“Several hours afterwards a horse came galloping back to the garrison, riderless, and when my father saw it he fell to the ground as if a bullet had struck him. It was the horse my mother had ridden. It was not long before they went in search of those who had set out so fearlessly in the morning, with sad forebodings. They scarcely hoped to find the remains of any; it was the habit of the Indians to mutilate fearfully the bodies of those slain by them, and the agony of all was increased by the thoughts of the tender young form hacked and torn by the savages.
“Very soon they reached the spot where the work of death had been done. Three bodies lay upon the ground, and at some distance, under a tree, to which he had dragged himself with much pain, lay a soldier mortally wounded. They gathered round him. Close at his side, with his hat over her face, lay my dead mother, shot through the heart. The soldier could just speak.
“‘Lieutenant,’ said he, ‘I would have protected your lady with my last drop of blood: they would have had to tear me to pieces before they should have taken her body.’
“And when the strong men around, with tears on their cheeks, lifted the hat, there was the young face, with almost a smile parting the lips. Before they had left the place, the rest of the party returned from pursuing the Indians, and they heard the particulars of the sad event.
“It seems, as they were riding along gaily, not dreaming of danger, the Indians fired upon them from the woods, and killed one man. My mother, in terror, sprang from her horse, and attempted to reach the baggage wagon, thinking she would be safer in that, but as she was running towards it, a bullet struck her, and she fell instantly dead. The men rallied and turned, and the few Indians, taking alarm lest there should be help for the whites at hand, fled.
“The wounded soldier died on the way back, and when my aunt arrived in the afternoon, she saw only my mother’s dead face, and found only a deaf ear, into which she poured all the tardy messages of love and forgiveness from home.
“Neither Aunt Millicent nor my father ever entirely recovered from the shock. My father’s poor health and spirits were caused by this grief in the beginning of his life, and he shut himself up with his child, refusing to see any of my mother’s family for years: it was not until he was going to Europe that he had any intercourse with them.
“Aunt Millicent was so shattered, so shocked, by this dreadful occurrence, that her nerves never recovered from it. She was morbid, ailing, and delicate for a long time; and, taking to heart a great disappointment which happened to her several years after, she became hopelessly insane.
“‘My dear,’ said my grandmother, when she had finished her story, ‘let not the sun go down upon your wrath. You cannot tell what sorrow and punishment the morning may bring you. The pride and stubbornness of age need severer lessons to train them into gentleness and patience than the same faults in youth—and so surely, for every fault, God sends a pain to cure it.’
“And how inexpressibly I was touched! My dear father! I resolved that in the future, nothing that the most loving care, the utmost devotion to every wish, could do towards making his days brighter, should be left undone—and Paradise seemed not so far off now, because I knew that there waited for us both, the bright-eyed, gentle, young mother, whose kisses and glances I had never consciously received. And so another evening came, and I forgot the yesterday resolutions in my new thoughts.