Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1894-02-08

Pennsylvania anthracite mining re-
gions, he was strong, handsome
young fellow of twenty-three, with
rose-colored views OF this life and
sadly vague ones of the life to come.
He came from grassy New England
village, where he had lived q frank,
free, open-air life about as exciting
as pastoral. He had spent four
years at Columbia College, which had
opened his eyes a bit, and then he
had gone up into big, black Luzerne
County, teeming with two hundred
thousand people, three-fourths Of
whom would better have been
drowned at their birth like so many
blind kittens, some pessimists
thought.
Words cannot describe the drear
misery of mining patch in North
eastern Pennsylvania, was an early
conclusion Of young Harris. You
will come across group after group Of
black and dingy cabins, strung along
like grimy huckleberries on straw.
Back of these looms the breaker"
a gloomy mass of shadow, blackened
by wind and storm that have ground
the fine coal-dust into the plankipg.
Culm-heaps, mountains of refuse
pal and slate, hide the natural hori-
ION, and present skyline that is
monotonous and uninspiripg. Through
the hollows, over trestles crossing the
black swamp-land, out into the
brighter world beyond the hills, crawl
long trains of cars piled high with
glistening coal.
It was at q cluster of huts in val
ley like this that Harris was stationed.
He had room in an ungainly red
frame structure where ham and eggs
and raisin pie were the staple articles
Of diet, and which was endurable to
him only because two-thirds of his
time was spent beyond its pale. The
name of this understudy for purga-
tory was the Mountain Glen Hotel,
and it was presided over by one Mrs.
Dwyer. OF course, he had no friends
there. There was no one to interest
him, and he had not yet learned to
interest himself in common, every
day people, whom we often find to be
uncommon and unique when we have
once discovered the secret Of really
knowing. The whole world seemed
dismally ordinary TO Harris. Conse-
quently, when he looked out of the
window Of his soapy, pine-f1oored
clearinghouse one evening, a few
weeks after his arrival, and saw a
slender female figure with face that
was moderately clean and immoder-
ately pretty, he felt that he had
made a discovery Of some import
ance. In Difference to the sum-
mer's Columbian craze, he called
that window for some time the
lookout from the Pinta. The girl
was Maria (Mah-ree-ah, il you please)
di Manicor, and the trimming pail Of
water she was bringing from the well
did not monopolize her attention.
She saw Harris.
At Columbia, Harris had learned
how to look through a transit-if that
is the proper expression-and, upon
provocation, could talk about back
sights" and "vernier" with the air Of
a master. From this it will be gath
cred that Harris was a surveyor. He
was more-he was mining engineer
and had two letters tackled to his
name to signify his prowess. Every
morning he went into the mines, and,
with the aid of small Welsh boy
and big Hungarian laborer, he
would perform prodigies of engineer
ing skill which the layman will not
attempt to detail. In the evening he
would stroll among the culm-heaps
and along the banks of the black,
sulphurous stream of mine-water that
flowed through the swamp-land on
the outskirts of the village. Poor
little stream! 1t was not much like
his babbling New England brooks.
1t could not have babbled IL it had
tried. 1t could only mutter or yowl.
For three weeks Harris took these
walks alone. Then he took them with
Maria di Manicor. Then my story
begins.
Harris could hardly have told how
his acquaintance with Maria began.
First q word or two at the village
pump, when she went to draw water I;
Ul6H ut CdIIlc uCTObS iIcI OuCC VI
twice on his solitary evening strolls,
until finally it was no longer once or
twice; it was no longer word or two.
IL was every evening, and they would
wander through the swamp for hours.
These walks had to be accomplished
circumspectly. Harris and Maria
would start out separately and would
return separately, but somehow or
other they always managed to meet
when well out OF the village and be-
,, yond the peering power of curious
eyes.
Harris was good young fellow
as goodness goes, nowadays. 1t did
not occur to him that there was any
thing inconsistent in his going to
| Hazelton to mail letter to girl in
Keene, New Hampshire and at the
Same time to hunt through the shops
for pair of heavy gilt earrings with
garish blue enamel for Maria.
Nevertheless, he said nothing about
Maria in his letters, and, Of course,
he said nothing to Maria about the
New England girl. They did not
talk much in their walks along the
edge of the stripping. He would ask
Maria what she called this or that in
her tongue and learned to jabber 80
fiuently in the mongrel Italian dialect
she spoke, that he thought seriously
~ b.,vino n copv Of Dante In the