At last, after being with him quite a good deal
--after hours and days of panting for breath, much of the time
unconscious, (for though the consumption that had been lurking in his
system, once thoroughly started, made rapid progress, there was still
great vitality in him, and indeed for four or five days he lay dying,
before the close,) late on Wednesday night, Nov. 4th, where we
surrounded his bed in silence, there came a lull--a longer drawn
breath, a pause, a faint sigh--another--a weaker breath, another sigh
--a pause again and just a tremble--and the face of the poor wasted
young man (he was just 26,) fell gently over, in death, on my hand, on
the pillow.
CHARLES CASWELL.--[I extract the following, verbatim, from a letter
to me dated September 29, from my friend John Burroughs, at
Esopus-on-Hudson, New York State.] S. was away when your picture came,
attending his sick brother, Charles--who has since died--an event
that has sadden'd me much. Charlie was younger than S., and a most
attractive young fellow. He work'd at my father's and had done so for
two years. He was about the best specimen of a young country farm-hand
I ever knew. You would have loved him. He was like one of your
poems. With his great strength, his blond hair, his cheerfulness and
contentment, his universal good will, and his silent manly ways, he
was a youth hard to match. He was murder'd by an old doctor. He had
typhoid fever, and the old fool bled him twice. He lived to wear out
the fever, but had not strength to rally.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188