Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1880-09-23
A Week i'm the Country.

Here is little incident which has a
special significance just at this time.
Last summer lady in a neighbOrIng city
became interested in the charity called
the Children's Week, by which the boys
and girls who would never otherwise see
the country are received as guests or
boarders at farm-houses for week or
fortnight. There was little lame girl
who sat at corner of noisy street, SELL
ing papers and peanuts, wizened, stolid
little creature, with dull eyes and leath-
cry skin. Her, the lady chose, prompted
by some passing freak, as the subject OF
her charity, and sent her out to farmer
among the hills in Berks County to
board. The farmer and his wife had Sc
cretly poor opinion of "town tramps"
or humanitarian experiments. They gave
the children their meals for which they
were paid, ordered them out of the ber-
ry-patch, counted the spoons when they
were going, that none should be stolen,
and felt that they had discharged their
full duty. This girl, unlike the others,
neither robbed the cherry. trees nor
trampled the berry-beds. She sat all day
on the door-steps looking out at hill and
field, or sometimes followed the house
wife to barn or poultry-yard, or gravely
watched the COWS and chickens as if they
had been new miracles in the world that
day. ga dumb, half witted creature" :"
was the good woman's verdict when she
went away.
In April, the farmers wife received an
urgent message asking her to come to this
girl, who was dying of some slow, lnher-
tied disease. She found her with an old
drunken woman in a squalid room, at the
top OF tenement house, the one window
of which opened on dingy brick walls
and an asphalt roof, where lean cat was
pro wiling among empty tomato cans. The
country woman was not used to visits of
sympathy. She was appalled, by the dirt,
the surrounding and misery, the chance
of small pox, the probable demand for
money, "What do you want with me9"
she asked. "Is it there still?' the child
demanded, her eyes kindled with fever.
The hills, the solemn sunsets, the
green fields, even the cattle and simple
sights and sounds of the farm, haunted
her like wonderful vision. In the six
teen years during which the poor wretch
had lived, that one week had been her
single glimpse Of the beautiful world
about her. In the rest, she had known
nothing, absolutely nothing, but the dirty
street on which stood her stand and bare
garret. Now that death was at hand,
she cried out for this lost chance, which
never should come to her, with a mad,
bitter longing for which, untaught ami
NAL, that she was, she had no words.
IT'S it there still9 Tell me about 1t!'
she said. "The woods, the COWS, the
things saw you plant-anything; I have
not much time. want to hear about
them once before I CO.,
The woman talked as she was hidden.
Presently the facts of the situation forced
themselves into her slow mind. "Whyr'
she said, starting up, her eyes full of
motherly kindness, ''why shouldn't you
come to it, child9" She took her home
that night and nursed her tenderly. as if
she had once been her own baby. If we
would say that the sick child recovered
in the pure air and quiet of the hills, our
story wOuld, indeed. have been much
pleasanter to tell. But, alas! she did
not recover. She died there after month
OF happiness. The farm house, the woods
putting out their tender leaves, the fields
Just upturned by the plough, all became
like home to her. She had keen inter
est in the planting. The farmer, a rough
Pennsylvania Dutchman, took time to
carry her from place to place, Imade seats
for her by the stream, under the oaks in
the pasture. At last she closed her ewes
contentedly on it all, and her tired body
was laid to rest in the pure air and warm
friendly earth of the hills. New YOrA
| Tribune,