162 
KANSAS. 
Silence pervaded the assembly, and many a heart whose tendrils 
yet cling mbroken around their loved ones, who seemingly had 
been in perils more and greater, felt a deep thankfulness that, 
rudely torn asunder, they did not then lie bleeding, the fond object 
dying, withering. 
There vsas a sound of people moving, the tread of many feet, a 
heart-breaking sob, and many turned to look. Had they passed 
through hours when the death angel had stricken down the loved 
from their own pathway, they would have realized how like sac¬ 
rilege is this gazing of the multitude upon the broken, crushed 
spirit, burying its dead. 
Then the sob came from the other end of the hall, and the tall, 
white-haired, blue-eyed man, who knew her husband, and would 
perform the service, bent over her, to speak some comforting word. 
But, like Bachel, she refused to be comforted. A hymn was read, 
and the audience sang an old, familiar tune; but ever and anon, 
amid the singing, there came this wailing, this moaning, as though 
the heart must break through its earthly fetters. Short speeches 
followed from Generals Lane and Bobinson, and then a sad sermon. 
When the preacher spoke of death finding the one taken in the 
performance of his duty, a duty cheerfully performed for his 
country; that from this service he had been taken to a higher; 
of him who will be to the widow more than husband or child; of 
the evanescence of human life, and of that fairer country, beyond 
the dark waters of death, where the cruel reign of the tyrant is 
over; we felt that a response went out from the poor lone one’s 
heart, —- that she had caught a glimpse of the bright chain reach¬ 
ing from heaven, earthward, — and that she would realize, more 
fully than in life, the nearness of the loved spirit. 
The services were over, and preparations were made to bear the 
lamented dead to the burial. The military companies, with arms 
reversed, walked first, the generals, upon horseback, leading the 
way. There was the company from Lawrence, and the “ Barker 
Guards ; ” then the body of the dead, and the sad mourners — the 
widow and brothers ; then the neighbors of the quiet, inoffensive 
man, who felt most keenly his death; then the whole community. 
All kinds of vehicles wagons, and carriages, fell into the rear, and 
