wail of pain.

When we were little, and geography and history were but printed
words on white paper, not places and events, Jane McCrea was
to us no suffering woman, but a picture of a low-necked, long-
skirted, scanty dress, long hair grasped by a naked Indian,
and two unnatural-looking hands raised in entreaty. It was
interesting as a picture, but it excited no pity, no horror,
because it was only a picture. We never saw women dressed in
that style. We knew that women did not take journeys through
woods without bonnet or shawl, and we spread a veil of
ignorant, indifferent incredulity over the whole. But as we
grow up, printed words take on new life. The latent fire in
them lights up and glows. The mystic words throb with vital
heat, and burn down into our souls to an answering fire. As
we stand, on this soft summer day, by the old tree which
tradition declares to have witnessed that fateful scene, we
go back into a summer long ago, but fair, and just like this.
Jane McCrea is no longer a myth, but a young girl, blooming and
beautiful with the roses of her seventeen years. Farther back
still, we see an old man's darling, little Jenny of the Manse,
a light-hearted child, with sturdy Scotch blood leaping in her
young veins,--then a tender orphan, sheltered by a brother's
care,--then a gentle maiden, light-hearted no longer,
heavy-freighted, rather, but with a priceless burden,--a happy
girl, to whom love calls with stronger voice than brother's
blood, stronger even than life. Yonder in the woods lurk wily
and wary foes. Death with unspeakable horrors lies in ambush
there; but yonder also stands the soldier lover, and possible
greeting, after long, weary absence, is there. What fear can