The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-09-08
BY HERBERT D. WARD.
copyrighted. 1895. by S. S. Mcclure
Limited)

more from the railroad station. 10 the
chance summer visitor the seclusion
and the rest seem enhancing. The
glamour of mountain scenery and trout
effectuany obliterates the brave signs
of poverty and struggle from before
the irresponsive eyes of the man of
city leisure. He carelessly gives the
urchin, mutcly pleading in front Of the
implanted farm house, u few cents for
his corrugated cake of maple sugar,
and asks the name of a distant peak.
If he should notice, how would he
know the meaning of the scant crops
of hay and potatoes. or of the empty
stall? Sealed TO him is the pathos in
the history of the owners of the stone
farm. His thoughts scarcely glance at
the piteous wife plating straw hats
the only son, whose rare happiness
consists in a barn dance in the village
three miles below, and whose large
eyes contract with increasing age and
lose all expression except that of anN-
iety.
There was a time perhaps when the
backbone Of the new world used TO be
Strengthened by men of mountain
birth. The question whether the hills
of Vermont and New Hampshire pro-
duce giants CO trade or law today as
they did fifty years ago is an open one.
80 the grand old stock is run out OF
the sod? And is it replaced by the
sons and grandsons of those sturdy
farmers themselves, who buy back the
ricketty homesteadS, and remodel them
into summer cottages.
Michael Angelo said that men are
worth more than money" and if what
was an axiom then, is true in these
fallen days Of pure worship, Mrs. Abb
raham Masters was the richest woman
under the range of Mount KearSarge.
For her son Isaac was the tallest, the
strongest, the tenderest and truest boy
in the county; but her farm OF 100
acres, the only inheritance from a dead
husband, was about the poorest, most
Improbable and most inaccessible col
lection of powders in the mountains.
It was situated upon the cold Shout
der of a hill sixteen miles from the
nearest station. The three-mile trail
which led from the village would have
been easier to travel could it have
boosted a corduroy road. What site
for a hotel Yet the hotel did not ma
terialize and the view neither fed
nor warmed nor clothed the patient
proprietors OF the desolate spot.
Never mind, | reckon We'll pull
through" Isaac used to comfort his
mother.
You're a good boy, key. If the
Lord is willin, guess I am she
answered with quaint devoutness.
But the Lord did not seem to be
willing, and one spring He caused a
late frost in June to kill most of the
seed. and a drouth in July and August
to wither what was left, and starvation
stared in the faces of the widow and
her son. At this time, Isaac began to
keep company" and to talk of getting
married in the next decade. He was
%, and had a faithful, saving DISPOSE
ton, when there was anything to save.
And whether he became engaged be-
cause there was nothing but love to
harvest, or whether, woman-like, Alb
bic Faxon loved him better than she,
did her other Suitors, because of his
poverty and misery, and was willing
to tell him so, 1 cannot pretend to de-
eide. At any rate. Isaac brought Alb
bic one afternoon from the village
three miles below. and the two women
kissed and wept, and Isaac went out
and stood alone facing the view; the
apple in his throat rose and fell, and
great tears blinded his sight.
We can make no hero of Isaac, for
he was none. His heart was as simple
and as clean as a pebble in a brook.
Country vices had not smirehed him.
He had a mind only for his mother,
and the farm, and earning a living
and hear for Abbie. Great thoughts
did not invade his head. But this af-
ternoon, as he stood there on the gray
rock, his heart bursting with the hap
piness, which was made perfect by his
mothers blessing, an apprehension for
the futureLbitter, breathless, began
TO arouse him. The promise of the
horizon suddenly became revealed to
him The distant line of green. now
bold, now sinuous, now uncertain, had
never asked him questions before, had
never eXasperated him with mean
ing
But now he saw the tips of spires
flecking the verGure of the far-off val
leys. He saw the hurrying smoke of
locomotive. He saw with awakening
vision starting from that dead farm
of his the region Of trade and life
A film had fallen from his eyes. The
energetic arrow of love had touched
his ambition, and his round, rosy face
became indented with lines of resolve.
He turned and walked with new
tread into the house
Mother! ATbbie." be blurted ont
I'm going away. I'm going to Ros-
tom He stopped and stammered as
he saw the horror-stricken faces before
HIM
"Lord-a-mercyr'
''nkeyi Air you teched?"
mo- he resumed, stoutly, 'I be'ant.
There's Dan Prentiss-he went-see
what he done; and Uncle Bill, he
I'VE amt heard nothing from your
Uncle Bill since he sot out. That was
twelve years ago, the spring your
father built them three feet on the
she'd" Mrs. Masters, spoke firmly.
Never mind, mother, I'm going to
Boston and will come back. I'm GO
ing to earn my Twin. Tn strong and
willin' and as able as Dan Prentiss. Ye
needn't be scared. 1 amt going yet.
III finish up the fan work fust I'm
going for the winter anyway, and Alb
bell come and live with you, mother
won't you. Aibbie dear? She's the only
mother you've got now. Your folks
can spare YOU
Here Aibbie announced brayeIy: az
win, Ikey, If you must 60"
She blushed deeply as she said It.
and the sight Of her pretty color so
moved the young man that. having
the bashfulness of his native crops he
rushed out into the glory of the sun
set and sat upon the granite boulder
watching until the gray, the purple
and then the black had washed out the
white steeples from the distant VAL
ley
Isaac Masters was one of the boulder
type. How many decades was the
smooth worn rock in front of his house
riding on the crest of a. glacier until