The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-04
THE FAIRFIELD POET.


prosperous lives, continually trod upon the ten
derest-hearted woman in Fairfield. She hated
Fairfield as background to her existence, but
there had fate nailed her for life. 1t was the
forlornest of Indiana railroad stations, looking
like an ugly scar on the face Of beautifully
| wooded country, peopled by the descendants of
poor white Carolinians and Tennesseeans. The
male portion of the community sat on the rail
| road platform, in yellow jeans, SPRAYING their
| naked toes to the sun, whiting, and letting
like true tobacco fountains upon the meer-
schaum-colored boards The women might have
lived lives of primitive simplicity. dignifed by
child bearing and neighborly sympathy with
each other; but they stained their human kind
| ness with SANDER. And this one among them
all felt the progress of the age tearing her heart
| strings out while her circumstances kept her at
a standstill. | do not say her life would have
been more symmetrical or her experience richer
! if she had lived in the whirl She plain,
ground loving woman who enjoyed the compan-
| ionship of her fruit trees and flowers, and
| worked with her hands. Indeed crowds an
noyed her. and she was undecided what toilettes
ought to be made for a large public. The striped
| silk dresses of her prosperous days the fringed
| i'll with bonnets of the passing season, and she
1 had more respect for what was rich and old than
for all your new inventions. But she was fercely
ambitious for her children, especially her eldest
son, and for him iii spite of his misfortune. The
younger boy and girl were still leapng like colts
| upon their few remaining acres, sound II limb
and wind, with the hopes of future sheathed in
their healthy present, when Willie tall as
man, and far up in his teens.
| His mother had a picture of him taken when
| he was going to school in Cincinnati under his
| unce's care. At that time his auburn curls
| were unshorn, and he was beautiful
A few days before cottons took their terrific
/ rise during the war; Mr. HARRISON had stocked
in thousands of yards. Those were Fairfelds
best days, and he kept general store, making
money so rapidly that the lazy people around him
| felt helplessy injured. He began his fine brick
| house. building on generous and artistic plan,
at the edge of Fairfield, where he could surround
| himself with fruit trees, and have fields for his
| cattle Whether it is more distinct
misery to build the temple of your home
and some one else inhabit it, or
| to shelter yourself for years in a house
you have not the power of finishing, the latter
! fate was reserved for the Harbisons With
| crash they came down from what had been Fair
| fields opulenee nearly to a level with Fairfelds
poverty. They kept the house and grounds and
a meadow, but under such weight of mortgages
that it was comparatively no grief at all to see
| the ornamental cornices lying around the partly
| piastered parlors, balustrades and newel-p post
| standing on end beside the skeleton stairway
| and to find the bathroom useless except as a
| rubbish closet The man who had employed
| half of Fairfield was now obliged to become him
| self an employee. and the general verdict of the
world against those who fail was emphasized by
communiStic envy
But the habit of being woman of considera-
ton is not easily forgotten. Mrs. HARRISON still
!, made the village respect her. She had some
| thing to give to the poorest She was the wife
| of man who had made fortune before he lost
| it, and sat in the State Senate More than all,
she had her children, the eldest of them con-
tinual surprise to her. He seemed born to stir
her pride and tenderness to their depths. He
was tall, fair and Roman featured, shy as girl
! toward every one but his mother, and so raven
Gus in mind that he was partly through college
| when his fathers reverses brought him home.
Then he was seized with a 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 could hear
nothing, and seldom said audible word-Mrs.
| Harbisons boy, who was made TO take the world
by storm-and what had been the shyness of
country bred youth became the set-apart seclu-
| sion of hoofed and goat-eared faun. Willie
| HARRISON was to be seen whirring as noiseess
as bat upon his bicycle across the open ground
| at dusk. He was met coming from the woods,
silent as an Indian. and his eyes were on every
| thing in earth or sky except the human beings
| just before him.
Whatever were the faults of Fairfield it loved
and respected Willie HARRISON and hui
mored his self withdrawal And he loved
Fairfield with partiality which saw mere
s,ak 10 NE
and various forms of motherhood or sisterhood
| in the women. He would dismount from his
| wheel to let the boys tilt with it at the old
warehouse He loved the woods he loved Wild
cat and Kitten creeks, which plowed rock
bedded channels through the woods; and what
Joy in life he ished out of those waters Willie
himself only knew. He loved to watch
from the mill on clear morning that plume of
| steam the south bound train sent around the
curve, to watch another plume roll over the Srst,
and finally to see the train stand suddenly on
the summit of the grade, sharp-cut against the
| sky. All common life pleasant to him.
Who but his mother could be witness that
| double nature dwelt under his foury mill
clothes2
Willie worked in the mill with his father,
/ where the roar of grinding and boiling, and the
whirr of the belts, made silent Hveliness about
him. This had been bitterness to his mother
| her Willie should work with his head alone; but
she accepted it as the result of his physical mis-
fortune.
The parlors were Wille's workshop in which
he sawed hammered and glued or put noiseess
inventions together. A carpenters bench was
set before two uncased windows, and his faith
er's old store desk had fallen to his unmercan-
tile use. It's lock was never opened unless Will
lie had something which he could force himself
to show to his mother. That ripe instant arriv-
ing he sought her in her kitchen, her garden,
or her spinning wheel upstairs. and seized her
by the hand. She went with him to the
parlors. they fastened the doors, Willie un-
4 IA 6ock and nlaoad hiS in
her fingers. The paper itself was sometimes
brown sometimes the blue cap left from the
store, sometimes gilt-edged note having penciled
landscapes along the margins, or the flowers
he rhymed of done in water colors; for his hand
was as skilful as his eye was discerning. The
poems were usually Short and sensitive in
rhyme and rhythm. Wiilies themes were the
common sights and the common pathos or humor