Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-06-10
#iseellanerms.
From the Atlantic Monthly for June.
BENJAMIN JACQUES.

in the summer Of 1842 by mining specu-
lation. His ruin did not mean SO very
much in dollars and cents, perhaps less
than his previons failures in the same bar
rem field, but somehow this last failure
seemed to mean great deal to him per-
sonally. His open, honest face revealed
keen suffering.
Jacques had been very temperate and
industrious. He would have gained suc-
cess if there had been half chance. But
mining in the Adirondack Mountains was
hard. So long as a man was young. and
new at the business, he could endure the
disappointments after fashion but when
he was turned OF forty years OF age. and
had learned that mining in the Adiron-
dacks was contending against great COM
mercial odds if not natural laws, he was
apt to think that he needed O change.
Ones best strength for lighting the
rocks" was likely to be impaired before
middle life. Jacques, however. was still
strong. 1t was tho check upon earnest
purposes and honest hopes that wrung his
heart. He had tried SO many times, he
said, and SO fair, and every. time a fail
ure..
On this last occasion Jacques's brown
locks were turning to silver, as the assets
OF his venture were made over to .'the
company" leaving him without q dollar;
and he explained to his friends, in his
simple. direct way, with tears in his frank,
gray eyes. that he was tired.
more than twelve years ago" he said,
81 brought little money snd hopeful
heart to these mountains, and you all know
whether have worked faithful. l own
am down now, and nv heart is sore. 1t
amt no use, boys" he added. ut is
hard country. Them few black holes
over there in the hill is all have to show
for my work. And them amt mine any
louger," he added, struggling with sob.
He said to friend, privately and with
tears, ''It's all right, George, to talk of
settling down, but when a man has had
his hopes, and sees it's too late, and he
has nothing to offer, what can he say ?"
Three days after the failure, Ben Jac-
ques started away from the mining settle
ment alone for walk among the noun
tains. He was trying to get o mental
view OF what else there might be in the
world beside iron ore and speculation and
heart-ache. 1t was a July morning, all
brightness, and cheered by the birds. he
walked along a little road up by o cabin
where his newly-married friend. Nellie,
and her husband lived. The little home
was sweet picture. Beyond it were the
woods and the dark mountains. To the
toiler whose existence had been for SO
many years a struggle to wrench for
tune from these rocky hills. they seemed
implacable and pitiless. What was the
serenity of their heights but contempt for
his feeble struggles?
lie passed on from the settlement into
the woods. There was an old mining road
that he knew of. 1t led many miles into
the wilderness. 1t had been ''cut out
and speedily abandoned in a mining spec
ulation years ago. He followed this track
five miles, to Cherry Lake. The lake was
very solitary. "A dark, rugged hill clothed
with black spruce rose beyond it. Where
Jacques was, there was plain covered
with maple and beech trees. He noticed
how fine the prospect was, and how won
derfully the blue waters sparkled in the
July noon. Then he sat down upon the
shore and smoked his pipe. and thought it
all over again. When he returned to the
settlement that evening, he remarked that
he had considered the matter fully. and
was sure that he had done with mining
forever.
A week later the news WAS circulated
that Ben Jacques had put up a log-cabin
away off in the woods at Cherry Lake. and
was going to turn hermit, There were
diverse comments upon this intelligence.
Some reckoned that he had found new
mine out there. others were "afeard" that
Ben had soft spot in his head. His own
statement of the case to Nellie was plain.
He said he was tired. He declared. also,
that it was pleasant at the lake, and that
he loved to dream there in the silence. II
world outside of these noun
tains, Nellie said Jacques, that you
have not seem" When Nellie said, anx.
iously. that she feared he was giving way
to some secret sorrow, he did not reply.
Jacques's cabin at the lake was pleas
ant place. During the antumn he cleared
a little ground, that he might have gar
den in the spring, aud he improved the
old road so that a team could be driven
over it. A few weeks labor at THE
Works supplied him with means to pro-
cure the necessaries he required. Then
little furniture and few books were taken
to the cabin, and the toiler settled down to
rest.
jacques was a sensitive man. The isO-
lation of his hermit-lite soon had its go
ural effect upon him. That unseen world
that surrounds the living. both when they
wake and when they sleep. seemed to him
to come nearer and nearer The strange
spirits that WOO and win the solitary found
him in the wilderness. 1t was observed
that he was becoming quiet and shy. and
that the little he saw OF society when he
visited the settlement oppressed him.
The seasons came and went with much
ieverish anxiety, and many bafiied enter
prses. at the mining settlement Amid
the worry and the failures. Ben Jacques.
the hermit. was little cared for, and rarely
The little settlement did not encroach
very rapidly upon the woods. Jacques
cabin was still miles away in the forest.
His acre of garden was a rose in the vast
wilderness. In spring the flowers bloomed
al alound his doorway, and the bees from
his hives hummed around the tiny clear
ing. Remote as it was, the robin and the
bluebirds found this lonely home. 1t was
one of the picnic journeys in summer, for
the yOunU folks to travel tka long mira.