Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1859-01-28
MISCELLA AN Y.
The Mouatain Road.

| can not write the story with my owr
bands, but | shall dictate it to a tried anC
trnsiy friend; for | must have the public
Know all that | can tell respecting lha
Strange and mysterious drath. Ny name
Is Henry Wilde and was present when Il
happened. 1t was week ago, and in body
4 have been utterly helpless since that day
do not think that my intellect was mucl
slisordered by the shock; and yet seem
to have lost, in some degree, control over
my mind-the power Of condensation
Therefore must tell this story in my owr
way. If ! am pruix--if | linger too much
over detail not connected with the act it.
self--it must be pardoned me.
| am not young man. ! have known
Steven Cranston for more than forty years
ever since he and / went TO school to-
ge,her in our pinatores. am forty eight
now. Last week | should have said thai
he was two years younger; hut he stands
to-day. where they do not reckon ages by
earthly measurement. Many who will read
these words know what he was as a man
stern, dark -browed, silent, and mysterious
He was ali this even as boy.
AT the district school we attended togsth-
er he seemed TO ike no one. He might
have been fayorie il he would; for he
had the most physical courage ever knew
any boy TO possess. He literally feared
nothing. He bad no equal in the various
athletic games with which we whiled away
our mornings; and these two traits, of daring
and agility, are potent to win the suffrages
of BOYS. Any one else possessing them to
such extent would have become loved and
recognized LEADER INT Steven Cran>tor
was TOO silent, too forhidding and unsocial
No one would have dared in any wise to in.
terfere with him, but he had none of those
dear boy-triendships, those brotherhoods OF
the soul whose memory, in after years, has
power to thrill 80 many old m"n's hearts
and make them happy hearts again.
/ said he seemed to like no one. should
have made one exception. Nearly opposite
20 him, on the girls side" of The long red
school house, sat Lucia Reynolds, the
daughter of one of our wealrhiest men.
She did not owe her popularity to this cir
cumslance however. Looking back through
the mists of twenty eight years, / can see
Lucia Reynolds as she was at fifteen. and
know that / never saw fairer face.
met her the other day-a woman of forty
three she is now, and older than her years
with look of patient waiting in her ewes
settled sorrow round her lips; a woman
to whom you would not even pay that sad
dest compliment -"She mus have been
beautiful once"-and / turned my eyes
away, and back through the fair country ot
the past. till | could see her, as saw heI
twenty-eieht years ago, bending over he'
desk in Ryefeld schooI-house.
Slight girlish figure; small but perfec
features; eyes of the b'uest; dekcate rose
tint on The dimpled cheeks; full, smiling
mouth saw them all in the light anC
glory of youth, untouched by time. Sh,
had clear, ringing voice, dancing step
and, better than all, heart full of love fo
every living creature; and so every bod
ioved her, and every body included misan
thropic Steven Cranston. Indeed, his sen
ttment for her seemed no mere childish
Hing. 1t was more the blind devotion o
Romanist for his patron saint. He woul
sif and watch her for hours with a look G
rapt alteration. Lucia had the heart of
Noman, and she could not help recognizin
md liking this homage. She accepted
nth the graciousness of gentle queen, III