Newspaper Page Text
fNJMANCSf*
VOL. YII
J. H. & W. B. SEALSjffi^.
ATLANTA, GA., SEITEMBER 3, 1881.
Terms in Advance: {
8 Ingle,Copy, »«.
NO. 316
Desolation.
In fiercest he«t of Indian June, I rode
Actors an arid waste of burning sand.
A t mid-day ; all around the lonely land
Seemed desert, and in shrunken channel flowed
The river; overhead, a sky that elowed.
Not deeply blue, but wan with lurid glare.
The tyrant Sun, with fixed, unwinking stare.
Veiled by no cloudlet, in mid-heaven abode,
And crushed all Nature with his blinding ray:
No living thing was to be seen, but one
Huge alligator; on a sandbank prone.
The loathly saurian, basking and serene,
Grim mas tar of that grim, unlovely scene
Fit type of utter desolation lay.
THE TWO EXILES.
“Remember this is Italy
And we are exiles; speak to me.”
—Shclleu.
Nicky Dyer and the school-mistress sat
upon the slope of a hill, one of a. low range
overlooking an arid Californian valley.
These sunburnt slopes were traversed by
many narrow footpaths, descending, ascend
ing, winding among the tangle of poison oak
and wild rose bushes, leading from the min
ers’ cabins tc the shaft-houses and tunnels of
the mine which gave to the hills their only
importance. Nicky was a stout Cornish
lad of thirteen, with large light eyes that
seemed mildly to protest against the comic
tendency which a broad, freckled, turned-up
nose gave to the rest of his countenance.
Nicky was doing nothing in particular, and
did it as if he were used to it. The school
mistress sat with her skirts tucked round her
ankles, the heels of her stout little boots
driven well into the dry, gritty soil. There
was in her attitude the tension of some slight
habitual strain—perhaps of endurance—as
she leaned forward, her arms stretched
straight before her, with the delicate fingers
interlocked. Whatever may be the type of
Californian voung womanhood, it was not
her type. You felt sure, looking at her cool,
clear tints and slight, straight outlines, that
she had winter in her blood. She was gazing
down into the valley, as one looks at a land
scape who has not yet mastered all its phases
of expression. All its details were blurred
in the hot glare; the mountains opposite
had faded to a flat outline against the indom
itable sky. A light wind blew up the slope,
flickering the pale leaves of a manzanita,
wboM burnished cinnamon colored stems
_3*owri fel * '
anna and letting It blow on her bare wrists.
“Nicky, why It the trees in that hollow
between the hills look so green!”
* There’s water over there, miss; that’s the
Chilano’s spring. Vm tbinkin’ the old cow
might ’a’ strayed over there somewheres.
They mostly goes for the water, wherever
it is.”
“Is it running water, Nicky,—not water in
a tank?”
•‘Why, no, miss; it cooms right out o’ the
rock as you ivir saw! I often goes there my
self for a drink, cos it seems to taste sort o
different, ooomin’ out o’ the ground like. We
was used to that kind o’ water at ’ome.”
“Let us go, Nicky,” said the girl. “I
would like to taste that water, too. Do we
cross the hill first, or is there a shorter way!”
“Over the ’ill’s the shortest, miss. It’s
quite a ways, but you’ve been loDger ways
nor they for less at th’ end on’t.”
They “tacked” down the steepest part of
the hill, and waded through a shady h< How
where ferns grew rank and tall,—crisp,
faded ferns, with an aromatic smell which
seemed to escxpe by friction, like the smell
of warm amber. They reached at length the
green trees, a clump of young cottonwoods
at the entrance to a narrow canon, and fol
lowed the dry bed of a stream for some dis
tance, until water began to show among the
— ‘ • lal outlet of the spring
stones. The princip
was on a small
„„„ „„ „ plantation at the head of the
canon, rented of the “company” by a Chilian,
or “the Chilano,” as he was called; he was
not at all a pastoral-leoking personage, but,
with the aid of his good water, he earned a
moderately respectable living by supplying
the neighboring cabins and the miners’ board
ing-house with green vegetables. After a
temporary disappearance, as if to purge its
memory of the Chilano’s water-buckets, the
spring again revealed itself in a thin, clear
trickle down the hollowed surface of a rock
which closed the narrow passage of the
canon. Young sycamores and cotton-woods
shut out the sun above: their tangled roots,
interlaced with vines still green and growing,
trailed over the edge of the rock, where a
mass of earth had fallen. Green moss lined
the hollows of the rock, and water-plants
grew in the dark pools below.
The strollers had left behind them the heat
and glare; only the breeze followed them in
to this green stillness, stirring the boughs
overhead and letting spots of sunlight flick
er over the wet stones. Nicky, after enjoy
ing for a few moments the schoolmistress’
surprised delight, proposed that she should
wait for him at the springs while he went
“down along” in search of his cow. Nicky
was not without a certain awe of the school
mistress, as a part of creation he had not
fathomed in its bearings; but when they
rambled on the hills together, he found him
self lees uneasily conscious of her personality
and more comfortably aware of the fact
that, after all, she was “nothin’ but a wo
man.” He was a little disappointed that she
showed no fear at being left alone, but con
soled himself with the reflection that she was
“a good un to ’old her tongue,” and probably
felt more than she expressed.
The schoolmistress did not look in the least
disconsolate after Nicky’s departure. She
gazed about her very contentedly for awhile
and then prepared to get a drink of water.
She made a cup of her two hands, and waited
for it to fill, stooping below the rock, her
lifted skirt held against her side by one el
bow while she watched with childish eager
ness’the water trickle into her pink palms.
Miss Frances Newell had never looked pret
tier in her life. A pretty girl is always pret
tier in the open air, with her head uncovered.
Her cheeks were red; the sun just touched
the roughened braids of dark brown hair,and
intensified the’fglow of a little ear whicn
showed beneath. She stooped to drink, but
Miss Frances was destined never to taste that
virgin cup of water. There was a tramp
ling in the bushes overhead: a little shower
of dust and pebbles scattered down upon her
bent head, and soiled the water. She let her
hands fall as she looked up with a startled
“Oh!” A pair of large boots were rapidly
mAiring their way down the bank, and the
cuase of all this disturbance stood before her
—a young in a canvas jacket, with a
Hunter of the Prairies! It’s no disgrace not
to remember it, and it may not be Bryant’s.”
“I remember seeing it, but I never read it.
’ ’ ‘ ' Western things.”
I always skipped those
Arnold gave a short laugh, and said,
“Well, you are punished, yon see, by going
West to hear me repeat it to you, I think I
can give you the idea in a few lines:—
“ ‘Here with my rifle and my steed,
And her who left the world for me.’ ”—
The sound of his voice in the stillness of the
little glen, and a look of surprise in the young
girl’s quiet eyes, reminded Arnold that eight
years of hard _ experience in the world had
not deprived him of all shyness. “Hm m-m,”
he murmured to himself, “it’s queer how
rhymes slip away. Well, the last line ends
in free. You see, it is a man’s idea of happi
ness,—a young man’s. Now, how do you
suppose she liked it,—the girl, you know,
who left the world, and all that! Did you
ever, Miss Newell, happen to see a poem or a
story, written by a woman, celebrating the
joys of a solitary existence with the man of
ner heart!”
“I suppose that many a woman has tried
it,” Miss Newell said, evasively, “but I’m
sure she”—
‘Never lived to tell the tale!” cried Ar
nold.
“She had probably had something else to
do while the hunter was riding round with
his gun,” Miss Frances continued.
“Well, give her the odds of the rifle and
the steed; give the man some commonplace
employment to take the swagger out of him:
let him come home reasonably tired and
cross at night,—do you suppose he would find
the ‘kind’ eyes and the ‘smile’? I forgot to
tell you that the Hunter of the Prairies is
always welcomed by a smile at night.”
“He must have been an uncommonly for
tunate man,” she said.
“Of course he was; but the question is,
Could any living man be so fortunate! Come,
Miss Frances, don’t prevaricate 1”
“Well, am I speaking for the average wo
man?”
“Oh, not at all,—you are speaking for the
very nicest of women. Any other kind would
be intolerable on a prairie.”
“I should think, if she were very healthy,”
said Miss Newell, with a faint increase of
color, “and not too imaginative, and of a
cheerful disposition; and if he, the hunter,
were really above the average,—supp '
that she cared for him in the beginnii
should think the smile might l^at a ys
luere have basal
in this benighted mining camp
believed in that hunter and his smile!”
He got up suddenly, and stood against the
rock, facing her. Although he kept his cool,
bantering tone, his color bad risen percepti
bly, and his eyes looked darker. “I hope
~ou are not trifling with my ideals, Miss
Tewell; I want to keep the jewel I have left.
You may consider me a representative man,
if you please: I speak for hundreds of us scat
tered about in mining camps and on cattle
ranches, in lighthouses and frontier farms
and military posts, and all the God-forsaken
holes you can conceive of where men are try
ing to earn a living,—or lose one,—we are all
going to the dogs for ‘
dogs for the want of that smile!
What is to become of us if the women whose
smiles we care for cannot support life in the
places where we have to live? Come, Mi«
Frances, can’t you make that smile last two
years?” He gathered a handful of dry leaves
from a broken branch above his head and
crushed them in his long hands, sifting the
yellow dust on the water below.
“The conditions you speak of are very dif
ferent,” the girl answered, with a shade of
uneasiness in her manner. “A mining camp
is anything but a solitude, and a military
post may be very gay.”
“Oh, the principle is the same. It is the
absolute giving up of everything. You know
most women require a back-ground of family
and friends and congenial surroundings; the
question is whether any woman can do with
out them.”
The young girl moved in a constrained
way, and flushed as she said, “It must al
ways be an experiment, I suppose, and its
~i depend, as I said before, on
success would
the woman and on the man.”
A DAT IN THE WOODS.
“An ‘experiment’ is goodl” said Arnold,
f. ‘.'Well, Miss Newel], I see
leathern case slung across his shoulder, and a
small tin lamp fastened in front of the hat he
took off while he apologized to the girl for
his intrusion.
“Miss Newell! Forgive me for dropping
down on you like the Assyrian. You’ve found
the spring, I see,”
Miss Frances stood with her elbows still
pressed to her sides, though her skirt had
slipped down into the water, her wet palms
helplessly extended.
“1 was getting a drink,” she said, search
ing with the tips of her fingers among the
folds of her dress for a handkerchief. “You
came just in time to remind me of the slip
between the cup and the, lip.”
“I am very sorry, but there is plenty of
water left. I came for some myself. Let
me help you,” He took from one of the many
pockets stitched into the breast and sides of
his jacket a covered flask, detached the cup,
and after carefully rinsing, filled and handed
iy
it to the girl. “I hope it doesn’t taste of
‘store claret;’ the water underground is just
a shade worse than that exalted beverage.”
“It is delicious, thank you, and it doesn’t
taste in the least of claret. Have you just
come out of the mine?”
“Yes. It is ‘measuring-up’ day. I have
been toddlihg through the drifts and sliding
down chiflons”—he looked ruefully at his
trousers’ legs—“ever since seven o’clock this
morning. Haven’t had time to eat any
lunch yet, you see.”
He took from another pocket a small pack
age folded in a coarse napkin,
“I came here to satisfy the pangs of hunger
and enjoy the beauties of nature at the same
time—such nature as we have here. Will
you excuse me, Miss Newell? I’ll promise to
eat very fast.”
“I’ll excuse you if you will not ask me to
share with you.”
“Oh, I have entirely too much considera
tion for myself to think of such a thing; there
isn’t enough for two.”
He seated himself, with a little sigh, and
opened the napkin on the ground before him.
Miss Newell stood leaning against a rock on
the opposite side of the brook, regarding the
young man with a shy and smiling curiosity.
“Meals,” he continued, “are a penitential
exercise we all engage in three times a day
at the boarding-house. Have you ever tried
Ann ft# Dftn/1 wr*a fora isfi VavaII
any of Mrs. Bondy’s fare, Miss Newell?” |
“I am sure Mrs. Bondy tries to have ev
erything nice,” the young girl replied with
some embarassment.
“Of course she does; she is a very good old
girL I think a great deal of Mrs. Bondy; but
when she asks me if I have enjoyed my din
ner, I always make a point of telling her the
truth; she respects me for it. This is her idea
of sponge cake you see.” He held up ad
miringly a damp slab of some compact pale-
yellow substance, with crumbs of bread ad
hering to one side. “It is a little mashed,but
otherwise a fair specimen.”
Miss Frances laughed. “Mr. Arnold, I
think you are too bad. How can she help it.
with those dreadful Cninamenl But I would
really advise you not to eat that cake; it
doesn’t look wholesome.”
“Oh, as to that, I’ve never observed any
difference; one thing is about as wholesome
as another. Did you ever e‘.t bacon fried by
a Chinaman, Miss Newell? The sandwiches
are made of that. You see, I still live.” The
sponge-cake was rapidly disappearing. “Miss
Newell, you look at me as if I were commit
ting hari-kari. Will you appear at the ins
quest?”
“No, I will not testify to anything so un
romantic; besides, it might be inconvenient
for Mrs, Bondy’s cook.”
She put on her hat and stepped along the
stones towards the entrance to the glen.
I t“You are not going to refuse me the last
offices?”
“I am going to look for Nicky Dyer. He
came with me to show me the spring, and now
he has gone to hunt for his cow.”
“And you are going to hunt for him. I
hope vou won’t try it, Miss Frances. A boy
on the track of a cow is a very uncertain ob
ject in life. Let me call him, if you really
must have him.”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, I suppose he
will come after a while. I said I would wait
for him here.”
“Then permit me to say that I think you
had better do as you promised.”
Miss Frances recrossed the stones and seat
ed herself with a faint smile.
“I hope you don’t mind if I.stay,” Arnoid
said, moving some loose stones to make her
seat more comfortable. “You have the prior
right to-day, but this is an old haunt of mine.
I feel as if I were doing the honors; and to
tell you the truth, I am rather used up. The
new workings are very hot and the drifts are
low. It’s a combination of steam-bath and
hoeing corn.”
The girl's face cleared as she looked at him
His thin cheek was pale under the tan, and
where his hat was pushed back the hair clung
in damp points to his forehead and temples.
“I should be very sorry to drive you away,’
she said. “I thought you looked tired. If
you want to go to sleep or anything, I will
promise to be very quiet.”
“Arnold laughed. “Oh, I am not such an
utter wreck; but I’m glad you can be very
quiet. I was afraid you might be a little up
roarious at times, you know.”
The girl gave a little shy laugh. It was
really a giggle, but a very sweet, girlish
giggle. It called up a look of keen pleasure
to Arnold’s face.
“Now I call this decidedly gay,” he re
marked. stretching out his long legs slowly,
and leaning against a slanting rock, with one
awm haliinrl Viio Load R*ran/>Afl will
arm behind his head. “Miss Frances, will
you be good enough to tell me that my face
isn’t dirty?”
“Truth compels me to admit that you have
one little daub ou your left eyebrow.”
“Thank you,” said Arnold, rubbing it lan
guidly with his handkerchief. His bat had
dropped off, and he did not replace it; he did
not look at the girl, but let his eyes rest on
the thread of water that gleamed from th*
spring. Miss Frances regarding him with
some timidity, thought, how much younger
be looks without his hat! He had that sensi
tive fairnees which in itself gives a look of
youth and purity. Tae sternness of his face
lay in the curves which showed under hi?
mustache, and in the silent dominant eye.
“You’ve no idea how good it sounds to a
lonely fellow like me,” he said, “to hear a
girl’s laugh.”
“But there are a great many women here,”
Miss Frances observed.
“Oh, yes, there are women everywhere,
such as they are; but it takes a real nice girl,
a lady to laugh!”
‘Well, then it is the accent,—or I’m preju
diced. Don’t laugh again, please, Miss Fran
ces; it has a very demoralizing effect upoi
* ’
me!” He moved his head a little, and looked
across at the girl to assure himself that her
silence did not mean disapproval “I ad
mit,” he went od, “that 1 like our Eastern
girls. I know you are from the East, Miss
Newell.” 3D
“lam from what I used to think was East,”
she said, smiling. “But everything is East
here. People from Indiana and Wisconsin
say they are from the East.”
“Ah, but you are from the Atlantic coast.
I was sure of it when I first saw you. If you
will pardon me, I knew it by your way of
dressing.”
The young girl flushed with pleasure; then,
with a reflective air. “I confess myself, since
you speak of clothes, to a feeling of relief when
I saw your hat the first Sunday after I came.
Western men wear such dreadful"
hats.”
“Good!” he ciied gayly. “You mean my
hat I call a hat.” He reached for the one be
hind bis head, and spun _ it lightly upward.
“I don’t agree with you at all,” replied
‘ ~ ‘ i Mexi-
Mias Frances, coldly. “Some of those
can women have the sweetest voices; speak
ing or laughing, that I have ever heard; and
the Cornish women, too, have very fresh,
pure voices. I often listen to them in the
evening when I sit alone in my room. Their
voices sound so happy”—
where it settled on a projecting branch.
'f,—my other hat, I
respect that bat myself, „„..w uu .,»
mean; I’m trying to live up to it. Now, let
Newell: is it Mas-
me guess your State, Miss
sachuset’s?”
“No,—Connecticut; but at this distance it
seems like the same thing.”
‘ ‘Oh, pardon me, there are very decided
differences. I’m from Massachusetts myself.
Perhaps they show more in the women,—the
ones who stay at home, I mean, and become
more local and idiomatic than the men. You
are not one of the daughters of the soil, Miss
Newell.”
She looked pained as she said, “I wish I
were; but there is not room for us all, where
there is so little soil.”
Arnold moved uneasily, extracted a stone
from under the small of his back, and tossed
it out of sight with some vehemence. “You
think it goes rather hard with women who
are uprooted, then,” he said. “I suppose it
is something a man can hardly conceive of,—
a woman’s attachment to places, and objects,
and associations; they are like cats.”
Niss Newell was silent.
Arnold moved a little restlessly; then be
gan again, with his eyes on the trickle of
water; “Miss Newell, do you remember a I
poem—I think it is Bryant's—called Th
rather savagely,
you won’t say anything you can’t swear to.’
“I really do not see that I am called upon
to say anything on the subject at all!” she
said, rising and looking at him across the
brook with indignant eyes and a hot glow on
her cheek.
He did not appear to notice^her annoy
ance. " c —
“Because you know something about it,
and most women don’t, your testimony is
worth something. How long have you been
here—a year? I wonder how it seems to a
woman to live in a place like tills a year! I
hate it all, you know—I’ve seen so much of
it. But is there really any beauty here? I
suppose beauty, and all that sort of thing, is
partly within us, isn’t it?—at least, that’s
what the goody little poems tell us.”
“I think it is very beautiful here,” said
Miss Frances, softening, as he laid aside his
light and somewhat strained manner, and
spoke more quietly. “It is the kind of place
a happy woman might be very happy in;
but if she were sad—or—disappointed”—
“Well?” said Arnold, pulling at his mus
tache. and fixing a rather gloomy gaze upon
her.
“She would die of it! I really do not think
there would be any hope for her in a place
like this.”
“But if she were happy, as you say,” per
sisted (he young man, “don’t you think her
woman’s adaptability and quick imagination
would help her immensely! She wouldn’t
see what 1, for instance know to be ugly and
coarse, her very ignorance of the world
would help her.”
There was a vague, pleading look in his
eyes. “Arrange it to suit yourself,” she said.
“Only, I can assure you, if anything hap
pens to her, it will be the—the hunter’s
fault”
“All right,” said he, rousing himself.
“That hunter, if I know him, is a man who
is used to taking risks! Where are you go
ing?” 7
*‘I thought I heard Nicky.”
They were both silent, and as they listened
footsteps, with a tinkling accompaniment,
crackled among the bushes below the canon.
Miss Newell turned towards the spring again.
“I want one more drink before I go,” she
said.
Arnold followed her. “Let us drink to our
return. We will mH this our fountain of
Trevi.”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Frances. “ Don’t you
remember what your favorite Bryant says