on the fire-lit stage of
history, and in the turn, behold! he was a hero. The white-robed
Chaplain thrilled and his dark eyes flashed. He seemed to see that day;
he would give half his life to have seen it--this boy had given all of
his. The boy was wounded early, and as the bullets poured death down the
hill he crept up it, on hands and knees, leading his men. The strong
life in him lasted till he reached the top, and then the last of it
pulled him to his feet and he stood and waved and cheered--and fell. But
he went up San Juan Hill. After all, he lived. He missed fifty years,
perhaps, but he had Santiago. The flag wrapped him, he was the honored
dead of the nation. God keep him! The Chaplain turned with a swing and
raised his prayer-book to read the committal. The long black box--the
boy was very tall--was being lowered gently, tenderly. Suddenly the
heroic vision of Santiago vanished and he seemed to see again the
rumpled head and the alert, eager, rosy face of the boy playing
football--the head that lay there! An iron grip caught his throat, and
if a sound had come it would have been a sob. Poor little boy! Poor
little hero! To exchange all life's sweetness for that fiery glory! Not
to have known the meaning of living--of loving--of being loved!

The beautiful, tender voice rang out again so that each one heard it to
the farthest limit of the great crowd--"We therefore commit his body to
the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; looking for
the general resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to
come."

* * * * *

An hour later the boy's mother sat in her room at the hotel and opened
a tin box of letters, found with his traps, and given her with the rest.
She had planned it for this time and had left the box unopened.
To-morrow she must take up life and try to carry it, with the boy gone,
but to-day she must and would be what is called morbid. She looked over
the bend in the river to the white-dotted cemetery--she could tell where
lay the new mound, flower-covered, above his yellow head. She looked
away quickly and bent over the box in her lap and turned the key. Her
own handwriting met her eyes first; all her letters for six months back
were there, scattered loosely about the box. She gathered them up,
slipping them through her fingers to be sure of the writing. Letter
after letter, all hers.

"They were his love-letters," she said to herself. "He n