The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-01-28
CHAPTER VII.

A journey of fifty miles with team
of oxen over a country without roads in
a wagon loaded with butter, eggs, and
wheat was a matter of no little import
auee to the widow, whose residence in
her lonely retreat hard by her husbands
grave had been so long unbroken.
"Never you mind about the work at
hOme," said Madge. "Take one of the
boys for company, and I'll take care of
the rest. You'll need food enough,
ready cooked, to last four days; aud you
can sleep in the wagon. Mr.. Andrews
can lodge on the soft side of a rock, un-
der the tent, or the shelter of a tree.
Now chirk up and get light hearted
and young again. 1 don't want any
body moping around here"
Thus urged, Mrs. Morrison carefully
Tejuvenated her scant wardrobe, and
made necessary culinary preparations
for the journey.
Jason Andrews had been uncommonly
tidy in his habits of late. His personal
appearance, never the best, had badly
deteriorated from the day of his mar
riage to the day of the death of his wife;
and the same slovenly department that
had characterized him during his mar
ried years had followed him, in spite of
Mrs. Morrison's protests, for year or
two after he became widower. Lately,
however, there had been a marked
change for the better. Upon his last
visit to The Falls he had INDUCED in the
expensive luxury of suit of gray tweed
and single white shirt, the first of the
kind the Morrisons had ever known
him to possess. And now, as his stall
wart form was fully bedeeked in his
new apparel, and his brown, curling
locks were neatly combed away from
his forehead, and he stood with his hat
in his hand, deferentiaIly waiting for
Mrs. Morrison to give the last direc-
tions to Madge for the ordering of the
household in her absence, Madge sud-
denly encountered a gleam of intelli-
gence between the pair, and fully un-
derstoOd it, although her mother, evil
IDENTIFY, did not.
"Take care that you don't act the fool,
old lady," she said, while a far-away
look in her eyes betokened a mysterious
meaning, wholly unintelligible to the
other numerous members of the house
hold.
"Will you never Outgrow your i'm
pertinence, Madge?" asked her mother,
while an involuntary shiver passed
through her slight frame, and she trem-
bled, not knowing why.
''I'm not saucy, mother. Pray for
give me. only saw a dark cloud,
without any golden lining, and it COW
cred you like pail, and you seemed to
have no will to emerge from it, though
1t made you miserable. Be careful
about trying any new experiment.
You'll rue it if you do"
"Pity Alice amt here to take the
conceit out o. ye," said Jason Andrews,
dryly.
Now, Madge's "conceit" was of that
very capricious kind that always shrank
away into impenetrable obscurity when
ridiculed, and its effervescence was, in
consequence, of that unstable order that
often failed when its fullest action
might have accomplished good.
She watched her mother, as she
climbed into the covered wagon, and
took her seat beside her twin boy Harry,
and again that far-away, dreamy look
cameDinto her wierd, black eyes.
''Madge, what is t?' asked her
mother, anxiously.
Nothing! Don't ask me-"
81 believe you're the Witch of
Endor."
"Guess am"
"Thats one time you've hit it p' ex-
claimed Jason, taking the long ox-whip
from its resting-pIace on the wagon
cover, and fourishing it, with an ON
inOus crack, over the heads of the de-
voted cattle.
For number of miles Jason plodded
along in a silence that was only broken
at long intervals by the cracking whip
and an occasional "Whoa, haw, Buck !
Gee, Berry! Get along, Bright ~
At length the party emerged from a
hilly forest and reached an open plain,
eight or ten miles across, where, as
there would be no need of skillful
driving, Harry was commanded to take
the whip, and allow Andrews to ride in
his place.
"Why can't 1 ride on the wagon
tongue and drive, ?" asked Harry,
with growing boys usual dislike for
extra exertion.
because it's lazy way" answered
his mother. "Your father never would
allow anybody around him to ride and
drive oxen"
''Then he was nicer than wise,u
grumbled the boy, as he clambered to
the ground and petulantly cracked the
heavy whip.
For q half-hOur Jason Andrews and
the widow Morrison sat side by side in
silence. Jason was the first to break
the spell.
"POn my word, you are growing
young" he said, tenderly, as be leaned