The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1881-06-07

Up in the city garnet, on . hot June
day, . weary woman leaned back in
her chair and pressed her fingers
against the eyes that refused longer "a
zee the stitches in the shop work over
which she bad toiled from daybreak
till now. 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
From the street far below her, q
voice had only that moment SCARED
upward, calling ''Strawbsrries! straw
berries! Ripe, red strawberries!"
And, Is if by magic, her thought.
turning backward had carried her t.
Dsepdens. the home of her youth,
and to a certain lovely June day il
her sixteenth year, when she had
stood 10 the strawberry pasture on thu
Blessing farm, with the red berrie,
pc, Tuning all the air, and said tht
words which severed her fate from
that Of Maurice Blessing, aud made
life what it was On this day, almost
hopeless. and q ceaseless struggle fo'
bread, won at the needles point.
How it all rose up before her! Thu
green pasture sloping upward to the
darker green woods. whose tops seemed
to touch the deep blue sky. slopina
downward to the gray stone wall. with
the cold spring leaping out through &
wooden trough among its lower stones
Aud below the wall ''the thirty acre
moving" spreading out like an i'm
menee emerald velvet carpet. with
the two-story cream colored houst
lifting its piazzaed front at the tx
IRENE end, just where the shaded liant
began that led from the Blessing farm
out into the village road.
She. the poor orphan girl, had beer
offered this comfortable home ant
she bad refused it-for what? For q
dream of fame which had left heI
toiling in this hot garnet, while il
the black trunk yonder the booE
which was to have made her fortune,
refused by one publisher after another
Was lying, till she could find courage
to thrust 1t into life.
Scarcely i've years," she sighed
rocking herself to and Go. "And
Maurice has sold the farm and gone t.
Colorado; and am here, lonely and
disappointed, old before my time. Oh
If / could only live that day ovel
again, and be as wise as / am now
For 1 know that l love him-now
when it is forever too late!"
Sickening with . sort of calenturt
among those hot city streets, for one
glimpse of her early home. Hestel
May rose and went to the desk where
her worldly wealth was stored.
BY the closest economy she had
managed to lay aside . few dollars
for the gloomy purpose of paying the
expense of her own sickness and
death, when the time should come fol
her to die among strangers.
From this sacred hoard she counted
out q sufficient sum to take her e
Deepdene.
II will stay only one day." she
thought, land work all the harder
after l return to make up the sum
again. But see Deepdene, now that
is fairly in my mind. / must! And
will take one more look at the dear
old farm before is is in the hands OF
Stranger, and 90 siterted that snail
not know it.
The next day saw her on her way.
The Eve years of her absence had
been years of change in the. LITTLE
country village.
A railway whisked her across the
bill road from Torrington. Once she
would have made the journey in q
yellow stage, drawn by four hores.
witb John Colney, crossest and most
disagreeable of earthly stage drivers,
on the box.
The village. too, was smartened and
freshened up-new houses-new faces,
. new iron fence around the small
oval park that graced the center OF
the town; new names above the
gilded fronts of the shops; a new set
Of giggling misses. on their way to
the new brown stone scademy, which
stood where she at once thought it an
honor to attend the district school in
q plain One-stOry structure Of faded
brick.
No doubt all these alterations were
for the best; but they made her
heart ache with q sense of loss un-
.peakable.
And she turned into the shaded
lane that led only to the Blessing
farm, dreading to see the old home
deserted BY the strangers hand.
No; there it stood. as she had
always known 1.-THE very picture Of
home comfort. the center of all those
modest luxuries that q well-to-do
farmer, of all other men, may most
,asily command.
But. although the dear old house
Ras unchanged. its inmates were new
md strange to her. A stout, middle.
lged man, in q white summer suit,
Nth q broad-brimmed hat and
igar, sat on the steps Of the piazza
eading a newspaper. A fashionably-
lressed lady, some years his junior.
wung in hammock uppn the lawn,
ost in q novel.
Several children, iu broad brimmed
ats and brown Holland blouses, were
making the lives Of two nurses a |
urden to them, further down the |
avn among the elm tress. where q
wing had hung from time immemorial.
City was stamped 90 every face
nd figure she saw.
Had Maurice sold the place to some
etired merchant. who would over
rnament and dis6gure it in the
'odern villa style.
eff people could but live their
YES over after they grow old and are
lught By experience what is best for