Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-11-19
SANBORN.
His Transformation, and What
 Brought 1t About.
A Prize Story Written by Harry B. Stitt,
 of Lansing, Mich.

Awarded First Prize ia Detroit Erfning Ne~s
 State Press Premium Competition.] It is certain Sanborn was peculiar. The resorters spent good deal of time off and on, when the fishing was not good, or the pavilion music developed rather more dis tinct traces of beer and rather less intima- tions of the waltz than usual in critical studies of his character, and 1t occurred to them that he was even remarkable.
 They had never seen a human being capa- ble of surrounding himself with so dense physical and mental calm as the man with the eXpressionless voice and struggly brown beard who rented the boats around at the old wharf and while one could not help but see that he might have been energetic enough and clever enough if he had cared to take the trouble, every body agreed that it would require nothing less than mighty emphatic earthquake shock to set throbbing tho mysterious and impalpable man. spring which would have driven on day and night all the delicate little wheels and springs and levers of being that tho resort CTS were fond of philosophiZing about, but which somehow, had never been reused to action in Sanborn. But they were all quito wrong It required only the clinging touch of little child's hand to do it.
 The pity of it was that Sanborn was near ly forty before Fannie came The fact that during the long summer he was compelled to breathe in several thousand times day the heat quivcrs that hung tremulous over the sandy beach road in order to exist at all was so crushing in itself that when it oc- cured to him Sanborn could only master his emotion by wandering down to the rick ety wharf which ran out into the clear waters of Pine Lake and dozing respectfully off in any ono of his boats that chanced to be rocking idly alongside. But when he strode out of the stifling little chamber where he saw for the first time Zannie's blue eyes staring contented up at him from the place where his wife's calloused hands held her closely, hls bent shoulders had straghtened by some miracle, and q cur rent of strong, full life such as he had nev- CT known before tingled through his veins and impelled him to action.
 The resort people watched the metamor- phosis in Sanborn incredulously. Wagers were freely laid that the handspring which depended for it's going on so feeting thing as the imbecile doubling of pair of chubby fists, the mystenous glesms of light from laughing eyes or the hold upon existence of a life as fragile as one of the reeds that swayed lightly up and. down befoI the surge of the lake would not last the season out.
 But the reed did not break, and when they came back the next summer and the next, a boy with a chronically repentant expression held the key to the row-boat situation and Sauborn was hard at work on hired land back on the hills. By and by a sunbeam fol- lowed in the wake of his plow-share. The sunbeam's face was not always irreproach- ably clean, and the yellow hair would get bit tangled at times, but that was summer nights breath against the granite wall of Sanborn's homage, and as for Zannie-well, Fannie didn't mind any thing so long as she could be with Dan--it was one of the pecu- Garities of Zannieas being that she couldn't call Sanborn any thing but Dan to save her the livelong day, and bask in the atmo- shere of mutual worship which enveloped tha two. And then the evenings! Dan and she always spent them on the bench in front of tho little house, where, when they tired of the flashing lights and the laughter of the resort grounds, near by, they watched in blessed silence the long slant of the silver sheen which the moon sent across the sparkling waters of the Lake O the Pines, and which Sanborn one night in burst of inspiration christened Zannie's pathway and then pledged the child to inviolate se- creoy over the discovery
 People had quite recovered from their astonishmeut at the revelation in Sanborn's system of existence when one day, four years after Fannie had come into his life, he went away to meet the man who conterl- plated buying the little place that he might magnifcently disfgure the shere wlth an other sVIpmen hetei Sanborn might possi- ply retuEn that night; he hardly thought he should Still, when Fannie heard the dis tant chatter and rumble of the evening train as 1t rushed away from the little station on the opposite side of the lake, and raising herself in bed caught glimpse of the long trail of sparks left behind, it occurred to her that Dams possible return was sub ject worthy of investigation. Her mother was asleep; there was no use in waking her, but it would be an altogether excellent idea to slip down to the landing place and
 J. IF. FLOOD