Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1885-03-13

spotted fever, and approached the
next world so close that he left
part of his faculties there, and was
never the same Willie he had been
before. He conld hear nothing,
and seldom said an audible word
Mrs. Harbison's boy, who was
made to take the world by storm
and what had been the shyness OF
country. bred youth, became the
set apart seclusion Of a hoofed
and goat-eared faun. Willie
/ HARRISON was to be seen whirrlng
as nOiseless as a bat upon his
bicycle across the open ground at
dusk. lie was met coming from
| the woods, silent as an Indian, and
his eyes were on everything in
earth or sky except the human
beings just before him.
Whatever were the faults of
Fairfield, it loved and respected
Willie HARRISON and humored his
self.withdrawal. And he loved
Fairfield with a partiality which
saw mere picturesqueness in the
row of whiting men, and various
forms of motherhood or sisterhOod
in the women. He would dis
mount from his wheel to let the
bows tilt with it at the old ware
house. He loved the woods; he
loved Wildcat and Kitten Greeks,
which plowed rock .bedded channels
through the woods; and what JOY
/ in life he fshed out Of those waters
Willie himself only knew. lie
loved to watch from the mill on a
clear morning that plume of steam
the south bound train sent around
| the curve, to watch another plume
roll over the first, and finally to
see the train stand suddenly on the
summit of the grade, sharp cut
against the sky. All common life
was pleasant to him. Who but bis
mother could be witness that a
double nature dwelt under his
tlouIy mill clothes
Willie worked in the mill with
his father, where the roar Of grind
ing and boiling, and the whirr Of
the belts, made silent liveliness
about him. This had been bitter
ness to his mother her Willie
should work with his head alone (;
but she accepted it as the result Of
his physical misfortune.
The parlors were Willie's work
shop, in which he sawed, hammered
and glued, or put noiseless inven-
tions together. A carpenters bench
was set before two uncased win.
dows, and his fathers old store
desk had fallen to his unmercantlle
use. Its lock was never opened
unless Willie had something which
he could force himself to show to
| his mother. That ripe instant
arriving, he sought her in her
kitchen, her garden, or her spin
ning.wheel upstairs, and seized her
| by the hand. She went with him
to the parlors, they fastened the
doors, Willie undld his desk, and
placed his paper in her fingers
The paper itself was sometimes the
blue cap left from the store, some
times the gilt-edged note having
penciled landscapes along the
margins, or the flowers he rhymed
Of done in water.colors; for his hand
was as skillful as his eye was dis
cerning. The poems we're usually
short, and sensitive in rhyme and
rhythm. Willie's themes were the
common sights and the common
pathos or humor of the situations il
which he found the people around
him; his Interpretation of the
Aicker's feelings his delight II
certain thick fleeces Of grass; the
panorama of sky and field as i
marches across his eye; The
grotesque though heartily human
, family party made by old mar
Parsons and his wife, where half o
his descendants unable to get int
, the small house, sat on the fence
/ while the rest ate dinner. Willie
, was deaf, but he had inward music
! Every smooth and liquid stanz;
was like wine to his mother. Sh'
? compared his poems to Burns, anC
could not find the Mountain
r Daisy q whit better than he
poets song about the woods il
frost.
: Even Mr.. HARRISON thought wei
a of Willie's performance. The.
! were smuggled to him by hi
/ mother, and carefully returned t
their place when the poet was on
of the house. Mr.. HARRISON knev
{ all that was going on in the world
e. A dozen times a year he left tn
e grinding of the mill to meet his oil,
. chums at the capital, or to quicker
= the action of his blood in Chicago
I A couple of stimulating days
, tinctured and made endurable hi
8 month of mill work. A man Q
B InxuriOus tastes cannot lose hi
( tastes with his means. He was
Q Judge of poets, and said Will
/ might as we'll take to poetry a
Q anything, for business did not pa
b. a man of sound faculties in thes
days.
n The hum of bees could be hear
p all around this unfinished brio
q houee growing mOssv at the 0ahlps