The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1867-07-18

little form forever from her sight. Then
she sat down by the grave in a stupor of
grief. Hour after hour passed how to
commence the dreadful pilgrimage? Then
she noted everything about the spot. Here
was rock, there stood an immense hem
lock. Yes, she would know the place.
She could find it easily with Robert.
Then began again the struggle through
the wilderness. Day after day, week
after week, she passed on. Her shoes
were worn to fragments and fell from her
| feet. Her garments were torn to tatters.
But the days grew warmer, and the fever
that was burning in her veins made even
the soft showers that fell upon her well
come. First she ate the buds of trees
and the bark of the birch. Presently she
began to find the young checkerberry
leaves, and now and then she came upon
Partridge's nest, and greedily sucked the
eggs. After time there were red rasp-
berries and black thimble berries in the
woods, and then she knew it was July.
The trees had now put on afresh their
beautiful garments. But for the delicious
poetry one finds IN the woods, sauntering
out from the busy world for an hour, she
cared nothing. She saw nothing but trees,
trees, trees, In interminable succession.
1t seemed years, yes, ages ago that she
swept the hearth with a birch broom, and
sung the baby to sleep in Roberts cabin
Her mind grew bewildered, still she went
on, on, on. When she came to large
stream she went up towards its source
until she could wade across it. So she
said; and she affirmed that she never
crossed a stream wider than brook She
paid no attention to sun and moon as a
guide, or indication of the points of the
compass, but she must have taken a north
westerly direction. There were Black
river, Mill river, Waterqueechy, and
White Waits Well, flowing into the Con-
necticut river from the Vermont side; but
she constantly asserted that she saw none
of them. Through July and August there
were berries of various kinds, and by
means of these she sustained what little
life was left And now the maple began
to take on its gorgeous crimson, and the
silver birches to wear their pale gold of
September the birds were leaving the
forest; occasionally she had glimpses of
black bear, turned out of the path afraid
of the human form; but no human being
did she meet. And long before human
voices had ceased to call her name
Was she alone on earth, and was the
earth one vast wilderness without outlet,
without clearing or settlements Had
God taken all life but that of brutes, and
forgotten her, or ordained her to wander
forever! Tramping, tramping, with her
feet bleeding and cracked at first and
after calloused; naked, or nearly so;
knowing nothing of time or place, she was
fast becoming idiotic; when she was hun
cry she sought for food, but the great idea
lingering in her mind was that of pressing
on. Since the luxuriance of summer had
filled the forest with ferns and new
growth of brier and underbrush, there was
more trouble Of passing through. But
she had become quite accustomed to the
rough work, and the frenzy at last became
a steady, constant habit, almost the labor
of life to her.
One day in October the inhabitants of
the village of Charleston, n. H, were
startled into the widest excitement by
seeing nearly naked, emaciated woman,
with her hair streaming upon her shout
ders, walk with bewildered gaze along
their streets She told them she was
Robert Harris's wife, and that she was
lost.
'Robert Harris's wife, who disappeared
from the opposite side of the river in
April ]" exclaimed the villagers. ssIow
had she crossed the Connecticut? Where
had she been all this time %
But she told them she had never crossed
the Connecticut, and that she had been
lost in the woods all this time. There
was no lack of hospitality the wanderer
was Immediately clad and fed and cared
for to the utmost. Volunteers went at
once and brought her husband, for the
story OF his Bereavement was well known
on the Charleston side of the river.
We can only imagine the meeting, and
the tears that were shed at the thought of
the little, forsaken grave by the uprooted
tree. But it is said that JOY bells were
rung in the village, and the poor woman,
a living skeleton, was nursed and petted
Everybody vieing with her neighbor to
lavish every good thing upon her-until
her weakened mind received its tone again.
AS she constantly asserted she had
never crossed the river, it is supposed she
wandered into Canada, and going round
the Connecticut at its source, or crossing
where 1t was . brooklet, passed down on
the Now Hampshire side, until she reached
location just opposite that from which