The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-10-20
IN THE MIDDLE WEST.
A Story of Life in the Great
Mississippi Valley
BY ALVk MILTON KERR.
fCoPYRiGHT, 1885, BY THE A. N. KELLOGG
NEWSPAPER CoMpANY.1
CHAPTER VIII.-CoSTINUEp.


He had come from the East, bringing
letters vouching for his unusual skill
as an accountant and fidelity as a work
man, and Joels book-keeper wishing
to enter business for himself, the
stranger had been employed. He had
rooms furnished over the store and
took his meals at a public house neal
by, and as he dressed quietly and in
good taste, and only droppedlhere and
there a gentlemanly word, he had ere
long an enyiable reputation for sobriety
and business application He seem
ingly gave himself no recreation. though
occasionally in the evening he would
be met walking by the river, and on
Sabbath-days among the woodland
paths. Just what the nature of the
bitterness was that possessed him, if
indeed it were that or some secret dis
case, or but his natural temperament,
could not be gathered from the surface
of his life. That he had spasms
of agony, however, that left him
well nigh exhausted was appar-
ent, and Joel demonstrated with
him at times upon his oyer-ap-
plicatlon, but he had only replied
that he was better when at work, and
continued steadily at his task. In the
main his life was very still, much as if it
were held with kind OF bated breath,
and only once had any one heard him
revert to his previous history, and then
in response to a query of Joels he had
said he had never been married.
John Earring did not in any sense
feel moved toward this silent person,
and their acquaintance seemed to re-
main forever a partial one. Indeed,
John Earring seemed quite as intensely
occupied as he; reading, noting, com.
posing, studying, working, till every
hour was full. For every scrap Of time
had come to seem thing OF gold to
this unmoneyed youth. Life burned
very evenly within him, but with a
strong and melting heat that forbade
all 1dleness. Yet what could he look
forward to but a long hard struggle,
and perhaps eventual defeat? But that
mattered not, his life was before him,
and he went forward with earnest cheer
fulness TO meet whatever it might con.
tain. This inclination and capacity OF
ours for continuous effort, be the
achievement early or late in its arrival,
might seem in some sort an inheritance
springing from long necessity. For We
and prior generations who have made
and ruled this lusty western realm,
have found our tasks in waiting fol
us by the cradles side, and the desire
to labor and achieve already in the
blood, carried forward by and intensi
fled through father and son from an
original condition of poverty perhaps
upon the old worlds shores. CHANGING
nj the warm countries where life is
easy of fultillment, we see idleness con.
tinued as an eternal legacy, but here
was |. mountain to be built, and in the
building of it lay our fortunes and oul
bread. How well and eagerly we have
wrought, the unrivaled structure stands
a stupendous and rather noisy wit
ness. As it nears completion, too, OF
rather seeming completion-fo how
much shall need rebuilding remains
unsettled-we find million gold-heap>
have siftcd from the material and have
fallen to the ownership of those who
wrought. In the shadow of these gilt.
tering piles the offspring of many
whose eS Is went out watching the po-
tent siftings rise amain, have begun tc
make themselves an artificial sunshine
scarcely ,ess productive of lazines
than those regions where summer il
perpetual. Happily, however, this mum
Der is not preponderant, and the grca
mass of labOrerS still swarm from bast
to apex OF the structure; widening the
foundation here, raising an abutmen
there, carrying the tower upward, fill
ing in the assures, polishing this stone
and that, littering it with history
painting fair pictures upon it, filing il
with song and music and invention
until what it shall become falls scarce
~ within the marvellous compass of s
dream.