Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1876-06-28
WAITING FOR AN ANSWER.


My story? my life? Oh, it has been too
uneyentful, too simple in its incidents.
could tell you the sorrows Of others, but
my own--well, well! as you will. You
shall hear The wound has never healed /,
and if put my hand above it, the place
still throbs, even as it will beat and ache
till kindly Ixture says to me, Sleep, poor
weary one, md rest" And then peace
fully trustingly, and with simple hope
of forgiveness, may sleep that long sleep
which they say so flippantly has no wax
ing, but which has a waking, rs every
lesson which. we learn in life persists in
teaching us.
You will smile, perhaps, when | tell
that | was once what people called pretty
that this palc.h ued face was once plump
and rosy, these sad eyes bright, and this
gray scant hair golden. brown, long and
flowing. But why should | think you
would smile? Do not know that you
must have seen the gay young plant put
ting out its tender leaves in spring, grow
ing green and luxuriant of foliage in
summer, ripe and rudy in autumn, and
gray, bent and witherei in agey And
should be pited because have but fol-
IoNtu III lIt way VI bttult Duiti1 h0t
1t is not for that ask your sympathy, but
for the blight that fell upon the young
plant, and scared and scotched it so that
il seemed for months that ii would die !;
but it lived, as have lived TO tell you this.
DO you know that wondrous feeling
which comes in the early year, and that
strange sense of keen delight, that elias
ITCHY Of spirit, when, full Of youth and
hope, the very tears of joyous sensibility
start to the eyes as you wander amidst the
trees and flowers in spring. | remember
how felt, oh! so well, even though it is
now forty years ago, and l was twenty.
lack and | were engaged. IT was all
such simple homely affair. We had
known one another for years--the chill
dren of neighboring farmers jack
still call him by the simple old pet name
of those days-Jack had been away at a
good school, and being bright and shrewd
and clever, he had won his way on, taxi
ing TO engineering instead OF his fathers
farm life, and now it had come to this that
he had been staying at home Tor month
previous to going out TO a good appoint
ment in Melbourne.
That month in spring, how il passed +,
We had met again and again, and IN his
hhHtN't manly way iit nav dNEIu iit w NC
his wife.
"You know, Grace, that have always
loved YOU he said and now have
hopes and prospects, it cannot be wrong
To ask you for yonr promise
We were walking by the riverside "a
he said this, and how well can picture it
all--the soft gliding water mirroring the
trees on the opposite bank. the young
I,,l. IL ,x ,l,s,
and, above all, the soft tender blue of the
spring sky-u.e blue, he had told me,
that was like my eyes.
DO you want me to promise, Jack 60
| said simply, as ! looked up in his face.
"No. darling, am satisfied, 70 he cried
as his strong arms held me to his broad
breast, aud that was all No oathS could
have bound me more tightly to him
felt that | was his wife when he sho;.ld
come to claim me.
We were late that evening and entered
the house shyly, for there had been so
much 10 talk of and plan, In months
time Jack was 10 sail for Melbourne: then
he WAS 10 work very hard for three years,
and come and fetch me To be his wife
That month gided by, and the last day
had come. Ii was, rs told YOU, spring
time-loyous spring time, with the haw-
tnorn'S snowy blossoms, the apple trees
pink and the pear trees pearly with their
pyramids of flowers. Every meadow
passed was starred with golden butter.
cups and from every spray the birds
urllcd or ierked forth their merry soucs
OF hope and love,
could not feel sad, even though | was
going 10 meet Jack for the last walk he.
fore he went away but, rs | said, mingled
with the feelings OF ecstasy there Was a
strange teartnlneSS OF eve, and my breath
would come at times with n sob
tie was by the stile waiting for me
the Sille down by the long me9iov half.
way between the two larms--ana as he
took my hand in his, We neither OF Us
spoke, bat stood gazing away over wood.
lawn and meadow, all clad In their won.
drous beauty, and listened to the birds.
Now il was the soft. tender COO of the
stock dove from the Wool, now the itgked-
out, twittering song of the linuetS: then.
soft and mellow, from the thick hedge.
rows tloaled toward Us the huty notes of
the blaCkbird, while far on high uilled
away the larks, singing one against the
other ~ their mates, sitting in the tall
grass of the golden Meals
We could not talk, our hearts were too
full, for Jack WAS Ia be Oh AT dayhreaS the
next morning, But there WAS no need for
words. We loved each other in the sim.
pie nature-taught way that has been since
the world began, and we knew that every
JOYOUS song around that thrilled upon eur