The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-05-19
BEN: A STORY FOR MAY.DAY.
BY EDWARD EGG ESTON.

BY EDWARD EGG EsTON.
Ben stood pressing his face against
the glass.
1t as neither night nor day dawn nor
twilight that greeted Ben on that morn
ing on the first of May. 1t should have
been daylight by the old clock that he
could hear striking five on the mantel-
piece in the room below. But what
Ben saw, with his face pressed so close
against the eight-by-ten glass of the ga
bic window in that half-story upper win
dow of the dingy old farmhouse, was
fog-a dripping, saturating, Ohio river
fog. Why Ben pressed his face so close
to the glass it would be hard to tell. If
there had been no fog he would have
seen lovely landscape, but it was one
that he had seen every day for years
from that identical hillside landscape
associated in his mind with toll and
hard treatment ever since he had come,
at nine years OF age, to be bound
boy" in the family of cold Man Pogue."
So that there was no need Of pressing
his face against the glass to see beauties
to which ten years of drudgery had made
him insensible.
But there was the big strapp,ng fellow
with his face against the glass staring
out through that gable window into a
fog that was so dense as to hide the APP
pie tree bough which he could have
touched if the window had been open.
Staring into the fog, trying to see some
thing, Ben Lamson was only giving out
ward expression to the mental act with
in. For to him the future and The pur-
poses of his own life were befogged.
And it seemed to him that Lis soul
was staring out Of little gable window
trying to find the right road, but un-
able to do so. If only the fog would
lift
All his clothes were packed in the
great yellow cotton handkerchief by his
feet. Evidently the rule of cold Man
Pogue" had been too bitter for the
bound boy, and unwilling to wait for
the two years to pass that should bring
him to his majority, he was thinking of
fleeing with the little bundle out into
the fog.
But something held him back. And
that which held him back was also that
which impelled him. For revival
preacher, whose theology was confused
whose grammar was mixed, whose rhet
oric was Wild but whose heart was
earnest, had done for the bound boy al
cold Man Pogue's" what | am afraid
neither of the courses of Boston lectures
could have done. He had walked up the
man in him. And when the manhood
was awake slavery became intolerable
The first effect of Christianity on down
trodden man is not patience. That comes
afterward. The primary result is resist
ance.
For the first time since he had LIVED
and worked on "Pogues Hill" Ben
took in the beauty of the landscape
wondering, as he saw the rising sur
shimmering on the river and girdinl
the windows of the village that he hac
been blind so long And the peace o
the sun and sky and river entered into
his soul, as he stood staring out of thai
gable window. He postponed the so
luton of the problem of duty, unpacke &c
his bundle, and went to the morning.
work.
New Geneva had come of late years tc
be more of an onion-growing thar
wine-growing place. And seven O'Clock
found Ben with his hoe in hand, look
ing down the long rows of the onion
beds, while his back ached to think o
the days work before him. For MAY
day is holiday for all village children
and young people in this Ohio rive
country.
SO it happened that Ben, the bounC
boy now nearly man, did not put hi
hoe into the onion-bed with his usua
alacrity on this May.day morning. Fo
out of the village there came the schoo
children, younger and older, in an irreg
ular, noisy swarm. Poor Ben had onl,
been in school three months, and tina
during the last winter. He, who haC
never known holiday, now watched
eagerly the throng of his schoolmates
who went shouting and laughing up th'
hill on the opposite side Of the brook
Ben was leaning on his hoe, looking a
them with lump in his throat. Fo
there We're all the boys. And there wa
Sally Little-he knew her hat-actuall,
waving her handkerchief at him
He swung his cid cap around his head
They could not see his tears. That wa
good.
And-yes-there was Mary Patterson
standing still. Now she shielded he
eyes from the sun and looked. Ben die
not know whether to wave or not. IL
was so confused. To have Mary Patter
son look at him was worth more thar
everything else in the world. Sh,
waved her handkerchief Poor Ben
lie wished Pogue's onion-beds in tn,
river lie was just debating whether h,
should not take French leave of tn,
onions and 90 to the woods, when he wa
startled by the harsh voice of Pogu
himself.
What good-for-nothin' gawk you