The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1880-05-27
CHAPTER XVIII.
A DECADE AND A HALF.

A DECADE AND A HALF.
The reader is now invited to span a
lapse Of intervening years-a decade and
a half Of them-and come with me to
the beautiful Chemeketa Valley aud be-
hold the homes Of the Hardines.
Fifteen years -ahl The time seems
short when you have lived il; but it
forms a third part Of an average human
lifetime.
The day Is warm and balmy, and the
mellow sunshine paints the landscape
with a shimmering radiance that soft
ems Natures rugged outlines on the
hills, and casts purple shadows in the
tree-trimmed hollows.
Yonder, on a sloping eminence in the
prairie, stands a stately farmhouse,
gable-enGed, dormer- windowed, white,
shutterless, shadeless aud glaring. IN
side, the house is as bare and staring and
comfortless as an empty barn. But
that word empty will not hardly apply,
for the comforlIess abode is filled with
children in slattern attire, scant, dirty
and half-buttoned. Their feet aud hands
are bare and chapped and brown, and
the clothes Of the feminine element are
redoleut Of grease and dishwater. A
pale woman, with wrinkled face, limp,
tallowy hair, two prominent eye-teeth
with broad red gap between them, and
hands with enormous knuckles and dye
stained nails, sits wearily upon a creak-
ing rocker aud sings a soothing lullaby
20 a waiing babe.
Good reader, are you thinking Of Lie
Hardiue? Well, for once you are mis-
taken, for il is not she.
4 tan boy, overgrown, loose -jointed
and slovenly, comes stalking in from
the fields, his brogans ladened with
mud, and his soiled hickory shirt torn
al the elbow and open at the wristbands.
"Where's your father, Henry ?" asked
the patient mother Of the boy, to whom
the reader is now to be introduced as
the erewhlle babe that he last beheld re-
posing in Tirzah Hardine's first crude
cradle.
lover 10 old SaFp's, as usual, mother.
Aud I swear to you that If be wasn't nay
father, I'd kill him quicker than ia
shoot q dogrn
"Henryw and the weary mother
coaxed the wailing babe TO slihe its
cries at her bosom, "you forget your
self! John Hardiue is your father, my
son 90
"God knows I can't help that He's
a graspiug, niggardly tyraut! a chip
from the old block politician!
trickster! a"
Henry for shamei'
81 know you think Pm wicked,
mother; but I can't bear everything!
I gave father a little o. my slack this
morning. 1 couldn't help it! He tore
round worse'n Satan cause the work
didn't go on TO suit him, and I told him
that man that tends TO his own busi-
ness is the fellow that always gifts along
the best! There's no use in your preach
ing my duty to me, mother. mayn't
be very smart, but I'm not quite a blank
idiot. Fathers displeased with himself
because he knows he isn't doing right,
and So be tries to lay the blame on
everybody else. Haying seasons on Us
now, and harvest will soon be ready and I
rushing, aud the ole mans of half the /
time after politics-foolin' round, en-
gineerin' to 'leet Sam Hardpan to Office,
and leaving me this big farm to man
age; aud then, cause I can't see with |
his eyes about everything, he threatens
TO fog me! Better let him try itr'
my son, will sou husL9"
"Yesi now I've had my say, will. I
But, just let the ole man dare to fog
me, and I'll teach him a trick worth
dozen Of it. I 1Catg'
The boy stalked through the great
bare sittiug-room, leaving his muddy
shoe-tracks on the floor aud the barn.
like doors spread wide. His mother
hushed the little babe-her tenth-to
sleep upon her bosom, and closed her
eyes weariiy.
"Pve tried to DO my duty during all
these weary years as God is my judge
she sighed. "Aud yet, If my work has
TO be known by its fruits, am justified
Would it not have been far better for
me and my children, when I learned in
the beginning, as 1 did to my shame
and disappointment and sorrow, that I
had made grievous matrimonial mis-
take, if I had fed, like Hagar, to the
wilderness? I thought 20 save my son
from the fate Of Ishmael, but ] have
failed. have learned, alas too late,
that children begotten in hatred ard
brought up in diseord, however securely
the hatred and discord may be hidden
from the world, are the innocent vie
Tins Of a mighty wrong. Poor Henry
He is only one of half a score Of these
discordant rebels with whom I am now
compelled to deal. They are Ishmaels,
everyone OF them, aud no wonderl
They have honestly inherited their
fate !"
And then Tirzah's thoughts went
wandering back through the departed
years, and, searching through them all
for justification Of her constant adher-