Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-07-23


ate and drank and slept. the mechanical
routine of the days repeated itself, but
she had come to dead stop. She had
lost all courage, all faith; bare, blank
wall faced her. There was nothing
more to be enjoyed nor suffered She
had had every thing and lost every
thing.
If she had consciously recognized all
this there might have been some hope
of reaction. When one appreciates the
dramatic effect OF circumstances, a new
interest in new circumstances is apt to
be not far off. But Helen was capable
of no such attitude toward herself One
saw it in her face-dark and thin and
changeless as a statues. She had
great dark eyes, but they never varic!
their dreamy, unheeding look. Her
voice was low, soft and mOnotOnOus.
And yet she was not at all dreadful
person to live with. 1t was impossible
that her story should not cast its shadow
oyer the household, but when it was
once settled that Helen's experience
h. exempted her from all the ordinary
rules that bound the others, matters
adjusted themselves, as they always do,
and the happy current of commonplace
living flowed around her undisturbed.
She was slender and graceful. strong,
too, as these slight-built New England
women are often enough. At seven
teen she had not been handsome, but
she had had that air of any disability
of beauty that is better than defined
prettiness. She was shy, reserved and
cold, with the positive, repelling power
of strong natures, with the Puritan ira
ditions of training superadded. Under
it she was willful, headstrong and pas
sionate, never capable of seeing more
than one side of a subject, and always
clarifying that side with the whole
force of tropical imagination rigidly
repressed and totally ungoverned.
1t was just then that in q school va
cation she visited a friend in one Of
the shadiest and oldest and steadiest of
Connecticut villages. While she was in
the house there came out of the vague
Southwest a young man that claimed
blood relationship with the family.
1t was just in the days when Bret
Harte's heroes stood foremost in the
ranks of popularity. The Unborn rebel
lion against conventionalities in Hell
ems blood caught eagerly at the pic
turcsque freedom and wildness of these
characterizations. She could not real
ize that one redeeming trait may not
suffice to make a whole life tolerable.
Payne Morse was as handsome in his
blonde way as young demigod. He
had the slow, soft speech of the plains
man; he swore no oaths, in her presence,
at least; he conformed to the require
ments of a community to which a re-
volver and lariat-rope were alike I'M
called-for and outlandish, with a good
natured liberation that had in Helen's
eyes immense piquancy and magnanim-
ity. Then he rode like a centaur, and
the accomplishment was so novel in
that corner of the hills that it seemed
almost like something unlawful and
ungodly. Somebody in wild At of
speculation had shipped East a train
load of mustangs, with the Elusive
hope that they might be broken for use
among the quartz lodges. They kicked,
they buclzed, they sat on their launches
and squealed their wrongs aloud in
every variation of the equine tongue,
and at last PAYNE Morse was appealed
to as being only little less savage than
the mustangs. to see if he could do any
thing with them.
He found himself able. and apparent
~ enjoyed the work. His fearless rid
ing, his quiet, merciless mastership of
the unframed brutes, completed the con-
quest of Helen's fancy.
That was in leafy June; in September
she went back to school. A month later
she left the recitation-room one day,
put on her hat, walked out of the house
and to the railroad station. In the