The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-03-13
JIM'S WIFE.

never saw his face, nor hers. But
sometimes saw his hands, long and thin
and white, with that pallor peculiar to
plants grown in the dark and human
beings shut out from light and air.
1t was midsummer, and the broad
street, that ran down the open plaza
around which Comanche is built, was
white with dust, and already reflected
back the hot glow of a scorching sun,
although it was yet early when I Dire"
back the curtain that draped my little
window and looked out, on the morn
ing after my arrival. The heavy
shadows of an immense live-oak cooled
all the front of the low ,irregulsrly- built
Lighthouse into which I had come as a
summer guest, but the big, square
county jail. nearly opposite, stood max
ed and bare to the light, absorbing the
heat into its solid white stone walls and
casting it out again in quivering rays
that thrilled all the breathless air.
Everything was still just at that mo-
ment; she herself vas so motionless
standing there in the middle of the
street with the child lifted in her arms,
his little bare legs showing white
against her rusty black dress, and his
head almost hidden beneath the faded
yellow sunbonnet that covered her face +;
the sky was of SC deep and strange a
blue and the shadow of the single
scrsggy mesquite beyond her lay so
sharp and black upon the dazzling
sand, that / had a curious sensation as
If I were looking into a picture. But
only for q moment. A gathering group
of horsemen, booted and spurred, rode
past; she moved o step or two out of
their way, stopped and placed the child
upon the ground, then stood erect and
lifted her face again toward the dark,
narrow upper window of the Jail. And
i, too. looking up, saw for the first
time those long, pallid hands folded
about the rusty iron barsl
dropped the curtain and turned
to be smothered in morning kisses, as
the children, glowing, rosy, bright,
came trooping in from their early
breakfast.
Toward noon OF the same day I
stepped out upon the vine-hung gallery.
A glad life-gIving wind was blowing
down from the great purple fiat-topped
mountains, Just over beyond the bright
sweep of open prairie set about the
open town, and the mesquite groves up
on the hillside were tossing their feath-
cry branches in it ioyously. The rom
derful iapis-lazuli blue sky was fecked
with white masses of slow-moving
clouds: one ofthese laid half the village
square In shade, in the midst Of which /
could see the town well, with its broad
stone curling. and the knot of men and
boys grouped about it, their hats
of and foreheads barred to the
wind. A cowboy In picturesque cost
ume came riding acros the sun-lit half
of the plaza, and his gay laugh fioated
on TO me as he answered a mellow hal
low from far off in the distance. It
was q pretty scene, and / stood reach
ing for the flower that swung above my
head, and letting my gaze wander In
delight from purple mountains to gold
en- valley and back again, until it fell
suddenly aron 3 black spot ID the
street close by, and I realized with q
shock that she was still there. The
child lay at her feet, apparently asleep,
3 little white heap in the dust; the
hands had disappeared from the window
bars above, but just where / had seen
her first she stood, straight, slender, ST.
lent, motionless. The flower fell from
my hand and the heart seemed all at
once to 60 out Of me.
She was always there. When / lifted
my curtain in the wee gray Of early
morning, / found her there, or I saw
her trudging down the sandy road, with
she child in her arms, toward her drea-
~ post.
Day after day the pitiless August sun
beat down upon her as she kept her sta
tion before that gloomy facade. Some
times, but not often, she sat down prone
Ia tho dust, but always IN the
same spot-the spot whence she besl
could see those clinging hands. People
went up aud down the street; the tide
OF labor back and forth; men rode in X
che various courts and rode ont again
waRons creaked by. covered with whit.