The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1894-08-23
The Bountiful West ReViVeS The ParChet
and Worn Out Fastener.
FROM DESERT TO The PROMISED LANE
4 True story Of How the Misery Of
Nebraska Life was Frightened
by N Change 10 Kakima-Happi.
ness and Prosperity the Reward.

sketch in a recent Cosmopolitan, must
have heart harder than the neither mill
stone. He had no right to leave jim
Lancy going to the demnition bow-wows
along % drink. He had assumed certain
duties towards the man. Even had thu
sketch been an imaginary one, he
should have picked him up on grounds
both aesthetic aud moral. The stor,
left bitter farewell on the palate OF
every reader. To many the impression
was distressing and painful, because the
yarn bore Enthusiastically the earmarks Of
truth. There was no mitigating moral
lesson.
The case is much worse when we rea-
lie that the story is, as far as it goes,
true. Jim Lsncy is no Pigment OF the
brain, but living man, and he nov
lives within a few miles of North Yak
ina. His biographer. like his wife, left
him before the last chapter of his life had
been written-before the colophon, which
alone can give assurance that all lie fin
ished, had been affixed.
In the incrutable ways OF providence,
evil is not seldom the parent of good.
Lancy's wife, we feel, left him too soon,
and vet, had she not left him. his life
would have been different, possibly less
happy. 1t is true that Annie stuck to
her husband through n soul-numbing,
and Notwithstanding experience,
but she vowed at the altar to cleave to
him till death should part them. Mans
ideal OF woman's faith is the highest
merely human conception of which his
understanding is capable. Nothing is
more sublime-as the poet says with
less Of earth in it than heaven"
II seems left to us to wish that Annie
had risen to the height of this ideal.
Other women have done so-countless
thousands of them. Some whose records
shine bright among the stars. Others
whose faith but illumiEed an unnoticed
corner of life-sometimes winning here
the need that was its due, too frequently
enduring silently, sadly, but o, how
nobly, till it ell on sleep, to wake where
sorrow and signing are no more. There,
not unworthily to answer "adsum" to the
roll call of Eternity, and hear the "well
DONE of Him who suffered as never
man suffered.
Lancy was all but knocked out by his
wife's desertion, and he did take to drink,
and took great deal too much of it. But
he had good deal OF manhood in him,
as the reader OF his Waterloo" must
have discovered. Besides land we can't
conceive how woman could have given
him up as long as this was So he hung
onto that silver thimble.
1t CHANGED on a certain day that
all that was strong in him was striving
against what was weak. He had made
seventy-tive cents by odd jobs, and an
irresistible longing to be clean prompted
him to indulge in the unwonted luxury
of bath and shave. He spent half his
wealth on the qualification OF his healthy
desire, and then built up his inner man
on q square meal OF character suited to
his means. In dim wav, also, without
realizing it particularly, he was pleasing
ly aware that he had the price OF three
beers In his pocket. AS he walked along
the crowded street, physically conscious
that life might, after all, be worth living,
he heard hearty singing on a street cor
ner, and strolled up to a crowd which
surrounded band OF the Salvation army.
One woman quickly attracted his atten-
ton on account of her likeness to his
wife. He followed them to their hall,
and, entering, heard some downright
.the-shoulder talk, which
impressed him lin the receptive mood in
which he then was) powerfully. His
moral being was braced. and he left, de-
termined to pull himself together.
His determination held. BY the be-
ginning of next year he had gathered to-
gether over three hundred dollars, and
was better man than he had ever been.
He had resolved to make no sign TO Annie
till he could offer her safety and comfort.
His ideas, in spite of his former hard ax-
perience, turned always to farming. He
felt that he was farmer, and longed for
the smell of the upturned soil and the
sight of growing green things. His old
confidence in himself was returning. One
day Northern Pacific railroad advertis-
ing pamphlet fell in his way, containing
letter from an eastern farmer who had
settled near North Yakima, which sound
ed the call to battle again in his heart
He wrote to the writer of the letter, and
receiving a favorable reply, started wesl
at once. His trip over the railroad was
anything but reassuring. The country
looked like waste Of arid sagebrush
where nothing could live, and less bt
grown. lie had not been twelve hours al
Yakima, however, before he changed hii
mind, and realized that il he had not beer