Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-05-22
Miss Myra's May Basket.

MISS Myra s May Basket.
The moon was up, and the curtains
still drawn. There was no light in the
parlor, and the shadows of the leafy
vines at the windows made tiickering
little bits of mosaic on the pale gray
wallpaper inside. Miss Myra sat in
her little low rocking-chair, softly hum
ming tune she used to sing years ago.
Most of the words had gone out other
mind; only tender little refrain Chin
ing in now and then upon her recollec-
ton of the quaint old melody. What a
flood of memories those few little quav-
ering notes of tune poured in upon her
The mists of twenty years dissolved,and
again she saw herself a bright-eyed hap
py child; the "Wylde Myra," as they
used laugninly to transpose her name
sometimes.
Panoramic pictures moved slowly
before her, to the music and rhythm of
the old tune on her lips. Firt, there ap-
peared vision of her childhood. A
dusty yellow road; short, maple-bor-
dered green. and then turn and an old
red school-house, whose sides were as
spotted and brown as were the faces Of
the urchins who rushed pell-mell out of
its door at recess. One curly brown
head and one pair of honest brown eyes
cleaned out above all others in the
crowd. They belonged to Myra's boy
lover, Roger Merton. He it was who
used to whistle that same tune when he
brought her May apples from the woods,
and hung the pIetty May baskets ON her
door early May-day morning. Then that
picture faded, and another, fairer still,
and brigher, shone out. A great orch
ard of crooked apple trees, all pink and
fragrant with bloom. Under the low,
blusbing branches, a brown-haired youth
and slender maiden plightins their vows
"a May morn over their heads, and
May-time in their hearts, and the sweet
old tune sung softly as they walked to-
gether. Again the scene changes. May
again; and the eve before the bridal
Two lovers saying goodnight and good
bye" for the last time, and bonny
whistle of the old tune sounding "over
the hills and far away as Roger goes to
his home alone, to return on the morrow
| for his bride. Then dark cloud DER
hangs the picture. 1t is May morning
but heavy sorrow, instead of a light
hearted joy, is in the household. Death
NOT marriage-has taken one away,
and the mother, leaving in the arms of
Myra, her eldest born, a baby girl, with
ebbing breath, whispers, BE mother
to her, as have been 10 you. Let moth
ing come between you and her, Myra."
And Myra kneels, and receives the sa-
cred charge.
1--WE can not marry now, Roger she
sobbed. 81 have duty here to perform
first. Wait until the little one is old
enough to leave, and l will come to you. "
But Roger had demurred. There was
no need to wait, he said. He would
take the child, too.
NO." Myra entreated. "Leaye me so.
1 have promised to let nothing come be-
tween me and her. should forget her
in my love for you, Roger. Wait until
she is grown; then l can come to you
with an undivided heart"
| 1t is only woman who can love and
wait. A mans love means possession.
The object of his passion must be his ito
have and to hold" absolutely, else the
love wanes and goes out 1t is woman
only who can keep the tender fire burn
| ing, famed by the breath of her almost
divine patience. For few months Ro-
ger Merton yielded to the entreaties of
| his bride-to-be,a ,and, bowed his head meek
| ly to the situation. But he fretted and
chafed at length; and so, when pretty,
| sly, little Bertha Lloyd made her gracious
attempts at coincidence and consolation,
he found them so agreeable and satisfac-
| tory that he forgot his promises to My
IA, and decided he would grant to Ber-
| tina the privilege of sympathizing with
him in his troubles the rest of her days.
When another May morning frightened
the skies, Bertha Lloyd went home over
the hill with Roger Merton as his wife,
and Myra Wylde sat in her lonely room,
and rocked her baby sister on her bruis-
ed heart. But the tune upon her lips
was huShed.
Many May days came and went in the
years that followed. Roger and Myra
seldom met He had his wife and chill
dren in his grand new home on the hill /;
she devoted her days to her father and
her little sister in the old home down in
the valley. In the solitude of his drives,
over the old haunts they had trod to-
gether in the bright springtime of their
youth, sometimes he would think Of My
ra tenderly, and wonder if she had for
himself bitterly for the mistake he
had made, for Bertha, though a good
mother to his children, was not the wife
he had hoped to find in Myra While
sine, when the May blooms were hanging
on the trees, would often dream Of her
boy lover, and of her girlhood's choice
but of the husband of her neighbor, she
never thought. If she had forgotten the
man, however, she had not forgiven him.
There was ranking wound yet in the
woman's heart-a wound that bled when
touched.
! Wffen Hope, for so had Myra called
the little one, grew to be q maiden, she
came one day to her sister, and hiding
the blushing face upon her shoulder, con-
confessed that she loved and was be-
! loYen.