Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-03-30
In THE LONG AGO.
BY JOHN nrGOVERN.

neither 1atlGr nor mother, ana the sell
abnegation of his remaining relatives
had endured well, in that it had already
lasted two years. Lima prairie had
been the limits Of his known world.
Upon the summit of a great wagOn-load
Of things needed to complete the fur
nishing 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
spire far off at one side. Here was a
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, in the
March equinox, as the man and the boy
tOiled up a hill into another neck o.
woods, helping the tired horses, the
party came upon the setting sun, stand
ing IN the straight western road. And
as the darkness closed in rapidly, the
man, pleasantly chatting with the boy,
told him to look around him, for he
was now coming out on English prairie
A third world in q day. The man sang,
for he was travelling toward his new
made wife. The boy grew faint with
unhRppiness as the sun which had risen
with him that baleful day sank and left
him with only a part of his day COM
pleted. Then the WEAKNESS of the
journey came TO set the body on watch
where the spirit had been the only SEN
try, and the small boy grew happier.
Across English prairie ratified the lum-
ber-wagOn, and, at last, so said the
man, the road turned straight toward
home. AS the step-children take slowly
to the name of mother" 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. Perhaps all
things which happen to an orphan be-
take him unpleasantly. But now, we'll
along in the late evening, a "pair of
bars" is reached. The twain let the
bars down, the farm itself is entered,
a half mile down a lane a candle
wrinkles, and the good wife peers ont
into the darkness from the Lighthouse.
Here the man and the woman are to
pluck riches and hi Spiness from $50
acres of land that has been rented
out" for ten years previously.
But, in far-away Lighthouses, there is
more room for orphans than where
people are cheaper. The wife was
glad the boy had come, and the hus-
band was not sorry. So the boy ate
his supper with glee resurrected out
of his despair on English prairie, and
was pat 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 a flIui z grOuD
of stars. He was not within friends.
There never was one day yur, or
moment that this boy liked LAe tilling
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 a 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 a vast
number of papers which the farmer,
himself a bright man, had thOughtfully
brought from the town. Hear the boy
learned there was a Chicago Tribune,
a thing which a worshiper of Horace
Greeley must needs regard as enviOus
and heretical, like a 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 farmer, the
smartest man ut a bee, the handiest
man with fiddle Really, the small
boy began to live He made inquiries
at the Lighthouse. No, they did not adj
mire Riley Rose. There was too much
iddling at Riley Roses. 1t was all
iddling and no farming. The young
farmer had brought up to the new
home a staunch article of orthodox
principle. The boy, however, loved
Riley Rose before ever seeing him.
Ali here 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, a small boy might be IA
miliar enough to adore him afar.
And then a happy morning, when,
in a neighbOrly way, the farmer and
the boy went to borrow q plOwpoint
or a short whiffie-tree Of Riley Rose.
There was a Lighthouse, but in what
contrast to the one ii which the small
boy lived The timber all hewn; two
pumps at the door, the front yard
green with grass and yet shady with
big oaks, gravel walks. a picket-fence
between house and barn-yard, and 6
great swing But the very charm o.
the place lay in the barn-yard-a ten
acre grove of healthy oak saplings
some fifteen years old. Here was a
paradise of domestic animals and
birds. The hubbub of the early fore
noon in this grove would surely have
set the Greek poets 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 simply thanked God IN g
quick heart that even one good soul