Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-08-22

this morning, and soon I shall go back
and leave New York forever. I can
write the story up there-the story I
have dreamed of wilmington [ shall
always have the secret of it. I have
but to shut my eyes and tell what |
see; and it is because she loves me.
All the life of the past can tell that
"A Story Of the Road Then there
will be the future to write of-the
men and women that are to come;
for we shall have children, Phil, and
in them
"You're making rapid progress
calculated Philander
& shall know the story of the
future. Even now I know it. I do
not simply foresee it, I see it. Why
! "A Story of the Goal!' For I belong
to lido you not understand? Yet, af-
ter all, what is that compared with
the present? 1t shall be "A Story of
the March' Look there!"
He threw his eyes up to the ceiling,
which was frightened for an instant
by the headlight of an elevated train
as it rushed past.
9'Do you know what that engineer
was really thinking of as he went by?
That would be story enough. Or what
was in the heart of the bride tonight,
down on third landing-you smelled
the orange flowers as you came up?
To feel that your heart is in them,
and theirs in you"
But Philander Atkinson was not lis
tening to the lovers rhapsody. He
was thinking. of a certain simmer
when he, too, had strange fancies in
his head; when his thoughts played
backward and forward with swift Ger
tainty; when he had grown suddenly
conscious of great and deep affinities,
and for a space Of some three months
he had dreamed of being something
more than a mere verse maker, a
master Of the file. Then-whether it
was that she grew tired of him, or
they both realized that some dull mis-
take had been made-it was all over.
There was till in his drawer a pack
age of manuscript he had written that
summer, in blank verse, none too no
bic form for the high thought filed
him, in queer new rhythm, too, the
secret OF whose beat he had caught at
and then lost, for the lines read harsh
ly TO him now. He looked these
things over occasionally, as a sort of
awful example of himself to himself,
though he had gone so far as to Dor
row som Of their imagery, not with
out a certain shame, to adorn his light
verse. His card house had fallen,
but some Of the colored pasteboard
was pretty enough to be used again.
Curiously, he found that he could cut !
pasteboard into more ingenious shapes
than ever since his brief experience
in piling it; fancy served him better
after imagination left him; his triolets
were admirably turned, and his luck |
with the magazines began. Altogeth
er it had been an odd experience;
half those crazy ideas of Darnel had
been his two years before, but he was
quite over them-yes, quite and now
it was DIS turn. He listened again to
that Darnel was murmur-
ing.
"And she is an ordinary woman
one would say a common woman.
That is the mystery and the glory of
it. I do not know that she is even beau
5iful. There must be thousands of
like herr There was rever
ent hush in his voice.
Atkinson choked back an excla
nation. Was DIS head really turned?
"A common woman''-"not know
whether she is beautiful" A face rose
before him, unlike any face in all the
world, eyes with the blue Of Ascut-
1ey, when you look at it through ten
niles Of autumn haze; hair brown as
he chestnut leaf in late October;
Philander trembled slightly, and
Using to his feet, stood looking down
1T Darnel haggardly. 1t was quite
over, that experience of two summers
before, but while it lasted he had
1t least never dreamed that there
we're thousands of women in the world
ike her.
sSit down, Phil, I'm almost through
4 woman like other women, and the
story, when I write it, common
story. 1t will be the commonest pos
ible story; common as rose, COM
non as child. I am going back to
1ermont, where I was born, and
where have been born anew. There
will be plenty of time for the story
ears, and years, and years. I have
'nly to close my eyes some day, and