The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1891-11-28

-HaB the interior were
FsES but dimly visible
by the glimmer of the embers which
flckered on the hearth, and Redeemed
tho dark rafters overhead. The fish
erman's nets were hanging on the wall.
Some homely pots and pans twinkled
on a rough shelf in the corner. Beside
great bed with long falling curtains,
a mattress was extended on couple
OF old benches on which five little
children were asleep like cherubs in a
nest. By the bedside, with her fore.
head pressed against the counterpane,
knelt the children's mother. She was
alone. Outside, the black ocean,
dashed with stormy snow-fakes,
moaned and murmured, and her hus-
band was at sea.
From his boyhood he had been a
fisherman. His life, as one may say,
had been daily fight with the great
waters, for every day the children
must befed, for every day, rain, wind,
or tempest, out went his boat to fish.
And while in his four-sailed boat he
piled his solitary task ut sea, his wife
the nets, looked to the hooks or
watched the little fire where the fish
soup was boiling. AS soon as the five
children were asleep she fell upon her
knees and prayed to heaven for her
husband in his struggle with the waves
and darkness.
And truly such q life rs his was
hard. The likeiest place for fish was
mere speck among the breakers,
not more than twice as large as his
own cabin--a spot obscure, capric-
ious, changing on the moving desert,
and yet which had to be discovered
in the fog and tempest of winter
night by sheer skill and knowledge of
the tide and winds. And there-while
the gliding waves ran past like
emerald serpents and the gulf OF
darkness rolled and tossed, and the
straining rigging groaned as if in ter
ror-there, amid the icy sens he
thought Of his own Jenny; and Jenny,
in her cottage, thought OF him with
tears.
She was thinking OF him then and
praying. The seagulPs harsh and
knocking cry distressed her, and the
roaring of the pillows on the reef
alarmed her soul. But she was wrap
ped in acknowledgements of their
poverty. Their little children went
barefooted winter and summer.
Wheat bread they never ate, and on
ly bread of barley. Heavens! the wind
roa-ed like the pillows of a forge, and
the seacoast echoed like an anvil.
She wept and trembled. Poor wives
whose husbands are at sea! How ter
rible to say, my dear ones-father,
lover, brothers, sons-are in the tenn
pestl' But Jenny was still more un-
happy her husband was alone-alone
without assistance on this bitter
night. Her children were too little to
assist him. Poor mother Now she
says, al wish they were grown up to
help their fatherlI Foolish dream!
In years to come, when they are
with their father in the tempest, she
will say, with tears, I wish they were
but children still"
Jenny took her lantern and her
cloak. at is time," she said to her.
SELF ito see whether he is coming
back, whether the sea is calmer, and
whether the light is burning on the
signal mast" She went out. There
was nothing to be seen, barely
streak of white on the horizon. It was
raining, the dark, cold rain OF early
morning. No cabin window showed a
ray Of light.
All at once, while peering round her,
her eyes perceived tumble-down old
cabin, which showed no sign of light
or fire. The door was swinging in the
wind; tho worm-eaten walls seemed
scarcely able to support the crazy
roof, on which the wind shook the
yellow, filthy tufts OF rotten thatch.
Stay" she cried. II am forgetting
the poor widow whom my husband
found the other day alone and iii. ]
must zee how she is getting on"
She knocked at the door and listened.
No one answered. Jenny shivered in
the cold sea wind.
"She 10 III. And her poor childrenl
She has only two OF them; but she IL
very poor and has no husband"
She knocked again, and called out: