'Deborah, can't you think o' your country? There's a great question to be settled. Nobody knows which is the strongest, the government up yonder at Washin'ton, or the government down yonder in South Carolina and right here in Kentucky. It's a big question,' says he, 'and it's been botherin' this country ever since it's been a country, and this war's goin' to settle it one way or the other for good and all, and no matter which side a man's fightin' on, he's doin' his part in the settlement.' Says he, 'You've got a son on each side, and you ought to feel proud and glad that you're doin' so much for your country.' And Mother's eyes'd flash and she'd say, 'Country! You men never told me I had a country till you got up this war and took my sons away from me. I'm nothin' but a poor old woman that's spent her life raisin' up a family, and what's a country to me unless I've got my sons?'" The mother-heart! It beats to the same measure, be it Garibaldi's time in Italy or war-time in Kentucky. And when Italy's made, for what end is it done If we have not a son? . . . . . . . . When you have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head. (And I have my dead.) "If David and Jonathan had been on the same side," continued Aunt Jane, "it would 'a' been easier for Mother; but she used to say it was like havin' her heart torn in two, and one half of it was with David and the other half with Jonathan, and she worried herself nearly crazy over the fear that one of her boys might kill the other. And the fightin' kept on, the battles longer and harder all the time,--Manassas and Fort Donaldson and Pea Ridge and Mill Spring, and there was hardly a time when it wasn't Kentuckian against Kentuckian, and at last come the battle o' Shiloh." On that fatal word Aunt Jane's voice broke. She turned away from me and covered her face with her apron, and there was a long pause. The rains of more than forty springs had cleansed the earth from the taint of blood; grass and flowers and grain were growing over the old battle-field; but, like the wand of a wizard, the rusty bayonet had waved out of sight and out of mind the decades of peace, and her tears flowed for a grief too deep to be healed by the flight of mortal years. Presently, with trembling hands she began arranging the boxes and bundles on the shelves. There were no unfinished tasks in Aunt Jane's life; the closet must be cleaned, and a story once begun must be told to the end. She steadied her voice and went on. [Illustration: "'DAVID! JONATHAN! MY BOYS! WHERE ARE YOU?'" _Page 257._]