"Major David Wayland, Along the Upper Maumee. Leave at Hawkins Ford on Military Road." "Important." I can see him yet as he read it, slowly feeling his way through the rude, uneven writing, with my mother leaning over his shoulder and helping him, her rosy cheeks and dark tresses making strange contrast beside his pain-racked features and iron-gray hair. "Read it aloud, Mary," he said at last. "I shall understand it better. 'T is from Roger Matherson, of whom you have heard me speak." My mother was a good scholar, and she read clearly, only hesitating now and, then over some ill-written or misspelled word. At FORT DEARBORN, near the head of the Great Lake. Twelfth June, 1812. My DEAR OLD FRIEND: I have come to the end of life; they tell me it will be all over by the morrow, and there remains but one thing that greatly troubles me--my little girl, my Elsa. You know I have never much feared death, nor do I in this hour when I face it once more; for I have ever tried to honor God and do my duty as both man and soldier. David, I can scarcely write, for my mind wanders strangely, and my fingers will but barely grasp the pen. 'T is not the grip of the old sword-hand you knew so well, for I am already very weak, and dying. But do you yet remember the day I drew you out of the rout at Saratoga, and bore you away safely, though the Hessians shot me twice? God knows, old friend, I never thought to remind you of the act,--'twas no more than any comrade would have done,--yet I am here among strangers, and there is no one else living to whom I may turn in my need. David, in memory of it, will you not give my little orphan child a home? Your old comrade, upon his death-bed, begs this of you with his final breath. She is all alone here, save for me, and there is no blood kin in all the world to whom I may appeal. I shall leave some property, but not much. As you love your own, I pray you be merciful in this hour to my little girl. Your old comrade, ROGER MATHERSON. This had been endorsed by another and bolder hand: Captain Roger Matherson, late of the Massachusetts Continental Line, died at this fort, of fever, fourteenth June, 1812. His daughter is being cared for by the ladies of the garrison. NATHAN HEALD, Capt. First Regt. Inf., Commanding. The tears were clinging to my mother's long lashes as she finished the reading; she was ever tender of heart and sympathetic with sorrow. My father sat in silence, looking far off at the green woods. Presently he took the paper again into his hands, folded it carefully in the old creases, and placed it safely away between the Bible leaves. I saw my mother's fingers steal along the arm of the chair until they closed softly over his. "The poor little lamb!" she said gently.