Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1876-01-06
PROMISES.
BY CHARLOTTE HOWE.

"Ma-m-ma! Apples going to shoot
you" cried a shrill little voice, in the street
hard by, and looked up in horror.
Little Stella was flying toward her man.
ma, who stood on the doorstep, and when
sine reached her she chung to her with tinny
protecting arms, as if to shield her from this
murderous Apple.
Where was he-this blood-thirsty disturber
of Stella's peace?
Hooked quite awhile, but / at length spied
him, with his back against a. neighboring
spout, and his eyes looking savagely out
from beneath the brim of a blue-banded
straw hat. His head would stand on a level
with my table; his hair was white and soft
as silk, like the tassels Of ripening corn his
eyes were as blue as the ribbon on his hat;
his lips were red, and after that one savage
trown, they parted in a merry smile, to show
two rows of milk-White teeth, and his body
was round and fat, and his hands hardly big
enough to hold a toy.
l laughed at this baby-brigand, and in my
mind compared him to the hundreds of chill
dren of a larger growth who are promising
daily to execute things quite as much be-
You'd them as Apples threatened violence
to Stella's mamma
have been a victim all my life to these
free distributors of promises.
az shall do such and such a thing" one
has said to me, and | in my weak simplicity
listened, believed and admired, and often
came out into the light, rich in experience,
but miserably poor in pocket.
ssWhat a grand fellow he isl" we say of
somebody who wears good clothes, and talks
good language, and carries nobly his burden
of responsibility.
"Yes," replies another, who knows what
he is saying !; he is grand in a way. Why
he is a veritable Napoleon of promises, but
the meanest wretch in the street is a better
executor. He has, however, his army of
believers, and they will go on listening, and
admiring the feats he means to perform,
reveling in the fame he promises to acquire,
and when he gets old, | have no doubt but
what he viii find people who can remember
him as a amous fellow. II he dies early,
you will hear Of a life cut off in the zenith
OF his glory.
"When the opportunity comes | shall
write a book" says a young author.
Opportunities never come unsought. AS
we'll might one say, "When diamonds fall
into my lap, l will wear them" Success in
life is not the result of opportunities. Prom
ises do not make us great men and women,
any more than Appie'sdreadful threat trans
formed him from a fat, blue-eyed boy into
hideous murderer.
Our grandmother used to say, when We
came to her with promises of labor to be
fulfilled, "That's good; to make it better
run along and do it before the idea get
cold.'
1t is an easy thing to promise to do a grea
work, but the promises are not the eXecu
tons. The world is full of them, in all man
ner of shapes. We have had promises 0
brave men and fair ladies in the pretty boy
and girls we have known and yet, losin!
sight Of them for a few years, and comm;
suddenly back to them, we are shocked a
the commonplace men and women they hay
become.
We have musical and literary prodigies
whose rare promises have filed me wit
happy a%nticipations, and yet as the yeal
roll on, they develop not, and we find thai
glories to be like Apples m~urder-simply
threat.
So we come to look for nothing in words