A SCRAP OF PAPER

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2370, 28 January 1915, Page 6

A SCRAP OF PAPER

When the dead were being buried a trace of blood led the' searchers to a shady spot, where they found a French sorgeant lying dead with his hand, tightly clenched in death pressed to his lips. In his clenched hand was a scrap of paper, which they forced from it and read. It was a letter from his little girl of five, which, when mortally wounded, he had crawled here to read with the last light of his dying eyes, and it ran thus: —"Dear Father, —I miss you so much. I miss you most morning and evening, when I used to kiss you. ,1 try to be good, aB you told ine, and kind to mamma.—Your Loving little girl, Marguerite." Here in this leafy place Quiet he lies; Cold with his sightless face Turned to the skies; 'Tis but another dead: All you can say is said. Carry the body, hence; Kings must have slaves; Kings rise to eminence Over men's graves; So this man's eyes are dim, Cast the earth over him. What was that white you touched, There his side? Paper his hand had clutched Tight ere he died? Message or wish maybe? Smooth out its folds and see. Hardly the worst of us Here could have smiled, Only the tremulous Words of a child. Message that has for stops Just a few ruddy drops. See! She is sad to miss Morning and night His —her dead father's —kiss. Trios to be bright; Kind to mamma and sweet, That is all—Marguerite. Ah! That beside the dead Slumbered 1 the pain! Ah! Thai the hearts that bid Slept with the slain! That the grief died. But no! Death will not have it so! —Austin Podson.