Letters from Hugh and Irving Stanley

"God keep him from danger and death," she murmured; then, winding her
arms around the stricken mother, she wiped her tears away; and to her
moaning cry that she was left alone, replied: "Let me be your child till
he returns, or, if he never does--"

She could get no further, for the very idea was overwhelming, and
sinking down beside Hugh's mother, she laid her head on her lap, and
wept bitterly. Alas, that scenes like this should be so common in our
once happy land, but so it is. Mothers start with terror and grow faint
over the boy just enlisted for the war; then follow him with prayers
and yearning love to the distant battlefield; then wait and watch for
tidings from him; and then too often read with streaming eyes and hearts
swelling with agony, the fatal message which says their boy is dead.

It was a sad day at Spring Bank when first the news of Hugh's enlistment
came, sadder even than when 'Lina died, for Hugh seemed as really dead
as if they all had heard the hissing shell or whizzing ball which was to
bear his young life away. It was nearly two months since he left home,
and he could find no trace of Adah, though searching faithfully for her,
in conjunction with Murdock and Dr. Richards, both of whom had joined
him in New York.

"If Murdock cannot find her," he wrote, "I am convinced no one can, and
I leave the matter now to him, feeling that another duty calls me, the
duty of fighting for my country."