, for he was beloved by
all and all were bound to him by bonds of patriotic gratitude, since he
had been so brave a soldier upon the battlefields of his country. But
the soldier did not heed their words of sympathy; the voice of fame,
which, in the past, had stirred a fever in his blood and fallen most
pleasantly upon his ears, awakened no emotion in his bosom now. The
soldier thought only of Nellie, and he awaited her coming.

An old comrade came and pressed his hand, and talked of the times when
they went to the wars together; and the old comrade told of this battle
and of that, and how such a victory was won and such a city taken. But
the soldier's ears heard no sound of battle now, and his eyes could see
no flash of sabre nor smoke of war.

So the people came and spoke words of veneration and love and hope, and
so with quiet fortitude, but with a hungry heart, the soldier waited
for Nellie, his little girl.

She came across the broad, tempestuous ocean. The gulls flew far out
from land and told the winds, and the winds flew further still and said
to the ship: "Speed on, O ship! speed on in thy swift, straight course,
for you are bearing a treasure to a father's heart!"

Then the ship leapt forward in her pathway, and the waves were very
still, and the winds kept whispering "Speed on, O ship," till at last
the ship was come to port and the little girl was clasped in the
soldier's arms.

Then for a season the soldier seemed quite himself again, and people
said "He will live," and they prayed that he might. But their hopes
and prayers were vain. Death's seal was on the soldier, and there was
no release.

The last days of the soldier's life were the most beautiful of all--but
what a mockery of ambition and fame and all the grand, pretentious
things of life they were! They were the triumph of a human heart, and
what is better or purer or sweeter than that?

No thought of the hundred battlefields upon which his valor had shown
conspicuous came to the soldier now--nor the echo of his eternal
fame--nor even yet the murmurs of a sorrowing people. Nellie was by
his side, and his hungry, fainting heart fed on her dear love and his
soul went back with her to the years long agone.

Away beyond the western horizon upon the prairie stands a little home
over which the vines trail. All about it is the tall, waving grass,
and over yonder is the swale with a legion of chattering blackbirds
perched on its swaying ree