Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1857-06-03
THE BLOSSOM IN THE WILDERNESS
BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND.


"You don't really mean So uncle Charlie ?"
said Cora, "you don't really think what you
just said, that in every heart there is some
fountain, some blossom in the human wilder
ness of every soul?"
81 haven't doubt of it, my little GIRL
The light that is in us cannot quite become
darkness the heart that might bring forth
fruit ian hundred fold" for the harvest of
heaven, will never yet become such desert
but some good seed might take root therein"
"I don't believe it would, though, in
farmer Keep. You don't know him as well
as do uncle Charlie. He's one of the rich
est men in all Meadow Brook, worth thous-
ands and thousands. He's an old bachelor,
you know, and lives in the great red house on
the road to Woodbury., you remember?-
Well, he never goes to church; he never
gives a cent to the poor; he never loved a
human being or did kind thing in all his
life. Now don't you think farmer Keep
why, grandma Deane, how do you do?"
The old lady whose entrance put this sud-
den period to my cousins earnest peroraton,
came slowly toward the rocking chair Cora
drew out for her. She was the oldest person
in the village. The hair under her cap white
as the hill side snow, had imprisoned the snn-
shine of four-score and ten summers. But
she still retained much of the physical and
mental stamina which, with her active tenn
perament, had made her so vigorous woman
for many years.
"What's that you're saying, child, about
farmer Keep" said the old lady, with a
pleasant smile, as she pinned her knitting
sheath to her waist.
"Why, was telling uncle Charlie, what
cold, hard kind of man he is. You've
always known him, grandma Deane. Now
did he ever do a good thing, or ever love any
body in his life!"
ayes, he loved girl once, remember"
"Farmer Keep loved girl once" repeat
ed Cora, with half contemptuous and Who'll
ly skeptical curl of her lip. "She's forgotten" !"
she added in an undertone to her uncle and
me, for grandma Deane was slightly deaf.
"No / havn't forgotten either" placing
her hand on Cora's head. "I have held
Lucy Reid on my lap too often, and rocked
her cradle-poor little motherless thing-too
many times to forget"
Cora's look of incredulity was giving way
to one of curiosity. "Grandma Deane, won't
you tell us all about it? Jennie and l will
sit down on this big stool, and l know by
that look in uncle Charles eyes he wants to
hear, too.
Grandma Deane commenced: "Let me
see, it can't be more than forty-two or three
years this summer since Justin Keep came
up to farmer Reid's to let himself out for
hired boy through harvest.
"The Reid's house stood little this side
of Stony Creek. There's nothing left of it
except the chimney, and it looks out gray
and bold from the green grass all about it;
but fifty years ago it was a fine old place
with the lilacs in front, and the hop vines
running all around the back. Lucy was
hardly three weeks old when she lost her
mother. Her father never married again,
and the child grew up there in the old home
as fair and sweet as the flowers about it.
"She was turning into fifteen when JUS
tin came there that summer. He was shy