The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1888-05-05
Riley Rose.
By JOHN n GOVERN.

The small boy was to leave school
and 90 up on the farm east of town.
THIS calamity came upon him because
he was poorer than most boys; he had
neither father nor mother. and the
self-abnegation of his remaining re-
lat YES had endured well. in that 1t had
already lasted two years. Lima prairie
had been the linn Is of his known world.
Upon the summit of great wagon
load of things needed to complete the
furnishing of the farmhouse the boy
and the man pierced the neck O. woods
that trimmed Lima prairie. and emerged
into Pretty prairie, with its little
church-spre far off at one side. Here
was world as large as the boys own
world, and he lived in it something
like an hour-an hour that he never
forgot, but why he knows not Then.
the March equinox, as the man and
the boy to;led up hill into another
neck O woods. helping the tired horses.
the party came upon the setting sun,
standing in the straight western road.
And as the darkness closed in rapidly,
the man pleasantly chattering with the
boy. told him to look around him. for
he was now coming out on English
pra rie. A third world in a day. The
man sang, for he was travelling toward
his new-made wife. The boy grew
faint with unhapp;ness as the sun
which had risen with him that baleful
day sank and left him with only a part
OF his day completed. The the weari-
ness of the journey came to set the
body on watch where the spirit had
been the only sentry, and the small boy
grew happier. Across English prairie
rattlcdIhe lumber wagon, and, at last.
so said the man, the road turned
straight toward home. As the step child
rem take slowly to the name of moth
err for their fathers second wife. so this
name of ''home." for a place the boy
had never seen. and never wanted to
see came upon him unpleasantly. Per-
haps all things which happen to an
orphan partake him unpl sanity. But
now. we'll along in the late evening,
pair of bars''is reached. The twain let
the bars down, the farm itself is entered,
and half mile down lane candle
wrinkles. and the good wife peers out
into the darkness from the Lighthouse.
Here the man and the woman are to
pluck riches and happiness from one
hundred and sixty acres of land that
has been rented OUT for ten years
previously.
But. in PARKWAY Lighthouses. there is
more room for orphans than where
people are cheaper. The wife was glad
the boy had come, and the man was
not sorry. So the boy ate his supper
with glee resurrected out of his de-
spar on English prairie, and was put
to bed up the ladder on the rafting
boards, under the shakes of the roof.
where the last SHOWS of the fitful spring
sifted in on his coverlet and made him
happy TO think he was warm. Down
stairs were two persons he knew, and
up in the sky was familiar group of
stars. He was not without friends.
There never was one day. hour. or
moment, that this boy liked the filling
of the fields. He thought too much.
The patience of nature maddened him.
But there was a house TO be built up
at the place where the bars were, and
there n dry-kiln had been erected. In
this sham house the boy spent many
happy days. keeping the fire hot to dry
the green lumber. and reading vast
number of papers which the farmer.
himself bright man. had thoughtfully
brought from the town. Here the boy
learned there was Chicago Tribune.
thing which a worshiper of Horace
Greeley must needs regard as envious
and heretical, Ike second New York
City.
And here, at the edge of the farm,
touching the living neighborhood. he
began to grasp the pulse of the region.
Had he been TO Riley Roses ? Oh |!
there was the man!-the greatest farm
err, the smartest man at a bee. the
handiest man with a fiddle! Really,
the small boy began to live. He made
inquiries at the Lighthouse. No, they
did not admire Riley Rose There was
too much fiddling at Riley Roses. 1t
was all fiddle and no farming The
young farmer had brought up to the
new home a staunch article of ortho-
dox principle. The boy, however, low
Riley Rose before ever seeing him.
All! hero was Riley Roses clearing.
Forty acres of timber all felled. Stumps'
as thick as drag-teeth. Piles of wood
fifty feet long and twenty feet high.
At night display out-rivaling the
northern lights. Surely, if this Titan
fiddled, small boy might be familiar
enough to adore him afar.
And then happy morning, when. in
no Bhuoliy way WIG ioi uOA anu WIG
boy went TO borrow u plowpoint or q
short VIII ffle-tree of Riley Rose. There
was Lighthouse. but Ia what contrast
to the one in which the small boy liv-
ed! The timber all hewn; two pumps
at the door, the front yard green with
grass and yet shady with big oaks,
gravel walks. picket-fence between
house and barn-yard. and great
swing. But the very charm of the
place lay in the barn yard-a ten-acre
grove OF healthy oak sapliugs some
fifteen years old. Here was paradise
of domestic animals and birds. The
hubbub of the early forenoon in this
grove would surely have set the Greek
poets to singing. The boy would already
have laid down his life for Riley Rose.
There was no other like him in the
prosaic world which the small boy
knew. He did not ask why other men
should not have homes that would
make happy both man and beast. He