Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-05-07
IN THE MIDDLE WEST.
A Story of Life in the Great
 Mississippi Valley.

= gantly I couldn't sleep again, SO I rose and joined in the tuneful hubub.'
 (. heard you, think, but did not nstice that any other bird was sing ingm was fearful lest I should waken you, so left of my matin hymn and came | out here to play the cloud, as you say."
 ''I am grateful for the motive. but | the hymn was very pleasant" he l laughed; indeed their hearts were so 1 light and the morning so fair they 1 could not choose but laugh. 'I doubt not the flowers have returned thanks, ! too, for noticed you were quite an efficient cloud; indeed, quite comedy bit of fleece floating among the rain- bowsr laughingly indicating the curv- l ing flower-borders with sweep of his head as he took the watering-pot gen. ! tly from her hand and began to shower them.
 "ShaIl l thank you for that? You sure that follow you," she laughed.
 "Then 1 am surely insane" he sighed; ''yet, for that matter, youth in June believe is always slightly crazy. Oh, I saw the pretty little favor you did the bee! l must thank you for thatm
 .'He had overloaded himself. poor fellow"
 .'Yes, his stomach; he was little pig when it came to honey, fear. What if he had stung youP Most creatures do when one does them good in this world, they say"
 Not bees, unless you hurt them, nor people either, think, unless one crushes them little in doing them good"
 (Which is usually the case, guess; sort of ignoble recompense, l take it." and he sobered a little, looking down atthe bees about their feet
 What droll little fellows they are," she said, stepping forward and watch ing them.
 '.They are very business-like and serious; when they enter one of these tiny cerulean or vermillion restaurants they proceed at once to the table"
 They both fetched little half-mus- ing laugh as they watched. 'You must not speak rreverently of the tlowers," she murmured, without turning her eyes. Sometimes thInk they are the ears of God and tho bees are whispering and murmuring their grat- itude into them."
 In that sentence she seemed to come nearer to him than ever before. He felt little thrill, as if their souls, like two vases of a crystal so clear they were invisible, had touched and vii brated.
 "Yes, yes," he half whispered, ''that is beautiful! I had not thought of that; but sometimes had fancied they were the mouths of spirits whispering } to us with perfume of the hidden and wonderful things that lie deeper than our sight"
 After that they were soberer, and. sauntering down the walk to the foot bues and flickerings in the valley that lay below them. A slight breeze was moving the leaves of an oak that hung above them, and a thrush from a neighboring vine-matted wall flew in among the leaves and began his jocund fluting.
 "ARt isn't he fineP" said Celeste, pausing and touching his arm to stay him and leaving her hand there with pressure light as a leaf as she looked up at the bird. They stood still mo- ment list ening to tho clear ecstatic song when John Earling, almost trembling with then our, half whis- pered:
 of honey floating up into the sky! Yet, if is not SO sweet and human as the song you sang last night, Celeste, nor quite so glal, and his eyes came down to hers and light passed between them. Then the girl looked down at the grass, and close beside her foot a little stray flower was glancing up like an eye on its furry stem, and she stopped over it and John Earling saw her pearly neck turn pink and her hand tremble as she plucked it.
 isn't 1t exquisite?' she said, rising up and beginning to open the leaves a little without lifting her eyes to his. He leaned forward slightly and they looked silently into it. A little knot of velvet of gold with hair-fine anthers was at the bottom with ring of petals like dainty moth-wings curving up, and at the heart a rain-drop, which, in Celeste's unsteady hand ran around the knot of gold like liquid spark.
 ''But it has no scent!" she said.
 "I presume its maker thought its beauty quite sufficient" with a smile. ''Yes; he was satisfied, else it would have been different"
 Even God might well be with such an exquisite result, it seems to me-"
 ''As in the thrush, suppose; tho voice was enough. The creating cause hearing it, forgot that the bird had { ! dull coat, and left it so.
 "Yes; our ears are less fine, yet, list ening, even we forget the birds browr feathers. It would be a waste of color you see."
 g "It is very deep world," she said GGTloao haontr raa1Ix lie in the thing we see or hear, or ii , the heart?"
 '.ln both, take it, or it is not per ceived."
 '.Yet, truly what is itP" with smile 1 lnnkino nm sideyyisa to his face. as shc