"My sister, our Savior help you! Brother Anderson is dead! God's will be done!"
The spirit of courage sustained Emeline, and she cried:
"Where is our husband? Alive he was ours--and we will have his clay now life is ended. Call my boy to bring his father's body home. God's will be done!"
While the grief-shaken soldier was replying, another breathless messenger burst in, saying between his gasps of haste and sorrow:
"Your boy is dead! Oh, Sister Anderson, he fell a martyr--brave, manly, beyond his years--he took a soldier's part: he has met a soldier's fate."
Did this last blow send Emeline swooning? No: in such a crisis a noble, religious soul is exalted beyond the reach of earthly mourning.
"I will go forth and find our dead--my murdered boy and our martyred husband--Drusilla. Do you prepare couches for their home-coming."
"No, my sister," she said, "your duty is at home. Often your life has been threatened by this mob. They will watch our husband's body, and if you appear you too will be sacrificed. I am not known as Captain Anderson's wife. I will go out and secure the bodies of our dear ones, while you shall remain with these fatherless babes of yours--of ours."
Drusilla rushed from the house as she spoke. Emeline would have followed; but one of her husband's comrades had remained to restrain her, and besides, her little daughters clung at her skirts, determined to prevent her going forth.
So Emeline stayed at the stricken house, preparing for that last solemn home-coming of her soldier spouse and son. While she toiled to fit a bed for the dear forms--now stilled through earthly time--she recalled from her memory that the anniversary of her wedding day was but six days past; and in another fortnight she would be 34 years old--already, in her early prime, she was the widow of a martyr and the mother of a murdered patriot.
Drusilla went abroad through the smoky streets of Nauvoo, escorted by one of the heroic defenders, to the east side of the city. There, resting where he had fallen against a wall, was the bleeding body of her husband. Bravely this fair young woman took from her own shoulders a cloak and laid it across the mangled form.
She breathed a prayer, beseeching strength and courage; and then she sought the place where lay Augustus, the slain son. Tenderly, as if he had been her own boy or brother, she spread her apron over his face.