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"What did I see?"

Ah! there was one little boy of thirteen years, with his straw hat drawn down over his face, as if to hide this spectacle from his sight, and with both hands to his face, crying piteously:

"Oh! Mother! Mother! do forgive me!"

It was my darling Samuel, the only one of my precious group whom his father was not compelled to abduct, to prevent his physical resistance in kidnapping his mother.

And while I imploringly and silently looked towards this crowd for that protection and help they had so confidently volunteered should be extended to me if needed, I looked in vain!" No man cared for my soul!"

Although Mrs. Blessing was walking the platform, wringing her hands in agony at the spectacle I presented, and in a loud voice, while the tears were streaming down her cheeks, she was imploring them to extend to me the help I needed, in these expressive words:

"Is there no man in this crowd to protect this woman? Will you let this mother be torn from her children and thrust into a prison in this style, with none to help her? O! is there no man among you? If I were a man, I would seize hold upon her!"

Mrs. Blessing's Lament.
One, one alone, stood by my side,
With pleading hands and voice she cried,
"Is there no help? Can no one here
Aid now our suffering sister dear?
Breathes there not here one mother's son
Who dares to aid this injured one?
Must she from her own sons be torn,
Her darling children left to mourn?
Crying in vain for mother dear

To wipe away the scalding tear.
Are love and honor both, all dead?
Oh neighbors! has your reason fled?
Can you look on and see her go
To the dark maniac's house of woe?
Yet raise no voice, no hand, no eye.
To stay that dread calamity!
Throbs here no heart of sympathy?
Can no one say she shall be free?
Oh! in the sacred name of love,
Of liberty, of God above,
By all the tender ties of life,
Spare! spare! that deeply suffering wife,
Recording Angel! can't thou see
A blacker shade of cruelty?"

-- MRS. S. N. B. O.

As soon as I was landed in the cars, the car door was quickly locked, to guard against any possible reaction of the public, manly pulse, in my defence. Mr. Packard, Deacon Dole, and Sheriff Burgess seated themselves near me, and the cars quietly moved on towards my prison tomb, leaving behind me, children, home, liberty and an untarnished reputation. In short, all, all, which had rendered life desirable, or tolerable.

Up to this point, I had not shed a tear. All my nervous energy was needed to enable me to maintain that dignified self-possession, which was indispensably necessary for a sensitive womanly nature like my own, to carry me becomingly through scenes, such as I have described. But now that these scenes were past, my hitherto pent up maternal feelings burst their confines, and with a deep gush of emotion, I exclaimed;

"O! what will become of my dear children!"

I rested my head upon the back of the seat in front of me and deliberately yielded myself up to a shower of tears.

O! thought I, "What will my dear little ones do, when they return to their desolate home, to find no mother there! O! their tender, loving hearts will die of grief, at the story; of their mother's wrongs!"

Yes, it did well nigh rend each heart in twain, when the fact was announced to them, that they were motherless!

My sons Isaac and George were just about this time returning from their prairie errand, and this fact was now being communicated to them, by a gentleman whom they met returning from the depot. When within speaking distance, the first salutation they heard was:

"Well, your mother has gone."

"What!" said Isaac, thinking he had misunderstood.

"Your mother has gone!"

Supposing this was only an old rumor revived, he carelessly replied:

"No she isn't, she is at home, where I just left her, and I am now on the way there to take her to ride with me."

"But she has gone -- I just came from the depot, and saw her start."

Now, for the first time, the terrible truth flashed upon his mind, that this is the reason George and I have been sent off on this errand, and this accounts also, for the attentions so lavishly bestowed upon us this morning by my groom, by my father and by Mr. Comstock. Yes, this awful fact at last found a lodgment in his sensitive heart, when he, amid his choking and tears could just articulate:

"George! We have no mother!

Now, George, too, knew why he had been so generously treated to sugar-plums that morning, and he too burst into loud crying, exclaiming:

"They shall not carry off my mother!"

"But they have carried her off! We have no mother!"

Here they both lifted up their voices and wept aloud, and as the team entered the village all eyes were upon them, and others wept to see them weep, and to listen to their plaintive exclamations:

"We have no mother! We have no mother!"

As they drew near the front of Mr. Comstock's store, seeing the crowd settling there, Isaac felt his indignation welling up within him, as he espied among this crowd some of his volunteer soldiers in his mother's defence, and having learned from his informant that no one had taken his dear mother's part, he reproachfully exclaimed, as he leaped from his wagon --