lights,
went out for the dear chap. She
closed his eyes and kissed him on
the forhead for his mother and
brushed the tears from her eyes
as she went out to mail the letter
that it might reach her in time
to soften just a little the brief,
cold offical notice which was the
best the government could do in
I those terrible days.
I As she passed out the door she
met the orderlies coming with the 1
flag to wrap him in. Like a flash
is passed over her, "I wonder coUid
his mother have been one of the
! women who scored my dear Con-
I federate flag that day? No, I'm
quite sure she wasn't."
j But anyway, with the hurt still
in her heart, she stepped into the
1 office and added a postscript to
the letter. "It might be of inter
est to some of the women in your
city to know that the nurse, who
, has written this letter and has
tried to do for your dear Boy all
' j that she would have done for her
• own brother is no other than the
'i little Southern girl, who displayed
: the Confederate flag on your
1 Chautauqua platform last year..
5 j J. B."
k ,
I! MEN'S BIBLE CLASS
1 i
■ ■
• I
I The Men's Wesley Bible Class
: meets at the Methodist church ev-
ery Sunday morning at 10 o'clock.
| You are cordially invited to at
tend.
' j
i Some day you will own a Chevrolet
i
, Gravitation Was to Blame
- | "Why, George, did you make
, John fall down?"
| "No'm," said George, luckily re
. membering one of his lessons. "It
[ was the law of gravitation that
I made him fall. I only pushed
him."
|l = |
zMilholland
|
This charming tale is no 1
less boy and girl than
" Penrod," " Seventeen,"
and "The Oriole." But it I
has a more serious signif
icance in its revealment
of great events,such as the
World war, changing over- I
night, as it were, boys into
men and girls into women
another illustration of
the age-old dictum that
men must fight and women
must weep
The earlier scenes are of boys
and girls in public school,
where the plodding Ramsey
Milholland learns to hate the
traditional bright girl pupil
the teacher's pet.
The plot carries the same char
a&ers to the state university.
We have a rollicking pidure
of boys and girls struggling
with the rudiments of educa
tion and finally of youth get
ting the finishing touches at *
college. Up to this point it is
mostly humor and care-free '
adkm.
Then comes the war, rhanging
everything. The author care
fully avoids the tragic and
heart-rending. He implies a
happy ending with an oppor
tunity for the reader to fill in
through imagination, the trag
edy ifhe so desires. It is a de
lightful Tarkington story, typ
ical of the author's best talent.
It is
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SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY
Arrival and Departure of Passenger Trains at
Forest City, N. C.
Lv. No. Between No. Ar.
6:42 a 34 Rutherfordtqn-Raleigh
and Wilmington. 34 6:42 a
xl0:30a 109 Ellenboro-Rutherfordton 109 xl0:30a
xll:20a 110 Rutherfordton-Ellenboro 110 xll:20a
12:17p 15 Monroe-Rutherfordton 15 12:17p
4:51p 16 Rutherfordton-Monroe 16 4:51p
7:00p 31 Wilmington-Raleigh
and Rutherfordton 31 7:00
x Daily except Sunday.
No.' 16 connects at Monroe with No. 6 for Norfolk, Richmond,
Washington and New York, and No. 11 for Atlanta and point,
West.
Schedules published as information and are not guaranteed.
G. W. LONG, Jr., Ticket Agent, E. W. LONG, D. P. A.,
Forest City, N. C. Charlotte, N. C.
Good Job Printing at the Courier Office.
M
Thursday, Feb. 16, 1922