Leah Mordecai, page 109 by Belle Kendrick Abbott
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scene.
At length, George Marshall suddenly drew his rein, and lifting his hand to his forehead so as to shade his eyes, gazed curiously forward for a moment toward an object lying not very far distant. Then, quickly alighting, he stepped cautiously toward the object of his scrutiny. It was the dead body of a soldier. The dark blue uniform told to which army he belonged. The stocking, turned back from a slender ankle, fell carelessly over the heavy army shoe. The head was half-averted, and the open eyes, though sightless, were still bright with God's own azure.
"Creeping gently through his slender hand, as though it loved the cold caress of death, was a wild vine whose tiny blossoms would have shrunk at the touch of a wild bee's foot." By the side of his face was the worn cap that had fallen from his head as he fell.
Fearfully, timidly, with an air of dread, Colonel Marshall approached the silent figure and bent over the recumbent form.
"Great God! it is Franco! I thought I knew the poor fellow from afar! Poor, poor boy! Poor fair-haired Franco!" he exclaimed in a breath. Then gently turning the soiled cap, he read "Third Regiment United States Regulars." "My old command, my old command," he murmured. "Alas! poor Franco! I thank God we did not meet in deadly conflict. Your true, kind heart wished no one ill, yet an unkind fate has brought you to a mournful end, and I, for one, shall mourn your hapless lot. Alas! poor boy, you'll never see your vine-clad France again, and your kind mother's peasant home will ever be darkened by your absence."
Then kneeling for a little time beside the dead boy, the kind-hearted colonel dropped a tear and bowed his head in deep reflection. Then, arising and looking eagerly about him, he said at length, "There, in the end of that entrenchment, by the side of that shattered tree, I can lay his body, in lieu of a better grave. There it will at least be safe from the vultures and the horrible fate that awaits the unburied dead of a defeated army."