Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-09-10
Love in the Desert.

One day boy came running to his
father with a book What does this
word mean?" he asked, for he believed
that his father knew all the world anG
most of the things beyond. The parent
believed that, too, and that is how the
child had come to imbibe the idea. The
man looked and saw the word "love."
DO you know what that word means
papa" asked the boy.
ooh, yes" said the facher, and he
began thinking. He thought for a
long time, for there were so many
things love is that he hardly knew
where to begin defining. And the
longer he remained silent the harder
1t seemed to find beginning. 1T is
difficult to answer" he observed
and the boy interrupted him.
when we find difficult problem at
school" he said, 1--WE go to the rule.
What is the rule about love?"
The father looked at him, but did not
answer. He thought. Then he gazed
anXiOusly about, and out through the
window he saw man passing.
"Ah,' he said, there is Mr.. Brow,
and ] want to see him"
And he hurried out to speak to the
man, and the boy never heard what
love is, or what is it's rule.
Ford, being quite satisfied that the
story was a lie from the beginning, and
that his search for the wonderful lost
desert tribe would result in no benefit
to the Smithsonian institution, stopped
to rest in the shade of the water
wagon, the wheels Of which were sunk
eighteen inches into the roasting sand
Look Out!' he yelled to one of the
drivers, cor this Nevada sun will get
action on you and you VIII pop like
corn. Lord, isn't it hOt?" and he
looked about at the blistering white
and blue and cudgeled out of his mem
DRY certain verses:
And when grim spirits come to that
curSd land,
To be where wanderers fell.
They look in terror at the burning sand
And hurry back to hell
and that deserts Nevada, and where
we are driving and swearing and
sweating through it to find the desert
tribesmen, VINO is lie"
BY the powers, it isn't a lie!' yelled
Graves, his assistant. Look
"a Chinese boyr roared Ford Ana
ye gods, red-headed Chinese boy, and
on a camel and in Neyadar'
Hong Foy was dismal failure Nc
Goggin told him so daily. He could
not tramp Southern Pacific ties half as
we'll as YO Heave, or whatever the
pockmarked Chinaman'S name was
and Fon Kee could carry a sixty-pound
to-the-yard rail by himself, while Hong
Foy, being young and pale and calm,
found it difficult to lug even the spike
maui or the pinch bar. Wherefore the
investment of the Southern Pacific
Railroad company in Hong Foy was
denominated by Mike McGoggin, the
section foreman, as a weird and Won
derful failure-only McGoggin used
words of the same import but of differ
ent pronunciation Hong FOy, how
ever, could cook, and he showed Mag
gle McGOggin how to make a soup out
of potato sprouts which McGOggin de
the devil. Soup, by the way, is a
thing not to be experimental on Wien
the section boarding house is at a place
in Nevada where the water is brought
in a tank from a station eighty or a
hun red miles away. McGoggin ap-
preciated the soup, and because of it
refrained for two weeks from dis
charging Hong FOy. But on a Satur-
day night of the month of June, in the
year 1881, he threw bolt at Hong Foy,
hit him with a crooked spike and made
run to the tool house to get wrench
to kill him with. He had seen Maggie
when she kissed the young Chinaman
in the kitchen.
In the shade of the tool house, after
McGOggin had retired, Hong Foy crept
like a dog which had been whipped out
of its kennel but knows nowhere to go.
He knew two lines of steel over which
Cinnamon labored while q red-headed
white man swore volubly at them. He
knew a blue horizon, and these things
were all he knew in that land-except-
ing the sun. Where could he go? AS
he leaned dejectedly against the tool
house and thought of his love-making,
he wept, and, weeping. Maggie found
him. Hong Foy had not dreamed of
the future, and had not expected the
coming of the girl. He had only ex-
pected to sleep in the tool house that
night and be beaten again in the morn
ing. But Maggie had planned. The
best part of her plan was that she had
brought a huge bottle, and it had water
in it. I'VE will go that way" she said,
pointing out into the desert
1t is not so bad to walk all night
through the desert if you are sure you
are going to have shade in which to
rest the next day. But the next day
came and as Maggie and Hong F'oy
looked about them all they saw was
what a couple of ants in a plasterers
box of lime see. Far, far, far away,
round about and near it was white
And it was so fiat that they seemed to
look up out of a basin to a brim
which was white and blue, and the al
kali and the sky arched over as though
it were the roof CT the plain in such