Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-18
. HEALTH RETREAT.
Storing Up Energy for the Work Soon
to be Taken Up.
GOssIppy Letter from Mineral WelIs-What
One May Imagine When He Views
Ruins Of Houses.

There is not so much excitement here as
one might suppose over the coming railroad;
this lazy atmosphere is incapable Of producing
any feeling above q mild interest in affairs
pertaining to the public, though no doubt this
people are fully alive to the benefits of any
new enterprise, and also that new era viii
have dawns d for Mineral Wells with the COM
ing o. this railroad. The event of the day
now, however, is the coming and going
of the hacks. and the arrival
of the mail. In a very short while after the
rickety old wagon deposits its burden of letters
the Office is crowded with eager expectant ones
awaiting a letter from some dear one left behind;
but many are the daily diSappointmentS. Judging
from the clOuded faces and empty hands while
the more fortunate ones go away smiling and
exhibiting their mail with pride. 1 could not
resist grin at one of these fortunates on one
occasion when myself came off empty handed
Summer days pass quickly here, and work
days come all too soon. In a short while we
leave this rocky health retreat and indolent
semi-invalid life for our small place in the busy
world to be iostled about and worried and
hurried till our slowly accumulated strength is
a thing of the past; when days and nights
spent in rest, Ice far ME lte must be burdened
with thoughts of the morrow 5 successful labors;
sleep ali married by unwelCome dreams, a con-
spicuous figure of which must inevitably be a
wri Egling child in pinafoTes, with legs dang
ling from piano stool. while
elbows and head vigorously keep time to the
monotonous one. two, three, fOur-but Volt
subito and let the nightmare pass while we in
duIge this idle existence few days more.
just now the nights perfect, and sleep
comes unlimited. with no noise of voices or any
other outside disturbance TO break ones rest
only the drowsy, distant hum peculiar to
night in a country place, and the soft sound of
stirring leaves making the sweetest lullaby and
inviting 5oundest sleep. indeed, 1t seems that
there is some sleep producing property in the
atmosphere, surely and completely does it
take possession OF one here, and yet the exhii-
irating also is manifest as many who come here
quite feeble improve as wonderfully and rapidly
as those under the new elixir treatment can
testify.
large as last, though the hotels are pretty well
filed, and some few renting and camping.
noticed quite increase in the number of
tents and wagons while out walking a Few even
ings ago; the campfires and tents with the
groups ii front make quite a picture, out
lined against the nearest mountain. l have al
WAYS had fancy for investing every old house
with story, and every group of persons, to me,
contains hero or heroine, so there must be in
this camp life an unwritten story, if we but
knew. 1 remember, when little more than
child I INDUCED this fancy on one occasion till
my vivid Imagination came near causing me
sound ducking. I, with my mother, was visiting
before the war It had been q large plantation and
there were still the remains OF many old cabins and
not far off was an old dilapldated mill, not then
used, which visited once by early moonlight.
In daylight had often wandered about the de-
serted place and. climbing to the old moss
covered roof would sit for hours contemplating
the rugged beauties around me; but as ap-
rroached it that night, shToudeo here in dark
ness made light there by the moons soft
brilliancy all silent and deserted, / thought it
one OF the most wierdly beautiful pictures that
Sitting on an old broken wheel that
had found its way to the low
shed roof, watching the moonbeams
hide and seek'' among the tall, crumbiing
rafters and the worn luncheon floor, listening to
the water as it trickled slowly over the broken
wheels and snstened as it touched the pebhlz