The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-01-11
TIE FAIRFIELD POET.

Wallace Bruce, in Hsrper's Magazine ir 'ahu'
aEy.
TAE FAIRFIELD POET.
MARY H. Catherwood, in Harper's Bazar.l
Tragedy, which is never far from the most
prosperous liv es, continually trod upon the
tenderest hearted woman in Fairfield. She
hated Fairfield as q background to her ex
iDtence, but there had fate nailed her for
life. 1t was the forlornest Of Indiana railroad
stations, looking like an uely scar on the
face of . beau tifully wooded country, PEG
Piled by the DESCENDANT of poor white Caro-
linians and Tennesseeans. The mail portion
of the community sat on the railroad plat
form In yellow jeans. sprawling their naked
toes to the sun, whiting, and letting like
true tobacco fountains upon the meer
schaum-colored boards. The women nigh,
have lived lives of primitive simplicity,
digni6ed by child bearing and ~neighborly
sympathy with each other. but they attained
their human kindness with SANDER. And
this one among them all felt the progress Of
the age tearing her heart-strings out while
her circumstance Kept her ut q stand still,
I do not say her life would have been more
symmetrical or her experience richer il she
bad lived in the whirl. She was a plain
gr~ound-loving woman who enjoyed ths
ompanionship of her fruit trees and flowers
and worked with her hands. Indeed
crowds annoyed her, and she was undecided
what t~oiiettes ought to be made for q large
public. The striped silk dresses of her pros
porous days. the friDged Grape shswls anc
gtmp-edRed msDtillas, agreed i'll with bon
nets OF the passiDgs season, and she haC
more respect for what was rich and old thar
for all your new inventions. But she wa
feIcely ambitious for her children, espe
cisliy her eldest son, and for him in spite o.
his misfortune. The OUNCE boy and cir
were still leapiDg like colts upon their few
remaining acres, sound in limb and wind
with the hops of o future sheathed in theil
healthy present, when Willie was tail as q
man. and far up in his teens.
His mother bad q picture of him taken
when he was going to school in Cincinnati
under his uncle's care At that time hi.
auburn curls were unshorn, and he was
beautiful.
A few days before cottons took their ter.
RHO rise during the war, Mr.. HARRISON had
et0cked In thousands of yards. Those were
Fairieid's best days, and he kept q general
store. making money so rapidly that the
lazy peoples around him felt belplessly in.
jursd- He began his fine brick house, build
ing on q generous and artistic plan. at the
edge of Fairfield, where he could surround
himself with fruit trees, and have fields tor
his cattle. Whether it Is q more distinct
misery to build the temple of your home
and see some one else inbabit it. or to shell
ter yourself for years in a house you have
not the power of finishing. the latter fate
was reserved for the Harbisons. With q
crash they came down from what had been
Fairfeld's opulence nearly to a level with
Fsirfield's poverty. They kept the house
aud grounds and a meadow, but under such
weight of mortgages that it was COMPARE
lively no grief at all to see the tai
cornices lying around the partly plastered
ptriors. talustrades and newel-post standing
on end beside the skeleton stair and to
iud the bathroom useless except as q rub
bish closet The man who had employed
half Of Fairfield was o obliged tn become
Of the world against those who fail was en-
pbasized by commuuistic envy.
Bus the habi of being q woman of c0nsid.
GRAFTON il not easily forgotten. Mrs Harbi.
son still made the village respect her. She
had something TO give to the poorest She
was the wife of . man who had made q for
tune before he lost it, and sat in the State
Senate. More than all. she bad her chill
dren. the eldest of them a continual surprise
TO her. He seemed born TO stir her pride
and tenderness to their depths. He was tail
fair. and Roman featured, shy as q girl to.
ward every one bus his mother, and so raw
enous Ia mind that be was partly through
when his fathers reyerses brought
him home.
4U0H lie W0S cttLC w . opVlttu lCNflt
and approached the next world so close that
he left part of his faculties and was never
the same Willie he had been before. He
could hear nothing, AID seldom, spoke an
audible word Mrs. Harbison's boy, who
made to take the world by storm-and
what had been the sbyness of a country bred
youth became the set apart seclusion of a.
cared faun. Willie HARRISON was to be
seup wrirring IS noiseless as a bat upon his
ACROSS the open ground at dusk. He
vas met coming from the woods silent as al
and his eyes were on everything in
or sky except the human beings just
before him.
whatever we're the faults of Fairfield, it
and respected Willie Harbison,. and
Fairfield with Q partiality which saw mere
ni-cturesoueness in the row of
rbittlina men, and various forms Of mo-
harhood or sisterhoOd in the won en-. Hel
dismount from his wheel to let the
poyp tilt with it at the cd warehouse. He
we'd the woods; he loved Wildcat and Kit
an creeks. which ploughed rock-bedded
,bsnnels through the woods; and what joy
= life he 6shed out OF those waters Only
Willie himself knew. He loved TO watch
rom the mill on q clear morning that plume
z steam the south bound train sent around
he curve. to watch another plume roll overl
be first. and finally to see the train stand
uddenly on the grade. .sharp-cut against the
w All common life was pleasant to him.
kko but bis mother could be witness that q
'ouble nature dwelt under hisldowery mill
V;iIIie worked in the mill with his fathsr,
rhere the roar Of grindIn g and boiling and
vhirr of belts Dade silent iiveliness
him. This had been bitterness to-
n motber-her Willie should work with his
ead alone; but she accepted 1t as the result q
I his ply steal misfortune. L
TIL parlors were Willies workshop, in Z
,hich Ie sawed, hammered and glued, or {
If noisejess inventions together. A car {
enfefs bench Was set before two uncased ;
Iiodows and his fathers old store desA lad
Ia mis- q nmercantile use. Its lock vas /
oprned unless Willie had some =
bsor which be could force himself to show ;
!, his mother. That ripe instant arriving. !
4 sourht her in her kitchen. her garden. o. c
ker Spinnine.wneeI up stairs. and seized c
n ~ fko hand She vent with him to the
rr3osnL they fastsned the doors Willie un- Il
2 - 1onk, and placed his paper IN her b