Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-09-19
AUNT HANNAH, FROM MAINE.

Would they put her in the asylum,
she wondered, If they caught her?''
Folks would surely think she was crazy.
She stopped at the stone wall to rest and
! look back timorously. Far behind her
! stretched the meadow, a symphony of olive
and green in the late fall. Here and there
by sudden boulder stood soldierly golden
rod, or berry bushes clothed now In scarlet
and gold At intervals on the long slope
stood solitary trees, where fiuttering, brit
tie leaves fell in the gentle chill air In
summer time she remembered well the hay
makers resting In the shade, and the jug
with ginger water she made for the men
was kept there to be cool. She seemed as she
| sat there, to remember everything. The
house was all right, she was sure of that:
the key was under the kitchen door mat,
| the fire was out In the stove, and the cat
locked in the barn.
She held her work-hardened hands to her
side, painting little, for it was good bit
| of a walk across the meadow, and she was
eighty years old on her last birthday. The
cows feeding looked homelike and pleas
ant.
'Good-by, critters, )" she said aloud;
meny's the time I've driv' We home an
MIXED We, and allus let We eat by the way,
nor never hurried We as the boys DONE
With farewell glance she went on
again, smoothing as she walked the scat
tered locks of gray hair falling under thc
pumkin-hood and keeping her scant gown
out of the reach of briars. Across another
field and then through leafy lane where
the wood was hauled in winter, then out
through gap In a stump fence, with its
great branching arms like a petrifed octo-
pus, to the dusty high road. Not soul in
sight in the coming twilight. John, the
children and scolding wife who made her
so unhappy would not be at home for ain
hour yet, for East Mill was long drive
Down the steep hill went the brave little
figure, followed by a shadow of itself in the
waning light, and by tiny stones that roll
ed so swiftly they passed her often and
made her look behind with a start to see if
a pursuer was coming.
They'd put me in the asylum sure,
she muttered wildly.
At the foot of the hill she sat down on an
old log and waited Across the road
guarded by big sign, Look out for the
engine" ran two parallel iron rails, that
were to be her road when the big monster
would come painting around the curve. AT
last the dull rumbling sounded, a shrill
whistle and she hurried to the track waiv-
ing her shawl to signal. This in the con-
ductor's vernacular, was a cross-road
station, where he was used to watch for
people, waving articles frantically. The
train stopped and this passenger was helped
aboard. He noticed she was a bright
eyed old lady, very neat and precise.
" How fur?" he asked.
"Bostin."
''Git there In the mornin'," he said
kindly waiting for the money, as she
opened a queer little reticule, where, under
her knitting, wrapped in a clean cotton
handkerchief, was her purse with her saw
lngs of long years little sums Sam
had sent her when he first began to pros
per In the west, and some money she had
earned herself by knitting and berrypick-
ing.
At cross-road, as they went swiftly on,
she saw the old sorrel horse, the rattling
wagon, and John with his family driving
homeward. She drew back with a little
cry, fearing he might see her and stop the
train, but they went on so fast that could
not be, and the old horse logged into the
woods, and John never thought of his old
Aunt Hannah his charge for twenty long
years, was running away At Boston a
kindly conductor bought her ticket for
Denver.
Its a long journey for an old lady like
you, he said.
But I'm pert for my age" she said
anxiously; 81 never had days sickness
since was gal"
Going all the way alone?"
With Providence, y she answered,
brightly alert and eager to help herself,
but silent and thoughtful as the train took
her into strange landscapes where the miles
went so swiftly it seemed like the past
years of her life when she looked back on
them. THY works is marvellous, she
murmured often sitting with her hands
folded, and few idle days had there been
in her world where she had sat and rested
so long. In the day coach the people were
kind and generous sharing their baskets
with her and seeing she changed cars right
and her carpet bag was safe. She was like
any of the dear old grandmas in eastern
homes or to grizzled men and weary women
like the memory Of dead mother as faint
and far away as the scent of wild roses in
a hillside country burying ground.
She tended babies for tired women and
| talked to the men of farming and crops, or
told the children Bible stories; but never a
word she said of herself, not one
On again, guided by kindly hands
through the great, bewildering city by
| the lake. and now through yet a stranger
land. Tired and worn by nights in the
uncomfortable seats, her brave spirit be-
gan to fail little. As the wide, level
plains, lonely and drear, dawned on her
Its Dire full big wuyld, she said to a
gray-bearded old farmer near her; $50
big | feel e'emost lost in it, but, hope
fully, 'across them deserts like this long
! ago Providence sent a star to guide them
wise men of the east, an hain't lost my
| faith.
But as the day wore on, and still the
| long, monotonous land showed no human
habitation, no oasis of green, her eyes
dimmed, something like a sob rose under
the black kerchief ON the bowed shoulders,
and the spectacles were taken off with
trembling hands and put away IN the tin
case.
BE We goin' fur, mother?" said the
old farmer. He had brought her cup OF
coffee at the last station, and had pointed
out on the way things he thought might
interest her.
ITO Denver.
oval, wal; an you re from New Eng
land, I'll be bound?"
From Maine, she answered. and ther
: she grew communicative. for she was al
ways a chatty old lady, and she ha6
possessed her soul in silence so long. She
/ told him all the relations she had wert
two grandnephews and their families
That twenty years ago Sam (for she hac
brought them both up when their parents
died of consumption. that takes so many