The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-12-27


ready-money point of view. Then, of
course, / had a fallin' out with Prot
about nothln' in particular on the sur
face, as can recollect of. / did pretty
much all the quarlin', I'm free to
allow, for Prot said nothin', but Just
| laughed in a way that made me
madden, and | moved out of the shake
cabin to an old adobe higher up the
hill.
Next day | started off before sun
up on my regular trip with the mail
for Brown Bear and Roundout. al
ways got the best start l could, SOS to
get well up the range while the crust
was hard and before the sun had been
up long enough to mellow things up
and make it awkward for me, for
/ wasn't very handy even yet with them
long Norwegian snowshoes. | never
stopped on the trip for nothin', bein'
always more anxious to get through
than to rest; but this partic'lar morn
in I'm tellin' of, I'd started out, feelin
languid and dispirited, and by the
| time I'd struck the summit, | felt sort
of dead beat out. Ny feet was cold
and cramped from too tight bucklin'
of the shoes, and. altogether, ! made
up my mind to sit down for minute
or two and get pulled together again
before | started on.
There wasn't much wind and the
sun was out warm and comfortable,
and the idea of sire tchin' out there on
the snow for ten minutes rest Just
suited me. l sal down with my back
restin' against an old dead stump that
came up through the snow, unbuckled
| the Shoes unslung the mail pouch
from my shoulder, and took out her
little snack of bread and meat I'd
brought along, and which generally
eat on the way without making any
special stop for it.
while was eatin' lookin' off down
the slope I'd just climbed up and
thinkin' what bad luck I'd struck all
along the last few months, my eve
caught on to some lines in the scrap of
newspaper I'd wrapped round the
lunch, and which was LYNN spread out
on my leg under the second piece of
bread just within good readin dis
tance. l don't just recollect now how
! the words read, but the drift of it was
! that lots of men failed gettin' what
! they wanted in this world just because
| they didn't want it hard enough and
didn't keep up asllin' and prayin for it
until they got it. Those lines some
how hit my case, it seemed to me.
hadn't had much early religious
trainin', and the idea of just prayin'
| hard for what you wanted and gettin
| it, struck me as sOmethin' new and
simple and very satisfactory There
was no end of things | wanted, and
wanted bad. and if they was to be had
! by just wan tin EN- bad enough and
askin' for EN- violent enough, l was
goin' to get 'em sure.
Then ! says to myself, why not
start in right now with a silent
prayer? So l set at it. l closed my
| eyes and squeezed my lids together
| hard was so dead in earnest. 1t was
terrible, sweepin' vigorous prayer l
! handed in. First, l wanted good luck
| in general way, and asked for it
hard. Then l got more down to par
tic lars, and asked to be rich and pros
! CIOhos anu NOuIlN up Will d SOIl VI
side-handed suggestion that it would
suit me down to the ground to have
| Prot fall off his luck and get poor
while l grew rich. All this wasn't
right, of course, as ! see now, ma am.
But l wasn't so much prayin' for bad
luck to Prot for its own sake, as for
the effect of it all on my gettin' on
with Kitty German.
when | prayed for the blight on
| Prot, | was SO sorter wrought up by
the whole business that-just, | sup
! pose, to give things partic'lar point
i fired out my right leg so vigorous
| like, and struck the snowshoe to
which I'd buckled the mail pouch so
| hard that-Zip! whizz-like a shot it
was on it's way down the hill. 1t made
clear shoot for about five hundred
| feet, every now and then spinnin'
| about, when an end would strike a
snag, until it brought up short against
ledge that cropped out across its
track, sending splinters of stone all
about when it struck, for with the
mail pouch buckled on to it, it picked
| up considerable speed and hit hard. 1t
bounded up nd turned clean over, and
then stopped altogether, held from
sli din any further by the croppin's.
well, ma am, while that snowshoe
was piroue tin down the slope, l was
that surprised and mad all through
that, althoug I'd just been writhin' in
prayer, as you might say, let loose a
| line of language which was that strong
a nd pointed that if there'd been any
stop or feelin' to that snowshoe, it
would have brought up within fifty
feet | mention this with regret
ma am, because | see now that if
hadn't been moved to make them re-
marks, just fresh on top of the prayer,
| things would have turned out differ
ent. But bein' young, and hot-headed,
and though tless then, of course didn't
| look ahead for consequences
There was nOthin' to do but go
down to the ledge where the snow
shoe lay, pick up it and the mail pouch
AMI get on my way again. The ledge
was rotten with the weather and pref
| ty well broke up already, and, aside
from the small pieces just knocked out
of it, thered been one big chunk
loosened up, which had rolled just
away from the ledge, and lay with the
I Ia l. 4 Il