Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1896-11-27
A THANKSGIVING SKETCH.


under some small elms. Small as her
large for herself alone; she only needed
the kitchen and tiny bedroom that
led out of it, and there still remained
the best room and the bedroom, with
the low garnet overhead. There had
been time, after she was left alone.
when Mrs. Robo could help those who
were poorer than herself. She owned
pig, and was strong enough not only to
do a woman's work inside her house,
but also mans work outside in her
piece of garden gro und. At last sick
ness and age had come hand in hand,
those two relentless enemies of the
poor, and together they had wasted her
strength and substance. She had al
ways been looked up to by her neig h
bors as being independent, but now she
was left, lame footed and lame-handed,
with debt to carry and her bare land,
and the house ill-provisioned to stand
the Stage at time, For awhile she man
aged to get on, but at last it began to be
whispered about that it was no use for
any one to be so proud;i was easier for
the whole town to care for her than for
a few neighbors, and she had better go
to the poorhouse before winter, and be
done with It, At this terrible sagges
ton her brave heart seemed TO stand
still. The people whom she cared most
tor happened to be poor, and she could
no longer go into their households to
make herself of use, the very elms over
head seemed to say mo- as they groaned |
in the late autumn winds, and there was
something appealing even to strange
passers-by in the look of the little
gray house, with Mrs. Robb's pale,
worried face at the window
Anniversaries are days to make other
people happy in, but sometimes when
they come they seem to be full of shad-
ows, and the power of giving joy to
others, that inalienable right which
ought TO Tighten the saddest heart, the
most indifferent sympathy, sometimes
even this seems to be Withdrawn So
poor old Mary Ann Robb sat at her
window on the afternoon before Thanks
giving and felt herself to be poor and
sorrowful indeed. Across the frozen
road she looked eastward over a great
stretch of cold meadow-land, brown and
windswept and crossed by icy bitches.
1t seemed to her as if in all the troubles :
that she had known and carried before
this. there had always been some hope r
to hold, as if she had never looked pow +
erty full in the face and seen its cold
and pitiless look before. She looked
anxiously down the road, with horrible =.
shrinking and dread at the thought of r
being asked, out of pity, to join in some
feast, but there was no. 7
body coming with gifts in hand. Once !
the had been full of love for such days,
whether at home or abroad, but some
hing had chilled her very heart now, T.
Door old woman. ~
Her nearest neighbor had been fore ;,
most of those who wished her to go to
he town-farm, and he had said more .
han once that it was the only sensible
hing. But John Mander was waiti ng D
to get her tiny farm into his !,
wn hands. He had advanced some n
money upon it in her extremity, and
that there was still debt, %
fter he had cleared her wood lot to pay
imself back. He would pillow over the :
raves in the feld-corner and fell the
reat elms, and waited for his poor prey
Ike spider. He had often reproached
er for being too generous to worthless
eople in the past and coming to be
barge to others now. Oh, if she could
nly die in her own house, and not suf
n the pain of homelessness and de- -.
endencel
1t was just at sunset, and as she look e.
| out hopelessly across the gray fields, ~
ere was a sudden CLEAN of light far IN
way on the low hills beyond, the clouds go
,ened in the west and let the sunshine S H
raugh One lovely CLEAN shot swift ~
an arrow and frightened a far cold --
llside where it fell, and at the same =.
oment a sudden CLEAN of hope bright a.,
ed the winter lanscape of her heart ,..
"There was Johnny Harris" said Mary g.
IN, softly. ale was a soldiers son,
t an orphan and distressed. Old John 49,
ander scolded, but couldn't see the -
or boy want. l KEEP him that year
err he got hurt, spite o what anybody :,
d, an he helped me what little he
uld. He said I was the only mother o"'
a eyer had. I'm goin' out west, Stl1