The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1873-12-19
K1IIE'S LANTERN.

row and rocky ledge, had a most pictur-
esque position. Away to the southwark
wound and smiled the fertile valley. n
goodly portion of whose acres apper-
tanned to Grandfather Crowninsbield, and
along the edge thereof swept the curves of
the railway, after what seemed its birth
IN the cloven ledge so very near to Katie
Crowninshield's home. As for Katie her
sell, with her sweet, fresh face and her
merry brown eyes, the little valley and her
nesting home were all the world to her
all, indeed, that she had ever known, for
! she had been but a wee thing when Grand
father and Grandmother Crowninshield
became father and mother to her, in place
OF those whose faces she could now hardly
remember. Neither did it ever occur to
her that she was in any sense an heiress,
for she seemed rather to belong to the val
| ley than the valley to her; while the idea,
If anything had brought it to her mind,
| that her good old grandparents were not to
live forever, would have turned the bright
/ est June day to the gloomiest December.
/ But, in these latter years, one great en-
| tty had painfully struggled into Katie's
! world, with an apparent mission to unite
/ the valley with that great unknown, which
lay beyond the hills and ledges. Katie
had seen the ragged rift cloven in the gran
ite wall, watching it curiously from door or
window, and listening for the dull reports
| of the blasting charges, until the barrier
was pierced and the railway crept out and
| found its way down tlrOugh the valley
and ever since the trains began to run, she
| had connected with them the idea of life
/ that was almost human. She had waved
, her handkerchief enthusiastically to the
! very first train, and had been literally re-
I sponded to by passengers and conductor :;
and, although She had been then little
! girl and was now young lady, she had
never yet dreamed of any unmaidenly bold
ness i'll giving the same white signal of
welcome, at times, when the great railway
mystery came rushing out of the cloven
wall. There was one train in particular
which katie'S attentions were at last pret-
ty well restricted "a through express, which
went by at eight o'clock in the morning.
and there was another from the same di
rection again at eight o'clock at night.
From the former, just as easily as her own
dainty good morning - fluttered above
the garden gate, so certainly would there
be Hceting flash of white to answer her
from the platform OF one of the cars or
even from the engine itself, for that, too,
had happened. And Katie knew very well
that, III these latter days, at least, her an
swcr had always come from the same hand.
y tall, erect, manly fellow he was, dressed
in dark-blue cloth and Katie had been
we'll aware, for good while, that he was
the conductor Of the train, but she had
nevor yet been near enough to speak to
him, or get any clearer notion of his face
ard its meaning than might be given her
III those swift but almost daily glimpses.
| When or how he found his way back to the
| beginning of his perpetual journey, was a
! question that Katie never asked even of
/ herself. 1t was enough that every morn
! ing the swift train brought him ont of the
unknown country beyond the hills, and
: added something that had grown to be
very pleasant to the peace and quiet of her
day.
There was something very noteworthy,
even to railway men, about the manner in
which The road broke in upon the valley.
y deep cut, a sharp curve, and a heavy
own-grade, combined to make the precise
point where the conductor had learned to
look for Katie's greeting an interesting
one and her white kerchief may even
have seemed to wave a species of congrat-
ulation at his repeated safe passage of
what might at any time have shaped itself
into danger.
Be that as it may, the railway ''cut'' had
brought to Katie Crowninshield, among
other results, a shorter and easier path to
the home of her aunt, her mothers sister,
who lived just little way beyond the
, ledge, and who was never satisfied if too
many days passed by without bringing the
sunlight of Katie's face across her thresh-
old. And so Katie had gone and returned,
many and many 4 time, by the narrow
path between the granite walls Nobody
in that peaceful region dreamed of fear at
being ''out after dark and again and
again had good Betsy detained her pet
until night had fallen, although her only
companion homeward was her little star of
lantern. There came a day when katie's
handkerchief fiuttered in vain, and then
another, when even the reply she received
from the train convinced her that there
had been change of some kind, and that
she would receive no more signals from
the same hand. And so she sadly pre-
pared to give it up, in the first fit of gen
uine blues she had ever INDUCED in, but,
few evenings afterward, she fingered at
the garden gate a little after her return
from Aunt Betsy's, to see the lightning ex-
press go flashing by, 1t was grand sight
when it came, iucomparably moro interest
ing and mysterious in the darkness than
ever in the day, and Katie wondered she