New Oregon plaindealer. (New Oregon, Iowa) 1859-1866, 1859-09-16
NEW OREGON, IOWA, SEPT. l6,l 1859. NO s

old Berkshire with their rolling SUBMITS,
and night come fast, steel-blue and thick
with stars; but yet he did not come, the
untouched meal on the table was un-
touched still. Hour after hour of starry
darkness crept by, and she sat watching
at the window-pane; overhead, constella-
tons marched across the heavens in re-
lentless spendor, careless of man or sor-
row; Orion glittered in the east, and
climbed toward the zenith; the Pleiades
clustered and sparkled as if they missed
their lost sister no more; the Hyades
marked the celestial pastures of Taurus,
and Lyra strung her chords with fire
Hltty rested her weary head against the
window-frame and sent her wearier
thoughts upward to the stars; there were
the points of light that the Chaldeans
watched upon their plains by night, and
named with mystic syllables of their
weird Oriental tongue,-names that in
girlhood she had delighted to learn,
charmed by that nameless spell that Ian
guage holds, wherewith it plants itself
ineradicably in the human mind, and
binds it with fetters of vague association
that time and chance are all-powerless to
break,-Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgu-
nebi, Bellatrix and Betelguese, sonorous
Of Rome and Asia both, full of old ech-
oes and the dry resonant air of Eastern
plains,-names wherein sounded the
clash of Bellona's armor, and the harsh
stir of palm-boughs rustled by hot wind
of the desert, and vibrant with the dying
clangor of gongs, and shouts of worship
ping crowds reverberating through hor-
rid temples of grinning and ghastly idols
wet with children's blood.
Ear, far away, the heavenly procession
and their well-remembered names had
led poor Hitty's thoughts; worn out with
anxiety, and faint for the want of the food
she had forgotten to take, sleep crept up
on her, and her first consciousness of it's
presence was the awakening grasp of a
rough hand and the rough whisper of
her husband.
"Get up!' said he. "Pick up your brat
get your shawl, and GOMEZ
Hitty rose quickly to her feet. One
faculty wretchedness gives, the power of
sudden selfpossession,-and Hitty was
broad awake in the very instant she was
called. Her husband stood beside her,
holding a lantern; her boy slept in the
cradle at her feet.
"Have you seen your father!" said she,
with quick instinct.
"Yes, d-n you, be quick! do you want
to hang me?'
Quick as spirit Hitty snatched her
child, and wrapped him in the blanket
where he lay; her shawl was on the chair
she had slept in, her hood upon nail by
the door, and fiinging both on, with the
child in her arms, she followed her hus-
band downstairs, across the backyard,
hitting her feet against stones and logs in
the darkness stumbling often, but never
falling, till the shadow of the trees was
past, and the starlight showed her that
they were travelling the open fields, now
crisp with frost, but even to the tread,-
over two or three of these, through a
pine-wood that was landmark to Hitty,
for she well knew that it lay between the
turnpike-road and another, less frequent
ed, that by various windings went toward
the Connecticut line,-then over tiny
brook on its unsteady bridge of logs, and
out into a lane, where rough-spoken
man was waiting for them, at the head
of strong horse harnessed to one of
those wagons without springs that New
Englanders like to make theselves un-
comfortable in.7 Her husband turned to
her abruptly. .aa 4 E
"Get ill.," said he; 'sget in behind;
there's hay enough; and don't breath loud
or III murder you!
She clambered into the wagon and
seated herself on the hay, hushing her
ohs11 ,hn ,,os%1ol osol