The Ebensburg Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1865-1871, 1868-01-30
q STORY OF FORGIVENESS.

a lOG caDln out on the w eSteIu pldiHSi
with SHOWS that drift around it. Over |
head gray, dark sky, that seems, /: you
gaze upon 1t lOug enough TO get the spirit
OF its expression, to hold some agony OF
despair or death
There is, however, kind of wild,
strong life n the scene that lies beneath
spreading itself away from the window
Of that lonely los cabin, standing there as
solitary witneSs of human lite ia the
midst of the wild, white dreariness OF the
plains.
Perhaps the little girl feels this. She
is not old enough to consciously think
1.-THE little girl with thin, sallow tace,
" hich somehow suggests fever and ague,
fattened up against the pane, looking out
| with a singular alert Eistfulness over the
| wide, white plains and through the rush
! ing gust of snow, until her gaze touches
the gray horizon isr off.
The winds come in turiously from the
| East, like the roaring OF tides, or the
tramplipg OF battalions of armed men, and
| dash down with fierce roar and cry on the
! thick clouds of snow-nakes, and hunt and
drive them back and forth, and toss them
up in white focks, and tear them apart,
aud ride back and forth over the plains,
making of the air ore vast trumpet
through which they shrek their choruses
Of victory.
Inside the cabin, a mans voice asks
suddenly, bessie, child, has nobody
come n sishs yet 2" A mans voice, |
said, and yet struck through and through
with some pain and holowneSs which
made you feel that its words were nearly
ended.
"No, father" answered the little girl.
drawing her thin, salIow face away from
the window, .'theIe is nothing to be seen
but the binding snow"
clark don't you hear something J.
said the hollow voice, breaking in here
sharp, hungry, impatient.
"No, father; the wind blows and blows
that is ALL"
The tones were those Of girl, but
there was nothing in the low, dreary
voice that was at all like that of girlhoOd
: Then the speaker turned to the fire, places
some fresh wood On the embers, and came
, back to ner watch by the window drearJ
! work enough for any age, but doubly SC
to any one whose lie had rot covered Its
fourteenth Summer
The room had a generally comfortles:
| expression. Yet there WAS not, after all
so much lack of material as want of care
and arrangement discernible Throughout
the apartment
On the bed in one corner lay the owner
Of the log cabin. One look into the
, shrunken face, the hollow eyes all lying
} in that shadow ot ashy palor, and yol
would have been certain the man hac
laid himself down to die, and that the on
guest who comes sooner or later over al
thresholds, had come now to tha: lionel,
log cabin out on the Western plains.
None could know this better than Josial
Keep, as he lay there, with the winte
( storm bowling outside, and the years O
his life coming up one after another, an
standing with their solemn, reproachtu
faces before him.
For this mans life had not been goo
one. | cannot go into the detail here G
seltshness which had marred, and passlo
which had defled his days; but the en-
: had come now, and the hard, strong ferc
will had bowed itself at last before th
solemn voices of conscience echoing ami
all the tumult of his soul, as it glared fac
:, to face with death.
l. There was one deed of Josiah Keep
4 life which somehow troubled him mol
: than all the others, and from 1t he
some sense dated the commencement
his wrong career, although, the seif-wilie'
q reckless, passionate boyhood and youi
had ripened into the hard, selfish, detaI
manhood.
/ Here, too, it is sufficient to say that
had overreached his partner IN mann
!. which the law could not take hold OF
: had saved his own fortune, and complet
D. ly wrecked the others, and the Wrol
IJ - T. hod haan n