The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1880-11-12
COMING BACK.

Up in a city garnet, on hot June day,
weary woman leaned back in her chair, and
pressed her fingers against the eyes that re-
fused to see the stitching in the shop work
over which she had toiled from daybreak till
now, four O'Clock in the afternoon.
FROM the street far below her, voice had
only that moment scared upward, calling
Strawberries n'
And, as if by magic, her thoughts turning
backward had carried her to Deepdenc, the
home of her youth, and to certain lovely
Jure day in her sixteenth year, when she had
stood in the strawberry pasture on the Bless
ing farm, with the red berries peTfuming all
the air and said the words which severed her
fate from that of Maurice Blessing, and made
her life what it was on this day, almost hope
less, and a ceaseless struggle for bread, Won
at needle point.
How it rose up before hari The green
pasture sloping upward to the darker green
woods, whose tops seemed to touch the deep
blue sky, sloping downward to the gray
stone wall, with the cold spring leaping out
through a wooden trough, among its lower
stones.
And below the wall, "the thirtyacre NOW
velvet carpet, with the twa-story creanl-col-
ored house lifting its piazzaed front at the
extreme end, Just where the shaded lane be-
gan, that led from the Blessing farm out into
the village road.
She, the poor orphan girl, had been offered
this comfortable home and she had refused
ft-for what? For a dream Of fame, which
had left her toiline in this hot garret, while
in the black trunk yonder the book which
was to have made her fortune, refused by
one publisher after another, was lying, till
she could find courage to thrust it into the
fire.
Scarcely FIVE years" she sighed, rocking
herself to and fro. "And Maurice has sold
the old farm and gone to Colorado; and I
am here, lonely, disappointed, Old before my
time. Oh. if I could only live that day over
again, and be as wise as am now. Fornow
l know that ! love him-now, when it is for
ever too late9"
Sickening, with sort Of calenture among
those city streets, for one glimpse of her ear
" home, Hester May rose and went to the
desk where her worldly wealth was stored.
BY the closest economy, she had managed
to lay aside q few dollars, for the gloomy
purpose Of paying the expenses Of her own
I sickness and death, when the time should
come for her to die among strangers.
From this sacred hoard she counted out a
sufficient sum to take her to Deepdene
81 will stay only one day" she thought
/ 'And I viii work all the harder after l re-
turn to make up this sum again. l must
And l will take one more look at the dear old
farm before it is in the hands Of strangers
and so altered that I shall not know it
The next day saw her ON her way.
The fire years of her absence had beer
years Of great change to the little country
. village.
\ railway wlisked her across the hiIlroat
from Torrington. Once she would hav,
made the journey in yellow stage, drawn
by four horses, with John Cclney, crosses
and most disagreeable Of earthly stage driv
ers, on the box.
The village, too, was smartened and fresh
cned up-new houses. new faces, a nsw irol
fence around the small oval park that grace,
the centre of the town; new names aboy
the gilded fronts Of the shops a new set o
giEgling misses on their way to the new
brown-stone academy which stood where sI
had once thought it an honor to attend th
district school, in plain, ouc-story structur
Of faded brick
No doubt all these alterations were for tn
better: but they made her heart ache with
sense Of loss unspcakable.
And she turned into the shady lane tina
= led only to the Blessing farm, dreading to Sc
the Old house desecrated by the stranger
hand.
No: there it stood as she had alway
= known 1.-THE very picture Of home comfor
the centre of all those modest Iuxurics that
well-to-do farmer, of all other men, may mo.
eysily command
But, although the dear old house was uI
= changed, its inmates were new and stranc
+ to her. \ stout middle aged man, i'm whit
e summer suit, with broad brimmed hat an
. a cigar sat on the steps Of the piazza readir
] a newspaper. 4 acknowledgement lad
g. some years his junior, swung in a hammoc
= upon the lawn, lost in a novel.
r Several children, in broad-brimmed ha
I and brown Holland blouses, were making Il
t lives of two nurses a burden to them, furth
g down the lawn, among the elm trees, whe
c a swing had hung from time immemorial.
''City" was stamped upon every face al
e figure that she W
: Had Maurice sold the place to some rctirt
I merchant, who would over-ornament al
Gisfgure it in the modern villa style?
If one could but live their lives over aft
p they grow older, and are taught by cxpe
! ence what is best Tor them - thought Hest
., in her sadness, once more.
Z She would have gone to the house and as
s ed leave to rest and look around if it had
p manned in the care of old Father WilliaI
u and his wife, the tenants of the upper far
II II But she could not face those prospero
a ard happy city people, who would look
- her with their coldIy curious eyes, and We
der almost audibly. "what she could want
- ever if they did not absolutely mistake |
for "tramp.'
- 81 wish ! could have gone through t
y, strawberry pasture once more, she thoua
n as she turned back toward the railway S
$ ton, tired, hungry and unrefreshed.
be At the foot OF the lane a gentleman, il
or summer suit of silver-gray, stood Ieani
against the bars, with his straw hat pull
!. down over his face so far that he had fai
to notice the strangers silent approach.
"Will you let me pass, if you please 90 s.
e Hester at last, after waiting for some u
n ments.
5e He wheeled around as if she had strt
or him aud stared doubtfully in her face.
She uttered a great cry.
Maurice Maurice l heard that YOU !
sold the farm and gone to Colorado T.
"Hester, can this be you - he asked.
an IJis ax-os sapn1pd 70 dpvOirr her Wo