Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1880-05-27


nothing else, not one sweet bit Of cpl
gea, and she was getting highly irate
with the American fora, when she
paused to see bird wing through the
spaces, and to tell him how silly he was
to think it was summer yet, after all.
"Mr. Wilston will be so pleased!" she
said Indignantly, as if nature ought to
take part. It was picturesque bit of
woods Just there; the long lofty stems of
the undraped trees crowding up into the
light, and the aisles on one hand extend
ing into shadow, and on the other huge
mossgrown powders and thorny thick
cts lining the bank, where, some eighty
feet below, the river went brawling
along over rapids and falls in way to
please poet or fisherman. And it
was picturesque little body in the
wood that Angelica looked, the wind
tossing her hat half off, her glowing
cheeks, her sparkling brown eyes, and
her great shock of light brown curls
blowing all ways mt once as she leaned
over the edge of the bank to gaze into
the seething torrent below, and Won
dered, meanwhile whether pond-lilies
grew in that sort of water. Just then
the wind slapped her skirt round a young
walnut sappbng. Vexed with the rude
ness, she slapped it back again; she lost
her balance as she did it, and over she
went with cry.
Poor little AngeEcal How many
thoughts there are IN a second! Her
first thought Wits, Its the end of me;
I'm being torn to pieces on these rocks"
Her second one was, sob, what will
grandma do without me now" The
third one ran, "And I've been SO bad to
Mr.. Wilston, and he'll be so sorry for
his little Angelica; and Ipushed Tommy
yesterday; and once l told grandma
lie" And then there was wild whirl
OF horror, of sharp rocks and drowning
whirlpools, and great CULTS OF death and
oblivion.
When the little body came to herself
she was lying comfortably suspended in
mid-air, in a cradle made of wild plum
bushes, and the old horse riar and
grapevines that had interlaced them
selves together there, growing from the
crevices. Above her was almost twenty
feet of sheer rock, and below her the
boiling river, rushing and roaring on
With start OF terror, as memory swept
back upon her, she seized stout stem
of the vine, and clutched it with all her
might; but a gust of wind coming at the
moment, and rocking the cradle well, as
sured her I'll at her clinging amounted to
little, and she presently found the thou
sand and one briers of the wild smilax
holding her more securely than it was
possible her tiny fingers should.
Before long she was able to gather her
senses from their trance of horror, in
which all reason had been dissipated,
and she loosened her dress, and sat up
in her nest to look about her cts of
no use," she said at last. "The only
way to get down is to free grapevine,
and climb down on it; and it wouldn't be
long enough, and it wouldn't be strong
enough, and If | got down ut all, it would
only be into boiling pit of deep
water. and in freeing it I might be like
the man who sawed off the end of the
branch he sat on-if could free it any
way. And l might as well die of starva-
ton and be picked by the birds, as die
of drowning and be picked by the fishes.
But, oh, dear! dear dear what are they
doing at home now? Why doesn't Mr..
Wilston know how horribly l hang here
between heaven and earth? Why doesn't
somebody follow me? Oh, what hcve l
done, what have L done, to be purished
this way? Oh, you don't suppose L am
really going to be left to die here Oh,
how cruel" And then there was burst
of sobbing, and she rung her hands, and
cried again.
But the crying over, for the time be-
ing, Angelica began to look about her.
The blow had been struck too power
fully to do much less than stun, and she
yet hardly realized her situation in full.
81 don't quite give it up she said.
Somebody may come this way" and
she hallooed till she was out of breath.
at wouldn't be bad place for pleas
ure," she thought, "if one could get
down or up when one wished, and if one
had plenSy of books and a lunch basket.
"Oh how hungry l ami" Certainly it
was not at all a bad place of its sort
swinging Graded there securely in mid
air, with the birds darting all about one;
with the greaS sky full of sunshine over
head; with thai fish-hawk sailing in slow
circles ere he plunged This is the
way some of the Puget Sound Indians
bury their dead" she thought, "high
up N air among the branches. Only
they have tin pans hung with them.
And that does so put me IN mind of our
Nora's cream-tke very last pan she let
me skim. And now I'm hungrier than
ever. | wonder what time 1t is--long
past lunch, of course. Tn hollow now;
L l., L., I, =,