Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/358

 pale invalid mother up higher, one could not fail to think of that happy meeting above.

Page 317.—.—In the early morning of an intensely cold day in February the three-masted schooner David N. Tolck went on the bar, and there remained until she broke up. The child was taken safely ashore in the arms of the first mate, who was drawn in a canvas chair along the line connecting ship and shore. The small boats had broken up long before. While lashed to the mast the captain's wife sang hymns until death chilled her lips. The captain, some what infirm in health, seems to have died very soon, as the pair were found silent in death, the wife's head resting on his breast. The little orphan escaped quite safe from harm, and found kind hands to minister to her on shore.