In the fall of 64 they changed the runs around, and I was booked to run
in to M----. Ed, the boy, was firing for me. There was no reason why
"mother" should stay in Boston, and we moved out to the little farm.
That daughter, who was a second "mother" all over, used to come down to
meet us at the station with the horse, and I talked "sweet" to her; yet
at a certain point in the sweetness I became dumb.
Along in May, '65, "mother" got a package from Washington. It contained
a tin-type of herself; a card with a hole in it (made evidently by
having been forced over a button), on which was her name and the old
address in town; then there was a ring and a saber, and on the blade of
the saber was etched, "Presented to Lieutenant Jas. Dillon, for bravery
on the field of battle." At the bottom of the parcel was a note in a
strange hand, saying simply, "Found on the body of Lieutenant Dillon
after the battle of Five Forks."
Poor "mother!" Her heart was wrung again, and again the scalding tears
fell. She never told her suffering, and no one ever knew what she bore.
Her face was a little sadder and sweeter, her hair a little whiter--that
was all.
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