The Times And Democrat

Life Tragedies That We Read of in the Novels.

Away off in a neglected lot in the Fort Mill cemetery is a little grave, barely three feet in length. The lot and grave are overgrown with grass and weeds and neither bears evidence of having received kindly attention for years. Indeed, it is probable that of the many who have visited the cemetery in recent years not more than a score have seen the little grave. At its head is a small wooden slab, now all but rotted away, the only token of a child that came into the world many years ago to brighten and bless for a brief season the home of its parents.

Then the little one, stricken with a malignant fever and unable to withstand the emaciating ravages of the disease, passed out into the great beyond, leaving behind a sorrow-stricken home.

Shortly after the death of the child the parents, comparative strangers moved away, and not until a few days ago had anything been heard of them in this community; so far as the people here knew they had gone the way of the child. Few remembered that the family ever lived here and they were as seldom thought of as the child's grave was seen. But the grave was not forgotten—by one.

It is the last resting place of a child whose memory is loved as devotedly by its father as it was on that far day, 20-odd years ago, when the little one was taken.

Late one afternoon some weeks ago I was standing in the shade of a tree on the lawn in front of the Presbyterian church, watching a number of little boys playing ball. My attention was diverted from their play by the approach of a buggy, whose occupant drove up to within a few feet of where I was standing and hitched the horse. The man's face did not seem to be that of a stranger—I thought I had seen him before—and as is the custom of South Carolinians, I said good-evening. The man returned the civility and presently we were in conversation, I doing most of the talking at first, for it was evident the man was none too glad again to meet with one he had known here many years before. This discovery was enough to arouse my curiosity and to impel me to continue the conversation.

After we had talked for a few minutes the man, noticing that I had observed a small bunch of flowers which he carried, apparently from a sudden impulse began to tell me of his life since he resided here and of the purpose which brought him back—not, however, before expressing the hope that I would not mention his name to any one in connection with his visit.

"Perhaps you will recall," said he, "that I, with my wife and child resided in Fort Mill some years ago. After the death here of our child, my wife and I decided to make our home in another section of the country. Less than a year had passed after we left here when I went home one night to find that my wife was missing. Of course I was terribly distressed over her disappearance and at once began a search for her which has not ended to this day, but my efforts have gone for naught, for I have not been able to find the least trace of her.

"Why she left, I have never known. We had had no differences to which I could attribute her reason for going away. The mystery which surrounded her disappearance, together with the irreparable loss we had so recently sustained in the death of our only child, all but overcame me. I determined to leave the town in which we were living at once and have since been as a rudderless ship on a shoreless sea, never staying in one place longer than a few months. No one could know the sorrow her disappearance has caused me. Now I am old and almost worn out, but I have come back to this place once more to visit the grave of my child. Through all the years that have passed since my home was broken up I have had my face and heart turned full to the imperial glory of the Master's throne and some day I shall find that for which I have so long looked in vain on this earth."

W. R. B.